Memory Traffic

Chapter 6: The Briefing

Ten minutes later, we all gathered in an area turned into a conference room, and the Director and Dr. Müller briefed Sharon and me on the location and operation of the gate system's central hub. The mission would involve some fancy footwork on the fly, but infiltration was Sharon's specialty. Me? I was apparently the computer systems specialist. Only problem was I had no memory of being one. None. Zero. Zilch.

I voiced my concern. "So, what do we do if we get to the hub and none of this comes back to me?"

The Director steepled his fingers as he leaned back in his chair. "Just follow the procedure laid out here, and you should be fine. We tried to make it as clear as possible."

I nodded. "Yes, it seems clear, as long as nothing unplanned happens. But, you know how it is..."

"The key is supposed to be able to help with this in a way. Let us test it." Dr. Müller tapped on his tablet and then handed it to me.

It was in gibberish, using a script that looked part Korean and part Farsi. I studied it, but it didn't become any clearer to me.

The doctor leaned forward. "Set the key to the third face on the dial, the one with the symbol from this planet's primary language. It is supposed to act as a translator of digital text."

I did as he suggested. I pulled and turned the stem until it landed on the face with the nine numbers, then pushed it back in and looked at the tablet again.

The symbols on the screen began to waver, changing into English. Once it settled, I could easily read the message: The mission is critical. Trust Sharon with your life. Succeed at all costs.

I nodded and handed the tablet back to him. "So I have a way of translating digital text. That will be helpful. Does it also help with other communication?"

Dr. Müller shook his head. "No, but these do." He brought out two small devices, each about half the size of the palm of my hand. "These are common in Vegan society as more and more immigrants move between planets. No one will bat an eye that you use them to help communicate. You tap them to activate them, speak what you want translated, and it will then repeat what you said in the set language. We will be working overnight to program the languages of the key into them, just in case. We don't know where the gate is going to take you."

I was surprised. "We know all those languages?"

The Director answered. "We will. We are making a deal."

I scowled as I looked at the translator device. It struck me as similar to a Star Trek communicator badge. I was fascinated but also angry. Having them work meant we were trading more memories. I couldn't help but wonder where the memories would come from. Probably some homeless person we'd found who was willing to cooperate for a hot meal, shower, and maybe some drugs. I hated our tactics. The more I thought about it, the more Alex's words hit home. Memories were our personal property... we should have a choice about trading them and be adequately compensated.

Sighing, I slid the badge across the table back to the doctor, but I stayed quiet.

"Our next item," Sharon said as she pulled out a device, "Is extensive maps of the gate planets. That's what we have loaded on these." She handed me one.

It was about the size of my phone, maybe a little bigger, but it'd still fit in my pocket. "But we won't have internet or phone signal once we're off-world," I pointed out.

Sharon shot me a don't-be-an-idiot look. "The maps are local files. You do know how to read a map without GPS, right?"

Bitch. "Of course I do."

"Good. So, on each, we have pinpointed the locations of all the known gates. On the map of Vega Prime, we also added the most likely locations of the gate hub. We will have to check each one and hope we get lucky early on."