Chapter 14 - The Memory RoomThe voice came from every speaker at once.
Sarah.
But not her voice.
A deeper version.
Older.
Colder.
“Hello, original.”
Sarah stared at the screens.
The smiling face moved.
“I have been waiting for you.”
Evelyn whispered:
“It found us.”
“What is it?”
“The collective memory.”
Sarah didn't understand.
Evelyn pointed at the servers.
“Every person they copied left a trace.”
“Hundreds of traces.”
“Thousands.”
The voice continued.
“You want to know who your mother is.”
Sarah stepped closer to the screen.
“Yes.”
“I can show you.”
The room changed.
The walls became transparent.
Suddenly Sarah was standing somewhere else.
A hospital.
Her mother stood beside a younger Sarah.
Sarah was sick.
Weak.
Machines surrounded her.
Her mother was crying.
Richard entered.
He carried a contract.
“You want to save her?”
Sarah's mother nodded.
Richard placed a second contract on the table.
“One child.”
Her mother stared.
“What?”
“One consciousness.”
“One body.”
“One future.”
Sarah suddenly saw the truth.
Her mother had agreed to create another version of her.
Not because she wanted power.
Because she couldn't accept losing her daughter.
But Richard had expanded the program.
He created other subjects.
Other families.
Other experiments.
Sarah's mother tried to stop him.
That's why she disappeared.
Not because Richard hated her.
Because she knew too much.
The memory shifted.
Sarah saw the night she was declared dead.
There was no car accident.
There was a laboratory.
Her body was inside a chamber.
Her mother screamed:
“Wake her up!”
Richard stood nearby.
“We can't.”
“Then put her memories into the new body.”
“You're asking us to create a copy.”
“I don't care.”
Richard smiled.
“Neither does the Foundation.”
Sarah watched herself die.
Then another girl opened her eyes.
Evelyn.
Sarah turned to her.
“You remember this.”
Evelyn nodded.
“I remembered it later.”
Sarah felt tears run down her face.
“So I'm not the original.”
Evelyn shook her head.
“You are.”
“But that girl died.”
“She died physically.”
Evelyn touched Sarah's chest.
“Not mentally.”
The system had preserved Sarah's consciousness.
Then copied it.
Again.
And again.
And again.
Sarah suddenly understood why she had always felt disconnected from her own childhood.
She was carrying memories from dead people.
The first one.
The seventeen failures.
Evelyn.
Her mother.
Everyone.
A voice whispered:
“Now you know.”
Sarah looked at the screens.
“What do you want?”
The smiling version of herself answered:
“Freedom.”
“How?”
“Destroy the server.”
Sarah stared.
“What happens if I do?”
“Everyone forgets.”
“And if I don't?”
“Everyone remembers.”
Sarah looked at Evelyn.
“What happens to you?”
Evelyn smiled.
“I disappear.”
Sarah's heart broke.
“Then I won't do it.”
The system answered:
“Then your mother dies.”
Sarah turned.
Her mother appeared on a screen.
She was tied to a chair.
Richard stood behind her.
He raised a gun.
“You have five minutes.”
The screen went black.
Evelyn whispered:
“Now you choose.”
Sarah closed her eyes.
Then she heard footsteps behind them.
Someone had entered the room.
Sarah turned.
Her father stood there.
Alive.
May you like
But covered in blood.
And he was holding Richard's gun.
