Memoria. A Corporation of Lies

Chapter Twenty-One. Chasing Tails

Bud Jessup hurried to board the chopper waiting on its landing pad in front of the stadium. He could use some rest. He’d never thought that one day he’d have to choose between honor and duty. Still, Salem needed him in town where he and his men tried to stay in control. The radio in his hand didn’t stop. Reports were coming in from all over New York. Long queues were already lining up at Memoria’s branches, getting longer with every minute. The “skill sale” had begun.

Its first hour had been the hardest for Jessup. Memoria’s security had uncovered his team who’d had to abort the surveillance of Binelli. Listening to their frequencies hadn’t given him much, either. He had the Feds and the Secretary of Homeland Security on his back, but Jessup chose to ignore their calls knowing it would cost him his job. Probably, already had.

The chopper pilot saw him, reached up and started flipping switches overhead. The ignition went on. The motor pulsated. Slowly, the rotor blades started turning.

The reporter sat in the back. He hunched up in his seat, too scared to move, afraid of whoever might be watching. Jessup shared his anxiety. He didn’t want to let the reporter out of his sight. It was unlikely Memoria would go so far as to kill them both together, but still. Gizbo might not be the only mole in his department. That would explain Memoria’s quick reactions to their HQ surveillance as well as their switching to scrambled messages. Jessup didn’t want to lose his only trump card, albeit insignificant. He knew they would do whatever was necessary to seize the reporter.

“Captain, sir?” he thought he heard to his left.

A sentry on the guardhouse balcony waved and shouted, his words drowned out by the chopper drone. Another couple of seconds, and he wouldn’t have heard him.

“Would you come over here, sir?”

Jessup stopped. He glanced at the helicopter and crossed his arms in front of him, signaling to the pilot to kill the motor. Then he hurried to the guard house. Could they have received a message from the camp? The leaders could have complained about Memoria’s invasion on the radio. They could have sent a messenger to the guard house. Also not unlikely, some of the migrants could express their desire to leave the perimeter in order to participate in Memoria’s “skill sale”. He could tell Jessup what was going on in the camp.

“What’s up?” the rotor noise had almost stopped by the time Jessup reached the turnstiles.

“Come quick, sir! He’s wounded!”

“Who now?” Jessup flung the staff room door open. On the bench by the wall lay Nicholas Floyd. Jessup’s long-time camp informer.

The duty officer leaned over him, the opened first-aid kit by his feet on the floor. Floyd’s neck and chest were dressed with bloodied bandages. The duty officer pulled the syringe out of Floyd’s shoulder and turned his wide weather-worn face to Jessup.

“Not good. Got two bullets to the neck and heart area, sir. He could barely speak.”

“What did he say?”

Floyd lay with his eyes closed.

“He brought you this, sir,” The duty officer handed Jessup an opaque plastic container one-tenth of an inch thick. “He wanted you to have it.”

“What for? What is it?” Jessup opened the container. Inside was a memory chip. “Call the meds!” he looked at the door. “Get him into the chopper!”

He lifted the transmitter and contacted the police clinic for an emergency surgery.

Floyd opened his eyes and gave him a weak smile. Then he started gasping.

“His heart might stop!” the duty officer shouted. “Get the defibrillator!”

One of the cops was already running to the bench with a plastic box in his hands. He pushed the lid open and brought out the electrodes.

The duty officer grabbed a knife and cut through the bandages. But Floyd had already stopped breathing. His eyes glazed over.

“Charge?” the cop placed the electrodes onto Floyd’s chest.

“Full charge,” the duty officer said.

“Clear!”

The defibrillator clicked. Floyd’s body jerked with the electric pulse.

“CPR and heart massage.”

Well-trained, they acted in unison, trying to bring the man back from the other side. But Floyd’s eyes remained dead.

“Again,” the cop placed the electrodes onto his chest. “Clear!”

Another click. The body jumped.

“CPR!”

Jessup stepped to the wall and leaned his heavy body against it watching Floyd. He didn’t look as if he could make it.

“Pointless,” he finally said.

The duty officer looked up at him,

“Blood loss too serious, sir.”

“I can see that.” Jessup sighed. “Did he say anything at all? What’s going on in the camp?”

“He just gave us your name, sir, and this container.”

A car braked by the guard house. A door slammed. Several voices spoke at once. The radio in Jessup’s hand sprung to life, giving him a bad feeling. He put the sound up to hear Salem’s voice through the gremlins.

“No!” he exclaimed, disbelieving. “When?”

“This afternoon,” Agent Archer said entering the room. “Anna Gautier and two more leaders have been killed in the Council building. I need all the men you can spare in the Bronx before the migrants cut the electricity and water from the city. We can’t afford that to happen.”

“Salem? I’ll call you back later.” Jessup lowered the radio. At the same time, he slipped the container into his raincoat pocket. “Why haven’t they reported it earlier? Who made the statement?”

“Memoria’s Press Secretary.” Archer’s long face grew even longer as he stared at Floyd’s body on the bench. He kept speaking on automatic pilot, looking confused. “They’ve made a full scan of the killer’s memory. The mnemotechs’ report has already been posted online.”

“Who killed him?”

Archer blinked, staring at Floyd’s body.

“Who was it?” Jessup repeated louder.

“Shelby… Frank Shelby.”

“Frank Shelby!” the tall tech shouted. A shove to his back sent him sprawling through the doorway into his co-worker arms.

Both tumbled onto the surgery floor. Inside, Maggie Douggan lay in her underwear strapped to the tomography bed. Frank lunged inside and slammed the door shut praying that the security guard who watched the hallway through the security cameras had turned away from his screens for a second.

The tall tech had told him the truth. The team numbered three people. The third tech stood by the equipment stand to Frank’s right. Frank stepped closer and took a swing to punch him on the chin when one of the two on the floor grabbed his leg. Instead of a punch, Frank’s fingers brushed the tech’s nose; he dropped the syringe and came down.

The team’s resistance surprised him. These were supposed to be laboratory wooses, but they reacted with pitbull-like fortitude. Leaning on his elbows, Frank pulled his leg out, turned around and kicked the stranger’s face red with excitement. His head jerked, blood pouring out of a smashed nose.

“Finish him off, Sam!” the tall one shouted as he tried to scramble back onto his feet.

Sam — apparently the one who’d just escaped the punch on the chin — didn’t move. His hesitation gave Frank the chance to get up and an advantage. Jumping up, he punched Sam in the chest and stomach. The tech doubled up, and Frank rabbit-punched him to the neck. One down. Frank turned around. The tall tech had by then forced himself up on one knee. A broken jaw later, the man was back on the floor. His co-worker, though, proved to be difficult: he crawled under the table, kicking and screaming his head off.

At first, Frank tried to grab him by the foot to drag him out. No luck. Snarling with anger, he tried to lift the heavy steel table and pushed it over the tech. Boxfuls of surgical tools, laid out on the table for an operation, clattered all over the floor. The tech screamed out — then fell silent.

Agitated by the fight and shouting, Frank stepped back to the door. He breathed fast. His heart beat wildly, unable to slow down. Two men lay unconscious in the middle of the room. The third one, pinned to the floor by the table, wheezed and jerked, his legs twitching.

Frank didn’t check on him. The man’s chest could be smashed. A syringe needle could have gone into his eye. Whatever it was, the man was never going to get up. Frank picked up the syringe filled with the opaque greenish liquid and went over to the girl. His fingers shaking with exertion, he started undoing the straps.

“Mag, you okay? What have they done to you?”

She started at him, her eyes wide open, as if seeing him for the first time.

“Mag, do you remember me? I’m Frank Shelby. You’re Maggie Douggan, daughter of Barney Douggan. He’s somewhere here too. Your dad’s here, Mag.”

He finished unstrapping her, gingerly removed the copper band with wires from her head and hurried to the locker in the corner. The furniture here was identical to Bow’s surgery that he’d just left. Frank took a lab coat off a hanger. He helped Maggie to sit up and put the coat on.

“Do you remember me?” he asked again.

She gave him a weak nod.

“They must have given you a memory scan,” Frank explained. “A selective one, not complete. They must be preparing you for a personality correction session. This is what Bow has just said — Kathleen’s researcher.”

“Now I remember,” her gaze slid over the room. “They wanted to know where we’d hidden the tape.”

“Maggie,” Frank glanced at the tech squashed under the table. He was quiet now. Frank took Maggie’s hand. “Are you sure you remember me?”

“I am… we were in the camp together.”

“And your father, do you remember him?”

Anguish showed in her eyes. Her gaze focused. With a startle, the girl looked around.

“What- what happened here?” Her breathing quickened and her gestures became jerky. She stared at Frank.

He put his arm around her shoulders and whispered in her ear,

“I’ve taken care of them… they wanted to change you… change us, but I didn’t let them. Maggie, we’ve got to go. We’ll find your dad and get out of here. You think you can walk?”

“I can. Where’s Dad?” Not looking at the unconscious men amid the trashed surgery, Maggie sat up and tried to stand. Immediately, she winced and lost her balance.

Frank caught her.

“I’m sick… my head just goes round…” Maggie sounded surprised. She tried not to throw up and couldn’t, vomiting on the floor.

Frank let her catch her breath and poured her some water from the water cooler.

“It’ll be over in a minute,” he handed her the plastic cup. “Drink it. Try not to make any sudden movements.”

When she emptied the cup, Frank helped her sit back on the bed and buttoned up her lab coat.

“Take deep breaths,” he told her.

“Where’s Dad?”

“He’s in the room next door. There’s nobody else there. We’ll go there now…”

“Frank,” her eyes glistened but she held back the tears. “You’re not telling me everything. What’s wrong with Dad?”

“I’m not sure. It looks like they tried to give him a memory scan, too, or a personality correction, but something went wrong. Barney’s in a trance right now.”

Leaning on his shoulder, she forced herself up. “Come on, let’s go.”

“Wait,” he opened the door a crack and peered out.

The hallway was empty. At its far end, the red light kept flashing on the wall by the glass panels. The camera on the ceiling focused its black eye on the door.

“The hallway’s under surveillance,” Frank explained. “We’ll come out and walk naturally, as if we’re discussing a job problem. Second door to the right. Got it?”

Maggie nodded. She smoothed out her hair and, businesslike, shoved her hands into her lab coat pockets. Frank stepped aside, letting her through the door. He left the surgery and closed the door behind him.

Maggie lingered outside, waiting for him.

“I’ve never been here,” she turned and walked along the hallway, trying to keep slightly ahead of him.

They passed Bow’s surgery and approached the room where, according to him, his techs kept Barney. Maggie pushed the door but it didn’t open.

“Let me try,” Frank motioned her aside.

Under the door handle, he saw the small rectangle of a scanning device.

“We should have taken one of their bracelets,” Maggie snapped. “You can’t get in without one.”

Frank pulled up his sleeve and pressed his bracelet against the scanner. Something clicked inside the door. In less than two seconds, they found themselves inside the intensive care unit.

It differed a lot from the other two surgeries. No lockers, no steel tables, no tomography equipment. Barney lay on a hard wide bed of thick plastic. His head was entangled in a net of wires. A thick bandage, spotted with red, covered his leg above the knee. Above him shelves hung with equipment and monitors. Machines hummed in large slide-out boxes under the bed. Barney’s broad chest heaved with his powerful breathing, as if he just lay down for a nap.

“Dad,” Maggie knelt next to him and touched his face, black and blue from a beating, “Dad, can you hear me? It’s me, your teddy bear. Wake up, Dad…”

Frank peered at the monitors trying to work out their readings and purpose. On one, shiny green graphs rose and fell showing his heart activity. Figures appeared in its right upper corner. They appeared to reflect heart performance.

Franks studied the other monitors. He hadn’t a clue what all those colored diagrams and readings were supposed to mean. He needed Bow or one of the techs. Frank glanced at the door. Maggie rose and pressed a button on one of the monitors. It went out.

“Are you mad?” Frank recoiled. “What if—”

“Nothing’s gonna happen,’” Maggie said, her voice dry and detached.

“But—”

“I’ve turned the biocurrent off.” She pointed at another monitor. “Look at the neurons activity graph. It’s moving up.”

Frank stared at the rising graph. “How the hell do you know?”

Maggie turned her emotionless face to him, her eyes vacant. She blinked, as if coming to.

“What’s wrong with me?” She touched her forehead, her fingers tracing her temple. “It just came up… I’ve no idea how… What was that button?” She looked up at the monitors looking for it. “What have I done?”

“You said you’d turned off the biocurrent. I didn’t see which button but this monitor went off when you did it,” he pointed. “Then you kind of came out of it.”

“Frank,” she started to shake, “Frank, I’m scared. I must have hurt Dad! Frank, I don’t remember what I was doing! What’s wrong with me, Frank?”

He took her by the hand and led her to the door looking into her face and trying to guess what could have happened.

“Do you remember what they were doing to you in that room?”

She shook her head. Frank stared at the wall trying to remember the conversation between Claney, Dickens and Bow.

“They wanted to submit us to a personality correction.” Slowly, he turned back to her. “He said you’d undergone the first phase and they were now prepping you for the second one. Then I came and knocked the techs out…”

Frank looked into the girl’s eyes filled with fear.

“They wanted to set us up. Claney and the others, I mean. They wanted to install new memories after the personality correction. Their story is, we tried to sabotage the Vaccination. It’s already in force. Millions are about to enroll. Claney targets them… and the migrants.”

Frank paused, musing over Claney’s every word.

“Claney doesn’t have the tape. It’s still in the camp. But he…”

Frank stopped. Blood pounded in his temples. The back of his head echoed with a dull ache. The painkillers must have stopped working.

“Claney told Bow to forge a new tape,” he said. “The three of us — you, me and Barney — were supposed to give ourselves up and confess to the crimes we hadn’t committed. To make it more convincing, we’d have the tape which would show how we’d doctored the mnemocapsule vaccine.”

“What are you talking about?” Maggie’s eyes widened. “I don’t understand.”

“Don’t worry. It’s not good for you. We’ll take Barney and get the hell out of here. Now try to remember which button we should press to wake him up.”

“I can’t!” Maggie clenched her fists in desperation. “I don’t remember!”

She stomped her foot. At that moment, a loud snorting came from behind her. Her eyes opened wider. Frank turned around.

Barney sat up on the bed dangling his feet. His glazed stare fixed on his daughter.

“Jeez,” Frank said.

“I am the one who helped you,” Barney moved his bloodied lips. He pointed his fat finger at Maggie. “You are the one who changed the program.”

He looked at Frank. “You are the one who killed Kathleen Baker.”