ARIA (8 page)

Monday p.m. 20 April 2015:

NASA Goddard Labs, Maryland.

R
OBERT
K
EEFO
, C
HIEF
A
DMINISTRATOR
OF
NASA, juggled scenarios. A budget meeting scheduled for next week needed more cunning than keeping apart a foxy lady friend and a smart wife. Add to that a lost-contact Mars mission and a bucketful of failed communications from all over the place; he was having the worst goddamn headache. He’d met with and conquered bureaucratic fuck-ups before, but the bungling of this VIP visit to their flagship lab was a nightmare. Keefo’s blood surged, pulsing and pushing against arterial walls. The increased blood pressure forced him to loosen his top shirt button. Damn the incompetents here. Just when he had to focus to manipulate the anti-NASA congress members.

Making his way through the partygoers, he grabbed the elbow of Michael Evans, the director of Goddard, and tugged him to a corner.

“Michael, what the hell’s going on?”

“Don’t worry, Robert, I’ve already drawn up layoff notices for these idiots.”

“Did you include yours?”

“If you insist. But I was in Darmstadt till yesterday. Anyway, I’ve an ace.”

“You might need two.”

“Doug Reeman. As acquisition chairman, he’s the most influential critical bastard in there.”

“And making the most noise—at least I double charged his whiskey,” Robert said.

“Done better than that. You know Isobel from R&I?”

“Do I want to know this?”

“Let’s just say Reeman’s squeaky-clean marriage is a liability for him, especially with his eye for sultry women.”

Robert Keefo knew he had to keep aloof from such activity, so he welcomed the interruption by an official bringing his attention to a communication from the Dryden Lab at Edwards.

Evans pulled at Keefo’s sleeve. “We don’t need this, Robert. We’ve the VIPs to pacify.”

“On the contrary, Mike, I need to get away from those attention-seeking creeps. Engineers want to talk aeronautics and space. Real things—no contest.”

The most senior NASA man wasn’t so sure he’d got it right when at the screen he scrutinised the image of the two men. They looked awful, in particular the older, thin one with J
ACK
B
ALIN
on his badge.

“Mr Keefo, am I glad to talk to you,” Bret said, closing on the camera.

“Mr Keefo is too busy,” Evans said, moving to stand between the screen and Keefo.

“Just a moment, Mike, I’ll choose who I’ll talk to, thank you. Is everything all right, Mr...?”

“Cornfield, Bret Cornfield, sir. No, sir, things are going very weird, aren’t they, Jack?”

“Sure, Bret.”

“Come on, guys,” Keefo said.

“People are losing their memory, sir.”

The chief administrator laughed. “Been having a party, Bret?”

“No, sir, begging your pardon. It’s much more serious. People have been forgetting where they work, where they live, who they’re married to–”

“I’ve had days like that.” Keefo grinned at Mike Evans.

“Sir, there have been power blackouts where engineers forgot procedures, buses ran out of drivers, the local TV isn’t on air and—”

“Bret, I’m sure there’s been a local festival, Mardi Gras, Democrat Convention, or whatever. It’ll be all right, I’m sure.”

“No work is being done here, sir.”

“Now that’s serious. Can you put your director on? Matt Ewloe?”

“Appointed last month, wasn’t he, sir? The only workforce turning up are those who’ve been here at least a year.”

Evans turned the connection off. “We don’t need to listen to cranks. They’ve had too many beers. I’ll see they’re finished.”

“Hold your water, Mike.” Keefo turned the connection back on. “Like I said, I’ll decide who I listen to. I’m gonna be angry as hell if I find you’ve covered up a major event.”

Evans shrugged as if he didn’t know what the problem was.

The screen flickered to reveal Jack’s retreating back and a pore-revealing close-up of Bret tapping at the screen.

“Bret.”

“Ah, you’re still there, sir. It’s that case from the ISS, sir, it must have had something odd inside.”

Evans butted in. “Take no notice, Robert. I’ll sort it.”

“What’s wrong with your man Evans, Mr Keefo?”

“Classic case of denial, Bret. Either that or he’s in league with the aliens or whoever left their case out in space.” Keefo stopped himself. After all, Michael Evans was the head of Goddard and was just attempting to protect NASA from allegations of negligence. Nevertheless, he had to decide if action needed to be taken or whether the problem, like so many others, would blow over.

“Bret, I want you to find the most senior—no, let’s say experienced—personnel in Edwards, who have not been affected by this amnesia problem and get them to communicate to me in an hour. Can you do that?”

“Sure thing, Mr Keefo, if I can. It won’t be easy. I’ll try and keep this link open. Over.”

Evans had a self-satisfied grin. “Just what I’d have done. But what have you in mind?”

“I wish I knew, Michael. But I know what my family is going to do.”

“I expect my wife and kids will be on the same flight to London.”

Robert flipped open his cell phone. “I have a feeling London is not far enough, Mike, not nearly far enough.”

Tuesday 21
April 2015:

Baltimore, five days after amnesia started spreading; many people have lost thirty-seven weeks of their memory.

M
ANUEL
G
OMEZ
SUFFERED
. The bright sunshine helped cheer him. He never tired of blue skies, never longed for those growing cumulus clouds and their cooling showers of New England. It must have been instinct for him to lift his otherwise saddening face to the sunbeams for some childhood memory. He remembered like yesterday, better than yesterday, eating an ice cream while sitting on an iron bench at the Moorish Alhambra Gardens in his home Spanish city of Granada. His sister, Maria, having finished her cornet, pointed behind them and the distraction allowed her a surreptitious lick of his ice cream. Another twenty seconds and the unrelenting sun melted several licks-worth of ice cream, necessitating his mother to rush over with a handkerchief but too late as he had licked the dribbles.

His smile broadened at the recollection but twisted once more as he attempted to recall where his workplace hid today. Had he worked the day before? If so, where? He knew his job as Education Officer for NASA took him all over the States and sometimes abroad. He could picture some establishments, such as Edwards and Goddard, but not where he was supposed to be today. That was it. His diary should tell him. He fumbled his NoteCom out of his inside jacket pocket and switched it on.

Tuesday 21 April 2015

10:20 meeting with Michael Evans at Goddard.

14:00 video link update with Ryder Nape.

So helpful. It even told him he’d missed a VIP reception at Goddard the previous day and a doctor’s appointment. Why did he need to see the doctor? He didn’t feel ill. Maybe the failure to attend explained the reason. The one certainty he knew hammered at him: he could only remember the odd damn thing from recent days. Other things niggled at him: half-forgotten comments from someone like Ryder about just this problem. At least he remembered Ryder, one of few genuine guys in the media business. A good friend.

He struck a deal with himself. He used his electronic calendar to call the doctor and bullied his way into an immediate appointment. Not that difficult when patients forget to turn up. The deal? To keep the NoteCom as a more detailed diary, at least until the doctor gave him a panacea.

A shadow blotted the sun as a cloud threatened Baltimore’s aridity. He stood for a moment outside the doctor’s street door, admiring the brass plate. The door was ajar. Not trusting the lift, Manuel took exercise by walking up three flights of stairs.

M
ANUEL
THOUGHT
HE
’
D
WALKED
INTO
A
MEDICAL
MUSEUM
. The doc was walled in by dark oak panels, walnut desk, and with the sunlight so enfeebled by wooden window slats, he had to walk real slow until his eyes adjusted. A comfort these days.

“So, Mr Gomez, you miss other appointments but expect just to waltz in whenever you like,” said the elderly doctor whose crotchety words argued with the twinkle in his eyes.

“I only missed one appointment for the very reason I am here.”

“Don’t tell me. You’re losing your mind.”

Manuel sat in an ancient red-leather chair. “Is that what it is, Doc?”

“What?”

“You tell me. I assume if I’m losing my mind, you must still have your doctoring one intact.”

The doctor walked around his huge desk and perched on a corner. “Mr Gomez. Let’s start again.”

“Okay, Doc. My memory is going fast. I assume it’s an early onset of Alzheimer’s.”

“I doubt it. You can’t remember what you did yesterday, can you?”

“Nor the last couple of weeks.”

“And your lapses of memory are going backward in time?”

“That’s right, Doc. What is it?”

“Damned if I know. It isn’t Alzheimer’s or any other amnesia symptom I know of, especially with the other feature.” The doctor wiped his nose with the largest tissue Manuel had ever seen.

“Go on, Doc.”

“It’s infectious. My notes tell me you’re the tenth I’ve seen in the last couple of days with the same problem.”

“Hell, it’s good of you to see me, then. Aren’t you worried you might catch whatever the bug is? Shouldn’t you be hightailing it for that remote cabin you rich doctors always have?”

“No point is there? By the time us medics realized it might be communicable, we were already infected. I should have retired this week, Gomez, but my replacement hasn’t turned up. Guess why not?

“I haven’t got anyone to forget everything with, and since I started this business thirty years ago, it’ll be a while before I forget where it is.”

“Is there anything I can do to slow or reverse the memory loss?”

“You could try eating more oily fish for its omega-3. Maybe apocryphal, but some reckon it helps with brain function. And Huperzine-A, if you can find a drugstore with some left. Look, Gomez, you’re already ahead of most folk. God. You turned up here, which means you had something to remind you.”

Manuel showed him his NoteCom calendar. “But what happens when the utility people become whacko and there’s no food in the stores? Maybe your idea of getting to the back of beyond with a well-stocked cabin isn’t such a bad idea. You might be an old wrinkly, Doc, but you have an analytical mind.”

“So what’s left of my mind must have been working on what happened to the rest of it? Sure I have, and consulted colleagues. Never seen infectious amnesia before.”

“You’ve done CT scans and blood tests?”

“Not me.” The doctor waved his hand at his old PC. “Does it look like I have the latest wizardry?”

“I thought I only had to spurt a drop of pee and bleed a little for your nurse to reel off a stack of symptoms.”

“Oh, that’s just to confirm what the patient tells me they’ve got anyway. Alzheimer’s, Huntington’s, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, and a load of other dementia-type stuff are still damned difficult to diagnose without heavy-duty equipment. But I called colleagues who reckon we have something new here. The trouble is, Manuel, we don’t know how this retrograde infectious amnesia is communicable. It might be contagious and infectious. I can’t see it not being viral. We’re keeping notes in case we forget all about it tomorrow. Of course, most of the doctors have the lurgy themselves.”

“That an official name? Lurgy.”

“No, we’re calling it RIA, after Retrograde Infectious Amnesia. I suppose it’s the fault of you NASA guys?”

“Oh, sure,” said Manuel, recalling his NoteCom reminding him about the case today. “So add Alien to the beginning, and we have ARIA.”

“Good one. Making a note, see. I’ll put it on the web while I still know how. A-R-I-A. One of my more intellectual colleagues made a comment that might interest you, Gomez. He is writing down the most crucial chunks of information we need to get by.”

“Whoa, Doc, that’s a really tall one. Once you’ve got your personal ID stuff down like family, phone numbers, address, car and work info, what comes next? You can’t note down everything you’ve learnt.”

“Depends on the job, Gomez. A lot of what we do is instinct tempered with adaptive behaviour. I doubt anyone hungry will wave a sandwich around, not knowing which hole to put it in. We have a huge amount of redundant memory in our brains.”

Manuel rose for a stretch and then sat again. “Yeah, Doc, most of which were locked away before ARIA arrived.”

“But it was all there. Everything your senses pick up in life is recorded. Okay, so only those memory scenes revisited often come to us easily and much of the rest deteriorates as the synapses linking them weaken.”