Deus Ex Amnesia

Chapter 3 - Regret

2007-06-11T23:56:00.001-07:00

Feb 13, 2010

A bitterly cold wind flew through the night air outside a chemical research facility in northern Illinois. Behind the building, in a well-lit parking lot, two young interns passed a badly rolled joint between them. Definitely pushing the graveyard shift, it had to be close to 2AM by now but neither of them had a watch. Their voices were intermittently interrupted by the howling wind, each time it rose their shoulders would shrug in discomfort.

“You ever think about the shit we’re doing here?” David asked.

“What do you mean?” Judy replied. “Smoking pot?”

He laughed. “No, I mean the research we’re doing right now. This drug development.”

She looked down slightly. “I assume you mean the amnesia drug.”

“What else? None of the other projects are remotely interesting in comparison.”

“True,” She said, “and to answer your question, yes. I do think about it. I worry”

“Me too. It’s almost done, you know? You don’t see the results like I do from the lab, but we’re getting near 100% acceptance levels, and complete submersion as well; none of them are coming out of it anymore.” He paced away while he talked, smoking nervously. “I mean, I know the benefits of being involved in a project like this, but…”

“But the ethical issues are leaving you cold.”

“Exactly.” He responded, clasping his collar shut as the wind froze the skin on his neck.

“I was told that it was only going to be used on soldiers.” Judy mumbled while continuing to look downward.

“OUR soldiers?”

“Yeah. Like, for the ones that…”

Suddenly the door opened and Asiya Hassan stuck her head outside. David quickly ditched the roach he was holding between his fingers and stepped on it. Asiya glared at him suspiciously. “What are you two doing? It’s late! I want to go home and I can’t leave until you finish those preliminary conclusions reports.”

“We know, Ms. Hassan. We were just taking one last smoke break. It’s almost done.” Judy said in their defense.

“Well get back in here and finish! I don’t have time for any of this!”

“Yes.” They both replied. As they walked back in past Asiya she sniffed loudly.

“What’s that smell?” She asked.

They walked away briskly. “What? Don’t know what you mean…” David trailed off. Asiya glared after him but let it go. She just wanted to be done with this place for the night.

She walked in the other direction, continuing towards the containment facility that was her original destination before seeing David and Judy slacking off and needing of a slap upside the head. Her shoes made large clapping sounds off the linoleum due to her flat footedness and the brisk pace with which she now moved. The blackberry at her side began to vibrate but this did not interrupt her pace one iota. She whipped it out of its clip and read the SMS on the screen. The sender’s name was “Home” and the message said: “I’m going to sleep now.” She sighed loudly and typed in the reply “Fine” and continued along her way at the same brisk pace. She came to a sliding glass security door and quickly slid her keycard through the reader. The door slid open as the 3-tone approval ding indicated that her security clearance had passed. She did all this with barely an interruption in the rate at which she moved towards her destination, having gone through the routines 3 or 4 times a day for the past year.

She moved through the containment facility, large numbered doors lining the walls of the hall. Occasionally the sounds of someone calling out for help could be heard, or someone sobbing loudly. She hated this part of the trip. She quickly found herself at door #7 and slid her keycard through the reader there, moving inside. It was a white room, with a white table in the center surrounded by white chairs, and a white door. Sitting in the corner, on the floor, was a middle-aged woman wearing a white gown.

“Who are you?” The frightened woman asked with a tremor in her voice.

“My name is Dr. Asiya Hussan, Mrs. Thompson. I’m here to help you.”

“Where am I?” She asked in a frightened tone.

“You’re in a containment facility, under quarantine.”

“Why?!”

“Because, Jane, you’ve undergone some severe trauma I’m afraid. Do you remember your training?”

“Yes. Infantry, first class.”

“Right. Do you remember anything about your time in Iraq?”

“I was in Iraq?” She asked confusingly.

Asiya smiled, and then frowned. “Yes, I’m afraid you were.” Asiya reached forward and pulled Jane up to her feet. “Come. Sit at the table with me.”

They sat at the table and Asiya leaned forward, holding Jane’s hand and looked into her eyes. “You’ve undergone some terrible treatment, Jane. You’ve seen some terrible things. I know you don’t remember them, but the stranger part of all this is that I’m now telling you this for the 3rd time today.”

Jane looked very confused. “I’ve never seen you before in my life!”

Asiya took back her hand and stayed leaning forward, hands clasped in front of her. “Yes, I assure you we have met many times, Jane. We’re trying to help you get better.”

“How?” She asked like a frightened child.

“I come here every few hours and I show you things from your life. We’re trying to help you remember the good things and being sure not to mention the specifics about the bad things. Do you mind if I show you some items now?” Asiya asked in a straightforward manner.

“Sure.”

“OK. Let’s get started then.” Asiya took out a copy of the bible. “Does this look familiar?”

“It’s a bible.” Jane said plainly.

“Yes, but it was your grandmothers. Your husband tells us that it was very important to you at one time. Do you remember?”

“No, I don’t.” She muttered sadly.

Asiya continued. “What about this? Do you recognize this song?” She took out a small tape recorder and pressed play.

“Yes. Yes, I do! That’s ‘Up Where We Belong’, by Joe Crocker.” Jane said with excitement.

“That’s right!” Asiya said. “Does the song have any particular meaning to you? Any special importance?”

Jane’s face dropped, and sadly she said: “No. No it doesn’t.”

“That’s too bad, but don’t worry. In time this should all start to come back to you. What about this? Do you recognize this girl?” Asiya held up an image of a young girl in a ruffled pink dress.

“No, I don’t. Who is she?” Jane inquired.

Tears began to well in both their eyes, Jane’s from frustration and Asiya’s from understanding. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Thompson. This is your daughter.” She said plainly.

“Oh… I didn’t know that I had a daughter.”

Asiya was noticeably disturbed, and began to gather her things. “That’s enough for now.” She said, choking back tears. “We’ll continue this tomorrow. Thank you. In time you will get better.” She said with a tremble in her voice, knowing it wasn’t true. “I promise you.”

“OK, thank you Dr…… What was your name again?”

“Asiya, Jane. My name is Dr. Asiya Hassan.”

“OK, thank you Dr. Hassan.”

“You’re welcome. Goodbye.” Asiya left the room and the door made a loud damping thud behind her, leaving the room eerily silent.

She walked briskly back towards the labs, her feet making even more noise now than before. There was a fervor in her pace, as if she had something she urgently needed to take care of. Her blackberry went off again but she didn’t answer it this time; she just continued the quick walk towards her office.

She entered the lab area and took a quick left turn into her office halfway down the first hallway. Once inside she removed her lab coat and hung it by the door. Almost immediately she began rifling through papers on her desk, then she moved to a filing cabinet and in short time pulled out a brown folder. She took it back to her desk, sat down, turned on the lamp and began searching through the folder. She appeared to find what she was looking for, pointed at it with her finger, and picked up the phone on her desk. Looking back and forth between the paper and the phone she rapidly dialed a local number.

The sound of a very tired middle-aged man picked up the phone. “Hello?”

“Geoff I need to talk to you.” Asiya said with a tone of urgency and annoyance.

“Asiya? It’s 2AM, can’t this wait until….”

“No, it can’t wait Geoff. I need to know who the client is on this Amnesia drug development.”

There was the sound of ruffling bed sheets for a few seconds and Geoff cleared his throat. “It’s a military contract, Asiya. You know that.”

“Right, but who specifically is the commanding officer in charge of supervision over there?”

There was a brief pause. “Jack Spears.”

“What the…..”

“Now, just calm down Asiaya…”

“No, Geoff! I won’t calm down! You told me that this drug was for shell-shocked soldiers! You said that it was being used as a last resort for those soldiers that can’t sleep at night, the ones that suffer horrible nightmares from the shit they went through over there!”

“That’s what I’ve been told it’s for. I don’t see why…”

“SINCE WHEN DOES COMMANDER JACK SPEARS DEAL WITH MEDICINAL TREATMENTS, GEOFF?!” Asiya yelled angrily. “You know DAMN WELL what this drug is going to be used for! You should have told me.”

“Well, I really think you’re…”

Asiya didn’t wait for him to finish and abruptly hung up the phone. She quickly picked it up again, dialing, this time to an obviously international number given the number of digits she had to enter. She started to cry when she misdialed in her panic, hanging up and trying again. Finally she got through.

“a'Arabi?” I heavily accented voice said in Arabic.

“Mahmoud? It’s Asiya.” She said with a tremble in her voice.

“Asiya? Is everything OK? You don’t sound good.” Her brother said with concern.

“Mahmoud, I need you to get mother, father, and our cousins and you need to get them out of Tehran. You need to start making plans to bring them to the United States.” Asiya ordered, her voice becoming increasingly more panicked.

“What? Why, Asiya? What have you heard?” Mahmoud asked with even graver concern.

“You know I can’t tell you that, Mahmoud. It’s the nature of my job. Please, just trust me. You need to bring everyone here as soon as possible.”

“OK, Asiya. I’ll start making the arrangements.” He replied solemnly.

“Thank you, Mahmoud. Thank you. I’ll see you soon.” She hung up slowly and put her head in her hands, sobbing loudly. She was reflecting on what she had done, and how much damage it could do. The drug was ready, she was the first to know it, the one who made it, and now one of the many people in the world helpless to stop it.

Chapter 2 - Remember me...

2007-05-29T23:41:00.000-07:00

Dec 16, 2009

There are some people that believe everything has a purpose, that every event has a distinct reason for occurring to everyone involved in the aims of maintaining some kind of cosmic balance, and that our past actions will come back to haunt us or help us depending on how we’ve behaved. Franklin Thomason was not one of those people. Life had proven to him enough times that regardless of how well you treat people, in the end it will always bite you in the ass because of some unexpected factor, some unpredictable variable that pushes people back into self-interest mode. As far as he was concerned people will hold up their end of the cosmic karma bargain only if it continues to serve their self-interest. If that means simply maintaining a friendship or relationship then that’s what it is, but he was convinced that such things were only of value to people for what it provides them, not out of some objective good or moral sense of duty on their part to maintain it.

Not that he felt this was a condemnation of the human race, it was more of an observation. He knew that humans were not in very direct control of their behavior, acting more on the innate satisfaction of instinct than anything else, so he did not look down on them for this. It is fair to say that he simply did not expect much of people, and therefore didn’t spend much time with them either.

He needed only look inward to understand this, for tonight he was the perfect example of a person not in control of their actions. Otherwise, he certainly wouldn’t be standing on this desolate street corner in the middle of the night waiting for someone to walk by and offer him some rock. He’d told himself this wouldn’t happen again, that he’d never fall back, but this wasn’t the first time and, as far as he could tell, certainly wouldn’t be the last. With hoodie pulled far over his face, he examined the miscreants surrounding him, the street people, and felt some disdain, for did they have to deal with the memories he did? What were they escaping that compared to the things he’d seen, and were they just indulging or, like him, were they terrified of the idea of going to sleep.

“Listen to yourself,” Frank thought to himself, “you think you’re the only one with problems? That girl over there could be escaping a rapist of a father. You think she wants to be out here selling herself like that? Of course not. At least you have a place to sleep tonight. Suck it up!” No, he was more at home among these people than he was anywhere else, and the idea of that made him sick to his stomach. What happened to that noble marine? That strong soldier? Something was dead in him, now, and every time he came to a place like this it died a little more.

Nothing yet. No one was holding. He even just started asking random passersby for a hook up but only got odd glares. He’d heard something about a bust a few nights previously and concluded that the marketplace must have moved elsewhere for the time being. The nearby park was an obvious choice, covered by the darkness and shadows of trees it made for the perfect place when business could not be conducted out in the open. He wandered slowly in, first remaining among the well-lit areas but soon moving into the depths in search of his fix.

Slowly moving down a dirt path he looked left and right cautiously. He had been trained to deal with worse situations than this in Iraq, and wasn’t even breaking a sweat. There isn’t much a place like this can serve up that he couldn’t deal with, but he still remained alert. He ventured towards the river as he’d heard that was where the prostitutes took their johns to perform their business. If he was going to find some crack anywhere that would be a good place to start asking; he’d just have to wait until one of them was finished a trick and then offer them some cash for a pointer. As he approached he could hear some commotion, so as to not disturb them he crept slowly up within some tall grass. What he saw, unfortunately, was not what he expected. Along the riverside were two young black men who had one other young black man on his knees with hands tied behind his back execution style. The taller of the two captors kicked him in the back and he yelped out in pain.

Frank wasn’t sure what to do, but one option that was definitely removed from consideration was getting involved. If anything his military career had taught him it was that no one is innocent and there’s no such thing as the “good guys”, so no justice he could dish out here would improve the overall shitty nature of the universe, and there just wasn’t enough time to figure out what justice was in this specific situation. No, what he was trying to figure out was the safest way to remove himself from the immediate area without being noticed.

Unfortunately for him, that wasn’t going to happen. Soon after the tied up youth fell to the ground he was shot in the back of the head by the one who didn’t kick him. Frank was so startled by this that he stumbled back and fell over a log, creating just enough noise to distract the two murderers attention after the sound of their gunshot finished echoing into the night. Frank looked up, saw their heads dart in his direction, and his training instantly triggered a flight response, knowing that he had been seen and would be dealt with in a similar fashion as the boy who now lay dead with his bloodied head submersed in the riverbed. He quickly performed a backwards roll, was on his feet, and running, the two youths not far behind.

A bullet fired behind him and an extra shot of adrenaline poured into his bloodstream. He could feel it pumping through his veins, and could almost hear the muscles in his legs tearing as he exerted them beyond reasonable limits. Still, he was older than them, and he hadn’t exactly been keeping himself in shape lately with all the drug abuse and lack of exercise. If he was going to get out of this situation alive he was going to need to rely on his training and wits.

Within a few minutes of the dash beginning, or seconds, he couldn’t be sure, Frank spotted a small cluster of trees with a large bush next to them. He darted for these trees and cut a hard left turn into their cover. Once concealed for that brief moment he slid to his belly and hid within the outskirts of the bush. The two youths came running around the same way and as soon as they noticed that he was no longer in front of them they started to slow. In that short moment Frank took his advantage and ran from the bushes towards them, tackling the youth with the gun. There was a brief scuffle but Frank quickly took the weapon from his possession, rolled off him, knelt and with precise aim shot the other boy in the chest as he charged. The one he had disarmed rose to his feet and moved towards Frank, but with expert reactions Frank already had him covered. The youth stopped dead in his tracks, his blue bandanna sloppily covering half of his face, disheveled from the scuffle.

Both of them stood there, staring at each other, out of breath and panting heavily. To Frank’s left he could distinctly hear the sound of the boy he shot coughing up blood, and he knew then that the kid was done for. Not that he felt any guilt about his decision to fire, he just wish this whole thing didn’t have to happen. It started to rain.

“So whatcha gonna do, white boy muthafucka?” The youth said proudly. “You gots me under the gun! Whatcha gonna do?!” Rain dripped down his face and he corrected the bandana.

Frank held the gun at arm’s length and didn’t waver, didn’t shiver despite being cold. “Stay still!” He ordered. “You want to end up like your friend over here?!” he questioned, pointing the gun briefly in the other kid’s direction.

“I don’t give a fuck!” He yelled back defiantly. “You do whatcha gotta do!”

Frank frowned, and pointed the gun a little more sternly as the young man swallowed hard. Something in his eyes, that look that was trying to indicate confidence and strength but deep down you could see he was terrified. It reminded Frank of his time in the middle east, that one terrible day that changed everything for him. He was faced with a situation not too unlike this, a young boy with an assault rifle he picked up from God knows where pointing it in his direction. Frank had just killed his father in the crossfire of a conflict with armed insurgents. He was holding the child in his arms when his head just exploded from gunfire. He should have stayed inside but the instinct to flee, especially when your children are involved, can be so strong that no rational reasoning will keep you safe. To this child Frank was the white devil, the aggressor. All he knew is that his father was dead because of Frank and he knew of nothing else to do other than pick up that gun and aim it. It was the only solution he’d ever known or seen practiced. Violence was his life, and this gun was his safety net, his new father even. His protector. Frank aimed in self-defense and screamed, in English, for the child to drop the weapon. He wept, and apologized, but the child understood none of it. A shot flew out in Frank’s direction, terribly aimed in contrast to the shot that followed from Frank’s barrel, splitting the youth’s forehead in two, his body falling stiffly to the ground.

Frank wept silently again now, not knowing what to do. This time was going to be different from the last, and he was going to take his advantage this time and use it to do the right thing. The cynicism, his distrust of human nature, all left once again and he made another leap of faith. All his life experiences would dictate to him that it was the wrong thing to do, but that never stopped him before.

Rain poured down Frank’s face as he spoke. “I’m going to leave now. I don’t want to hurt you,” He lowered the weapon to his side. “but I’m going to keep your gun.” Frank took a step even closer to him, and moved his face into the light. “I got my own shit going on, you understand? I don’t give a fuck what you do. I don’t give a fuck that you shot that guy by the river. I don’t give a fuck what you go and do once I’m gone. Do you understand? I’m not bringing any heat on myself!” He looked sternly into the kid’s eyes and pointed back at himself. “Look at me! Remember my face! REMEMBER! You owe me, now, and one day if you get the chance to look the other way when you see me doing something you DO IT! UNDERSTAND?!”

A feeling of relief was communicated through the youth’s relax in posture. “Yeah.” He said simply.

“Good.” Frank said, and turned to walk away. Shortly, however, inspiration struck him and he turned back. The kid tensed up again.

“You got any rock?” Frank asked.

Confused, he stared at Frank for a second and then muttered. “Yeah.”

“Give me a gram!” Frank said, pointing the gun back in his face.

“Motherfucker…” the kid muttered as he reached into his pocket and handed a tiny plastic baggie with a small rock of crack cocaine to Frank.

“Drop it on the ground” Frank ordered. He did so. “How much do I owe you?” Frank asked.

“What the f….”

“I don’t want to steal from you! I just want some fucking rock! That’s the only reason I’m fucking out here!” Frank yelled. “How much do I owe you?!”

“Twenty-five” the youth said with unusually precise diction.

Frank took out the money and put it in the kid’s front pocket while keeping him under cover of the gun the whole time. He leaned down, picked up the baggie, backed away for a few steps and then turned and ran. Instead of dropping the gun like every gangster movie had ever taught him to do, it now being involved in at least two murders, he put it in his inside pocket. He knew that he would never be considered in any official investigation, no police would be visiting him, and something about this whole experience told him that he would need it.

Chapter 1 - Identity Theft

2007-05-22T00:56:00.000-07:00

Dec. 8, 2009

Dr. Asif Kamal paced about the dimly lit room nervously, not sure where he was, why he was there, or for how long. Plain white walls framed the scene with a small, buzzing lamp directly in the center of the ceiling. A table rest in the center, also white, with two hard-backed white chairs on either side. On one side of the room there was a plain white door with white hinges and a white knob. Dr. Kamal struggled with that knob in frustration, shaking it viciously despite the handle clearly being locked.

"Hello?!" He yelled out, his voice cracking in fear. Not a single decibel echoed off the white walls, and no one responded to his cry. "Please! Somebody help me! Hello?!"

He continued to pace, feeling the walls and searching in vain for some crack, some protruding feature in their perfectly flat, white surface. Anything to break the monotony of their hold over him. He slammed his fists against the wall and began to weep, but quickly regained his composure and sat down, opting for the floor instead of one of the chairs. He sat there for what felt like hours, but assuredly was only twenty or thirty minutes.

Suddenly the door opened and in walked Commander Jack Spears with a box in one hand and a small clipboard with attached pen in the other. He closed the door behind him and introduced himself to Dr. Asif Kamal.

"Dr. Joseph McCartney, I presume?" he said happily, placing the box and clipboard on the table and extending his hand in friendship. Asif extended his hand nervously and shook, clearly taken aback by the uniformed man that just appeared before him.

"I don't know, to my regret, sir." He muttered politely, "I woke in this room not long ago and seem to have suffered some injury for I do not remember who I am or why I am here."

Commander Spears smiled contently. "Yes, of course, I'm sorry. I wasn't sure what your condition would be, but you appear to be affected just like the others." He removed his glasses and began to clean them on his sleeve. "Please, take a seat."

Asif sat down cautiously, the good commander not far behind. "Others?" He asked patiently.

"Yes, I'm sorry to inform you, Joe, but you've been the victim of a terrorist attack." Jack looked at him sternly and with conviction. "You are in an isolation unit for quarantine because we have determined that the effects of the drug are highly contagious. I'm sorry to inform you that you'll need to remain here for some time."

"I see..." Dr. Kamal exclaimed, not a note of disappointment in his voice but instead patient understanding. "That is most unfortunate, but I understand that precautions must be taken. Why do you appear before me without protective gear, then?"

"We have developed a vaccine that, unfortunately, does not also serve as a cure for the condition. The good news, however, is that we are seeing many examples of people snapping out of it, so we think it's only a matter of time." Jack crossed his arms on the table. "The weapon is not sophisticated."

"That is good news, then." Asif looked down briefly. "So what are we to do in the meantime?"

Jack stood up and began rifling through the box he brought with him. "We are going to perform some exercises with a dual purpose. I am going to show you items that we've retrieved from your home in an effort to give your memory a kick start while at the same time serving as an objective measure of your recovery. Twice daily we will go through each of these items and I will record your level of recollection. Sound OK?"

"Yes, yes... Absolutely. Of course I'm happy to cooperate." Asif said with reservation.

Jack smiled again. "OK, let's begin." He pulled out an old stethoscope. "Does this ring a bell?"

Dr. Kamal examined the stethoscope carefully. "No. No it doesn't. I am familiar with the device, though, of course."

"Do you remember your occupation?" Jack asked.

"Yes." he said. "I was a physician. Emergency medicine."

"Excellent! You are making fine progress already, Joe." Jack leaned forward and slapped him on the shoulder, making Asif smile nervously. "The stethoscope is yours. Notice how the ear pieces have been chewed slightly? We're told that was one of your neuroses. You don't remember?"

"No." Asif said quickly. "Who told you that? A colleague? A family member? Can I see them?" He asked pleadingly.

"In due time, Dr. McCartney, I promise. Please let's stay focused for the time being." Jack broke eye contact and began searching through the box again.

"O-OK." Asif stuttered. "I'm sorry."

"No, I'm sorry Joe. I wish this was easier but we have a method about this."

"Of course."

"OK, how about this?" Jack held out a small iron crucifix, the kind with a statuette of the savior hung across it. "Do you recognize this?"

Asif took it from him and turned it over, feeling the contours of the object. "No. I've never seen this before."

"I assure you of the contrary, Joe. We found that hanging over your bed. There was a similar one in every room of the house." Jack looked at him nervously. "Do you remember anything about your faith?"

Asif looked confused. "No, not a thing. I assume this means I am catholic, however?"

Jack smiled again. "Yes. From what we understand you were quite active in your church." His face dropped. "That is sad. I'm sorry."

"I imagine it's loss would hurt more if I could remember it." Asif said sullenly.

"Yes, I suppose that's true. I brought a bible with me in case you remembered." He removed a book from the box. "Would you like me to leave it here?" Jack asked with intent interest.

"No. That's OK. Thank you. I would not read it." Asif replied while looking away. Jack frowned and placed it back. "I can't even remember any of the details of the religion. Isn't that strange? I can remember many details about many things, like my medicine and the history of the world, but why can I not recall even the essentials of the catholic faith?" He looked down in confusion. "... and I seem to remember a fair amount about Islam, which is...."

Jack interrupted him bluntly. "You were a scholar of many things, Dr. McCartney, and took a particular interest in all religions." He placed sunglasses on, which was strange since it was such a darkly lit room. "We theorize that you would specifically remember more about those faiths that you did not directly practice."

"I see." Dr. Kamal whispered. "That makes sense, I suppose."

Commander Spears cleared his throat and reached in the box. "We only have one more item to show you. We'll be back later today to go through all of these items again to see if anything comes back." He pulled out a small music box and placed it on the desk. "This one may be difficult."

Asif leaned forward and pulled the music box towards him. He wound it up and then slowly opened it, and inside rest a small ballerina that rotated as the miniature chimes within played a crude version of "Once Upon a December." He stared intently at it as it sang to him and a smile crossed his lips that was soon replaced with a grimace.

"Yes, I do remember this." He said.

Jack scowled. "You do?"

Asif looked up sullenly. "Yes. It belonged to my daughter..."

Jack quickly jotted some notes on the clipboard and began to gather himself. "Yes, that's correct Joe."

"... and my name is NOT Joe!" Asif said angrily, looking sternly at Commander Spears. "What are you trying to do to me?! I remember everything now! You took me during my rounds at the..."

Jack grabbed the music box, still playing it's song, and threw it violently against the wall. It shattered into a hundred pieces. Asif quickly ran to it and fell to his knees. "You bastard!" He yelled.

Commander Spears grabbed his things and walked briskly towards the door. He took a small walkie-talkie from his hip. As he pressed firmly into it's side an audible beep could be heard, and he began speaking into it in a stern and unpleasant manner. "Another subject recovered memory within seconds of exposure to real personal item. I don't care what Karen says about the late development of liver cancer, we're upping the levels of nitrogen in the cocktail. Shut down lights in interrogation room #13 and re-administer the drug, with changes, in the morning." He stormed out of the room and slammed the door behind him.

Dr. Kamal remained on the floor and held the intact ballerina cupped in his hands. He turned it over and over, tears welling in his eyes. Suddenly the lights went off accompanied by the loud sound of a switch flipping, their buzzing coming to an abrupt stop, and the only thing left for Asif Kamal to hear was his tearful sobbing.

PROLOGUE

2007-05-15T02:41:00.000-07:00

Nov. 1, 2009

In an increasingly democratic and connected world it becomes difficult to maintain public support for wars fought against even the most radical and dangerous of groups. The requirement for the minimization of civilian casualties is always imperative in the minds of those seeking election, and in that vein the Democratic Party, shortly after winning control of the executive branch in 2008, created the department of humane weapons research. It was the goal of this organization to investigate the possibility of weapons of mass effect that did not inflict physical harm yet still achieved the end goal of civilian acceptance of democratic nation-building.

Oddly enough, the personalities chosen to head up this research were those formally in charge of the development of weapons of a near opposite nature: mass casualty with minimal damage to infrastructure. An example were the early phases of the Neutron bomb, a fission-fusion thermonuclear weapon that generates a burst of neutrons through a fusion reaction whose energy is intentionally allowed to escape rather than kept inside the weapon to produce extreme blast and heat. Raw radioactive energy is released in the aims of destroying all life while keeping buildings and roads intact. The desired effects of said research were more theoretical than realistic considering that all working examples produced blasts in the kiloton range.

The chief executive role of the organization landed in the lap of an experienced military commander by the name of Jack Spears, formally trained in psychological warfare and propaganda techniques. He was a hard-line conservative, the kind that felt the Bush administration of 2001-2008 was too soft. He was chosen by the democrats because of his exceptional qualifications, unwavering patriotism, but primarily because no one of their ilk came even close to fitting the bill. One of the benefits of a two-party system, that some would declare its downfall, is the production of individuals with an absolutely myopic approach to their chosen life path. Through this we see the proliferation of expert psychotics, focused on the goals of national interest, people that were quite literally born to do what they do.

It was commander Spears’ invention, the Tactical Amnesia Bomb, or TABs as they came to be known amongst the pilots who dropped them. It was a concept before it was a technology, something that usually only plays out in science fiction novels but, fortunately or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it, fiction became reality. The idea was to create a device that could be dropped in an area as a seed, releasing a chemical across a wide area that would induce a form of amnesia on all that came into contact with it. The effects would be a complete wipe of all memories, personal, religious, and a removal of national identity, while maintaining all motor functions, language and other primary abilities, as well as all professional skills. Subjects would be left as highly-skilled, strong and healthy individuals with the minds of children. They would be scared, confused, and completely susceptible to direction from behavioral experts that could be flown in once the effects had taken hold. These experts would mold the minds of their subjects into completely subservient citizens of the invading nation, never requiring force to ensure compliance, and strong subjects could even be transformed into soldiers when necessary.

The development of the drug itself was not as difficult as mastering the methods of distribution. If used on isolated sample sizes simple contact was effective enough, but it was theorized that in urban environments it could not be ensured that enough people would be touched by the drug to achieve 100% saturation. If the minds of those affected were turned into blank slates, anyone, including those in the surrounding area that escaped infection, could re-educate and reverse the effects of the weapon rendering it useless in large populations. To combat this problem a viral component was introduced so that those infected would spread their condition to anyone they came in contact with. Once it was determined that enough of a population was under the effects of the drug soldiers treated with vaccines would move in to remove any remaining exceptions. In this way even those who managed to escape in a panic would only spread the condition further.

This collection of stories will serve as a history of the events that unfolded as a result of the invention of this technology and its application. It has given rise to the most sweeping change humankind has ever faced, a benefit or a damnation, depending on your perspective. A fate so strange that God itself forgot it existed.