Mnemonic Levels: A Short Story
I woke into my new life as I had the previous ones, lying naked in the remembrance capsule, amniotic gel glazing my body.
“Mnemonic levels show all green,” said one of the recall technicians from inside their control room. “What is the last thing you remember, Doctor Fedorov?”
Irina, her hair like a halo of fire in the dying light of the day. “The color red,” I said, though it was not the last thing I remembered. Even with the hurt it causes, my last memory of Irina is the only thing worth remembering. As a code engineer, I have seen in the deconstructed code of others how deeply memories of pain and regret engrain themselves, how they scar the mnemonic code and stain it like wine stains old wood.
Irina is my scar; A wine-haired stain forever …show more content…
Nothing to be worried about. Doctor Szaranov worked it out.”
“Irina,” I said without thinking. “But she is--“
“Forgotten.” I did not expect Doctor Emil Szaranov to be at my recall. The job of monitoring routine awakenings falls to the androdyne humans, the andies, not real humans, and certainly not the Ark Director. “You remember killing Irina, don’t you, Dimitri?”
The memory sheath at the back of my neck grew warm. They were scanning me. I said nothing, thinking Emil’s voice was an audible hallucination, just my mind sorting out imprinted memory fragments as it adjusts to the new life.
“I asked you a question,” said Emil. His tone indicated he did not consider my silence an acceptable answer. This was no hallucination.
“I did not kill her.”
“Are you certain, Dimitri?” Emil sounded like an Ark Inquisitor offering the condemned one last chance at redemption through confession. “I advise you to think very carefully.”
The needle hummed inside my brain. Memories billowed up from the darkness like bubbles from a sinking ship and threatened to drag me into the depths along with the wreckage. The memories did not feel like mine, as if given to me to replace forgotten
“Mnemonic levels show all green,” said one of the recall technicians from inside their control room. “What is the last thing you remember, Doctor Fedorov?”
Irina, her hair like a halo of fire in the dying light of the day. “The color red,” I said, though it was not the last thing I remembered. Even with the hurt it causes, my last memory of Irina is the only thing worth remembering. As a code engineer, I have seen in the deconstructed code of others how deeply memories of pain and regret engrain themselves, how they scar the mnemonic code and stain it like wine stains old wood.
Irina is my scar; A wine-haired stain forever …show more content…
Nothing to be worried about. Doctor Szaranov worked it out.”
“Irina,” I said without thinking. “But she is--“
“Forgotten.” I did not expect Doctor Emil Szaranov to be at my recall. The job of monitoring routine awakenings falls to the androdyne humans, the andies, not real humans, and certainly not the Ark Director. “You remember killing Irina, don’t you, Dimitri?”
The memory sheath at the back of my neck grew warm. They were scanning me. I said nothing, thinking Emil’s voice was an audible hallucination, just my mind sorting out imprinted memory fragments as it adjusts to the new life.
“I asked you a question,” said Emil. His tone indicated he did not consider my silence an acceptable answer. This was no hallucination.
“I did not kill her.”
“Are you certain, Dimitri?” Emil sounded like an Ark Inquisitor offering the condemned one last chance at redemption through confession. “I advise you to think very carefully.”
The needle hummed inside my brain. Memories billowed up from the darkness like bubbles from a sinking ship and threatened to drag me into the depths along with the wreckage. The memories did not feel like mine, as if given to me to replace forgotten