ARIA (21 page)

Monday 4 May 2015:

Moraine Lake, eighteen days since ARIA started. Most people have lost up to two years, four weeks of memory.

M
ANUEL
STRUGGLED
THROUGH
TO
CONSCIOUSNESS
. What must have been a new alarm clock hammered away, making him pull the pillow over his head. Throwing an unseeing arm at where his bedside cabinet should’ve been hadn’t silenced the percussion. One eye opened and found a varnished pinewood ceiling. He could smell coffee but the unfamiliar log cabin tugged at his worry bone. It looked like a vacation cabin in the forest but that didn’t figure. He remembered going to bed in his own room: pale-green walls, white ceiling, cobwebs.

Once he could stand it, he admired the brilliant dawn light hitting the carpet. Pine trees with a busy resident woodpecker met his eyes. The alarm clock had feathers.

He scratched an armpit. “So, I’m definitely not in Baltimore.”

After finding and using the bathroom, his nose detected toast along with the coffee. Fearing who he might find, he ventured into the kitchen.

“Oh, you’re up, are you, Manuel?” said a scowling young woman sitting at a rustic table.

Manuel stood searching his shot memory but failed to locate a white-faced girl with long jet-black hair among his acquaintances.

“Before you throw a wobbler, read that.” She pointed at a NoteCom placed at the opposite end of the table.

A milky coffee, just as he liked it, waited for him. He pointed at it, she pointed in return at the NoteCom. He looked up again. Yellow T-shirt and jeans; he looked at his own clothes—black trousers, white shirt, and a NASA tie. Good God, he’d dressed for work.

You are Manual Gomez, employed by NASA as their Education Officer for flight missions with responsibility to liaise with the media.

Except you are on leave along with most of the population because you have ARIA. An infectious amnesia throwing out your memories at the rate of 50 days’ worth each day. This probably started for you on 15
th
April 2015. It is now Monday 4
th
May 2015 so you have lost 950 days or two years, seven months, and two days of memory.

You have remarried to Jat Qappik, who also has ARIA and is probably sitting at the table with you. She is diabetic but cut down her Humilin dose (usually neo-Humulin patches)
—
see notes.

See the instructions below to access more information...

“You’re Jat? My wife?”

“I am Jat, but I have no recollection of marrying you. Don’t get any ideas.”

“Hang on. My head is spinning coping with waking up in Canada with a disease instead of my home in Baltimore. Look at us, Jat. I’m mid-fifties, you’re what, eighteen?”

“Twenty—that’s not the big deal.”

“No? Well, what is?”

“Look at you. You obviously don’t look after yourself, you’ve deserted your other wife because of this memory business and—no, don’t interrupt me—how do I know you don’t have any vile STDs?”

Manuel, glad he received the broadside while sitting down, shook his head. “Jat, as far as I know, I have no diseases except one that’s robbed me of what must have been a helluva courtship and a cracking wedding night. Me wife left me for an insurance salesman. And though I grant you I’m hiding a six-pack stomach under a keg, I have more muscles than I used to.” He did a strongman impression. She turned to face the window so he couldn’t see if she was smiling.

“There’s a load of chopped wood out back, so I guess you might have been working out,” Jat said. He saw her reflection fighting a grin.

Manuel looked at the rough calluses on his palms. “Yep, that’s right. Extraordinary, for a desk man.”

Jat examined her own hands, showing Manuel her wedding ring. “It’s all whacky though, isn’t it? I mean, who brought us here, and why?”

“I suppose we brought us here. I have memories of being up here in Moraine Lake as a kid.”

“I’ve virtually no belongings here. A shoulder bag with some clothes and ID. There’s my insulin in the fridge. Enough for a month, I reckon. Then I need to go find some more.”

“You saw the note about not going into town,” he said, looking worried.

“Sure I did. Lawless gangs. In Lake Louise and probably my home city, Vancouver. But where am I going to get my insulin?”

“I don’t know, Jat. I guess we’ll be risking some forays out there to hospitals and city drugstores, but I have a feeling they’ll be trashed pretty soon if not already. I’m surprised more insulin isn’t here.”

“Which tells us it was a spur-of-the-moment decision, yeah?”

“Like our marriage, you mean?”

“Whatever. Maybe it was for my protection—as if I needed it.”

“Or mine. Don’t look surprised. Two are better than one in a crisis, even if one is a girl.” He had to duck to avoid the plate projectile.

They both sat facing each other across the rustic, long table to savour toast and maple syrup along with the strong coffee for breakfast.

“This syrup would’ve been better on pancakes,” she said.

“Guess so. Found any?”

“I haven’t gone through that huge freezer yet.”

“Can you freeze pancakes?”

“Don’t you know anything about cooking? I suppose that’s another reason you chained me to you.”

“Hey. There’s the door, Jat. And I’ll have you know I was the legend of culinary achievement in my place of work.”

“Which was a den in your house?”

“Sometimes.” He joined in the laugher. “But mostly at NASA’s Washington Media Centre.”

They finished their breakfast, alternating between sitting and walking around the cabin. Outside on a trestle lay wood begging to be chopped. Without a second thought, Manuel levered the axe out of an old stump, and after spitting on his hands, making Jat recoil with a screwed-up face, he swung the axe, neatly starting a V incision.

“Well, you clearly have your future mapped out,” she said. “More therapy than the need for firewood already.”

“I’ve no doubt you’re right. It sure feels good to use muscle in the cause of survival. You could always stack up the pieces against the cabin where I’ve started.”

“I could always not.”

“Whatever.” He could tell that he had an uphill struggle with Jat, and yet, there must have been some endearing quality for them to decide to stay together. He went on a course of reverse-psychological motivation still in his memory. Leaning the axe against the door jamb, he followed her back into the kitchen. He sniffed again at his coffee. “This brew, interesting flavour.”

“Spit it out if you don’t like it.” She’d folded her arms so tight he could see her fingers whitening.

“I’d rather not, thank you. It’s just that it’s rare to find someone who can burn coffee.” He sat, ready to duck again, but she just stood with her back to the window, arms still folded, giving him the evil-eye. After a few seconds he winked at her. She turned to the window again.

“I’m going to leave and get to my folks in Vancouver,” she said, maintaining her stare out of the window, watching a red-headed woodpecker annoy beetles.

Manuel drummed fingers on the pine table. He wondered why she voiced her desire to go home right now. He was sure after the warnings on the NoteCom, she wouldn’t want to risk travelling.

“Jat, maybe we can buy some insulin on the web. DHL could fly it in.”

“My God, I’ve married a comedian. It’s not just about insulin. I can probably live a while without it if I’m careful. But Vancouver’s my home. I want to know what’s happening.”

“I’m not sure it helps to know too much at the moment,” Manuel said, but regretted letting his pessimism out to play.

“Yeah, cheers. You have no family, do you, Gomez?”

“Only one around here, Mrs Gomez.” They gave each other wry smiles. “And a bunch more in Spain.”

“I’m pretty sure you’re not going to like me when I go stir-crazy in this wooden box.” She slammed down the jar of instant coffee she’d just picked up.

“Yeah, well. Shall we go for a stroll and take in our estate?”

“Are we tooled up?”

“I hadn’t thought about it. Who are you expecting to attack us?”

“I dunno. Maybe I have an ex out there objecting to me having a geriatric for a husband.”

“More likely one of my friends trying to protect me from a gold-digging floozy.”

“Touché, but have we a sub-machine gun?”

“I’ve no idea. It would be a good idea.”

“I was thinking in order to get my insulin by force if I have to.”

“Would you kill someone in order to get some, even if you’ve none left?”

Jat let out an exasperated sigh. “I should have two doses of insulin a day now. If it looks like I’m about to kiss you, Manuel, it’s to let you close enough to smell my breath. If you smell pear-drops, and I’m irritable—all right,
more
irritable than usual—and if I’m eating all your stores, drinking all the water, peeing all the time while being out of breath, then I’m probably—”

“About to go into a coma and within a few days I’ll need to find the shovel. Point taken. But I might have a plan.”

“So have I. Get home.”

Manuel had a turn at exhaling a long sigh. “Why do you think there is no answer when you ring your home in Vancouver or the mobile phones of your folks and friends there? You’ve had the breakfast TV on. No news since I’ve been in here, just repeats, probably on a loop.”

“Not much to go on, is it? Repeats on TV and phones going wrong is hardly news these days.”

“And what are these days, ’cos we don’t remember them, do we? And that is news, Jat. Too many coincidences. Let’s call the police in Vancouver. Hell, anywhere. Call 9-1-1.”

Though reluctant to prove him right, Jat tapped 9-1-1. “Nothing. Not even the usual hold message. All the more reason to find out what’s happened.” She wiped a tear.

Manual gave her a teacloth. “Normally, I’d agree, but what’s the most probable outcome? We’re told we have a vehicle down the lane. We’d need to drive three hundred miles, which means finding a gas station to get all the way there and to get back—all right, don’t look at me as if that’s not an option. Maybe we’d run into trouble on the way, let alone when we reach the outskirts and centre of Vancouver. A city full of bewildered and hungry people. I’m painting an ugly picture, I know, and I’m sorry, but that’s how I see it.”

“All the more reason to find my folks and get them out of there.”

He stood and wandered to the window. The woodpecker had rested its beak, but a spring shower threw raindrops against the glass so percussion prevailed.

“I understand that, Jat. Suppose we find them. How many are we talking? Half dozen? More? We’d need more vehicles and maybe get followed back here. My bet is that we wouldn’t find them. They might’ve found their own refuge in the valleys, lost their phones or couldn’t keep recharging them. They’d be upset at the thought of you being in danger looking for them when they’re safe.”

“Or dead.”

“We can’t keep on like this. How about e-mail? They might’ve left you a message.”

“Now you’re talking. Hey, Manuel, do you think we’ll have this debate tomorrow?”

“We probably had it yesterday.” He switched on the computer, after reading the instructions on powering up the satellite receiver and checking the battery, whose solar recharging had just taken a dive with the rainy weather. “I knew a Brit, Ryder, he might have information for us.”

They heard a thud at the back door, which sent both into crouch mode to hide beneath window height. Jat, on her way from the kitchen, grabbed a steak knife while Manuel shuffled around to his bedroom to collect a baseball bat he’d noticed under the bed.

“Maybe it was just the wind throwing some firewood at us,” whispered Manuel. “Either way, we’ll nip out the front door. You get behind a big tree while I sneak around the back.”

“No fucking way. Stop treating me like a little girl. You’re so patronising. I’ve probably been in more scrapes than you have.”

“All right, stop going on about me trying to protect my wife. We’ll do a pincer movement, if that’s okay with you.”

She set off before he finished locking the door. He’d already checked the bolt on the back door. Damn the woman. He could hear her running round, just so she could get another score on him, as if all of this was just a game. He had more trouble: holly grew right up to the side of the cabin forcing a time-consuming detour. His right foot disappeared mid-calf in a cold, muddy, leaf-hidden puddle, making him bite his lip to stop swearing out loud. He heard a cry, accelerating his movement.

He rounded the last corner to find Jat on her knees with her back to him. Still a gentle rain falling, she must have wet knees, at the least. Maybe a hole in her chest. Manuel stayed crouched and looked around while moving in on Jat.

“Isn’t he gorgeous?” she said, turning to show him the scraggiest mongrel he’d ever seen.

“Is that our intruder?”

“Say hello to Disco. Don’t you think that’s appropriate for a discovery?”

“I don’t think you should be so close to it. Probably got rabies; looks ill, and judging by its mangy coat, it’s a wolf-cross.”

“He’s just starving and cold. Come on, Disco.”

“You’re not bringing him in the cabin.”

“Disco is wet too. Anyway, he might be our lost mutt. Poor thing having owners who forget about him every day.”

“There’s no mention of a dog in the NoteCom.”

“There isn’t time to read everything. Better make a highlighted note about Disco so we know for sure tomorrow.”

Manuel followed them into the kitchen where Jat wrapped a towel around the animal. He said, “I suppose he could be a guard dog.”

“There, Disco, Manuel is a nice man. Forget what I told you earlier.”

“Nevertheless, I don’t want him in the cabin. Once you’ve dried him and, no doubt, given him a better breakfast than I had, he can stay on the sheltered porch out front. I’m going to have a look around, try and familiarise. Find the vehicle. Check how much fuel it has. Hey, are you listening?”