Chapter 2 #2
I lean against the wall, knees suddenly weak, and close my eyes.
In the darkness behind my eyelids, I see flashes: hands moving quickly over keyboards, faces behind glass partitions, a roar of static in my ears and the taste of metal in my mouth.
I want to scream, but instead I laugh. The sound is thin and not at all convincing.
I open my eyes. I am Diana. The name is real, even if the memories aren’t. I have a badge, a purpose, and a set of numbers that might one day open a door. I am a scientist, or was. I am alone, or almost alone.
I take a breath, and the air tastes the same as before: recycled, over-filtered, but just barely enough. I walk back to the safe, clutching the notes to my chest, and try again. Because that’s what I do: I try, I fail, I try again. It’s not hope, exactly, but it’s the closest thing I have.
Every routine, when repeated, becomes a ritual.
My ritual now is the trek from main lab to the safe, a round-trip pilgrimage through the holy stations of the bunker.
I check the Geiger, I test the passcode, I scan the scrawled notes for some angle I’ve missed.
The hours blur, or maybe it’s days—there’s no way to tell, not really, not down here.
I try the badge code; I try numbers from every sticky note, every margin annotation. Nothing.
What finally breaks the loop is a simple act of accident.
I’m on my knees, gathering a spilled deck of punch cards from under the table—whoever designed this place had a fetish for obsolete technology—when I spot a fine crack in the wall panel near the floor.
It’s not like the intentional seams everywhere else; it’s a hairline, the kind that only forms under stress or sabotage.
I run a fingertip along it and feel a breeze, so slight that only the hairs on my wrist notice. I push, and the panel gives.
Behind it is a hollow, barely big enough for my hand.
I reach in. The texture is wrong: not metal, not plastic, but soft, like the cover of an old book.
I pull out a bundle—two notebooks tied together with a fraying elastic band, and underneath, a black object about the size of a cigarette pack.
A tape recorder. The retro kind, with buttons that clunk instead of click.
It’s heavier than I expected, and when I shake it, there’s a muffled thunk like a loose gear inside.
I drop to the cot, legs gone soft. My fingers tremble as I fumble the power switch. The LED blinks red, then steadies. I have a moment of irrational fear—what if it’s just more of my own voice, talking in circles?—but there’s only one way to know.
I press play. The tape whirrs, and after a delay, a woman’s voice fills the bunker. Measured. Low. Cultivated to convey calm, even as it knifes through the silence.
“Diana. If you’re hearing this, protocol was activated.
Your memory loss is temporary—a necessary precaution.
Listen closely. The situation outside is compromised.
Radiation is lethal, but your work is our only hope.
The RadShield formula—your version—was closest to stable.
The data’s in the safe. Combination is the date we first met.
Trust your instincts. They’ll come for the research eventually.
They’ll come for you. You must continue. I’m sorry. I had no other option.”
The voice cuts out mid-breath, replaced by a hush of background static.
It’s a voice I’ve never heard, but it nails me to the cot.
The cadence is surgical—each word precisely chosen, nothing wasted or accidental.
There’s urgency under the cool, a strain barely masked.
I play it again, slower. “Protocol was activated.” “Memory loss is temporary.” “The RadShield formula—your version—was closest to stable.”
That last phrase sticks. I say it out loud.
“My version.” It sounds both ridiculous and inevitable.
My fingers uncurl from the recorder, and I thumb through the two notebooks.
The first is blank except for a date on the inside cover: “09.15.” The second is packed, dense with formulae, but about halfway through, pages have been torn out in a hurry.
Fragments remain—lines about polymer backbones and adaptive shielding, charts of mortality curves that spike and then drop, a series of equations leading nowhere but circled three times.
All annotated, all in my own hand, but none with a key.
I play the tape a third time, this time just for the sound of the voice.
There’s comfort in the repetition, in how it doesn’t change, no matter how many times I listen.
Each word has mass. “I’m sorry. I had no other option.
” That’s not the kind of apology you give for losing a bet.
That’s the kind you leave for a condemned cellmate.
“Combination is the date we first met.” I roll the words around, then scan the cover of the notebook.
09.15. If it’s a month and day, the sequence is obvious.
I bolt to the safe, pulse jackhammering.
The keypad, suddenly, is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.
I tap in 0915. There’s a hum, a two-second pause, and then the green light flickers. This time, the door springs open.
Inside: a thumb drive, a stack of polaroids bound with a rubber band, and a heavy glass vial capped with wax.
The photos are of me, mostly, sometimes with another woman—short hair, confident tilt to her chin, eyes that refuse to smile even when her mouth tries.
Always in a lab, always near a whiteboard or a microscope, sometimes both in the same shot.
In one, we’re laughing, arms slung around each other.
The annotation on the back: “First successful trial. 09.15.”
There are other pictures, too. Some are less friendly.
One of the outside, the world smeared and warped by heat shimmer, trees twisted and black, the sky a color no one ever designed a crayon for.
The rubber band snaps as I try to pull them apart.
I let the polaroids scatter onto the table and stare at the vial.
I hold it up to the light. The contents are clear, a faint blue luminescence pulsing through the glass.
It reminds me of the cultures from the other lab—alive, hungry.
The wax seal is unbroken. The thumb drive is marked “RadShield—Final.” I click the cap on the drive, but there’s nowhere in the bunker to plug it in.
No computer, no network, nothing. Just me and my memories, or what’s left of them.
I sit, recorder in my lap, and play the tape again.
“They’ll come for the research eventually.
Theyll come for you” Who are “they”? The question isn’t idle paranoia, it’s an empirical certainty, the kind I used to pride myself on.
The world outside is lethal, but whatever’s inside this formula must be worth the risk of dying for.
Or worth the risk of losing your own mind, one slice at a time.
I test the idea in my head: I was brilliant. I was dangerous. I built something, or broke something, so critical that my own mind had to be wiped as a failsafe. It fits, but the fit isn’t comfortable.
I put the vial, the drive, and the polaroids back in the safe. I shut the door. Not because I don’t trust myself, but because the act of closing it feels like drawing a line between past and future. The next move is clear, even if the rules of the game aren’t.
I wipe the table, push the empty energy drink can into the bin, and line up the notebooks in front of me. There’s no more time for panic or confusion. The voice on the tape is my new heartbeat.
I cue it up one last time, but I don’t hit play yet.
I want to hear it only when I need to, as a reminder, not as a lullaby.
I stare at the safe, already planning what comes next—dosing myself with whatever’s in the vial, or maybe synthesizing more, or maybe waiting for whoever “they” are to break in and try to take it from me.
It’s all possibilities, now. No more loops, no more circles.
I set the tape recorder on the cot and lie back, staring at the ceiling, waiting for the world to end or restart. This time, I’ll remember everything.