Chapter 1

If there is a feeling that could describe all of the worst things in the poverse world, all of the horrors of the working man as he wipes the sweat and grime off his brow only to realize that there's not a hope in the world of his escape from this life, as he looks up to the blackened skies and accepts that there isn't a single person who would notice were there one less disgusting man to show up to the construction yard or the factory or the soup kitchen one day, or the feeling that comes with looking down at the city you had once been taught to love before it turned against you, then that feeling would describe the city of Atros. At least, Arthur thought, is must describe it for somebody, because looking out on the poorer side of town from his lovely sky-scraping office he swore he saw one of these such men preparing to jump from a rooftop.

"How pathetic…" he rolled his eyes, stepping away from the broad windows and returning to his desk. His office was immense for the little furniture that filled it. There was a desk, a therapist's couch, and a few conversation pieces scattered around the shelves of his bookshelf. The room had to be twenty feet in each direction at least, wide, long, and to the ceiling, and he didn't fill half of it. He liked it that way. Made the room feel more open, he thought, open to new ideas. He might need the space for other things anyway.

As he took his seat, rummaging in his breast pocket for his ancient brass lighter there came a beeping from the little black call box on his desk, a sound he had come to both love and loathe. He huffed a sigh, put up his feet, and took the telephone from its resting spot.

"Yes, what is it?" he asked. He tried not to sound too interested; he wouldn't want the caller to think he cared or anything.

"Arthur sir, there's some woman here trying to get through to you." The voice of his peppy young secretary was, as usual, louder than he would have liked. He'd never liked the young woman and he didn't think he ever would, no matter how much coffee she bought him.

" 'Some woman'? Do be more specific Denise, is it the same one from last time?"

"No sir, she claims that she wants an appointment for her son. What should I tell her?"

Arthur mulled it over a moment, then smirked inwardly.

"Does she have insurance?" he asked.

"She says she does."

"Well then, why the hesitation Denise? Put the woman on the phone." He put on a smile, the sort of smile he would use were he speaking to the woman in person, the same plastic smile a politician would use to make a promise he would laugh about later. A few soft clattering noises reached him through the speakers and he put his feet back on the ground, leaning in on the desk and staring at nothing across the room. He listened, and in turn a little whisper of a voice spoke at him. He quirked an eyebrow and chuckled.

"Ma'am, I'm afraid you're going to have to speak up, I can't hear a word you're saying." He glanced at his computer screen and nudged his mouse. The previously black display slowly chugged to life, showing him the woman allegedly standing in the lobby. She had marvelous hair that ran down her back in beautiful curls, ending just above the waist with not a knot or tangle in sight. An impressive feat, he thought, as the hair of the west-wall-goers was usually just as lengthy but braided or turned to thick, disgusting dreadlocks. 'She must live in the eastern side of town…' he decided. She cleared her throat, twisting a lock of hair around her fingers as she spoke.

"A-ah, oui, a-am I speaking to Doctor Kirkland?" she asked softly. He covered the speaker to let himself laugh a little.

"Yes you are miss, but I fear you may be in the wrong place. I'm a memory surgeon, not a voice coach." Teased the young doctor. She tittered softly, unimpressed by his attitude.

"N-no sir, I… I-I'd like to make an appointment for my son. H-he's had such trouble in school lately, a-and he's not eating, he hasn't been eating healthily in ages. W-we lost his father recently, th-they were so close, a-and well… I'm worried about him." It was at this point that she had to sit down. Judging by the grainy image displayed on his screen, Arthur thought she looked about ready to cry. He sighed, forcing himself to hold in another snide remark.

"Yes, of course madam." He spoke softly. "I'll tell you what, I've got an opening for about an hour coming up. Go pick your son up from school, bring him straight here. Don't tell him where you're going. I'll do what I can. You and the lovely young woman downstairs can discuss your method of payment while I'm looking at him. Does that sound alright with you, miss…?"

"M-Matthews." She finished. He could practically hear the smile in her voice. "M-Madeline Jones-Matthews. A-and thank you so much doctor Kirkland, I c-can get him right now."

"Ah, it's no trouble at all miss Williams." In the little screen she still looked teary-eyed, but she truly was smiling, her dainty lips elegantly tugged up at the corners.

'My god she's pretty…' he sighed. If only it weren't for his profession, he might let himself pursue the pretty woman. "I'll see you back here within the hour then, miss Williams?" To his amusement she nodded, handing the phone back to the secretary and dashing out of the building without another word. Perhaps she didn't understand exactly how a telephone worked after all. She couldn't be a west-sider though, he refused to believe it; the west-siders didn't come that pretty.

"What was that about?" He cringed; Denise was talking again.

"Oh nothing dear. That woman is coming back in about half an hour. Set up a paperwork sheet for her, and when she returns send her son up to me." He glanced at the screen. Denise nodded as well, but she had her reasoning; she knew of the camera he had hidden in the lobby of their floor. With a few final, meaningless words of thanks, he hung up, once again putting up his feet and going to light himself a cigarette. He kept the desk clear of stupid knick-knacks for the sole purpose of being able to put his feet up this way. It contained little more than his clunky computer monitor, the matching keyboard, and an ashtray. Most of it had been there when he'd started using the place, probably the reason why every office in the building, for all of its new-age glory, looked like it had gotten its entire tech stock by raiding an elementary school. The monitor had to be at least an inch thick! Still, it served his purpose, and for his lack of high-tech gear he could usually get what he needed.

About thirty minutes and a third of a pack of cigarettes later, Arthur noted the lovely head of wavy hair bobbing onto his screen again, holding the hand of some skeletal creature protected only by a pair of sweatpants and a hoodie that looked heavy enough on the poor thing to break its back. She and Denise spoke a little while, and then she sent the hoodie-clad person in the direction of the elevator. He stood and unlocked the door, both anxious and interested to meet Madeline's little spawn. Within a minute there was a knock at his door.

"It's open, come in dear." He called, wheeling his chair over to the side of the therapist's couch. In stepped the little hoodie monster. It was a boy- or at least, it looked like a boy- with stringy blond hair that hung over his face, some of it slipping behind his glasses and shielding his eyes from the dim light of the office. Despite the presence of his baggy clothes Arthur could tell he was thin, it showed in what little of his face could be seen. The boy looked around the room, a frown tugging on his pale lips. "Hello there dear." He greeted, trying to act cheerful. "Come right on in and take a seat." He patted the couch. The boy stared, making a face that Arthur could only interpret to be one of disgust before reluctantly sinking into the seat.

"May I ask your name dear?" he asked. The blond scoffed, crossing his arms.

"My name is Alfred." He muttered, brushing a little hair away from his eyes. Arthur stole a look at them and smiled; Cerulean, how lovely.

"That's a nice name. How old are you Alfred?" he asked, rolling his chair back to his desk and grabbing a clipboard, writing things down.

"Fifteen…but I'll be sixteen in a month, so don't treat me like I'm some little kid or something." He glared at Arthur. Arthur said and did nothing in response, putting on his friendly plastic smile.

"A wonderful age I think. You're in school, aren't you? What grade do they have you in?"

"Tenth, but they'll move me up after my birthday." Arthur looked up at this remark.

"Is that how they do it these days?" he asked, taking interest.

"It is at the crappy west-side schools…" Alfred pulled up his hood as if hiding in his copious folds of clothing would somehow make Arthur stop talking to him. "We do it by age. They don't have summer break anymore either, if you're that old, they just give us two weeks off as the beginning of every season."

"Is that so?"

"Yeah, it's stupid." The boy snapped. Arthur quirked his eyebrows with almost sympathetic regard for the boy.

"Well, there are plenty of stupid things in the world Alfred, they just sort of spring up over time. I'm sure you know that much…" he chuckled. "Have you any idea of how memory surgery works Alfred?" he asked, looking at him and going to a drawer in his desk.

"No." Alfred sat up a little. "Nobody does. My science teacher says that memory surgery is the modern equivalent of hypnotism, that it's not real. He says that you don't really do anything at all!" Arthur lost his restraint with this comment, laughing so hard he had look out the window for a few seconds just to sober himself.

"Ah, what quaint notions… and what do you think Alfred?" he asked, finding what he needed and wheeling back to the boy's side. He could barely see it, but he knew Alfred was staring at him.

"What do you mean…?" he questioned.

"I mean…" Arthur started, going through a little black bag. "What do you think memory surgery is? Do you think that an imaginary art would be in the place of 'Most Commonly Performed Surgery Internationally' were it really no more than silly hypnotism?" he asked. Alfred blinked, slowly easing his way back down again, his frail back gracing the couch again.

"I… I don't know…" he mumbled. Arthur nodded, reaching into the small bag and handing to Alfred two little pills, one white, one red. Alfred accepted them but sat holding them for a little while. "What are these things?"

"Just swallow them dear, you won't need any water."

"But what-"

"Just swallow them." The doctor repeated impatiently. Alfred held the pills, gulped, then popped them into his mouth and swallowed. They took their effect almost immediately; within seconds Alfred was glad he'd sat down, fearing he would have fallen over anyway. His vision was darkening, only the face of his surgeon remaining visible. A soft groan escaped his throat but Arthur merely shushed him, waiting until his eyes had fully closed to brush aside his hair. He almost regretted it; he could tell that Alfred would have a handsome face were it not for his being little more than a flesh suit over a boney body. His cheeks looked so hollow it was a wonder they hadn't caved in on themselves. Arthur pinned his long bangs to one side of his forehead, resting his hand on it.

"Now dear, don't you worry, this won't hurt a bit." He whispered, jokingly speaking to Alfred's now unconscious form. He took a deep breath, shut his eyes, and slowly worked his way into his mind.

Were anyone else to walk in at that moment they would have seen the rather horrific sight of the doctor with his hand inside of Alfred's skull, eyes shut in concentration.

What Arthur himself saw, however, was very different; all of Alfred's life was spread out before him, not unlike being surrounded by hundreds upon hundreds of cheap television screens. He walked through them, trying to identify a place to start. He couldn't go back once he'd started, not without excruciating difficulty and a frankly immense margin for error. He wandered back a ways. It became apparent to him why Alfred seemed so reluctant to talk to him, and why he was so thin. He stopped when he'd reached one particular scene, stepping into it.

The beginnings of the scene unfolded before him; A young blond boy- a few years younger than Alfred, though obviously still him- stepped into the tiny bedroom. Posters littered the wall, low in detail due to the age of the memory. Only the most important things were clear, and everything beyond the room was white space. A bed materialized, then a standing mirror, and a closet, the kind build straight into the wall. Alfred dropped his backpack by the bed and flopped down onto it, letting out a sigh. So far, Arthur noticed one major difference; rather than being hideously thin, this Alfred was actually a bit chubby. His belly was visible under his shirt, pale and puffy skin. He sat up, starting for his backpack but stopping to look in the mirror. It was as if he'd never seen his own face before. He stood and looked at himself, a frown slowly forming across his lips.

"Why do I have to be so fat…?" he sighed, looking down at himself shamefully. Ugly, Stupid, Fat, different words seemed to whisper themselves to Arthur; the thoughts of poor Alfred as he stared at his mirror image in disgust. How sad it is, he thought, to see a child as young as this, no older than twelve and already hating himself for his mere appearance. The next scene was rather startling; Alfred was pinching his cheeks and belly, hard enough to bruise as shown when he pulled away his hands. Tears welled in his eyes. Arthur felt like he should have been doing something, instead watching in horror as Alfred punched his mirror with a loud crash and a thousand shards of glass were sent spraying in all directions, at least half of them making it into the boy's skin. He screamed, holding his now bloodied fist and picking out the biggest pieces with a trembling hand, all the while muttering to himself "stupid, stupid, stupid…" Arthur shook his head, wishing he could have been there. He rewound the memory a little ways. The glass returned itself into the mirror, Alfred's backpack flew back onto his back, and he was all but hurled out the door. He stopped the memory. It took him a moment to decide what to do here as he looked around the room, trying to pick just what to change. The mirror was his first choice. He turned it a tiny bit to the left so that it instead reflected the window, what would have been sunshine to Alfred. The bed was neatly made, likely the work of his mother, with a line of cheap stuffed animals arranged along the bottom ending in one rather large outlier bear. He set this bear where Alfred would flop down before starting the memory, watching it play out again.

Again Alfred jogged into the room, tossing down his backpack with a little laugh. He sat this time, hugging the bear and going to his backpack. He didn't even notice the mirror this time, kicking off his shoes so that they thumped against the wall and pulling his homework. Within a few minutes Madeline came in to check on him and brought him a glass of milk and a few cookies on a thin napkin. He took them, earning a little kiss from his mother and in turn thanking her with a peck on the cheek before indulging in her homemade sweets. Arthur grinned; he was off to a good start. He removed himself from the memory with a smile, glad that he'd done at least a bit of good. He stepped a year or two forward and chose another particularly miserable looking scene.

It looked to be about a year earlier; they were in a schoolyard, but it wasn't yet adorned with the one spinning structure that one child sat on while another few spun it until someone threw up. He knew that was somewhere recent. Alfred sat on the little curb separating the bark pit from the grass. To Arthur's delight he was looking better than he had been. Not ideal of course, he was still skinny as could be, but not yet unhealthily so. 'Lanky' was probably a better word. He was nibbling some sort of snack cake, something cheap and likely full of preservatives, the kind of things Arthur detested. The thing that struck Arthur as oddest was the fact that he sat completely alone where as the other children, although possibly a bit exaggerated by the seriousness of the memory, had at least three others sitting with them. He sighed, taking a seat on the curb. The other children repeated themselves, often doing nothing of much interest. Entire groups repeated occasionally, or in some cases it was simply a single child copy-pasted into multiple roles, casting Alfred into an obvious position; he was lonely.

"I know how that is…" Arthur mumbled. He knew how seriously children took themselves, even at the age of thirteen as Alfred appeared to be now, everything was so serious and real to them. In Alfred's case, he felt as if he was the only one without a friend in the entire schoolyard. "In their defense dear, it doesn't seem as if you're really trying to talk to them…" he sighed, scooting back a little and watching the memory play out. A group of boys approached him, five or so standing over him.

"Oh dear, I know where this is going…" he sighed; Alfred was being bullied, the classic predicament of the teenage child. "What next, I suppose they're going to call him a nerd and demand his lunch money? Maybe make him eat a worm or something else equally juvenile?" Arthur sighed. He'd seen this sort of things before, he knew how to handle it. Bullying was surprisingly rare in this form, for all of its relentless advertising. Even Arthur, disconnected from the school system as he was, knew that it was rare for children to actually be as brutish and stupid as they were portrayed. All the same these ones picked on Alfred a bit, calling him various derogatory names where 'fatass' would have done. After their barrage of sub-par insults one of the boy's punched Alfred, and another kicked him into the bark. Arthur mulled the memory over a while before performing somewhat of the same treatment, moving a few of the children, carrying Alfred's lunch bag under a tree so he would have to move, and allowing him to dodge the wrath of his pursuers without even knowing of their presence. Arthur stepped out of this memory rather unimpressed. It was ever so boring dealing with these particular memories. Almost oddly so, he couldn't remember seeing exactly these sorts before, yet he felt like he'd done this a hundred times.

He walked briskly through Alfred's memories this time, making to be done with him but stopping at one of the most recent screens. It was no more than an hour old by the looks of it, and it depicted another scene of Alfred being picked on. It was worse this time though, so he decided to take a look.

Alfred was practically running, trying to get away from some unseen fear that was apparently directly behind him. Arthur glanced back, a bit surprised to see one of the boys from before. Didn't they ever learn? Apparently not.

For all of Alfred's endurance, bless his heart, he didn't seem to be very good at running. He was unhealthy and sickly, and being thin as he was now it made his skin look pale and cold with sweat. The brute that had followed him had him shoved up against a wall, screaming a rainbow of insults ranging from typical homophobic slurs to taunts of his dead father. Alfred didn't even appear to have the strength to fight back. He took all of the larger boy's verbal abuse, sobbing and blubbering beneath him until the first punch was delivered and he collapsed. It was followed by a kick to the eye, knocking Alfred onto his side. The bully kicked him in the stomach, then did it again, and again, and again, until Arthur couldn't bare to watch. He shut his eyes, backing the memory up just minutes. He couldn't stand the sight of Alfred cowering before this jerky kid, screaming in pain without a soul in the world to help him. He paused the memory just seconds before the first punch was landed, Alfred's eyes shut in a cringe. Arthur approached him, cupping a hand around his ear and leaning in to whisper:

"You don't have to take this you know…"

Alfred blinked, hardly feeling the hit. He still fell, catching himself on hands and knees. The whole world seemed to move in slow motion as he processed what was happening. No… no, he didn't have to take this. He dodged the next hit, standing back up and giving the brute a shove. The boy spat another tease at him of course, trying to get him to back down, but Alfred snapped back with a threat to call the cops and stormed off. He looked furious, but Arthur could feel pride welling in him. He didn't have to take it, and now he knew he didn't. For the last time Arthur pulled away, out of Alfred's head and back to his own body.

He slowly removed his hand, wiping it off on his shirt and panting softly to catch his breath. Alfred's skin had gone clammy again. He wheezed, coughing a few times as he returned to his senses. Arthur went to a drawer of his desk and removed a bottle of water, pouring half of it into a plastic cup and handing it to Alfred.

"Here you are dear, drink up. That's a love, go on now, it's alright…" he cooed softly, helping Alfred into a sitting position. His hands shook as he took the cup. His eyes were wide, and he moved very, very slowly. The process of memory surgery wasn't exactly meant for a boy his age- or anyone, for that matter, but especially not a fifteen year old anorexic- and Alfred was left looking worse than he had when he came in. Arthur was patient with him, urging him to drink his water and occasionally tipping the glass to get some through his parted lips. "How do you feel Alfred?" he asked, enunciating each syllable. For a while Alfred was silent, holding the cup and trying to steady his hands. Finally he looked up with a smile.

"I… I-I feel great." He murmured. The cup lowered slowly. Alfred chuckled, then grinned, then laughed and beamed up at him. "I-I feel absolutely amazing. I-it's like I… I-I don't… h-how did you do all of that? What did you do?" he asked, looking at him. His cerulean eyes seemed to glimmer with a dazzling new light, wonder and joy and excitement for life, the things that Arthur intended to put there. He rumpled the boy's hair and allowed himself a chuckle.

"It was nothing my boy, just my job."

"No, no! You did something, I know you did! What was it? How'd you do it?" he demanded again.

"If you insist upon an explanation, I'll just say it's a trade secret." Alfred's face fell, but he smiled again quickly. "Now go along to your mother Alfred, she's worried sick about you. I know it doesn't feel like it, but you've been out for…" he glanced at the clock "…over an hour. Go show her this new energy of yours." He patted him on the back. "Heck, you two should go out and get a meal to celebrate. God knows you need it!" They laughed together. Alfred dashed out the door and downstairs, blond hair falling in front of his eyes again. Arthur shut the door behind him and returned to his desk, watching them through the screen again.

Madeline looked worried sick, pacing the floor and wringing her hands. She looked like she could cry again. Boy, was she in for a surprise. Mere minutes later Alfred ran in, throwing his arms around her waist in a hug. She jumped, startled, but turned to find that, to her surprise, her once moping little shell of a boy was lit with a new spark of life. She hugged him back, picking him up and twirling him in a hug and letting the tears roll down her cheeks, because they were happy tears now. They left, giving Denise a wave and dashing out of the building. Arthur sat silently behind his desk, grinning and watching them go.

"How nice…" he mumbled, standing and going to his window to watch them as they reached the street. They didn't have a car by the looks of it, and went a few blocks before making it out of his range of sight. "It seems as if these powers of mine can create happy endings after all…"