Chapter 6: The Persistence of Memory

Jeffrey stood with the focus of a brain surgeon, adjusting his foot back and forth to keep to soccer ball balanced on his toe. Then, with a flick, he sent it into the air, and jumped to kick it against the back fence of the yard.

"Rauuuuuugh!:" He cupped his hands on either side of his mouth, simulating a crowd's cheer. "Goooooaaaaal!" He ran in a circle, performing a little victory celebration. "Yeah," he said to an imaginary rival as he went to retrieve the ball, and started bouncing it from knee to knee. "This is my turf."

'Why, my boy--this land belongs to you!'

His knee came up a little too hard and knocked the ball several feet away.

It took Jeffrey a long moment to even realize something felt weird. Where had he heard those words before? In a movie? Maybe. Or in a dream. Like one of those dreams he could still remember when his eyes were closed. The voice he remembered saying those words was a nice one, friendly and jolly.

Still, it felt creepy that he couldn't remember where he knew it from. He didn't know why.

Ness slid aside the glass door that led to the backyard and studied his son, wanting to smile, almost succeeding for a moment. But the reminder of what had just occurred in the kitchen wiped it off of his face. "Hey buddy!" he called out.

Jeffrey turned and saw his dad, and looked startled for a second. Then, with all the natural exuberance of his age, went running after his ball to retrieve it. "Can I just stay out here for five more minutes, please?"

"You can come back out here later. Your mom wants to talk to you." Ness could almost feel Paula rolling her eyes at his back. 'Your mom,' not 'we.' Well, he hadn't meant it that way. Jeffrey, sulking but obedient, jogged up to the doors and inside the house. Ness managed a smile and ruffled his son's hair as he passed.

Paula was in the kitchen, appearing busy. She'd started making herself a cup of coffee while Ness had been calling Jeffrey. The boiling water was dripping merrily through the filter. Jeffrey bounced the ball on the kitchen floor, still enthused from his outdoor activities.

"Could you sit down for a minute, Jeffrey?" Paula made a good enough show of sounding calm about it, but Ness was able to note the hint of tension it carried. She wanted to get through with this as much as he did. "This'll just take a minute, okay? Mom and Dad just wanna talk to you."

Jeffrey, for his part, took a seat at the table with a curious expression. He knew what his mom did for a living: when people felt sick in their heads, she looked inside and told them how to get better. When his dad had first described it like that, he'd pictured Mom bent over some patient's open skull, poking at their brains. But no, Dad had said laughing, it wasn't quite the same. She seemed so serious now, the way she was when there was a problem. Jeffrey wondered if she was going to look inside his head.

"We just wanted to know whether you've been feeling alright lately." Mom said it in a very soothing way. She was good at that, and it made Jeffrey want to be honest. So he thought real hard. Sure, he'd been having a few weird moments, but other than that everything was okay. He felt that added up to 'alright.' He nodded.

"Cause you know you can talk to us about anything." Dad put an arm around his shoulders and gave a small squeeze.

"I'm fine," Jeffrey shrugged. He felt fine. He was fine.

Mom looked down at the table and took a breath. She was thinking about something.

"You went down into the basement a while ago, right?"

Jeffrey felt his eyes grow wide. He'd done something wrong, hadn't he? "I'm sorry I touched your stuff," he quickly apologized.

"That's alright," Mom assured in that same soothing voice. "You should just know that that is Mom and Dad's private place down there. You should be very careful about it."

Jeff nodded, but wondered all the same. It had happened such a long time ago, why was he being asked about it now? "I'm sorry," he said again.

"Apology accepted," Mom smiled. Then she changed the subject so quickly it made Jeffrey even more confused. "Have you had any dreams lately?"

the door of the building was made out of old dented metal, it was hard to open and made a jangling sound when he finally pushed it loose

Jeffrey looked down at the table, his forehead all wrinkled up in thought. Where had all this come from?

'It's only as large as your very imagination!'

"Maybe..." he mumbled, trying to put all the pieces together. But it was like that 1000-piece puzzle he and Dad had tried to do after last Christmas. Too difficult.

Mom tilted her head to one side. "What happens in it?"

No. It was no good. "I don't remember," Jeffrey confessed.

Mom didn't seem to like that answer, but all the same she said that it was okay and that he could go back outside and play now, but be sure to come in before sundown. And she kissed him on the forehead and sent him on his way.

Paula watched her son go, and turned to Ness with a look of weariness. "I don't want to look through his memories."

Ness watched after Jeffrey as well. He wanted to believe his son really was fine, but he'd seen the faraway look he'd gotten when Paula had asked about dreams. "You might have to," he said.

- - -

The prototype was complete, the preliminary tests run and deemed a-okay. A volunteer had been procured for a human test, and had been sleeping on the couch at Picky and Ricky's place for some time. Outside, it was well past dark.

Picky checked the volunteer's eyes and saw that he'd entered a state of REM. He smirked at Ricky as he began prepping the Dream Machine. "This is how most comic book villains get created, you know," he whispered.

"Yeah, well, luckily we don't live in the Marvel Universe," Ricky smirked, getting ready to flip the final switch on the helmet strapped to his head. "Frequencies go?"

"Go," Picky confirmed. Ricky closed his eyes, and flipped the switch.

They sat in silence for several seconds.

"Anything?" Picky asked hopefully, watching the frequency needle jump and twitch. If they were lucky, it was picking up on their volunteer's active brain-waves and transmitting them to Ricky.

"Nothing." Ricky shook his head, sounding supremely disappointed. "Goddamn i--wait. Wait, I'm getting something."

"Yeah?" Picky beamed as he looked over his shoulder at Ricky. It was working, it was really working! He turned to look back at the control box, and his smile dropped. The frequency needle was hovering off the charts. "What... Aw, shit. Frequency monitor's on the blink. Let's reboot..." He shut off the power, and the hum of the DM dropped in pitch, then stopped. Picky sighed. Not the end of the world, it was just a glitch. "Okay. Ready for another go?" When there was no answer, Picky raised the volume of his voice just a little. "Ready to go again?"

Still nothing. Picky turned around.

Patrick Orange was slumped over in his chair, as if he'd entered into the deeper stages of the DM's functions. But the machine was off. Picky took him by the shoulder and shook him. "Ricky. Ricky? Ricky!"

That last one was a little loud. The volunteer on the couch stirred a little, snorted, and raised his head. "Did it work?" he asked. When Picky looked at him, horrified, he shrunk back a little. "What?"

"You're awake..." Picky noted, and turned back to Ricky, who was still slumped over, the heft of the DM's helmet weighing his head down. "...but he isn't. Oh my god. RICK!"