Shadow Traffic (10 page)

Yes, thought Andrew, as a taxi finally pulled up to take him to tonight's meeting, he would never forget that introductory speech by Dr. Rossi—so forceful and reassuring. He got in the cab finally feeling relaxed enough that he decided he could take his last pill. At the meeting he'd get more, yet he always worried a bit that somehow he wouldn't. The e-mail said this was an emergency meeting of all senior members, and Andrew couldn't help but wonder if some serious new problem had arisen. But what could it be? He was almost afraid to speculate. Were there
perhaps production problems with the supply that would cause the members to have to wait longer to get their next package of Memorosa? Or maybe a potentially deleterious side effect had been discovered? It was frightening to contemplate such undoubtedly farfetched scenarios, but he couldn't completely stop doing it. He knew his memory had increased since he'd been taking Memo but so, oddly enough, had his anxiety.

He was a few minutes early (as was his practice since the fateful first meeting) and walked directly into the auditorium, sitting just a few rows from the stage. The organization had done such a seamless job converting the apartment they owned into a functioning auditorium, complete with stage, podium, and curtain, that it really did look like it had always been one. He took a seat, felt the Memo begin to hit, and found himself recalling in incredibly vivid detail the sled rides he'd taken with his brother twenty-five years ago down the alleyway just in front of his back yard. Tears came to his eyes when he saw again the bright blue “magic mittens” he used to wear with the hole on top of the index finger. He shook his head from side to side to expel the memory. Such an important meeting required the increased concentration and later the power of recall that Memo alone could give him. That's why he'd taken it, after all, he said to himself in a chastising inner voice, not to once again indulge in his favorite sequence of memories when he was eight years old.

Turning his head, he suddenly realized that except for the guards, one posted at each door, there was no one else in the room. The stage was also empty. He felt another surge of memories threatening to inundate him, involving a day at the beach with his mother. This time he stared at the second hand of his watch to distract himself. Finally, at exactly 8 p.m., Dr. Rossi appeared at the podium dressed in his characteristic black suit.

“Good evening, Mr. Zorn,” he said, in a voice that, if it had a British accent, would sound like Alfred Hitchcock.

“Good evening, Dr. Rossi,” he said, quickly standing up.

“You've undoubtedly noticed that you're the only member present tonight. This was by design, for security reasons. I hope you don't feel in any way deceived.”

“No, not at all, Dr. Rossi,” he said, as earnestly as possible, although a part of him did feel slightly tricked. “I know you have your reasons,” Andrew added.

Dr. Rossi said nothing to that. His silences were every bit as effective as his theatrical gestures and well-modulated voice.

“We have a special project to discuss with you tonight,” Dr. Rossi continued. “Based on our research and general knowledge of you, we've selected you to help fulfill this project. Do you feel ready to begin?”

He could feel his heart beat, but also a sudden surge of pride that trumped his anxiety, at least for the moment.

“Yes, Dr. Rossi, I'm ready.”

“Excellent. We thought we could count on you. You'll please follow the guards to the Special Projects room, where you'll meet with an officer of the organization. Oh, and one more thing that should go without saying. You are not to discuss this private meeting with any of the other members. They don't know about it, nor do we want them to. Is that clear, Andrew?”

“Yes, Dr. Rossi,” Andrew said, feeling both surprised and pleased to be called by his first name. “Completely clear.”

Moments later, burly, stone-faced guards were on either side of him indicating by nods of their heads that he should follow one of them while the other stood behind him, almost as if he, Andrew, were a prisoner they were guarding. They led him out of the auditorium, where the lights were now turned off, then down
a well-lit hallway. Apparently the organization owned or rented much more of this apartment building than he'd thought.

“Where are we going?” he asked, in spite of himself.

For several seconds the guards said nothing as they escorted him down the floor. There were more rooms, mostly unlabeled, although he did see the word “laboratory” on one, “x-ray” on another.

“Here, please enter this room, sir,” the lead guard said as he opened it.

“You can sit down,” the trail guard said, just before they closed the door.

The Special Projects room was nondescript. A desk, three chairs, four full-sized filing cabinets, one rather old-fashioned schoolroom-type clock on the wall, with oversized roman numerals. No paintings or anything else on the off-white walls (except one discreetly placed photograph of Marcel Proust facing the clock), as if time itself was the only distraction recognized in the room. And yet time was passing so slowly.

How strange that this should be happening to him, he thought, a thirty-four-year-old librarian who worked for a branch of the New York Public Library, to whom such things were not supposed to happen. Not only was his career choice bland, but so was his slow rise to his current midlevel position—a rise based more on longevity of service than on anything brilliant or innovative he'd done during his career.

His mind was suddenly teeming with childhood memories he was struggling to resist because any moment his meeting could begin. Finally he let himself remember, in heartbreaking detail, the tricycle route he took when he was five from the lilac bushes through the rose trellis over the cracked sidewalk to the garage and back.

He really did feel that he'd been in the room a long time. Then he had an awful thought—could he be locked in? He stood up on his way to check the door just as an officer of the organization—who was also tall, at least as tall as Dr. Rossi—opened it and fixed his icy blue eyes on Andrew.

“Hello, Mr. Zorn. My name is Officer E.”

“Good evening, Officer E,” Andrew said.

E was tall, his height accentuated by his extraordinary thinness. Now that Andrew reflected on it, the overwhelming majority of members were thin, as if their immersion into their new powers of memory made eating irrelevant.

“Please sit down,” Officer E said, permitting himself a trace of a smile. “You have been patient, Mr. Zorn, so I'll get right to the point. Perhaps you've seen the posters on the street or more likely read on the Internet about an organization that calls itself ‘Oblivion'?”

Andrew shrugged to indicate that he hadn't or only in the most peripheral way.

“Frankly, there's every reason to believe that they've modeled themselves after us except, of course, their organizational goal, if one can speak of them as being an organization, is diametrically the opposite of ours. So then, Mr. Zorn, what exactly do you know about the philosophy and modus operandi of Oblivion?”

“Nothing really. Nothing more than what you've told me so far.”

This wasn't completely true. It was Memo itself, he realized, that helped him to recall now the strange posters for Oblivion he'd seen on his walks around lower Manhattan, where he'd also noticed some pro-Oblivion graffiti.

“I'll give you a short briefing then. We also have some literature to give you about them as well, which you will read before
you leave here, please. Did you take a Memo before this meeting?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good. Then you won't need to take any notes either.” Officer E cleared his throat once, seemed almost embarrassed to have done so, and then continued. “Oblivion is the name of a group of emotionally or psychologically damaged people who claim to have developed a drug, which is also called Oblivion, that purports to obliterate only painful human memories. But what they don't tell you is that it's highly addictive and that taken enough, up to 90 percent of all memories can be destroyed, leaving one eventually with only the knowledge of one's name, address, and phone numbers and perhaps the ability to perform a minimal-competency-type job. This drug, by the way, which occurs in both pill and powder form, was not developed by bona fide scientists, nor has its safety, either short or long term, been monitored in any way. Our intelligence indicates that, unlike in our organization, no reputable scientists or doctors are affiliated with the group. … You might well wonder now, Mr. Zorn,” Officer E said, his voice rising slightly but unmistakably, “why we concern ourselves at all with these morally derelict drug dealers who turn normal people into little more than zombies for a quick dollar. The answer is, our intelligence has recently learned that they have targeted us in ways we don't completely understand, but that they have targeted us is indisputable. Since enhanced memory, knowledge, and self-empowerment are anathema to them and they fear too many of their potential victims will be saved by Project Memo, it's perhaps not surprising. That's where we need you, Mr. Zorn.”

He could feel himself grow rigid with attention.

“But first I need to ask you a few more questions. Questions
that I want you to listen to very carefully to be 100 percent certain your answers are completely truthful.”

It was odd to swear allegiance to a man he barely knew, a man so strange looking and noodle thin, with an occasional twitch in his left eye, but he heard himself say, “Yes, of course.”

Officer E cleared his throat as if to signal that the process was about to begin.

“How would you describe the impact Memo has had on your life?”

“It's had a tremendous impact. It's changed everything.”

“In what ways? Be as specific as you can.”

He felt tears about to come to his eyes, as sometimes happened at the group meetings when he or others testified about their experiences, and he struggled against that feeling, not wanting Officer E to think him weak.

“It's like before Memo I was asleep. I didn't know it but I was. I was in a forgetting cycle, just like Dr. Rossi talks about, forgetting almost everything that happened to me and never learning from my past and so never being able to think clearly about my future. I mean, how much can you even care about your future when you know you're going to forget almost all of it right after you live it?”

Officer E looked profoundly sad. “You've articulated the tragic dilemma of pre-Memo consciousness very well, Andrew, very movingly. Now can you tell me concisely exactly how Memo has changed your life?”

“My general memory has increased tremendously, twentyfold, at least, which has had all kinds of practical benefits at my job and in my daily life, but all that pales before, if I may say so, the sheer beauty and joy of truly remembering my life. And as for those parts that are painful to remember, I now use them as great
learning opportunities, as Dr. Rossi has been teaching us to. Also, I want to say that since I took the Special Focus Seminars with Dr. Rossi I've begun to develop my redirective abilities for the first time. Lately I've been focusing on my early childhood, five to eleven to be precise, and … well, let me just say that it's been the most incredible experience of my life.”

“Again, very moving. Perhaps you should have been a teacher instead of a librarian.”

“I wanted to …,” he said, then noticing a slight look of irritation in Officer E, let the rest of his answer go unsaid.

“I wish you could speak to some of those young gang members in Oblivion who still could be saved by Memo … and perhaps you will some day. How do you feel about Project Memo, then, Andrew? How do you feel about the organization that brought Memo into your life?”

“I feel very grateful, eternally grateful.”

“Enough to do some important work for us that might even jeopardize your personal security?”

He felt his heart beat; it was what he feared from the moment Officer E began describing Oblivion, yet he heard himself once again say yes to Officer E and moreover felt a strong sense of pride doing so.

From the moment he agreed to go undercover and join Oblivion, everything changed, even the atmosphere around him. Though his training as a librarian perhaps made him prone to analyzing or “classifying” his feelings more than the average person, he couldn't find any way to describe this somewhat amorphous yet definite alteration in both his thoughts and surroundings. It
was somewhat like a dream except that he was hypervigilant, as if always being watched or judged. It began after his meeting with Officer E, when he was finally out on the chilly November streets. He immediately felt he was being followed.

It was surprisingly late and he was hungry. The sky was already darkly purple as he started walking west toward Azure, his favorite cafeteria, where he often ate after the meetings. Before he'd walked a block he felt it—the same pattern of steps and silences by his pursuer, the same sense—confirmed the one time he turned to look behind himself—that he was being followed. Maybe it was someone from security at the organization, standard procedure that he shouldn't take personally. Yet it was hard not to feel concerned. They had just entrusted him with a tremendous responsibility. If they trusted him enough to do it why would they also distrust him enough to have him followed? Yet given the very quiet life he led, with so few friends or enemies, wouldn't his pursuer have to be connected to the organization? Who else knew him at this point?