The Power of Forgetting Read online

  The Power of Forgetting

  By Anne Russell

  Published by Anne Russell at Smashwords

  Copyright 2016 Anne Russell

  Smashwords Edition, Licence Notes

  This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Contents

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  End

  *****

  One

  Is there one day you remember above all others? I'm standing in the rain, waiting. So let me wait to answer that question. I waited for the lights to change, and then crossed. I am finding my way on unfamiliar paths; into the university grounds. The surge of humanity picks me up and guides me to the door.

  'You will need to sign in.' a woman is holding a pen out to me. She's looking at me. I think she can see what I'm doing. I see her reaching down. Is it to call security? No. Another pen. This one isn't working.

  I sign then with the new roller ball. She folds up the tear of strip into a small shape and then passes it to me encased in the small badge holder, plus annoying clip. Better for fastening to girl's bags.

  'Mr Arden?' she looks at me without curiosity, 'if you take the lift to the third floor. Then check in with the desk there.'

  'The stairs?' I point towards a door with a fair chance of guessing in one the way to the stairwell. She was then staring at me as if I was weird.

  ‘I get sick in lifts.’ I said to explain myself.

  ‘Oh claustrophobia….’ She says bored with me already, ‘the stairs are there.’ She pointed at another door on the opposite side of the reception area.

  ‘No, it’s just motion sickness. You know…. when things accelerate without warning.’ But she has moved on to the next human blob, and I am as irrelevant as the sunshine, that is inexplicably filtering through and marking the dusty air in motes of gold.

  I bounce up the stairs. It’s always is like this; over-cheery to balance the fear. I wish that there was another way to do this. But we have to find out what he knows. Why me? That’s easy. I’m the only one who knew enough about him to catch him out last time. I have to do something that I don’t want to do. But I have motive… dear Lord; I have motive.

  I have a secret that I never tell. Because to tell it would render me crazy in the eyes of the people who are here. I was running from this thing when the project got hold of me. I was looking for somewhere that is safe from the prying eyes of anyone who ever knew me. I was trying to get out…. I found myself almost heir to a whole castle full of secrets. When I was asked (blackmailed more like!) into resigning from the blood brothers. Becoming the nonentity that I wanted to be…. I accepted. But freedom has a price. Now; when I close my eyes, and hear those whispered voices, I muse that soon I will be free. There was only one place where they did not follow me. I will tell of that later, but now: Hanson, and a matter of unfinished business. I am like Merlin, David tells me. I asked him if he meant the cat. I didn’t think he would find it so funny.

  I am waiting for Hanson to get back. He has, he thinks, an advantage over me. Jean has paged him. He knows I'm waiting. But it isn't like before, the naïve country boy with the worldly wise fellow student. Hanson.... He gathered others around him like a King summons his court. He enthrals them with his voice, his persuasion. And he is clever. I never doubted that; he seeks to be the magician (in a manner of speaking) he meditates, and ponders matters of philosophical weight. Yet I, I have a world of secret knowledge that is there; has always been there.... I never told Hanson, but it is as if he senses, as if he sniffs the air and scents the blood of the crime scene. I am innocent. So why was I drawn to a man who makes me feel so guilty? He drew us all: Me, Jules Rosen, Juliet Penn, Sam Wright.... And many others. It is like breaking a bad habit... leaving Hanson behind. But I just got trapped in a nightmare of my own making it seemed. He was the other one I knew, who had been part of that same circle, who met again for the Sandglass project. And everything that he had taken he took again. But with one difference....no one remembered this time, except a few such as myself. Sandglass was; and still is, a scientific experiment into other possible versions of reality. Of course I was tempted! Of course I wanted to see for myself. My sister was on the team of scientists who developed the thing from its first inception, and carried it forward to an actual parallel world. Just a little bit of coastline in England, and we found a new world; a new reality. And I regret so much; yet I found so much. And I hurt deeper inside than even I can see. Because I'm so scared of the power that I might have, and I want to forget. But first I must know what Hanson remembers.

  'Hello Jay!' Hanson says firmly yet softly. He beckons me into his office.

  'Well?' he settles himself down and produces a cigarillo and that zippo. He offers me one. I hesitate, and then take it. This is another thing that he adopted from me. But when he takes it into himself, it changes. It becomes more his that it ever was yours. And later what you do reminds you of his dominance. I find a lighter in my pocket.

  'So you haven't given up then?' Hanson blows a stream of fragrant smoke towards the window behind him. It is as if he is trying to wreath us in flocks of clouds and obscure what is happening.

  However, the question is curiously ambivalent. I look at him carefully and clearly for the first time. He is relaxed, unafraid. Why?

  'I am here to see if you recall an experiment called "Sandglass". Because I think that you might still be important to the whole thing.'

  He is smiling now. I was deliberate in my flattery, and he probably knows this, but he had a weakness that can now still be exploited. The time spent on our curious, and bizarre mission of discovery had not ended Hanson's ability to be as egocentric as possible. And that was even after he had been kidnapped, imprisoned, pumped for information and later drugged and shackled to a chair. He was always able to obscure his real reasons for doing anything....

  He is still smiling and waiting for the right moment to suddenly speak. It is always better to avoid interrupting him. So I remain silent. I am a patient man; when I have to be. I learned to be more than that when I was on the expedition. I think of Davey; he makes me smile. He always does that.... Hanson sees that shift in my expression and clears his throat before speaking. My attention is back on him.

  'I'm important?' he paused, 'That is quite a thought coming from you Jay?' he tilts his chin and stabs a finger that isn't curled round the cigarillo in my direction, 'Are you actually going to smoke that?'

  I have been holding it. I have my lighter in the other hand. I put them both down on the edge of Hanson's desk.

  'I want to know what you remember.' I am trying to keep the tone of rabid curiosity out of my voice.

  'I remember....' he seems troubled then, '...a lot of things. I know you want to ask me something that pertains more to your own situation. So I will answer you.' he stares upwards. Unusually he seems worried; a strange kind of expression. It is like Hanson I knew when I first met him. I ignore the discomforting feeling that it's giv
ing me and take the opportunity presented.

  'When did you first know Janey Amber?' I asked and waited.

  'Right after you did Jay. And before the last time,' he stared at me. A new expression, he continued with surprisingly sensitive tone, 'You are the darkest person I know Jay. I can't fathom you at all. And as for Marcia, she came to me; in the cafeteria right here in the University. But the minute she saw you.... She was disappearing from me faster than one of her chocolate fudge cakes. She's actually crazier than you are! Well, I suppose she is. She wants to trawl through that dark forest that is your subconscious and find the buried treasure.'

  I was biting my lip then. He has pressed my buttons. And I knew that what he said was true.... I looked up. He's looking at me in a worried way. Was it a new ploy to undermine me? I'd known him a long time. But this wasn't a tack he'd tried before with me. I reasoned it was probably one that worked better with the women he seduced. Perhaps he thought he'd try it on me. And it was bloody well working!

  'Did Marcia say it was over?' I asked him.

  'Yes....' he shifted in his seat, 'surprisingly she was reasonable and rational about it. She explained that she couldn't be true to herself while she stayed with me. She said.... She appreciated my; well...' he fell silent and there it was again that worried look.

  'Tell me' I said.

  'She likes... Some aspects of my err... Well; she said I had some good points.'

  'Marcia is majoring on finding people's good points.' I said.

  'That's why it must be something exceptional with you.' Hanson assumed his normal confident manner here, 'I think she wants to save you.'

  'She is certainly quite decided about wanting me around.' I'm testing him now. I want him to deny it. I want him to feel it. And then a second later I'm feeling guilty for wanting to punish him for stealing opportunities from me in the past.

  'Marcia is....' he stubs out the remains of the smoke, '.... the only One Hundred per cent truly good person that has ever been my misfortune to cross paths with. I hope she doesn't make you crazier than you clearly already are.'

  ‘You actually think I’m mad?’ Hanson is beginning to irritate me. And it’s getting me away from the point of what I need to find out.

  ‘It’s not what I think that really matters….’ He sounds oddly apologetic, but with an undercut of sarcasm that makes the whole thing much more chilling.

  ‘What do you mean?’ I said getting drawn in, despite my earlier resolve not to do so.

  He doesn’t answer, but instead gets something out of a drawer. He slides it across the desk to me. It is a memory stick inside a small plastic pouch. He’s seeing my reaction. Seeing if I get it straight away. I feel slow. I’m trying to force my mind back to the point. I pick up the memory stick in its little wrapper.

  ‘It is for you.’ he said eventually, ‘I have to say that this was one of the aspects of the job that proved to the most useful for my own research.'

  ‘It's about all the team?' I asked, feeling the available oxygen in the room being sucked out.

  'No,' he grins, 'just you. You certainly have some interesting hang-ups. I really pity Marcia.'

  'But how?' my own voice sounds dangerously low and gravelly, 'Those files were supposed to be confidential.'

  'They still are. I know that a lot of information has been.... Well, forgotten. But I tried to retrieve what I could while I still had access.'

  'But who else....' I feel the words jam down inside my chest somewhere.

  'No-one. Why are you concerned? The conspiracy theorists haven't got to them. You ought to be grateful that someone thought to clear the hard drives before we left.'

  'You mean before we went on the last expedition?!' I thought of Marcia's printouts; I didn't need to look further to see where the rationale for what he had done; it would be coming back to snap me in the shins. I slumped a little in the chair.

  ‘I do have some others,’ he said, ‘but, as I am not disposed to trust someone such as you to get them to their respective owners, I will have to contact each person individually.’

  ‘You read them?’ I asked him. I felt exposed. Especially since I wasn’t sure what I had told the person who did the assessment before we left on that last day at Base. It wasn’t Dr Rhodes…. So I supposed that the records must have been kept on the main drive and not the other. I remembered that Violette was quite careful what she uploaded…. So what the hell had Hanson actually got on me? Whatever it was he’d achieved quite neatly what I supposed he wanted. To disarm me. I waited to see what he would do now. Then there was only one thing I could do. I would choose my moment carefully.

  ‘There is something that I want to tell you. A secret that I know has frustrated your beloved Janey for a long time.’

  ‘Oh?’ I feel it couldn’t get really any more disheartening, and I was not in the mood for other mysteries.

  ‘The missing cord… you remember what happened.’

  ‘Yes?’ I sit up straighter again.

  ‘I know who took it.’

  ‘You know.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You do?’ I couldn’t think of a more unlikely person to really find it out.

  ‘I know who did it. And I know why.’

  ‘Okay…’ I was acting casual now. I pocketed the USB stick and stared at him. I was trying to find out if he’s lying. He’s pretending not to trust me. He knew that I would not take something to another person and open it, if I had been asked not to look. Perhaps he didn’t like the fact that I do have an honest side. But one side it is. He’s close enough on the rest to subdue me.

  ‘I know… Who, Why, How; and I can tell you something else as well: about another project from the Bank Collective.’

  ‘Is that what they’re calling it now?’

  ‘It is better than a lot of other names that were suggested.’

  ‘Who suggested them?’

  ‘You know I won’t tell you that.’ He said brusquely.

  ‘So what did you want to say?’ I think I’m glaring just a little too intensely. Hanson looks away. But it’s only to get a file from a drawer. He drops it in front of me.

  ‘This is worth far more than you can imagine.’ said Hanson heavily.

  ‘Oh, I don’t know. I can imagine quite a lot.’ I shifted in the chair ready to move, ‘but you do know that.’

  ‘I think you’re a very paranoid individual whose flights of fancy have often got the better of you.’ He lowered his voice, and said in a whisper, ‘there are other experiments in progress…. I am very important to one in particular…’

  ‘So of course,’ I said, as I got his drift, ‘if I said anything about it; you’d just refer to the psychiatrist’s report, to get whoever it was to not believe a word I said?’

  ‘You are smart.’ Said Hanson smugly, ‘I will concede on that point. But if course…’

  ‘What is it?’ I asked him, beginning to push myself out of the seat, ‘Are you afraid of the crazy guy now?’

  ‘Those are your words.’ He said confidently, ‘I never said anything about it. I just refer to the report.’

  ‘Which was written by?’

  ‘The most respected scientist in the outfit.’

  I’m shaking my head to clear the vision of sitting in that room, pouring out all that stuff. I was not meaning that any of this should be used against me. I felt a sense of injustice that was getting stronger by the minute. There was just one thing left to ask. But Hanson had got in there first: ‘You have to read it of course. I can’t give you a copy of that. It really is confidential!’

  ‘I’m honoured Hanson…. that you should regard me as a fit person to view this. After all you don’t want it to get into the hands of any sane people. They might do something useful with it… like cure some terrible disease, or stop bombs from exploding.’

  ‘That’s just silly,’ Hanson said, ‘I have been part of this long enough to prove that it works. I mean really works!’

  ‘What does?’

&n
bsp; ‘I can see through different eyes at the same time. It just takes a little time to get used to. And then it’s alright.’

  ‘What on earth are you talking about?’

  ‘It’s all in the file.’

  ‘I’d much rather you told me.’

  ‘Tell you what?’ He reaches for another smoke and lights it straight away.

  ‘Who took the rope… and who is taking over the experiment.’

  ‘I think you’re confused.’ Hanson said, ‘No one is taking over anything. That was never on the cards. I think you suddenly resigning from the Main Board was rather abrupt though. What do you know? No… wait; don’t answer that.’

  ‘I want you to tell me who took the cord?’

  ‘If I tell you that; then you tell me what you know.’

  ‘You want to ask me what I know.’ I said surprised. This wasn’t keeping the distance in quite the right way, ‘what do you want to know?’

  ‘Just who has taken the samples from the expedition? Just that…. Then you can know everything… I meant it Jared… I really do!’ he leans forward searching my face. This again is unexpected. There is something inordinately unsettling about his manner. It’s as if he’s had part of his personality expanded, while another part has contracted. I feel queasy… always a bad sign. I know that feeling; nothing to do with anything I’ve eaten.

  ‘Do you have anything to drink?’ I asked.

  Hanson reached immediately into the deep drawer of his desk. He produced two glasses and a bottle of vodka, Russian of course. He pushed the small glass over to me. A moment and the curling fire stills that tremble inside. I stare at the window. It’s clouding over again.

  ‘I have no knowledge of what happened to the samples,’ I said simply, ‘I wasn’t with the rest of them.’

  ‘Of course…’ Hanson sips and then traces his finger round the rim of the glass, ‘but I suppose you might say that, if you knew who did know; and you weren’t disposed to recall that fact.’

  ‘I really wasn’t there. I was…. I was….’ I take another sip.