Her hair was red.
I went to a clinic. I wouldn’t allow the retina scan, but they saw me anyway, used to, I guess, people who want to stay incognito. I went into a cubicle bleaker than my own and faced a heavy black woman wearing a loud print dress. She glanced at my data form and said, “Bad dreams?”
I nodded.
“You want something for them?”
“I guess.”
“Make ‘em go away, or drown ‘em out?”
I shook my head.
“What I mean,” she said, leaning forward, “is that we can talk about your dreams or I can prescribe you a mood elevator.”
“I’m not sure talking would help. I’ve been talking with my friends. They say dreams are just our mind working out kinks. Meaningless.”
“Some say that,” said the woman, whose name was Joyce. “Others say they mask deep-rooted anxieties. What are you afraid of?”
“Nothing, really,” I said. On her slight smile, I said, “Just the usual. Money. Women. Life. But I feel guilty all the time now.”
“What did you do?”
“Nothing,” I said. “I never do anything. I just feel guilty.”
Joyce looked at me hard, sizing me up. Then she pulled her tablet toward her and started typing on the hologram keyboard that popped up. “I’ll give you something to calm you down.”
“I feel terrible,” I said, watching her type. She was really fast.
“Terrible, yes,” said Joyce, “but what’s really bothering you is pretty rare these days.”
“Rare?” I suddenly forgot my guilt. Allison? What had she given me?
Joyce smiled. “Yes, rare. It’s called an imagination, young man. That’s all it is.”
I took the pills and felt immediately different, though not better. It was kind of like sitting on someone else’s shoulder, watching him go about his day; some sort of out-of-body vibe where I could see myself from a detached position. All my feelings were muted except the good ones, which were unrealistically cheerful, but their very crispness called them out as cheats. Somehow chemists had figured out a way to dull negative feelings while sharpening positive ones, but neither extreme felt real. Life is an all-in-one proposition; no wonderful moment is entirely unsullied by the errant negative thought. It’s the returning to the good after the bad interlude that releases the endorphins. I found myself laughing too heartily at lame jokes and staring listlessly at my tablet at a video of a plane crash. A good follower, I never considered not taking the pills, but I promised myself that after a week when the prescription ran out, I’d let it go and try to handle my feelings on my own.
I dreamed every night, I knew, and had a few good ones, like sitting in a café with Benjamin Corbin, the famous actor, who acted like I was his best friend, begging me to come up to Napa with him that weekend for a party. I also dreamed I was flying, darting in and out of big, fluffy white clouds, using only my arms as control surfaces. I didn’t pull a Lebowski or anything; I just finally touched down lightly on a grassy field and walked away.
Which triggered another dream: standing on grass under a yellow street light next to a curb. A plump palm tree base squatted nearby. The street was wet. The grass to my left gave way to a dark ditch, with a glint of gold down in there. And a red cast to everything as exhaust mist rose in front of a brake light.
The next day I was standing near the printer, waiting for my turn in the queue. Steve came in. “Hey, Mitch!” he said buoyantly.
“Steve,” I said, stiffening, expecting his usual tone, which was defeatism mixed with suicide. But he wasn’t suicidal; in fact, he was hyper-happy. “How’s it going?” I ventured, guessing he was on one of Al’s mood alternators. His eyes seemed normal, though.
“Great,” he said, leaning against the doorway. “I just made a breakthrough.”
I didn’t want to get into his can of worms with Mayra, so I just nodded.
“The new allPhone and the Scanpatch? I think I worked out the interface kink. I’m running a test now, but I think I’ve got it licked.” He beamed.
“You’ve been working on that for two weeks,” I said. I had been expecting both devices to end up on my desk any day. I was relieved. “That’s good. Really good.”
Steve nodded. “I’m gonna celebrate tonight.” He leaned in. “Thinking of asking Mayra out.”
I straightened. “You sure that’s a good idea?”
“Why not? I’ve seen her looking at me.”
“Well, yeah,” I blurted out. “You know—”
The printer popped out a bound booklet. “That’s mine!” said Steve, grabbing it. He slapped me on the arm as he left. “Wish me luck!” he said, winking.
“Good luck,” I said, watching him go, completely confused.
“I think Steve has gone over the edge,” I said to Al at lunch.
Al turned to find Steve at his usual location, but he was not there.
“There,” I said, pointing. Steve was sitting with two other techs and they were laughing.
“I guess so,” said Al, turning back to his lunch. “Never seen him eat lunch with anyone—he must be crazy.”
I couldn’t take my eyes of Steve. He was talking, animated, enjoying himself as he told his listeners some story—they were too far away for us to hear—and the others were actually laughing. Laughing! And not at Steve, but at his story. Something was wrong.
“Uh oh,” said Al, nudging me.
“Shit,” I said as I saw Mayra enter the lunchroom. Both Steve and Mayra had been given different lunch schedules and Steve was supposed to be long gone by now, but there he was, still sitting there. His companions froze when they saw Mayra. Steve saw their reaction and looked over his shoulder. Suddenly, the entire room went dead silent.
Mayra had stopped dead in her tracks, surprised at seeing Steve. Her face morphed from expressionless purpose to shock. Her mouth popped open. I started getting to my feet. Al put a hand on my shoulder.
“Hi, Mayra,” said Steve, smiling at her, then turning back to his lunch as if nothing had happened.
Mayra’s face flushed red and her lips went tight. She turned on her heels and marched out of the room. Steve’s companions stared at her until she disappeared and then they turned their attention back to Steve.
Even all the way across the room I could hear the innocence in his voice: “What?”
A couple hours later, my tablet chirped and I looked over at it. Simons was on the screen. “Got a minute, Mitch?” he said. I nodded. “Come see me.” He clicked off.
Simons was our boss, and he never asked anyone to his office. Ever. I was surprised but not afraid. If I was going to be fired, I would have received a packet from HR, along with a list of lawyers I could consult. This was something different, but the butterflies still darted around inside me.
“Have a seat,” said Simons, gesturing at a chair. His office had windows, and a perfect SoCal day was shaping up outside. The morning fog had burned off, replaced by a fierce sun. I took a seat, pasting on a smile but saying nothing.
“It’s about Fletcher.”
I sighed in relief. Steve Fletcher was under me, that was true, but this obviously had to be about the near-miss in the lunchroom. I nodded. “I saw. Close one.”
“Not really,” said Simons, fingering a sheet of paper in front of him. “We could have avoided it entirely if I’d received this in time.” He held it up, but I couldn’t see the writing. “I just got finished talking to Ms. Parker. She didn’t know.”
“Didn’t know what?” I asked.
“Her restraining order has been rescinded,” said Simons, tapping the paper.
“Really?” I asked. “How’d Steve manage that?”
“He didn’t. The Court did, after he completed his sentencing.” Simons picked up another paper and handed it to me. At the top was a letterhead: CLEAN SLATE.
I read it out loud: “‘Dear Mr. Simons: this letter serves as notice that Steven Fletcher has completed our procedure and is now fre
e of the memories that occasioned the restraining order (see attached). Please be advised that Mr. Fletcher has no memory whatsoever of the incidents involving Ms. Parker. We ask you to closely monitor Mr. Fletcher in order to ascertain that his behavior is in line with our prognosis. Under no circumstances are you to discuss Clean Slate or this letter with Mr. Fletcher. Should you have any questions, please do not hesitate to call.’”
“What’s this?” I asked, handing the letter back to Simons.
“Have you heard of Clean Slate?”
I shook my head.
“Word is, it started out as a DARPA project,” said Simons. “In essence, they found a way to erase memories. Because both Fletcher and Parker work here, and neither one had done anything of sufficient gravity to be fired—and believe me, we tried to find something to get rid of Fletcher—the Court ordered him to undergo either treatment or incarceration. It was his choice.”
“So he doesn’t remember anything about her?” I asked.
Simons shook his head. “You saw it, right? I’m told that in the lunchroom he acted like nothing had gone on between them. I just informed Mayra; she’ll have some adjustments, but if the erase takes, we can all relax.”
“So why am I here?” I asked.
“You’re his team leader,” said Simons. “I wanted you in the loop. I want you to keep an eye on him and let me know if he says or does anything . . . you know, typical.
“Too late,” I said. “He told me this morning he was going to ask her out.”
Simon started. “This morning? Before the lunchroom thing?”
I nodded.
“Shit,” said Simons.
“I guess you can’t repress physical attraction,” I said.
“Well, try to divert it.”
I laughed. “How?”
Simons frowned and pointed a finger at me. His bald head shone. “I don’t give a shit. Talk him out of it, distract him, whatever! He’s this close to getting fired.” Simons held his thumb and forefinger a millimeter apart. “Just keep him away from her. She’s up to speed and will rebuff any advances he makes, if any. It’s your job to see he doesn’t. Get it?”
I nodded, my head spinning. Memory erasure?
I sat down in Fletcher’s cubicle and picked up the allPhone. “It’s heavy, isn’t it?”
Steve nodded. “People like its substantiality; reminds them of the brick phones our grandparents used to use.”
“Yeah,” I said hefting it. “You could break a window with this thing.”
Steve smiled at me.
“How’s the testing? You said it was going pretty well.”
Steve looked at his computer screen, where the progress bars were three-quarters green. “Pretty good, so far. Fingers crossed!” He smiled again. I could not remember seeing him smile this much. But he didn’t seem stoned. Maybe it was the erasure residual; maybe they capped off the procedure with an endorphin mash. Whatever it was, he was lucid and happy, and no one on tranks was ever both at the same time.
“Listen,” I said, leaning in close. “About what you said in the printer room.”
Steve was examining a small oscillating graphic on his computer screen. “Hmm?”
“You know,” I said tentatively, “about Mayra.”
“Oh. Yeah,” he answered absently, tapping a pencil against the screen. “She’s cute. Hey, look, this thing looks like it’s gonna glide right through.” He turned to me, nodding.
“She has a boyfriend,” I lied.
“She does?” His smile faded and he shook his head. “Too bad. I thought she’d be fun, you know, maybe to take to a movie or something. Oh well.” He turned back to the screen and said, “Yeah, it looks like we’re out of the woods!”
I stood and put my hand on his shoulder. “Yeah. Looks like it.”
I was standing at the far side of the street. The car brakes were on and red light shimmered across the wet pavement. My hand was wet and sticky. I raised it and squinted. It was bloody.
The body lay in the ditch, the red hair across her face, her top torn. A gold chain glinted at her neck above very white skin. She was a teenager, judging from her clothing—all black.
I looked over my shoulder at the idling car. My car. The passenger side fender was already restoring itself, the paint oozing around the scuff marks. In thirty minutes, the damage would be invisible.
I looked across the street, where a sloping lawn rose to a rambler with scalloped eaves and a red tile roof. A car sat at the curb. A black canvas shoe lay in the middle of the street. Suddenly, I knew what had happened. I did not see her dart out from behind the car. Blood spots trailed from the point of impact—I’d literally knocked her out of her shoe—to the curb at my feet. I’d rolled her into the ditch and turned my car around.
Now I was taking one last look. I didn’t have much time. Her implant would register her flat vitals and location, which would draw the police here. I looked around desperately. This was an old neighborhood; there were no street cameras. I looked again at the house above the lawn, peering at the eaves. No cameras there. I looked at the car. I’d had the presence of mind to shut off the headlights, and that included the license plate light. All any camera would take note of was the make and model. And, of course, the man standing next to it.
I pulled my hat down over my ears and looked back at the girl. “I’m sorry,” I whispered. “What were you doing, running across the street at night, wearing black? Disgust welled up in me and I thought I’d vomit. If I did, the DNA trail would be like neon. I clamped a hand over my mouth and turned toward the car.
Then I awoke. Desperation enveloped me. Every pore, it seemed, oozed acrid sweat. The sheets were wet and my heart was pounding. I placed my palms over my eyes. “God!” I cried. “Jesus!”
Remarkably, I went right back to sleep. I guessed the dream exhausted me. When I awoke the next morning, I’d had enough. Clearly, this had to stop. Jung and Freud were stewing my brain and I was sick of it. I remembered a website that promised it could teach you—for just five hundred dollars—how to control your dreams. Live your dreams! the ad promised. As you dream, so you can be! said the tag line. The good life is a dream fulfilled! said the copy, which promised that our dreams are our highest aspirations and that harnessing our dreams would change our attitudes, guaranteeing success. And on and on.
I knew it was horseshit, but harnessing dreams seemed like a good idea. Mine were out of control, stray ideas and storylines culled from too many movies and role-playing games. I’d never seen a street like the one in my dream. The house was unfamiliar. Allison certainly did not live there. I did not drive a 1950-whatever Buick sedan and I never wore a fedora in my life.
The dream was just fragments of stuff collected and pasted together without transitions. Though the milieu was riveting, the girl’s face was invisible. Wasn’t that a clue? Black canvas shoes I’ve seen everywhere. But the girl’s face? My own imagination—notwithstanding what Joyce the social worker said—was so paltry that I couldn’t even conjure up a face for the victim.
But most of all, why the guilt? Over an auto accident? At night, wet streets, poor visibility, black clothing? It was an accident, for Christ’s sake, and so the emotional baggage I was waking up with was completely out of whack.
Maybe the pills Joyce gave me had screwed up my brain. I never took pharms, like Al did. He said he never remembered his dreams. What I wouldn’t give for that!
As I got ready for work, I promised myself I’d have a little talk with Pharmer Al and get out of this stupid rut.
But Al was sick that day. Turns out he’d gotten Allison’s cold after all. I still felt fine, physically, if bone tired from the restless sleep and bad dreams. I felt hung-over and languid.
Then I saw Steve. He was standing at the end of the cubicle row, talking to, of all people, Mayra. They were laughing, and she gave him a good-natured slap on the arm at the obviously off-color joke he’d just told her. He threw his head back and walked away, guffawi
ng. She started toward me.
“Mayra?” I asked as she walked past my cube.
“Yes?”
“Everything okay?”
“Yeah. Steve just told me the sickest joke. Disgusting.”
“You gonna file a complaint?” I asked, fearing the worst.
“Against him?” asked Mayra. “He was just joking. Besides it was kind of funny.”
She started to tell the joke but I just looked at her. Suddenly, I knew she had been to Clean Slate as well. I didn’t hear the punch line because I was formulating my own plans.
When Simons went to lunch, I went into his office and rifled his desk drawers. There, right on top of the papers in the left-hand drawer, practically inviting me to filch it, was the Clean Slate letter. But it wasn’t the letter about Steve. This one was about Mayra. I was right; she had been there and they’d fixed her.
Fixed her. That was how I was starting to think about it. They had fixed her, erased her bad memories and now she and Steve were strangers again with no idea of their history.
I left work early, the address memorized.
I must have memorized it wrong, because I found myself standing in front of a dilapidated building downtown on Spring Street. There were many windows in the featureless concrete façade, but most were blacked out or boarded over. The sidewalk was littered with trash. Graffiti was scrawled all along the walls. There was only one large rusty double door, inexplicably free of tags. Examining it, I noted it was the same sort of paint that high-end cars boast: expensive polymers that cannot be painted over. Thus, this one was designed to look old, but because it could not be defaced, it soon stuck out from the rest of its surroundings.