This is too much. It’s too personal. I need to stop this right now. “Look, Jenny, I’m confused. For a whole week you wouldn’t talk to me. You wouldn’t talk to anyone. And now you come in here and—”
“I know. I’m sorry.”
“Well, what’s going on?” My synthesized voice is loud and angry.
She lowers her arm and strides toward me. She doesn’t stop until she’s less than a yard away. “I was scared, Adam. Scared and confused and depressed. Every time I looked at myself, I was horrified. I couldn’t think straight.”
“Why didn’t you say something? My dad could’ve helped you.”
“No, not really. He could’ve adjusted my circuits, I guess. And maybe that would’ve made me feel a little better. But he couldn’t solve the real problem. He couldn’t make me human again.”
My anger fades. I’m starting to understand. I remember what I did right after I became a Pioneer—how I stormed out of the laboratory and down the corridors until I found my dead body still lying inside the scanner. I remember the aching loss.
“But you know what?” Jenny adds. “I feel better today. Maybe because we went flying. I guess it gave me a different perspective.”
She was the last Pioneer to come down from her Raven, I recall. Obviously she enjoyed the experience. “Yeah, it was pretty cool,” I say.
“Or maybe I’m just getting accustomed to my situation. If you give it enough time, maybe you can accept anything, no matter how crazy.” She lifts her arms at the shoulder joints, shrugging. “But whatever the reason, I feel better. So now I’m doing what I should’ve done a week ago. I came here to thank you.”
“You don’t have to—”
“What you did was very brave, Adam. You didn’t know what would happen when you jumped into my circuits. Your files could’ve been deleted. You could’ve disappeared.”
“You’re giving me too much credit. I just—”
“No, it was brave. And now I want to be brave too. I’m ready to get the memory back.”
She doesn’t have to specify which memory she’s talking about. It’s the one that nearly killed her, the memory of being trapped in a pitch-black closet when she was two years old. I still have it in my circuits, the image of toddler Jenny staring at herself in the mirror, and then the sudden terror as her older brother shoves her into the closet and locks the door. I’m not surprised that it paralyzed her circuits when she awoke inside her Pioneer. In fact, I’m afraid it might shut her down again.
“Are you sure?” I ask. “You can wait a little longer, you know.”
“I’m ready. It’s a piece of me, an important piece. And I want to be whole again.”
“Well, I guess I could put the memory in a separate folder and transfer it to you wirelessly. Then you could put it back in the right place in your files.”
Jenny pauses. “I might need some help with that. Is there any chance you could jump into my circuits again? You know, just in case I have a problem?”
She says this in a casual, offhand way, but I can tell she’s worried. She really, really wants me to help her. For a moment I wonder if I should get Dad involved. He’s the expert on neuromorphic circuits. But then I dismiss the idea. Dad may have designed our electronics, but he doesn’t live in them. At this point I know more about the circuits than he does.
I go to the corner of my room where Pioneer 1A stands and pick up the data cable that lies by its footpads. Then I return to Jenny and plug one end of the cable into her data port. “I have just one request.” I plug the other end into my own port. “Promise you won’t hit me in the turret and break my camera again.”
Jenny holds up her right hand. “I promise. No hitting.”
“All right. Here goes.”
I initiate the transfer. As my data rushes through the cable I feel the familiar nausea, but it’s not as bad as before. In less than a second I’m inside Jenny’s Pioneer and occupying a vacant section of her circuitry. Her electronics are utterly calm, which is a stark contrast from last time. She gives me a moment to settle down, then sends a message from her side of the circuitry to mine.
Welcome back. Do you like what I’ve done with the place?
I move toward her, venturing into the circuits between us.
Yeah, it’s nice. Very quiet.
You see, you’re helping me already. I was nervous a second ago, but now I’m fine. Do you have the memory?
I retrieve it from my files and move a little closer. There’s less than a millimeter of empty circuitry between us.
Okay, I’m going to hand it off. Just like a football. Here it comes.
Our minds touch, and it’s like seeing Jenny’s whole life in front of me. Unlike last time, though, all her memories are neatly organized now. There are folders for every person, place, and thing. Most of her recent memories are in the high-school folder, which is divided into hundreds of categories: soccer practice, tenth-grade geometry, junior prom, and so on. Older memories are in the elementary-school and preschool folders.
I see images of her friends, her arguments with her brother, her favorite TV shows. She knows how to play the flute and speak French and ride a horse. She was hoping to become a lawyer, like her dad, and she was about to start filling out her college applications when she learned she had brain cancer. I see her memory of the doctor telling her the news. She’s sitting on an examining table and staring at her hands. She’s trembling in disbelief.
At the same time, Jenny’s viewing my memories. I can sense her presence in my files and feel her reactions to what she’s seeing. Although she’s sympathetic and understanding, it still makes me uncomfortable. I want to end this as quickly as possible and get back to my Pioneer.
I give Jenny the traumatic memory from her childhood. A tremor runs through her circuits as she accepts it, but the disturbance doesn’t last long. She puts the file into her folder of early memories, and it becomes part of her again, shaping who she is.
Thank you, Adam. That wasn’t hard at all.
Glad to help. Though I don’t think you really needed me. You handled it perfectly.
No, you helped a lot. Now I want to give you something. To show my appreciation.
Jenny, you don’t—
Here. I want to share this with you.
It’s one of her memories, a fairly recent one. I see a wide green valley on a sunny summer day. There are rolling hills in the distance and a red barn and a gray silo. Jenny’s lying in the grass, and the air smells of clover and horses. Someone else lies nearby, a brown-haired teenage boy. Probably Jenny’s boyfriend, although I didn’t see any images of a boyfriend in her folder of high-school memories. Then the boy turns his head toward Jenny and I recognize him. His legs are paralyzed and so is his left arm. It’s the boy I used to be. It’s Adam Armstrong.
What’s going on? This can’t be a memory.
Well, part of it’s a memory. I went to a horse farm in the Shenandoah Valley last summer. It was a wonderful place.
But I wasn’t there.