Chapter 55 #2
The first big project is the radiation field.
They tell us it’s to protect the city, to keep the “good” parts of the world safe from the creeping death of the outer zones.
I believe them, because I want to. I bury myself in the numbers: dosimetry curves, field decay rates, the quantum logic of containment.
I am so fucking smart, so ruthlessly effective, that within six months they move me up to project lead.
I design an array that’s more efficient than anything they’ve tried.
My reward is three days without sleep and a bonus that might buy me a drink if the bar was still open.
We test it on rats. Then on monkeys. Then on human cell lines, the ones scraped from the backs of prisoners or grown in vats in the sub-basements. The results are perfect, flawless, better than the simulation. The head of Research slaps me on the back so hard I nearly spit out a tooth.
I remember the day we light up the first real field, out on the edge of the Wasteland. The sky is purple with fallout haze, but inside the dome it’s blue as a photograph. Everyone is giddy, drunk on their own success. Even Marquez cracks a smile, says: “You just saved a million lives, Dr. Kang.”
I go back to my dorm that night, strip off the coat, and stare at myself in the mirror. The bags under my eyes are permanent, but for once I don’t care. I look like a fucking hero.
That’s the first memory cycle.
It skips.
Now it’s a year later, maybe two. I’m older—hard to tell how much, but my hands have that dry, chapped look of someone who stopped using moisturizer months ago.
The lab is different now: more security, fewer windows, the equipment all covered in redundant layers of plastic and tape.
The work is harder, more secret. We’re not just doing containment anymore; we’re doing something else.
They call it “memory mediation.” At first it’s simple: a patch for PTSD, a way to help the soldiers unsee the things they saw out there.
I develop the first prototype myself, a tiny chip that slots into the base of the skull, floods the hippocampus with designer enzymes and wipes out the worst of the trauma.
The test subjects don’t even scream—they just go blank, eyes wide and new.
The Authority loves it. They triple the funding overnight.
But I can’t let it go. I keep poking at the prototype, keep finding ways to make the chip work faster, last longer, target specific memories instead of just carpet-bombing the mind. I tell myself I’m doing good, that the tech will save lives. That it’ll help the people the Authority left behind.
The next memory is darker.
It’s a conference room, high security, all glass and white noise. The entire Research brass is there—Marquez at the head, Petrov in Authority blue, the whole cabal. I’m not supposed to be in the room. I’m only a year past intern, but they called me up because the prototype is that good.
Petrov does all the talking. “We need to adapt the protocol,” he says, his voice flat, official. “Not just erase. We need to write. Can you do that?”
I say yes before I even think. I can do anything.
They give me a budget, a team, and two floors of the old hospital. I set to work.
What they want is a way to overwrite memory, to turn the chaos of the outer zones into something manageable. They want perfect compliance. They want a population that doesn’t just forget the bad times, but remembers only what Authority wants them to.
I make it work.
I don’t feel guilt, not at first. The numbers are too good.
Every week, we process a hundred new test subjects—prisoners, mostly, but sometimes the volunteers who come in thinking it’s just a scan.
They leave with a smile, a brand-new memory of a perfect Authority childhood.
They join the workforce, or disappear into the city.
The cases of PTSD, depression, suicide—gone.
Marquez throws a party the night the first batch cycles through the system without a single relapse. She gets drunk, tells me: “You’ve done something amazing, Diana. History will remember your name.”
History. As if the Authority hadn’t already written it in advance.
The next cycle is even worse.
I’m in the lab late, hunched over a debug console, when I spot the error. It’s a simple parity mismatch, an old bit flipping in the wrong direction. I trace it, step by step, until I see the pattern.
Someone is running a parallel protocol—an admin override, using my own code to erase not just trauma, but entire lifetimes. Political dissidents, failed operatives, anyone who doesn’t fit the script. They’re not fixing people; they’re deleting them.
I go to Marquez. I confront her in the lab, in front of the entire team. I say: “We’re supposed to be helping them. We’re supposed to—”
She cuts me off. “We are. We’re helping the Authority survive.”
I try to leak the logs. I try to send the code outside. Security catches me in less than twelve hours.
The last memory is the worst.
I’m in a small room, the walls padded, the lights so bright I can’t see the ceiling. My arms are restrained. I taste blood in my mouth, and something sweet and chemical underneath. Petrov stands above me, immaculate as ever, holding the first gen memory chip between his thumb and forefinger.
“We can’t kill you, Diana,” he says, almost regretful. “You’re too valuable. But we can make you forget.”
I want to spit in his face, but my mouth is dry, tongue too thick to move. The chip comes down, and the world goes dark.
For a long, perfect second, I am nowhere.
Then I’m awake, in the Zone, hands covered in dirt, a blue flower in my fist and a memory of a life I never lived.
I scream, but no one hears it.
And in the present—in the node, in the core, wherever I really am—I realize: I’ve done this before. Not once, not twice, but hundreds of times. Every time, Authority brings me back, wipes the slate, and lets me loose to see what happens. Every time, I rebel. Every time, I remember.
Every time, I lose.
The memory ends with me, standing alone, stripped of everything, as the node resets itself. My body is gone, but my mind—my mind is still here.
I brace for the next cycle. I know it’s coming. I know I can’t stop it.
But this time, I remember.
This time, I want to see how the story ends.