ARIA (9 page)

“I know, Doc. Everything we see gets into our brain box, but we’re too dumb to recall it all.”

“Not too dumb, Gomez. Just suppose you could have instant recall of everything you’ve seen and heard.”

“It would do my head in. I get you. The brain filters out the inconsequential. It’s like the difference between data and information. Most people treat them the same, but I remember our lecturer writing 36-24-36 on the board. A woman shrieked sexist accusations at him until he said it was a car registration. Then she got the point. Information is meaningful data.”

“I like that one, Gomez, I’ll write it down. We should concentrate on what’s really important.”

“But how is that related to this ARIA thing? Everything is going, isn’t it?”

“Apparently, but since not everything is important, maybe by relearning essentials we can at least cope. Maybe even be better for it.”

Manuel shook his head. “Nuts. Like I said, you can’t jot down everything you need to do your job when it took years at uni then more in training. This damn ARIA is stealing our memories at the rate of maybe a year per week. It’s like having a breakdown. Imagine a father whose child is lost, thinking, oh I must scribble down the combination to my office door or which colour button not to press to flood Sacramento Valley.”

The doctor opened his hands. “Damn it, Gomez, you’re right. I’m better off sticking to skin and bones. It’ll be all I’m good for in a month or two. Hey, if you’re right about the speed of this thing, I’ll just know the medical ways of the 1950s.”

“I’ll only remember how to break into the women’s dorms at CalTech by then.”

The doctor smiled back—tired, resigned. “Gomez, it’s a real bummer. Take care.”

W
HEN
M
ANUEL
LEFT
THE
DOCTOR
, he found the sidewalk was no different. Rectangular slabs glistened from an impetuous rain shower throwing back fractured reflections of the five-storey cream and grey blocks that characterised this off-central Baltimore. He had no idea where he’d left his car yesterday or the day before. But the dregs of his memory from the last few years allowed him to recognise the Baltimore-Washington Parkway Route 295 signs. He could have taken a taxi; if he could find one, stop one, and the driver remembered the way. Same for buses and trains. Best if he rented another car. Maybe he already had.

Bugger his meeting with Michael Evans, the arrogant sod. But he liked Ryder and would try to remember to call him. Funny. He could remember things he’d looked up during the day even if he lost it by the next.

In the meantime, he had a hankering to go home. Granada. Family and old school friends. A glow of nostalgia and security conjured themselves up when he thought of old comrades and cousins.

He rushed as fast as an overweight pedestrian could to his Baltimore apartment, had another scout around for his car, failed, and poured himself a Scotch.

An hour later, after lunch in his apartment, for which he thanked his stars he’d lived there for years so still remembered it, Manuel called his friend, Ryder.

“Hello, Manuel. It’s good to see you. You look done in. How are you coping with the memory loss?”

“I’m learning, Ryder. Weird shit, eh?”

“Yeah. Look, Manny, last time we saw you, you were at a shambles of a VIP reception at Goddard.”

“Really? I was there? I thought I’d missed it. Hey, maybe that’s where my car is parked. I must have had a lift back home.” He rubbed his forehead as if stimulation of the frontal lobes restored lost memories.

“You certain you’re okay, Manny?”

Manuel rubbed the back of his neck while straining upwards to see outside at the heavy clouds dribbling. “Ryder, I believe I’m a wheel short of a bicycle. I’m real scared.”

“Hell, Manny. I’m not surprised. What are the doctors over there calling it?”

“A fucking nuisance. But apparently the ones who remember politeness are calling it ARIA.”

“As in singing for your lost memory?”

“Yeah, or as in—just a minute, I jotted in my NoteCom—Alien Retrograde Infectious Amnesia. Will that do you?”

“A melodic euphemism for something so dreadful, but I suppose it helps to have a handle. Have you got somewhere in the country to go?”

“That’s what my doc said. What’s so good about the frigging country?”

“I’m afraid you are likely to witness a severe breakdown in services, followed by—”

“Okay, I get the picture. I was going to Spain where a lot of my folks live. Granada. Great, I can still remember.”

“That’s fine, Manny, but aren’t you afraid of infecting your family?”

Silence. Then, “Bugger.”

R
YDER
’
S
FACE
TWISTED
WITH
THE
GUILT
of gifting Manuel with the concept of communicating ARIA to his relatives. Teresa came in and caught his contorted expression.

“What have you done?”

“Upset Manuel. Teresa, you know these things. How many people travel in and out of the USA every day?”

“I know as well as you how to know these things, lazy lump.” She tapped on her communicator for a few seconds. “A hundred thousand, give or take an airplane.”

“Oh my God. This ARIA broke out on 15 April and it’s the 21st today. So that’s...”

“Ryder, only a few would have it now. It’s an exponential growth, but no one leaving the US likely had it on the first day or two.”

“You are forgetting, Teresa dear, that it started at an air base so infected travellers might well have left the first day. Then every time one infected person arrives at an airplane, everyone on board gets it. What am I talking about? Everybody in the airport gets it. And on the bus or taxi there. Subsequent bus and taxi journeys.”

Teresa dropped her communicator on the desk and collapsed onto the swivel office chair. The action sent it back a few inches until it collided with a table. She tossed her blond hair back and with a maniacal laugh said, “That’s it then. Why were we trying to get our bosses to persuade the government to stop people leaving America when it was already too late after day one?”

“Well, it would have slowed the diffusion a little. Giving the rest of the world time to have a plan.”

“Yeah right. The plan of action is?”

“Hey, come on, Teresa. Anyone would think it’s all my fault the way you’re getting at me. Maybe I can get in touch with Karen again.”

Teresa dipped a celery stick in a hummus pot, brought it to her mouth, but hesitated. “So, your plan is while an alien virus is creeping towards us, let’s video conference as many people as possible, especially those in America, where the situation is much worse, then fall about like zombies when we catch it.”

“Putting it like that, we need to do something more positive,” said Ryder, grabbing a celery stick.

“Try running like bloody hell.”

“At last we agree. But where to?”

Tuesday 21 April 2015:

Chester Zoo, UK, five days after amnesia started spreading; many people in the USA have lost thirty-seven weeks of their memory, but local people in Chester, UK are uninfected, so far.

L
ESTER
G
ODWIN
PUSHED
THE
SECURITY
BUTTONS
gleaming at him from the staff entrance of Chester Zoo. Sandstone blocks formed the gate, their rosy hue harbouring tiny red mites and ants in gravity-defying scurrying. They darted around shiny, green-leaved stonecrop plants with their shocking-pink flowers. A miniature zoo for those who couldn’t afford the entrance fee of the real one. He once led a puzzled school biology class out of the zoo and made the students count the species of fauna in this old wall. Although the kids were gob-smacked at the micro ecosystem, they still preferred to see elephants.

Laughter lines evidenced Lester’s reputation as the zoo’s chief prankster. He attributed his madcap humour to playing with chimpanzees all day. Five chimps knew Lester as their main human contact, but his glow that morning had nothing to do with monkeying around. Not in the zoo sense.

The previous night, a gorgeous black-haired woman had appeared on his doorstep.

She’d hauled luggage after her. “Well, let me in.”

“Katherina, how’s your sister in Bakersfield? Oh right, come in why don’t you?”

“Look, I’m tired. You could’ve met me at the airport. I’m famished.”

“How about your favourite, Chicken Tiropita in white wine?”

“Hey, Lester, you’re improving.”

“Right, I’ll get it out of the freezer. Shall I put these bags in the lounge for now?”

“Whatever, I’m too knackered to unpack and I suppose you want me knickerless while the dinner cooks. Give me ten.”

Lester froze while halfway to the freezer. He wondered if his ears had malfunctioned. He’d not encountered Kat in such a good mood for all their married years. He threw the frozen dinner in the oven, scattered cutlery on the table, took a second longer to light candles, had a quick wash, and galloped up the stairs.

A pass of his hand over a sensor softened the wall colours of the bedroom from neutral ivory to erotic sunset pink. He wished he’d changed the sheets, but at least they were dry.

He heard the shower, and while wrenching off his clothes, he couldn’t resist admiring Kat through the frosted-glass. Any reservations he might have had dissolved with the sight of peachy curves, shimmering to the delicate off-key singing. Remembering just in time, he sprayed his hairy bits with a bay rum deodorant, rushed round the bedroom to hide any incriminating letdowns, and dived into bed. He glanced under the sheet at himself. He worked hard at the zoo playing with chimps and so had no flab to speak of. He threw off the sheet.

Kat came in wearing a small blue towel.

“Where’s my dressing gown and Black Night perfume spray? Have you been tidying, lover?”

“That’s right, sugar, don’t bother drying, come here.”

His eyes followed the soft edge of the towel falling as if in one-tenth gravity. The same physics, or the beer he’d been drinking, appeared to make her breasts more fulsome yet buoyant and her waist slimmer. He’d heard that, at forty, women either go to pieces or just get going. They shared the same birthday week, and he hoped premature excitement didn’t spoil the occasion. Liquid gold from a new bedroom plasma light reflected off her glistening curves.

“My God, Kat, I’d forgotten how lovely you are.”

“Yeah, right. Just make sure you last.”

Slower now, they relaxed into their favourite sixty-nine with mutual moaning. Minutes passed in controlled gratification until Lester’s tongue became too fatigued to continue.

He used it to utter, “On your back, sugar, you must be tired.”

“Sod off. I may be tired and my head keeps buzzing, but I know what I like. You lie on your back. That’s a good boy.”

Bouncing breasts brushed his face as his hands groped moist, round buttocks. Bliss.

The bed helped. Not a waterbed but it had sensuous characteristics. Clever sensors made the necessary predicted adjustments. All the undulating and counterpoint enhanced lovemaking. All the slurping and gurgling came from them, along with gasps, sighs, and escaped squeals.

He drew up his knees to affect bounce assist, working through mental gymnastics to both relish the experience, yet think of a game of cricket to prolong it. The cricket lost, but in their own chorus of gasps, they both climaxed together.

A
N
IRRITATING
BELL
DREW
HIM
BACK
FROM
SLEEP
. He could have ignored it but then the smoke alarm would have kicked in.

“I’d better finish preparing the dinner. You look more gorgeous than when we were married, Kat.”

“What are you on about?” Her eyes remained closed.

“I like the new flamenco dancer look.”

“No, I mean you said when we
were
married.”

“Well?”

“Lester, I’m tired and just done a turn. My head’s been playing up for days even before jet-lagging. Stop pissing about and tell me what you mean.”

“You do remember we got a fast-track divorce last week?”

“What? I know I was going to get rid of you. I lost my airline tickets, all sorts of stuff and so have other people over there. Chaos. Just a minute—you just had me!”

“We’re both free agents, love. Maybe you should move back in while you get better.”

L
ESTER
PASSED
THROUGH
THE
SECURITY
SCREEN
at the zoo’s staff entrance. It hurt his head but then it often did. He stifled another snigger as he recalled rogering his divorced wife the previous night. She even made him breakfast. Maybe he should be more bothered, but he had to monkey around.

The staff canteen was louder than usual. Working with the world’s more exotic creatures compelled humans to be more garrulous when together: compensating for the lack of human contact during the day. As with pet owners, the keepers tended to acquire certain characteristics of the animals for which they were responsible. A small price for mutual dedication.