BEFORE SUNRISE, ORY WAS PACKED AND READY TO HEAD OUT to search for Max. His head had stopped bleeding. He sat on the edge of the bed waiting for first light, too tense to sleep. If only, Ory thought to himself. If only. If only he’d come home three hours earlier. If only he hadn’t chased the rabbit. If only he hadn’t gone to Broad Street again. If only. Max would still be here.
He picked up the ball of paper with Rule Zero on it from the floor and crumpled it further, crushing it until it had compacted into something the size of a walnut. It had looked the same as all the rest of the rules when he’d written it, hanging mutely around the abandoned hotel in their relevant places. You never go after the other person if they forget. But the rule was always meant to apply only to Ory. Never the other way around. This—now—this was not how Rule Zero was supposed to play out, not the way things were supposed to happen. This was not an unfortunate scouting accident. It was his fault. His fault that he didn’t return home in time to stop Max from leaving because she had forgotten she was supposed to stay.
Ory surveyed the shelter for the last time. The more he thought about it, the more sure he was that none of it made much sense. Max knew how dangerous it was out there, so the fact that she was gone likely meant that the Forgetting had accelerated, that she was starting to bleed memories like a sieve losing sand. That much was clear. But from the early cases they’d all seen, before the TV networks and the internet went down, it was usually terrifying. Victims were panicked and sometimes violent because they couldn’t figure out what was happening or where they were, or even who they were, but still had a grasp on other far-flung parts of their minds.
In Max’s case, she’d been calm enough not to scramble through all their belongings, trying to parse back together her history from the clues. She had still shut the door when she left, and had maybe taken some food and supplies with her on her way out. It was eerie.
And she had taken the tape recorder with her. Ory had searched the entire shelter, and was sure of it. It was nowhere there.
Mahnaz Ahmadi
IN THE SUMMERS, NAZ’S ARCHERY PRACTICE WAS VERY EARLY, before the humidity became too unbearable. From June to August, Boston was like the inside of a clay baking tagine. It was almost worse than Tehran. She had to get up at four A.M., but would still watch the news for updates on Hemu Joshi’s condition while she dressed in darkness before pulling herself away to go to practice.
It only got worse. By the third week, Hemu had forgotten almost everything about his life. He couldn’t recognize his mother, and when asked if he had any siblings, couldn’t name his brothers. He could recite his phone number but not his address. He knew he was born and raised in Pune, but didn’t seem to know that Pune was in India or that India was a country. Then he forgot what cricket was.
On the archery range, Naz tried to concentrate, but her mind wasn’t there. She wondered if she should go back. India was scarily close to home. Her sister emailed and said to stay, not to give up her training, that there was nothing she could do in Iran to help anyway. Naz hid her phone in her sports bra between shots, then would lean down so her hands were hidden and text someone—her next-door neighbor, her friends back in Tehran—anyone, it didn’t matter. They were all talking about the same thing. Did you see the test where HJ could only remember 4 of the days in a week? Or HJ just tried to list all the streets in his neighborhood, did you watch that one?
Yeah. Did you see the clip where they showed him pics of his classmates from high school and he tried to name them? they’d reply. It was constant. After a few days, Naz started to worry she was going to get kicked off the team, but then she peeked down the line of targets and realized the other archers were all doing the exact same thing. Go to CNN live stream, they have an update.