Caldwell staggered into the room with Ms. Seven Levin following close behind. Turbulence. She pressed a hidden button somewhere below the handle of her red leather attaché case and the four sides collapsed to reveal a contraption with several sensors and those tiny devices that sat literally millimeters from your retina. They not so much as projected images, as directly stimulated your optic nerves. There was also a device that looks like an old lady’s shower cap but it was hooked up to a thin fiber optic cable that disappeared into one side of the contraption. There was something that looked like an optical disc that she loaded into the contraption and it started whirring and spinning. Caldwell didn’t like the look of any of this.
“What the hell is that?” he asked nervously, beads of sweat rolling down the side of his face and disappearing into his shirt collar.
“It’s the bits of your memory bank that you are going to need for this mission. I’d say that disc holds the triggers to about twenty-five percent of your memory, specific parts of your memory.” Close up, Caldwell noticed a hard tough edge to Seven’s attractive face. It was something in those eyes, as though some cold and calculating arctic predator was patiently biding its time behind the vacuous blue of her irises.
“So what exactly am I getting?” he asked, shuddering at the thought of the raw animal instinct he had glimpsed sitting passively in there, waiting to be awakened.
“You are getting memory of the physical skills you used to have before. If you used to be a champion tennis player, you will be able to tap into that skill set and possibly win again. I say possibly because it will take a while to re-align your body with what your brain says you are capable of. I understand you were a black belt at something and that you had some basic shooting practice at The Seminary. You should be able to get those back with some effort on your part. Of course, you’ll first have to become physically fit. You look like you haven’t hit the treadmill in a while.”
“Like I can afford it. Were you part of the original procedure?” Caldwell asked, hoping to persuade her to give him everything back.
“I’m afraid I am not at liberty to answer that question.” Those cold eyes studying him, vacant and emotionless.
“Please. Humor me.”
“I am not at liberty to answer that question. If you keep insisting I’ve been instructed to halt the procedure and destroy this. This is the only disc I have on board,” she threatened. For a woman with a name like she had, she sure was unflappable.
“OK, but tell me one thing. How does this thing work?” he asked, changing the subject.
“Pretty simple really. Your brain stores information in little compartments. Information on certain things tend to be stored in a certain area of the brain but apart from this vague system of cranial geography, the way the information is stored is haphazard, relying on memory association to make the connections. So you might have a childhood memory of riding your first bike sitting next to your memory of the square root of sixty four. What they did is they built a map of your memory, segmented it into core sectors like speech, physical, mental, artistic skills and extrapolated that over a timeline from when you were in your mother’s womb to approximately six years ago.”
“And you left speech and blocked off the rest? Assigning each one a trigger?”
“You learn fast Mr. Caldwell,” she said smiling. Then the smile vanished as she realized that he had tricked her into confirming that she was indeed the person who had carried out the procedure. “They were even able to isolate different forms of speech. They blocked off all your Chinese. They had to.”
“Why?” Caldwell asked, ignoring the obvious cover-up.
“It would have been a bit strange if you found out you could speak Mandarin and Cantonese fluently and read a fair amount but had no memory of it.”
“So if I saw a character, say in Hong Kong, which was a trigger, would I get partial memory recall?”
“No. The font, size and color of the character have to be a perfect match. The triggers all use a custom font with certain unique features that you couldn’t identify unless you were looking for them specifically.”
“So after HYDRA, how did I end up hacking for a living? I mean, why did I choose the same profession and not deliver pizza or something?”
“That was just how you are wired. You have a natural propensity for computers and code. Actually, your core skills, the ones that got you a job at HYDRA, were all locked away but your basic propensity for hacking, that’s all you. You will get those core skills back in about an hour. The stuff you’ve been doing the last few years compared to what you have coming is like comparing kindergarten homework with a PHD thesis in quantum physics.”
“I take it that’s the good news. Can you explain the frequent migraines I get?”
“Yes. That’s your brain’s natural impulse to try to access the blocked areas. We had to associate those activities with pain to stop you from trying to access those memory banks. That’s why the pain goes away very quickly. It disappears as soon as your brain focuses on memories that are less than a few years old or have not been locked. The migraines, I am afraid are here to stay, until you get permanent memory recovery and your brain starts rewiring itself.” Caldwell could swear he saw the animal retreat even further behind her eyes.
“Well thanks for explaining this to me. I know you didn’t have to,” he said with genuine gratitude.
“Welcome. Off the record, it pained those who had clearance in the London office greatly to see this done to you. You were the agency’s whiz kid but the organization had to come first. I am sure you understand.”
“We’ll have to see how this trip goes but I am not beyond forgiveness,” he said. She smiled, ruby lips pursed together like a strawberry.
“OK, that’s enough idle banter,” she said, bringing up a gas mask from the side of the contraption. “Take a deep breath.”