A/N: this is 3 chapters + a short epilogue. all human au.
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RETRIEVAL
REVIVAL
REMOVAL
DAY 5
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"What did you think of me when we met?"
"I don't remember meeting you."
"That's funny… Neither do I."
…
…
…
DAY 1
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The window on the far wall of her bedroom is open. No wonder it was so cold last night. Bella slides it shut hard enough to shake some loose paint chips from the trim outside. They rain down just like the endless water from the sky. Her windowsill is wet. She's going to be late.
.
Her old truck roars along the rain-slicked switchbacks that climb the hill at the head of the town. In the distance, she can make out the lab, a grand glass building flanked by trees, boldly overlooking the modest sprawl of the town. It put Forks on the map if nothing else.
Bella parks in the back and swipes her card at the checkpoint. She hands her bag over to Mike at security, who searches it semi-thoroughly before handing it back and ushering her through to the elevators. She packs in with a half dozen others, presses the fifth-floor button three times, and waits impatiently for the steel doors to slide shut.
She's late, but chances are, no one has noticed yet. She's a fifth-floor. Not important. She likes it that way.
Angela is already hard at work in her cubicle, only sparing a quick greeting with partial eye contact before syncing back with her screen. She's one of the few friends Bella has made since she started on the fifth floor two years ago.
Bella shrugs out of her jacket and drops into her swivel chair, booting up her computer and twisting back and forth as it warms up. The sticky notes around the monitor remind her of things she was supposed to have done weeks ago- pick up creamer, cash her father's check, call someone about the fritzing cable. Not that any of it matters anymore. Expiration dates and all that.
She enters her employee credentials when prompted and is met with a blank screen. Looks like she's not the only one running late this morning.
…
Seven floors below on sub-basement floor number two, a handful of orderlies are prepping the new round of patients. Ten fresh-faced volunteers newly dressed in identical green jumpsuits standing in a line, waiting for further instructions. They are waiting in a plain grey room buzzing with the sound of industrial lights. The orderlies collect their jewelry and remaining personal effects, tucking them away outside the perimeter to be returned at the end of the trial.
Rosalie Hale clenches her hands into fists and releases them. She does this several times over in the span of minutes it takes for the orderlies to shuffle out and the doctor to walk in.
She looks at the door they came in through. It's not too late, is it? She could walk out right now and they would just bring in another one of the hundreds of people on their waiting lists. It would be inconsequential. And she's about to at least think about breaking formation and fleeing when the doctor's voice fills the room and pins her feet to the ground.
"Good morning," he says, smiling. "Welcome to CriaTech. I'd like to thank each and every one of you for participating in this trial. My apologies, I'm told we're running a little behind schedule, so I'll try to make this quick."
Rosalie frowns at the sight of him. He's young and handsome. He doesn't look like much of a doctor at all. More like a hired actor for the purpose of making them feel safe. She touches the back of her neck with two fingers and winces. It's still tender from the injection.
"I'm Dr. Cullen. I'll be overseeing this trial. If you have any questions, you're more than welcome to ask now, though this procedure has proven very safe in the past and very effective. You should have nothing to worry about." He pauses and his charisma floods the gap.
Rose looks down the line of volunteers. They all shift on their feet, bursting with inquiries but unwilling to be the first to speak. She toys with the steel barcoded 7 hanging on a chain around her neck. Dr. Cullen waits for a few more beats before smiling and motioning toward the door behind him.
"Okay, if you're ready. Follow me through here."
He leads them down a short corridor that opens up into a large, brightly lit, clinically white room with a row of sturdy-looking chairs at the center, marked numerically from one to ten. Dr. Cullen tells them to sit in the corresponding chair when they're ready. On the far wall, a large pane of glass separates them from a smaller room full of blinking machinery and monitors. A couple of people in lab coats are crowded inside, watching them closely.
The four orderlies come in again, this time with small plastic cups filled with a thick purple liquid. The girl next to her, 6, wastes no time throwing it back and reclining her chair. She notices Rose looking and gives her a wink. "See you on the other side."
Rosalie bristles and looks away. She hesitates briefly before downing the cup and coughing twice at the abrasive, coppery taste. Her stomach twists. It's just nerves. She shoves away the feeling and leans her chair back to match everyone else.
The lights cut out. Rose grips both her armrests.
Dr. Cullen, now behind the glass with all the computers and other doctors, taps his hand against the microphone. It screeches for a half second.
"Well then," he says. "Let's get started."
…
Upstairs, Bella pokes at the trail mix Angela passed over their connecting cubicle wall. She picks out the raisins and arranges them into a line on her desk, marching toward the trash can.
"How's your dad?" Angela asks.
"Like always," she says. "How's Eric."
"The same. He's up for a new position on Two."
"That's great, Ang. Really."
A loading screen pops up on her monitor. She puts her earbuds in and grabs the stylus from the dock, tapping it idly as the CriaTech logo bounces rhythmically on her desktop.
BASELINE MEMORY
NEUTRAL
BEGIN
The keyboard minimizes as a string of digits floods the touchscreen between her wrists on the desk, sliding across from the right and disappearing off the edge of the left. Above, a blurry image comes into focus on her monitor. It's grainy and she knows it's not going to get much better.
There's a flicker of light, a fireplace roaring in a dim room. In the string of digits, she recognizes the serial for FIRE before its suggestion pops up and moves on.
In front of the hearth, two young boys in matching striped shirts are playing with little metal cars. A woman walks by carrying a laundry basket. All the numbers check out. It's pretty intact, almost prepacked for her.
The edges of the picture start to shimmer and transpose with a brighter image. The number for MEADOW streaks across the lower screen. She circles it with the stylus and marks it for disposal. The corners darken again as the scene locks in. CHILDREN. TOYS. MOTHER.
The two boys start to bicker over one of the cars. It gets louder and louder, and eventually, one of them shoves the other to the ground.
"Hey," a soft, disembodied voice says, and their eyes snap up. The one on the ground sits up, his wispy blond hair sticking out in every direction. "Stop it, Evan. Be nice."
They both smile sheepishly and go back to their game.
It stays on this for a long time, occasionally focusing on other parts of the room, but it always comes back to the boys. It's simple and boring. That's good, a fifth-floor's dream. She checks the patient number in the corner and smiles. Number 7, an odd. Evens shift analysts. Odds stay. She gets this easy one through the whole trial.
Then suddenly, the boy on the right with the red car starts glowing, the air around him crackles, she can hear it. She scans the numbers for the anomaly, but the screen fades to black before she can mark them.
END
Bella sits back in her chair and tugs her earbuds out. A few feet away, Angela sighs.
"What'd you get?" Bella asks, peering over the divider.
Her glasses are off and she's pinching the bridge of her nose."Five solid minutes of untranslated Tolstoy. Even. You?"
"Kids. Odd."
Angela presses her lips together. "Can't say I envy you."
"I don't know. Seemed kind of run-of-the-mill."
"Run-of-the-mill?" She shakes her head, amused. "Look where we are, Bella. That doesn't exist here."
Bella shrugs and sits back down. Maybe she's right. She launches the review program, eager to skip the end and filter out that last little blip. But after combing through the five-minute clip a good dozen times over, she finds nothing out of the ordinary. No glowing kids. No inexplicable noises. Nothing.
She rubs her eyes and chalks it up to trying to function on three hours of sleep. She's lucky. She got a boring one.
…
Hours later and seven floors down, Dr. Cullen and his team watch the patients interact in the common room. They are hand-picked by the doctor himself. The CriaTech volunteer vetting process is meticulous, but this is something of a pet project of his. It had to be just right.
Ten people dragged through the mud.
They've been encouraged to socialize but not to discuss the trial. Though nothing they know at this point is strong enough to alter anything, it's still good to keep them aware that this isn't just some social experiment that ends in a twenty-dollar payday. This is the future, and if it all goes well, Project S can be made available at every CriaTech lab in the country. It's all falling into place, but he steels himself. It's dangerous to think that far ahead, to overlook what's right in front of him.
"Carlisle," Dr. Platt says, pulling him aside. Her hand is slight on the crook of his elbow but familiar. "The baselines came in from the fifth floor, and… Well, see for yourself."
She passes him her tablet, and he glances at the readings. They're all perfect, save for a steep spike that disagrees with him.
"I see," he says. "And there's no way to tell which pathway this came from?"
Esme looks at him, and he can tell she's gauging him, trying to find a common ground between what he wants to hear and what she has to tell him. She sighs. "You know there isn't. The best we can do is monitor it."
"Keep it contained then."
"Of course," she says. She seems disappointed.
…
Charlie's nurse has the TV on when she gets home. It's playing a CriaTech commercial, like always. The one about the spinal cord regeneration that reunites sad children with piggybacks from their previously paralyzed fathers.
In the past ten years, CriaTech labs have been springing up in seemingly the most random and remote places in the country, flooding tiny communities with jobs and solving the world's problems all in the same breath. Everyone calls it miracle science because no one understands it. CriaTech: It works. We don't know why.
Clara pokes her head out from Charlie's room and greets her briskly. She shoulders her bag. "Sorry to rush out like this. My granddaughter has her piano recital."
"That's alright. Thanks for staying with him. Any changes?"
"Nothing out of the ordinary. Sorry." She apologizes like it's somehow her fault. Bella wishes she wouldn't but doesn't know how to broach the topic without sounding ungrateful for her help.
"Thank you," Bella calls after her, but Clara's already halfway to her car.
Bella sighs and goes to her father's door. She only glances inside for a second before pulling it shut.
…
…
…
DAY 2
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Back in Rochester, she had a sprawling apartment to herself, a great job in a publishing house, and everyone she had ever loved within just a few miles of her.
She wakes up now in solid white 10 by 10 room on a squeaky cot pushed up against the far wall. Her head is thundering, but if she closes her eyes, she can still see the warm rays of light coming through her window, shining off the wood floors, white linen curtains billowing softly in the breeze.
No. Welcome to CriaTech, Project S. She runs her issued plastic comb through her hair and brushes her teeth with chalky-textured toothpaste over the small metal sink. On the wall hangs a fresh green jumpsuit.
She folds her single blanket neatly at the end of her cot and scans the steel barcoded 7 around her neck that unlocks the door with a near-hydraulic whoosh.
She can see 2, 3, and 9 talking in the hall by the bathrooms. She brushes past them. They say hello. She halfway mumbles it back.
…
Bella sits across from her father, two plates of runny eggs between them. It's the only way he'll eat them. The bright yolk dribbles from his fork as it wobbles treacherously toward his mouth. He's hard to look at sometimes. Bella looks down at her work tablet instead and reads through her emails.
"Billy called earlier," she ventures. "He wants to know if you'd like him to visit you while I'm at work."
Charlie picks up his glass of water. He glances at her from over the top of it. His eyebrows had gone grey years ago just like the rest of him.
She sighs. "I told him you weren't feeling well."
He nods once. "That's good," he says.
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She has just enough time to swing by the cafeteria and grab Angela a coffee to repay her for the raisin-dominant trail mix from yesterday. The other analysts are all milling around in small groups, anxious to get started, to get the bulk of it over with.
Angela accepts the coffee and raises it as if to toast her. "Day two."
"Day two," she echoes.
…
Downstairs, Dr. Esme Platt slides her arms into the sleeves of her lab coat and crosses the room to straighten Carlisle's tie. He has half the CriaTech logo imprinted on his cheek from sleeping at his desk again.
"You can't keep sleeping here," she says. "You have to take care of yourself."
"I know," he says. "Good morning."
She sighs. "Day two."
They've run a cycle of this trial once every three months for the past four and half years, and it's always been day two that has him on edge. That abnormal spike in baselines has been haunting the corners of all his thoughts.
"It might've been a fluke," Esme says, tugging on his tie to bring him back. He smiles. She knows him well.
He so hopes it was a fluke, but if not, that one little flicker can bring down the whole of Project S, his life's work. At the end of the day, the analysts on the fifth floor will send down reams and reams of data based on the mass collections today. If there's an identifiable problem, they'll know for sure by tonight.
…
Rose is sitting on a couch pushed in the corner of the common room. The others are huddled around the board game set up in the center of the room or off somewhere else on the floor killing time until Dr. Cullen comes to get them.
She props her elbow up on the arm of the couch and rests her forehead against her palm. Her headache from yesterday persists. She'd slept too lightly, waking up every few minutes, facing the unfamiliar shock of her surroundings over and over.
Someone in the group around the game board gets knocked back to the start and the whole table shouts in approval. Rose closes her eyes so hard, she can hear rumbling. It isn't going to work, it can't. Not for her. She's always going to remember.
The cushion dips beside her as someone sits down. She cracks one eye open just long enough for her face to register. It's 6. One room over. One chair down. One spot ahead in line. Beside her, 10 sits awkwardly on the far arm of the couch. He's so short, his feet hang a couple inches above the ground.
"Look at them. It's like they don't even know we're being watched right now." 6 nudges her shoulder, her curls bounce with the movement. "I'm El. This is Archie."
Rose shoots her a look, but 6 just smirks, amused by the effort. "I guess you've got the right idea. We're here to get rid of memories, not make new ones. Archie here was in a gang in South Mississippi. You believe that? You'd never be able to tell by just looking at him."
She's right, but Rose doesn't want to spare a thought toward either of them. 6 doesn't accept. She jabs a finger into Rose's wrist. "What's that?"
Rose pulls her arm away so quickly, 6's hand falls onto the couch cushion. Miffed, she holds her hands up in surrender. 10 shoves her shoulder, and she relents. "Okay. Sorry. I'm not good with boundaries."
"It- It's fine," Rose says.
El leans back and kicks her feet up on the coffee table. "Watch this," she says, then shamelessly louder. "God, I'm so fucking thirsty!"
Rose inches away from her, jarred. 10 chuckles.
"Wait for it," El whispers. And sure enough, about thirty seconds later and orderly happens by with a snack cart topped with a pitcher of water and a stack of paper cups.
"See," El says, taping a finger against her temple. "Always listening."
Rose smiles faintly as El gets up and pours herself a cup of water. She's halfway through chugging it when Dr. Cullen walks in.
El crushes the paper cup and tosses it at her. "C'mon, 7. Let's get lost."
…
Three hours later, Bella rubs her eyes and tucks one leg beneath her in her chair.
Day two is just a mass data dump of memories. Useless stuff like the day after 7 first learned to ride her bike without training wheels. Stray conversations that took place when she didn't know the difference between a hotel and a motel and used them interchangeably. A random day in grade school where the substitute teacher wore a vest with a cow on it. Nothing of any consequence.
Bella has never understood the process completely, but it's never been too important. All she has to do is make sure each scene is intact and filter out the little flourishes added in by the AI or the straying of the mind. It's not a difficult job most days, but day two is like watching randomized episodes of a foreign sitcom with no context and no comedy either.
At least 7 seems to have had a few interesting memories from her childhood growing up inside a MANSION that always seemed to have something going on inside.
Though she does spend a remarkable amount of time looking in MIRRORS. At first, Bella thought she was just vain, but it wasn't really that at all. She talks to herself- a lot- and Bella feels like she shouldn't be listening, but she has to.
"You're okay," 7 says as a teenager, sitting at her vanity and adjusting her student government campaign pin. "You're going to win. You deserve this."
The memory fuses into another much older one. She's running through the grass behind her house with that little mousy GIRL that's always with her. They're playing tag, but whenever the girl catches her, 7 bends the rules to get out of it. "You can't tag me in the sunlight!"
The girl rolls her eyes and Bella smiles a little. "This is boring."
"Race you to the treehouse," 7 says, giving the girl a shove before taking off into the treeline.
As the girls climb up the LADDER, the image glitches. On the lower screen, the numbers suggest FIRE and MOTHER and MEN. But back on the monitor, it's just 7 and her friend coloring on the floor of a surprisingly shabby TREEHOUSE. She marks the odd serials for removal, but they don't disappear. They don't alter the image as they should either. It's odd.
Bella's brows knit together. She's run into some glitches before- they all have, that's why it's still in testing. But nothing like this. She flags the treehouse memory for review downstairs, and by the time she looks up again, a whole new scene is playing out.
…
Dr. Platt scrolls through the list of patient 7's collected memories on her tablet. One of the analysts upstairs had flagged one, but in the troubleshooting description, they had just left a series of question marks. After watching it through, nothing serious jumped out. It was just an old childhood memory practically drenched in the rosy tint of time gone by.
If she had to guess, something went wrong in the numerical data, and that's Dr. Denali's department, not hers. She's only here to take a short assessment and answer any question the subjects might have.
Across from her, 7 sits perfectly still in her chair, eyes trained on the steel table top. They're alone, but something tells her 7 is aware that everything is being recorded for the study.
She looks down at the digital file again. "What can you tell me about the treehouse?"
"Is this therapy now?"
Esme smiles. "No, of course not. We just need to make sure the simulation runs parallel with what you remember. So, for example, if you'd never even been in a treehouse, we'd know now that we'd need to recalibrate before we progress any further. Does that make sense?"
"Sure," 7 says. She twists the number around her neck in her hands. "It's was my friend's. We used to pretend to be sick to stay home from school and sneak out to it."
"Does it have any other significance?" Esme asks. She pulls up the serial tags. FIRE lights up and grabs her attention. She selects it and the memory skips to the end- two kids playing in a treehouse in the dim evening light. No fire at all.
"Not really."
"Did it…" Esme sets the tablet down. "By any chance, was there a fire? Did it burn down?"
Rose narrows her eyes and leans away, thrown. "I- How did you know?"
"The AI is fitted with a predictive algorithm to sort of fill in the gaps in what you remember and piece the scene together. It must have picked up some information from another memory."
"I didn't even see it burn. I just came home from school one day and it was gone."
She'll have to tell Carlisle. The AI is supposed to be able to predict events, but only enough to fill in the scenes. Nothing quite like this. Still, it isn't exactly worrying.
She minimizes the list and pulls up 7's page, glancing over her vitals and sleep and activity logs collected by the tiny implant in her neck. "How are you feeling? Afterward, do you feel groggy or sluggish? Any pain?"
7 nods and touches the back of her neck. "I've had a headache since I went under yesterday."
According to the log, she hasn't gotten much sleep either, but it's to be expected of all the subjects. Esme had brought similar concerns to Carlisle before in an earlier trial, and all he'd said then was: I know. Why do you think I picked them?
"I'll have an orderly bring something to your room."
7 thanks her briskly and gets up to leave. Esme starts to follow her out but stops as 7 hesitates by the door and lingers indecisively.
"Is there something else you needed?"
Her eyes go wide, and it's so familiar to Esme by now- this deer in the headlights girl. She's seen it dozens of times because it's always the same strain of people that end up on sub-basement floor number two.
"Do you know?" she asks, rubbing her palms together, two fingers on her wrist. "Does it actually work?"
Esme smiles warmly. This she can answer. "It does."
…
When Bella gets home, Jacob Black is sitting on her front porch steps. He smiles brightly and stands to greet her.
"Oh my god, Jake," Bella says, hopping out of her truck and stumbling over the sidewalk to hug him. He's about a foot taller and twice as wide as the last time she saw him. "What are you doing here?"
"My dad sent me," he says with a shrug. "Wanted me to check in on you."
"Well, I'm fine," she says. "What about you? How's school? I heard you're at UW now, that's awesome."
"Yeah, my last year. It's great."
They go inside, and Bella puts the kettle on the stove for Charlie. Jake just about takes up the entire living room, but when he smiles at her, she can see the same kid she used to babysit all those years ago.
"So," he says. "Bella. Mysterious, elusive Bella." She smiles. He's right. They haven't seen each other in at least five years. Since her graduation, maybe. Guilt curls around her. She should have visited him earlier. She's been back for two years now.
"What've you been up to?" he asks.
"Oh, all kinds of things. Cooking, cleaning, pledging my eternal allegiance to CriaTech. Rinse. Repeat. You want anything to drink? Water? Soda?"
"Soda's good. What do they make you do there? Shoot cancer cells with a laser gun? Or do you man the ouija board during life-threatening surgeries?"
"Shut up. It's not like that. It's mostly just little experiments. They do a lot of really cool stuff if you can get past all the miracle science and magic crap… They helped your dad, dude."
"I guess."
She grabs a can out of the fridge and tosses it horribly to him. He still manages to catch it before it takes out the picture frames lining the hearth.
"So what do you do there? You probably just answer phones on One, right?"
She exhales like a laugh. "Thanks. But you're wrong. I'm an analyst on Five for the memory trial. Project S, I think they call it."
Jake stills and shoots her a hard look. "That's not funny, Bella."
"I'm not joking. That's what I do. Sort numbers all day."
"Bella," he takes a step closer. "You're not serious. You've read the reports, right? You've seen the news every other day? You know how dangerous that is."
Bella rolls her eyes. "Yeah, staring at a screen all day is really killing me."
"That's not- I'm talking about the people who kill themselves after years of living through other people's shit memories. I'm talking about the analysts that stalk the patients after the trial lets out. Bella, why the hell are you doing this?"
The kettle whistles shrilly in the kitchen.
"It's just a job." Bella shrugs. "I want to help people."
Jake clenches his jaw and glares down at her. "Why? 'Cause you can't help Charlie?"
Charlie coughs in his room, and the kettle is still screaming. She presses her hand to her forehead and points to the front door. "You should leave, Jake. I'll see you later."
He shakes his head. "Whatever."
…
Rosalie pushes herself into the corner of her tiny room long after the lights cut out for the night. The cool walls burn against her bare arms, but she doesn't care. All she can think about is that stupid treehouse. And her.
One night, they'd climbed up the ladder and Rose pulled her father's old pocket knife from a groove in the floor.
"We're best friends, right?" she asked, and Vera nodded her head vigorously. She was always doing that- doing whatever Rose asked, agreeing with her no matter what. There was no challenge in being friends with her.
Rosalie shudders at the memory of dragging the blade across her palm. She'd held it in Vera's face long enough to make her go pale. "Then prove it."
She tried to leave then, prying at the ladder hatch, but the stupid thing was always getting stuck. Eventually, Vera took the knife. She was tearing up by then, unwilling. But she was going to do it. Rose knew. She sliced her palm, and blood filled the cut.
Rose grinned so hard that it hurt. She smashed their hands together. "Friends forever."
"Friends forever," Vera echoed, beaming. Proud. And then ten years later she threw her to the wolves.