Escape From Memory

“We can’t, baby sister,” Toria whispered. “Oh, I’m so sorry. We can’t.”

  “In there. My memories.” Sophia somehow managed to point to the computer Toria had dropped by her side.

  Toria and Alexei looked at each other, hopelessly. Of all the Crythians, Sophia had had the greatest faith in them and their discoveries. He knew it wasn’t fair, but Alexei had always regarded his sister-in-law as somewhat simpleminded. Sure, she could memorize anything she was given, from the periodic table to the Los Angeles phone book. But she had none of her sister’s flashes of brilliance, none of her sister’s insight. Sophia liked flowers and trees. She liked to look at the sky.

  What’s the point? he wanted to scream at Sophia. A computer disk is not eternal life. You’ll still be dead. And even more heartless: Who would ever want your memories but you?

  He said nothing. He bit his lip. I am shutting down already, he thought. I am losing my humanity.

  Toria leaned closer to her sister, gently brushed the hair back from Sophia’s face.

  “Of course. Of course,” she crooned. “That is how we will keep you. Forever.”

  Numbly, Alexei watched as Toria’s fingers raced across the keyboard, deftly copying Sophia’s mind into digital memory.

  Alexei chafed at the waste of time—why tend to the dying when Kira was still in danger? But at last Toria straightened up.

  “She’s gone,” she said. “I don’t think I got it all.” Her voice broke. Alexei forgot that he had given up on his own humanity; he rushed to his wife’s side and held her in his arms. Over her shoulder he could see me, Kira, still sleeping soundly on the floor.

  “You must go, then,” he said. “Take the child and go quickly. Before it is too late.”

  But Toria was still reaching for the computer, fumbling with wires.

  “What are you doing?” Alexei demanded.

  Toria had the computer linked to her brain once more. Her fingers flew over the keyboard.

  “I can’t just leave Sophia in there,” she said. “The computer is so cold…. Her memories will be safer in my mind. Like we’re putting our memories in Kira’s mind.” Her hands shook as she reached back to make the final connection. So many tears streamed from her eyes that Alexei wondered if she could see at all.

  “Toria, this is madness,” Alexei protested, but his wife didn’t seem to hear. He watched helplessly as she made the transfer. Grief had clearly swept away the last traces of her reason. What good would it do to store Sophia’s memories in Toria’s mind when Toria was about to die too? He wondered, suddenly, if all of Crythe was crazy, thinking memory mattered. Mattered enough to die for.

  Alexei was ready to forget.

  Down below, the door scraped open and shut. Alexei froze. Toria stiffened as well—this sound, at least, had broken through her trance of grief. Both of them looked around frantically. There was no place to hide. Except for the baby sleeping on a blanket on the floor, the room might as well have been a tomb. It might well become their tomb, as it had already become Sophia’s.

  But the baby was sleeping on the floor. Alexei could not allow her to die.

  “Quick! I’ve got a plan!” Toria hissed. Alexei was relieved to see the gleam of reason in her eyes again. “Shut off that flashlight. No—wait—don’t. Hand it to me. And lie over there beside Kira.”

  Baffled, Alexei huddled beside his daughter. He heard footsteps on the stairs—whoever had opened the door was climbing the stairs now. He dared to hope that it was someone who sympathized with Alexei and Toria, but that wasn’t likely. Most of their compatriots were dead.

  “Don’t wake Kira!” Toria ordered. She was tugging on her sister’s body straining and pulling until it was right in front of Alexei and the sleeping child. Then she spread out Sophia’s skirt and her hair until Alexei and Kira were hidden behind the corpse.

  “It’s just her body. It’s not her. I’ts not her memories,” Toria said again and again, like a mantra. Through the tangle of hair, Alexei saw Toria pull the kerchief from Sophia’s head and tie it under her own chin. Then she fell, face first onto her sister’s chest, sobbing.

  “Toria? Alexei?” a voice called, and Alexei’s heart sank. It was Rona.

  From his hiding place, Alexei saw a beam of light flash crazily about the room. He saw Toria turn and throw something toward the door. There was a crash, and then the room went dark. Alexei suddenly understood: Toria had used their flashlight to knock Rona’s flashlight out of her hand.

  He had to admire his wife’s aim. But what was she going to do next?

  Rona was cursing Toria. “Give me back my flashlight,” she demanded. “Give it to me. Now!”

  Alexei could hear someone groping around on the floor. He hoped that Toria found the flashlight before Rona did. Or, at the very least, he hoped both flashlights were broken.

  “You killed my sister! You killed Toria!” a voice wailed, and it sounded so much like Sophia that Alexei was spooked. In the darkness he poked one finger against the body in front of him—it was already cold with death.

  “Oh, well, there’s still Alexei to help me,” Rona said carelessly. “Where is he?”

  Toria’s sobbing intensified.

  “He—He saw that she was dead and he ran away,” she blubbered.

  Rona swore. “Why don’t they make this easy for me?” she asked. “They’ve lost. Why keep fighting?”

  “Maybe he was looking for you. I don’t know,” Toria said through her sobs, barely coherent. “Oh, oh—my sister is dead!”

  “Oh, shut up,” Rona said. “I should kill you, too.”

  Alexei couldn’t believe Rona’s callousness. No—he could. He knew what she was capable of. He braced himself to spring up and defend his wife, if he had to. But it was so dark, he didn’t know which way to spring. Toria’s keening made her easy to locate, but Rona was moving about the room, still groping for a light.

  “Go ahead,” Toria challenged. “Kill me. I don’t want to go on living without my sister.” She sounded so convincing, Alexei worried. Was that what she really believed?

  “No. You’re not worth my time,” Rona countered. “Ugh. Get away from me, you filthy piece of vermin. I mean it. You’re getting blood on me.”

  There were sounds of a struggle. As best as Alexei could tell, Toria must have thrown herself against Rona. A body hit the floor. Alexei dared to hope—

  “Serves you right,” Rona said. Her footsteps drew closer to the spot where Alexei and Kira lay behind the corpse. Then she paused. “Oh, forget the flashlight.”

  The footsteps echoed down the stairs.

  As soon as he heard the door below, Alexei shoved Sophia’s body aside.

  “Toria?” he whispered.

  She moaned, and that led him to her. On the way he stumbled over a flashlight. He scooped it up, switched it on.

  “Are you all right?” he asked, bending at his wife’s side.

  “I think I … hit my head,” she mumbled. “Hurts.”

  Alexei gently turned her head to the side, felt for a wound at the back. The skin wasn’t broken, but a small lump was growing right beside the computer port.

  “It doesn’t look too bad,” he assured her. “Oh, Toria, you were incredible. You really fooled her! If I hadn’t known, even I would have believed—”

  “Toria?” She furrowed her brow in confusion. “What’s wrong with you, Alexei? Can’t you tell the difference between your wife and your sister-in-law?”

  “Come on, Toria, Rona’s gone. You don’t have to pretend anymore,” Alexei said.

  “Pretend?” Toria looked even more puzzled. “Who’s pretending? I’m not Toria. I’m Sophia.”

  “No, no, you just bumped your head. You’re confused,” Alexei insisted.

  But even as he spoke the words, he knew. He could recall exact passages from psychology texts that he and Toria had pored over, planning their inventions. It had been dangerous for Toria to bring Sophia’s memories into her own mind. The bump on her head was all she need
ed to lose track of which identity was really hers.

  “Sophia?” he said tentatively.

  “Yes, of course. Who else?” Toria replied. She struggled to sit up. “You were really scaring me there, Alexei. Where is Toria, anyway? And Kira, I came to get Kira….” She rubbed her forehead. “That’s funny. I don’t remember coming here. What’s wrong with me?”

  “You just bumped your head,” Alexei repeated, trying to hide his own fear.

  “Toria will know—I have to see Toria—”

  “She already left. She couldn’t bear to say good-bye,” Alexei lied frantically. Anything to keep Toria calm.

  Toria shook her head, her expression blank—as blank as Sophia’s would have been.

  “I was in my room, getting ready. And then I was here. How could I forget everything in between? And Toria.” Her voice arced toward hysteria.

  “Don’t worry” Alexei said soothingly. But his mind was running like a rat in a maze. He had to cure his wife—He had to divert Rona before she came back and discovered the truth—He had to protect his daughter—” You’ll remember everything again, soon,” he murmured. But he didn’t believe it.

  And did he want her to remember Sophia’s death?

  Toria was turning her head. In a second she would see the corpse of the real Sophia, lying on the floor only a few feet away.

  Alexei snapped the flashlight off.

  “Alexei!” Toria protested. “I can’t see!” And, again, in the darkness, she sounded so completely like Sophia that Alexei doubted his own memory. Toria was alive, though she wouldn’t be for much longer.

  Grimly, Alexei pictured the inevitable future: Either he and Toria would have to reveal their secrets to Rona, or the other Crythians would kill them. And without Sophia to rescue her, Kira would die too.

  But Toria could take the baby. She thought she was Sophia anyhow—why not let her go like that?

  Alexei saw everything fitting together. It was good that Toria was confused. This way he could save his wife and his child both. And if he was wrong, if he survived too, he could go after them, restore Toria’s true memory have his family back safe and sound….

  Alexei let his fantasy play out luxuriously.

  “Let me get Kira ready to go,” he told Toria/Sophia. “I just have to give her my memories…. All my memories will be hers.”

  Groping around in the dark for his sleeping child, Alexei’s fingers brushed the real Sophia’s face. He stifled a shiver.

  “Go sit on the stairs and wait,” Alexei said brusquely. “I want a few minutes alone with my daughter!”

  As soon as Toria/Sophia was gone, he switched the flashlight back on and hooked up the computer. He was crying while he worked.

  And that was the end of my father’s memories.

  I wanted to believe that he’d cradled and kissed me before handing me over to Toria/Sophia. To Mom. I wanted to believe that he’d swept her into a romantic embrace before sending her off. But of course he wouldn’t have, because she wouldn’t have understood. I still wasn’t sure that I understood. For thirteen years my mother had been the wrong person. And she herself knew the secrets that Rona sought—but even Rona didn’t recognize her anymore.

  My mother could die never knowing who she really was.

  “Kira!” Lynne hissed in my ear. “Kira! We’re landing! What’s your plan?”

  Thirty-Three

  I LOOKED AROUND IN CONFUSION, MY MIND STILL BACK IN CRYTHE more than a dozen years before. The vast, empty field that passed for the Willistown airport lay nearly below us, getting closer with every second. It looked like a foreign landscape to me now—all that openness, all that level ground stretching from horizon to horizon. In less than twenty-four hours I’d grown accustomed to mountains, plunging roads, secrets hiding around every bend.

  “You have to tell me your plan,” Lynne insisted, “so I know what to do. It’s time.”

  I shook my head, unable to speak, unable to explain. Plan? I doubted if even Lynne could have emerged from the sea of memories I was drowning in with a coherent thought, let alone a plan.

  Lynne read my blank expression quite accurately.

  “Oh no,” she whispered. She looked away from me, eyes narrowing. “Uh, Ms. Cummins,” she practically shouted toward the front seat. Rona turned only enough to give her a cold stare. Lynne forged on. “Ms. Cummins, I just wanted to make sure—you did take the time difference into account when you were working out all the details of, um, this trip, didn’t you? I mean, Ohio is three hours ahead of California, so it’s already after seven o’clock here, and I’m pretty sure the bank would be closed by now….”

  “The First Bank of Willistown is open until nine P.M. on Thursdays,” Rona said icily. “I checked before we left. Don’t try to trick me, young lady. You’ll regret it.”

  Lynne gulped and turned pale.

  Nobody spoke as we dropped out of the sky and rolled to a stop at the end of a long, vacant slab of concrete. When the pilot cut off the engine, the silence roared in my ears like a giant question. I had the minds of two geniuses linked to my own. Why couldn’t I figure out what to do?

  “I arranged for a rental car to be delivered here,” Rona said. “That must be it over there.”

  Silently, Lynne and I looked over at a green car parked in an otherwise empty lot. The Willistown airport was mainly a place for weekend hobbyists—the one or two doctors in town who were rich enough to own a plane. So it was no surprise that the place was deserted on a Thursday evening. But disappointment hit like a rock—I realized that I’d been half hoping we could find somebody here to help.

  “Well, come on,” Rona said impatiently. Already out of the plane, she was holding the door wide open, waiting for Lynne and me. I awkwardly scrambled out, tripping on the bottom step. “Come on!” Rona repeated.

  I turned around, wondering why Lynne was hesitating. But Lynne was on my heels, still linked to me with the rope and cuffs. It was the pilot Rona had yelled at.

  He gestured at the instrument panel.

  “I take care of plane,” he explained.

  “Plane? Plane? Forget the plane. We can buy a new one after all this is over. Out!”

  In spite of myself, I almost felt sorry for the pilot. An old man should not have to be bossed around by someone half his age.

  It was my parents’ memories making me think like that, making me think that age required respect.

  Shakily the pilot obeyed Rona and climbed out of the plane. He, Lynne, and I walked a little ahead of Rona, toward the car. She wasn’t pointing the gun at any of us now, but she might as well have been.

  “Isn’t it locked?” Lynne blurted out.

  “They said they’d leave the keys in the ignition,” Rona practically purred. “You two evidently live in a virtually crime-free town.” She laughed, as if she’d made a particularly witty joke.

  We piled into the car. Rona made Jacques drive. I kept watching him. If he really was Crythian, shouldn’t I recognize him? The only Jacques my parents had known in Crythe had been young and virile. This man was stooped and shaky, gray haired and wrinkled. Half of his face was suffer than the other side. With my parents’ memories, I suddenly understood: He’d had a stroke. Sometime in the past thirteen years, he’d been transformed.

  We whipped past cornfields and farmers’ houses—places I’d seen before but didn’t really know. I could understand now how my parents would have felt about such inattention. How could I not have every hillock memorized, every gable of every house ingrained in my mind forever?

  Poor Mom, I thought. No wonder she could never fit in in America.

  We were on the outskirts of Willistown in no time. Five traffic lights later, we were in the center of town. The pilot parked right in front of the bank. Rona whirled around to face Lynne and me.

  “Now,” she said to Lynne, “we are leaving you in the car. Keep your head down and stay out of sight. Jacques will have a gun. He will not hesitate to shoot.”

  Sh
e made a big show of producing a new gun from her purse; so she and the pilot each had one. At least one. What if Rona had another two or three firearms stashed somewhere on her?

  That thought alone was enough to keep me quiet.

  “And you,” she said, turning to face me. “I want you to understand. I have a cell phone with me, preprogrammed to call Jacques. If you try anything—anything at all—I’ll hit the call button and he will shoot your friend. And then hell call Crythe and they’ll kill your mother. Do you understand?”

  Her eyes gleamed maliciously. I hated her, for all my parent’s memories. And my own.

  Lynne and I exchanged frantic looks.

  “But—,” I protested weakly. “I want Lynne to go with me. Into the bank.”

  I should have been steeling myself for that statement ever since we left Crythe, instead of dwelling on the past. I sounded about as authoritative as a gnat.

  “Right,” Rona said, almost laughing. “They probably have the ‘Teen Disappears’ signs plastered all over the place in there already. I don’t feel like getting arrested for kidnapping now, when I’m so close. And, hey, I didn’t kidnap her. Think anyone would believe that?”

  “I’ve been missing too,” I said, even more faintly. “Don’t you think I’m on those posters too?”

  “Oh, but I called in an absence report to your school this morning,” Rona said. “They won’t be expecting you all week. Do you think I’m stupid?”

  No, I thought I was. Rona had everything planned. She’d arranged details I hadn’t even thought about. And for the whole plane ride, when I could have been planning, I’d done nothing but wallow in memory, reaching for a father who’d been dead for years, a mother who might as well be. Who probably would be soon because I couldn’t help her.

  I blinked back tears. This was when I was supposed to be strong, absolutely refusing to go without Lynne. I was supposed to remind Rona about Mom, sacrificing her, and demand, Do you think I’d do anything to get my mother killed? Why does it matter to you if Lynne goes with us or not? But I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t speak the words “mother” and “killed” in the same sentence.