Chapter Twenty-Four
Darkfall left Luca’s shop after commissioning jewelry for someone he reminded himself he could never have permanently in his life. He did not get to have that joy.
He returned to the motel and forced his attention back on the job. It turned out to be the motivation he needed because after working for less than an hour on Luca’s mission notes, he discovered something interesting about one Mr. Edgar Smithers Sr. that he hadn’t noticed before.
The words “lost memory” in a month-old entry practically flashed on the page next to the man’s full name, so obvious that Darkfall wondered how he could have missed them.
He’d probably been skimming Luca’s notes too fast. Apparently, Luca had noted that Smithers experienced a memory issue possibly related to a head injury.
It must have seemed pretty straightforward to Luca.
Luca’s subsequent memory loss meant it wasn’t a simple case of a head injury leading to other issues. To Darkfall, it was a pattern.
Glad to have found something he could act on, he headed over to Smithers’ house seeking clarification. He didn’t have time for a lengthy surveillance. He needed to know what Luca had discovered that got him hurt, and he needed to know right now.
He was confident that flashing an Alpha law badge that wasn’t exactly real would get him the answers he needed. An older man opened the door to Darkfall’s knock.
“I stumbled across a report regarding your lost memory, Mr. Smithers,” Darkfall said, pocketing the fake ID after he showed it to the man.
“What lost memory? I have a great memory.”
A man who looked like a younger version of him appeared at his side, rolling his eyes at the comment.
“Sure you do, Dad,” he said. To Darkfall, he added, “I’m Edgar Jr. Who are you, and why do you need to see my father?”
Darkfall pulled out his ID again and explained he was investigating a report of memory loss.
Edgar Smithers Jr. invited Darkfall in. He got his father situated in his favorite recliner in the living room, turned the television on to a sports channel and motioned for Darkfall to follow him into the dining room where they could speak away from his father but keep an eye on him.
“I’ll tell you what happened. It kind of upsets the old man when it comes up,” Edgar Jr. said in a low tone.
“Thank you,” Darkfall said, glancing into the living room. The elder Mr. Smithers seemed oblivious to their conversation.
“The thing is, my father had a particularly special memory go missing.”
“Just one memory?”
Edgar Jr. nodded.
“A recent one?”
“Not at all,” the young man said.
“That seems strange,” Darkfall said. “You’d think memory loss would most likely affect something recent rather than an old memory.”
“I’m no expert, but I have to agree.”
“How do you think it happened?” Darkfall asked.
“I figured the old man tripped, fell down and hit his head. It was just bad luck that the blow seemed to erase one of his old memories.” Edgar Jr. shrugged. “Honestly, it was sad, because that memory was very important to him, you know? Special.”
“What memory was it, if you don’t mind my asking?”
“No. Not at all. You see, it was a memory of when our family first arrived on Earth, back like twenty years ago or so. I mean, I was a still a kid. But for my father, after living on Alpha-Prime all his life, Earth was magical.
“He was astounded by the tall trees and all the water available on this planet. Plus, the topography that wasn’t just sand, dust and dry air, like back home. He treasured the memory of that first day when we arrived on Earth, you know?”
Darkfall nodded. He understood.
“He used to tell his siblings and cousins—basically, anyone who would listen—all about it whenever we visited Alpha-Prime,” Edgar Jr. said. “Now he can’t remember it. It’s like selective amnesia or something. Crazy, right?”
“Very interesting, for sure.” Darkfall didn’t feel comfortable calling Edgar Jr.’s father crazy.
Edgar Jr. had described perfectly the very memory that ended in a video that was played regularly to lots of people for lots of credits in a forbidden location in the Tri-Spiral Galaxy lightyears from here.
Darkfall had to wonder how that rather specific memory managed to get off-planet to a galaxy so far away.
“And it turns out that it isn’t just my dad, either,” Edgar Jr. said.
Darkfall went on alert. “Really?”
The younger man nodded. “I’ve heard the same thing happened to two other people in town. Maybe there are more folks out there, too.”
This was news to Darkfall. Perhaps he hadn’t read far enough in Luca’s notebook. “Do you know if the memories they lost were similar to your father’s arrival on Earth?”
Edgar Jr. shook his head. “Not really. I didn’t hear this firsthand, but a friend told me there was this lady who had a really over-the-top birthday celebration on Ichor-Delta at this fancy hotel there, which happened only like a year ago.
But when someone asked her about it last month, she looked at them like they had lost their mind.
She had no memory of it even after looking at pictures and video of the event. ”
“And the other instance? Did that missing memory happen to be from Earth?”
“Oh, no. The other lost memory was one from Alpha-Prime. It happened to a friend of my dad’s, Mr. Binger. They play chess sometimes in the park, when the weather is nice but not too hot, you know?
“Anyway, Mr. Binger’s memory was from when he was a really young, like a little kid. On a dare, he rode quite a ways across the hottest part of the Outer Rim Desert strapped to a sand-claw beast! Can you believe it? I mean, talk about crazy, right?”
Darkfall had to agree. “Definitely, crazy.”
“Mr. Binger used to tell anyone who would listen that it was the wildest ride he’d ever taken.
And the most dangerous. Old Mr. Binger used to tell that story every time we saw him in the park for literally years, with absolute glee.
Then one day he didn’t mention it and when we asked him about his wild ride on a sand-claw beast, he said he didn’t remember ever doing something so foolish.
Course, there weren’t any pictures of it because it was probably illegal even then, but he had absolutely no memory of it at all.
Bam. Blip. It was gone.” Edgar Jr. snapped his fingers in the air three times to illustrate his point.
Darkfall got it. An alien being was loose on Earth, stealing memories to sell.
Likely that was what Luca had figured out, to his detriment.
And when he attempted to capture the culprit and bring that being to justice on Alpha-Prime, Luca became a victim himself.
Instead of losing just one memory, his entire past was erased as if it never existed.
Darkfall was determined to do all he could to get Luca’s memories back.
Edgar Jr. said, “You know, someone called the house here a couple, three weeks ago or so and asked about my father losing his memory.” He looked up in the air as if searching for something.
“I think his name was Johns or maybe Jones, something like that. Not sure. Anyway, he said he was looking into the case as well. Do you know him?”
Darkfall didn’t confirm or deny knowing any Johns or Jones. He simply smiled, offered his hand, thanked the Smithers men for their cooperation and headed back to The Event Horizon Inn to plan his next move.
Jake and Beryl met up at his shop after work to go out and catch a late dinner. Since he was snatched on his way to the Cosmos Café, he figured tonight was the perfect time to experience a quirky, interesting and very fun restaurant.
Instead of having a big dinner, they both opted for coffee and dessert. Jake ordered a large container of the best chili in the galaxy to go. Maxwell the Martian certainly couldn’t be wrong about how good the chili was in this establishment.
Beryl told him he was in for a treat. “I recommend sprinkling cheese on top and crushing up some soda crackers to stir in. But that’s just me.” Luckily, his order came with soda crackers, because he had no idea what those were.
Their waitress turned out to be Beryl’s aunt, Dixie. She was what folks in town called a hoot. Jake thought she was hilarious.
Aunt Dixie told Beryl, “I like this one, Beryl. You should keep him.”
“I’ll do my best.”
Beryl had driven them to the diner because she couldn’t let go of her worry for him and Jake was fine with that. On their way out to her car, he told her she was a beautiful chauffeur. She told him he was still a charmer.
At his place, Jake held the door for Beryl, who insisted on carrying his to-go bag of chili and soda crackers straight to the kitchen to put it in the refrigerator for him.
Jake was closing the front door and locking it when Beryl made a funny noise and said, “Why is your bedroom door shut?”
“It’s not closed,” he said, turning to see for himself that, holy cow, it was. Why was his bedroom door shut? Oh, no.
“Ouch!”
Jake whirled at Beryl’s cry in time to see her slowly crumple to the floor. His to-go chili, the best in the galaxy, slipped from her fingers, landing on the floor beside her.
“Beryl?” Jake took a step in her direction—and saw the air next to her roll like a heatwave at the peak of summer. Something hit his chest, stinging and painful, just like when the faceless kidnapper had snatched him off the street and stuffed him in the trunk of a car.
Jake immediately felt dizzy. As his limbs lost function, he slumped to the floor. His gaze stayed fixed on Beryl, eyes closed, sprawled on the floor beside the dining room table.
Was she breathing? Please breathe, Beryl, he thought over and over.
He tried to focus. He couldn’t tell if she was out cold—or worse. The mere notion of Beryl being hurt made him frantic.
Jake felt completely powerless and that seemed like such a foreign feeling to part of him that his fear shifted to fury.
A rage the likes of which he didn’t think he’d ever felt roiled through him at seeing Beryl motionless, helpless, unconscious or worse, and knowing he couldn’t help her.
Jake clutched his red-hot anger like a banner flying free on its way into battle. If even one hair on her head was harmed because of this predator, then in either this life or the next, he would avenge her.
Whatever it took.