Stolen Memories (Book 3 of the Magical Machine series)

My hair is way too tight on my head. I don’t know how Melanie pulled it into such a tight bun, but every root is pulling, to the point where it is almost comfortable. Almost. Not really.

The notes are getting crumpled in my hands. I can’t help it as I fold the piece of paper back and forward. Patrick helped me right all my thoughts and plans onto this paper. He warned me not to go off the notes. Anything too radical would make the politicians turn me away immediately.

I’m glad I have you. I’ve gotten so used to you following me around that I often forget you are there, but seeing you there makes me feel steadier.

This suit feels weird. It hugs my body, and yet, it feels wrong. It’s not tight, but I want to tug at the sleeves and the front of the jacket. Tugging on the bottom of the skirt, which is way too short for my comfort, I shift my weight from one foot to the other. I’m not used to heels, even ones as moderate as the ones I am wearing. Melanie made me practice walking in them, but I trip more than I walk correctly in these damn things. Why do I need to be in a suit for this?

Patrick smiles at me, “Another minute or two, and it will be our turn. I’ll let you do all the talking and I will just be there for moral support. You’ve got some really good ideas written down, and I’m certain that the men in there will listen.”

I just hope they aren’t the same men that were at the dance. I’m not sure I can speak clearly if it’s those same men who laughed at me and my ideas.

A hand clamps down on my shoulder, and I look toward it to see Patrick grasping my shoulder. “You’ll do well. You’ve got this. Take a deep breath.”

I take a deep breath, letting myself breathe in slowly, and then breathe out. My stomach has a cat sharpening it claws in it.

I’m not the figure head, speak in front of people, type person. That was Lily, not me. Well, I guess I did speak up at the ball, but that was impromptu. That wasn’t a prepared speech where it mattered that I word everything just right.

Lily was always good at getting groups riled up and following her. When she was ten she stood up on a barrel, and called out to the orphans around. “Is it right that we scrounge for food because we have no home and we are not allowed to work because of child labor laws?”

She’d thought through her words for days trying to plan what to say to the orphans to build an army to go against the city guards.

I am not Lily, but I’d followed Nathan’s suggestion. I’d prepared my words for today, and Patrick approved them. I can’t fail today. If I failed…

No. I won’t think that way. The politicians will approve of what I say. They will think what great ideas. These ideas will make us more popular with our constituents, and we will look into fixing what you pointed out as wrong.

The skirt is too short. I’ve never worn a skirt that hugs my legs like this before. It feels so wrong. And this jacket is too hot.

Patrick’s hand grips my shoulder again. “Stop fussing so much. You look very professional, and you will make a statement when you go in there and speak.”

I nod, not trusting my voice. His smile is reassuring. He looks so confident and collected. His hand on my shoulder is gripping my shoulder quite tightly.

He releases my should. “What do you want to do afterward?”

“Huh?” He throws me off guard with that question.

“Well, after we get out of the interrogation chamber we should go out to get ice cream or something. Have you ever gotten ice cream?”

“Umm, ice cream?” I can remember seeing shops that had a sign that said ice cream on it, but it wasn’t something I wasted money I managed to scrounge on. I think some of the kids sometimes begged ice cream out of adults, and they loved it, but I had never tried it before.

“Well, have you had ice cream before? We can go to a little ice cream parlor that I know fairly well. Since you are my family’s guest, we have to make sure you’ve had ice cream.”

“Why are we talking about ice cream?”

“Because what happens in there doesn’t matter. We will figure out a way to change the world while eating ice cream if those old farts in there don’t listen to what you have to say. You are the wonderfully powerful escaped prisoner, and between your powers and my brain, we will figure out a way to change the world. Don’t worry too much, I will make it happen.” He looks excited, as if this challenge is something he has already accepted.

I guess for someone in a life like his, challenges like changing the world seem like fun diversions of time, but his excitement makes me feel better. With him at my side, we can’t fail.

The door opens, and a man in a suit motions us onto the floor of a large room with a lot of seats facing where I will be standing. I can’t…

My feet are frozen, refusing to move forward. These men won’t listen to me.

Patrick pushes me from behind, and I find myself walking forward onto the floor, out in front of all these old men. Many of them I recognize from the parlor room meeting where I was shot down before.

Patrick is with me this time. I can’t fail with him next to me. He helped me look over my speech. Just follow the plan and speak from my heart.

“Hello Ladies and Gentlemen.”

There is one woman I can see in the audience. It’s Rossette, the one I spoke to at the ball. Everyone else here seems to be an older man.

“I stand before you to ask for the government to help the struggling citizens of the city. Good, hardworking citizens struggle to make enough money to afford even the worst of lodging. Citizens struggle to survive each day, and the guard collects them up and fills up the prisons creating a strain on the prison system. The prison system should only be spending money to lock up actual criminals.”

Patrick suggested I mention that to speak to the old men’s dislike of spending. Hearing that this plan could save them money might make them actually look into it.

“One of the main problems that is causing so many issues is the lack of education and food for abandoned children. Orphans running around on the streets grow up to become criminal elements of the city because they cannot become anything better. If these orphans were raised in an environment where they are housed, fed, and educated without time to become part of the criminal element, they would become useful members of society and would not need to be thrown into prisons for the rest of their lives.”

Key point about fixing the orphan problem covered.

“Another part of the revitalize the city plan are programs to help the unemployed. Old building that are empty would be renovated into dorms for the homeless where they can go to sleep, use a kitchen to make their own meals, and get free job education so that they can be hired by businesses. By empowering the people, Richmond will have a better workforce, and companies will move to Richmond because there are good workers here.”

Patrick hadn’t quite agreed with that last comment. He told me he didn’t think a more intelligent work force would draw companies. He kept telling me lower taxes would draw more companies to Richmond, but he let me keep that line in.

“By cleaning up the streets and renovating the city of Richmond, the city can draw in more tourists. Seeing as Richmond is a city close to the coast, it could easily set itself up as a tourist location if it was not so decrepit with so many homeless filling the streets and jobless thieves stealing from any tourist who dares the streets.”

And now for the conclusion that brings all the points together.

“The government can bring more money to Richmond by renovating building into homeless shelters and education buildings. This will help decrease the numbers of people in the prison system and decrease the number of people on the streets that drive tourists away. “

It wasn’t the best speech. Patrick had improved it a lot, but he kept saying things like “This is your plan”, and “you have to own your speech”. I hope that it was a good speech. Y conclusion was probably too weak. There is a rough splattering of applause, but it’s not very strong.

I’m just grateful Patrick is standing next to me right now.

A bald man near the front raises his hand, and I nod, accepting his question.

“You said that having an educated population will bring jobs to the city. Where did you get this information? Did you find a study about this?”

“Um,” shoot, Patrick said not to say um. I shouldn’t have insisted on including that in my speech. “There is not an official study done on this. This is a hypothesis of my own that I would like to study the results of if Richmond was to accept my plan.”

“I don’t think we should spend money so you can do a study on an unproven hypothesis.”

I don’t know what to say. Patrick steps forward and speaks in my defense, “The part about bringing in businesses might only be a hypothesis, but if the streets were cleaned up, and more tourists came, more businesses aimed at tourists would come to the city and would help revitalize the city. It is proven that tourism makes cities nicer and brings in money. Richmond is an old city with many forgotten civil war sites that could be fixed up to draw tourists. The beaches near Richmond could also be used to draw in tourists. Right now no one sees the point in coming to a city with a crime rate higher than Detroit or Chicago.”

“I take offense to that statement! Our city does not have a crime rate higher than Chicago. They have over 2,000 homicides a year! By comparison we only have around 500 a year!” Some man near the back that I can’t quite see clearly interjects.

Patrick shakes his head, “Yes, we have a lower number of homicides overall, but we have less people. Our rate, which is per person is higher. Also, we have higher petty crime per person and a higher homeless rate per person.”

The man doesn’t speak up again. I find it strange that Patrick seems to know more about these stats than the people who run this city.

Another man raises his hand, this one with gray hair combed over the top of his head. “Yes Sir?” I say, pointing at him to take his question.

“You talk about renovating building to house the homeless in education centers, have you done research into how many beds would be needed to house the all the homeless? Also, how would you pay for the renovation of the buildings? And how much would the educators cost? Would these educators need to be actual teachers? Who will watch over the orphans you are planning on forcing the city to pay for. All of these things stink of socialism and the government supporting people. It’s been proven that people need to support themselves. I refuse to support your position without proper research into the costs of these programs.

Patrick speaks up again, “We have yet to look into numbers and costs. This is a preliminary vote to look into researching the cost effectiveness of this program. Right now this is simply a proposal. Later on, after some research is done on how much this would cost and where the money will come from to support this, the proposal will come back to the city council to be voted on again.”

“I refuse to support something that could cost this city even more money! We don’t have money in the budget to support useless citizen! Our constituents expect us to spend tax payer money wisely and not to go wasting it on non-tax payers!” It’s the same man from the back that Patrick made sound like an idiot earlier.

A bunch of murmurs of support and nodding heads surround the room.

“I think it sounds very intelligent,” it’s the one woman in the room, speaking out and smiling at me. “We should at least vote to look into it farther. It can’t hurt to look into it. The economists on staff won’t be worked too hard by looking into and researching this proposal.”

She sounds so reasonable and calm, but a couple of the men frown and glare at her.

One in the middle of the room speaks up, “Rossette, we haven’t heard your fair voice speaking up in a while, but just the fact that you think this is reasonable makes me worry. Everyone knows you push a socialist agenda.

“Richard, I know I used to push a socialist agenda in my younger years, but you have to admit I’ve calmed down a lot in my elder years. This plan doesn’t sound overly socialist to me. It sounds like a plan to decrease spending in some areas and to bring more money into the city.” I’m glad I have Rossette on my side at least.

The man she called Richard stands up, “I move that we go ahead and vote on further researching this plan.”

The man in the back stands up and shouts, “Seconded!”

Patrick grabs my arm and leads me out.

The doors close behind us, and Patrick doesn’t look too happy.

“What, what’s wrong?” Why does he look so worried?

“That didn’t go too well, To many stubborn old fools in office. Without having firm numbers researched I’m not sure the plan will be accepted. We might have to pay for someone to investigate the costs for us and to go back in there and present the plan with actual numbers.”

I don’t want to wait longer. I don’t want to go through that again.

The man that opened the door for us comes through the door. “Your proposal was voted down. You will need to come back with more numbers before the city council will take any proposal from you again. Thank you for your time, you are now free to leave.”

We failed? We were just asking the council to look into my proposal.

“Unfortunately as soon as Rossette stood up for us, she ruined our chances. “ Patrick sounds logical like he expected this.

I feel like I am falling into a pit. The air seems to be running away from me. I hear him, talking about how we can come back with better data and make it so they can’t vote us down, but he is wrong. They will always vote us down. That is who they are. When he said the inevitable outcome was me taking his memory he was telling the truth. I need to go on the offensive, to walk back into that room, and kill all those men with just the grasp of my mind.

“Come on,” He is tugging on my hand, pulling me away from those evil old men.

“I…”

“Remember, we are getting ice cream. We will discuss our next course of action over ice cream. It wouldn’t be wise to show any trump cards yet.”

It’s as if he’s reading my mind. I follow, unable to actually put up a fight right now. My plan didn’t work. I didn’t succeed.

He leads me onto a shuttle, and from the window I can see people crawling along the street like ants. Was this how those men view the people under them? Can they not see the lives below them struggling desperately to survive in this crumbling world?

And here I am, letting Patrick lead me away from them.

Patrick releases my arm, and I dart toward the door, but it closes in my face and the shuttle slowly moves through the air, pulling us away from the pillar of power.

“I know what it is you want, but right now, you have to let it go.”

“Don’t worry,” his voice is low and soft, like he is trying to calm a spooked animal. “We will get through this. We just need more research.”

He knew. He had to know that we were going in with too little research. He had to know that it wouldn’t pass. He’s the one who is a politician’s son and was raised on political scheming. He did this on purpose, to gain more time before, before what? Before I realized that the corrupt politicians would never agree to help out the citizens?

I turn away from the door, and I see him, holding onto the shuttle as we glide down toward whatever destination he’s put in. He looks calm, not flustered or upset. He looks like he’s calculated all of this.

That night, when he came to me drunk claiming that I would take his memory, did he plan that in, was that fear speaking, or manipulation? I don’t know. I can’t even tell what he is planning now.

“You knew it wouldn’t pass.”

“I was afraid it might not, we really didn’t have enough research. We need time to do studies and research, and I was hoping to get them to pass at least researching the options. Unfortunately, that woman supported us and they all hate her.”

“I don’t think they will ever support my proposal.”

“Once we have enough data they will have to accept that your proposal is a good idea. We just need to do the research.”

I could see he was starting to get a little nervous, a small twitch in his movement, the way he was biting his lip.

“You don’t believe what you are saying. You’re afraid of what I will do now.”

“Of course I’m a little afraid of you. Truthfully I’m terrified of you. I often forget your powers, but the way you are looking at me right now, like you want to kill me, I have every right to be terrified. I’ve seen you kill men with just a thought. I don’t know how you do it, but…”

“I won’t kill you. I need your expertise. Tell me the truth. About everything.”

“I swear,” he stops and looks down at his hands. I can see him gulp, as if making a decision. “Can you wait for me to tell you everything until after we’ve gotten ice cream?”

I have no idea why he wants to get ice cream first. He just admitted he’d been hiding stuff from me, and I don’t plan to leave him alone until he’s told me what he’s hiding.

“I guess. As long as you tell me the truth.”

“I’ll tell you the truth. I don’t think you’ll like it. I don’t want to tell you the truth. Once you know, I fear for this world. I just want, a little longer before the chaos begins.”

“The chaos?” Why does he think this truth will cause chaos?

“You, my dear, are a wild card. I fear your reaction. You can turn this world upside down with your power. You have the potential to be chaos incarnate.”

He has such a low opinion of me.

“I won’t do anything today. I’ll wait and think through my options. I’ll talk them threw with you.” I’m the mind of a machine. I am absolutely rational. Waiting a day to act on anything is a rational way to think through all the possible options and find the best solution.

The shuttle stops and we exit out in front of small ice cream parlor with and overhang and a window to order from.

“Do you know what you want?” Patrick asks.

“Umm, I don’t know.” I don’t even know what there is to want. A list of flavors is off to the right, but the names make no sense. Double Devil’s Brew? What the heck is that? And Winter’s Warm Welcome? Or what about Farmer’s Basket? These flavor names make absolutely no sense.

“Do you want me to pick a flavor for you?”

I nod. He seems to have been to this place before.

He orders something called Pancake Breakfast and something else called Dark Death.

He smiles as he passes me a cone with a dark brown lump in it. “I got you their most normal ice cream which is a chocolate ice cream.

He licks his ice cream, and I copy what he does, licking the brown lump on top of the cone. A cold sensation fills m head and mouth, but a pleasant, soft sensation with a taste that I can’t quite describe properly fills my mouth. It has a kind of warmth to the flavor, and the only thing I can think is that it is absolutely delicious. Chocolate ice cream. It is delicious.

He walks off along the side walk, and I follow. Both of us in our respective suits eating this ice cream and walking along the sidewalk. We must look quite strange.

We finish eating our ice cream in silence. I am waiting for him to tell me the truth, and he obviously doesn’t want to talk yet.

I notice you in the silence. I often forget you are there, but I can see you, walk next to me, eying my ice cream. I wish I could offer some to you, but you are just a figment of my imagination. You are something from a broken part of my mind.

I almost run into Patrick. He’s stopped and he’s staring at a green forested area surround by the steel girders that are used for the shuttles.

“Let’s go sit in the park. We can finish our ice cream and I will tell you everything. The truth this time.”

He leads the way along a path, and I continue to follow. He sits down at a picnic bench, and I sit across from him.

“I guess I should start with hearing about the prison escape.” He stops, and I can hear birds rustling near us, people talking a little ways of, and in the distance the constant sound of the city.

“I hear about your escape, and I became interested in something beyond my own life. In fact, I became obsessed with how you escaped. I watched the videos. I talked to the highly confused survivors. I checked the autopsy reports of the people you killed. Nothing added up. You couldn’t have done what you did even with modern technology. The only reasonable answer was magic. Which lead to the question of why you hadn’t escaped earlier? I looked into your case, and realized there was no case. You were an illegal test subject taken off the streets and used in a division that was doing illegal research into the human mind. Supposedly you had no memories.”

“I decided I wanted to track you down. I wanted to help someone who escaped such terrible conditions. I got the other test subjects released, just like I told you. But then stuff started to go wrong. Someone was stealing supplies from shuttles. They called you the ghost. A woman with white hair would attack, take the supplies, and give them to the poor. You couldn’t be the same person. The escapee had dark hair. But you were using the same powers. I wanted to meet you, someone with actual power. I wanted to help you. Please, believe me on this.”

He looks desperate, and I can feel that the story is about to change from the one he’s told me in the past. I nod.

He sighs, and looks up at the sky. “I probably shouldn’t have. I asked my father if I could bring you in. He thought I was insane and said you needed to go back to jail. Azalea thought you were a monster who should be killed. I pointed out to them that you only seemed to want to help the poor. I told them we could control you if we convinced you that we were on your side, that we only wanted to help people.”

I sit silently as he pauses. I feel that if I talk he will stop.

“I’m sorry, Hope. I didn’t actually plan to use you or control you. I needed something to convince my father to let me help you.”

I nod. We were using each other. I don’t hold any of this against him.

“Then I met you, and talked to you. You were more passionate about your belief in helping people than I could have ever believed. You were amazing. And your ideas. Your thoughts on fixing society were inspired, and suddenly I found myself believing in you. I claimed to everyone that I was just letting you have your pet project so that I could control you and use your powers against our family’s enemies, but I wanted to believe in you, and I couldn’t ask you to use your powers. I was supposed to ask you to kill someone at the ball we went to, and I couldn’t bring myself to ask you to do that. I got in trouble with my father for that one, but it was worth it. I just told him I didn’t have enough control of you yet so I hadn’t wanted to rush anything. You were so inspired and passionate, you were stunning that night, and then those men blew off your words.”

“I knew then. I could tell then.”

His head falls into his hands for a moment, and I wait while he collects himself. I am just listening, I haven’t fully processed his words yet.

He raises his head, and he looks at me with a strange blank look. “I’m sorry Hope. I knew right then that your dream would probably never be achieved. I envisioned a terrible future, where you went off your hinges after you saw through the lies, and you stole my memories. I was drunk and I let my bitterness get the better of me. I wanted to believe in your vision. I wanted to believe so much that even though I claimed to my father that I was only getting the audience to make you happy, I told myself that it was possible. That maybe they would accept it. I listened to you talk and practice, and I told myself that if we didn’t have enough data that would be why they would reject us. Then we could get more data and we could go back before them…”

I wait for a moment and finally ask “You don’t actually believe it will work do you?”

He looks down at his hands miserably, “Not really. I hope, against the odds that it will. Can you give me another chance? Can you wait and hope with me that this will work?”

How could I wait for something that was nothing more than a prayer? He claimed to be a political strategist, and he didn’t actually think that the politicians would ever change their views toward the people. I remember that night, where he said I would take his memory.

“You say you saw a future where I took your memories? What did you mean by that?”

He shakes his head, “Please, whatever you do, don’t take that path.”

“What do you mean by you can see the future?”

“I can see where people’s actions will lead. I automatically analyze personality and circumstances and I ‘see’ a future.”

“Where does the path where I erase your memory lead?”

“Nowhere good. It will destroy you.”

“You said I would see it as my only option. Does it lead to a better world?”

“Maybe. I don’t know. It’s too far ahead to be certain of anything, and I have to see past my own loss of memory, which you can be certain I don’t like the thought of losing my memory.”

“But is the world a better place? Is it worth it?”

“I honestly don’t know. I don’t think it is. Please, don’t use your power against me. Whatever you do, don’t use it against me. I will become your worst enemy if you do.” I can see he’s pleading with me. He doesn’t want to tell me the truth about this path he’s seen.

“You promised to tell me the truth about everything. What do you see in this path?” Right now it sounds like this path is my only real option.

He glares at me for a moment before turning away from me. “Fine. If you dare to take my memories, you’d probably still use me. Actually you would have to. Even without my memories I’m can still predict paths. If you never give me back my memories, you might end up ok, but I might end up resenting you for the fact that you took my memories. I’m not exactly certain how that would play out as I’ve never had my memories stolen before. If you give me back my memories, I will probably hate you and resent you. Especially since I warned you not to take away my memories.”

He turns back toward me. “We can figure out a better way to take over than destroying my memories. Maybe just take my father’s memories or something. Then I can help you and advise you with my memories and I won’t end up angry with you.”

“And what is the final outcome of both options?” I don’t really care about myself. I want a better world for everyone else.

He turns back away, looking at the trees around us, “The option where you take my memories ends in a better world, but I cannot figure out your future in it. I think you might die. My ability to see paths isn’t magic or anything. It’s just skilled logical thinking.”

“And what about the second future? The one where I don’t take your memories?”

“I haven’t thought through that one as much. I haven’t really gotten past the war. Can you wait to take action on a plan until I have time to think through them? I’m certain I can come up with some better plans that make both of us happy.”

I nod. There is only one plan that will work. He said it himself, he’s just afraid of it. I will let him live in peace until I am ready. Then, I will enact the plan that he has seen ending in success.