Forget Tomorrow - Pintip Dunn Page 0,20
out the letters I see on my desk screen. “We’re surrounded by the most advanced technology civilization has to offer. But the best inventions don’t have to be complex.” He spreads his palm over his chest. “They come from right here. The heart.”
“Is that why you wear the pencil? So you don’t forget?”
“No.” My father’s almond-shaped eyes flash. “I wear it so I remember.”
I was too young, then, to understand what the difference might be. And by the time I was old enough to ask, he was long gone.
Bellows turns from his desk, waves my guard out of the room¸ and jerks his thumb at the wire-infested chair. “Sit.”
I limp to the seat, a shiver running through me. Dr. Bellows might have the same profession as my absent father, but that doesn’t mean I trust him. Quite the opposite, in fact.
He looks me over, clucking his tongue. “What did they do to you?”
“A few lashes of the electro-whip.”
He sighs, as if majorly inconvenienced by my pain. “They know I need my subjects to be in top physical condition. The formula takes better that way. But never mind. We’ll give it a try. If it doesn’t work, we’ll have another go in a couple of days. Good thing injuries from the electro-whip don’t last. You’ll be back to normal in a matter of hours.”
“Give what a try?”
He fastens three thick harnesses around my body. “I understand the black chip recording your future memory was…misplaced?”
I nod.
“Well, your future memory isn’t gone. It’s stored in a part of your brain called the hippocampus.” He taps the side of his head. “I’m going to root through your brain and induce the memory. Make you relive it, in order to give us a second chance to record it.”
The breath gets stuck in my throat. “What do you mean?”
He blinks, as if he is a camera snapping consecutive images. “The memory will come to you again. Like the first time. Only this time, we’ll make sure the black chip isn’t lost.”
No. No. In the future Jessa will be at the mercy of TechRA. The moment Bellows sees my real memory, he’ll recognize the hallways and the placard. He’ll know my sister will be a subject in these labs.
My memory will give him the evidence he needs to arrest Jessa now, in the present world.
I can’t let that happen. My future self is already going to betray my sister. I refuse to do it in the present, as well.
“Will it hurt?” I ask, stalling.
“Only if you resist.”
So resistance is possible. But how?
He squirts gel onto oval sensors the length of my thumb and sticks them all over my head. The gel feels cold and sticky against my scalp.
He attaches the wires sprouting from the chair onto each sensor. “Open your mind, the way you did before. The memory will come to you.” He reclines my chair and leaves the room.
I don’t need to open my mind. I can call up the memory in an instant and it will play across my mind like a movie. I can freeze images and zoom in on shots. I can do everything at least as well as his recording device.
A light hiss fills my ears, and gas enters the room through nozzles positioned in the ceiling. The fumes disappear instantly, but I feel the chemicals in the air, pressing down on me.
I clamp my mouth closed. The gas is going to make my memory rise involuntarily to the surface. I can’t let that happen.
The harnesses pin me against the chair. Think! I’m not going to be able to free myself. How can I keep the memory out? Bellows said to open my mind. Maybe I need to close it instead.
I can’t hold my breath any longer. I take a sip of air—but as soon as I take one, I want more. The air makes me feel peaceful, relaxed. All of a sudden the chair doesn’t feel quite so hard. The plastic is cool and inviting, the kind of surface on which you want to stretch out and take a nap.
No. Those are the fumes talking, not me. I need to close my mind. Close it. I think of a door, made of thick, solid wood. I turn and twist a dozen locks, slide a dead bolt across. I waterproof the door. Add insulation. Reinforce it with concrete. Layer on other metals—gold, silver, platinum, brass. And then I repeat the process.
A thousand tiny swords jab at the door, trying to puncture a