The Persistence of Memory
By
Deborah J. Brown

A Wild Arms III Alternate Universe story: Wild Arms III is copyrighted to RPG Dreamers and Sony.

Chapter 3: Into the Light

"That's not the worst of it though. I'm almost certain he followed us here." Virginia sipped at her drink and looked at the blonde girl sitting across from her. "I wish I could figure out what was going on in his head." The two girls were in the bar at Little Twister, one of the few towns where Virginia could be certain that the price on her head wasn't going to end her and the others up dragged off to face the Ark of Destiny people. Not until she could find a way to prove to them that her group was innocent.

Maya Schrodinger looked pensive, then smiled sweetly. "That's so romantic." At Virginia's blank stare, the girl grinned. "Well? It's just like a novel."

"A. Novel." Virginia stared at her friend with a feeling of disbelief. Maya would think in those terms. The Schrodinger girl's special skill at copying the skills and abilities of fictional characters meant that she had absorbed far too much in the way of questionable plot devices and ideas about how the world should be. "Honestly, Maya."

"Think about it, Virginia. He's following you around for a reason. He obviously wants something from you." Maya's blue eyes met Virginia's directly. "And can you really claim not to feel some sort of interest in him? Even if he does look like something out of a horror comic right now?"

Virginia sighed. "Maya, are you suggesting he's in love with me or something?"

For a moment Maya considered that. "I guess it is pretty corny. But didn't he say so? Or have you decided that's all because he's got some idea in his head that needs your cooperation? He must need you for something, because if he's as mad as you say he is with you, why hasn't he just outright attacked you?"

Swallowing her drink, Virginia shrugged. "I think he's manipulating me. This isn't the first time he's tried to trick me into cooperating." She gazed at the scarred surface of the table. "I just wish I knew what."

Maya's fingers tapped the table consideringly. "Okay. Let's take the line of thought that he isn't in love with you. What do you have that he could want? What has he told you?"

"All he's ever said is that it's my fault he's what he is. Which is ridiculous." Virginia shook her head. "Even he admits that he did everything to himself. I didn't change him into that monster – the Prophets did that. " There was silence from Maya, a strange, considering silence. "What? You think I did?"

"I'm wondering. It isn't so much what he did before. It's what he is now that matters. So what is he? Not a demon – not like that overgrown blue tank we dealt with. You say that he says the Dark Spear isn't as powerful as he suspects it ought to be. So why?"

"How in the world could I have anything to do with that?" Virginia demanded.

"Maybe you should ask him again."

Rolling her eyes, Virginia grumbled, "I did. He says I have to figure it out."

"Ask until he says something that gives you enough of a clue. I know you. You've got the obstinacy of a rutting bull when it comes to getting answers. So go out there and make him talk. He'll either have to go away – which would solve the problem one way – or answer."

Annoyed at Maya's turn of phrase, Virginia got to her feet. "Fine. I will."

.oOoOoOo.

"I already told you, Princess. I'm not answerin'."

"Why not?" This was about the third go around in the dialogue for what Jet was beginning to refer to as the nightly comedy routine. The others, while not hanging around too closely during Virginia's attempts to work Janus into answering her questions, were staying somewhere in the area. Just in case she drove the half-demon to the point of attacking her, just to shut her up.

I'm pretty damned close to it, too. Why won't she just stop and think about it, instead of expecting me to explain? "Because you won't believe me, Princess." Janus was trying to be patient, but the effort was nearly impossible. Virginia was incredibly stubborn, an attribute that Janus both loved and hated.

"Well, I don't believe that at all. Try me." Virginia sat on the rock and glared at Janus where he was hiding amid the shadows.

"No." The answer was flat and un-changeable. As if I think by repeating it often enough she'll be convinced. Damn but she's a stubborn broad.

"All right, then let's talk about something else. What happened to you after our last fight?"

A low growl echoed in the darkness. "Isn't it obvious I must have got my ass kicked from here to eternity by something? Since you didn't see me afterwards?" The memory of that fight was clear in his mind, his last fight with Virginia, the last time he'd seen her. Anything after that, though, was a mystery.

"Asgard?"

"Huh? I sent that overgrown pile of junk off on a one way trip." Janus was puzzled that Virginia would even think that he'd met up with the big guy again. The Prophets' golem ought to have been floating somewhere in time, lost for eternity.

Virginia shook her head. "No, after Siegfried showed up, Asgard returned. He'd just turned himself off and waited until the time was right."

Janus shrugged. "Well, I'll be damned." And who the devil was this Siegfried anyway? I have the strangest feeling I should know. A sharp pain that went through his back to his stomach made him wince and he was very glad that Virginia couldn't see his face.

.oOo.

Peering into the shadows, Virginia watched the demonic figure play with a piece of wood he was using to sharpen his claws on. "So, what happened? Was it Siegfried who 'kicked your ass from here to eternity'?"

Another shrug. "Guess so. Whoever this Siegfried was. I really dunno."

Annoyance was beginning to get the better of Virginia's good sense. She glared into the darkness, hoping her expression was perfectly readable by Janus' eyes. "You are the most obstinate, self-absorbed, sarcastic pain in the butt jerk it has ever been my misfortune to meet."

"Yeah? Well, so it goes." There was a sharp edge to the man's voice, an anger that meant their nightly 'conversation' was likely to end rather abruptly sometime soon. If the two of them had rooms and doors to slam they would have. "I'm just exactly whatcha want me to be."

"I WANT YOU TO BE AT LEAST REASONABLY HONEST WITH ME YOU STUPID JACKASS!" It was rare for Virginia to yell, but there was something about Janus that simply made it impossible for her to do anything else. Her voice echoed thru the hills, causing the others to look up curiously, then go back to their business.

"IF YOU WANTED ME TO BE HONEST THEN YOU SHOULD HAVE THOUGHT A BIT MORE CLEARLY ABOUT IT WHEN YOU WERE PUTTING ME BACK TOGETHER!" There was a sudden sharp gasp and Virginia thought she saw him slap his hand across his mouth. A muttered "Awww, damnit!" escaped the man's lips. Then he was gone, loping off into the darkness so fast that she barely saw the shadowy movement.

.oOoOoOo.

"Sure it's possible." Maya propped her feet up on a rock and gazed out at the sand dunes while her brother and the cat, Shady, ran past them. Her fourth partner, Todd, was playing chess with Jet while Clive and Gallows were working on lunch. "I was pretty hard put to keep you from rewriting me when you brought everything back."

Virginia stared at Maya. "You know what I did?"

"Honey, you don't have an ability like mine without having a good idea of how one works inside. Doubt many would even have picked up on it – Ark of Destiny people wouldn't have decided to blame you for Lamium's death, otherwise – but I was very aware of what you were doing. If I hadn't known how to keep your perceptions from over-riding mine, I'd be what you think I should be, instead of who I am. Maybe I'm lucky you were more interested in Cascade than you were in me."

The idea was terrifying and though Virginia would have liked to deny it vociferously, some instinct was telling her that Maya wasn't far off base. No one should have that sort of power over another person however and she felt a sharp sense of guilt over the whole thing. "Are you saying by resetting everything I made the world what I wanted it to be as well as just what I remember?"

A slim hand waved off the thought as Maya shook her head. "Nah. I think you made the library download everyone the way they were, or the way they remembered themselves. You accessed their data but their own self-perceptions and understanding of the world made things reset just the way it was. It's only because of the way I operate that you might have been able to re-write me. Maybe something about what happened to Cascade – his becoming a demon – made him susceptible to being over-written. Might even be that he's utterly unable to keep himself from being shaped by how everyone sees him. I had to learn not to let other people change me that way."

"That could explain why he's staying away from everyone." Virginia thought about that and felt saddened. If they were right, if Janus had been twisted by her thoughts about him and was – even now – being shaped by everyone's perceptions of him it was no wonder that he'd chosen to hide away in the wastelands. I can't even blame him for being upset. "Maya, could you teach him to do what you do to protect yourself?"

"Heh. What's in it for me?" At Virginia's glare, Maya laughed. "Oh, don't worry, Virginia. I'm interested enough in the situation. But it's sort of like how you make a rabbit stew. Gotta catch the rabbit first. Think he'll cooperate?"

"I'll convince him. Somehow."

"Then let's go back to my home. Dad left a lot of notes behind and I'd want to go through them so I can work out how I do what I do."

Virginia nodded. Janus had been following her up until now. She rather suspected he'd follow the rest of the way there and she said as much. "Once we get there, we'll have to drag him in, though. I have a feeling he's going to fight me." She made a sour face. "Which almost certainly means he will, if my perception of him is still shaping him somehow."

.oOoOoOo.

"GODAMNIT! LET ME OUT OF HERE!"

Shady peered into the small square box as it rocked side to side and shuddered. Having been the Schrodinger Family's test subject for a very long time had given the creature a mortal terror of enclosed spaces. "Better you than me, Cascade," he said, glancing at Maya.

The blonde girl shook her head. "I didn't expect to catch him so easily." She looked thoughtfully at the box. "Dad's traps were good, but I would have thought Cascade would be better at evading stuff like this." She crossed her arms over her chest as she considered the matter, glancing at the rest of the group. They were in the Schrodinger laboratory, a small building on a remote island. Around them, computers and other devices hummed and chattered to themselves.

At last Maya shrugged. "Virginia? You think you could get him to quiet down so I can open the trap?"

Virginia nodded and yelled into the box, "Janus! Stop that. We're going to let you out." The curses that he responded with were muffled, but not enough to hide their intent. "Would you rather stay in there for a few hours?"

The box went quiet. "That's better," Virginia said more quietly. "Give us a minute."

It took closer to five minutes but finally Janus crawled out of the box and, very slowly, forced himself to his feet, muttering imprecations under his breath. Maya blinked at him, gazing up and down at his less than fully clothed body. "Sheesh, Virginia. You really do have mixed feelings about him, don't you? Like the outfit though." She gestured at the loin cloth that was currently Janus' only concession to bodily modesty. From the looks of it, it was probably about all that was left of the blanket he'd walked off with back at Ballack's Rise.

Virginia glared at her friend. "It's not like he didn't do his best to make this shape memorable. I wouldn't have thought of him looking this way if I could bloody well remember what he looked like before."

.oOo.

Crossing his scaled arms over his chest, Janus cocked his head at Virginia. He would have raised a brow as well, but his face didn't make such expressions possible. "I take it you figured a few things out, Princess?" His golden eyes held no emotion as they met Virginia's, but – oddly – it was his whose fell after a moment's staring and he cursed himself, even as he wondered if the fear he felt was his own, or what Virginia thought he should feel. His heart was beating several times too fast and he could feel sweat soaking the leathery flesh of his palms.

"I think so," Virginia agreed, and it relieved Janus to see that she was ignoring his reaction carefully. "And I really am sorry. Maya's going to try and help you, though. She thinks her abilities might make it possible for you to restore yourself to your proper Self."

Blinking, Janus repeated, "Abilities?" He glanced at Maya Schrodinger curiously. He knew next to nothing about her, except that they'd met that day when he'd acquired the Dark Spear. He wasn't sure exactly what had happened after the tower had fallen in on him, but Virginia's memories said that he had been transformed to a demon somewhere in that time.

It was Maya who explained. "My father was a scientist who explored some of the aspects of what the Hyades Library could be made to do for us. He wasn't a member of the Council, but he helped them." She went to a computer and pressed some buttons, bringing up images on the screen of several human shaped figures. "Everything that has ever existed in Filgaia has been saved in the Library." Lines formed from the figures and ran into a square block at the top of the screen.

"My father theorized that the process could be reversed and that one could take data saved in the Library and download it into a living being, giving them the abilities of the person the data was downloaded from. He didn't have much access to Hyades, of course, but he tested the concept by training me to download characters from books."

Janus' eyes glazed over momentarily. He was a reasonably intelligent person, but he couldn't help but feel overwhelmed by what Maya was saying. "Now that's just plain weird," he said, and knew he was echoing Virginia's thoughts. At her raised brow he shrugged at her, to say 'what do you expect'? Continuing, he gazed at Maya. "Exactly how is this supposed ta help me?"

"Being able to change one's personality, one's entire abilities, makes one very susceptible to being changed by other people's perceptions of you. You have to learn to keep a part of yourself protected, learn to shield yourself – if you will What is it?" Maya blinked at the half-demon, half-human before her, frowning at his rolled eyes and impatient head motion.

"That's all very well'n good, chicklet, except for one thing. I'm entirely her puppet." He pointed at Virginia. "Everything I am, I owe t'her. There isn't any Janus Cascade without her." Much to my sorrow.

Jet shook his head. He'd been watching the conversation from the side of the room, keeping his silence, but Janus' complaint moved him to comment. "That's bull, Cascade. Sure, she reset you wrong. Her perceptions of you are messing around with what you are. But there was a Janus Cascade before. So all she's doing is overwriting who you really are. Don't stand there blaming her for everything. You're more than just what Virginia sees, after all."

.oOo.

It was amazing to Virginia just how well a mouth that barely moved could sneer. "Really? You think so? Try again, kid. Maybe if I was Janus Cascade with some of her ideas overlaying mine I'd have a chance. Thing is, I'm not. All I am, all I know of myself, is what she knows."

The sound of glass crashing to the floor broke the silence that followed Janus' pronouncement. Virginia's drink, slipping from her fingers and shattering on the floor. "What?"

"What I said, Princess. I don't know anything of who I am or was outside those few times you and I met. My oldest memory is on the train, when we tried to steal the Ark Scepter. My most recent memory is you blowing me to smithereens in Yggdrasil. And what a delicious memory that was." He cocked his head at her. "There isn't a single memory in between that doesn't involve our meetings. Each and every one of them. As clear as day."

Virginia took several deep breaths. "But why? How? I didn't do that to anyone else Not even Maya"

"Yeah, well everyone else you brought back was alive. Way I figure it – and I suppose I ought to thank you for giving me enough brain cells to work it out – Janus Cascade, the real Janus Cascade, got wiped outta existence somehow – maybe by that Siegfried fellow you were mentioning earlier. He had the Dark Spear, right? So when you decided Janus Cascade was still alive, the only thing that could get created was lil ol' me." The green scaled arms made a broad gesture at the rest of him and he bowed, mockingly. "Just a puppet who knows exactly who's pulling the strings."

.oOoOoOo.

"Now this is interesting."

Virginia looked up from her studies of Schrodinger Sr.'s notes to find Maya frowning at a letter she'd found among her father's papers. Those papers were scattered all over the room, until the place resembled nothing but a small disaster area. Days of research had a way of creating that effect. "What is it?" She glanced out the window to where Jet and Janus were working out and winced when her doing so caused the man she'd accidentally created to falter as he became aware of her notice. He shot a glare in her direction and she hurriedly looked back at Maya. At least he's wearing some real clothing. Clive's pants are a bit big on him, but he was a real distraction in that loin cloth.

"Not my fault, Ginny!"

Virginia winced, wishing that Janus didn't have quite such a clear awareness of what she was thinking about him. Especially when she was thinking that way.

"Not my fault either!"

Getting up, Virginia went to the window and yelled back, "Maybe not, but someone could work on his shielding instead of pulling my chain every time he gets a chance." She glared down into amused golden eyes and found her own eyes falling away, avoiding looking at them. Damnit. He doesn't have to be so bloody cheerful about it. Turning back to Maya, she continued, "So, what did you find?"

Maya's knowing grin was especially irritating, but at Virginia's glare she coughed, continuing. "Dad was in communication with someone named Pete Inkapilia. It says here that this man would like to see the results of Dad's research and that he thinks that the Council would be able to put it to good use."

That startled Virginia. "Inkapilia." She tapped Clive on the shoulder, rousing their compatriot in research out of his considerations of another notebook. "Clive? Why is the name Inkapilia familiar?"

"Wasn't that the name of one of the Council of Seven?" Clive answered after a moment's thought. "He's the only one we know nothing about. Other than using his name for a password, that is."

Oh, yes, I remember. My father, Lehault, Melody, Malik. Doran Bryant was the one who got used by Beatrice the one who messed up the Yggdrasil project. And Enduro was Jet's 'father'. Virginia pulled out the photograph of the Council that they'd found. Dad and those three others were easy to recognize. Enduro – probably the old man with the beard – Jet seems think so at least. That left the other two men, one looking rather shy and uncertain to the side and the other having a rather manic, crazed look. Somehow she rather thought the latter had to have been Doran. Which means the other was probably Inkapilia. He looks the sort to get stuck with the night shift, poor guy.

She paused, startled at something. Doran Bryant. That was the name Janus had been yelling when he was delirious with fever. A name that she had barely known and would have had no idea of Janus knowing. Which meant that somehow, somewhere, in the depths of Janus' self, were memories of things other than their interactions. He is more than just a puppet. I have to believe that.

Realizing that Maya was watching her, Virginia tapped the faces on the photograph. "Malik was trying to recreate a living person's memories. He would have been interested in using your father's research to help him with that. Lehault and – maybe – Melody were studying the use of nano-machines and, of course, Enduro was creating life out of the planet itself."

Maya bit her lip, looking through the papers. "Then perhaps Inkapilia was looking into ways to change people? Or to convince the planet it wasn't dying by rewriting it? Maybe if humanity didn't think the world was decaying it wouldn't be?"

It seemed to Virginia that, if nothing else, faith might be a requirement in order for the Guardians to do what needed to be done. Four Guardians had been lost entirely for a while, the four most powerful. Perhaps it had been humanity's failure to believe in itself and in the planet it inhabited that had resulted in the loss? She felt the Guardian Justine sending her a flow of wordless encouragement and caressed the Medium that allowed her to contact the ancient power. "That could be," she agreed. "But this doesn't really help us. What is it, Maya?" Her friend was frowning at a sheet of paper, expression darkening.

"I think I know why Janus has a problem. It's not that all he consists of is your thoughts, or at least that's not the only problem." Maya handed Virginia another letter from Inkapilia. "Read here." She pointed at the middle of the page.

The handwriting was difficult to make out. Inkapilia had not, apparently, put that particular skill at the top of his list of concerns. Still, after a bit of effort she read, "Your tests with your daughter have been exceptional and we have used the information you have sent us to attempt to create an entire entity from scratch. I am happy to say that we were entirely successful in downloading the new personality into a nano-machine colony constructed from one of our ARMS, then establishing his existence in the memories of those around us. Neither he, nor the people in the town where he was supposed to have been born, appear to have any realization that five days ago he did not exist. Moreover, he seems to follow the template we have given him perfectly. Leehault has already put Janus to work retrieving items and samples for our experiments and I believe that the skills we have given him as a Drifter will make him an excellent addition to our efforts. Not – obviously – a council member, but certainly useful in helping us achieve our goal."

Virginia looked at Maya silently. "He never really existed?" she said finally.

"He was a person. He is a person," Maya corrected. "Just because he was created by this Inkapilia's template doesn't mean that he doesn't have some sort of existence. It does explain why he's alive and yet unable to retrieve his old Self. Your mind was only able to access the parts of his Self that you were aware of. The rest may be scattered throughout the library or across Filgaia." She frowned consideringly. "Depending on how he was created, though, it might be possible to download the original data, if they kept some sort of back up."

Clive coughed. "Then might I suggest that we seek out this Inkapilia's notes? To determine exactly what information was used to create him? We should also see if there's a way to retrieve whatever data might be left in their records for him."

Virginia shook her head sharply. "That'd just be remaking the old bad Janus."

.oOo.

"The old bad Janus might like to be remade, though," Janus leaned on the doorpost with a wry look on his face. "Or at least have an idea what made him the Janus you know and love, Princess. He may not have been a very good person, but if I go back to being who I was when this Inkapilia fellow made me, I'd rather know why and how I got where I did later – rather than feeling guilty all the time for being what you remember." He eyed the others, but kept most of his attention on Virginia. Maya's training had at least helped him keep her perceptions from changing him, but it didn't make him any less aware of what those perceptions were. He could feel her mixed emotions about the whole thing.

Virginia nodded stiffly. "I don't want to play god," she said quietly. "All right. Everything we can find of who you were, we'll find." She paused, frowning. "You heard?"

With a sour nod, Janus entered the room and took the letter from her hand. "Heard enough. Don't like it, but I like being a piecemeal bit of memorabilia even less. Figure if Jet can stand being created out of Filgaia the way he is, I can stand being a nano-machine colony with delusions of humanity. Just as long as I'm the one programming me." He tilted his head and gave Virginia an impish look.

"I'm not programming you now. You've gotten past that point," Virginia noted with some acerbity. "Even if we never got back what you were, you have something here and now that could serve you for the future."

Janus looked at her for a long moment and shook his head, attempting a smile that he knew was failing. "Yeah. I could go right now and the only thing I'd have to worry about is the kids running in panic everytime they see me." He gestured at his body, still partially demonic owing to the fact that he had no idea what he'd looked like. Virginia's confused image of himself had ensured that he couldn't be human or demon. Without that changing, he was never going to be anything but a horror.

The Drifter girl's eyes turned sad and he felt her sharp regret. "I'm sorry," she whispered. "You just keep pissing me off."

"Part of what I am," Janus agreed. "Problem is, I do it because that's how I'm made. I can't help being what I am because that's the only thing I know how to be. Not to mention those pretty colors you turn when I get you annoyed at me."

"Why?" Virginia's question gave Janus pause and he thought about it. "Why do you want to get me annoyed with you?" He knew perfectly well why he did it. He liked her attention. Liked pulling her chain and getting her hot under the collar because he rather suspected he wasn't likely to get her attention any other way. Not when his entire existence was a collection of the worst possible memories that the 'real' Cascade had given her. His feelings too. And he dearly loved messing with her head. He was fairly certain for the same reasons he enjoyed it now.

At last he said, "Because, either you wanted me to love you or I really do. I don't know which it is." Virginia's stare made him continue, self-consciously, aware that he was being uncharacteristically up front on the matter. "I'd like to, though. I'd really like to know if what I feel about you is because you want me to, or because some lingering bit of my old Self – such as it was – felt that way. The only way to find out, Princess, is to get it all back. The good and the bad."

"And if the bad outweighs the good?"

Janus shrugged. "Then we deal with it. I don't expect you to fall in love with me, Ginny. To tell the truth, I don't want you to, not when I don't know if what I feel is real or impressed on me. But if all I ever was or could be is something you can't love, isn't it better to know that? It's not like I'll fall apart if you decide I'm the lowest scum on Filgaia, after all. Obviously it didn't bother me all that much when I was 'real'." He only wished he believed that, but some odd feeling made him suspect otherwise, made him suspect that a part of the original Janus Cascade had been deeply hurt by her anger. But how do I know that that suspicion isn't just part of what she thought I'd felt? I hate all this second guessing, damnit!

At long last Virginia nodded. "Clive? Where do you think we should start?"

Clive fiddled with his glasses for a long moment. "There's one place I can think of," he said finally. "The place the Council came together. What with one thing and another we never really studied their records."

Janus felt a chill as he realized where they were going. "Yggdrasil."

To Be Continued...