Tattoo Parlor of the Mind

Retribution

Frank entered the room all smiles and carrying Jackie's drink. He set it in front of her and took a seat.

"Wow, I can't believe that went as smoothly as it did," he commented, then looking over at Miles, asked, "now what, my friend, what exactly are you doing?"

"There's something I have to know," I answered, "I need to know if he hurt Claire, and the only way to do that is to re-insert those memories first and then take a look inside his head. It'll be about 20 more minutes."

"What about them," he asked pointing at Bannister and the goons.

"Well the first thing is we make sure they don't wake up too soon. Jackie's got some sedatives. I'm going to inject them here in a second." I got up from the table and walked to the cabinet Jackie had told me about, procuring both the hypodermic and the tranquilizer solution. She motioned me out of the way and proceeded to fill the hypos and inject each of the three prone henchmen, ensuring that no one would be awakening too early.

"Well that's done," Frank chuckled. He took another sip from his drink and smiled at Jackie, "You're quite the talented lady aren't you?"

"You have no idea." she said grinning.

"I'd like to, though." Frank said none too subtlety.

"Hey break up the romance, we have things to do, we need to focus!" I said rather unkindly.

"Harsh! You are such a wet blanket,"
Frank said, "you never did tell me what you're gonna do with these three thugs."

"Well, I was thinking that if I took out all memories of me, you, and Jackie, basically the past few weeks, they wouldn't have any idea of what was going on or who I was."

"Not a bad plan," Frank offered, "but what about Miles."

"Depending on what I find out from when I go in his head, I've got special plans for him."

It only took about 20 minutes to re-insert Miles memories. To be honest, I wasn't quite as diligent with him as I would be for a client that I actually cared about. I didn't check time references or sequential order, I just sort of packed his memories into his brain in the same way a kid just stuffs his clothes into a gym bag.

Frank came over to watch me. He asked me a question that has been bothering him.
"What about your memories, I mean your personal ones? When are you gonna put them back in?"

"I am going to do that as soon as I get this situation under control. As a matter fact, it's you that's going to do it."

"No, no, no, I own a tavern, I'm not a goddamn memory broker! You don't want to risk having me fix you."

I laughed, "Don't worry, I'm going to preset everything, it's going to be very simple. All you're going to have to do is strap me in and press a button. The machine will do the rest and when the procedure is done the red light turns to green, it's as simple as that. The memory was taken out as one big chunk, so there's no editing required, it will simply fill the empty spaces in my memory sequentially. It should take about an hour."

Frank sighed, "Well, it's your brain. If I leave you with the personality and mental capacity of a cucumber, I call dibs on your house. What about that pork–sex–electron thing, what's that all about."

"Hopefully that, among other questions, will be answered when I know what the hell is going on. I'm a little curious about the key Yurgo gave me too. I guess I'll just have to wait. Anyway, Miles is done. It's time to look into that dark abyss he calls brain."

It was a fairly simple procedure to convert the rig that Preston was strapped in from memory-restorer to memory viewer. I removed the leads attached to his helmet from the control panel and inserted them into a plain-looking box of the type used by the police to determine the guilt of criminals. The box was in turn attached to a simple monitor sitting on a small table adjacent to the control panel. There was a stool in front of the table. I sat down and initiated the viewing procedure.

At first there was only a cacophony of light and sound, indiscernible and indistinguishable from static. After a few moments, the images became more pronounced and clear. Finally, the interior of an office was clearly visible in the monitor. I picked up the controller and wound my way backward and forward through Miles' memories, until I was certain I was in the right time span. I watched intently, my heart beating intensely.

I realized that I only had a vague glimpse of what Claire looked like through the leaked memories that I had acquired. I was concerned that I would not recognize her if I saw her. This concern was unnecessary.

There she was, without a doubt, beautiful. She was looking into Miles' eyes. She seemed frightened, but defiant. She backed away from him. He grabbed her. He shook her. She spit in his face. He pushed her back. Her eyes widened. She stumbled backward and lost her balance, plummeting down the stairs. Miles looked at her, he didn't even check to see if she was alive. He just left.

I turned off the monitor. They were tears in my eyes. I had bitten into my lip and could taste the blood in my mouth. I was both devastated and furious. I sat silent for an indeterminate amount of time until Frank's voice roused me.

"Are you all right? What, what did you see?"

"He did it Frank, he threw her down the stairs. He's the reason she went into her coma. He's the reason I lost her."

"Oh my God, that's horrible. What are you going to do? Don't do anything that's going to end up getting you thrown in prison, you're not a violent man, take my word for it."

I didn't answer. I reinserted the wires from the box back into the control panel. I checked the crystals that I had emptied into Miles' head and then put them back into the receptacle into which they fit on the panel. I made some adjustments to the controls and flipped the switch. Though unconscious, Miles' body jerked.

Frank looked at me curiously, "Are you erasing some of the memories you just put back in?"

"Yeah I'm erasing memories," I said dryly.

"Which ones?" Frank asked.

"All of them, every last one!"