Memrex

An outsider would have found the scene, had he been able to view it, extremely curious. For that matter, Liam still found it so too.

They had been stripped to their underwear. Through the heavy goggles, Liam glanced at the other people in the little circle. The goggles hid their expressions, and Liam wondered whether they too felt the tingle of excitement mixed with a good dash of fear. There was a reason this job was mainly carried out by young people – no kids, no mortgage, sometimes no parents, even.

The blazing lamp in their midst picked out every little detail on their skins, giving the two girls opposite him a strangely alien look to them. One of them stood with her shoulders slumped and her belly out. The other stood proudly upright, entitlement clinging to her like an expensive fur coat. Only here for the thrill, no doubt.

On his left the other boy was fidgeting with his toes. Liam was happy to see he was just as skinny as he was, which meant there would be no testosterone-fuelled bragging or fight picking. He had been on the receiving end of those a few times too often already. He still wondered why The Company allowed mixed teams; surely they realised the mere sight of operatives in their bra’s would cause spontaneous combustion in some men’s brains.

Liam became aware of a prickling sensation on his skin and shifted uncomfortably. It wouldn’t take long now. Nausea crept up on him and his head felt light. He really disliked this stage – come to think of it, he disliked a lot of things about this job, except the pay check.

Feeling distinctly queasy, he was zapped away; his essence sucked into the bright light.

Every consciousness was different. Some people sorted everything neatly, others had everything jumbled together. It was those last ones you had to be careful of, because you never knew when a memory would jump out at you.

Liam shoved the heavy goggles onto his forehead and signalled for the others to stay together. Though this mind seemed neat, they had to remain on their guard. Nothing was as dangerous as getting lost in someone else’s brain. He clearly remembered the stories about the McCarthy team. Only two out of four operatives managed to return. Another team was sent in and only managed to release Roberts from an innocent-looking teapot after several intense hours. The teapot turned out to contain memories of child abuse and Roberts had to be pensioned out. McCarthy himself was never found.

Liam carefully stepped around a free-floating memory. He caught a glimpse of a giggling red-haired girl in the misty substance as he moved past. The memory they had been instructed to extract surely wouldn’t be a floater. Any owner of the memory that had been described to him would have taken precautions.

As he took in their surroundings, he saw that the space was littered with old wardrobes – this lady obviously had style. Victorian, Edwardian, Art Nouveau… not a whiff of Ikea.

‘Don’t get to see this sort of quality often,’ the other boy muttered next to him, running his hand over the old woodwork. ‘I’m Josh,’ he added, extending his hand. Liam gladly shook it – he couldn’t remember ever shaking hands with a colleague before.

‘Ready?’ Josh carefully opened a drawer.

‘Just childhood memories,’ the proud blonde girl sniffed, peeking over their shoulders. ‘I thought HQ told us to look for something unusual?’

‘If you know it all so well, Charlotte, then why don’t I see you open your own drawer?’ Josh bit back. With a disdainful ‘puh!’, Charlotte turned her back on them and paraded past the wardrobes.

‘Come on, let’s follow her,’ Liam urged Josh, who was shooting murderous looks after the girl. ‘However irritating she may be, we can’t let her out of our sight.’

Josh shrugged but did walk on. ‘A prolonged stay in a teapot wouldn’t hurt her,’ he grumbled.

They walked past the other girl, who stood studying a portrait of an old man with a bunch of grapes on his head.

‘Seems improbable, Annette,’ Josh told her. ‘The memory we’re looking for surely won’t fit underneath the frame.’

Annette sighed and returned the portrait to a side table. ‘You’re probably right.’ She looked up at Liam. ‘Five years worth of memories, wasn’t it?’

‘Yes, it was.’ Liam wondered why she wanted him to confirm a detail about the assignment – surely she’d received the same briefing he had. Was she just insecure? He shot a quick glance at her slumping posture. Insecurity would be an odd trait in a Memrex.

There was a shriek behind them and Liam abruptly turned in Charlotte’s direction.

‘Stupid thing,’ Charlotte huffed irritably, nudging the offending hinge she had stumbled over with the tip of her shoe.

‘What’s that?’ Liam remarked, his voice sharp.

‘Oh. Ah.’ Charlotte’s expression instantly changed, and she stooped to wipe away the dust.

‘A hatch,’ Josh said, inspecting the contraption. ‘This must be what we’re looking for.’

‘Differs enough from the furniture,’ Liam agreed. ‘Who would like to do the honours?’

‘No-one,’ Annette hissed behind them.

Liam looked up to see Charlotte’s eyes widen. Slowly he turned to face Annette.

She was holding a rifle.

‘Impossible,’ Josh stammered behind him. ‘We came here half naked and empty-handed.’

Annette grinned. ‘Did you really think she’d be unprepared? This rifle was here all along, waiting for me.’

‘Who are you?’ Liam asked, hoping to drag out the conversation long enough to come up with a brilliant escape plan.

‘Her granddaughter,’ Annette snapped at him. And she pulled the trigger.