The Memory Painter

“Research phonetic studies documenting unexplained cognizance of a foreign language.”


“Unexplained cognizance? Can that happen?”

“I think so.” She was about to leave, when she turned around with an afterthought. “This is a little off the wall, but do you believe in reincarnation?”

“Well…” His Adam’s apple bobbed up and down as he swallowed. “I think, um,” he gulped again. “You know … that you meet certain people you feel this, um, intense connection to … and maybe it means something?”

“Er … right.” That was not helpful. Linz saluted him with her mug. “Thanks for the coffee.” As she turned away, she caught Steve putting his finger to his head and pulling an imaginary trigger. She smiled and closed the door.

She walked along the long glass hallway and peered into the various labs as she made her way to her own lab, slowing to admire Cyclops, the heart and soul of the Genome Project. Its long robotic arms took slide samples from endless rows of drawers against the wall with surgical precision. It was an omnipotent octopus of technology that generated matches to potential gene fragments with lightning speed, providing answers in seconds.

Dr. Parker saw Linz pass and smiled, waving as if they were old friends. Linz was surprised by the warmth of his greeting—she had only met him this morning at the board meeting. She gave a quick wave back and continued down the hall, entering her lab at the same time as Maggie and Neil.

Maggie had magenta hair, two nose rings, and could make a lab coat look cool. She was also brilliant and worked with Linz on genetic screening and sequencing. Neil managed all the programming and was a serious computer jock who could barely squeeze his large gut into his chair. Linz didn’t know how she had ever lived without him. In the space of three months, he had written new software to track all the data results they had generated. He was so ingenious that she suspected he just might be a computer hacker on the side—when he wasn’t attending gaming conventions.

“Neil, the scavenger program you wrote is kicking serious ass.”

“All my programs kick serious ass. Why do you think I always wear this?” He pointed to the faded Bruce Lee T-shirt under his lab coat.

Maggie snorted. “Because you don’t do laundry.”

Linz chuckled and headed to her desk, trying to ignore the Greek books piled next to her computer. She had brought several in to work, thinking she would read them at lunch. Now she was beginning to question her sanity. They were nothing but a screaming distraction. She checked her cell phone again, hoping Bryan had tried to get in touch.

Maggie followed her over. “Your father called to remind you about the company party on Sunday. You going?”

“Yep, planning on it.”

Maggie perched on the edge of her desk. “Bringing anyone?”

Linz considered the idea. In an ideal world she would have invited Bryan, if they could just have one normal meeting together. Instead, their encounters had been surreal, and the last one had been flat-out unbelievable. He had left her sprawled in the sand garden and then he hadn’t even called her later to apologize. The more she thought about it, the more she began to seethe. If he did call, she would let it go to voice mail. She didn’t want to talk to him.

Maggie was waiting for an answer and growing more excited by the second. “Oh my God, you met someone.”

Linz sighed. What could she say? Technically, yes. But she and Bryan defied normal.