Aris laughs at the absurd truth in the statement.
“Sometimes I wonder if I’ve always liked asparagus,” she says. “The palate changes over time.”
“I hate asparagus. But maybe I used to like it. Who knows.” Benja turns to face her. “Don’t you think it’s wrong to not be able to know your own history? To have your past zapped out of your brain?”
“But it’s for the good of society.”
“That’s what we were taught, but is it really? I once read about a person with multiple personality disorder who would wake up with a different identity, forgetting they were someone else the day before. That’s essentially what Tabula Rasa does.”
“So we’re a society of the mentally ill?” she asks.
“Maybe. But I’m not sure what’s worse—the acceptance of it, or ignorance.”
“Of what?”
“Our fate.”
“I’m not following,” she says.
“We walk through our lives like it’s normal, knowing all the while that it’s not. So our brains ignore it, making light of our past, shrugging it off like last season’s outfits. What if there’s something there we can’t live without?”
She rolls her eyes and plops onto her soft pillow. “There’s nothing in the past we can’t live without. We’re living now. And quite comfortably.”
Benja turns over and looks up at the ceiling. She reaches for his hair and plays with a curl on his forehead.
“I had fun last night,” she says, feeling warmth between her legs. Perhaps once more before they part ways.
She likes him. But not enough for a second date. No one is worth that. Maybe they would meet again in the next cycle for another first.
“Me too,” he says and looks at her with a serious expression on his face. “I should have been more honest with you last night. I wasn’t kidding about being fifty-seven point three percent curious. At least in this cycle. I can’t vouch for my past.”
She shrugs. “Okay.”
“You don’t care?” Benja asks.
“I don’t see what that has to do with anything. Attraction is attraction. Good sex comes from all places.”
Benja laughs. “Ambivalence doesn’t sit well with some.”
“I’m not one of them,” Aris says.
She feels his index finger running along her thigh under the sheet.
He sighs. “Have you ever been in love?”
She drops the curl. What a way to kill the mood.
“I don’t do relationships,” she says. The heat of anger rises. She does not know why. It’s just a question.
“I’m not asking about relationships. I’m asking whether you’ve been in love.”
She sits up and wraps the cover around her, holding it like a shield. “I’m a scientist.”
“Don’t scientists fall in love?”
“Why, when I won’t even remember?” she says, a little more harshly than intended.
“Because we’re not butterflies in a specimen box,” he says to the ceiling. “Despite this existence saying otherwise.”
He turns to look at her, his eyes digging. “What are you afraid of?”
She feels a jab inside. Something gapes open, like a scab picked raw.
“Nothing. It’s just a waste of time,” she says. But she knows it’s a lie.
Chapter Six
“Hello Thane,” says Professor Jacob, “This is Apollina.”
Thane reaches out his hand only to be met with thin air. The pale woman with platinum hair appears not to see him—or does not care he is there. Her eyes are transfixed by the figure on a bed in the room next door. The figure is a man with bright yellow hair and skin painted brown by the sun. The man appears to be unconscious—so motionless that Thane wonders whether he is dead.
Thane walks closer to the glass wall that separates the two rooms. From this spot, he can see the rising and falling of the man’s abdomen. Still alive.
On the man’s head is a helmet attached to colorful wires that rain down from above. Thane’s eyes trace the wires up to a giant machine made of shiny metal the color of sunset.
“What’s that?” Thane asks.
“A Dreamcatcher,” says Professor Jacob from behind him.
“What does it do?”
“Erases disturbing dreams so the patient won’t remember the reason for his troubles,” Apollina says, eyes still fixed on the man on the bed.
“He’s troubled by his dreams?”
“Why else would he be here?” she says in an irritated tone that makes Thane feel stupid for having asked the question.
He glances at Professor Jacob. The old man gives him an encouraging smile, making him feel slightly better.
After a long moment of silence, Apollina turns to him. Thane immediately notices her icy blue eyes—cold as a winter morning and hard as a frozen pond. Her face is just as empty. He would have mistaken her for a droid were it not for the pale pink face indicating the suffusion of blood beneath her skin. Her light hair is pulled taut into a bun at the nape of her neck, accentuating her sharp cheekbones. She’s pretty. If only she would wear it with less severity and a little more warmth.
Thane cannot decipher her expression, or rather lack of it. He begins to feel nervous until he notices there are no smile lines on either side of her mouth. Her frigid manner has nothing to do with him.
“You came highly recommended,” Apollina says.
“I’m honored to have been selected.”
“I see you have the briefcase. You’ve studied the contents?”
Thane nods. Over the last five days, he has studied the profiles of those the Interpreter Center calls “suspects.” Names, addresses, pictures. Young and old. Men and women. They all look like harmless, ordinary citizens—people he would cross paths with on the street or at the coffee shop.
“That list represents years of hard work by me and Professor Jacob. But we suspect there are many more of them,” says Apollina.
There are about two dozen names on the list. If three and a half years had yielded so few, Thane wonders how difficult the job will be.
“They operate under secrecy. Like vermin,” she says as if she knows his thought.
Thane suddenly recognizes the man on the bed from the list of suspects. Bodie.
“He’s one of
