Memory

Part 2

I suppose I shouldn't expect the good doc here at the St. Louis Psychiatric Evaluation and Rehabilitation Center to believe what I say is true. Nevertheless, it is. I bet my life on it.

Five of them there were, all sitting across from me at the quarter moon table colored like black glass. The balding gray headed man in the center was Dr. Felding, the Chief Psychiatrist. There were two young attractive, dark-haired women to his right. I think they were residents, and a middle aged woman was a social worker and a there was also a small man around thirty. I think he was a resident, too.

Dr. Fielding and company were shuffling papers while I walked into the sparsely decorated room. The walls glared white. My beige padded slippers sank into the thick lush carpet. My escort pointed to the cushioned office chair across from my inquisitors and then walked out the door, shutting me in.

I walked slowly to the designated chair, and indiscreetly as I could looked it up and down. Satisfied that there were no recording devices present, at least that I could readily observe, I sat and glanced at the thin table top and while shifting my gaze upon the group, I felt beneath the table. All seemed to be clear.

Dr. Fielding lifted his eyes from the papers spread out in front of him and looked at me.

"Mr. Janus..." he smiled. "May I call you Ben?"

I nodded

"Ben... Do you know why you are here?"

"Presumably, because someone or a couple of someones-" I looked at the far naked corner of the room. My lips tightened, I could feel my skin blush. "-believe I am a danger to either myself or someone else."

"And what is your take on that? Do you believe you are a danger to yourself or others?"

"No, goddammit!" I shifted uneasily in my seat. That was just preposterous. If there was anyone threatened, it was me, but I couldn't tell them that. I couldn't expect them to believe me. I didn't know if even I believed it.

"Ben," Dr. Felding's calm voice smoothed some of the edginess I was feeling.

"We've had your medical records faxed to us. It says that you hallucinate. Here..." He held the paper up and pointed to it. "It says "patient claims to have had several audio and visual hallucinations, since seven years of age." It also says that you have delusions of grandeur and notions of reference. You claim to be the coauthor of certain passages in books written before you were born. Shall I continue?" He raised his eyebrows.

"There's no need," I said looking down at my slippers. My right eye began twitching.

"You withdrew all your family's savings, in cash and then readied yourself and your child for a one-way trip to Seattle. Once your wife found out what you had done, she and your mother filed for an involuntary stay against you. Thus, your present situation. He scooted back in the chair. "What's in Seattle?"

What the hell, I thought. Might as well tell him. Certainly he knows my history anyway. If I was going to get out of there, I needed to be cooperative. And denying it might keep me there longer. I thought I didn't have much time, anyway.

"Okay, Dr. Felding, I'll tell you like it is. Derrik Pratt's home was in Seattle, Washington. One of his children and a few of his close friends still live there. I've tried other methods of communication, but haven't heard in reply. I think...if they could just see me, hear me, look into my eyes, they would feel the truth."

"What truth is that?"

"That...that, their father and friend is in here." I placed both open hands on my head. "I mean...I have some of his memories, thoughts. Fragments mostly, here and there, hardly ever coherent. But they are there. I've seen the things he saw, heard the things he heard, thought his thoughts, dreamed his dreams. If I could see them in person, I think the connections may start happening". I pulled back my bangs and scratched my forehead. "You know, they owe me at least that."

"Alright," Dr. Fielding said. He picked up a pad and pen. "Can you tell me how and why Derrik Pratt is in you? What exactly, do you mean by that?"

I let out a deep breath and sat up straight in my chair. "When I was 5, supposedly a man working for the National Institutes of Health was on the same Metro Link as my mother and I were on. He took something from their secret lab. He dropped something on the floor near our seats, so he reached over to pick it up and when he did he bumped into my leg. I later found out he also had a needle and though I didn't feel it he injected membots into my calf. My mother and I thought it was all an accident. I found out later that man drowned in the Potomac River.

A man, Kelly Mullins claiming to be that man's nephew found me about 4 years ago. He said that the government was working on advanced neural memory trafficking, consolidation and retrieval. They had used nanobots that were able to basically trace memory formation and record it. They used this on Pratt for about four or five years. They were supposed to retrieve the memory saving nanobots from him and inject them into an infant, who would be watched by the careful eye of "special" foster parents. These bots would retrace Pratts neural memory pathway onto the childs as he grew. The foster parents were supposed to know what to look for in behavior that would possibly give way to information on Pratt. They think he was contacted by extraterrestrials because it was too coincidental of the similarities between his writing and several actual Alpha Priority classified projects. He had names, locations, projects written for all the world to see. That's why the NIH/NSA began this project. So they could find a way to know what he knew."

Dr Felding and residents seemed to squirm and stared attentively at me.