3. The Memory Hunter
The Memory Hunter
Matthias
The first thing I notice about HAVEN is that no one in the room mistakes politeness for trust.
They’re courteous when Victor brings me through the secure doors, but every pair of eyes measures me before a single greeting settles.
Operatives do that. So do researchers, though we pretend our version is more civilized because we use peer review instead of weapons.
Steve Hollands stands first. Australian, former police, posture easy enough to suggest he doesn’t need to advertise authority. His wife sits beside him with a notebook open, blonde hair brushing her jaw, eyes already assessing the man rather than the credentials Victor shared ahead of me.
“Dr. Cross,” Steve says, offering his hand.
“Matthias is fine.”
His grip is firm. Brief. No performance. “Steve.”
“Janice,” the woman beside him says.
I take her hand next. “Mrs. Hollands.”
Her mouth softens slightly. “Janice is fine too.”
Around the table, introductions move quickly.
Angus Radcliffe looks like he was built by someone with a grudge against doorframes.
Jax Reeves watches from beside Mercy Chan with a calm intensity that misses nothing.
Cole Maddox sits near Liberty Jones, who studies me with the particular focus of a combat nurse deciding whether a doctor is useful or decorative.
Dimitry says little. Nikolai Blackwood says even less, which somehow communicates more.
Victor remains near the screen. “Matthias contacted us after Greece. He’s been tracking Meridian’s psychological programs for ten years.”
The air changes by a fraction.
That is what I came here for.
I set my leather case on the table, but I don’t open it yet. Credentials impress institutions. HAVEN doesn’t look like an institution. It looks like people who’ve learned the hard way that clean paperwork can still hide blood.
Angus leans back, arms folded. “You don’t look like a fighter.”
It isn’t an insult. It’s a test.
I meet his gaze. “I’m not.”
His eyebrow shifts.
“I’m a scientist,” I continue. “I fight with what I know. Which is more than most.”
A small sound leaves Steve, almost amusement. Janice’s pen stills above the page.
Angus studies me for another second, then nods once. “Fair enough.”
I’ve stood in lecture halls at Oxford, conference rooms in Zurich, hospital labs in Cape Town, and private facilities where men in expensive suits discussed neurological damage as though it were a market opportunity. None of those rooms felt like this one.
Here, nobody needs convincing that Meridian is evil. They only need to know whether I can help them stop this version of it.
“I’m not here to command your field team,” I say.
“I’d be a liability in a breach and a poor substitute for anyone in this room when bullets start moving.
But Meridian Memory Institute isn’t only a building.
It’s a protocol. A sequence. Drugs, sleep disruption, sensory restriction, emotional isolation, then guided reconstruction.
They’re not improvising. They’re following a model. ”
Janice’s expression tightens, but she doesn’t look away.
Victor gestures toward the screen, where Bliss Fontaine’s grey painting fills the display.
I keep my gaze on the canvas.
Seeing this is like watching someone erase a language one word at a time.
“I know how to begin undoing what they’ve done,” I say.
Steve’s attention sharpens. “Then welcome to HAVEN.”
I look around the table, at the soldiers, investigators, hackers, nurses, survivors, and hunters watching me with a respect I haven’t earned yet but intend to.
“Thank you,” I say. “Now show me everything you have.”
Blackstone Ventures HQ, San Francisco. 1445 hours
I open the case on the table and remove ten years of research in neat, labeled sections.
No one reaches for the files until I slide them forward. That tells me something useful about HAVEN. They’re comfortable with restraint. They don’t snatch at information because it appears in front of them. They wait, watch, and let the person holding the blade decide which edge to show first.
“These are procurement records,” I say, placing the first folder in front of Victor. “Some are incomplete. Some are mislabeled. A few were buried inside legitimate psychiatric supply orders. But the pattern is consistent across facilities connected to Meridian.”
Victor opens the folder. His eyes move quickly over lot numbers, shipping dates, compound classifications, and the names of pharmaceutical intermediaries that should never appear together.
Janice shifts closer. “These aren’t all psychiatric medications.”
“No. Some are standard enough to pass inspection. Others are designed to interfere with memory formation while leaving the patient awake, responsive, and dependent on clinical direction.”
Cole’s expression hardens. “So, they can keep the women functional.”
“Yes. Meridian doesn’t want unconscious patients. They want compliant ones.”
The team takes that in without comment.
I set the second folder down. “The drugs weaken certainty. The conditioning decides what replaces it.”
Janice’s pen moves again, slower now.
“Controlled light. Restricted color. Sleep disruption disguised as monitoring. Repeated correction when a patient remembers something inconvenient. A woman says, ‘I remember,’ and the clinician says, ‘That’s traumatic distortion.’ Enough repetition, enough chemical interference, and eventually she stops trusting her recall. ”
Steve’s gaze cuts to Bliss Fontaine’s grey painting on the screen.
I follow it.
“That’s what we’re seeing in her work. Her art hasn’t vanished. It’s being suppressed. The person who made those earlier paintings is still there, but Meridian has taught her to fear the pathways back to herself.”
Nikolai speaks from the far end of the table. “Can it be reversed?”
“Partly. Sometimes significantly.”
“Not yes.”
“No,” I say. “But not no either.”
That answer earns a few measured looks. I don’t soften it. False certainty is one of the tools that built Meridian Memory Institute. I won’t use it here.
I remove the final folder, slimmer than the rest. “This is my counter-treatment framework. Careful medication adjustments to reduce suppression. Cognitive retrieval techniques. Sensory reintroduction. Then we build an individual recovery sequence from her history.”
Mercy looks up. “For Bliss?”
“Color first, most likely. Then her mother’s voice, French, familiar music, the smell of paint and turpentine, anything capable of reaching her before Strauss can reinterpret the response.
” I look back at Bliss’s file. “But I won’t guess beyond that.
I need her history, her work, and access to the woman Meridian tried to bury beneath its protocol. ”
Victor closes the first folder with care. “You’ve identified the scientists involved?”
“Some. Dr. Aaron Strauss is central to the current institute model. Others provided compounds, data, and cover.”
Angus looks from the folders to me. “You’ve been hunting doctors.”
“I’ve been hunting people who learned how to injure the mind and call it treatment.”
Steve studies me for several seconds. “And you think Bliss can come back from this?”
I look at the grey canvas again, at the muted strokes where there should be heat, argument, and life.
“Yes,” I say. “But we can’t simply remove her from the building and hope the damage unravels. Meridian made her doubt the evidence of her own mind. We have to give that evidence back to her piece by piece.”
Janice’s gaze lifts from the page. “And if they’ve done this to other women?”
“Then Bliss isn’t the only one we bring back.”
No one comments over that.
I gather the folders into a single line across the table, turning ten years of fragments into something close to a weapon.
“I can’t breach a door,” I say. “But I can read the architecture of what they’ve done to her, and I can show you where it’s weakest.”
Victor’s attention sharpens.
“That’s where we begin,” I say. “With the weak point.”
Blackstone Ventures HQ, San Francisco. 1500 hours
Victor doesn’t ask the next question.
He doesn’t have to.
The team has already followed the shape of the evidence back to the space I haven’t filled. Ten years of research. Ten years of procurement records, clinical notes, false patient files, missing compounds, and patterns no ethical scientist could ignore once seen clearly.
No one gives up a decade to theory.
Janice sees it first. I know because her pen stops moving, and her attention settles on me with the discreet care of someone trained to recognize where pain has been wrapped too neatly.
“Your sister?” Janice asks.
The question is gentle.
It still cuts.
I reach into the inner pocket of my jacket and remove the photograph I’ve carried so long the corners have softened despite every protective sleeve I’ve placed around it. I set it on the table and turn it toward them.
“Thandiwe.”
The room shifts without anyone moving much. That is the power of a photograph. It makes absence visible.
Thandiwe smiles from the glossy paper, twenty-five years old and incandescent beneath stage lights, one hand wrapped around a microphone, braids swept over one shoulder, gold earrings catching the light. She looks mid-song, eyes half closed, mouth open on a note I can almost hear if I let myself.
I don’t let myself.
“She was a singer,” I say. “Not famous yet. She would have been.”
Steve studies the photo, then looks away first, not from discomfort, but respect.
“She was taken in Cape Town?” Victor asks.
“Johannesburg. After a private showcase. A talent representative approached her afterward with an offer to record in London. Contracts, travel arrangements, professional references, everything polished enough to satisfy a cautious family.”
Mercy’s gaze sharpens. Beside her, Serenity goes still. They both understand recruitment dressed as opportunity.
“She called me from the airport,” I continue. “Excited. Irritated because I’d asked too many questions. She said I was being her boring older brother.”