Nanobots, Murder, and Other Family Problems

Wednesday, March 30

Noah,

You won't remember writing this. Don't panic. That's normal for us these days, part of the damage that Father and his implant did to us along with our own reckless stupidity. You'll need to read back your memories so you can fake being a real boy for another day with the help of the very thing that ruined us. So read. Read and remember who you are for a few hours, until you lose it all again. Don't stop, even when you realize what a complete and utter bastard you are. We deserve that guilt. We earned it.

Don't go anywhere or talk to anyone until you're done. We've done enough damage by going into a day without our memory. We're not doing that again.

Only our favorite brother knows about our condition. Credit to him for helping compile this record using his enhanced memory, the old journal we kept, the last bits of our old life lingering in our broken gray matter, and of course our implant's logs. We had to guess on a few things to fill in some blanks, but this is close enough to what actually happened on everything important that you can trust it. Even if we got a few things wrong, it's better than the gaping void where our memory should be.

Try not to kill yourself today, no matter how much we deserve it. We've got too much work to do for that. We stopped him from saving the world, so that's our job now.

—Noah

The men in the black suits climb out of their dark sedan. The house shakes as the huge one pounds a gorilla-sized fist against my grandparents' door, shouting for them to open up. A police cruiser pulls up to the curb and a pair of uniformed cops get out. I let the thick drapes drop back to cover the spare room's window and turn to the couch where I've been sleeping since Mom died. No point waiting, they're taking me for real this time. I grab my backpack and start packing.

"You can't have him," Gramps shouts through the front door. "We're filing for custody. Come back when you have a court order."

"We don't need a new court order," the giant booms. "Custody reverted to his father on Mary Kimball's death. Open the door and surrender the boy, or we'll have you arrested."

I grab Mom's SynTech Model 350 laptop and stuff it into my bag. Its bulky shape fills most of the space, but that's fine. Besides being the top of the line computer from my father's company, it's got the only copy of Mom's hacking tools. She spent a lot of time with it, and it still kind of smells like her. There's not much else here that I care about taking with me. I stuff some clothes around it in the bag, then put my journal and a small framed picture of her in the front pocket.

"Noah is practically an adult," Grammy protests, pushing past Gramps to crack open the door, leaving the chain lock in place. "You can't take him away when he's this close to eighteen. He should get to choose."

"Sergeant Thompson," the giant barks. "Break down the door."

I hear them arguing outside as I recognize the name. He's the same officer that came to my house a couple of weeks ago to tell me about Mom's accident. Nice guy then, and he's delaying that beast of a lawyer now. I owe him one, even if he's here to help them haul me off.

I shoulder my pack and walk to the front door. Gramps is reaching into the closet where he keeps his shotgun. Pulling that worked when it was just the lawyers, but with the cops out there it's more likely to get him shot. I put a hand on his shoulder and shake my head.

"It's OK, Gramps. I'll go."

"No!" he says. "You can't. Your mother would never—"

"Mom's gone!" The words claw out more harshly than I'd intended. I soften my voice. "Look, I don't want you to do anything you'll regret. He can't keep me for more than a few weeks. I'll get back here before you even miss me."