Entity 128 | ✔️

2/Reminisce

Reminisce: to think about something that happened in the past

The lady smiled again, and this time, he saw right through her smile. He decided that he couldn't get anything out of her, so he gave up on receiving answers.

While the scientist got busy with jotting down notes, 128 was busy formulating another question, relevant to the subject but unrelated to the previous one.

"What kind of experiment?"

"We were able to map your consciousness using a whole brain emulation technique, but you can refer to it as mind transfer. In other words, your mind is just a bunch of zeros and ones right now." She finished it off with the same smile that was seeming more and more automated to him.

"Where? Where is my mind?"

"Right now, it's in your head, but later on, it'll be stored on a virtual supercomputer somewhere in the deep web. You can call it the Cloud if you want." Again, a fake smile.

He tried to take his mind off the subject. "Why are there no mirrors?" he asked as innocently as he could. He lied back down on the cot awaiting his answer.

"You're in a temporary body. Plus, we don't want to scare you from the beginning..." That was a lie. Why would he be scared. What did she mean by 'the beginning'?

He closed his eyes, hoping for a memory, anything, to come to mind. "Why can't I remember anything about myself?" he asked again, trying to throw in as much emotion into the question as he could.

"It's just a side effect. You shouldn't worry about it too much," she answered automatically.

Her bland answers were starting to frustrate him. He couldn't get anything beneficial to him out of her empty replies.

The lady finished up her notes and stood up to leave, when 128 realized that he was likely to lose his cool if she left. Although she could be a bit annoying, the human touch she brought with her into the room kept him calm. Nonetheless, his efforts at making her stay were worthless and she quietly left the room, plunging 128 back into rummaging his brain for a memory.

About a minute passed before he saw something that shouldn't have happened. The security camera in one of the corners of the room stopped moving around. Instead, it was pointing to the ground right under it. Off, he thought.

The door clicked open again and in stepped the same lady, although she didn't look as happy as she did before. She walked up to him and sat down on the other edge of the bed, facing him.

"I've turned off the security camera, so we have to be quick about this before the others notice..." she said sternly.

"Quick about what?" he asked in return.

She took a hold of his hands. "I want you to think about yourself. You're going to have to focus really hard if you want this to work."

"I've already tired that and it doesn't work..." he said softly.

"Then try harder," she said, squeezing his hands a little.

128 closed his eyes and got his thoughts to calm down. He focused on asking himself who he was. Just as he was about to give up, the image of a smiling girl flashed through his mind.

His eyes shot open. "Who is she?" he asked impulsively.

"Who?" the lady asked him quietly in return, reading fear and confusion his eyes.

"The girl I just saw..."

She smiled. "Try again."

His eyes drifted shut as he found the girl in his memory, although he was stuck on the image of her smiling. He started pinpointing characteristics in hopes of spurring another memory.

Long auburn hair that fell down in waves only to curl at the bottom, a proportionate face with nothing too striking, along with pale eyes that 128 couldn't discern their colour. She wasn't exactly what you would call perfect, nor what you would call pretty, but there was something about her that made her breathtaking.

Soon, the memory in mind became less of a calm smile, and more of an agonized stare. The girl was crying, reaching out to him as if to catch him from falling, pure terror running through her eyes.

The scientist that was with 128 watched as his face twitched with pain. She was certain that he had remembered something, and it wasn't any good. In a matter of seconds, his eyes opened up again, scared and watery.

It took him a moment to say what he had to say. "I left her..." he managed with a lump in his throat. He had concluded that the girl was someone important to him, and that he had calmly walked away from her.

The lady let go of his hands and got off the cot; her job here was finished. She left the room, leaving 128 in an emotional wreck, curled up in a ball on the bed, staring into nothing.

The girl in his mind was definitely someone dear to him: a mother, a wife, a sister, a daughter, a girlfriend, a best friend. Who she was would remain hidden from him, slowly tearing him apart until he found her.