The Forgetting Curve (Memento Nora) (12 page)

VELVET

Nora, Maia, and Abby were already heading toward the street exit, but I could hear their convo as I half jogged up from behind, breaking my own rule about running.

“If you don’t want to stay with your mom, I’m sure mine will let you sleep over,” Maia said as she put her arm around Nora.

“Or you can stay with me.” Abby moved to flank Nora.

“Thanks, but we need to work out this divorce thing.” Nora wriggled free from Maia’s grasp. “And I’m not so sure she’s making things up anymore.”

“You can’t be serious,” Maia said, disbelief in her voice.

“Hold up,” I called as they headed outside.

Nora stopped, though Maia was urging her not-too-gently toward a waiting car. I could see Mrs. Jackson behind the wheel—she waved at me.

“Maia!” I called her name and stood my ground. Make them come to you.
Book of Velvet
.

She stopped pushing Nora and faced me. Maia Jackson was an All-State JV tennis champ and had the arms to prove it. Nora was doing pretty well holding her own against those biceps.

“Velvet.” Maia looked me up and down.

I ignored her and turned to Nora. “There’s a concert at the Twinkie Factory.” I pressed the folded-up flyer into her hand. I held on to it when she tried to pull away. “Micah will be there,” I whispered. “And so will the MemeCast.”

Nora’s eyes dilated. Did she remember?

I let her hand drop and spun on my heel. I didn’t look back once, though I heard Abby call me a freak. Maia hushed her.

I kept on walking.

As I strode inside, I envisioned a shell-shocked Nora being hustled off into the waiting car.

Spike said that’s exactly what happened.

AIDEN

As I stepped on the Skywalk, I heard a rumble in the distance like thunder. I shrugged it off. My mind was on Winter.

I’d switched the pills, which was far easier than I’d thought. Winter slept through most of my visit—and the maid was glued to her earbuds listening to a ’casts as she halfheartedly dusted.

I stopped at Starbucks and then walked toward the Nomura offices. The caramel macchiato made me feel only marginally better.

Hopefully, the fog would clear from Winter’s brain, and her implant would stop working—again—because of her different brain chemistry. But what aboutpeople with so-called normal brains? Her parents? Mr. Yamada? Anyone else who had one of these chips? Or bought one of our phones? I couldn’t make other people’s brain chemstry like Winter’s.

But I could erase the chip. Maybe. If it wasn’t encrypted. That’s what I had to figure out, and Nomura was the easiest place to do it. And I could check on Dad, too.

Someone rushed past me, nearly spilling my coffee.

That’s when I saw the burning remains of a car parked in the visitor lot outside Nomura headquarters. Tamarind Bay security had blocked off the front entrance while firefighters doused the flames. I’d never heard of a bombing inside of a compound. That was the whole point of living in one.

I stared at the charred remains of the vehicle.

“No place is safe now,” an onlooker said to me.

I made for the side entrance.

I was relieved to see Dad there as I crept by his office. He was talking to some non-Nomura suit. Was it the mayor? Jao stood outside the door next to a slick-looking guy in shades with a Green Zone tag and a Vote Mignon button on his dark jacket.

Roger was on the phone when I walked into the lab, arguing with someone in Vietnamese. I nodded at him before sitting down at the screen. I pulled up the Chipster schematics. I could transmit an old-fashioned virus to overwrite the data.

The Russian boards were good for that kind of shit. Okay, I was a skid. But a virus might wipe out the ID information stored on the chip, too, which I didn’t want. Maybe there was some simple command I could send that would shut down the feed. Or maybe I could override the content with something new. The thought made me shudder.

I tried to pull up the implant specs but got shut out.

Access denied.

Of course, my father picked that moment to walk into the lab.
Funny timing
, the universe muttered. I watched Dad cross the room. I knew what was coming.

“Aiden, why are you here?” Dad asked in a hoarse whisper. He paused to glance over his shoulder. The Green Zone goon stood by the door, along with Jao.

“Dad, I know what’s going on. I can help,” I whispered back.

He closed his eyes for a second and then looked me in the eye. “Stay out of it, Aiden. You’re in way over your head. And so am I,” he added quietly.

“You’re fired,” Dad said loudly. He slipped something into my backpack. “If anything happens to me, Jao will get you to your mother,” he whispered. “Take this with you.” He shoved my pack into my hands. “Jao will drive you home.”

Jao dutifully stepped up behind my father.

“Don’t lose him this time,” Dad told Jao. Then he stormed out of the room, the Green Zone guy hot on his heels. Jao stared after Dad and the goon. Yeah, not good.

And Roger was nowhere in sight.

Jao dragged me home.

AIDEN

Jao paced the foyer. Extra security patrolled outside.

Me, I sat at the kitchen table, staring at the contents of my backpack, while the big screen blared the news.

Dad had slipped a small black package into my bag. Turning it over in my hands, I still didn’t know what to do. I could just leave it and let Dad keep protecting us. But what if he never came home?

I called Mom. Again. No answer.

News gal reported that two dozen cities were announcing mandatory ID programs. She cut to a news conference at TFC headquarters. Some suit said Cleveland, Atlanta, Detroit, and Pittsburgh would be requiring its citizens to get the nGram ID chip by Christmas. The other cities would stagger their deadlines over the next year. All were implementing their programs with the generous help of TFC. The camera pulled back to reveal the TFC logo on the wall behind her. The camera panned to show more suits off to the side. Dad was there, sandwiched between the mayor and the Green Zone guy. Dad rubbed behind his ear as the camera passed him.

I had to do something.

So I opened the package. The grin on my face made Jao stop pacing. Inside the little box were a chip and microdisk, which I promptly popped into my mobile. nGram chip schematics scrolled across my screen.

Dad had given me the exact thing I’d been trying to access in the office.

He’d promised me interesting doors to rattle.

And the disk contents told me two things. One. The datastream was encrypted. That is, it took one, possibly two keys to unlock this door. Normally, I could charm those keys out of someone, just like I’d done with the bank encryption.

Except for data point two. TFC owned the code. They (and their security minions) are notoriously hard to charm.

Someone at Nomura might have access to the encryption. They’d need it to test the chip. Maybe. One person would know.

Roger.

Unfortunately, Jao wasn’t letting me out of his sight until Dad got home.

I fell asleep turning over glossy hard bits of code in my mind looking for a door handle to pull.

When Jao shook me awake, I was slumped over the kitchen table. “Master Aiden, your father’s home—and he has
company
.” He said the last part with distaste as he pushed the chip and my mobile toward me. I stuffed them in my pocket.

Dad walked in the front door followed by the Green Zone guy from the office.

“You can wait outside,” Dad told him.

The guy hesitated, and Jao moved toward him, bristling.

“I’m not going anywhere,” Dad snapped at the goon, “except maybe to bed.” He looked exhausted.

The goon took up position inside the front door. Dad let it go.

“Are you okay?” I asked him. I was afraid of what he wouldn’t remember.

Dad nodded, but he also tapped behind his right ear. He looked from me to the contents of the backpack, still spread on the kitchen table, then back to me.

“Aiden, don’t you have some extracurricular activity today?” Dad asked. My mind was a blank. “Some doors to rattle on maybe,” he whispered.

I nodded.

“Jao will drive you wherever you need to go,” Dad said as he headed toward his bedroom.

The goon at the door just stared straight ahead.

WINTER

When I woke up this morning, my head felt clear. That full of pudding feeling was gone. I hate pudding. Now, my skull felt empty, blissfully hollow. I vaguely remembered Aiden stopping by yesterday. Or was it days ago? Hard to tell. It was right before Mom pressed another damn pill in my hand. He’d banged around in my bathroom as I dozed off.

Mom had given me another pill after lunch, too, but I spit it out.

The hummingbirds were back.

I held out my hand in front me. No tremor. Not a twitch.

Thoughts began to tumble freely through my brain, no longer weighted down by the pills.

The pills.

My parents and that doctor had drugged me. Because they thought I was sick. Because… A hummingbird slammed into a residual chunk of pudding, and I couldn’t complete the thought.

I needed to do something. I pulled myself out of the lounge chair. I needed to tinker. I needed to get out of here.

I walked out the door, down the block, and took the Skywalk to the edge of Tamarind Bay. I caught the bus downtown.

12:35 PM. SOMEWHERE IN THE CITY OF HAMILTON…

Decision time, citizens. Tick tock. D-day approaches.

And the little demonstration over at Tamarind Bay was just a small reminder that compound gates and security guards aren’t enough to keep you safe anymore.

You know what you need, and you’re running out of time to get it—before Mayor Mignon’s promised crackdown commences.

So, do you continue being a good citizen? Do you get yourself chipped and keep keeping on, fully gridded? Or do you slip through the cracks in the grid and join us below its radar?

You may be saying, “Whoa, Meme Girl or whatever you call yourself, unwrap the tinfoil from your pointy head. It’s just a chip.”

Maybe.

Maybe not.

Let me tell you a story about a friend of a friend. It’s a short story. One day he’s a cop, bumped down to searching book bags at a high school for something he saw and reported. So he watches for black vans at night on his own time. Then he finds a group of like-minded individuals, falls in love, helps a girl—and wham. He’s shipping out to fight in the oil fields for a four-year tour like it’s his own idea. That’s another one of those stories you don’t hear.

Next: “Going Underground” by the Jam.