Neurovance

Chapter 69

NOVA play: Linger - SiriusXM Session by Royel Otis

(Present Day)

Gently, I ran the tip of the NeuroExtractor over Milo’s forehead as he relived every one of the memories he’d erased that day.

I soothed him when he cried, stroked him gently when he laughed, and kissed him softly on the head when he moaned.

I was following the story of our romance through the movie-like projection on the wall I’d managed to hook up with old equipment I’d found in my father’s lab.

In the months I’d spent at my father’s cabin physically recovering from what had been done to me, I’d also been working on a way to reverse the extraction Milo had performed on himself that fateful day.

I’d managed to develop a serum that I was pretty sure would work; the only missing piece had been the memories that were stored in the device itself, which was why it was so important I was able to get back into The Cave before I attacked the campus.

It had taken a few weeks, but while I’d been working on finding a way to reverse the extraction, I’d also pushed my NeuroGlyph tech farther than I ever had before I’d been a captive.

No one had ever restored extracted memory before, and I wasn’t sure how it would work, so I wanted to make sure Milo had a way to see and understand them if they didn’t play through his mind the way I’d hoped.

I needn’t have worried. As soon as the serum I'd developed entered his cerebral cortex, he’d been thrown headfirst into his own mind.

I was watching this projection now almost for my own benefit.

It was one thing for NOVA to tell me when something was real or fake; it was another to see that same memory from another person’s point of view.

Most of these moments in my own head were now a dark, twisted mess.

Every one of Milo’s smiles was overlaid with a vision of me shooting some nameless soldier in the head.

Every tender kiss was twisted into gory explosions of flesh and shrapnel.

Even the memories of my own that I’d used to fill the gaps in Milo's version of events had needed to be carefully cleaned and modified to ensure Milo didn’t accidentally end up on some blood-soaked battlefield in the middle of the procedure.

To see how everything had actually played out was rocking my entire fucking world.

Every scene that played was pure relief.

Each memory a confirmation.

Every moment so precious, I found the inside of my mask growing hot and wet with a sudden flood of tears.

But it was his last moments with me that I still couldn’t accept.

Those words he’d said, even hearing them now repeated to me in full technicolor… they didn’t feel real.

I hated that feeling.

And unfortunately, after almost two years of having my brain scrambled repeatedly by war-mongering psychopaths… it was a feeling I was horrifically accustomed to.

I would often fall into this strange, dream-like trance where I felt like I was living in a simulation.

I would be plagued with violent hallucinations and flashbacks that would meld with the real world around me, and I was often glad that I’d needed to separate myself from society.

It wasn’t safe for me to be around people when I was like that.

So, as the memories finally finished their run and Milo’s fluttering brown eyes focused behind his glasses, I was a mess inside.

‘I love you,’

Was that real?

If he loved me, how could he forget me?

Why would he leave me there?

I knew he was afraid… but to run away like that and leave me behind?

How could he wipe me away so easily and move on as if what we had never existed?

That wasn’t love.

Fake.

I watched his pupils dilate as he swam back up to the surface of his mind, and I lay the extractor down on the surgical table next to me.

“Hey,” I croaked, brushing his hair repeatedly back and away from his forehead, much the same way I had the first day we’d met—when I’d taken away that embarrassing memory of him in his high school cafeteria.

I flinched as I remembered that he’d tried to forget me then, too.

Was I just meant to be forgotten?

“J-jay?” he meeped, his voice small and hesitant.

He’d known I was Jay before he went under… Was this my Milo? Or the one that had forgotten me?

“Yeah… do you… do you—”

“Jayyyy.” His gorgeous brown eyes flooded with tears. They spilled over the constellation of freckles on his nose as he reached up and back for me.

With desperate fingers, he shoved my mask over the top of my head, and he choked on a desperate sob as he laid eyes on me for the first time since he’d wiped me from his mind.

“Jay, baby—fuck.”

Another curse from him… wow.

My lips barely had time to twitch before he was hooking his fingers into my jaw and pulling me down into an honest-to-god Spiderman kiss over the head of the chair.

The second our lips connected, he opened for me, sucking my bottom lip briefly before shoving his tongue directly into my mouth.

I groaned as he threaded his fingers up into my hair, tugging desperately on my roots to force me even closer.

Confusing memories combined with a potent mix of emotion and need stormed through me as he rubbed his wet tongue sensually against mine.

His mouth was moving as he devoured me, like he was trying to speak but couldn’t bring himself to pull away long enough to get the words out.

My own hands began to wander, sliding across his tear-stained, cherubic cheeks, down his throat, and under the collar of his shirt.

Was this okay?

It felt illegal.

But Milo writhed up into my touch, and I took it as a sign that he wanted me to keep touching him.

My fingers grazed the raised peak of one of his nipples, and he jerked in response.

His reaction felt familiar.

Even in the mess of blood and violence that was my mind, I remembered the way he moved when I touched him like this.

Like muscle memory.

Wanting to see if I could make him do it again, I lightly pinched the tips of both nipples under his shirt and twisted, reveling in the immediate arch of his back and desperate ‘shit’ that spilled from his lips directly into my mouth.

“You like that. I remember you like that.”

Real.

“Yes, Jay. I freaking like that…” he panted, but his voice was cracking now, and his cheeks were only growing more and more wet the longer we kissed.

He tasted like salt and regret, and I found myself pulling back.

He whimpered as if I were physically causing him pain by pulling away, but I shushed him, kissing him on the forehead and brushing his tears away from his cheeks.

“Are you alright?” I asked roughly, and he shook his head.

“No. No, of course I’m not alright. What did they do to you?” He asked, sitting up in the chair and trying to turn to face me.

He wavered slightly and held a hand to his temple where I’d administered the injection.

Shit.

I rushed to his side and cradled his face in my hands, making sure he felt steady enough to sit on his own.

“It’s… a long story.”

Not really that long.

Just a few years of getting brain raped.

No big deal.

“Can we talk about it? Jay, I feel like… I feel like we were just in The Cave… but then I also have all these other memories…”

I blinked at him, giving him a curt nod.

“I understand the feeling.”

He frowned, his eyes flicking back and forth as he sorted through his own mess of memories. After a moment, he glanced back up at me, lips parted in shock.

“You shot Melanie! You stole my mom… I’m pretty sure you blew up Neurovance…”

“Yep. All that happened,” NOVA chimed helpfully, and Milo’s eyes darted up to her speakers before landing back on me.

“Are you upset about those things?” I asked dryly. I didn’t know how to feel upset about murder anymore. That was one of the first pieces of my humanity they’d taken from me.

“Well, maybe not so much about Melanie… screw her. But… you shot like twenty innocent people in that crowd on our way out, Jay. What the heck was that about?”

I shrugged.

“They could have trampled you.”

“They were scared! The Jay I knew would never physically hurt another person like that.”

“He wouldn’t?” I asked, genuinely curious. Milo’s eyes widened in shock.

I cocked my head to the side, trying to conjure up what it used to feel like… before. I couldn’t remember killing anyone before my time in The Cave… but that didn’t mean I hadn’t.

Milo looked so concerned that I was getting a little uncomfortable.

He reached out and cupped my face, his eyes darting back and forth between mine.

He traced his thumb over the scar that ran through my right eyebrow and down into the flesh of my cheek.

“No, he wouldn’t… How did you get this? You didn’t have this before either.”

It had been a tactical knife.

A soldier’s boot crushing my throat as he carved into my face in the middle of a sandstorm.

Real?

No… it had been a scalpel…

Me screaming as Dr. Grey sliced into me to insert one of his newest neurotransmitters.

Fake?

I shook my head, grunting in frustration.

My eyes burned, and when I looked at Milo again, he was pale.

“I don’t—I don’t remember,” I whispered.

“Jiminy Christmas…” he mumbled. “We need… we need to talk. Do you have anywhere we can go that’s not so… surgical?” he asked, and despite the shame I felt about how different I apparently seemed to him, I brightened at this.

“Yeah, of course. Come see.” I held out a hand to help him up, and the second he slid his hand in mine, the broken pieces of my mind that still clung to the soft memories of him fired off again.

The constant echo of gunfire that seemed to run in the back of my mind like some sort of deranged soundtrack finally faded, and it was replaced with Milo’s soft smiles and warm skin.

Just touching him seemed to slightly unravel the tangled mess of knots Grey and Luke had made of my mind, and I marveled at how just having him here made me feel more balanced.

“Jay!”

I snapped out of another one of my trances and blinked at Milo in confusion.

“I’ve been saying your name over and over. Why weren’t you responding?”

Oh.

I shrugged.

“No one’s called me that since you forgot me. No one except Seb… but he wasn’t around much. He left me there to rot after they took you away.”

Milo looked like my words caused him physical pain.

“What did they call you?”

“Patient 001, mostly. Luke called me the ‘little forgotten boy’ when he was feeling especially cruel.”

Milo made a strangled choking sound, and he squeezed my hand tightly.

I stared down at him, knowing I should be feeling some way about that. But... as usual... I felt nothing at all.

“Your name is Jay Reynolds. Your contributions to biotech are world-renowned. You developed the NeuroExtractor 1.0 before you were twenty-five years old. It’s common knowledge.

You were never forgotten, Jay. Your legacy will live on long after you die.

You’ve permanently carved your name into the history of this world. ”

My eyes were burning, and my throat felt tight.

“All that… what you just said… that’s real?” I croaked, and Milo nodded, his eyes never leaving mine.

“Yes, baby, that’s real. Even when we were apart, I was obsessed with your work. Luke had to make up some story about you being on mental health leave because the world refused to forget about you.”

I swallowed, forcing that painful lump that formed in my throat down so it couldn’t destroy me from the inside.

“You forgot me, though,” I whispered quietly, and as much as the words were true, I hated myself for saying them.

Because Milo couldn’t deny it, and admitting to it just hurt both of us.