Four beginnings
Flame has lost her memory: the past decade is a blank: Ayasha, Dorsey, Alex: gone. She has to begin again with all of them. But Dorsey won't accept this, and will use whatever means necessary to get it back. Follows Degrees of Freedom
1.
I had only gone in to Seeker Headquarters to print out a file on the Kimberley, one of the last Soul-free zones that was still 'hunted' for wild humans. I made a coffee while the printer hummed and hawed. But that short amount of time was enough for the others to spot me and suck me in.
"Hey, Hungry Flame!"
I saw Jackson waving me over, hunched over a desk with Montgomery. I approached them slowly, carefully, stirring my coffee.
"We could use your input on this one," Jackson continued, staring at a screen.
"You're joking, right? Last time I saw you guys you were framing me for attempted murder."
"Well, murder actually. But yeah, we could use your 2 cents."
I wouldn't be helping them, I'd be helping the victim, I told myself, letting my curiosity get the better of me.
"What is it," I said non-committally.
"Missing person. Recently de-implanted Soul."
"So a human then," I specified.
"Right. Kim Turner, four kids, ages 4-14, resident 6 years."
"The Soul you mean. We're looking for the Host, right?"
"So you're in?"
"Maybe. What's the story?"
"Soul decided she couldn't morally reside in the Host any longer and asked for removal. Seeker insertion to revive the Host, but once she woke up, she spent 3 days at home and went missing in action."
"Soul off-planet yet?"
"Long gone."
"No father on the scene?"
"Not resident. Original father dead, it was IVF for the last one. He knows the kids though. The younger ones are staying with him now."
"Have you talked to the kids?"
He navigated to the recording.
Seeker : do you know where your Mum is?
kid: [shrugs]
Seeker: …no idea at all?
kid: [glares at the wall]
The recording filmed a few more seconds silence, then ended.
"I'll take that as a no. Mind if I talk to them?"
"Be my guest."
"Can I take Beebe with me?" Beebe was usually Montgomery's partner, following the policy of mixing Souls and humans. But the policy didn't always work out in practice. Especially seeing as Jackson's partner, Follows Echoes, was on extended leave.
"Ooh, Gomez, look at that, Souls ganging up together, that's not on," Jackson smiled, watching me. Montgomery raised his eyebrows, but I cut him off before he could reply.
"It's not because he's a Soul, it's because…"
"Say it, say it."
I grimaced.
"We could use a Comforter's perspective," I muttered.
"Thank you, Merry," Jackson said as Montgomery handed over a ten dollar note.
"Never thought I'd hear her say it," Montgomery muttered.
"Let's start with the eldest," I went on, ignoring them.
"Sarah Turner, 14, Healing Centre," Montgomery read off the screen.
"Healing Centre?"
"Depression, Multiple attempts at terminal self harm."
"Is that what they're calling it these days…"
"She would be old enough to remember her human mother. More than the other kids."
"Gomez: we'll talk to her Comforters, see what we can get out of them," Jackson said, making for the carpark.
"Humans ganging up together, that's not on," Beebe said, shadowing him with an imperceptible smile.
"Why does he call you that?" I asked Montgomery as he helped me collect my Kimberley stack. He looked embarrassed but answered anyway.
"I made the mistake of telling him he could call me anything but Monty. He had a whole collection going there for a while: Mo, Go, Gummy, Gomez, Merry, Mer… he's ended up sticking to Gomez and Merry." He shrugged. "Could be worse."
***
Even in the children's section, a Healing Centre was a Healing Centre. Home to Bhask's implantation, Alex's implantations, Ayasha's forcible removal, my pregnancy… Even the memory of Falling Smoke walking these corridors was a sad memory, now that he was gone.
Seeker Beebe knocked on the open door and I realized we were at the eldest girl's room. He introduced us and waited for me to begin. But I found myself momentarily occupied with staring at the pale walls, remembering other days and nights in very similar rooms…
"Hi," Sarah said finally, prompting me, watching me with emerging interest.
"Hi," I replied, trying to focus, but still not quite able to rise to the occasion with those walls bearing down on me.
"Isn't this where you're supposed to ask me questions?"
"Ah… yeah. Sorry. I just ah, don't really like these places much."
"That makes two of us."
She watched me eying the walls, waiting for my move.
"You want to go outside?" she offered.
"God yes. They let you?"
"Only if I'm supervised. I reckon two big tough Seekers can handle me."
She led us out to a patch of lawn and spread out on her belly, catching at the grass between her fingers.
"This about Mum?" she asked.
"Yeah. You know she's missing?"
She nodded. "What do you want to know?"
"I'm trying to get a feel for what is was like for her, the whole situation. I'm not sure I really understand why the Soul left, I mean, you were her children too…?"
She nodded again frowning. "Yeah, she really loved the little ones."
"But you and her…?"
"We never really got along."
"Understandable. She took your mother."
She shrugged. "Wasn't her fault. She didn't choose where she got put. But it was just… too weird."
"Yeah," I whispered. I could relate to that. On many levels. Falling Smoke implanted in Alex was just wrong, no matter how nice Falling Smoke was. And me implanted in Alex was definitely too, too weird. "So she gave you your mother back."
"She thought it would make me better," she said a quiet, hard voice.
"And how did it go?"
"Not good."
I waited, but the flow seemed to have stemmed.
"She got her family back. Isn't that what she would have wanted?" Beebe asked.
"Think about it. She wakes up to find aliens ruling the planet, her husband dead, and she's got four children, one in hospital, one that doesn't remember her, and two she's never seen before in her life."
I could see Beebe thinking 'cheery little thing, isn't she?', but I sat back with a sudden feeling of perfect understanding. I had been in the same position myself the year before, only it was Alex, Dorsey and Ayasha I didn't recognize…