-ooo-
Recoil
Part 1-4: Revelations
I was back in the ruins of New Delhi. I crouched beside Lisa, where she lay trapped under the massive, squared-off rock.
"Hey," she said cheerfully. "Good to see you. Give me a hand shifting this thing? I can't feel my legs any more."
I dug my fingers under the edge of the rock, and heaved. The rock lifted away, and Lisa rolled out from underneath.
"Good one," she said, climbing to her feet. "You finally got back here. I was starting to get bored."
Wait, what? I asked, letting the rock fall to the ground again. Is this real, or is it a dream?
She grinned. "Yes."
I rolled my eyes. Oh, ha ha.
"No, seriously," she said. "Can't it be both?"
I had a dream this morning, I said. You were in it.
"The Behemoth thing?" she asked. "Yeah, I remember that bit. You've got a lot of issues, you do realise this, don't you? Alan Barnes betraying your father's trust, Director Tagg being a dick, that Gladly guy not wanting to say anything to rock the boat. And then there's the unresolved issues you have with Brian." She sighed. "Well, that bit's gonna have to stay unresolved. He never makes it off the oil rig, you know."
Oil rig? I asked. What oil rig?
"Nothing," she said, sounding weary all of a sudden. "It's not something that you need to worry about."
Okay, I said. So what do I have to do? And why does my voice sound funny?
"Because you're actually speaking," she said. "You're mumbling out loud. You might want to keep your voice down a bit so Greg and Nina don't hear anything incriminating."
You know about … them? I asked, remembering at the last moment to not speak the names out loud. Greg and Nina might wonder why I was talking about them.
"Well, duh," she said fondly. "I'm your subconscious. I know everything that you do, remember?" She paused. "Now, let's stop wasting time. You know the date."
October twentieth, nineteen eighty-nine, I agreed.
"Excellent," she said. "Now, what's the next significant date?"
Behemoth, I thought. I guess … him, I said. The big guy. The first one.
"Yup," she said. "Three years' time. December thirteenth, ninety-two. And then, on January eighteenth of ninety-three …"
Ah, I said. I get it. And I did. I saw her plan. I know what I've got to do.
"Exactly," she said. "But you're going to have to study like hell. Without your powers, you're going to have to do this the hard way."
That was something I had been wondering about. Did you know? I asked. That I was going to lose them?
She smiled and caressed my cheek. "Silly Taylor," she said cheerfully. "I told you; I know everything." She hopped down off of the block, gestured for me to follow. I did. She took my hand, and we strolled up and over what would have been a gentle rise, had it not been made up of blasted, scorched rock.
Beyond was a structure, or at least the skeleton of one, where no such thing had existed in real life.
What's that? I asked.
"The beginnings of your memory palace," she told me. "It's going to hold all the stuff I told you, all the other stuff you knew without knowing you knew. All arranged and collated, ready for access. Ready for when you want to start making your plans."
Christ, I said. I didn't even know I could do something like this.
You're not," she told me with a grin. "I am. Now, your time's almost up. Tape's about to run out."
Wait, I said. How do I know this isn't just another dream?
She grinned, and whispered something in my ear. I blinked. Really?
She nodded. "Yes, really. Now, we really are out of time. Kiss before you go?"
I pointed my finger at her. No tongue, I said sternly.
We laughed; I kissed her. Her lips tasted, as always, of dust and blood.
-ooo-
I blinked my way awake.
"Whoa," I said out loud. "That was weird."
She had seemed so real. Not dreamlike at all. So real, so very like the Lisa I had known, that tears prickled my eyes.
There was a knock on the door, startling me. Greg and Nina.
Scrambling up off the chair, I went to the door and unlocked it. Nina stood there, hand raised to knock a second time. Greg stood behind her.
"Taylor," said Nina. "Did it work?"
"Uh, sure," I said. "I feel really rested and relaxed. That tape was awesome."
She rolled her eyes. "No, I meant did you manage to remember anything?" she asked.
"Actually, yes," I said, recalling what Lisa had whispered to me. "I remembered being told about Brockton Bay. How the bay was discovered by Captain Jeremiah Lord, and it was originally called Lord's Bay. Captain's Hill was named after him too. But when the township of Brockton was established by Isaac Brock, he took it on himself to rename the bay. Eventually, enough people referred to the settlement with the name of the bay that it stuck."
Nina frowned. "This isn't anything you can't learn from a history book."
I held up a finger. "However. Captain Lord returned years later, and was so angry about Brock renaming 'his' bay that he challenged the man to a duel. To placate him, Isaac Brock had the longest street in the township, and the port itself, named after Lord. The duel didn't go through, but apparently Lord and Brock never saw eye to eye after that."
Greg blinked. "Christ," he said. "I didn't know about that."
"That's because you moved here from New York," Nina told him. "That sort of thing only gets taught in the schools in and around the Bay.". She frowned. "And the bit about the duel ... I always thought that was embellishment."
I shrugged. I hadn't known about the duel either. But it sounded right. And then something else popped into my head. "The Brockton Bay Historical Society has a presentation on it," I added. "If anyone knows about the truth behind it, they would."
Greg raised a finger. "One second," he said, and picked up his phone and checking the directory. It only took a couple of minutes, then he put it down again. "She's right," he said. "There nearly was a duel, but the families of both men had it hushed up."
"Well, that settles it," said Nina. "You're from around here. What you said yesterday, about the city being almost familiar to you, you were right. You've lived here, at least a little while."
"Awesome," I said. "That tape ... would I be able to ..."
"Get a copy?" asked Nina. "Sure. And we'll pick you up a Walkman, too, and some headphones.". She glanced at me. "You'll be sure to tell me if you remember anything concrete?"
I nodded. "Sure," I said. "You'll be the first to know."
On the outside, I smiled. On the inside, I felt bad; Nina would never get the answer, the key to the puzzle called Taylor Snow.
But this was the way it had to be. I didn't know how a confirmed time traveller, with definitive news of the future, would be treated in the here-and-now that I was currently resident in, but in Brockton Bay, in America, of twenty-two years hence, the answer could be summed up quite succinctly: 'not well'.
Even presuming that a villain such as Coil did not get his hands on this hypothetical future time traveller, he could not be guaranteed a fair deal from the government, the PRT, or whoever else got final custody. I recalled how Dinah, an innocent in Coil's dealings, had been virtually threatened by Director Tagg for not giving him exactly what he wanted.
Brockton Bay of nineteen eighty-nine might be a kinder, gentler place in a kinder, gentler time, but I didn't trust it. Not when it came to my life, my freedom and my anonymity. And even if Nina promised not to tell, intended never to tell, things might yet get out. No, it was better to maintain my cover.
"Taylor, are you okay?" asked Nina. "You zoned out for a minute, there."
I mustered a smile for her. "Sure," I said. "Just thinking. Trying to see if there was any more to that memory. I think it might have been my grandpa who told me about the duel."
"Hey," said Greg. "That's great. So your family's been in Brockton Bay awhile then."
"Unless it's my grandparents that live in the city, and my parents visit from out of town," I pointed out.
"Hey!" said Nina. "No speculation. That's how false memories are created. Stick with what you know."
I nodded. "Yes, ma'am," I said meekly. I decided to build on the parents-from-out-of-town hypothesis, though; it seemed to fit the bill for my needs.
"Well, thanks for your help, Greg," she said, as money changed hands for the tape. "I appreciate it."
He kissed her again; once more on the lips, I noted. "Anytime," he said with a smile.
I grinned at her as we left the storefront. "So, you and him, huh?" I asked.
She sniffed disdainfully. "I have no idea what you are talking about," she said loftily.
"Uh huh," I replied. "I'm amnesiac, not blind."
She met my gaze, and then we both grinned. We understood each other.
-ooo-
"So where to now?" I asked, once we were back in her car.
"Well, I have an actual paying customer this afternoon," Nina told me, "so I'm going to have to drop you off somewhere. The library, perhaps? I can leave you bus fare and directions on how to get to the Heberts' residence."
"How about the port?" I asked on a sudden impulse. "Maybe seeing it in operation will jog a memory or two."
"Or maybe you'll get to see Danny again," Nina pointed out.
"I have no idea what you're talking about," I professed, in my best imitation of her lofty tone from earlier. We both laughed. "But seriously," I said, "I'm wearing new clothes that actually look good on me, and I'd really like the chance to walk in sunlight and breathe some sea air, without having to hang on to a rail."
"Don't forget your coat," she reminded me. "It might be relatively warm out, but it is October, and we did have that storm a couple days ago."
"Yes, Mom," I agreed with a grin. She wrinkled her nose at me. I laughed, took the coat from the bags, and got out of the car.
-ooo-
George Hebert worked on the docks until the day of his retirement; getting his Master's licence merely meant that he did a little less physical labour than before. However, he believed in his son getting out there and working for a wage, and so Danny went with him, even though all the manual labour in the world wouldn't give Danny a physique like his father's.
Dorothy worked in the Port Authority building as a secretary, which was how they had met, all those years ago. Back then, she had been a lowly member of the typing pool; now, she was well up in the hierarchy, and more people took orders from her than gave them to her.
I walked for a while, enjoying the early afternoon sun, then my footsteps turned toward the Port Authority building. Upon enquiring for Mrs Dorothy Hebert, I was escorted into her presence, to find her frowning at a large and blocky computer that was currently crouching on her desk.
"Hello, Taylor," she said with a distracted smile, then turned back to regard the intruding device somewhat balefully.
"Hi, Dot," I replied, taking my coat off. I was wearing a tee that covered my belly; I didn't want to embarrass Dot in front of everyone. "What's the problem?"
"The problem," she said, in terms of genteel severity, "is that head office has bequeathed this thing upon us, into which we are supposed to enter data, where it will store it by some alchemical magic. Unfortunately, the rules by which it is supposed to operate have been only supplied in the most rudimentary and sketchy format. Apparently, an expert was supposed to be supplied in order to explain the rules to us. He has yet to make an appearance."
"Oh, okay," I said, approaching the device. Adjusting my glasses, I peered at the front of it. "A Hewlett-Packard nine thousand, huh?"
She looked around at me with mounting hope. "You can use these things?"
"I might be able to," I allowed, examining it closely. Finding the power switch, I pressed it on. The screen lit up with the startup sequence. This looked vaguely familiar.
Once upon a time, twenty years or so in the future, Mrs Knott had given us a relatively easy lesson, loading emulators from various old computer types into our desktop terminals. One had been of the older HP models, and I was fairly certain that this was one of the types that it had touched on. I had spent most of the period playing with it. It had been fun.
The trouble was, I didn't remember exactly how it went.
The phrase memory palace surfaced in my memory and bobbed there.
I took out my Walkman and headphones, and looked at Dot. "I think I can figure it out," I offered. "Is it okay if I listen to music while I do it?"
"Feel free to ride a unicycle and juggle chainsaws while you do it," she said expansively. "If you can decipher its mysteries, I shall be greatly pleased."
"Okay," I said. "Just please … don't let anyone else in the room for the moment, okay?"
She nodded firmly. "I can do that."
I grinned at her and pulled a chair over in front of the computer. Loading the tape into the Walkman, I fitted the headphones on and pressed PLAY. Closing my eyes, I let the music wash over me ...
-ooo-
"Oh, hey," said Lisa. She was leaning back on a patio chair, with her feet up on a table, one leg crossed over the other. She had an electronic tablet in her hands. "That was fast."
I tried to articulate as quietly as possible. I need what you've got on the HP-9000. Fairly certain I played with an emulator at some point.
"Ah," she said. "That would be ... life memories ... school days ... computer studies ..."
As she spoke, her fingers danced over the screen of the tablet.
"Ah-ha!" she said triumphantly, and handed the tablet over to me.
I found myself looking at a detailed emulator of the model in question. Labels marked out what keys entered what commands, and a sidebar informed me of the entire user startup list of commands.
I went through it a few times, looked it over until I was fairly certain I could handle it, then passed the tablet back. Thanks, I said.
She took the tablet from me, and grinned. "Just come visit occasionally, okay? I get lonely."
Deal, I agreed.
She waved at a point behind me. "What do you think?"
I turned, and gaped.
Before, it had been skeletal. Now, most of the spaces were filled in. It was enormous. It was magnificent. We sat on a patio in front of it. With my back to them, I had not noticed the fountains spilling crystalline droplets into the sky, where they fell back with enchanting slowness.
Why is it so big? I asked, barely moving my lips.
"Lots of memories," she explained. "A room for each one."
Wow, I said. Definitely coming back.
As I stood, so did she. We hugged. I kissed her. It was becoming a ritual. Despite her relaxed, bathed appearance, despite the luxury of our surroundings, her lips still tasted of dust and blood.
Some things, it seemed, never changed.
It was a stark reminder of what had happened. What could still happen again.
-ooo-
I clicked off the Walkman and blinked. The computer was up and running, all systems nominal. It had been all set up while I was out.
Pulling the headphones off, I looked around, wondering who had worked around me while I had been zoned out. No-one was near me; however, half a dozen people, including several other members of the secretarial staff and an older man who was possibly Dot's boss, were peering through the doorway, staring at me. Dot was making sure they didn't enter, as I had asked.
So who had done the work?
It must have been me, while I was under, I realised. It unsettled me just a bit, in much the same way as it used to unsettle me when my 'passenger' would have my bugs do stuff while I was distracted, asleep or even unconscious. I didn't know that I could do that.
"Well, it's ready to roll," I said, trying to inject cheer into my voice.
The man I assumed to be Dorothy's boss took a step forward; she let him past. "Can you, uh, do that with any of those things?" he asked. I looked at his name tag; it read WALTON.
"Sure, I guess," I said. "I'm no expert, but ..."
There was a general chuckle from the other people at the door; apparently they thought I was either joking or being modest. Mr Walton took another step forward. "Miss, uh ..."
"Snow," I supplied. "Taylor Snow. I'm staying with Dot, uh, Mrs Hebert, at the moment."
He smiled and nodded, as if that constituted an ironclad reference. "Well, Miss Snow, you seem to have a better grasp of the mechanics of that device than any of the rest of us old dinosaurs." He paused. "Are you ... currently ... employed?"
I had to chuckle. "Mr Walton, sir, I'm only –" Sixteen? No, go for broke. Say seventeen. Dad always said I was smart enough to skip a grade, anyway. If I hadn't been bullied ... " – seventeen. Still in school."
He nodded understandingly. "We can work around that. How would you like a job?"
-ooo-
My job title was 'part-time secretarial assistant', nominally attached to Dot.
In reality, I was the computer guru. I would be the one tasked with getting the computers up and running, showing people how to use them, coaxing them back into operation when things went wrong, and in general, making the system work. I could work as many hours as I wished, afternoons and weekends, and Dot would square it with Mr Walton.
I was fully aware that I would not be getting paid nearly as much per hour as an adult computer tech would have been – but I was still a minor. And it was still a very decent paycheck.
I had to refer to the memory palace several times more that afternoon; after the second time, no-one seemed to consider it strange when I ushered them from the room, put my headphones on, started the tape, and went into a semi-trance for a few moments. They were just glad I was getting the damn things up and running.
While I consulted with the emulator, I chatted with Lisa, who seemed to be able to work on her own tablet – she had an endless supply – without ever looking at what she was actually doing. Though I wasn't quite sure what she was working on.
And not once did I bring up the one question that I felt could bring it all crashing down.
Is it really you, Lisa? Or is it just an extremely detailed hallucination?
I truly wanted it to be one, but I feared that it was the other.
I decided that if I never questioned it, I would never have to find out the real answer.
For the moment, that was good enough for me.
-ooo-
I was waiting outside with Dot when Nina pulled up in her sedan. She got out and approached us. "Hello, Taylor," she said. "How was your afternoon?"
"Extremely productive," put in Dot, before I could speak. "Your little castaway here is apparently a computer genius."
I blushed, and Nina raised her eyebrows. "Computer genius?" she asked.
Dot nodded, and then proceeded to regale Nina with a very slightly embellished account of my exploits. Nina's eyes widened when she found that I had been gainfully employed by the Brockton Bay Port Authority, to run its computer systems.
"So how did you know what to do?" she asked me.
I shrugged. "Just did, I guess."
Nina made a dissatisfied noise. "Doesn't really help. But your upbringing must have been fairly esoteric if you know how to use those machines; they've only been around for a few years."
I nodded in agreement. "So is it a clue, or not?"
Nina chuckled wryly. "I'll let you know."
-ooo-
The next to arrive were Danny and George. They started work much earlier than Dot, so they drove in, while Dot caught the bus. But they finished at roughly the same time, so all three would go home in the old Ford truck.
George stumped up to us, kissed his wife on the cheek, and growled, "What's she doing here, bothering you for?"
'She' being me, of course. Stung, I opened my mouth to reply, but then I caught a very slight head-shake from Danny, standing just a little behind his father. I decoded it with no problem. Let Mom handle this.It was good advice. I shut my mouth again.
"Well, dear," said Dot with a smile, "Taylor here just went from being a houseguest to being a paying houseguest."
George's head turned sharply at that; Danny stared at me, impressed.
"Just until I can get my own place," I ventured.
"Pish tosh," retorted Dorothy, waving a hand dismissively.
I blinked; did people actually say that?
"A seventeen year old girl," continued Dot, "should not be living on her own in this city, not when there are good Christian folk who can put her up, give her shelter. Don't you agree, George?'
George frowned, outmanoeuvred. "So what's this job?" he growled.
Dot explained about the computers and how no-one else could make head nor tail of them. "She'll be showing us how, keeping them running," she concluded. "Mr Walton was very impressed."
George snorted dismissively. "Computers. Huh.". He paused, and turned to me. "Well, young lady, if you can keep yourself out of trouble, and if you can pay your own way, then you might as well stay on."
He turned and stumped toward the truck before I could answer. I blinked. That was possibly the most positive thing he had said to me yet.
"Computers," I heard him mutter. "Can't see the use in them."
Dorothy and I shared a conspiratorial smile. He might grumble, but so long as I behaved myself and paid my way, he could not object to my presence in his home.
I wondered how long the job would last; surely the missing expert would turn up eventually. But then, Mr Walton might just let them know that the man was no longer required; after all, he was paying me minimal rates for doing the same thing.
I decided not to worry about it. I wanted to explore this 'memory palace' concept some more. I was starting to get the idea that Lisa, with her expanded powers, had done something to my head, back there in the ruins of New Delhi. I didn't know what or how, and I was apprehensive about asking, lest it break the spell, but it was starting to look very useful for the task at hand.
-ooo-
"Computer genius, huh?" asked Nina, as we followed the Heberts home.
I shrugged. "I dunno. It looked familiar to me, so I decided to try the tape on a hunch. I obviously learned how, somewhere, because when I opened my eyes again, I knew how."
"But you don't recall the lessons, who taught you, where you were, anything like that?" pressed Nina.
I shook my head. "Just basically sitting in front of one, typing. Using UNIX. I'm not a computer genius, but I get the impression I know a little bit about them."
"More than I do," she agreed. "I'm fairly sure what you just said wasn't the plural for 'eunuch', but apart from that, no idea."
"It's an, uh, operating system," I clarified. "There's several. The computers at Dot's work run on one called UNIX." I spelled it.
"I'm fairly sure they're not teaching that sort of thing in schools these days," Nina observed. "Maybe we're looking in the wrong places. Maybe you're one of those people who skipped straight into college-level courses."
"I'd be fairly prominent then, if I was," I objected. "My face would be out there. You would have found out who I was, fairly easily."
"Oh," she said. "Yeah. Damn."
I shrugged and smiled. "Sorry. We'll get there."
"Well, at the very least," she said with a return smile, "it's interesting."
-ooo-
"Mom's really impressed with you," said Danny.
We sat on the back steps with the door open, a careful distance between us. Above us, the sky purpled toward twilight.
"I think she's really great too," I said. "You're very lucky."
"Yeah, well," he said. "She was talking about how you were setting up the computers." He turned his head to look at me. "How do you know so much about computers?"
I shrugged. "Learned somewhere, I guess. Can't remember where."
He nodded. "Dad thinks they're just another toy that'll go away, but I'm thinking they're more than that. I mean, I've watched Star Trek. I know they're not that great yet, but maybe sometime in the future ..."
I hid a grin. Sooner than you think. "I think so too," I said earnestly. "Pretty soon, anyone who doesn't know how to use one is going to be on the back foot."
He nodded. We were silent for a few moments.
When he spoke again, I could hear a particular tone in his voice and I sighed internally.
"Taylor," he said carefully, keeping his voice low, "I think I ..."
I cut him off. "Danny," I said quietly, "please stop there."
He stopped speaking, staring at me, hurt in his eyes. It was like I'd just kicked a puppy. I felt terrible.
"Listen to me, Danny," I said just as quietly. "You saved my life. I am grateful. Very grateful. You're my friend, and I think you're a great guy. But ... we're living under your father's roof, and we will abide by his rules. It's that simple."
"We could move out," he offered. "You've got a job, I've got a job. We could find a place -"
"No," I said, as firmly as I could, while keeping my voice down. "Danny. Please. Don't do this. Don't raise your own hopes."
He stared at me, bewildered. "But why?" he asked me.
I took a breath. "I can't tell you. Really, I can't. But there's a very good reason. One day, maybe, I'll tell you. When it doesn't matter any more. But right now ... I can't be with anyone." I looked at him seriously. "Do you understand?"
He shook his head. "No, Taylor, I don't. I really don't." My heart sank. And then he continued. "But if that's the way you want it to be, then that's the way it'll be. If I'm to be your friend, then I'll be your friend, and not push."
I leaned back and looked up as the stars began to come out, overhead. "Thanks, Danny," I said softly. "I really appreciate that."
His hand found mine and squeezed momentarily. I squeezed back.
"Hey," he said. "What are friends for?"
End of Part 1-4