hard time imagining it.”
“That's the thing about me, sweetheart,” I chuckled, “I tend
to surprise people a lot.” My fingertips rubbed my temples for a
moment, that pain having doubled back with a vengeance, as I knew it
was going to. “I hope you're not wishing to catch some deep dark
secret from my past you can use against me. You should know by now
I'm far too cold for that.”
“We'll see if that's true or not, Trip,” she giggled. They
really were a well-matched pair of interrogators. Even though I knew
she was trying to give me the soft sell, she had an easy way about
her that deflected all the stress and tension that her partner
brought with every glance. I could see why they worked so well as a
team together. She cooled it down and he heated it up.
“So why are we here?” Janus asked. “What so important about
this moment in time that it's your first memory in a memory lock?”
A gust of wind kicked up suddenly, and there was a rustle behind us
and a muffled shriek. All three of us turned to see a young woman,
face down in the snow, a bag of groceries scattered around her.
Behind us, a door opened and closed, and footsteps approached.
“Oh my god,” a voice from behind us said. Janus and Apathe
turned to look, but I knew I didn't need to. I knew who was
approaching. The younger version of me ran through me, just
reaffirming how intangible I was, and over to the young woman on the
ground, “I saw that through the window,” younger me said as he
crouched down to help the woman up, getting her out of the snow
drift.
“Goddamn it,” she said, as she started to gather things up.
“Look at this mess.” It was so hard seeing her like this – so
young and full of life. But I couldn't let them see a moment's
weakness on me, so I stomached all my emotions in and watched my
younger self help her pick things up and out of the snow and into the
remnant of the paper bag that had ripped as she'd fallen.
“Doesn't look like anything got loose, so you should be okay.
Guess there's an upside to everything being bagged these days,”
young me said. “Here, let me give you a hand. You live in the
building?” God, I looked so much younger. Leaner, thinner, more
optimistic. It was hard to believe I was ever that naïve. It was me
at 19, long hair down past my shoulders in a bushy ponytail, a long
goatee that went down past my collarbone that was braided with a
silver skull in it, dressed in ratty jeans and a Hawaiian shirt that
made me look like I'd walked out of a Hunter S. Thompson story. “I'm
Trip, I live in the front apartment on two. I was painting out the
window and I saw you fall.” The story sounded so corny coming from
my lips, but the young her either didn't care or was too distracted.
“I'm Anne,” she said as she put the last of her things into
the bag, scooping it into her arms. “I live up on four, in 428. I
swear I thought this bag was sturdier than that.”
Young me took it from her and folded it against his chest. “Here,
let me help. It was probably just the wind that knocked you off your
feet. Let me guess – first Chicago winter?”
She snorted a bit, dusting snow off of herself now that her hands
were free. She was dressed in a giant, bulky overcoat and had on
thick snow pants over whatever pants she had on underneath, and her
dark hair was underneath a giant woolen hat. “Is it that obvious?
I'm a freshman over at...”
“Northwestern,” the young me interrupted. “Yeah, I figured
that. Most people who live this close to campus generally do. C'mon,
I'll help you carry this inside.”
“A girl?” Janus said, disappointment evident in his voice. “I
had hoped for more from you, Trip. After all the trouble we went
through to get you, after all the stories I've heard for the last
several years, I certainly didn't expect you to be sentimental about
some girl you met in college.”
I couldn't help it – a slight smirk crossed my lips. “Wait for
it.”
As young me and Anne started walking up the stairs, I turned to
look across the street. It gave me a chance to see the young man
walking into the lobby of the building across the street, the market
which Anne had just come from. For years, she'd been haunted by the
timing of this. Behind me, the two were reaching the door of the
building, and just as young me placed his hand on the door, the
market exploded.
I'd seen this explosion a number of times since then – on
replays traffic cams, a webcam in one of the windows, and even filmed
in high definition from one of the sickos involved, but it didn't
make it any easier. Still, I didn't want to look away from it. The
world slowed down as the building turned into a fireball, the young
man who'd just gone in been covered in C4, with a layer of nails,
bolts and metal ball bearings, and I could see a number of them
flying through the air towards the front of my building. I slowed the
memory down enough so that I could find it, one metal ball about the
size of a dime, and pointed to it. “You see this? This single metal
ball is where it all begins. This is what begins the whole thing.
Everything you've ever wanted to know about me, about what drives me,
what motivates me, why I've been on this endless, relentless,
crusade... it
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