Anthony DeCosmo - Disintegration

"Where is she?"

"She’s resting in a room with Lori right now," Reverend Johnny answered Trevor. "We've thrown every test I could think of at her. Some of the results are still pending, but I think we've got a handle on the problem."

Shep said, "Spell it out, Rev."

"It’s been there all along. I’ve never seen anything like it. But tears of Jesus it wouldn’t have mattered because I didn’t have this kind of equipment."

Johnny tapped the image of Nina’s brain displayed on one of the computer screens.

Trevor’s library of knowledge did not bestow him the ability to read x-rays or CAT scans or whatever. Nonetheless, he immediately spied a foreign object attached to Nina’s brain.

Dr. Maple adjusted his eyeglasses and joined the conversation: "Ah, it’s like a film just inside the skull. It appears to have some sort of roots reaching into specific, um, areas of the cerebral cortex."

Johnny explained, "When I ran a chemical analysis I found that the devil had not been entirely burned at the stake."

Trevor growled impatiently, "How’s that?"

Shepherd offered an answer: "It’s from The Order. Left over from what they did to her."

Johnny nodded and said, "I’ve now found how they implanted fake memories. This patch worked in conjunction with the more traditional-looking implant. My sincerest apologies, Mr. Stone. I simply had no way of-"

Trevor ignored his apology and jumped, "Can you save her? Can you stop it from hurting her? I…can’t lose her… I can’t…"

Shepherd squeezed Trevor’s shoulder.

Johnny told him, "It is merely an implant. If I can get the correct enzyme I simply inject her and it will shrivel and die."

Trevor breathed a sigh of relief and stared at the floor.

Shepherd cocked a suspicious eye and wagged a finger at the image.

"Tell me something, doc. What exactly is this thing doin’ inside my girl’s head?"

Dr. Maple answered enthusiastically, "You know how a, ah, computer works?"

"A little."

"Right," Maple pushed his glasses higher on his nose. "When you…say…save a, um, program or load software your computer writes that information to a hard drive. Think of the hard drive, in this case, as the part of Ms. Forest’s brain that stores memories. Well, what The Order has apparently done is-for sake of an example-they’ve rigged an external floppy drive. They were able to, well, have her brain access that external drive-this patch of film-where it found false memories."

Reverend Johnny joined, "I see this metaphor despite my disdain for those monsters of megabytes. To put a fine point on it, this ‘floppy drive’ became her primary memory storage area, although she still could call up older memories from her hard drive."

Jerry Shepherd scratched his chin and remarked, "Well, ain’t that clever."

"The problem is, um, that-to continue to use the, ah, metaphor-her floppy drive is getting, well, it’s getting full. It just doesn’t have the same capacity as the main brain. That’s why she’s been passing out. Over load. We can give her stimulants to keep her going for a while. But, well, eventually this could lead to, ah, severe brain damage and, well, um…"

"What? Whoa. Hold on a moment," Trevor alternated his eyes from Johnny to Maple to Johnny again. "But she’s going to be okay, right? I mean, you can get this out?"

The Rev calmed, "Yes, Mr. Stone. We will need to return to The Order’s abandoned base in Allentown. There I’ll find the correct enzymes. I inject her, and a minute later it disintegrates."

"Thank God."

Trevor wiped a hand of relief across his brow but paused when he spied Reverend Johnny and Dr. Maple share glance.

"What? What is it?"

Johnny licked his lips.

Shepherd said, "Seems to me there’s a cat you haven’t let out of the bag."

"Mr. Stone…Trevor," Johnny proceeded delicately. "I don’t believe you’ve followed the metaphor to its fullest extent. When I say Ms. Forest will be as right as rain, I mean physically."

"But?"

"This…this ‘floppy drive’ as we’ve been calling it…this is where she’s been storing all of her memories since its implant. When we destroy it…when we inject the counter-agent and remove it, then she will…"

Shepherd finished, "She’ll lose all her memories going back to the helicopter crash."

Trevor's comprehension came slowly. The dots connected one by one.

"All her…memories…"

He collapsed his weight against a counter top.

"All of her memories of me. Of the two of us…she-"

In a soft voice Shepherd said, "She won’t even know who you are. She won’t know anyone around here ‘cept me. She won’t know about the estate or what she went through at The Order or the Redcoats or whatever happens between now and when the Rev here kills that thing."

Trevor mumbled, "Everything…the person she has become since then…that person won’t exist anymore."

– "Show yourself! Show yourself you son of a bitch!"

Trevor pushed through the forest. Bats scattered and an owl raced for cover. Tyr trailed at a discrete distance but even the K9 trembled at his enraged master.

He ran out of curses and let loose a howl of anguish that roared through the night.

Then Trevor collapsed and rolled over. His limbs felt weak and worn and for the first time since the day Armageddon had descended upon humanity, he felt completely at the mercy of the universe.

The branches above reached toward the stars with indifference.

"Wasn’t my doin’. I can promise you that, Trev. This is just one of them, oh, what you would call it? Coincidences. Irony. Shit like that. I dunno."

Trevor gasped, "Why?"

"You deaf or sometin’? I had notin’ to do with it. But I see a chance for you to part ways easy enough. She won’t even know she ever knew you. Easy way out."

"Easy? Easy way out? For such an all-knowing entity you don’t know shit, do you? You have no idea what she means to me. You want me to fight this fight? Then help me keep her. She’s my strength. Don’t you get it? She gives me the strength to keep going."

"Naw," the Old Man countered coolly. "You and I both know that’s a lie. In fact, I get the feelin’ you’re gunna be a much better fighter without her. You’re going to go through the rest of your life with nothing else but the ‘cause.’ You’re gunna be so pissed off at this world for takin’ her away that you’re gunna kill all that more easy. Slaughter them all, Trev. Maybe if you kill enough of ‘em you’ll feel better."

"I hate you. You know that? I hate you for what you made me."

The Old Man chuckled.

"You ain’t seen nothin’ yet."

– A pair of kerosene lamps on the fireplace mantle filled the living room with an oily, smoky scent. Nina sat on the floor in the soft glow with her knees pulled to her chin and a blank expression painted on her face.

"I don’t want to go back. I don’t want to go back to who I was."

Trevor eased to the floor next to her. Outside, early birds spread the word that a new day would soon dawn.

He told her, "Memories. Memories and experiences shape us, I guess like a river can cut out a canyon over time."

"Take away my memories for the last year and I’m just a Philly police officer thinking the only way to survive is to keep moving. Not to get tied down. Not to get attached."

Trevor remembered the shy girl with the icy cold eyes. Since then…so much.

Nina struggled, "I can’t do it. I think I’d rather…I’d rather…"

"No. I won’t watch you die."

She spoke in words that were angry, sad, and scared all at the same time: "If we do this then you have to fight to win me back. Do you promise? You get through to me. You tell me about us and everything. You break through…you break…through."