The Forgetting Curve (Memento Nora) (4 page)

AIDEN

As soon as we pulled up to the gate, I fished my mobile out of my pack. I had a message from Dad’s secretary.

The limo will pick you up outside baggage claim. Your father will meet you at your cousin’s house. She’s coming home today.

No kidding.

I grabbed my bags and headed toward Customs. After an interminable wait on line, and sweating through what felt like a full-cavity search of bags and person, I found the limo waiting outside.

The driver asked if I wanted to stop for coffee or something to eat before we got on the interstate. I shook my head. An ad flickered across the privacy screen between us. The mayor of Hamilton, Albert Mignon, was running for Congress.

Utterly straight-faced, he told a young mother and child, “I’ll never forget who I work for.”

This ad paid for by the Patriot Party, a wholly owned subsidiary of TFC
, the fine print said underneath the scene.

Yeah, I bet he never forgets
, I thought.

I pulled Winter’s book out of my backpack and flipped it open to the center. Security hadn’t even looked twice at the old library book on kinetic sculptures of the last century. But inside, concealed in a hollowed-out section, was some truly modern art: a comic called
Memento
.

Something had told me not to take the comics out on the plane—or to let my roomy, Chase, see them. As soon as I discovered the stash, I’d grabbed the book and headed to the bathroom down the hall.

The ink on the simple black-and-white pages still smelled fresh.

In one comic strip, a girl goes to TFC. In the waiting room, she sees a boy spitting out his pill. Then she hears her mom’s awful secret and decides to spit out her own pill in order to remember. In the second comic, a kid on a skateboard gets hit by a black van. In another, the same skateboarder sees people from a black van set what looks like a bomb on a car; the car has another kid in it. The van leaves and goes to a place marked Soft Target. The skateboarder saves the other kid before the car blows up.

It all made a good story.

Soft Target, I found out, was a real company, a Hamilton security corp that had gone bankrupt recently but had reformed under a new name: Green Zone. But that didn’t mean anything. It was just a story.

I almost filed the comics away in the maybe-Winter-is-crazy file when I ran across something else. It didn’t take me too long to find, but only because I used an open-source search before I left Bern. You can’t do those searches in the States anymore; you can search only corporate-scrubbed data. I found a newscast of a girl, Nora James, who claimed to be one of
Memento
’s authors, being carted off by security. The reporter, Rebecca Starr, was later axed by the ’cast. (She had a very hot tiger tattoo reaching over her shoulder.) They probably both got brain-bleached.

This was heavy stuff, if it were true. But I still didn’t get why Winter would send it to me—right before going into the hospital. She wouldn’t be part of anything like this. She wasn’t Miss Get-Involved. She’d have to like people for that.

Still, I left a few
Memento
s in the bathroom stalls at school before my timely departure. It seemed like the thing to do, and the universe agreed. I also posted the video to everyone’s mobile at Bern American using the school’s emergency distribution system—you know, the one they use to alert everyone about blizzards and avian flu outbreaks. Call it a parting gift.

Outside the window, the suburbs gave way to stretches of green, broken up by the occasional big-box store and gated compound. More damn ads streamed across the screen in front of me. Nomura. TFC. AmSwiss Air. Mayor Mignon. Green Zone. Starbucks. Insert random corporati. It all blurred together.

Finally, we rolled into Hamilton. The limo driver locked the doors as soon as we exited the interstate and headed into a seedier looking part of downtown. A bombed-out car sat rusting on the curb not two blocks from where we stopped. I could see why Mom wanted me to stay in Switzerland and try the school in Montreaux. She had the pull to get me in wherever. But I’d wanted to come home. Now I found myself homesick for Bern, with its cathedral, the medieval clock tower with the moving puppets, the museums, and the Garden of Roses, all in the shadows of the snowy peaked Alps. Suddenly Bern didn’t seem so cheesy.

“Is this it?”

Winter’s home was an old warehouse, at least on the outside. Uncle Brian and Aunt Spring both worked in Research and Development at Nomura. And they were Nomuras, after all. I guess I was expecting a high-rise building with an uzi-toting doorman and valet parking.

Then I remembered. Winter had been living with her grandfather. Koji Yamada owns several tattoo parlors in Hamilton. I bet this was his idea of a bohemian, artsy kind of place, and it was probably near one of his shops.

“Your father said for you to wait in the car until he gets here.” The driver glanced nervously up and down the street. He kept the motor running and the doors locked.

A few minutes later, another limo pulled up beside ours. The doors unlocked. “I’ll take your bags home, Master Aiden,” the driver said.

Jao, who was driving Dad’s Bradley, opened the doors of both limos and watched the street as I slid from one vehicle to the other. Dad had rotated Jao home shortly after the day of the bombings; two of Mom’s goons stuck to me like snow on an Alp right up to when she put me on the plane.

“You had an uneventful flight. I didn’t hear of any computers crashing while you were over the Atlantic.” Ichiro Nomura allowed himself an upturned corner of a smile. My father is not humorless; he just seldom lets that side of him slip out from under his composed salary-man mask—unless it serves his purpose. Now his purpose was to chastise his wayward son and to remind him who was boss on this side of the Atlantic.

“Jet lag,” I said with the same half-smile on my face. “After a little sleep and some non-airplane food, I’ll be rattling those doors again.”

“The only doors you’ll be rattling this summer are to the lab and your room.” All trace of humor was gone from his face as he got out of the car. He strode toward the house without waiting for me.

Dad can’t get away from me fast enough.

I grabbed my backpack and hurried after him.

Mr. Yamada looked a little surprised to see us when he opened the door. He acknowledged Dad with the slightest of head bows. I saw Dad stiffen slightly, but not enough for anyone else to catch it.

“We just got home ourselves,” Mr. Yamada said, more to me than to Dad. Winter’s grandfather waved us into the loft. It was the kind of place I imagined he and Winter would live: wide-open space, minimal furniture, industrial-looking pipes overhead, concrete floors, and artwork everywhere. Oh, and an old motorcycle in the foyer.

Dad took in the place, too, but I don’t think he was appreciating its aesthetic value. “If you’ll pardon me, Koji, I’ll call Brian to see where they are,” he said.

Mr. Yamada motioned him toward the leather sofas at the other end of the loft. To me he said, “She’s in the garden.” He nodded toward an enormous Shoji-screen door at the back of the house.

Winter had told me about her garden. I knew she’d built several moving sculptures within the traditional Japanese garden—bamboo, sand, rocks—that Mr. Yamada had started. But even after seeing pics of one or two of the sculptures, I had trouble visualizing it.

The Shoji screen door, I realized as I got closer, wasn’t made of rice paper and bamboo. It was made out of Kevlar and had an R39 security system attached to it.

The door swooshed open, and I couldn’t move for a moment. The gleaming bamboo walkways and white sand were so serene, so cliché-Japanese; but the sculptures were so stark and industrial, all burnished metal, with splashes of plastic, cloth, and paint. The whole thing tore at me, like my own two sides.

“Wow,” I whispered.

The sculptures sprung to life as I stood there gawking. Arms started turning. The sail-things tinkled. The metal guy slapped the water. He reminded me of a fountain I’d seen in Zurich or Basel. But I’d never seen anything like that shopping bag crab thing. It pulled itself along with windshield wiper legs. The whole thing worked together like a mad machine.

Staggering. Genius. Warped—in a good way.

Of course, buttoned-up engineering and financial types—like our parents—might see craziness in Winter’s creativity. Our family knew how to make money, not art. Then again, a lot of famous artists had mental problems. Van Gogh was bipolar or schizophrenic—I forget which.

I stumbled around peering at each creature, trying to figure out how she’d done it. Then I got to the pagoda. The mask sculpture in the middle of the table stopped me. Scaffolding held the mask in place, but its façade had eroded in spots, revealing the gear works underneath. The thing unnerved me. It was like someone had tried so hard to keep up a front because they were afraid to let people see beneath the mask, but it fell away, anyway. It was so deep I felt like I was drowning.

A song began playing from the sail sculpture. And my mobile started vibrating. It was probably Mom calling to see if I got here okay. I fished the mobile out of my pocket, and I was going to answer it, but I caught a glimpse of Winter through an open door off of the pagoda. She was tinkering with a lunch box.

What if she
was
sick? What if she was different? I put on my own mask, hoping the holes weren’t revealing too much, and stepped through the doorway.

WINTER

“Winter?” a voice said from the direction of the garden. The hummingbirds quieted so I could hear. It was a male voice, but not Grandfather’s or anyone else I immediately recognized. “Winter?” the voice said again, this time closer.

I turned to see a young man standing in the entrance from the garden. It took a second for it to click. I hadn’t seen Aiden in the flesh since my parents left. And he’d grown. About a foot and a half, at least.

My cousin crossed his arms over his very preppy sweater vest, which he was wearing on top of a snowy white T-shirt and jeans. The sweater had some sort of crest on it. A few years ago, he’d been sent away to a Swiss boarding school near where his mother lived.

“Nice outfit,” I said. It wasn’t.

“The shit in this garden is genius,” he said, matching my farthest-thing-from-the-truth tone. He scoped out the workshop with this practiced mask of indifference plastered across his face. That face must have been very useful in boarding school.

He didn’t fool me. Nothing bored him.

“Oh, shut up,” I said. “You know it is.”

His mask cracked, revealing the true Aiden, the one I’d always seen no matter what face he put on for the rest of the world. His hazel eyes looked green under the fluorescents.

“Damn, girl.” He tucked a strand of black hair behind his ear and grinned. “It’s really good to see you.”

We hugged. I asked him about school.

“Oh, let’s not talk about that dreariness.” He was picking through things on my workbench like a hungry dog sniffing out treats. “Tell me about that.” He pointed at my garden. “It really is genius.” He handed me the remote. “Show me.” This was my Aiden, wide-eyed, eager to figure it all out, to tear everything apart and put it back together his own way.

I couldn’t think of anything I’d rather do than show him my creations. I pushed the button on the remote and the sculptures came to life.

“I got your message,” Aiden said as he took my arm.

“What message?”

“You know, the book, the
Memento
s.” He whispered this last part as we crossed the threshold into the garden.

I had no clue what he was talking about.

Then I saw her.

My mother—Spring Nomura—stood in the center of the garden, in the pagoda, in the flesh, smiling, teary-eyed, the whole surprise-I’m-home works. I ran into her arms like I was still that kid who’d hidden in the garden so many years ago. My good dreams were all about this.

“Winter, honey. It’s okay,” she said as she stroked my hair. “I’m here now. We’re home for good.”

“We?” I looked around. Aiden had melted back into the workshop, where I could see him gingerly shaking my Scooby Doo lunch box. There was no one else in the garden.

“Of course, silly. Your father’s trying to find a safe place to park. This neighborhood,” Mom said with a shudder in her voice. “I didn’t realize it had gotten so rough. It’s no wonder Father got hurt on his neighborhood patrol.”

“Hurt?” Not my Sasuke-san. I felt a lump of panic rising in my throat. He’d seemed okay when we both stumbled out of the cab. I turned toward the kitchen.

“He’s fine now, dear. Don’t you remember?” Mom took my hand. “He was in the hospital, too. Just a concussion, but at his age, you can’t be too careful.” She shook her head sadly. “We should have taken you with us.”

“Taken me with you?” I was puzzled but not sure why.

“To Japan, of course.” She looked at me warily. “The schools are so much better there. Everything is so clean.”

The hummingbird wings fluttered in my ears.

“Why didn’t you take me?” I backed away.

“Oh, honey,” she said sadly. “You know why. You didn’t want to go. You didn’t want to leave your friends or your grandfather. And,” she added in a hushed voice, “your doctor didn’t think it was a good idea.”

Doctor? I didn’t know what doctor she was talking about. Did she mean the shrink? I didn’t start seeing her until after they left. Then again, I didn’t even remember why I’d been in the hospital.

What was going on? I looked at Mom again, this time with my X-ray vision, as my friends liked to call it. Mom was older, thinner maybe, and as neatly dressed as ever. I knew I hadn’t seen this woman in years.

“Baby, are you feeling okay?”

“Fine,” I said. “Just tired, I guess.” It wasn’t the time to grill her.

“Not too tired to give your dad a hug,” my father said as he walked through the door from the house. He was older, too; his short shock of black hair was sprinkled with more gray than I remembered. He had the same thin black glasses, though.

Inside my head, the hummingbirds fluttered, but the little voice whispered over them.
Yes, they were in Japan working for the company. But they’re home now. Everything is finally okay. You can get on with your life. Forget about art and hummingbirds. Work hard. Go to school. A good school. Work for the company.
I don’t know where that came from.

“Ah, Pooh-bear, I’ve missed you.” Dad wrapped me in a hug, and I was too tired to fight the voices. I was just happy to have my parents home again.

When I emerged from Dad’s arms, I could see we’d been joined by Grandfather, Aiden, and his father. My uncle looked exactly the same every time I’d seen him, which wasn’t often: all business. Black hair, black tie, black suit. He’s the head of Nomura North America. Only
his
father, Katsu, the chairman of the Nomura Corporation in Japan, outranked Ichiro Nomura.

My other grandfather, Koji Yamada, laid out a tea tray on the small table in the pagoda. I flicked off the kinetic sculptures. Grandfather handed me a thick black coffee with—I knew without tasting it—six sugars. He’d made green tea for everyone else.

They sipped tea politely, not saying anything for a long moment. Aiden finally broke the ice.

“The garden is spectacular, isn’t it?”

My mother and father exchanged glances. Mom glared at Grandfather as he stared into his teacup. Uncle Ichiro took a sip of his tea before commenting that I showed “quite a mechanical aptitude.”

“She could always build anything with her hands.” Aiden nodded in agreement as if his father had been the one to bring up the subject. “You know, Winter should intern with me at the company this summer. Robotics, maybe.”

His father looked pleased at the idea. I couldn’t tell if Aiden was working his dad or trying to divert attention from the obvious tension between my parents and Grandfather. Were they mad at him for something?

“That would be a more productive use of her time,” Mom said, a harsh edge creeping into her voice. She kept glaring at Grandfather.

Aiden nudged me and his father toward the Shopping Bag Crab. “Father, you should see this one.”

Ichiro raised an eyebrow but followed us. Aiden turned over the crab and examined its workings. My mother’s voice fell into heated whispers directed at my Grandfather. Aiden blathered on about some program he’d hacked at school, but I couldn’t help listening to the other conversation.

“Didn’t you realize she wasn’t taking her meds?” Mom asked.

Grandfather froze as if trying to remember some long ago information tucked in his brain. Eventually, he shook his head. I’d never seen him so unsure of himself, so meek. Normally, there was nothing meek or even remotely retired about my grandfather. He runs three tattoo shops, patrols the neighborhood for baddies, and works out on his
Sasuke
obstacle course.

“How could you not have known?” Mom gestured to the moving statues around her.

Grandfather didn’t answer. And I didn’t want to hear any more. They hated my garden. They thought it was some outward manifestation of inner crazy.

“Mom, stop it.” I strode back to her. “He’s not to blame for anything.” I touched Grandfather’s hand, just above where the snake head emerged from his crisp white sleeve. The dress shirt couldn’t camouflage all of his tats. A tiger’s claw reached out of his other sleeve, and the cherry blossom—the tat that symbolized my mom’s birth—peeked out from his collar. The only tattoo you couldn’t see was the one that celebrated my birth: a snowflake over his heart. “He’s always been here for me.” I gave his hand a squeeze.

“Dad,” my mother said sounding angrier than before. She tore my hand from his. “You promised.” She held up the back of my hand for everyone to see.

“Spring, I did not do that.” He turned to me.

A perfect circle had been tattooed on the fleshy part between my thumb and forefinger. It wasn’t perfect really; it was more like someone had done it with a calligraphy brush in one stroke, not quite closing it. I stared at the circle. Nothing came to me.

“I don’t remember,” I said slowly. I wanted to say I didn’t remember a lot of things—them leaving, them ever calling or visiting, me going to the hospital, or anything that happened in the last few weeks. The hummingbirds flitted wildly.

“It’s okay, honey,” she said acting motherly all of a sudden. She took my hand in hers and spoke slowly and calmly, like she was speaking to a five-year-old. “The doctor said you might have some holes in your memory. It’s one of the side effects of treatment.”

“Ichiro has arranged for you to see an excellent doctor at the compound,” my father said, finally joining the conversation.

“Compound?” I asked dumbly.

“Tamarind Bay. Ichiro got us a new house there, near his. And you’re already enrolled in school for the fall.”

Great
, I thought. A compound. And a new school. I had friends
here
. Finally. Before I moved in with Grandfather, we’d lived in an old-fashioned ’burb on the south side of town. Southern Hills wasn’t a compound, but everyone there was on a waiting list to get into one.
Same difference.
I had zero in common with those kids.

“A summer internship wouldn’t be a bad idea,” Dad said.

His brother nodded. “We have an opening.” It had probably been his idea. Maybe he was the one playing Aiden.

My life was all arranged, at least for the foreseeable future, by my loving family that was suddenly back in my life. It was almost too much.

Grandfather looked at me and nodded, as if he knew what I was thinking.

Aiden helped me pack up my books while my mother picked through my clothes. Eventually, she pronounced most of them unsuitable and left them hanging in the closet.

“We’ll go shopping,” Mom said running her fingers over my sleek straight black hair. It had been pink and spiky before this so-called hospital. “Tamarind Bay has shops that rival Tokyo.”

On my way out, I found my Sasuke-san sitting slumped at the table in the garden, staring into his cold cup of tea. The scene looked oddly familiar. The hummingbirds flittered in my brain as I kissed him on the forehead.

“We got them back,” I whispered.

1:28 AM. SOMEWHERE IN THE CITY OF HAMILTON…

Good morning, citizens. Our dear mayor has proclaimed that his ID program will make us all safer, that it could make the whole country—maybe even the whole world—safer. And he’s going to ride that idea—and a boatload of TFC money—right into Congress. His sponsors love him. The press eats up every word. He’s got a slew of other Patriot Party candidates and legislators on his bandwagon.

However, nobody seems to be asking him the big question. How exactly does an ID in your skull make you safe? The TFC-partiers say it’s unpatriotic to ask.

But I’m asking.

Sure, the chip would be a great Lo Jack for missing kids, deadbeat dads, and cheating spouses. The cops already track felons this way. But wouldn’t a smart terrorist (or other criminal) just get the ID? Or a fake one? You know they’re going to pop up on the black market sooner rather than later.

So ask yourself why this ID chip is suddenly a requirement. Why did TFC insist that Nomura bring out the chip (and their new mobiles) now instead of in the fall as planned? Who gains?

Next up for your listening pleasure, “Follow the Money” by Political Business. And then we’ve got “Wait until July Comes” by a local band who wishes to remain anonymous.