Subject: Take a close look

To: beeLieB
From: N.Shah <[email protected]>

December 12, 2048

Hey B,
You being good to your ma?

Look what I found while digging through your grandma's old albums. Wasn't I a handsome man?

Tell Ma I miss her, and Dev to do what we practiced the other day. He'll be great. And I'll be home as soon as a hop, skip, and a jump to Mars and back.

Dad

<Download Attachment: family album.zip>

***

Behind my eyelids, the virtual screen burns almost as bright as the ceiling lights flashing above me as the trolley trundles along beneath me—movements, left and right turns, clocking into my memory, just in case I need to escape again.

I try to shake off the chill still coursing through me as the man I saw, the man I recognise only as well as I recognise my nose. What is he doing here? And where is here? Are we at the Hive? Or even the Bunker?

I hope so.

PASSWORD REQUIRED: (...)

The words blink into existence behind my eyes.

I see my hands — though they are not my hands or even real — fly across the most bizzare keyboard I've never seen. Strange keys, silent under my fingertips.

ACCESS DENIED.

You have two attempts left before the file is destroyed permanently by Sender.

I hear a faint groan in my ear as if real, with a 'Come on, Ba, seriously? Password protecting a fucking album?'

"What are you doing here?" Outside, in the real world with real people, I hear the distinct hum of EKG monitors, the soft hiss of oxygen masks, or the distant trills of alarms.

"The general asked me to process the girl, but can't make sense of it." The voice of the guy I've labeled 'The Morgue Attendant' quavers a little with excitement.

My virtual hands fly across the virtual screen while I try to concentrate on the man. So I'm not in the General's office but in a hospital wing? Interesting.

"What's wrong with the girl."

Nothing. I faux yell in my head. Nothing yet, at least.

ACCESS DENIED.
You have one attempt left before the file is destroyed permanently by Sender.

I hear the faint groan again, and a 'Fuck!' — and Grandad thought I swore a lot? Rude.

While Billie — or the figment of Billie I assume, pauses a moment to gather her thoughts before her final attempt, I take a chance to peek at my surroundings.

Grey concrete walls and ceilings? Check.

Pasty people who've never seen the sun in all their life? Check.

A ward door shut, requiring swipe cards or retinal scans? Check.

Above the door, the words 'Seize the Day' fading away — kind of ironic for the people who haven't seen a 'day' in over forty years? Check.

So we are at the Bunker at least. Thank god. Imagine Hill had found us. I sure would not be lying here whole. That or obliterating her entire base if Survival Mode kicked on I suppose.

I double-check to see that yes, it's on standby mode, and revert my attention back to the film playing in my mind and the chatter outside my body.

"Her code. Something's wrong with it," says the Mortuary guy.

"What's wrong with it?" says the dude in a far too small white coat stifling a yawn, as alive as a lettuce leaf.

"I can't read it."

Duh! I want to laugh. If you could then you'd run a mile from me.

Billie's hands flicker over the keyboard and peck one key at a time... deliberate. Slow.

I focus on the rhinestones she's stuck on her thumbs. If I were breathing, I'd be holding my breath I swear.

"And why can't you read it?" Boredom drips off the second guy.

"I can't find a hardline on her and she's practically out of juice."

My heart jitters alive a little at that. Plug me. He needs to plug me in. I'm showcasing critical power levels, so obviously he wouldn't be able to link it via the signature signal I'd be emitting. I remember Billie saying I no longer have a signal pinging a tower or a server as far as CodeTech and the Hive are concerned. To them, I no longer exist.

ACCESS GRANTED.

Shit. She did it. Of course, she did it. Why was I even surprised?

While the two idiots pull the morgue trolley into an empty bay and out of the way of others, trying to find a hardline I blink at the obscene image in front of my eyes.

What is that? A collage of the most randomest fucking images to make what looks like a family portrait of four? And it looks nothing like Billie's family? I saw the photo Mum — Billie — had on her screensaver once or twice. I know what she and Dev and their parents looked like when the world hadn't 'gone to shit' in both her and Grandad Billy's words.

This is what Narendra Shah sent to his daughter posthumously? But why?

Billie must have thought the same, for she zooms into and out of various parts of the collage, probably just as confused as me. Except my confusion is another layer deep: why is Grandad showing me this crap when he could just talk to me and tell me what it is he wants me to know... and how the hell did he get access to Billie's old emails? Or her memories?

That's when I realise: these aren't a set of random information Grandad and I can access now. 'Take a close look' That's what the email had said, and she was, having a closer look. 

"I put in a little something extra. I hope it will help you." Billie had given me a casual wink when she stopped squeezing the life out of me one last time before hoisting Nate and me back onto her boat, and having her little soldiers escort us where we needed to go.

"It's a memory dump!" I gasp. She gave me her memories. But how? When? And damn, you should hear the scream the two men scream, because opps. Did I say that out loud when I'm supposed to be playing dead? Literally?

Shit.

Word Count: 8,592