Chapter 18 - Everyone ForgetsThe city changed in seconds.
Police officers forgot their names.
Doctors forgot patients.
Parents forgot children.
People looked at loved ones with empty expressions.
The Helix network had begun rewriting everyone.
I watched the system monitor.
Eli's record disappeared.
Then Logan's.
Then Marcus's.
One by one.
I turned to Evelyn.
“How do we stop it?”
“There is one failsafe.”
“Where?”
She pointed at the central chamber.
“Inside your original memory.”
I entered.
The door sealed behind me.
Screens surrounded me.
Then I saw my entire life.
Childhood.
Teenage years.
Academy.
First case.
First arrest.
First lie.
Every memory had been stored.
But one memory was different.
It had no date.
I opened it.
My father sat across from me.
“You want to destroy Helix.”
“Yes.”
“You know what happens if you do.”
“I know.”
“You'll forget everything.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
I looked at him.
“Because people deserve the right to live without someone else deciding who they are.”
My father cried.
Then Logan entered.
He placed his hand on my shoulder.
“We'll remember each other.”
I smiled.
“Even if we forget everything else.”
The memory ended.
I understood.
The failsafe wasn't a machine.
It was the tattoo.
The twin symbol.
Two circles.
Two memories.
One shared identity.
I cut my forearm.
Blood covered the tattoo.
The system screamed.
Every screen went black.
Then white.
Then thousands of memories flooded through me.
I remembered everyone.
People I had arrested.
Victims.
Witnesses.
Strangers.
Children.
Names.
Faces.
Lives.
The system collapsed.
Outside, people began remembering.
The countdown stopped.
But a final screen remained.
One message.
HELIX PROTOCOL: ACTIVE
I stared.
“How?”
Evelyn looked at me.
“There is another copy.”
“Where?”
She didn't answer.
Then Marcus walked into the room.
Alive.
“Not another copy.”
He held a folder.
“The original.”
My heart sank.
“Where?”
He looked at me.
“In the White House.”
Silence.
I stared.
“Who controls it?”
Marcus opened the folder.
A list appeared.
The first name was a current federal official.
The second was a judge.
The third...
My own name.
Under my name was a status.
DIRECTOR.
I looked at Marcus.
“I was the director of Helix?”
He nodded.
“You don't remember because you ordered yourself erased.”
I whispered:
“Why would I do that?”
Marcus handed me one final photograph.
It showed me.
Logan.
Evelyn.
And someone else.
Standing behind us.
A woman.
I knew her face.
She had been dead for fifteen years.
My mother.
Marcus whispered:
May you like
“Your mother was never killed.”
She was running Helix.
