Memoria. A Corporation of Lies

Chapter Ten. The Vaccination Project

Bud Jessup sat in his office and looked through the glass partition at the departing backs of Claney and Binelli’s lawyers. Talking to them had been a mere formality, albeit unavoidable. He knew he couldn’t expect any positive outcome, but instead could look forward to all kinds of innuendo that they’d promised him. They’d made it pretty clear he shouldn’t try too hard, unless he wanted to lose his post and his head.

Jessup picked the lawyers’ business cards off the desk, crumpled them in his fist and binned them.

Fucking rats. Jessup turned his chair to the window. An audacious bunch of bullies. Smug and knowing that he had nothing against Memoria. Its bosses ordered the media around telling the majority what they were supposed to think. The government, the President, the law itself — they had everything on their side.

He rose and looked out into the street. The hustle and bustle made one forget yesterday’s murders. Twenty years ago, a violation like this would have had the whole city on its toes. People didn’t bother to consider these things any more. The world had changed. Those who’d once fought for its freedom were far past their prime now. Who would need a patriot these days? They were few and far between now, those who still bothered to remember. All thanks to Memoria and its memory wipes. They also wiped out integrity.

He turned to the desk, reached for the mug of cold coffee and froze, astonished by his thoughts. Now he could see Gautier and her migrant buddies in a totally different light. They had youngsters in their camps who remembered the war very well, and that had been thirty years ago. All right, they might be rightless, they had no access to proper education, but at least they knew stuff about their fathers’ past. People like those were a threat indeed. For the government, but first of all, for Memoria’s business.

It was all so simple. Forgetting the mug, he plonked down into the chair. The coffee splashed out over his dress shirt and poured down his trouser legs.

“Shit!” he stepped aside, grabbed a sheet of paper and tried to blot out a large brown spot on his belly. It didn’t work. “Melanie!” he called for his secretary without raising his head.

The opening door caused a window pane to rattle in its wooden frame.

“Sir,” she sounded excited.

“Get me a few tissues, please.”

“Sir, I was just trying to tell them…”

“Thank you,” a strange male voice dismissed her.

Jessup raised his head. A tall ginger-haired man stood before his desk. Dressed in a cream-colored trench coat, he had a long face and a slightly aquiline nose. His eyes seemed to pierce everything he looked at. He glanced over the office and fixed his gaze on the Shelby file in front of Jessup.

“Sir,” the secretary gave him a guilty look.

“You can go, Melanie. I’ll fetch some tissues myself later.”

When she closed the door behind her, the man showed Jessup his ID.

“Agent Archer.”

Without further ado he reached for a spare chair, turned it around and straddled it back to front.

Jessup moved aside. Behind the glass partition, several of Archer’s agents crowded in the hall staring at their boss.

“Let’s get straight down to business,” he said.

“As you wish,” Archer pointed at the file. “You give me and my men whatever you’ve got on Shelby and Baker, and we’ll leave.”

Jessup paused, then nodded. Leaning against the back of the chair, the agent rose and walked to the door.

“Oh,” he said. “One last thing. The President’s arriving tomorrow. Make sure there’s no rioting. Keep the migrants under control. The Mayor has already given them the afternoon off, so make sure they’re back in their camps by thirteen hundred.

Jessup ground his teeth but kept himself under control.

“How about the President’s safety?”

“The standard procedure,” Archer reached for the door handle. “Your people will assist my agents with on-site inspection. They will be responsible for cordoning off the possible cortege routes.”

He opened the door and added out loud,

“It’s the President’s request to have no police inside the Memoria building. Their security will take over there. Make sure you control the adjacent streets and the airport. The air gate over Manhattan is also their responsibility. No police choppers.”

Jessup didn’t speak. He wished he could hurl his unfinished coffee into the agent’s smug face. How dared he humiliate the entire police force, all those people who’d sacrificed their lives to protecting each and every New Yorker. But even here Memoria had to have its pound of flesh. He was out of it now, and as for speaking directly to the President, he now had a slimmer chance than a snowball in hell.

Without looking away, Jessup moved to the desk and pressed an intercom key.

“Melanie. I want you to ask Lieutenants Salem and Gizbo to see me now. Tell them to bring everything they have on the Shelby case.”

Before Jessup heard the secretary’s “Yes, sir,” Agent Archer closed the door behind him. He went to his men still crowding in the hall and spoke to them glancing back at Jessup through the glass.

Jessup drummed his fingers on the desk and opened the file. He’d have loved to have known two things. First, what kind of item had Shelby collected at the post office. And secondly, what the man planned to do next.

The Captain wasn’t going to abort the investigation.

They woke Barney up before lunch. He drove them away from the kitchen table and started cooking. In jeans and T-shirt, he opened the fridge and produced a large cut of neck for a stew.

“Migrants’ meat,” he said.

“Pardon?” Frank perked up.

“They raise cattle in those camps,” Barney threw the meat onto the table and reached for the biggest knife on the rack. “Without them, New York would have starved a long time ago.”

Max moved his laptop onto the window sill. Frank collected their notes covered in diagrams and question marks. He moved closer to the fridge and to Barney in order to tell him their brainstorm results.

Barney sliced the meat on the board, his enormous shoulders unmoving. He listened carefully, nodding whenever Max asked if he understood what Frank was saying. When Frank came to the shootout, Barney forgot his meat and turned to him, listening. Once Frank finished, Barney gave the coach a meaningful glance.

“Same people,” the coach summed up. He ran his hand through his crew cut. “All bald, mind you. Any idea why?”

“Experiment volunteers,” Barney suggested. “Same as Claney.”

“Yeah, right,” said Frank. “Children volunteers.”

Barney stared at him.

“You do the math,” Frank said. “Claney is the same age as you two. When Baker was testing his technology, he was the same age as I am now. Afterward, they solved the hair loss problem. Now think. The attackers are all my age. All have hair loss. Why?”

Barney stuck out a quizzical chin. Frank went on,

“Let’s assume they were subjected to Baker’s experiments while still children. Kathleen found out and wanted to go public and report Memoria’s child abuse. You think it’s serious enough?”

The two men nodded.

“Until now, it seems to add up,” Frank glanced at the sheets of paper in his hand, sat back and crossed his legs. “One thing I don’t understand is their military training. What’s that got to do with Baker’s experiments? Another thing. Those who attacked me at the post office couldn’t speak clearly. They didn’t seem to be able to form complete sentences. Could that be a side effect of the experiments? If so, how does Claney tie into the picture? He can talk the legs off a chair, that one. We’ve just heard him do it.”

“Barney? What do you think?” Max adjusted his glasses. The laptop started sliding off his lap. He caught it by the monitor just in time. “Any ideas?”

Barney took the cutting board and used the knife to sweep the chopped meat into a large pan.

“Well,” he mused, picking his teeth with the knife. “I’m not a hundred percent sure, but it’s possible they were specially trained. They wanted to use them whenever need be.” He looked at Max. “Did I make myself clear?”

“More or less,” Max shut the laptop. “Are you implying that their volunteers were intended to perform secret missions, just like I used to do for Hopper?”

“You got it,” Barney picked up a lid and covered the pan.

“Right,” Frank butted in, “but why them and not somebody else? What makes them special? All this fantasizing may not do us any favors.”

“Sometimes fantasizing is the best way to find a solution,” Max said.

“Yeah, right,” Barney shrugged, put the knife down and lifted the pan. “I’ll never forget how you sank that U-boat in the Gulf of Mexico. And they didn’t believe you then, either!”

“Leave it,” the coach said. “We’d better try to find a connection between Claney and the baldheaded attackers. And if there is one, then what exactly is it? So let’s have a think and then a meal, and then Frank can finally go get some rest.”

Without answering, Barney put the pan onto the stove and opened the fridge, looking for some vegetables. Max set the laptop aside. He dragged the bag from under the table, took out an assault rifle and began taking it to bits, placing each part onto the window sill.

“And what if-” Frank stopped himself.

The veterans turned to him.

“No, sorry,” Frank waved them aside. “Won’t work.”

“Spill it out, boy,” Barney pointed his knife at him. “It’s for us to decide whether it’ll work or not.”

“Exactly,” Max glanced at the clock over the fridge. “Hurry up.”

“Right,” Frank rummaged through the pile of notes and pulled out a sheet. He turned it to the veterans so they could see a diagram with a few questions jotted down underneath. “What would you say if the migrants were supposed to start a war in New York? Only they don’t know about it yet?”

“In which respect?” Barney munched on a carrot.

The coach lowered the rifle onto his lap.

“Easy,” Frank shrugged. “They’ll make them do it.”

“How exactly?” Max asked. “You just can’t let go of this migrant theory, can you?”

“First, a question,” Frank said. “Do you agree that there is a connection between Claney and the baldies? I think it’s pretty obvious.”

“I only saw Claney. And he was on TV,” said Barney finishing his carrot.

“I do,” Max nodded to Frank. “Their skin is too smooth to be natural, I have to agree.”

“Accepted,” Barney flicked the carrot end into the bin and reached into a bag for a new one.

“Good,” Frank glanced at the paper. “Kathleen told me something once that I dismissed as irrelevant. At the time, I thought she’d dreamt it all up. It was something about transplanting one person’s memories into another. I didn’t know then that she worked for Memoria, did I?”

Barney choked and burst out coughing. The coach reached out and tapped his back.

“I’m — agrh! — sorry,” Barney twisted his arm and pointed his thumb at his shoulder blades. Max slapped him as hard as he could. “Much better now.”

Barney cheered up and spoke louder,

“I’m sorry about that. For a second, I imagined Max’s memories being transplanted into my head. And his and mine, into Maggie’s.”

“This is exactly what I mean,” Frank said. “What if the idea behind the Vaccination is to prep the migrants for a war? The talks start. The President arrives. And then the shit hits the fan. A previously trained group acts first and the others join in.”

“So you think,” Max patted the rifle butt, “that they want to kill the President and blame it on the migrants?”

“Exactly. Now, Gautier has somehow heard about the Vaccination project. Alternatively, somebody leaked the information on purpose, in order to provoke our Steel Lady.”

“We digress,” Max said.

Frank paused, searching for the right words.

“This is what Kathleen came up with. By transplanting the required,” he raised his finger, “I said, the required memories, you can give society a perfect professional force. Thousands of brain surgeons, architects, engineers and researchers…”

“And well-trained soldiers,” Barney butted in. The coach nodded.

“And soldiers,” Frank said. “It’s plain irresistible, don’t you think? Thousands of people gaining access to skills they didn’t have before. Just like that,” he snapped his fingers.

Barney screwed up his face.

“Provided they pay,” the coach mumbled. Frank dismissed the remark and went on,

“And once these soldiers acquire certain combat skills — say, in an urban environment, — then they can confront the police. They can trigger rioting…”

“Wait a sec,” in one practiced motion, the coach pushed the bolt into the breech, fitted the recoil spring and snapped the breech frame cover shut. Then he cocked the firing mechanism and inspected the rifle. “Do you really think that Claney’s fighters are migrants?”

He aimed the barrel at the ceiling and pulled the trigger. The hammer clicked. The coach leaned the rifle against the window sill.

“Now that sounds closer to the truth,” Barney deftly chopped the carrots and peeled the onions. “This way nothing leads back to him. He’s got them to pull his chestnuts out of the fire.”

“I think so, too,” Frank went on. “It’s not so easy to arrange for a normal citizen to disappear. Now migrants are different. No one gives a damn about them. There’s an entire new generation grown up behind the camp’s fence. Okay. Let’s assume they did plan some organized rioting, but…”

It hurt him to speak of Kathleen impersonally, as if she was just a missing link to the past events. But he forced himself to go on,

“…but Kathleen could have found out about it. She must have tried to throw a monkey wrench in the works. Then Memoria had to cover up their tracks and changed their plans.”

“At the moment, this is nothing but a theory,” Barney pointed out. “As is the killing of the President and of their lab babies.”

“Actually, they work very well together,” said Max.

“Let’s start with the Vaccination, then,” squinting, Barney turned away from the table and wiped away his onion tears. “What’s so special about it? Who does it threaten and how?”

“We’ve already worked out a thing or two about it,” the coach said. “If what Frank’s said is true, then after the press conference people will line up for the Vaccination from here to hell.”

Barney and Frank nodded.

“This program threatens the migrants and their current situation. They feed New York. They provide electricity and drinking water. Their waste disposal sites work overtime. If you think about it, it’s the same everywhere. Migrant camps all over the country are responsible for the cities’ sustenance. Migrants are everywhere. They clear the debris, they work at construction sites, they clean the streets…”

“They don’t have oil,” Barney interrupted him.

“So what?” Max smirked. “The government is obliged to give it to them. If camps decide to stop supplying food, water and electricity, cities will starve and face epidemics.”

“That’s crisis,” Frank said. “Administrative crisis.”

“Created by Memoria’s forcing everyone to have their memories erased. What we have now is a generation of brainwashed wooses, too used to their fake joy and prosperity and running to the nearest Memoria branch at the first sight of trouble.”

“So you think that now they want to rectify the situation?” Barney lifted his hands in dismay. “That doesn’t sum up. Too much too soon.”

“What did you want?” Max stepped toward him. “That’s a conspiracy for you. Why would they traumatize the population? Those with blue and green bracelet lights couldn’t care less, anyway. And veterans like ourselves… we’re getting old. We’ve lost our grip on the situation. We’ve lost our gut feeling,” he glanced at his rifle.

“I’m not talking about it,” Barney waved his knife in Max’s direction. “What I want to know is who is supposed to start the war? Logically, it should be the migrants. Right?”

Frank nodded.

“Claney said that their leaders — of which there are quite a few — would be the first to try the Vaccination. Which means,” Barney threw the knife onto the table, scooped up a handful of chopped carrots and showed it to Max, “They’ll be offered one thing and given quite the opposite.” He threw the carrots back and picked up the knife. “Then they’ll have the upper hand. Hundreds of thousands, ready for war, flooding the streets. Drowning New York in blood.”

“How do you suggest they do it?” the coach asked nonchalantly. “How are they supposed to keep those hundreds of thousands under control? This isn’t a minor group of street fighters. They must have a clear objective. How can they program it in?”

“Easy!” Barney stuck the knife into the cutting board and wiped his hands on his jeans. “Think of the personality correction program they use in prisons. I don’t think the Vaccination is going to be much different.”

“Well,” the coach glanced at Frank and his eyes glistened behind the glasses. “Probably not. But how can you force thousands of migrants to assault the rest of the population and the President himself? The personality correction program is not that easy. The initial session takes Memoria workers several hours. Then their patients need several repeat sessions so that the encoding affects their conscious mind, as well. The technology in itself is too expensive. Then you need several teams of expert mnemotechs. Using it is justified in a limited amount of very specific unique cases. Serial killers, repeat offenders and sexual predators are few and far between, and as for the rest, then obligatory Memoria visits have obliterated all other crimes. Yesterday’s murder was the first in New York in five years.”

“What do you imply?” Barney asked warily.

Frank realized that there were some hidden reefs they hadn’t considered.

The coach placed the rifle onto the window sill and opened the laptop. His fingers flitted over the keyboard.

“There are thirty Memoria branches in New York,” he said without taking his eyes off the screen. “Curiously, five of them opened last week. Five more will be opened tomorrow.”

“Same in DC,” Frank said. “Lots of new branches there.”

“Yeah,” the coach nodded. “But in New York, they also have two large centers. One serves the police department and deals, mind you, with personality correction. It’s also their job to make sure that the citizens abide by the obligatory law on memory clean-ups. The other one is a research center. I’d love to have a look at it. Unfortunately, time is the issue.”

“This center is probably nothing but a smoke screen,” Barney placed the frying pan onto the stove and turned to Frank. “You don’t hide your secrets in places like this. You shove them where the sun doesn’t shine: like, behind the polar circle or on the Moon.”

“Possible,” Max agreed. “So this is what we have. To organize simultaneous personality correction sessions for a thousand migrants — let’s assume that every Memoria branch in New York will be doing just that, including their research centers… let’s see… a person per hour… ten per hour in research centers… that’ll be…” he turned his laptop to show them his calculations. “Sixteen and a half hours to perform primary personality correction for a thousand people. One thousand, mind you. And we’re talking hundreds of thousands in New York alone. Millions, if you count the whole country. How much time will that take?”

The question was pretty rhetorical. Frank didn’t know what to say to it. Barney stared out of the window and moved his lips doing his own calculations.

The coach removed his glasses and once again rubbed his tired eyes.

“So Frank, your idea is interesting. It could be a powerful move. Unfortunately, it’s also pretty pointless. They just won’t have the time.”

“But what if Kathleen came up with a new technology? What if now it takes much less time?” Frank didn’t want to give up. “Therefore the name, Vaccination.”

“Why not,” Barney pulled the knife out of the cutting board and stabbed the air. “They pump them full with chemicals, and—”

The coach shook his head.

“No way. They could, in theory. But injecting them all at once… Imagine that, Barney: a hundred thousand asses and a hundred thousand needles. You don’t seem to understand. According to Frank’s idea, you need to convince thousands of people to act simultaneously. They have to obey. And that’s impossible. In theory, yes. But in practice… such rioting would be curbed before it even started. The police will shoot the instigators and isolate the rest. Plus they’ll accuse Memoria of conspiracy against the authorities.” He shook his head. “There’s something else here. But what? Memoria must have a reason to open all those new branches. They were preparing for the Vaccination all right. But we don’t yet know what it’s all about.” The coach took the rifle, loaded the magazine and put a round up the spout.

Frank looked at Barney. He hadn’t expected his support. Before, it looked as if all Barney could do was growl and find fault with him. Maggie definitely had something to do with it. Admittedly, Frank had come to like her. She was different. Not the same kind of different as Kathleen had been, but still. He felt at ease around her. Both girls seemed to have the same effect on him. Maggie didn’t look a bit like Kathleen, but the two seemed to share the same character traits. Maggie, too, was decisive and fearless. She had hurried to help him before she knew enough to make a weighed decision.

“Right,” Barney scratched his elbow. “Max, what if you move to my room for a bit? That’s the best place to handle firearms. Hurry up before some Peeping Tom with a telescope catches you out through the window with that rifle.”

The coach lowered his laptop onto the window sill and jumped off. He scooped up the weapons and left the kitchen.

“He’s done us, man.” The cutting board in hand, Barney rose from the table. He threw the chopped vegetables onto the heated skillet and looked into the pan. An appetizing smell of cooking floated in the kitchen. Frank swallowed. He reached for the notes and stacked them up neatly on the window sill.

“I have to admit I like this scenario,” behind Frank’s back, Barney was stirring the sizzling carrots and onions. “To smoke the President and raze New York to the ground, then blame the migrants! Sick motherfuckers they are, really. Claney will kill two birds with one stone: he’ll get rid of the camp and three hundred thousand pains in the ass with it, and he’ll be in the White House before his people finish the migrant cleansing.”

He stepped toward Frank. “But that doesn’t mean,” Frank felt droplets of the man’s spit on his face, “that you can ogle Maggie once she’s back. She’s not your girlfriend! Understood?”

Frank just blinked, cornered between the table and the window. He had his work cut out for him, staying on friendly terms with Maggie’s father. He’d ask Maggie a few inconspicuous questions about his past. There had to be a clue to his being so protective of her.