Edge of Chaos_Chapter1_Ripples

Natalie was dead.

It was the truth. And it was irreversible. Her absence hung in the lab, on her untouched bench and the unwashed pipettes, in her unfinished notes. Her cells growing in the incubator, herself gone and her work ready to be taken over by a new fellow.

It happened on Tuesday morning. Seared into my memory as the afterimage of a lightning against the night sky. Her delicate body balanced against the cold metal of her desk. A bottle of microshots clutched in her hand. Medics, security, hushed whispers, and averted gazes. All on that Tuesday morning. Yet none of us talked about it for days, at least to each other. That is what death does. It draws itself over anything it has touched like layers and layers of lace until they succumb to silence. And I carried that silence with me all the way back to my pod.

A golden strand of her hair was still there. It had caught to my bag and traveled with me here. How could she be gone when the ripples of her existence still surrounded me? Her dreams, her belongings, her memories.

I pressed a cold capsule of water against my throbbing temple, searching for glimmers of those memories within myself. Images flashed before my eyes. Her hair, her smile, her voice. Snapshots of late nights spent working on grants, fueled by cheap energy shots and Natalie’s infectious enthusiasm. Our virtual hike through the Rockies, her stories of her great grandfather, the last real mountaineers before the chaotic weather made climbing impossible.

The chair squeaked as I stood, a head rush that forced me to pause. I steadied myself, then crossed to the wall cabinet. Inside, nestled in a drawer, was a small, white transmuter. For a few moments, I just stood there, tracing its glossy surface. Wary of using it for such deeply personal memories, of the potential for distorting them. But the expanse of her memories shimmered like sunlight on water. I wanted to dive in. I wanted to preserve them. Now that memories were the only thing I had left of Natalie, now that I was already struck with the shock of non-existence, I didn’t want to risk losing her memories.

Trembling, I sat on the edge of my bed, pulled my thick black hair aside, and pressed the transmuter into the implant on the side of my skull that branched into 32,768 channels inside my hippocampus. A series of ticks resonated through my head, followed by the momentary disorientation that is normal for second-generation transmuters. Slowly, I lay on the bed, tilted my head back onto the pillow and started to record.

I started small. Little everyday memories. The times she would burst into my office to discuss her newest idea. The sharp swing of her sword at the katana fights. The sparkle in her eyes when she interrogated me about my research. As excited for me as she would be for her own. The little winks she gave when she spotted me across the room.

Jumping from memory to memory, image to image. Recording at best a few snapshots from each event.

I focused on the movements of the lips, the glimmer of her techgems, the tone of her voice. Her smile…. She will never smile again. I wanted her smile to stay. Memory to memory. Preserving the smile. How did it look? Those mischievous ones, when she had something cooking…. A bit asymmetric. Like when she had found a bug in the virtual arcade and had everyone stuck midair.

She burned brightly. At the cusp of something. Ablaze for a moment. And then gone. The flame extinguished. And all that was left was this darkness. How could she do this? How could all that light be gone?

Memories blurred into each other. The lab tech’s trembling voice; “Natalie doesn’t answer.” One glance is enough to know. You feel it in your heart, in your skin, when the hair rises, as you come face to face with death. The cold dread that settled in my gut as I saw her lifeless form. The realization that she’d been alone for hours. They said she was probably dead for hours. For hours alone in the lab. It must have been cold. I felt cold too, alone in my room.

It had been a while. There was hunger and thirst, and the cold was devouring my motionless body, but I could not get up. There must have been something. A tremble in her voice. A clue in her words. I should have known. Perhaps I could have stopped her if I had listened. She must have needed me… And I wasn’t there.

Memory to memory. Perhaps she said something? A joke? A hint. She worked a lot lately. But she was not alone in that. I was also working long hours. We had seen each other less. Less than we should have.

Much time had passed; I knew this already, but how much, I didn’t know. I had been pushing my limits for a while. Shooting pain went up my spine and the pressure behind my eyelids was getting unbearable. I had heard of people getting locked-in while recording. Urban legends, yet stories that were told. Maybe I was going to die this way, locked-in forever in my jumble of memories.

The fear gave me enough of a nudge to move. I ripped the transmuter from my skull. My head throbbed, but I was back in my body, in my bed.

What was that last memory about? Natalie’s voice still echoed in my head. The first time we met, at the mixer hour of the cluster. A discussion spotted with the dreams that had brought us to the Elvin Institute, to Avedis, away from our homes. Even though the transmuter was out, I could see Natalie’s dream as if floating in front of my eyes; a brain replica, 3D printed out of living cells. Scanned from the last instance of a person’s state, the promise of eternal life, of the continuation of consciousness.

And the consciousness that held those dreams itself was now gone forever.

Thoughts subsided at last.

But the pain remained.

And the tears took over.