LOST IN THE MEMORY PALACE, I FOUND YOU

by Nick Wolven

Nick Wolven lives in New York City and often feels confused by his surroundings. His story this issue looks at the search for a soul mate in a world of rapid progress and bewildering change. At the start of the week I have another attack. Total memory breakdown. I can’t remember my current address, my current job. I look out the window and see a street of unfamiliar buildings, some of which are being torn down, some constructed before my eyes.

Fortunately, I remember where my phone is: under the bed. The Internet reminds me that I’m a thirty-five-year-old male of fluid sexual preferences. Good to know. I open a career tracker. Apparently I’m supposed to be designing a series of net-spots for a grocery chain.

Well, whatever pays the bills. I throw on some poplin, head to the street in search of stimulants. I’m not concerned about my memory lapses. It’s the price of living in a fast-paced world. You learn to adapt. Memory is overrated, anyway.

Most of the time.

* * * *

On Wednesday I call Ming and tell him I’ve made up my mind. I’m going to do the lim.

“That’s great!” Ming grins up from my wrist display. Ming always seems to be grinning. He needs to practice being personable, since his job is low on human contact. “Always happy to support a friend!”

I take the hint and wire him a credit hit, bundled options and securities backed by a package of sub-rights to African mining contracts. The market for mineral rights has been stable lately; I’ve got a lot of such securities in my portfolio.

I used to feel strange about bribing people like Ming—bribing the government datajocks, I mean. But Ming says it’s factored into their pay, like tips for waiters. They’re expected to do “personal research” on the side.

Ming’s eyes twinkle as the funds find their sweet spot. He likes to run emoteffects on his visual streams. I’m grateful he doesn’t favor laugh tracks.

“So what’s your hook?” he asks me. “Face, place, or thing?”

“Face.”

“How old is the contact?”

I search my memory. Of course, if my memory were good for much, I wouldn’t be doing this.

“I’m not sure.”

“Ah.” A tiny light bulb appears above Ming’s pixilated head. “You had a flashback?”

“That’s right.”

“Tell me about it.”

“I was in a bus, riding through a ghetto.”

“Where?”

“I don’t know. Gray tenements and hardware stores. Black, Jewish, Latin.”

“Could be anywhere,” Ming says.

“Then it came to me. A memory. A girl with curly bangs. Petite. Short, dark hair. She was standing in a door. The sun was behind her. I remember blowing curtains.”

“Audio?” Ming says.

“No.”

“Smells?”

“Smoke.”

“Interesting.” I hear Ming clicking, fussing. “Who was she, do you think? Lover? Friend? Not to put a fine point on it: did you get sexy vibes?”

“She was holding a cigarette. She put it out. That was all.”

“What’s the affect? How did you feel?”

“I felt hope.”

“Sounds like a hard case,” Ming says. “You’ve got a pile of weak markers, there. Not to put a fine point on it: this could take a long time.”

“Not to put a fine point on it: how long are we talking?”

“No more than two weeks. You mind wearing glasses for that long?”

“Not if they’re fashionable.”

“Awesome. Here’s the plan. I’ll send you a lim kit by mail: glasses, headphones, a slow-release scent capsule. Be careful with them; you have to return them when you’re done. We’ll run visuals on you by day and try some scents and audio at night. Of course we’ll be monitoring your reactions the whole time.”

“Will I notice anything?”

“What do you think, Einstein? They call it subliminal stimulation for a reason. No, you won’t notice anything, but your body will. Conditioned responses and such. You can go about your normal business, but you’ll feel a bit disoriented.”

“What else is new?”

He grins. “Don’t make any impulse purchases. Seriously, Ray, you sure you want to put yourself through this? All to dig up the name of some ancient one-night stand? Some face in the crowd?”

“For hope,” I say, “I’d put myself through anything.”

* * * *

I lie awake that night thinking about the girl I’m going to find—the beautiful woman buried in my memory. The thought of her waiting back there, out there—in there—is like a good song that never stops playing. Who was she? Did she love me? Has she forgotten all about me, as I’ve very nearly forgotten her?

* * * *

Thursday is coffee with Ruben, a quick discussion of the FoodWay contract. I get lost on the way to the meeting. The bus routes have changed again. I check the mapping services, but they’re all behind the times, or maybe ahead of the times.

I end up in a new hood, fresh towers going up on all sides, a smell of melted polymers in the air. You can see the buildings growing like huge black crystals, invading the light-polluted sky. The construction-bots are hard at work. I hear them, busy as bees, droning like a microwave.

At last I find the location of the lunch meeting, a new joint by the river with tapestries and rattan furniture. Espresso steam wanders like the Milky Way across the eyes of the prettyboy cashier. The cashier tells me I look like Van Gogh, but, you know, less green. I wire him a big tip.

Ruben sits in the back, waving. Ruben is Claire’s replacement. I never met Claire. I have only met Ruben, and only twice. He tells me I look tired. I tell him espresso has that effect on me. I tell him it’s ironic.

“You remember Boris, right?” Ruben says. A big flat-nosed man nods from a nearby chair. “And Yevgeni?” Ruben says. Another figure swivels. “They’re looking for an update on the Vendi account,” Ruben says.

“I thought this was the FoodWay account,” I say.

“It is,” says Ruben. “It’s also the Vendi account. The Vendi account is a sub-account of the FoodWay account.”

“Just show us the proofs,” the man named Boris says.

I wire them some proofs I have in my portfolio. I don’t remember making the proofs. Maybe I subcontracted for them. At any rate, the men seem satisfied. They pay me with a bundle of account-addresses and passkeys, access to microfinance funds maintained by a Balkan state. It’s a little shady, but I don’t complain.

Boris says, “Pow,” when he transfers the account numbers. I remember him now. He always says Pow.

Yevgeni says, “Don’t spend it all on one face.”

“You guys need a new shtick,” I say.

Yevgeni says, “Forget shtick. Take a look at those crumpets.”

He’s looking at something behind me. I ask, “Do they have crumpets here?” For some reason everyone laughs.

* * * *

Friday I pick up the limpack. The glasses are smart enough. In Boondock Montana they might pass for a real accessory. There’s also a patch that goes under my arm. The scent pack is a little thing that clips to my collar. The earphones are labeled, For Night Use Only.

I put the glasses on and wait for something to happen. I stare hard at the lenses, searching for subliminal images. I don’t see a thing. There’s a button on the frame. When I press it, I see Terms of Use displayed in the glasses, pre-signed, though I don’t remember signing anything. I skim the legalese.

. . . by submitting to subliminal mnemonic stimulation, you grant to the Federated Archives rights and access to all private records bearing on the identification of target events, and further . . .

. . . signify your understanding that monitored reactions will include, but not be limited to: pupil dilation, muscle contraction, skin conductivity, sub-vocalizations (in complying polities), vocalized pseudo-references (i.e. Freudian slips), heart rate, respiratory rate . . .

. . . for the sole purpose of tracing so-called “unconscious memories” . . .

An awful lot of boilerplate for a process that amounts to hi-tech fortune telling. I press the button again, and the contract disappears. I put the earpiece and headphones in my computer case.

* * * *

Friday night is a free night. I check my feeds. Diane wants to talk. Someone named Betty wants to get to know me. Roger will be at the 2fer. I post a vague status so no one will be offended.

I activate the bedroom mirror and try the glasses with ten different shirts. Nothing matches, so I put in an order: yellow, imitation jacquard. I hit the fridge and say, “Shake me. Banana.” I drink the shake and pick up my shirt at the hall dispenser.

Before I leave, I check the mirror again. “No date, no fate,” I tell my reflection.

The 2fer is a dead zone, not a prettyboy or chickadee in sight. Funny; it used to be so hip. I look for MacAttack, but it’s gone. The Shark Lounge is closed for renovations. I have a running tab at the Shark Lounge, and the scanner by the door picks up my RFID. It tells me there’s been a change of location; try Reagan Street. I don’t know where that is. I hit the maps and there’s no Reagan Street anywhere in the three cities. Big surprise. Presidents are out. All the streets are named after Japanese baseball players now, like the parks. I decide to try One-Eight.

The neighborhood around One-Eight has changed. It’s a candyland, now, all glass and light, a carnival atmosphere. The tourists have gotten hold of it. I miss the gritty look it had last month.

Inside One-Eight, everything smells like frangipani. They’re doing smoke-art above the dance floor. The west bar has been colonized by a flock of chickadees trading drug-laced pacifiers. Not my scene. Light breaks in the east: a prettyboy winks at me above the milling heads. Something in my brain cries out cashier, but I can’t think where I’ve seen him. A little while ago I hooked up with a wrap shop cashier, but that was a chickadee. I remember breasts, knee-high boots.

The prettyboy sidles to my side. “Van Gogh!”

It connects. I grin. “A little less green.”

“Take a sip of that.” He points at the drink he just handed me. “You may turn green after all.”

The drink tastes of sweetness, joy, disinhibition. “What’s your dating tag?” I say to my new companion.

“Michael.”

“Like the archangel.”

“Sure. If you behave.” He studies my face in the glow of the smoke-art display. “How long have you been around, Vincent?”

At the moment, I can’t remember. I flash him my stats. He skims the numbers. “Well, well, Mr. Old-Timer. Looks like you’ll be paying me, tonight.”

“That’s all right. I’m rolling in credit.”

“You’d better be,” Michael says. “I’m two thirds your age.”

I nudge him toward the bar. “Come on. I’ve got a fresh credit line I’ve been waiting to tap. Russian oil money, peaking on a scare. Let’s blow it before they invent cold fusion.”

“I don’t know if they take oil here,” Michael says.

“They’ll take it the way I plan to spend it.”

At the bar there are mirrors and fluorescents. I get a good look at Michael. He really is an angel. Gold hair and feather-soft skin. I promise myself not to forget his face. I’m generous with promises when I tap new credit.

I stroke his forearm. “Boy, I’m going to blow a fortune tonight. All on one face. Don’t tell Yevgeni.”

“Don’t tell who?”

I shake my head. “Cross-connect.”

Michael points at the menu. “Hey! Look what they have!”

I follow his finger to the drink specials, laugh and give him a squeeze.

“Vincent and I,” Michael tells the bartender, “are going to share a Starry Night.”

* * * *

Saturday morning is Michael in a mask, Michael biting a zipper, Michael tossing me this way and that. Michael has nice abs and shoulders, no chest. His skin is soft and hairless, like a child’s. I’m happy with his appearance, with my own performance. Sometimes I like being an Old Timer.

We rip my flimsy folding bed from the wall and frolic like two castaways. For once, I’m glad to be living in cheap housing, even if it means moving ten times a year.

By the time we’re tuckered out, it’s bright morning. I climb out of bed and get my glasses off the nightstand. Michael watches me put them on.

“You’re limming, huh? I noticed those last night. Face, place, or thing?”

“Face,” I say, climbing back into bed. “Some girl I used to know.”

I don’t tell him what the girl means to me. I don’t tell him her face is like a song, a holiday decoration, a sudden intensification of sunlight—an image that fills me with hope.

Michael says, “Don’t get too excited. I tried it once. Limming. I was looking for an old video game I used to play, when I lived with my mother in her bungalow in Cuba.” His voice grows steadily quieter as he speaks, so that listening to him is like falling asleep.

“All I remembered,” Michael says, “was standing in a palace, by the sea. Thousands of rooms. I didn’t remember what the game was about. Only that scene.”

I hear an argument through the thin walls, the sound of streaming TV, unfamiliar languages. A chorus of alarms serenades us, fades.

“It didn’t take long to track it down,” Michael says. “A day of limming screenshots. Glasses only. After ten hours they called with the ocular response charts. I played the game again. It was awful.”

“Those old games never hold up,” I say. “The industry’s advancing at light speed.”

Michael shakes his head. “That wasn’t the problem. The thing is, before I found the game, I felt like the past still existed in some way. You know? Like it was all out there waiting for me. But when I played that game, I realized it was gone. The bungalows, my mother, the beaches, the coastline. Even Cuba. Does Cuba still exist?”

He squints, as though he can see the scene above us even now, the palace by the sea with its myriad towers and windows.

“Maybe it’s not so good to have a strong memory,” Michael says. “Maybe in some ways it’s smarter to forget.”

I stare at the ceiling through my glasses. Michael’s story hangs over us like a tent. I feel that we’re trapped in a cell, that our silence is eating up the air. We’re going to suffocate if we don’t speak soon.

“That’s too bad,” I say. I give Michael a kiss. “I’m going to the bathroom. I’ll be right back.”

When I come out of the bathroom, Michael is gone.

* * * *

On Sunday I have another meeting for the FoodWay contract, across town in a corporate park. The bus routes have changed again. The trains are on a reduced schedule due to a police investigation. No one seems to know what the investigation is about. I try to rent a car, but the computer on the phone says my credit is bad.

“Which credit?” I say. “I have two hundred credit lines in my pocket portfolio.”

The AI says, “Sorry, chump. I’m not licensed to reveal that information.”

“Is it the Russian oil? Did they invent fusion power?”

“How would I know, jerk?” the AI says and disconnects.

I decide to risk the zip-lines. I head to the terminal and strap myself into the suit. A robot hooks me to the cable, and next thing I know I’m reeling across town, my own private sky-car. I feel nauseous. The lim is getting to me. I keep picturing blowing curtains, flowing cigarette smoke. I hear a girl’s voice.

By the end of the trip I’m dizzy as though after deep dreams. The zip-line dumps me in the wrong neighborhood. I stagger across the landing platform. “What the hell?” I say to the robot at the terminal. “I have an appointment, you know.”

The robot displays a virtual person on its public interface screen.

“This is your appointment, moron. Change of venue. It’s in your public calendar. What, did you forget? Stupid!”

I’m getting sick of these new AIs, with their so-called authentic attitude. “Appointments are old-fashioned, anyway,” I grumble, and stalk away.

It’s an old neighborhood, behind the fashion curve by a year at least. Helium-purple and obsidian trim, pennoncels and half-arches, neo-Brancusian curvomatics. Flowerbeds.

The FoodWay appointment is in a curved faux-stone tower, a gray talon. I’m only an hour late. Except now they’re no longer FoodWay, and Ruben’s a no-show. In the rented conference room I find a short Asian man at a teak-top table.

“Simon!” he says, rising to greet me.

“I’m Ray,” I say. “And I think I’m in the wrong place.”

“What are you looking for?” the Asian man says.

“FoodWay. Vendi. Design contract.”

“Yes!” he says, smiling. “Except, no. No more FoodWay. Now, Lodexho-Yu.”

“Bought out, huh?”

“Last night. I am Jurgen.”

“Jurgen?” I take a seat at the teak-top. “What have you done with Ruben?”

Jurgen’s face puckers with confusion. “Who?”

“Ruben,” I say. “Tall guy. Good taste in shirts. He was filling in for Claire.”

“Who?”

“Claire. She works for FoodWay. I mean, Vendi. I mean, Lodexho-Yu.”

“We are Lodexho-Yu.”

“So Claire no longer works for you?”

“Who is this Claire?”

“I don’t know. I never met her. All I know is that she hired Ruben.”

“Ruben?”

“The guy with the shirts.”

“My friend,” Jurgen says, “we all wear shirts.”

I have no response to this. Jurgen gives the table a rap. “Simon,” he says.

“My name is Ray.”

“We are concerned,” Jurgen says, thumbing through a laminated portfolio, “about your designs.”

“What’s wrong with them?”

Jurgen squints at one of my proofs. He flips it over. He rotates it. “They are . . . old-fashioned.”

“That’s because FoodWay,” I say, “is an old-fashioned company.”

“There is no FoodWay,” Jurgen says. “We are Lodexho-Yu.”

“I know.” I pat the table. “Things change. I understand completely. You have my total support.”

“Ray.”

“My name is Simon.”

“Simon.”

“I mean Ray.”

“We will accept your designs, Ray. But we insist on owning full modification rights. And there will be a currency downgrade.”

My blood goes bubbly. “No more Shanghai electrics?”

“We are prepared to give you,” Jurgen says soberly, “a fully diversified collectibles package—”

“Collectibles!” I practically fall out of my chair.

“With autotrades enabled—”

“You’re paying me in comic book and action figure securities?”

“—in five major markets—”

“Just let me redo the contract!”

“And that,” Jurgen says, “is our final offer.”

I feel the flashback coming a second before it hits. The memories rise in me like nausea. Flowers in a field. The Eiffel Tower gowned in light. A fly on a yellow curtain. A woman’s voice. Where did I encounter these things? Five years ago? Ten years ago? What do they mean?

“Ray?” Jurgen’s voice comes from far away. “Simon? Ruben?”

“It’s okay,” I stammer. “I’m limming. It’s a government project. I’m connecting with my past.”

I get to my feet, knocking over my chair.

“I’m looking for a girl,” I explain. “Someone I used to know . . .”

“Ray? Are you all right?”

“My name,” I shriek, striking the table, “is Vincent!”

Pain runs up my arm; the memories vanish. Beyond Jurgen’s worried face, I see a new skyscraper going up, teeming with construction-bots, crawling into the sky like a monstrous caterpillar. “There goes the neighborhood,” I say.

Jurgen shakes his head.

“I’m sorry,” I say. “I’m tired. Too much espresso. It’s ironic, you see. Can we reschedule? Would Tuesday work for you?”

“On Tuesdays,” Jurgen says, “I live in California.”

I stare at him for a full minute before I realize I’ve been brushed off.

“You know,” I say, on my way out the door, “the guys from Vendi liked my proofs just fine.”

Jurgen rolls his eyes. “What can you expect from the Japanese?”

* * * *

I wander the skywalks in a daze, tower to tower. In an enclosed glass footbridge I pause and watch a storm develop over the triple cities, even though my phone tells me no storms are scheduled till the end of the week.

I decide to call Ming. He answers after twenty-seven rings.

“Hey. How are things? Joseph, isn’t it?” Ming’s eyes sparkle like stars.

“It’s Ray,” I say. “And I’m losing my mind.”

“Oh, that’s right. You’re limming.” His face literally beams at me, projecting golden rays. Through the audio I hear him tapping and shuffling, looking up my file. “A face. A bus ride. Flashing lights. We’ve been running curtains, shoes, and cigarettes on you. The cigarettes are a bust. I see you haven’t used the scent pack. You say you’ve been getting some bleedthrough?”

“I don’t know what that means.”

“The subliminals. They’re working up into your conscious thoughts? You’re seeing things? Getting flashbacks? Mood swings?”

“I’m flipping out,” I say. “I just blew an important contract.”

“It’s your memory, champ. You’re not used to using it.”

“They’re paying me in collectibles, Ming. If they decide to pay me at all.”

“I used to collect things, once,” Ming says. “Butterflies. Shark teeth. Now there’s some guy in Malaysia who does it for me. A trust fund, you know. I wonder if he still keeps up with it.”

“Ming, I’ve got to find her.”

“His name is Ananda. He works by referral only. I could give you a letter, but I can’t promise anything.”

“Ming, what are you talking about?”

“I was in coins, after teeth. Then newspapers. Then coral. Then coins again. I should have stayed with coral. It’s dying out the fastest.”

“The girl, Ming. Not the collector. I’m talking about the girl. The girl with curly hair, from my memory. The girl who meant something to me, once.”

Ming frowns, and a question mark glows above his head. “I thought you said you were moving into collectibles.”

“I’ve got to find her,” I say. “She gave me hope, Ming. Do you know what that’s like?”

His image is all warm smiles and sunshine, but I hear him sigh. “Look, Joe. I mean, Ray. We’re zeroing in. But it takes time. Currently, we’ve got significant ocular response to a curtain swatch. Only three companies have ever used the pattern. They track usage, of course, through public photo uploads, and if we kick over some credit I can tap their indices—”

“How much, Ming?”

“Excuse me?”

“How much credit will this take?”

“Backed by collectibles? I don’t know. Unless you’re trading in scrimshaw. I heard the last sperm whale died last week. Not to put too fine a point on it, Ray, but—”

“Forget it. I’ll give up on the pocket accounts, tap my savings portfolio. Just find her, Ming. Please.”

* * * *

Monday is a new account, a flight to Nebraska, an agribusiness tycoon in an office tower grinning over stock photography.

Tuesday is a recreational day. Wednesday is my recovery from the recreational day. Thursday is also a recovery.

Friday I fly to Johannesburg to replenish my supply of recreational substances.

Saturday through Tuesday are a blur.

Wednesday night is recuperation in the arms of a busty brunette. She calls me Duce and I call her Clara. I feed her lingerie from the hall dispenser. She asks me to strip and stand in the corner. “Nice crumpets,” she tells me, and I force a laugh.

Thursday, Ming calls. “You reacted in a big way to government housing in Paris. Lots of ocular response, skin conductivity spikes. We’re getting close.”

Sunday, I’m evicted from my apartment. It’s not my fault: the whole building has been torn down. Seems the Israeli landlord invested too heavily in cold fusion. “Tough break, champ,” the new AI landlord says.

Sunday night I have a breakdown. I see visions. I’m on a Paris street. I hear the ocean. I’m on a cliff above the sea. I’m lost in a magic palace in which all rooms connect, looking for someone, but I can’t seem to find her . . . I feel my mother’s presence. Does my mother live near the sea? Last I heard, my mother was designing belts in Moscow. Is this even my own memory, my own past?

Someone told me once that it’s better to forget the past. An angel. Or perhaps it was my father. At any rate, I’m starting to see what he meant.

More visions of the girl with curly hair. Yellow light glows behind her, cigarette smoke trickles past her eyes. The sensation of hope is like a taste, like honeydew, like fruit punch.

On Monday, Ming calls again. “We found her.”

* * * *

I book a red-eye to Spain. My mystery girl lives there, according to Ming. Her name is Jeanine. I say the name to myself repeatedly. It’s charming and strange that the girl should have a name.

In the airport I realize I ought to warn Jeanine I’m coming. I take out my phone. What if Jeanine speaks only Spanish? I make sure my translation software is up to date and leave a voice message. I try to be vague but not creepy, suave but not sleazy.

The flight passes in a haze of video games. Spain rises around me, old stone foundations capped with glassy towers. Is this Barcelona? Did it used to be Barcelona? The signs are in an unfamiliar script. The people speak a strange language, not Spanish, not English. My wristex GPS guides me over a medley of pavements, cobbles and concrete slabs, macadam, recycled lignin binding artificial soilbeds.

I’m in the city center when Jeanine calls back. On my wrist, she looks just as I remember, small, pretty, bangs in her eyes.

“Ray?” She speaks English, with a faint Irish accent.

“You remember me.”

Her face is hard to read. Amusement? Anger? She says, “Oh, you bet.”

We meet in a bookshop, a paneled parlor with rickety chairs. People line up at the recycler, dumping in old books and wedding catalogs, waiting as the scrubber and printer grind away, walking off happily with travel guides and magazines.

Jeanine sits at a table by the coffee bar. When I see her, it hits me again—pure hope, so powerful it nearly unhinges my knees. It’s like arriving in a new country, like buying a new home.

I sit across from her. We watch each other for a long time.

“Listen,” I say. “I’m going to level with you, Jeanine. I don’t remember you very well. You know the story: life is hectic, things move too fast. It’s overwhelming, it’s overstimulating—frankly, I don’t have time to worry about it. I found you with a lim. I want you to know that.”

Jeanine lights a cigarette.

“I remember your face,” I say. “I remember you with a cigarette, just like now. I remember that you meant something to me, once. You gave me hope.”

Jeanine takes a drag. Smoke pours from her nose. The future is here, imminent and wonderful; I can sense it, a wilderness of lights rushing up to swallow me, dazzling and hopeful like a city below a plane.

“Unbelievable,” Jeanine says.

I prickle with fear.

“You don’t remember. You really don’t.”

I grip my coffee cup with both hands. “I want to remember. Please.”

“Poor Ray. Still living the fast life, after all these years.”

The book recycler thumps and growls. A bookstore patron walks away with a celebrity memoir.

“It’s a wild life, isn’t?” says Jeanine. “A bright, exciting world. And it keeps getting better and better, all the time.”

For the first time in my life I feel truly lost. I see myself standing atop a palace by the sea. Is it a memory? What does the image mean?

“Eight years ago,” Jeanine says, tapping ash from her cigarette, “I was a young untalented artist, living in Paris. You showed up on my doorstep, said you knew me from somewhere, just like now. A vision, you said, a memory. You scared me, at first. But you were so hopeful. You really believed.”

Construction-bots are remodeling a building across the street, turning it into a shoe store. “What happened?” I whisper.

“What do you think? It was thrilling, at first. Like a hunt for buried treasure. We traveled Europe, talked through the night. We looked at old photographs, films, journals, games. I was so excited. Think of it! A handsome man, coming out of the blue, talking about fate and hope.

“It was thrilling,” Jeanine says, “and then it wasn’t. All the searching we did. So many moments, so many records. I couldn’t believe how much I’d forgotten.”

She aims her cigarette at my eyes: a challenge.

“Was that really me in the photographs? That girl with the ponytail? Had I really lived in that house, kissed that boy? Was that really my online journal; were those really my childhood friends? It was grueling. The closer we looked at the past, the more distant it seemed. I started to think about what it means, then—to be a ghost in a machine.”

“But we found something,” I say. “We must have found something. I remember . . .”

“We sure tried. We paid the government datajocks everything we had. Dig up the past for us, tell us what it means! Quite a racket those folks run.”

The coffee shop is changing around us, wood turning to metal, glass to fabric. My chair shrinks, buckles, folds in on itself, so gently that I scarcely notice I’m sinking toward the floor. A passing man notices my discomfiture, waves and laughs. “Remodeling,” he says. “Every morning at nine. Programmable nano-materials. Isn’t it neat?”

Did he really say “neat”? Is my translation software up to date?

Jeanine is changing, too. She taps something behind her ear. Her hair turns yellow. Her curls uncurl. Long, straight locks hang around her eyes. Her muscles twitch, tense; her face pulls back, tight on the bones. New eyebrow hairs sprout; her lipstick changes color; her eyes phase from gray to blue.

“But our connection,” I say desperately. “We had a connection. We meant something to each other.”

Jeanine is taller now, thinner. My chair has become a cushion. We’re in a Japanese tearoom, all cedar and clean lines.

“What do you want the past to be, Ray?” Her voice is changed, unfamiliar. She has a French accent. She looks at her cigarette. “Isn’t that the point?”

“Were we lovers?” I say. “Friends? Siblings? Are you a celebrity? Help me, Jeanine, please. I feel—I don’t know what I feel.”

Jeanine is now a blonde woman, young and tall. When she taps her cigarette, it turns to smoke and blows away. She lifts a handbag off a nearby table. “I’m late for an appointment. And my name isn’t Jeanine, these days. It’s Daphne.”

“Help!” I shout, falling off my cushion. “Please help me remember!”

Daphne pauses. Is that pity in her eyes, or disgust?

“At this point in my life, Ray, I’m more focused on forgetting.”

She doesn’t look back as she heads for the door.

* * * *

The next weeks are a flurry of flights, rescheduling, damage control. Moscow, Tokyo, Mumbai, Prague. I live on energy boosters, vitamins, cocaine, caffeine. I plug into the sleep-simulation booths for ten-minute naps, make it through whole workweeks on two hours of sleep. I ride a wave of drugs and lights, soothed by the hands of prettyboys and chickadees, harried by a dozen new contracts I’ve taken on.

One day I have an attack. Total memory breakdown. I can’t remember my job, my address, not even my age. When I come to I’m in a Toronto apartment, hardwood floors, plenty of light. A new building by a new canal, watery reflections winking through the windows.

My mind is a blank slate, raw from its recent cleansing. It’s better this way. It’s important to adapt. I appoint the apartment in disposable furniture, order new shirts. Plaid is back, apparently, and lace.

Apparently, I’m involved in some sort of agribusiness contract. It pays off big. Industrial pith, pyrethrum. My contact’s name is Claire.

“I knew a Claire, once,” I say. “I believe she had good taste in shirts. You don’t think—?”

Claire shakes her head. “Until last week, I was a man.”

Claire and I head home and rip my disposable bed from the wall. We tussle. We gasp. When I compliment her crumpets, she laughs. “I love retro slang.”

Only one thing mars the moment. A vision: I’m in a palace by the ocean, searching for someone in the countless rooms. I find him at last; he embraces me, feather-soft and blonde, a young strong angel in my arms.

I file a mental note to call Ming tomorrow. Rent a lim kit, track down the scene. Just one problem, one cause for doubt.

When have I ever lived by the sea?