Chapter 3
Clean Slate by Lola Phoenix
I’m serialising my science fiction novel here, with new chapters posted weekly.
About Clean Slate
Clean Slate is a science fiction novel about memory, identity, and what we’re willing to sacrifice to escape our past. Lavender has what seems like a comfortable life, until everything she knows is called into question. For a more extensive description of the book, please visit the About section.
“You don’t have to do this if you don’t want to, you know,” Cal said, helping Lav into a wheelchair from her bed. She could have shuffled her way to where they were going, but she didn’t have the strength in her legs to move her body or her soul to argue.
“I don’t know... I feel like I have to,” Lav said. She had gone from wanting to leave the bed to figure out whether or not she was being lied to to accepting the defeat of it all and not having the strength to leave the bed, which only made the fatigue in her muscles continue. But, the intense curiosity of what information the message held drew her like a moth to a flame.
Cal pushed her out of the room as she settled in the chair. “You’re allowed to stop the message at any time, if it gets too much.”
“Would it get too much?” Lav asked as they turned right, down the empty white hall.
“I can’t really say if it would or not. I don’t know what’s in the message. We’re not allowed to watch it.”
“What?” Lav said, turning in the chair and bringing Cal into focus. “What do you mean?”
Cal chose their words carefully, dipping under the truth like a spy in a film dodging a laser alarm.
“When we ran the program tests, we found that the AI minds coped better when adjusting to real life knowing that only they knew the contents of the message. Other times... they thought we had created the message and lost faith in it. So now, we– we think the option to view the message on your own is the best going forward.”
Lav wanted to ask what kinds of reactions the AI had once they thought the message was made up, but she kept silent. She wished she hadn’t asked about them at all because her brain had now grabbed hold of the idea that this was one massive illusion, still, and clung to it for dear life, hoping seeing Darren again would be the end result.
She watched the white walls move past her, staying silent. If she was now in the real world, shouldn’t she feel different? She was still waiting for something to happen. Some sign this was her real life. Or for her to touch something, taste something or do something that launched the world into glorious technicolor. Instead, she just felt grey and numb.
The room Cal pushed her into was similarly dreary and cold as everything else she had seen. It was white like the other rooms but with a raised platform on the left side. A hospital bed sat on the right side, one just like hers from the room she’d stayed in. Several different types of monitors decked the walls near the bed and some of what Lav assumed were computers were near the platform. It looked like some weird hospital teleconference. She wanted to ask, but couldn’t find the energy to bother. Maybe she was hoping the room would be so different it would wake her up, but it hadn’t.
Cal pushed her chair further, closer to the platform and, after grabbing something off of the computer, faced her.
“This is the remote and everything’s already been set up. Push the red button here to start the message. Press it again to stop it. When you’ve stopped it, it’ll ping for me to come in but... I’ll give you a few minutes. If you don’t stop it, it’ll just play out. You can replay it if you want by pressing this here. And if you need me to come in right away, you can press this speaker button here. Is that all right?”
Lav felt the cold white plastic in her hand. There were some other buttons that looked like numbers, but it didn’t mean anything to her. She nodded.
“The message is only a few minutes long but you can take as much time as you need, okay? If I come in and you’re... looking like you need some more time, I’ll go out again and come back later.”
“Okay,” Lav said.
Cal swiftly left the room and the beginnings of fear boiled in Lav’s stomach. She only just realised she had absolutely no idea what was on the message and it could be anything. Or anyone. And she had no way of knowing what she was about to see.
She sat for a minute in the room, frozen and hoping the message would play on its own. Taking a deep breath, she pressed the button on the plastic remote.
A blue light poured in from the ceiling down to the white platform and something within it waved and wobbled until it formed a figure that looked almost as she last remembered seeing herself, with some unsettling, intense differences. Looking at the figure, Lav’s stomach churned the way it had when they told her Darren never existed.
It was her, but it wasn’t. The figure was gaunt, the skin pulled tightly across the face. The blue made it impossible to tell if this new or realer Lavender was shades paler or yellower than her, but the way the figure’s eyes bulged out of her skull made her look infected. Lav looked at Nae and recoiled.
“Nae” a voice came that sounded like hers, but slightly muffled, from the blue, gaunt figure, “Or... I mean, I guess your name is Lavender now. That’s the name I gave you.”
The figure hid behind a frail fringe of hair and picked at the hem of her t-shirt the way Lav had picked at the hem of the white linens in her hospital bed. The figure’s eyes darted back and forth in a way Lav couldn’t help but notice. She’d hoped her eyes didn’t do the same. Nae looked starved in more ways than one.
“If you’re listening to this message, it means that you’ve now left the Clean Slate program. And it means you’ve... lived the life that I wished I could have had. When they told me to record this, they said that I should explain to you why I came into the program or tell what you should expect if you chose to remember everything but... I don’t want to tell you about my life... or, I guess... our life. I don’t know what kind of person you’re going to be, but I know myself. You’re a stubborn jackass.”
If Lav hadn’t been so floored by what she saw, she probably would have laughed. It was objectively funny. Darren used to call her stubborn, but not a jackass. Now, from the worst version of herself after she had lost everything, it felt like a cruel joke. As Nae spoke, she grew like an animal backed into a corner. Her shoulders began to square, her chest puffed out and her jaw clenched. It looked like she only had two settings: terrified or terrifying.
“And... I don’t know if with your cushy life you’re offended by shit like that but, you know what? It is what it is, okay? Look, there’s a lot about my life that’s been a royal piece of shit. And I’m not messing around when I say that to you. You do not want my life. You do not want to remember the things I remember. You do not want to know the things I know. As much as I’ve rolled my eyes at the fucking yuppies in the world living in their fucking closed off neighbourhoods and acting like they’re better than me... shit, who the fuck wants my life, you know? I mean... I’m hoping you won’t become some stuck up, spoiled rich prick but I’ve got to believe, with the parents I’ve given you, even if you do have all of the things I wanted to have, you won’t...
“But trust me okay? You don’t want my life. There have been good things, yeah but... most of it... It’s not worth it. I don’t know what you’re going to do, whether you’re going to go back into Clean Slate or you’re going to go on in this miserable world but... I think you should go back into Clean Slate... And I know what you’re saying, ‘Who wants to live in a fake world’, right? Well, I’ve got news for you. The real world is just as fake. All of life is fake. Bullshit. Bogus. Made up. All of it. There’s no justice in this world. There’s nothing but a bunch of horrible pieces of shit who don’t know how to do anything but hurt each other. That’s what the world is.”
Lav wasn’t sure if it was the excessive cursing, the bluntness, or just the grotesque reality of seeing yourself act in a way that was so fundamentally not like you – but she felt her skin crawl.
“Clean Slate is a really good deal. Think about it. It’s a world where you don’t have to worry about anyone beating you or hurting you anymore. You can have a good life, have them set you up with a nice place and a nice job. Shit, you could have them set you up as a movie star if you wanted them to. It’s much better than this shit heap of a world. I know they probably want you to go on with life and be healed and whatever, but that’s not my plan. That’s why I’m not going to tell you anything but go back in it. Even if you think you’ve not had a great life. They were telling me that they could like… stop some really horrible shit from happening to me but that I still might lose some people in the program. And I don’t know what it is but sometimes I get feelings about things. I feel like you might have lost someone--”
Lav looked away from the figure as dread creeped up her spine. She wasn’t here to think about Darren. She wanted to stop but her hand was frozen.
“But as much as that fucking sucks, it’s so much better than what you got out here. Stay in there. You don’t wanna be here no matter how real you think it is. It’s a shithole. So what if it’s fake? A fake good life is better than a real shit life. Have them erase your mind or whatever and go back to the awesome fake life I’ve given you. It’s my present to myself. I’m finally doing something I should do for myself. Only worry about myself and fix myself. Don’t relive the memories. Don’t bother with any of it. Have them hook you right back up to the machine and go back in there. Trust me. Go back. And don’t look back. Never look back.”
Suddenly, the blue figure disappeared and Lav sat alone in the dark.
The plastic remote had warmed in her hand. She thought about replaying it and examining all of the hard edges of who she was, picking it apart. It took a few moments of contemplation for Lavender to realise that that was truly it. She still had no better idea of what her memories would hold and whether or not she should choose to remember them. And she was faced with the complexity that she didn’t even really like who she once was.
She catapulted the remote across the room, wishing it had connected with Nae’s head. She had minutes to tell her details about what happened so she could make up her mind decently and Nae barely gave a hint. Nae was right about one thing though – she was a jackass.
The door cracked open and Cal called out tentatively, “The buzzer went off. Am I okay to come in?”
“Yes,” Lav said, trying to straighten her expression, “I’d like to uh… go back to my room if I can.”
“Sure,” Cal said, pulling her chair from the darkness and heading down the blank hallway without a word. They wanted to ask what Lav saw, but her whole body tensed and they could tell when they helped her back into bed that something in her wanted to break, but not in front of them.
She pulled the white linens over her body and then, rolling to her side, over her head. Cal stared awkwardly as she turned away, squeezing her eyes shut.
“I’ll… give you some space. I’ll leave the remote here on the table. Call me if you need me,” Cal said, quickly leaving the room.
Lav lay in the same frozen position until she fell asleep, waking the next morning to do the same. She ignored her stomach growls and allowed her mind to spin itself into tired circles, taking sharp turns that would run headfirst into deep grief and sadness. Only when she slept would it stop churning. Her mind spun so fast, she could ignore tears falling from her eyes and mucus leaking from her nose and not bother to wipe. It was sucking the energy out of her entire body, leaving no room for anything else.
“She can’t just sit in bed like this all day,” Dr. Erota said, as she and Cal watched Nae languishing from the observation room.
“She’s depressed,” Cal said flatly, “This is what a lot of depressed people do. She’s probably contemplating suicide as well, given the enormous amount of stress all of this has caused her. What exactly do you expect me to do? Tell her it’s not all that bad? It is. I’m a psychologist, not a miracle worker.”
“Get her out of bed?” Eira suggested, “We don’t have time for this. We need her to make a decision.”
Cal swallowed the remainder of the coffee in the cup they were holding and set it on the desk behind them, folding their arms across their chest. “What is it that you pictured when you saw this in your head, Eira? That she’d come out of Clean Slate and thank you for everything you’ve done? Just like all the other ones have, huh? What the hell do you expect when you create a false reality for someone and then you yank them from it like—“
“That wasn’t planned,” Eira defended herself, still hiding behind her clipboard, “That was—“
“An accident , yeah?” Cal jeered, “But what about all of those times when it wasn’t an accident? When it was planned fully and meticulously by you both. You keep trying again and again and then I have to be the one to sit there and coach these people through some of the worst trauma they’re aware they’ve been through until they or you give up completely. It’s one thing for me to help people through the trauma in their life that I haven’t caused but it’s another thing when you keep putting people in a program that is doomed—“
“It’s not doomed!” Eira shouted, advancing forward in a way that raised Cal’s eyebrows. “All of the test scenarios—“
“People aren’t test scenarios!” Cal screamed back.
“That’s enough!” Dr. Erota snapped, dropping her calm smile and stepping between them. “Maybe you need to take a break from this Cal. Calm yourself down a little bit.”
Cal sucked their teeth. “What I need is for you all to stop playing gods and realise that these are people, not lab rats. They’re human fucking beings that aren’t always going to follow projections. And to be honest, I expect this from Eira, but not from you, Tara. For someone who writes about the human experience, you’re not behaving very much like a human.” Cal stormed out of the observation room before either of them could say very much.
Dr. Erota took a deep breath in and Eira stood awkwardly, fiddling with the clasp on her clipboard. Cal was becoming more and more insubordinate as time passed, but she didn’t have the time to find and brief another psychologist and no other psychologists had the reasons to stay and stay silent that Cal did. NDAs could account for much, but they were testing their limits as it is.
“When is the meeting?” Dr. Erota asked quietly, staring back at Nae lying on her side in bed on the screen.
“Three hours just about,” Eira said, checking her watch.
Dr. Erota rubbed her forehead, massaging her temples. “And how long has Nae been like this?”
Eira avoided looking at her. “About two days? She’s drunk some water but… she’s not really eating and she’s not really talking to anyone. Even when we try to give her food. She takes maybe one or two bites and leaves the rest.”
“We need to think of some other options. She’s not going to make this decision in the next three hours but... maybe we could have her make another decision…” Dr. Erota bit her lip, then her head shifted when she remembered, “What about a Rumspringa?”
“I uh…” Eira looked down at her clipboard as if it was going to tell her whether or not it was a good idea. “It’s... an option, but it’s not something we can predict. I don’t know if we have anything set up for it---“
“We don’t necessarily need to do a full one... if we have something set up and if she’s asleep all the time... Get Finn and Rangi on it right away so we can go into the meeting with some solutions. I can’t just show up with no idea how to proceed and tell Gene the latest case has been lying in bed for days. Something’s got to happen.”
Eira nodded, scooting out of the observation room.
Lavender’s body was beginning to smell and she was pretty sure the linens were now not as white as they had been, but she stared at the blackness of her eyelids and felt like deep down, she deserved to be as disgusting as she felt. Maybe over time she would turn back into Nae. She had seen what looked like a shower in the bathroom in her room, but she didn’t care. If she had a bedpan under her, she wouldn’t have even bothered to get up to use the toilet.
She longed for the empty, blank darkness that she thought she could remember before she woke up. Darren had disappeared and the car had crashed into her and she’d felt some pain but then she was in a world of nothing and now she longed for it. She wanted to feel the rush of nothing, but instead her heart slowly and steadily continued to beat in her chest. She willed it to stop and set her free.
Something touched her shoulder and she jumped.
“I’m sorry, Lav,” Cal said, “I didn’t mean to scare you.”
She cracked her eyes open to look at them, the light of the room stinging. She said nothing.
“I know you haven’t been feeling well… but there is another option that could help you… one that maybe you might want to consider?”
What little survival instinct her brain had gave her the energy to shove herself up against the pillows, although she still said nothing. Her mouth tasted sour. Cal continued, not waiting until she looked engaged.
“When the program was originally designed, there was another option that we had for someone who couldn’t come to a decision about what to do with their memories. Have you ever heard of a Rumspringa?”
Lav shook her head.
“It’s uh… well, it’s something the Amish practice when their children come of age so they can decide whether they want to live in Amish society or not. And it’s… kinda the same concept. You get to go out in the world for a set period of time and experience it for yourself and then it’ll help you decide whether or not you want to relive your memories. It could get you acclimated to what living in the real world would be like.”
Her mind finally stopped spinning. She breathed deeply at the relief of it.
“But…” her voice scratched. She stopped to clear her throat. “Where would I stay?”
“That’s not a problem. We’ve got some options. You’ll be able to pick from a few places to stay. It’s totally up to you. But you can go out for a few days and then… make a decision about what you want to do. How does that sound?”
Lav didn’t want to answer right away. It clearly had more appeal than sitting in her bed and hoping she would disappear. The temptation to turn, lie back down and never speak again was strong.
“Can I ask… why do you need me to decide so soon? Can’t I decide later?”
Cal tried to avoid grimacing. They couldn’t imagine Lav reacting well to tales of demanding investors and entrepreneurs and their stomach twisted at the lie, but they forced it out like a soda pop burp that burned their nostrils, “If we don’t… decide soon, we might struggle to get all of the memories back. The more you go on with the suppression… the less likely it is we’ll be able to get the memories back.”
Lav stared down at her hands, taking a breath and nodding, leaving the silence hanging between them for a moment.
“Can I… take a shower?” she finally asked and Cal looked taken aback, but nodded.
“There’s a shower in your bathroom,” Cal said like a question, pointing.
“Yeah but uh… I don’t know how it works,” Lav said, blushing.
“Oh,” Cal said smiling, “Don’t worry. Let me show you.”
She moved out of the bed and almost looked and felt like a real person and not just a hollowed-out jack-o-lantern slowly turning into mush, lying forgotten on a porch. Cal tried to hide their excitement as they showed her the touch controls for turning on the water and adjusting the heat. She’d smiled at the water coming out of the wall like a waterfall, showing more excitement when Cal had shown her how to turn it so it came out like rain instead.
It felt like Lav had done three triathlons in a row and if her mind hadn’t taken so much energy, she would have been giving Cal a high five over how cool the shower was. She remembered telling Darren that the bathroom in whatever house they might own one day was one of the most important things and he’d laughed at her when she had stressed that she must have both a very good shower with intense water pressure and a deep, claw foot tub. Her smile turned sour when she thought of how much Darren would have loved the shower.
“Well,” Cal said, rubbing their hands together after the shower tour, “I’ll leave you to it.”
Lav nodded, quickly adding before Cal left, “Do you think you could uh… get a towel for me?”
“Oh! Yeah. That would probably help, wouldn’t it?” Cal sputtered, excusing themselves from the room. “I’ll uh… leave it hanging on the door handle.”
Lav waved awkwardly and turned toward the futuristic controls. The rain setting, when she turned it up, was the perfect pressure. It massaged the weak muscles on her back and the heat steamed up the room. The grip of grief tightened again when she thought of Darren’s smile, but the fact that the shower’s water would hide her tears comforted her.
She stood in the steam after she shut off the water, letting it drip down her body. She wasn’t as clean as she’d liked, but she probably smelled nowhere near as bad as she had before. After sitting in the haze, she grabbed the towel from the door handle and wrapped it around her. Going out into the world might help her get something back that whatever this place was couldn’t give her. It was a chance for something to happen. Sitting in the sterile room wouldn’t get her anywhere. She would just lie there and wait for her story to end.
Her nose wrinkled when she stepped into the main room. It had a funny smell to it and she’d have opened a window if the room had any.
“I want to do it,” she said to Cal who had sat in the chair beside her bed, reading through papers in a folder. “I wanna go on… the thing you mentioned.”
Cal smiled, trying not to show their excitement too much. “Great. I think it would do you some good to get out of here. Come with me and we’ll get you some new clothes and talk about where you’d like to stay.”
Walking down the white hall in just her towel felt awkward, even if she knew she had to be the only patient at whatever place they were.
They turned into another blank corridor and then a similar white room, this one feeling cleaner. It was smaller with a series of computers and monitors on one side and a rack of clothes on the other. On the far-right end of the hall, one of the desks was decorated with a number of tiny figures Lav didn’t completely recognise and a few posters hanging on the wall.
Finn sat in the white chair in front of the desk with blue jeans and a different band shirt, typing faster than Lav had ever seen anyone type. The signs of stark individuality next to the bland whiteness of everything pulled her in. He turned when she approached and smiled.
“Hey! It’s good to see you out of bed.”
She nodded and clutched her towel closer to her, forgetting she was barely dressed. Finn turned his head awkwardly away after nodding to look back up to his screen, making a few movements to push some of the images from his screen up onto the larger ones hanging on the left.
“I’ve got the options for your Rumspringa available if you want to have a look,” he said, eyes still glued to his screen.
Lav could see four images in a grid. The first on the right had a very fancy looking studio apartment overlooking a cityscape. Every five seconds, she could see a different section of the flat. First the large, but minimalist bed, then the shiny and extensive kitchen, a small but sleek looking living room, and a balcony overlooking buildings she didn’t know or recognise. The last frame was of a very large orange cat, licking its paw and swiping its face. The cat seemed to notice the camera and meowed, standing up and marching towards it with interest. She loved the cat, but the minimalist decoration of the flat reminded her way too much of the sterile hospital room.
The second image contained an attached house on the outside of a city. It had a small, green lawn in front of it and a white van parked in the driveway. It was like the houses she’d seen, but something was different. The next frame was a large bedroom with a desk and a window that showed the cityscape in the distance. The room looked clean, but not empty and devoid of life. There were mismatched decorations and the sheets looked well used but not worn. The next frame was a large grey and white dog with intense blue eyes. Someone had thrown something and the dog barked and playfully chased it. And in the final frame, there were two people holding each other and smiling towards the camera, their teeth pristine and shiny and their expressions plastic. Even though the home was nice, something about the people seemed odd. She looked to the next image.
A group of four people, a few of them locking arms, waving excitedly up at her made her crack a grin. One of them had an extremely tiny dog wrapped under their arms and the dog closed its eyes as fingers with lime green nail polish scratched its head. Another clutched a toddler with a butterfly painted on their face. The house behind them looked massive, but warm. There was a below ground swimming pool and the family splashed in it in another frame. There was a cat in one of the photos and a set of adorable looking kittens. Each of their rooms had a flourish and colour scheme that seemed to match their personalities. The last frame included a fantastical looking puppet show being put on for the child, and Lav hesitated. She’d never particularly cared for or had the patience for children, so she looked at the next and final image.
It was an old looking building, very similar to the buildings that had been in the world she thought she knew. The house looked homely and comfortable, but without extravagance. Money had been spent where it had been smart to spend; such as in the very fancy flat screen. The kitchen had been new, but with lace doilies and a sign hung up that had said something about cleaning up after yourself. She smiled wide when she saw a bathroom that looked directly out of the fantasies she told Darren about. It had a deep claw foot bathtub and a very modern looking shower. And the final shot of two, sweet older people holding hands made her gasp quietly. They looked just like Ma and Mam, but if they had aged fifty more years. And she knew that was the one.
“That one,” she said, pointing to the image.
“Ah, great,” Finn said, “That’s Marjorie and Edna, both using ‘she’. They live in a lovely house together. They’re both retired and very nice. They’ve fostered a few children so they’ve got a lot of really great experience providing support. They’re really sweet ladies. You’ll do great there.”
Lav nodded solemnly, still staring at the reel of images and taking in more of the house and the smiles on the old women’s faces. When she turned back to Cal, she faltered. Rage burned in Cal’s eyes and they looked at Finn like he’d just threatened Cal’s family. When Cal turned to look back at Lav, they tried and failed to re-adjust their expression.
“I... uh... Let’s get you some clothes.” Cal said, ushering her away from the screen and towards the rack on the side of the room. “Have a look through. They should all be in your size.” Cal’s voice wavered and Lav tried to focus on finding something instead of Cal’s sudden change in temperament.
She moved the hangers on the rack very slowly, straining her ears to hear the harsh whispers between the two. She could only make out a few words but none of it made sense. She jumped when she heard the wheels on Finn’s chair jolt and he stormed past them and out of the room without a word.
“Sorry about that,” Cal said, trying to pull themselves together, swallowing. “Have you found anything you like?”
Lav’s refocused on the clothes. She pulled a hanger of some basic blue jeans and a plain white shirt from the rack. “This should be fine,” she said, “I don’t much care what I wear. As long as it fits.”
“Great,” Cal said, taking the hangers and draping the clothing over their arm like a butler. “Shall we head back?”
She followed Cal back to the room down the hall, now feeling more able to walk on her legs. Her nose didn’t scrunch when they passed through the door and the room looked and smelled cleaner. Dr. Erota sat in the chair beside the bed. She stood immediately when they entered.
“You’ve picked a family and some clothes, then, I take it?” she said smiling.
Lav nodded. She still felt angry with Dr. Erota, but she thought anger would just drain her of what little energy she’d been able to gather and she wanted to keep it intact. “Yeah,” she said, “I think it’ll be good to get out a little bit. I’m tired of being cooped up here.”
Dr. Erota nodded, “Well, first you’ll need to have a bit of sleep before--”
“Sleep?” Lav interrupted, “But I’ve been sleeping for days. I’m kind of sleep-ed out.”
“I understand that,” Dr. Erota said, trying to soothe her with words, “But it’s nearly ten in the evening and I’m fairly certain Marjorie and Edna are just about to head to sleep themselves.”
“Oh,” Lav said, deflating a bit. She didn’t want to lie back on the bed again. If she laid down again, she would probably never get up.
“But it’ll be time to go before you know it. Just lay down and relax a little bit,” Dr. Erota motioned.
Lav sighed. “I just... I really don’t want to sleep any more. I’ve been in that bed for days.”
Dr. Erota faltered, clearly displeased, but she was avoiding a confrontation. It would be difficult to get Lav to adjust if she was going to put up a fight, “I understand. How about we get you a chair a bit more comfortable than this and you can at least be able to sit?”
Lav nodded, not wanting to disagree more. Once a new chair had been brought to her room, she sat down in it and exhaled. She could easily recline back without lying directly down and the fabric felt soft against her skin. She looked awkwardly back up at Cal and Dr. Erota, waiting for them to leave the room. Cal looked angry still, avoiding her gaze, but she knew better than to ask them what was wrong in front of Dr. Erota.
“If you don’t want to go to sleep, let’s get you something that’s going to pep you up a bit,” Dr. Erota said, rushing out of the room.
Lav lay back on the chair as Cal shuffled their feet, hands jammed into their pockets.
“I think uh… it’ll be good for me to get out,” Lav said, breaking the tense silence.
“Yeah,” Cal said, sighing, “It would be good for you to get out.”
Lav wanted to ask, but instead she continued, “The family seems nice… Reminds me a lot of my mothers.”
Cal nodded again. They were fuming, practically gnawing on their own lips and still avoiding Lav’s eyes.
“Is there… something wrong with them?” Lav asked, stepping onto the thin ice.
“It’s nothing Lav,” Cal said in a low voice, staring at the floor, “Don’t worry about it. There’s nothing you can do.”
“But—“
Dr. Erota burst through the door with a white cup in her hand. “Here we go!” She said, “That should give you a bit more energy so you’re not too tired in a couple of hours.”
Lav smiled weakly, accepting the cup and holding it for a second. Dr. Erota stared at her expectantly. She didn’t want to drink but the tense feeling in the air was stifling and she didn’t know what else to do. Maybe if she took a sip, Dr. Erota would go away and she could ask Cal what was going on.
She lifted the cup to her mouth. The liquid was hot, but not burning and didn’t smell like anything she could recognise. As she drank, it soothed the scratchiness in her throat quickly and it tasted almost sweet, like liquorice but not nearly as strong. She found herself gulping it down, not realising how thirsty she had been. She hadn’t had a proper drink other than a few sips of water in nearly three days.
When she finished, Dr. Erota happily took the mug from her and she found herself laying deeper into the chair, relaxing. Part of her felt alarmed but her body continued to relax. She willed herself to stay awake, to get Cal’s attention before they marched out of the room with the doctor, but her eyes pulled themselves down and she drifted off to sleep.
After looking at her slow breathing for a few moments, Dr. Erota clamoured the cup onto the table, breathing a loud sigh through her puffed cheeks. “Thank God. I thought I was going to have to knock her over the head to get her out,” she said, smiling, mostly to herself.
“You may as well hit me over the head. I almost lost my cool in front of her. You absolutely did not tell me any of this,” Cal spat. They held the sides of their arms tightly to try and keep the anger in.
Dr. Erota rubbed her forehead like a parent exhausted at the fifth tantrum of the day, but before she spoke, Finn and Eira walked into the room holding opposite sides of a silver gurney.
“She’s ready?” Eira said, pulling the edge of it parallel to Nae’s slumbering head.
“Yeah, she’s ready. Finally,” Dr. Erota said, “And the clothes she chose are right there.”
Finn tripped a switch on the side of the gurney and lowered it down to Nae’s level. “A little help?” he asked, motioning Cal to grab her upper body.
“Absolutely not,” Cal scoffed.
“Dude, come on. What is your problem?” Finn said, exasperated.
“My problem is that it’s my job to ensure that she is safe and you all keep telling me jack shit!” Cal shouted at the top of their lungs. It echoed, spewing hot anger on the wall’s sterile room.
“I’m sorry if we haven’t kept you up to date, Cal,” Dr. Erota said, using their name as a warning, “But if you hadn’t noticed, there are a lot more variables in this test case than there have been before. We only just got the approval for the Rumspringa and we need to get it going before Gene meets the investors again so we can update them. I need to show them that things are progressing or they will lose interest and if they do, Gene pulls the plug.”
“That’s great Tara,” Cal mocked, “Have you told them all about your mysterious error that caused Nae to be violently ripped from the program? And how our best way of dealing with that is to lie to her as much as possible? So not only has she been living in a world of pure fantasy and she’s lost a partner and parents who love her who she can never see again but now she thinks she’s going back into the real world when it’s actually just another elaborate delusion designed to fuck with her mind. Brilliant.”
“That’s enough!” Dr. Erota shouted, slamming her hands on top of the chair that she had sat on by Nae’s bed. Finn and Eira had stepped back as if they’d touched a hot stove, staring at Dr Erota. Tara did not shout. Even Cal had jumped at the sound, but refused to release themselves from their defensive stance.
“You are out of line, Cal. Do not make the mistake,” Dr. Erota said, teetering on the edge of losing her temper again, “of thinking that none of us have anything but the best intentions for Naenia Weiland. Clean Slate is still in the test stages. And she is still a test case—with her full and informed consent I might add. We have no idea what would happen if we were to let her out into the real world. The Rumspringa was an idea for a later stage of development after a few successful cases but we have no choice but to try it. Now, surely as someone who cares for Nae and as a psychotherapist, you can understand why putting her into the real world would be too great of a risk, yes? And how it would be hard to organise at a moment’s notice with the proper procedures in place?”
Cal bit the side of their cheek. She was right in some ways, but the deception didn’t feel in line with their ethics or even a smart choice for her wellbeing. If she had found out it was all a lie, the consequences, Cal felt, would be so dire they didn’t even want to think about it.
“We wouldn’t be able to protect her,” Eira chirped up. Dr. Erota winced, wishing Eira had kept her thoughts to herself. “If something bad were to happen to her… She’s very vulnerable and there are lots of people who might take advantage of that.”
“I considered,” Dr. Erota said, shooting a warning glare at Eira, “asking Gene to approve us for a test run in the real world, but given how she’s been for the last few days, I doubt he would allow it. If he has to tell the investors she’s just been lying in bed the way she’s been, waiting to die, the worst will happen. We’ve already failed a few times and who knows who’s next? And that’s my job, your job… everyone’s job. And what happens to Nae then? Or to any of our other cases?”
She shot a look at Cal that said what she couldn’t say out loud. Cal wanted to curse, but they kept it bottled. They had to hand it to Tara. She knew just where to aim and strike.
She walked over to the edge of the lounge chair and motioned for Finn to grab Nae’s shoulders. They both lifted her after a swift count to three, dragging her onto the gurney. Finn clicked the button on the side again and pulled it back up.
“All I’m saying,” Cal interrupted just as they were ready to push Lav out of the room. “Is that… we don’t have to lie to her. What if there’s another error in the program? She’s the first person to try a Rumspringa like this. What if another ‘anomaly’ happens and she gets pulled out again and we have to tell her we lied to her? She’s never going to trust us again. And won’t that be bad for Gene?”
“I’ve thought about that,” Dr. Erota said. Her voice was no longer near the edge of losing her temper, but she still sounded ruffled. “But we can’t take the risk that she chooses to lie here in bed for the rest of her life. If she’s not going to make a choice about her memories now, this is all we’ve got. Something has to happen, one way or the other. We need a decision and we need the right decision.”
“Then what’s the plan if she finds out?” Cal warned, a hand escaping from clutching their sides and gesturing wildly at Lav knocked out cold.
Eira and Finn stood around awkwardly like children whose parents were having a blowout over the dinner table. Dr. Erota took a deep breath in and focused her gaze intently on Cal, “We will cross that bridge if and when we come to it, Cal. I doubt it will come to it.”
Dr. Erota softened her gaze. “Try not to worry so much. She’s already made the decision in a way. She just needs to realise it. You know Nae. She’s not going to want to live in a fake world. You know her better than anybody else here. She wants to make this change. That’s why we chose her to be our star test case. She’s going to make the right choice, Cal. I promise you.”
Cal looked away from Dr. Erota to Lav slumbering peacefully in the gurney, remembering the hope they’d had when Nae had first walked in the door. She was difficult, without a doubt, but something else was there. A determination to improve things but an impatience to see the effort it would take to do things the long way around. Nae’s enthusiasm for it had given Cal the hope that the program was still viable.
“This is the last one, Tara,” Cal said, catching Dr. Erota’s eye, “After Nae… I’m done. I can’t do this anymore. I can’t watch anyone else go through this. Once Nae has decided what she wants to do… I’m going to resign.”
“Cal…” Dr. Erota said bluntly, “There aren’t going to be any more people. If she makes the right choice, we get Gene’s approval, we get investors and we’re ready to roll out. If she doesn’t… you won’t need to resign. We’ll all be out of a job. Give it some thought, okay? Sleep on it. Whatever decision she makes, she could probably still use your help.”
She turned towards Finn and Eira and motioned them to pull the gurney from the room. She left Cal standing, trying to discourage the incoming headache by rubbing her temples. Something buzzed on the side of her hip that made her jump and she pressed a button on the device to pause it.
“I have to rush off,” she said to Finn and Eira, “Go ahead and put her in the program we outlined, Finn. Then Eira, please start monitoring her from the observation room.”
They both nodded and she turned the opposite way down the white hall, heels clicking on the tiled floors. She picked up her pace, turning down another short corridor leading to what looked like just a plain singular white door. She scanned her badge on a hidden panel next to the handle and it beeped, releasing the door and a whiff of nearly frozen air.
Gene Sampo seemed like the type of person who didn’t have social graces at first glance, but in the time they’d worked together, Dr. Erota found him to be disturbingly good at analysing her moods and predicting her methods. She kept underestimating him because he was much younger than she was, but his brilliance had led him to engineering the technology needed behind building Clean Slate, perfected by Eira’s more socially awkward brilliance. It was her willingness to always underestimate him that had put her in this position in the first place.
The meeting room was sound proof, designed to hold temperature sensitive equipment and perfect for their quick catch-ups. She sat gingerly in the office chair by the small desk in the crowded room, opening the laptop she’d left there. She was running late. Gene hated lateness.
“Tara Erota,” Gene said, his angular, uneasy face taking up the entire screen. He always had a presentation prepared, even if it was one slide with a timeline of the development of Clean Slate, its eventual rollout and their projected profits.
“Gene,” Dr. Erota nodded. For most people, she didn’t mind if they called her “Doctor” or not, especially since she knew she wasn’t a “real doctor” but Gene refused to use the title. At first it had been endearing but over time it had grown frustrating.
“I’ve got good news,” Gene said, rubbing his hands together. He wore a suit jacket but with a regular, worn t-shirt and jeans that made him look exactly like an entrepreneur and every stereotype that came with it. “We’ve primarily been flirting with the bigger investor, the global marketing agency I told you about but I had a chat with a buddy of mine from uni and he knew a guy who is actually very interested. They’re from a… security solutions company I think?”
“Security solutions?” Dr. Erota asked, “What would they want with Clean Slate?”
Gene shrugged nonchalantly. “That’s not what this is about. You know that Tara. Bill Gates invests in agricultural innovations all the time and he’s not trying to be a farmer is he?” Gene gave her a familiar grin.
“No…” Dr. Erota approached the subject carefully. She had her plan for what she wanted Clean Slate to be, what she wanted Gene’s technology to do for people but since the beginning, she didn’t know if Gene truly shared that vision or not. As much as she thought he was an open book, he was more like a confusing app with an “easy interface” she was too old to work out without help. “But… shouldn’t we be interested in investors that… want to do better for the world?”
Gene rubbed his nose and licked his lips, clearly annoyed, “We’ve already talked about this Tara. We had those investors on the hook, didn’t we? And then we couldn’t present them with anything realistic and then they backed out. Maybe if we get a viable test case, we can re-approach them. But in the first round it looks desperate. And we are desperate but beggars can’t be choosers right now. We’ve got two major ones on the hook and that will be enough to get us into the first production stage.”
Gene moved the mouse to Q3, the familiar outline of where his wild mind had envisioned them growing. “This isn’t just about doing good. We have to have some profit to do something good. And we get that by attracting investors. Speaking of, how’s the test case going? What’s her name? Leona?”
“Lavender,” Dr. Erota said, trying not to lose patience. “She’s agreed to try the Rumspringa.”
Gene nodded, biting his lip. “This isn’t ideal, as I’m sure you know. My next meeting with the agency is in a week and the other one wants to meet with me this afternoon. I can do my best to sell this but you need to give me something other than a shit sandwich.”
Dr. Erota nodded begrudgingly, “I’m sure that Nae will make the right decision. She wants to change, Gene. She’s definitely going to be our star case.”
“I hope you’re right about that Tara. As soon as we get this test case through, we’ll need to work more on getting people to be able to recover their memories successfully. We need at least one of those types of cases,” Gene said, the smile fading from his face.
Dr. Erota’s brow furrowed, “Didn’t I send you the summary from Cal? They looked into some of the possibilities–”
“I read the summary, all right,” Gene interrupted, rubbing his nose again as he did when he was annoyed, like a boxer preparing for another round of punches, “I read it. But there must be other ways we can go about it. The point of this isn’t to have a bunch of comatose people attached and living in a virtual world. These people have to remember who they were before. Or how else will they know how different they are now? And not just slip right back into their same old disgusting habits?”
“But the… the summary Cal mentioned indicated that this would be unlikely—”
“And your anomaly that messed up the one supposedly perfect test case also was supposed to be unlikely, wasn’t it?” Gene interrupted.
Dr. Erota gritted her teeth. “Yes but…”
“Maybe in the next round, we won’t give them the option. They have to relive their memories,” Gene said flatly.
Dr. Erota guffawed. “That might… I mean, they might continue to just be traumatised again. The whole point is for them to have a new—”
“The whole point, “Gene interrupted again, raising a finger. When he did that, Dr. Erota had to know when to quit, “The reason I invented the technology in the first place was to make better people. People who would become more than what they were. People who would surpass themselves and become something more grand. Something perfect.”
She had made the mistake before of comparing and contrasting their two versions of what Clean Slate could do. Sure, he had invented the technology, but he didn’t have the mind to make it work as well as he’d hoped. Not without her and the rest of the crew. In the end, they were the ones who could make Clean Slate into what it should be, no matter what he thought.
“I don’t think Nae is going to choose to remember her life,” Dr. Erota said, trying to get them back on topic, “But, she will become a good case for us and then… we can work on where we go in the future. Maybe with more psychologists on board we’ll be able to offer some better support.”
“Let’s make it happen,” Gene said, getting lighter again.
“And it’s worth remembering that the others have been healed. The program works. We just need to get them properly acclimated to the new world,” Dr. Erota offered.
“I wouldn’t call human vegetables healed,” Gene said plainly, “And it’s nothing I can present to anybody. We lose these funders… That’s probably it for us. I’ve tapped out my resources. All of my resources. And I mean everything. Even for supporting the other test cases.”
Dr. Erota nodded again. As if she needed the additional pressure.
“Give me an update on Rumspringa, same time tomorrow, okay?” Gene said, his eyes focused on another screen.
“Sounds good,” Dr. Erota murmured.
“All right then. Cheers!” Gene said, cutting off the meeting. Dr. Erota sat still in the cool dark, feeling as stressed and overwhelmed as she always felt after they met, save for the first time they ran into each other and he pulled her into the whirling vortex that was Clean Slate.