Recursion(36)

She’s desperate to talk to them, but since the revelation two weeks ago that she and Slade built something far more powerful than a memory-immersion device, she hasn’t felt comfortable broaching the subject of communicating with her mom and dad again. She will when the time comes, but everything is still too fresh and raw.

She’s having a hard time coming to grips with what she thinks about her accidental invention, how Slade manipulated her, and what lies ahead.

But she’s working in the lab again.

Exercising.

Putting on a good face.

Trying to be useful.

As she leaves the stairwell for the lab, a bump of adrenaline plows through her system. They’re running test number nine on Reed King today, a new one. She’s going to experience reality shifting beneath her feet again, and there’s no denying the thrill.

As she approaches the testing bay, Slade swings around the corner.

“Morning,” she says.

“Come with me.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Change of plan.”

Looking tense and disturbed, he leads her into a conference room and closes the door. Reed is already seated at the table, wearing torn jeans and a knit sweater, his hands clutching a steaming cup of coffee. His time on the rig seems to be putting some meat on his bones and erasing the junkie hollowness from his stare.

“Experiment’s off,” Slade says, taking a seat at the head of the table.

Reed says, “I had fifty thousand coming to me for this one.”

“You’ll still get your money. The thing is, we already performed the experiment.”

“What are you talking about?” Helena asks.

Slade checks his watch. “We ran the experiment five minutes ago.” He looks at Reed. “You died.”

“Isn’t that what was supposed to happen?” Reed asks.

“You died in the tank, but there was no reality shift,” Slade says. “You actually just died.”

“How do you know all this?” Helena asks.

“After Reed died, I got in the chair and recorded an earlier memory of cutting myself while shaving this morning.” Slade lifts his head, touches a nasty slice along his neckline. “We pulled Reed out of the tank. Then I climbed in, died, and returned to my shaving moment so I could come down here and stop the experiment from going forward.”

“Why didn’t it work?” she asks. “Was the synaptic number not high—”

“The synaptic number was well into the green.”

“What was the memory?”

“Fifteen days ago. June twentieth. The first time Reed climbed into the tank, with the full tattoo of Miranda on his arm.”

It’s like something just detonated inside Helena’s brain.

“No shit he died,” she says. “That isn’t a real memory.”

“What do you mean?”

“That version of events never happened. Reed never got a tattoo. He changed that memory when he died in the tank.” Now she looks at Reed, starting to put the pieces together. “Which means there was nothing for you to return to.”

“But I remember it,” Reed says.

“What does it look like in your mind’s eye?” she asks. “Dark? Static? Shades of gray?”

“Like time had been frozen.”

“Then it’s not a real memory. It’s…I don’t know what to call it. Fake. False.”

“Dead,” Slade says, glancing at his watch again.

“So this wasn’t an accident.” She glares at Slade across the table. “You knew.”

“Dead memories fascinate me.”

“Why?”

“They represent…another dimension of movement.”

“I don’t know what the fuck that means, but we agreed yesterday that you wouldn’t try to map a—”

“Every time Reed dies in the tank, he orphans a string of memories that become dead in our minds after we shift. But what really happens to those timelines? Have they truly been destroyed, or are they still out there somewhere, beyond our reach?” Slade looks at his watch again. “I remember everything from the experiment we did this morning, and the two of you will gain those dead memories any second now.”

They sit in silence at the table, a coldness enveloping Helena.

We are fucking with things that shouldn’t be fucked with.

She feels the pain coming behind her eyes. Reaching forward, she grabs a few tissues from the box of Kleenex to stop the nosebleed.

The dead memory of their failed test comes crashing through.

Reed coding in the tank.

Five minutes dead.

Ten minutes.

Fifteen.

Her yelling at Slade to do something.

Rushing into the testing bay, tearing open the hatch of the deprivation tank.

Reed floating peacefully inside.

Death-still.

Pulling him out with Slade and setting him dripping wet on the floor.

Performing CPR as Dr. Wilson says over the intercom, “There’s no point, Helena. He’s been gone too long.”

Continuing anyway, sweat pouring into her eyes as Slade vanishes across the hall, into the room with the chair.

She’s given up on saving Reed by the time Slade reenters—sitting in the corner and trying to come to terms with the fact that they really killed a man. Not just a man. He was her responsibility. Here because of something she built.