Memoria (35 page)

Jessup smooth
e
d
his hair
, rubbed his neck
which was
numb with
tension and
froze. How was he supposed to deal with Archer now?
The Secretary made his order clear. Jessup's stare
scrutinized the officers waiting in th
e hall
. Hi
s
people
wouldn't let
the Feds
have
the detained reporter.
Competition was rife bet
ween the two offices, and the top brass would be happy to sink their teeth into a new scandal.
They
all thrived on being at each other
's
throats:
the
FBI
and
the
CIA, the army and the secret service,
but until
now, Memoria had
played
no part in it.
This last incident was too much like a
post-war
gangland
act.

"Lieutenant Gizbo," Jessup said looking him straight i
n the eye, "you're under arrest on suspicion of treason. S
urrender your gun and
badge."

Everyone stared at their chief.

"Sergeant, what are you waiting for?
Take him into custody."

With those words
Jessup
began to turn
away
from Gizbo
.
Reaching for his gun, the lieutenant
lunged for the file cabinet with the TV set
. Salem and a few other officers
grabbed his hands before the traitor had a chance to pull the trigger.

Jessup walked out of the room. The men in the hall fell quiet. They'd been watching the incident through the glass
and were now expecting an explanation. Watching their stern faces, Jessup decided on a third
course
of action.
H
e told them the truth.

He had little doubt now that Shelby had
evidence against Memoria in that
attaché
case
of his.
And the corporation
was
ben
ding
over backwards trying to get it back and destroy it. Apparently, their
arrival at the camp hadn't gone as planned. That's why Gizbo had tried to talk Jessup into infiltrating the perimeter.
Possibly, that
was why they tried to pull
strings
in order to make Jessup
hand the reporter over
to them. More than
likely, Kathleen's killers would then clean up the reporter's memory, the way they'd
already
done
with
the other witnesses.
Either that, or get rid of him permanently.

He looked over the room again. His men were waiting. Ti
me to act, time to give orders.

Fighting off his emotions,
Jessup spoke, slowly and clearly, making sure everyone heard
every word and understood what was going on. They had to believe him.
In
less than
an hour, enor
mous queues would
start
snak
ing
around Memoria
's
offices
, like on Black Friday sales.
Only now human
memories were the discounted merchandis
e.
Jessup hadn't expected a move like that.

His mind kept replaying the words of the TV anchor reading from the prompt screen.
Everyone who made it to a Memoria branch before midnight could try their new service for free. Everyone could choose to have any skill he wanted
downloaded i
nto their minds. The list of
professions offered was long: after all, the
corporation database had amassed quite a few files
over
the last years.

Now Jessup understood why Memoria had been so active in the last several months, opening new branches all over the country.
Its directors were busy working on the project of the century, willing to give everyone happiness and prosperity
and to revitalize the nation
—
something that their pushy motto had been promising for the last three decades.

He knew well that this
objective
was only a smoke screen for
a
much
more important
goal
: to amass
as much
money and power
as possible
.
Those
were the only
two
things Memoria
cared about
.
With the exception of Jesus, n
o one
had ever given
people
bread
for free.
Very soon, he and his men would be history. Professional skills would be
a
dime a dozen, and army veterans like himself would become
the
new cannon fodder:
Memoria would still need their minds, but only in order to
extract
the memories they needed, digitize their professional experience,
then c
ompress the resulting files to the
desired size and sell them like
hot cakes. Another week or a month, and new
professionals
would
arrive
to replace them:
bright-eyed and
chock-full of competences
,
who would pass any employee
rating with flying colors
—
and who
would probably teach Jessup how to do his job.

That's why he hurried to explain to his
men what the Vaccination c
ould mean to them. He
shared
his reasons behind Gizbo's arrest and
told them about the reporter who'd seen and heard Frank Shelby in Memoria's tower. After that, he
started setting
new
objectives for his unit
commanders.

T
he light was so bright it penetrated his
tightly
shut
eyelids
.
Fran
k sensed the heat from the lamp
—
o
r lamps, all directed at his face.
He
was afraid of opening
his eyes:
the
excruciating
pain
at
the back of his head made
his brain
feel as if it was
about
to explode,
splattering grayish-bloody goo out of his e
ar
s,
nostrils and
his agonizing
mouth.

He
half-sat
with
his back bent,
his buttocks and thighs touching the hard surface.
What could it be
—
some kind
of
a hospital bed or an
operating
chair
?
The pain in his head
started to
subside
. T
he lamps' warm glow distracted him from feeling the b
loo
d pulsate in his temples and the back of his head.

Frank tried to move his hand and failed. Something prevented it from moving. He tried to shift his legs and sit up
—
also in vain.
He lay bound; his chest, shoulders, elbows, hands, legs and feet all
strapped with
w
hat felt like
leather belts
. Before he forced himself to open his eyes and investigate
, he heard a voice to one side,

"He's coming to."

"Finally!" another voice said. "Thank God for that."

The second voice sounded familiar.
Frank had definitely heard it before
—
from a distance, and slightly distorted. Wh
o
could it have been, and where?

"Can you dim the lights, Bow?
Even my eyes are hurting. It must be hell for him."

"Yes, sir."

The warmth and
the
light subsided
,
making Frank's eyelids twitch.
Thousands of
colored s
tar
s
whirled before
his eyes
, bringing the pain back. Blood pulsated, burning through the skull.

"You think he can hear me?" the familiar voice said.

A man's breath and a whiff of an expensive aftershave brushed Frank's fac
e as the speaker walked around his bed and approached it from the right.

"I think so, sir. I'd suggest you wait a little. D
o
n't try and speak to him.
Combined with
memory retrieval, t
he selective memory scan
may take a lot of time and can be quite painful. We can expect
a
temporary cerebral dysfunction
followed by a nervous breakdown. The subject needs time to recover."

"I don't have the time. Can't you give him a painkiller?"

"Out of the question. It may trigger a
seizure.
Then it would be impossible to-"

"
Bow,
I thought I made it
perfectly clear
.
In an hour,
I'm meeting
with
the Mayor
. Then I'm flying to
DC
.
"

Where is he, for Christ's sake?
Frank barely felt the touch of the
needle to his neck.
What had happened to him?

Another minute, and the pain subsided, leaving him free to think.
His head cleared a little. But almost immediately, his lids became heavy
. Now he felt drowsy and tired and ha
d to force himself to resist
sleep and open his eyes.

He lay
on a low bed in his trousers
and shoes, about three feet above
the floor. His body was bound with leather
straps. Frank
tried to move
. His limbs were seriously numb.
He started flexing his muscles, clenched his fists and moved his feet, trying to get the blood going.

"Ah," the voice resounded
above
his ear
. "N
othing like exercise,
eh
?"

Frank
craned his neck to look to his right. Russel
l
Jefferson
Claney
stood next to his bed, easily recognizable
by his smooth scalp pulled tight over his skull. The Congressman gave him a smug smile.

Frank turned away and looked to his left. A gaunt man in a lab coat stood there, his fair hair tousled,
his hands
going through
surgical tools in steel sterilization boxes on the table.
He did it with the ease of a trained professional who knew what belonged where.
Without even looking, the man opened a medicine cabinet by the table and took a plastic box from the upper shelf.

Sensing Frank's stare, the man turned round. Now Frank remembered him.
The man looked tired now, and the winsome smile was gone
from
his face, but
he looked the same as when he'd stood next to
Claney
on the screen of
Max
's army laptop
...

His coach. His last words.

Frank's
throat went dry. He couldn't breathe. His heart thumped. Frank closed his eyes
remembering
all the events of the last few days
,
and wanted to scream
with his own weakness.

"You've made me worried
, Shelby,"
Claney
said. "And wait
, too
. Wait longer than I could afford.
I'd love to pay you in kind but-"

Frank looked up, disdain in his eyes.

"What-" he had to clear his throat and start again, "What
stops you?" He didn't recognize his voice, distant and trembling, the voice of an old man.
He could barely move his lips. His throat rasped.