Moving Backwards

Chapter Four

"FUCK!" I shout as my phone slips from my fingers, tumbling toward the icy, frozen ground with a hollow thud. Frost clings to the edges of the cracked screen, and a white puff of my breath hangs in the air like the cloud of frustration rising inside me. I didn't shout because of the cancer—it's not a lie that I've wished something horrible would happen to this man for as long as I can remember. I shouted because now, like a heavy chain snapping into place, he's going to drag my entire life down with this damn cancer diagnosis. The weight of it presses on me already, squeezing out the last traces of hope. Goodbye Master's degree, hello caregiver.

I pick up my phone with shaking hands, the cold seeping through my skin, and ask, breathlessly, "Dad, are you still there?"

"Yeah, I'm still here... for now," he rasps, his voice sounding like it's coming from the bottom of a well.

There it is. The guilt-tripping.

 "Dad, I've got to go, but I promise I'll call you later and we can talk about this whole thing. I'm sorry about everything." I hang up, my thumb lingering on the screen for a second longer than necessary. The familiar weight of guilt settles over me like a damp fog on Mount Everest—thick and suffocating, the air continuously thinning as you keep climbing. I can just see him now, weaving the cancer into every conversation, planting it like a dark seed, waiting for it to bloom into control. I can picture him, hunched over, writhing in pain—agonizing pain, I hope. Sharp, relentless. The kind that keeps you awake at night, gnawing at your insides. For years, I've imagined him suffering like this, hoping that whatever fate had in store for him would be cruel enough to match the misery he's put me through. But now, it's real, and I'm supposed to feel something else. Empathy? No, just dread. Pure, overwhelming dread.

I shake my head as I open the door to the laboratory and focus on the anti-matter helmet sitting on my desk, the sleek metal reflecting the sterile lab lights above. It's a bulky, complicated device, lined with thin, intricate wires like veins running through a body. The helmet's surface is smooth and cold to the touch, almost alien in design, with countless rows of blinking micro-lights indicating that it's ready for the data to be transferred into the quantum computer. A fine mesh of sensors runs across the interior, designed to track the wearer's brain activity, sending feedback in real time to the connected system. My thesis—everything I've worked for—is wrapped up in this machine, in the promise of what anti-matter can unlock, the unknown possibilities waiting on the other side of the data we're so close to deciphering.

I breathe deeply, trying to shake off the anxiety clawing at the back of my mind. I've got to focus on the data now. The numbers are erratic, chaotic even, but somewhere in that chaos is the key—answers that could change everything. Rosalie sits with the helmet on her head, her hands resting limply in her lap, waiting for me to connect the devices. Her eyes are wide and glassy, staring ahead as if she's already somewhere else. I haven't told her yet, but every time I've done this, she slips into a trance—her body stiffens, her breathing becomes shallow, and for a moment, it's like she's not even there. She looks almost lifeless, her chest barely rising and falling, her face drained of color. It's unnerving, like watching someone die in slow motion. But when the session ends, she always emerges as if she's been reborn—her eyes are brighter, her skin seems to glow, and she smiles with an energy that wasn't there before. It's as though the machine takes something from her and returns it at the same time.

I don't know what this trance means. I don't know if it's a side effect, something temporary, or if it's digging deeper into her mind than I realize. And I have no idea if this could be dangerous in the long run. But hey, that's what waivers are for, right? She signed it, I signed it. We're both aware of the risks—at least, as aware as anyone can be with technology this new. I sometimes feel like Marie Curie, a pioneering physicist and chemist. She, along with her husband Pierre Curie, conducted groundbreaking research on radioactivity, a term she coined. Marie is known for her discovery of two radioactive elements: polonium and radium. Her work on radioactivity earned her two Nobel Prizes: one in Physics (1903) alongside Pierre Curie and Henri Becquerel, and another in Chemistry (1911) for her discovery of radium and polonium.

As many of us in the scientific community know, Marie Curie's untimely death in 1934 casts a haunting shadow over her groundbreaking work with radioactive materials. It haunts me every day I use this damn helmet. She succumbed to aplastic anemia, her frail body weakened by years of exposure to the very elements she had discovered. The dangers of radioactivity were still shrouded in ignorance then, and Curie, unknowingly, walked a perilous path like me in a way. She handled glowing test tubes of radium with bare hands, even slipping them into her coat pockets as if they were harmless trinkets. The invisible threat she carried with her slowly ate away at her health, a creeping poison in her blood. Her remarkable dedication to science, though revolutionary, came at a chilling cost—her brilliance dimmed far too soon. As her fragile hands trembled in those final days, it was clear that her immense contributions to humanity were not without sacrifice.

I tell myself that Rosalie is a willing participant, that she understands the unknowns as much as I do, but there's always a nagging voice in the back of my head: "If you were a good person, you wouldn't do this to her." "SHUT UP," I retort back to the voice in my head. But after all, Rosalie is my friend. Shouldn't I be more concerned about what this is doing to her? The problem is, the answers I'm after, the data we're collecting, are so close. Sometimes, the things you have to do for science aren't always pretty.

Does that make me selfish? Yes. No. Maybe. Alright, yes—it does. I've always been selfish. I've known it for as long as I can remember. As a kid, I hoarded my toys, kept secrets, and always wanted to be the first, the best. It's a trait that never really left me. The difference now is that I've learned to justify it, to channel that selfishness into something that can benefit humanity. At least that's what I tell myself. This machine, this research, could change the way we understand the brain. The implications are enormous, world-changing. And maybe that's why I keep pushing Rosalie, even though I know I shouldn't. I tell myself that it's for the greater good, but deep down, I know it's also because I need to be the one who discovers it. I need to be the first one, who's remembered.

When the helmet is on, it's almost like stepping into a dream world. For Rosalie, it's different every time. She never remembers the details, only vague impressions—a flicker of a childhood memory, a fleeting sense of déjà vu. For me, it's been more intense. When I wear the helmet, it's like walking through a library of my memories, each one more vivid than the last. It's strange and intoxicating, this ability to relive moments I thought I had forgotten. I can smell the rain from a storm twenty years ago, and hear the distant laughter of people I haven't seen in decades. That's why I've been recalling so much lately. It's like unlocking a part of my brain that had been sealed off. And the potential applications for this kind of technology are endless. Imagine using it to help patients with Alzheimer's, allowing them to access memories they thought were lost forever.

The data we're collecting is overwhelming—pouring out of the machine like Niagara Falls. Numbers, brainwave patterns, neural activity—it's chaotic, but somewhere in that chaos is a pattern, a key. I can feel it. We're on the edge of something monumental, something that could reshape how we treat the mind, and how we understand memory itself. But every time I look at Rosalie, sitting there with that helmet on her head, her body slumped and her breath barely there, I wonder if I'm crossing a line. If my selfish drive for discovery is worth the risk I'm putting her through. Yet, even as I question it, I can't stop. The pull of the machine, of the unknown, is too strong.

The quantum computer starts beeping uncontrollably, its alarms piercing the air like a frantic symphony of electronic distress. Data streams out in a relentless torrent, cascading across the monitors in a dizzying blur of numbers and graphs. My heartbeat quickens, matching the erratic rhythm of the beeps, and panic claws at my chest. I glance at Rosalie—her once serene face now a mask of confusion, her eyes darting back and forth like trapped insects. Her breathing is steady, but there's an unsettling twitch in her gaze that makes my skin crawl. I hastily cut the session short, my movements sharp and jerky.

"What happened?" Rosalie asks, her voice trembling slightly, edged with anxiety.

"Oh, nothing," I reply, trying to sound casual but failing to mask the urgency in my tone. "I just have all the data I need. I think we're good to go today." I jam the wad of paper, now a chaotic mess of scrawled numbers and hurried notes, into my backpack with a rough shove. The crumpled sheets spill out, a chaotic reflection of my inner turmoil. I need to see Francisco NOW—his expertise is crucial, and the stakes have never felt so high.