Martin didn’t remember Sevet even though they’d lived together for a year. After she’d had an affair with a Spanish waiter he’d wiped any archived memories and left the rest on scratch to be recorded over with tomorrow's sunset. She bounded up to him and threw her arms in an encircling embrace.
“Martin, Martin, it’s so good to see you. How are you?”
“I’m sorry, I don’t know who you are.” Martin stood statue still waiting for the hug to loosen, a look of bemusement on his face.
“Martin, it’s me. Don’t tell me. Oh please. You didn’t archive our time together? What about all the good times? I’ve never deleted you from my favourites list and I keep some of the best times in head all the time. And here,” Sevet pulled her purse out of the bag she was carrying and removed a small memory card. ”This is the whole year, never far from my heart.”
“I’m sorry, I don’t know you. Please, I have to go.” Martin tried to move around Sevet.
“No, Martin, please, please just remember this,” she held up the card. “Please.” Martin’s mother had always told him never to take memories from strangers, you never knew where they’d got them from, and yet he felt compelled to do so. He wasn’t torn for long and he reached out to take the card from an emotional Sevet. He jacked in his MemoryMan and inserted the card. It all came rushing back at once, the joy, the pain, the love. He copied the card to scratch, losing most of the day in the process, he needed more time to remember. He sat on the floor and started crying. He remembered it all now.
#
Martin and Sevet sat opposite each other in a small cafe off the main town square. The cafe was crowded and noisy, giving each table a semblance of privacy despite the close proximity to other people. Martin gazed out of the window they were sat beside, watching the lunchtime crowds cross the square.
“So tell me, Martin, how are you?”
Martin turned back to to face Sevet, “I was okay until today. I’d forgotten you, I was fine.” He left the implication hanging. Seeing Sevet, rather remembering Sevet, had thrown his world into disarray. He remembered her long dark hair, her deep blue eyes, her smile. It was too much.
“How are things at work, Martin?”
“Oh okay,” his mood seemed to lighten at the mention of work. “I’m doing fewer hours now, just three days a week.”
“I find that hard to believe,” Sevet smiled and the smile was reciprocated by Martin.
“Yeah, well, I’m the chairman now; I can take a back seat knowing that the hard work has been done.”
“Don’t you miss it? How do you manage working just three days a week?”
“I manage okay, the shares have just kept going up so I don’t have to worry about money anymore. The company has three hundred employees now.”
“Wow!” Sevet looked surprised. “A bit of a change from a three man band in a garden shed. It must feel great”
“Well it’s more important to me that we’ve done something worthwhile, although it’s easy for me to say that. Money is just the means to the end and not the end. We’ve helped a lot of people, and I feel good about that.” Sevet smiled and sipped her coffee. “I made the top ten most powerful men in the world.” Martin laughed at Sevet’s shocked face.
“Really? Wow, Martin, that’s fantastic.”
“Well, I don’t take the media stuff too seriously.”
Sevet smiled and then gently let her expression turn more serious. “Martin, don’t you think that we deserve another chance?” She reached out for his hands which were entwined around a mug of tea. He removed them from her touch and looked up out of his mug into her eyes.
“Why?” His mood sank back to the lowest depths. “After you and that guy. Why should I even speak to you again?”
“What about the good times though, Martin? They were so good.”
Martin started as a realisation suddenly dawned on him. “Hold on a minute, how did you get hold of my memories?” His voice raised in volume as he said this and Sevet nervously glanced around to see if anyone was looking. Martin had suddenly realised that the memories on the card she had given him were his, not hers. It hadn’t occurred to him before as it was so natural, he would have been startled if the memories were Sevet's, not his.
“Martin, calm down, listen,” she reached out for his hand again, ”I can explain. It’s quite embarrassing, it’s just that, well...” Sevet seemed to flush, her cheeks turning red. “I used to enjoy your memories from when we made love, I used to like watching myself...”
“So how did you get the memories then, Sevet? How did you manage to extract them from my head exactly?” Martin's look was piercing, not even loved ones stole memories.
“I used to download them while you were asleep. I’m sorry, I just couldn’t tell you, it was too embarrassing.”
“There was obviously a lot of understanding in our relationship. A lot of trust. A lot of love. How could you do it, Sevet?”
“I’m sorry, Martin; please forgive me.”
“No, Sevet, it’s too late. Relationships end for a reason, we’re not meant to be together. I wish I could say that it was nice remembering you. Goodbye.” He rose from the table and headed from the café door.
“Martin, please.” Sevet was trying not to shout but she still had gained the attention of most of the café, “Martin,” she was pleading now.
Martin glanced back at her. “Goodbye, Sevet.” He headed out the door, hoping that this time it was for good.
#
Martin awoke to the sound of curtains being opened and the warm feel of sunlight drifting into the bedroom. With his eyes still closed he reached out to his left only to feel an empty bed.
“Wakey wakey, lazy bones, breakfast.” Her voice was over by the window. He kept his eyes closed, letting the smell of bacon drift into the bedroom and give his body that little extra wake up kick. He heard her move to the the bedside and place a cup down. Coffee, he could smell it. Suddenly Martin reached the state of awake and his brain kicked in with the reminder that he should be doing something. He opened his eyes and was greeted by a smiling Sevet in her dressing gown. She sat down beside him and stroked his hair.
“I should be at work, what time is it?”
“It’s nine thirty, a lovely sunny Sunday morning. Why don’t we go for a walk along the beach?”
Martin gazed out of the window at the azure blue sky, he could just hear the seagulls crying outside.
“No, sorry, I’ve really got to work, we’re so close now I can feel it.”
“Martin, please, I hardly see you these days. We’ve got lots to sort out as well, bills are unpaid, the life assurance is up.”
“I thought I told you to pay the bills?”
“I’ve told you before, I don’t have the money in my account and I can’t pay it from yours. I really do think that we need a joint account.”
“Look, Sevet, all this can wait but my work can’t. The virus is spreading fast, people are getting worse, if we don’t crack it soon no one will remember that we owe bills.” Martin was sitting up in bed now, fully alert.
“Isn’t that a bit melodramatic, Martin? A few people have it, so what?”
“No, Sevet, no. We can’t think like that. The virus spreads so fast and we don’t even know the mechanism. The search for a cure has been hopeless so far, it could take years to come up with a vaccine. In the meantime we have to come up with a work around. We’ve got to try and give these people back some normality.”
“Normality!” Sevet laughed as she stood up. “Normality! Do you call storing your memories in some computer normal?”
“Sevet, you’re simplifying things again, it’s not a computer.”
“Well, whatever, putting your memories in some black box is not normal as far as I’m concerned.”
“Would you rather have them unable to remember anything? Unable to function because they can't even remember their name, let alone how to make a cup of tea, or who they saw yesterday.” Martin sighed and flopped back down onto the bed, they’d had this argument a hundred times, and Sevet just didn’t agree with him. He felt that she was such a product of their capitalist society, she never seemed to care about anyone else. Sevet knew what he was thinking.
“Look, Martin, if it was up to you we’d still be living in a grotty flat saving up to get married. Look around you, Martin, look at this beautiful house, you get this by caring about yourself, not others.”
“Tell me then, Sevet, what happens when you lose your memory, who will look after you? Who will want to after all this time of looking after yourself? It’s a state of mind, Sevet. A caring state of mind.”
“Well perhaps you should just upload that state of mind into everyone then? Is that what you’re after?”
“No, of course not,” Martin sighed, he knew that it was no good trying to win this argument so he let the discussion drift away. “Anyway, what were you saying about those bills?”
“Yeah, come on, lazy bones, let’s go for a walk then open a new account for those bills.” She smiled, letting the argument disappear without a trace.
“Then they haven’t cut off the TV yet?” Sevet reached down and hugged Martin.
“No, they haven’t cut us off just yet”
Martin got up and walked to the window. The blue sky reached down and kissed the horizon. The sea was calm and still, gently lapping the beach. The sun was bright and small, the glare of the sea made him squint. The gulls floated to the sea line pecking for food, and a man and his dog left footprints in the damp gold sand along the shoreline. He could see the footprints stretching back towards the lighthouse at the end of the bay. Yes, he thought, a walk would be nice.
#
He knew that his name was Martin, but he didn’t know his last name. He pulled his coat tightly around himself to try and keep out the draft. The underpass seemed to channel a breeze into a gust. Some warmth made its way to him from the nearby fire but not enough to stop his shivering. The road overhead kept the rain away from him, but the tarmac beneath was cold. He tried to wrap some of the cardboard boxes around himself to add some extra protection, glancing around at the other people nearby as he did so. There were about ten of them, some men, some women, all in dishevelled clothes, all trying to gather some warmth from the fire. He couldn’t remember their names, somehow he felt that he should, but no one was aggressive towards him. Just then everyone started, looking out from beneath the underpass into the torrential rain beyond. Two figures were approaching, both carrying boxes. No one around him seemed to recognise them, he certainly didn’t.
The figures reached the edge of the underpass and paused as they stepped out of the rain. They shook themselves to dislodge some of the water from their long raincoats, one of the men placed the box he was carrying on the floor and smoothed his hair back with one hand. He picked the box back up again and the two men continued. Martin couldn't hear the footsteps due to the roar of the traffic overhead. Within a minute, the men were a couple of metres away from him.
“Hello, everybody,” said one of the men. “My name’s Grant, and this is Ricky, we’re here to give you all some food.” They opened the boxes and started passing out parcels to the dishevelled people.
“Hello, Martin,” said the man who called himself Grant. Martin jumped with shock.
“How do you know my name?”
“We met last week Martin.”
“Why don’t I remember you then?”
The man called Ricky sighed loudly, “Grant, do we have to go through this conversation every week?”
“Yes Ricky, have patience.”
“Look Grant, I’m not here because I feel sorry for these guys like you. I’m here because some judge said I had to be. That same judge said that if I didn’t do my community service, I’d end up with a tag and just a day's headspace, okay?”
Grant turned back to Martin, “Sorry, he gets a bit irate. Still, he’ll learn in time. Fancy some shepherds pie?” Grant produced a foil container from within one of the brown boxes, steam was rising from it. He pulled off the lid revealing a golden brown pie and handed it to Martin with a fork. “Tuck in.”
“Why can’t I remember, Grant?” Martin looked at Grant and then ate a mouthful of the pie.
“You can’t remember because your headspace isn’t big enough, and you don’t have an external system.”
Martin looked up from the pie, “What’s headspace?”
“Well, headspace is like RAM in your head. Sorry, let me try again, headspace is the hardware in your head that stores your memories. It’s like a bottle, and the memories are like wine—it can hold so much, and then it overflows, and that’s when you forget.”
“But I can remember yesterday, Grant, and the day before.”
“You’re very lucky, Martin, I’d keep quiet about that. Most of these people have no headspace at all. You must have a pretty nifty amount of hardware in there to remember that much without an external system.” He tapped Martin’s head making him flinch.
“What about you, then, how much headspace do you have?”
“Oh, not much, I’m afraid that social workers don’t get paid an awful lot,” Grant smiled. “That’s why I have this.” He held up a small black box which he had taken out of his pocket, “It interfaces by this socket,” he pulled back his hair to reveal a lead physically plugged into a socket in his head. “Not very elegant, or very cool, but cheap.”
“Why do we need these things, Grant? It feels strange needing these things.”
“It’s because of the virus.” Grant looked down at the floor, sighed, then looked back at Martin smiling. “Enough of this depressing talk Martin, how are you? Have you thought about trying to get a job? Then you could get a cheap system, save some money, get some more headspace. What do you think?”
“I can’t remember you. I can’t remember ever thinking about getting a job.”
“I gave you a piece of paper, Martin, it had details of what to do.”
“Oh, I don’t have it.” Martin held the hot pie in one hand and patted his pockets with the other. “No, I don’t have it.”
“That’s okay, here’s another one,” Grant handed Martin a piece of paper. “It has instructions on how to get a job, and why you should want to. Follow the instructions, and go to the address, they'll help you to get a job. Okay?”
Martin read the piece of paper quickly, “Uh yeah, okay.”
“Grant.” Ricky was stamping his feet with his hands deep in his pockets. “Come on Grant, we'll never get the rounds in before lunch.”
“Coming, Ricky,” Grant turned back to Martin, ”Take care Martin, I have to go now, try and remember about that job, really try.” Grant stood up and looked down at Martin. “Try. For yourself. Goodbye.”
“Yeah, Grant, goodbye.” Martin watched Grant walk away puzzled by the emotion in Grant's plea. He could just hear Ricky talk to Grant above the roar of the traffic and the rain.
“Why do you care so much Grant? They’re just no-spacers.”
“Because I know how it feels, Ricky, I used to be one of them.”
Martin watched the two men step into the rain and disappear into the distance, then he looked down at the piece of paper and read the title again, “IMPORTANT. PLEASE TRY TO REMEMBER.”
#
Martin looked down at the piece of paper in his hand and then back up at the street sign, both said New Street. He continued to walk down New Street closely watching the numbers on the shop fronts. The crowds had thinned somewhat as the street was heading out of the town centre. He’d made it through the centre okay, but the sheer number of people made him nervous, now he was feeling much calmer. He read the piece of paper again, “Go to the following address and ask for a job. A job will enable you to buy a cheap system and remember more. Try to remember this. The address is Jobs4Everyone, 45 New Street. When you get there ask for Dave Terry, he'll look after you.”
Martin sighed and continued looking for number forty five. Then he saw the sign Jobs4Everyone just past the café with the tables in the street. The street was pedestrianised so people passing through walked in the middle of the street, and many of them seemed to do this to avoid Martin. He arrived at the door of the Job shop, straightened his coat and looked at his reflection. Martin knew that he didn’t look like the other people around here, he had a straggly beard, unkempt hair, and his clothes were dirty, but this was the only way that he could ever remember looking. He entered the shop and approached the man sitting behind the desk. The man, whose name badge read Gordon, looked up from the screen that he was staring intently at.
“Yes?” Gordon's tone was contemptuous.
“Hello,” Martin glanced nervously at the piece of paper. “I’ve come for a job.”
“I see. Have you filled in the necessary forms?”
“No. I...I’m supposed to see this man,” Martin handed the piece of paper to Gordon, which he read and then stood up.
“One moment, I'll fetch Dave.”
Gordon walked through the door at the back of the office. Martin could hear two people talking but couldn't make out what they were actually saying. Eventually Gordon emerged with another man.
“Hello, I’m Dave. Pleased to meet you.” Dave extended his hand towards Martin and Martin reached out to shake it instinctively. “I see you haven't forgotten everything then. Right let’s see if we can find you a job, Martin, and you can start saving for some headspace,” Dave smiled at Martin. “Please sit down,” he gestured to the chair by the front side of the desk. “First of all, can you tell me anything about yourself?”
“I know that my name is Martin. I’ve come from beneath a road some way away.”
“I see, and why did you decide to come here today?”
“I found that piece of paper this morning so I did what it said. I want to be able to remember more.”
“Okay, first of we’ll grab a retina scan to see if you’re on record and then we need you to do a test to see what type of job we can get you. Okay?” Martin nodded and Dave produced a black box the size of a fist from the drawer in his desk. “Look into this, Martin, that’s it, lovely.” Dave plugged the box into a socket in the desk and clicked a button. “Right, while that’s doing a search for you I’ll take you into the back room to start the test.”
Martin was starting to feel a little overwhelmed but the compassion in Dave's face stopped him panicking. Martin was lead through the door into the back office and told to sit at a desk with a screen.
“The screen will tell you what to do, Martin, it’s a touch screen so you can just push your finger against the screen like this.” Dave touched the screen and the Jobs4Everyone logo disappeared to be replaced with the words “Aptitude Test”.
“Okay, Martin, I’ll let you get on with it, call if you need anything.”
“Yep, fine, okay.” Martin read the screen and started the test, deciding which shape fitted which pattern, which word means which description and a variety of mathematical problems, none of which Martin struggled with, all the answers came to him instinctively. Martin lost track of the time and engrossed himself in the test. He started when the door opened and in walked Dave with a uniformed man.
“Martin, you can stop the test now, this man wants to talk to you.”
“Oh, okay, Dave, I haven’t quite finished yet though.”
“That’s okay, Martin, this is more important.”
“Martin,” the uniformed man stepped forward. “My name is Detective Julian Gomez, I work in the memory crime division of the police.”
Martin smiled at the man, “Hello, how can I help you?”
“I’m afraid I have some bad news for you.” The policeman looked down at his feet awkwardly.
“Bad news?” Martin could only think that he wasn’t being allowed a job. “What is it?”
The policeman looked back up at him, “I’m afraid, sir, that you’ve been hijacked.”
#
Martin rose from the sofa to answer the door, it was Detective Gomez.
“Good morning, Detective, do come in, would you like some coffee?”
“Hello, Martin, good morning, no coffee for me thank you. I’ve come round to bring you something back,” Martin raised his eyebrows. “I’ve got your memories, Martin.” He offered the black plastic briefcase he was holding. Martin opened it to reveal at least a hundred memory cards, all neatly stacked and encased in hard foam.
“Well, Detective, I’m speechless, thank you. Where did you find them?”
“They were in her apartment, not too bright a criminal, I’m glad to say.”
“Yeah, but she was clever enough to suck me in to start with.”
“Nothing to be ashamed of, we reckon that this is the third hijacking she’s committed in two years. It’s just that you’re a bit too high profile to go unnoticed. I’m afraid that we had to scan the memories for any evidence but the detectives will be wiped once we’ve concluded the case.”
“It’s okay, Detective, I understand. Did you find anything?”
“I think that we’ve got enough to convict her, we’re still going through her memories, and that should give us some more. Has anyone filled you in on what happened? What can you remember?”
“Well, since your guys released the block on my headspace I can remember meeting Sevet, or whatever her name was, opening our joint account, then nothing until I was living underneath the overpass and then getting picked up by you.”
“You can count yourself lucky Martin, we’ve seen people who have had their headspace surgically removed, not just blocked programmatically. We’re still after the guy who hacked your headspace, he was definitely a pro.”
“The thing that confuses me Detective is how she managed to get those memories of me and her when I’d never met her before?”
“I’m afraid that there’s some clever people out there. If you’d have had time to dwell on them then you might have realised that they were someone else's memories, but all of them rushing back into your head at once, you just can’t cope. What about your company? Any damage done?”
“Well, we may have lost some ideas, but all the shares and money are recoverable.” Martin leaned back against the sofa and let a smile cross his lips.
“Something funny, Martin?”
“Sorry Detective, I was just remembering something. We take it so much for granted, but when you lose it for a while it’s so joyous remembering.”
“Right, well, I think I'll leave you to it then, I'll see myself out.” The Detective stood up to leave, moved to the door and turned back to look at Martin. “Oh and next time Martin, don’t take memories from strangers.”
#
Martin woke to the sunlight streaming through the curtains and the sound of gulls crying over the background noise of the surf washing against the shore. He rolled over onto his back and slowly opened his eyes, blinking in the bright light, then swung out of the bed and shuffled to the window, parting the curtains. He watched the sunlight glinting off the surf and remembered the good times spent walking down there on the beach. Squinting against the sun to see the lighthouse, he remembered the bad times spent arguing in it’s glass dome. Martin smiled, oh to remember.
