The Second Memory

The entire bunch hurries out of the door of the computer room, running into each other and alternately cursing and apologizing as they yank off their helmets.

After they blow through the door of the office, I notice that one of them has dropped something. I hurry over to look…

A badge. Their keycard!

A rush of excitement runs down my spine. I shouldn’t… I know I shouldn’t… but I can’t help the curiosity. I run over to the door that leads to the funny vacuum room and open it, then I go to the door that leads into the computer room and look through the glass.

It’s the most amazing, most complex machine I’ve ever seen in my life. My father has let me tinker with old computers in the past. Nothing serious, just a few retired machines he set up in our basement rec room for me to play with.

These, however… the components are so incredibly small, so intricate, my head spins trying to figure it out.

I need to get closer. I lift the keycard and scan it, and I’m admitted into the computer bay. I wander between the towers, enthralled, examining what I can from my short height. With the panels removed, I can reach inside and push aside bundles of wires that run from all over the machine through the bottoms of the computers into what looks like empty space. Deep empty space… deep and dark. I can’t even see the bottom.

I tap a few keys to see if I can get them to do anything… they just beep at me. Loudly. Of course, I don’t have a screen, so who knows what all they do?

Reaching into my pocket, I find a few of my small tools, and a cookie I’d forgotten I had stashed there. While munching, I remove a few other panels, still trying to figure out where the wires go to.

Voices… they’re coming back! There’s no time to escape the room, so I just duck between two towers, leaning against one, praying they can’t see me. I hear one man… he sounds irritated. His companion just sounds puzzled.

“I know I had it… I don’t see it on my desk. Is it on the floor?”

“You check that side, I’ll check this one.”

“If it’s not out here, it must be in the control… oh my… Jack!”

Oh my Jack? What was he talking about?

I risk a glance… and the man is staring right at me with a look of utter horror. At the same time, red lights begin to flash from the ceiling.

“Breach… intruder in control room. Breach… intruder in control room,” repeats a robotic voice.

I duck down again and start to shake. I was going to get it and get it good. I hear a tumble of other voices as the rest return and come over to the glass, staring inside, yelling and arguing… a few of them are actually crying!

I see Grandfather… and he knows I can see him. He raises his hand and sternly beckons for me to come out. Lowering my head, I use my pilfered keycard and scan out of the room, then into the office. The people surround me, their voices tumbling over one another, their faces positively glowing with anger.

Grandfather raises his hands, eventually quieting them, though I’d never in my life experienced such silent fury.

He drops to a crouch to look into my eyes. His voice is soft, but I can hear the sharp disappointment. “Toby… what have you done?”

I can’t answer. I’m choking on tears. Grandfather takes me out of that room and into his office, lecturing me sternly about never, ever going places I know I’m not invited. The others join him after they’ve gotten dressed, and all I can distinguish are three words. “Contamination”, “sabotage”, and “catastrophic”. All big words, and while I generally understand what they mean, I have no idea how serious it is until one man- the oldest of the lot, from his white hair- turns to Grandfather.

“Jonathan… was this on purpose? Did you plan this to prove a point?”

Grandfather shakes his head. “I swear I would never do something so foolish! This was accidental, plain and simple.”

“Do you expect us to believe that a little boy just happened to slip through multiple layers of security unnoticed?”

“Yes, that’s exactly what happened.”

“Right…” says the woman named Christa, her eyes icy. “I could see a cat doing that… but a kid?”

“He’s a very smart boy.”

“Smart? He may have just doomed our whole world!”

That scares me clear down to my bones. “I didn’t mean to!” I say in a small voice. “I just… I just wanted to see the computers. I like computers, I didn’t know-”

“And that’s how it was supposed to be,” the old man explains firmly. “No one was supposed to know, to keep Central Control safe. Do you know what those computers do?”

I shake my head.

“Everything. All things in our world, from the running of the fountains to the recipes for the food replicators… even the transport systems. Things as simple as the water jets at your playground… they all depend on those computers. If anything gets into those towers that shouldn’t, they could be badly damaged.”

That explains why these people had vacuumed off before going inside. I’d heard of the effects of dust on computers.

“I’m still not convinced this wasn’t deliberate,” one man says. He stands at the back, looking quiet but darkly thoughtful. “A breach of this magnitude… we must be absolutely sure.”

I look at Grandfather, even more frightened when he turns white. “You can’t mean… he’s just a little boy! It could destroy him!”

“He may have destroyed all of us!” the man retorted. “And I’m not saying just him. Both of you. We’ve done it before, there’s no reason to worry.”

The others nod. Grandfather looks positively sick, but he slowly nods as well. “I… understand. Please, just… just don’t…”

“We’re not going to kill a child, Jonathan,” says another woman. “But he needs to face consequences, and we certainly can’t let him remember this place. Let’s get this done… we have a lot of work ahead to decontaminate Control.”

“You and Christa start on that, Janice, you have the highest certifications. We’ll take care of the interrogation, then come join you.”

Grandfather holds out his hand and I take it, clinging to him. We are both pushed down the hallway toward the lift and inside, then taken up a few floors to a large room. There are strange machines in here, a few of which I once saw in a clinic. What are they going to do to us?

Another protest as Grandfather tries to convince them to leave me alone, but they just tell him it has to be done, whatever “it” is. We’re separated, then strapped down on rolling tables, our arms pinned heavily by the straps. Grandfather has tears streaming down his face as he looks at me. “It will be okay, Toby,” he tries to reassure me.

It’s not convincing.

One of the men puts on scrubs and an apron, washes his hands, then puts on gloves. He looks like a doctor. As the others follow his instructions, holding me down, he inserts a needle connected to a tube in my arm. I’m not fond of needles. I’d been through something like this once before when I broke my leg in a fall, but this time I can’t fight with all the straps pinning me.

He then puts a needle in Grandfather, who doesn’t even try to fight. Once the tubes are set, he turns on a small machine that whirs quietly. I feel something cold go into my arm. My head turns cloudy and I can’t focus on anything.

I feel them place something on my head. Some kind of banded hat with wires. I’m rolled into a long tube with flashing lights. The lights make me sick.

I hear voices… I don’t know if they’re in my head, or sounds in my ears. They ask me questions. I answer them without thinking. I have no idea how long this takes, but the lights eventually slow and take on a different pattern.

Something else flows through the tube into my arm. It feels very different, and it’s not a good kind of different. I feel uncomfortable, and I hear someone shout something about an “interaction”.

I start to have trouble breathing. My table is yanked out of the tube, hands are all over me… I can’t breathe at all…

Then, I black out.