7. Memory holes

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"Well, I thought I should come and greet you all," he kept on saying, his gaze fixing for some seconds on each of the others' eyes before moving on to another one's, "especially since you seem to be a new group I wasn't aware of, and I know you not."

He finally got to me, and, even though he did nothing else, I saw the intention of a smirk in the dark depths of his eyes. I just stared back at that, as if in a trance, not feeling menaced anymore, and instead just drawn in by his presence. I know him, a voice in the back of my mind said, not exactly referring to when I'd seen him on the screens. But from where?I wondered.

He then focused his sight on Tanya, occasionally looking back to the other Knightmare team leader. "I'm curious about why so many groups have appeared so suddenly, and without warning. Can you tell me from which zone's Research Center do you come from?" Research Center zones ending with 5, by the way—therefore, one of the biggest was nearby Zone 56's Wasteland, my Knightmare division's hideout, at Zone 55—, and communicated via underground tunnels to their local DreamCo Headquarters at those ending with 9.

"We are a new branch at Zone 55, sir," Tanya and the other guy said in unison.

"Put apart and identified from the others by the use of headbands, right?" he inquired, giving in to the wish to smirk I'd seen in his eyes previously. Almost everyone—including me—felt the tension increase and press all around us at that, squeezing the air out of our lungs. More claustrophobic attack material provided, yet I wasn't about to let it take me to unconsciousness again; maybe panic to exhaustion, but not fainting.

"Yes, sir," our leaders nodded. No use denying it, it seemed. Better to play along...

"And can you remove it? I wish to see it more closely." He reached out to touch Tanya's headband, yet she pulled away in a rather mechanical motion which didn't reveal her vague panic and state of alarm to him.

"Sorry, sir, but we were ordered not to remove our headbands," she replied on her own, sounding monotonous enough to convince that she wasn't as independent as the action had hinted at. He didn't fall for it, I shuddered slightly as my innermost mental voice said; I didn't need a pessimistic approach, after all, and he didn't seem to have noticed something strange either. No need to worry. I must relax and play along.

"Good that you follow orders," he declared, straightening again and crossing his arms behind his back—it looked painful enough, so I had to wonder if he could feel it; wouldn't surprise me if he didn't—, looking vaguely satisfied with the reaction and answer Tanya had given. "DreamCo needs loyal and obedient staff, and those who manage to be both deserve praise and rewards," his smile was incredibly honest now... or he was terribly good at lying, even with body language. Again, it wouldn't surprise me if he was like that; if the Knightmares had training for it, why wouldn't DreamCo do as well?

"Thank you, sir." He nodded at that, again—feigning or truly—pleased by her behavior. His eyes then fell on me, and a strange mixture of feelings ran between us both, my mind never ceasing to insist I knew him—though no more information was recovered from my memory—, and his face fixed once more on an emotionless expression.

"Do I know you?" his words echoed my thoughts, and I snapped out of the newly established trance. I shook my head... then realizing it was a mistake; such answer was human, and I was to act like a machine, replying with "yes, sir" or "no, sir." Laika's glare was a hot flame burning at the hair on the back of my neck, while Isaac and Tanya's worry fell over me like cold rain.

There was wonder on his eyes afterwards, and curiosity, a pretty human reaction and wish. It took over his face as well, as he stepped over to stand right in front of me, pushing those between us aside gently. His hand reached out to touch my cheek—do not dare to touch me! my innermost self cried out—, and then retreated, instead going to his forehead, eyes closing in pain as if a headache had hit. I stared at him, confused, and Tanya suddenly was besides me.

"This is Hannah Jones, sir," she introduced me to him... except the name I had adopted for the mission was Beatrice Harris. If she was lying even about that, about my fake identity, then she thought this man was really dangerous and up to something even worse, besides of already knowing we were keeping the truth on the dark. Not good at all. "She is a new member of our group, so there's no way you would know her, sir."

His glare was slight, yet there and very frightening. Oh, shit... "Age?" he asked Tanya.

"Twenty-one." Actually, twenty-six. Even for my fake identity.

"Academy?" Or DreamCo's Educational Center I had been raised and programmed in.

"Zone 87." Zone 207 for Beatrice Harris and Zone 7 for me... Tanya was putting a lot of effort in covering every trail with lies. Who is he?

And even when he didn't seem satisfied with the answers, he nodded and dropped the menacing glare. His hand reached out as if in greeting towards me. Don't touch me! my inner self ordered once more, but he didn't even attempt to do so. "I am Samuel," he introduced himself, eyes fixed on me, apparently forgetting Tanya's presence. Samuel? I wondered. I know no one with that name... yet I know him.

The way my team's leader squeezed my left wrist lightly hinted towards precaution, to an order of not accepting his hand, yet I found myself doing as he wished instead. His hand was strange in the way it felt, but I didn't quite know how; it just wasn't normal. "I am Hannah Jones, sir."

He grinned, the shadows of the room making it seem more like a smirk. "I already know that, Hannah." He released my hand, and I realized just then that he had squeezed it too tightly, enough to numb it to a degree. "It was a pleasure to meet you"—a small pause then—"all," he finished after looking again at each one of the two groups, yet the intention was left clear, even after clarifying; pleasure to meet me, and most probably, also Tanya, as she had stood out from the group in some way and regardless of her perfect acting as subordinate of DreamCo.

We stared at the retreating man, named "Samuel," until he finally exited the room through a door on the other side of the room. Most of us let out a breath just then, without even having known we had held it for so long given the tension the man had provoked. Now, with he gone, the air flowed freely, fresh and revitalizing in every way. I sighed in relief...

"Samuel Tash," Isaac's voice coming from behind made me jump and turn around quickly. Relax. It's only Isaac, "high rank at Zone 0"—I gulped—", though in which role is kept secret." He turned off the small hand-held scanner, turning it over again so it was disguised as a pin, which he attached to his lab coat. He sighed tiredly afterwards, and motioned for me to follow him to feign we were examining a container along with other scientists.

And I still remember, to this day, how emotionlessly we talked and spoke with the others about those pale, weak individuals caught inside the glass tubes, drugged to sleep or beyond, and floating in a strange liquid that isolated their senses from reality. A trail of guilt still follows me as well, along with the memory, without reason... or, at least, one the others could understand and I could explain.

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Zone 55's Research Center, or DreamCo's Laboratories, was to be one of our next destinations, John said after we went back and reported at Zone 56's Wasteland. The mission would require for us to wait until the assigned test subject arrived, in order to break in, retrieve it—"him" or "her" were more accurate terms, but John refused to use them—, and bring it back to the base. It wouldn't do much against DreamCo, except to slow down one of their best laboratories, and slowing down was way better than completely stopping, as we took "the risk to throw the society off balance and have it collapse" otherwise...

Reporting back also meant the other infiltration team told their Knightmare leader about the incident, about me fainting because of a claustrophobic attack. To say the very least, John wasn't pleased... yet Tanya's intervention wasn't required—and I couldn't have been more grateful towards Fate, since I had willingly rejected the woman's offer—to save me from execution or exile. I was, instead, going to be locked up in a cell for the whole length of the next mission, which was—irritatingly enough—related to the mysterious 'Duke' person.

He had, by the way, written once more to me. A simple letter it was, yet it said the biggest hidden truth of the moment: ‹Cut your right hand's palm with a knife, and retrieve the tracker Samuel Tash buried into your skin.› And, indeed, a micro-tracker we retrieved from under my skin. The numbness following our hand shake had been because of a special drug, produced by the tracker itself, which it used to dull the pain as it dug and buried itself into the skin of the target.

"Very new technology," Isaac declared as he held up the tracker—not more than a dot's size—against a lamp light, using special equipment to handle it. "Questions are: what else is DreamCo hiding—which has to be an obvious lot—, and who is this 'Duke' individual harassing the princess through written mail."

"Why your interest in him?" I whispered, yet everyone in the room heard.

"He seems to know too much," John replied, crossing his strong arms over his powerful chest, and frowning. "Whoever he is, it is our first priority to know more about him... before surprises arise."

And that was the mission the infiltration team set out to complete without me. I was to wait for them to return, no matter how long they took. A prison-like room was provided to me rather kindly, in the main building of the Knightmare base at Zone 56, so that I could wait for them "more comfortably," as the old woman who assigned me to the cell sarcastically said as she left me there, before locking the door. It certainly wasn't very comfortable, but at least it was decent enough and habitable as well. I was also given food once a day, and occasionally received visits from John or other people I knew, except for Isaac, Tanya and Laika, who were all out with the infiltration team.

This is the 'Duke' person we're talking about! I thought from time to time, when boredom reached the extremes and nothing else but thinking and regretting was on the list of things I could do. He's obsessed with me! Shouldn't it be easier to catch him if I was involved in the research and investigation? ...Yet the truth was this: I didn't like being locked up—regardless of being claustrophobic or not, apparently—and "left to rot," as Laika had yelled at me as they left the Wastelands. I was missing too many things, probably even of vital importance for my life, while I was kept behind a locked cell door.

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I wrote back to the 'Duke' person when even thinking and regretting became boring. I didn't know if I could make the letter get to him—most surely: not—, but I felt the need to write back, to ask and wonder about him, to reply and express what I perceived... It was over five sheets by the time I was over with it, not a thing left unsaid, all written in the desperately fancy—hurt like hell to write all the time like that—style he seemed to like and get—sexually—excited with. And my beautiful luck got it into John's hands, of course.

"What does this mean?" he demanded in such a calm tone, I almost missed the question.

"Ah..." And there I go...

"Do you know this person?"

"Ah..."—think, think, think!—"not really," I said, blushing. "I just... wanted to... write. I felt too... frustrated and lonely." Great job, Cass. Now he'll think you're insane!

John stared for some seconds, before his dark eyes went back to the sheets of paper—which were, coincidentally, parchments with dark red ink—I had been using to write the letter. The materials had come in with the tracker note, from the 'Duke' person to me, and I had been allowed to bring it to my cell with me, along with the few other things I possessed.

"Then get an empty notebook and start a journal," was all the answer John gave me afterwards, taking the letter with him. I cringed at the harsh tone, so unusual for such a kind and calm individual; therefore, I think having it addressed to me was worse than a normal reprimand.

Later during the day, John and Tanya's oldest daughter—aged 16—, Ophelia, came over to visit. Highly unusual as well; seemingly, I was up to having surprises thrown my way that day... She brought me an empty notebook, which her father had mentioned just hours ago, and I thanked her for it, thinking she would leave me alone afterwards... yet she didn't.

"Is there something else, Ophelia?" I asked politely. She stared. And stared. And stared...

"No," she answered after a while, and just went over to the door without saying more. What a strange girl. I opened the notebook and checked its blank pages, already seeing them getting filled with words and thoughts and memories... "Actually, yes."

I gasped, and the notebook slipped out of my grasp; the girl had startled me. And it took me the time she spent getting back to remember what I had asked before she answered. "Then what is it, Ophelia?"

She knelt by the worn-out bed I was sitting on, looking up at me with those clear eyes so similar to her mother's. "What is it like to grow up at an academy?" she finally replied with her own question. The natural curiosity of the young, which Tanya had described to me, yet I had never seen in person, let alone have it focused on something that I could vaguely remember and didn't know how to begin to describe...

"Well..." I bent over to get the notebook from the floor, "what about a deal?" Her dark eyebrow went up at that, and I smiled. "I answer, and you also answer me my question."

"Which is...?" Deal partially accepted.

"I would really like to know what is it like not to grow up at an academy," I said, chuckling. She laughed at that, probably thinking I was weird for asking such thing, but the truth was that I knew just as much about that, about families, as she knew about the academies. It was a fair exchange of information, to my eyes.

And during the following hours we stayed there, answering the two questions given with the occasional comparisons we could manage to discover—like how mischief was absent at DreamCo, yet was the most natural of behaviors out of its society—, laughing from time to time, making small pauses to remember something or rest our voices a little before continuing, enlightening the other more and more with the almost completely opposite childhood, and bringing forwards more and more questions we would have to leave for another time.

When she finally left—almost against her will, as her father came up to drag her out and back to her room—, I was again alone, and now in the middle of a swarm of doubts. I can't remember, I realized as I lay down on the bed. I answered what I thought it was, what they described to me here, during my training. Yet I have no memories of my own... Had DreamCo erased them from my mind? And what about the others? Was there something going on at the academies that had to be replaced with a blank space of mind?

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Author's Notes:
It might be August 25 for most already, but it is still August 24 over here, so the update is still on time (barely).
Well, things are moving for Cassie in the story, but this is just the beginning, really…: the 'Duke,' Samuel Tash, the research centers and test subjects, the academies and missing bits of memory, amongst many more!
Just sit back, Read and Enjoy, and, if you so wish, Review.

…Yet, a little warning this time: exams begin next week, on Monday 27, which had been signaled as update day for chapter 8. The truth here is that I might not have it by then, since I must study, and it will take me at least two weeks to be free again. PLEASE, don't cry, don't get desperate, and don't abandon the story, because I will not! Just wait and see!