MirrorWorld

“Hold it for seven seconds.” He counts this out with her fingers. “And now let it out for seven seconds.”


I exhale slowly, feeling a measure of calm return as the breath seeps from my lips. I repeat the process twice more until I feel better. When I look up again and see the operating table, my throat starts to close up again. Visions of Stephanie opening the back of my head mix with memories of the Dread mole probing my brain.

Allenby puts her hand on my arm. “You won’t be having surgery if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“I won’t?”

“Just one injection,” Stephanie says.

“But in my brain.”

“From what I understand, there’s already a small hole in your skull.” She pauses for a moment, when I quickly find a seat and all but fall into it. “There are no pain receptors in the brain. You’re not going to feel a thing.”

“But something could go wrong.” I point to Cobb. “That’s why he’s here.”

“And because you trust him,” Allenby says, and gives the man a look.

“I wouldn’t support this if I thought your life was in danger,” Cobb says, and I believe him. Out of everyone at Neuro, he’s the only one whose integrity I don’t doubt to some degree. I don’t even fully trust dear ol’ Aunt Allenby.

I turn to Stephanie. “You’re not touching my head until I understand what you’re going to do.”

“I’m going to restore your memory,” she says.

“How?”

“It’s complicated.”

“Humor me.”

“The way your memories were erased … the procedure was … archaic. I can’t actually believe you requested it.” Stephanie glances at Allenby, who nods for her to continue. “Memories are stored in the cerebral cortex, which is the outer layers of the brain. Sometimes, when the cortex is damaged, like in a car accident, neurons will die or degenerate. Glial cells, which are most easily explained as the nervous system’s overprotective glue, swarm to the injury sites, protecting the brain against bacteria or toxins. The side effect of these reactive glial cells rushing to protect the mind is that the scar tissue they form effectively blocks the growth of new, healthy neurons, trapping memories in the cerebral cortex. So memories aren’t lost so much as blocked. By studying and comparing numerous traumatic-injury amnesia cases, my predecessor was able to identify the specific neural pathways used to recall memories as well as the regions of the cortex itself that store long-term memories.”

She looks uncomfortable with what comes next.

“I can handle it,” I tell her, only half believing it. But I have seen and survived worse, including what she’s now explaining. If I keep reminding myself, maybe I won’t curl up on the floor.

“They basically raked the surface of your brain in the regions controlling memory. And they caused trauma to the areas responsible for transmitting those memories. They couldn’t really destroy the memories without killing you, so they forced your cerebrum to do the job itself, creating vast amounts of memory-blocking glial scar tissue.”

The news makes me uncomfortable, but since it happened to a version of me I can’t remember, it doesn’t feel any different than if I’d read about it in a magazine. “And you’re going to what, remove the scar tissue?”

“In a way,” she says. “We’re going to turn those glial cells into functioning neurons, which will reopen neural pathways to the portions of your cerebral cortex that have been segregated.”

“How?”

Stephanie sighs. “Seriously?”

“It’s my brain.”

“It’s not going to sound fun.”

I stare at her until she complies.

“Fine. We’re going to inject the glial cells with a retrovirus.”

She’s right. That doesn’t sound fun at all. “You’re going to give my brain a virus?”

“Retroviruses can—”

“I know what they can do,” I tell her. “I’m part Dread, thanks to a different DNA-altering retrovirus.”

Stephanie just shakes her head. “Well, this retrovirus contains the genetic code for the NeuroD1 protein, which, in the hippocampus, turns reactive glial cells into nerve cells. The virus can’t replicate for long. It doesn’t destroy healthy cells. And it can only infect glial cells. The rest of your functioning neurons will remain intact.”

“That … doesn’t sound too bad, but I’m not sure I want my memories back. I forgot them for a reason, right?” I turn to Allenby. “You said that life had become so painful I opted to erase my memory rather than live with it. What good will come from me regaining memories so painful that even my fearless self couldn’t handle them?”