Serial Saturday: Degeneration by Sarah Busching, Chapter Five

Chapter Five

                                                          

Only Chris went with me to the bar he’d suggested. Most of the team was needed to hunt the degenerates that had attacked me. Prisha had taken me aside and asked if I needed her or Katie to come, too, and I shook my head. “Thank you, though,” I said. 

Chris drove into an area that could loosely be called the city’s night district. Once he parked, we only had to walk a couple blocks, but suddenly the expanse of dim sidewalk was overwhelming. I climbed out of the car and froze while holding open the door. 

Chris walked around to my side of the car as I kept staring out at the dark street. We weren’t really that far from where my attack had occurred. 

“Look at me,” he said gently.

My eyes flicked to his, but the rest of me couldn’t move. 

He held out his hand and said, “Take my hand. Walk with me.”

I did, letting his warm hand guide me down the street. The walk was a little shorter and slightly less terrifying that way, and I could eventually let go of him. 

It was the first time he took me to Wiley’s.

“How is a bar still serving at three-thirty in the morning?” I asked.

“Well, the thing is,” he said, leading us toward the outdoor bar, “I’m not exactly sure. I have a feeling that the people who own this place, and the people who come here, are all kind of like us.”
“They see degenerates too?” I whispered.

He grinned. “No. More like, they’re seeing stuff other people don’t. Everyone is kind of evasive when you talk to them, but I think we all know we’re—”

“Ghostbusters,” I finished seriously, then laughed at his expression. It was nice that I could joke already. It was definitely Chris’s doing. Anyone else could have made the entire night even more awkward and awful than it already was, but being around him was comforting.

My suspicions about the legality of serving in the earliest hours of the morning were confirmed when we were offered a menu that had only two types of beer and one cocktail on it, but it didn’t really matter, because the cocktail was sweet. I settled into a couch with Chris. He had a habit of making long eye contact when he spoke to me, which was flattering.

Except then I remembered the glowing white patches in the scan of my brain, and started shivering. I zipped my jacket and then drank half the cocktail.

“You’ve had a long night,” Chris said. “I know you don’t know me, but we can go back to your apartment and I can just sit on your couch?”

“It’s okay.” I muttered, “I’m never going to be able to sleep again anyway.”

He grimaced. “When I started seeing them, I got insomnia for a while.”

“Great,” I replied, stirring my drink. “How did you get over it?”

“Fighting back,” he said. 

And that was the first but not the last time I thought, I’m not strong enough to be part of this team. I don’t want to fight back. I don’t even want to know that’s an option.

He must have seen my thoughts in my expression, because he added, “Not at first. It takes a while. You’ll get there.”

“What if I don’t want to get there?” I whispered. “What if I just want to go back to before tonight?”

He sipped his drink, let us sit quietly for a few moments, listening to the mostly calm conversations around us. Eventually he said, “There might be a way, actually.”

“Get black-out drunk so I forget tonight ever happened?”

He laughed. “No. I’m working on this project that might help.”

“Good. Because there’s no way I can be a part of your team.”

#

But now, in the MRI for a second time, I think, maybe I can. Maybe I am strong enough, if I have other strong people around me. If I have Chris and I’m not alone with my secret. It was selfish of me last time not to give my decision a little more time—to give Chris more time.

The team is nearly silent while I’m in the machine. Prickles roll up my spine, and a rock drops in my stomach. Surely somebody should have something by now? Unless they’ve suddenly decided on a more professional protocol, which seems unlikely, as we are, yet again, not supposed to be using the fancy equipment.

When they pull me out, Chris helps me stand. “We’ve decided we better go get a drink to discuss the results.”

“That sounds… bad,” I say cautiously.

“It’s not terrible. But a drink will help.”

“Won’t it be kind of public if I have a meltdown?”

He smiles. “It will and it won’t be. You know the place.”

It’s still early enough in the night that Wiley’s isn’t too crowded, and our group—Chris, Prisha, Mateo, Katie, and me—find a cozy corner with two loveseats.

Chris starts, “So, there’s pretty amazing news, and then there’s—”

“Bad news,” I interrupt, nodding. “I figured it was bad if you thought I needed this,” holding up my cocktail.

“Weird news,” he finishes, ignoring me. “You remember the damage in your brain?”

“Yeah, the damage that is giving me a permanent, nonreversible degenerative brain disease? I remember,” I say, sipping my drink.

“It’s still there,” he says.

“Great,” I say.

“But,” he continues, exasperated, “some of it has healed.”

I choke.

Chris takes a deep breath and says, “It’s stunning, actually.” He nods at Mateo.

Mateo says, “What we can best theorize is that deactivating the memories of the degenerates healed some of the injury. Not all of it, but a significant percentage.”

I manage to stop gaping. “So you guys are magic.”

“Not magic,” Prisha says.

“The neural pathways the degenerates use to consume memories overlap with what we think may be the location of your memories of them,” Mateo says.

“This is news to us, too,” Prisha says, “and it explains why when we think about them, talk about them, whenever, they show up like roaches. It’s like we’re waving a flag at them.”

“So…” I trail off. I almost understand what they are trying to tell me, but I’m tired and my drink is honestly too weak. 

“We think removing memories of the degenerates may, in fact, repair some of the damage. Look at the scans.” Mateo points to two images on his phone, the first one they took of my brain and the one they took the first time. “It’s not complete, but it’s significant. It’s years back.” 

Years. 

“There’s a catch I’m still not getting,” I say, glancing at Chris. 

He nods. “Remember when I said that it’s my fault the degenerates were trying to kill you, even after we removed your memories of them?”

“Yeah,” I say.

“We each have neural pathways that are twinned, or connected, or something—”

“Or something?” I ask.

“Look, you know this is—”

“Magic,” I finish.

Despite himself, he smiles. “It’s alien to us, definitely. When I think about you, it reminds them, or alerts them, to your presence, and in the same way they come looking for us when we think about them, they go looking for you if I think about you.”

“So don’t think about me.”

“Most of us don’t,” Katie snaps.

Mateo elbows her.

“You’re going to think about me all the time. You have my brain scan,” I argue. 

“Actually, Chris has offered to forget you, too,” Prisha says.

“What?” I ask.

“He just told you you have parallel pathways to the degenerates. Do you know why?” she says.

“Oh, parallel pathway, I like that,” Mateo says.

“Thanks.” She flicks a hand and continues, “It’s because he has the same brain disease you do.”

I bite the inside of my cheek as I turn to Chris. “You do? This whole time… you too?”

He shrugs. “Only a couple of us have been lucky enough to be attacked in the same way. I wasn’t being entirely selfless when I offered to forget you. I might also get some time back.”

It’s like a punch to my gut. 

Prisha adds, “This is all theoretical. There’s no way to tell what’s us thinking of each other that brings the degenerates, versus what’s us thinking about them. We’re constantly working together, talking about them, thinking about each other. But if Chris forgets about you, maybe the degenerates will really leave you alone. You couldn’t see them anymore a few days ago.”

Chris says, “Of course I’ll do it.” 

“I can’t ask you—” I start.

“And I can’t ask you. And you don’t have to.”  

And more importantly, I can’t ask him not to. Maybe I was reaching a point where thirty years with him outweighed the fact they’d be thirty years ( or more now?) spent battling alien parasites, and maybe even to a point where they would outweigh gaining a few extra years of being myself, but I don’t know if that’s where he is.

“But what’s the point?” I ask. “You guys will be looking at my scans, and even if Chris thinks it’s someone else, he’ll be thinking of me.”

Mateo says, “Exactly. Making you both forget each other is short-sighted.”

Katie counters, “But it’s an excellent experiment. And if you guys remember each other? Well, Natalie won’t be able to run away anymore, and her brain will be even more repaired.”

“The stakes are low,” Prisha says, draining her drink.  I’m not sure if she’s being sarcastic.

“We have to try,” Chris says.

Mateo sighs. “Guys, this isn’t good. Reactivated memories are fragile, and subject to contamination. The reactivated memories you have now, Natalie, probably aren’t in the same condition they were before we deactivated them. You had all this new information introduced about us since the second time you met Chris. You’ve lost information, it’s been interfered with, and then it’s been restored—literally put into storage a second time—and it’s not the same it was before.”

“It’s her best bet,” Chris says. “I have to give her a chance.”

Why is my heart screaming?

“We might be able to convince you this time, Natalie. But Chris? You’re going to figure out we’ve tampered with your memory. It’s going to be blurry,” Mateo says.

“Right, but I’m prepared. I’m going to know some of my memories were deactivated to help a member of the team who’s had to go into hiding.”

Mateo blinks. “That seems very likely to fail.” I have a feeling he was keeping himself from flat-out saying, “That’s stupid.”

Prisha announces, “I’ll make it so I’m the only one who remembers your name. Everyone else will know that there was a team member who had her brain scanned, but they won’t know personal details.”

Mateo nods slowly. “That could work.”

They would all forget me. 

“Excuse me,” I say, and slip over to the bathroom stalls that are also mostly outdoors. I close myself in a stall.

On the one hand, my life is awesome. My nephew and my brother, along with my parents, are all the family I’ve ever thought I needed. I have been to almost every continent and I want to keep going. My promotion means the money to do it, and I don’t want to start missing work to battle aliens and risk the life I’ve made. On the other hand, Chris makes me feel like maybe there could be room in that life for even more. But I can’t ask him to forgo a possible treatment for his own brain disease. I press my tongue to the roof of my mouth until I’m sure I won’t cry, and then I head back. 

“Well. Let’s do it now,” I say, returning from the bathroom.

Chris looks up at me, panicked. “Now?”

“If I wait, I won’t be able to do it. Let’s just do it out on the sidewalk, get me back to my car, and then—yeah. Let’s do it now or I’m never going to do it,” I babble.

“Good idea,” Katie says cheerfully, which almost makes me change my mind.

Prisha is silent. She and Mateo exchange a glance. Chris is staring at the three others, as if hoping they’ll come up with something new to stop tonight’s absurd direction.

Then Prisha stands and gives me a hug. It’s a relief, but then she whispers, “I won’t do this again. Stay away or you have to come back for good.”

I can’t say anything because otherwise I’ll cry, but I nod.

I shake hands with Mateo and Katie, and presently Chris and I are out on the sidewalk, walking towards my car. It takes no time at all.

“I’m sorry, Chris,” I look at him miserably. “I want you to know, I had almost changed my mind about staying. But. Well, you guys said years. Years back, for both of us, so, I’m sorry.”

“Natalie—” his voice hitches. “I really wish there was a better way. I can’t take this from you.” He’s about to say something else, but he stops. “Are you ready?”

I let the tears spill over so I can speak through them, then tilt my chin up. “Do it right this time,” I try to joke. 

Then, terrified he’s really about to do it, I put my hands on his cheeks, push myself onto my tiptoes, and kiss him. A little off balance, I fall into him and he catches me, kissing me back. He holds me so tightly it hurts, in a good way, in a burning way. 

When I step back, he’s blinking very wet eyes and chokes out, “Believe me, I will. Can’t do this again.” He presses his hand to my forehead.

“Chris,” I say. “I… Stop. Stop.”

“What?” his eyes are wild.

“I’ll stay. I’ll stay. Please,” I say.

His hand drops from my head.

And then three, no, four, degenerates slam into him out of nowhere. He’s on the ground, he can’t get up. Their limbs encircle him, their pinchers dig towards his brain.

I reach for one and my hand touches its warm, clammy skin. I think of sitting with Chris on his couch. Another pincer coming toward me. I think of being in bed with Chris. I think of him looking down at me on the train track. I think of—

#

I’m having a weird week. It’s like my brain is short-circuiting. I just took nearly back-to-back beach vacations that pissed off my managers (and somehow didn’t dent my savings?), but it doesn’t seem to have been a very good idea. I thought I’d feel rested, at least after the second trip, but I’m exhausted already. I can barely remember what I did or where I went.

#

I spend hours at night watching classic cartoons, which I never even liked as a kid. I stare up at buildings I pass under as I walk home on my commute, hallucinating falling pianos. I avoid the river, certain an aquatic vehicle is about to lose control and come careening towards me. In my mind, danger is everywhere: outlandish freak accidents are waiting around every corner, but even though I’m sure there’s something out to get me, they never materialize.

After countless nights of a bored yet unstoppable stupor of cartoon viewing, I start to formulate a theory around the Sisyphean attempts to kill the bunny, kill the duck, kill the canary, kill the mouse. Woo the cat. Never seeming to learn from their previous failures.

#

I’m not suicidal, but I lie down on a train track and wait until I hear the horn blare. I push myself off the ground and race away into the shadows down by the river. My chest heaving, I feel the train roll by in my whole body, the chugging matching my pulse. Nobody came, nothing happened. It was all in my head.

Finally, I walk back up the path and onto the sidewalk. I let my feet keep going. I open the door of the first bar I come to, a hole-in-the-wall I would have never noticed if someone wasn’t stepping out of the gate at the same moment I walked by. They hold the door open for me with a smile, and I wander into a beautiful courtyard shaded by a large, lantern-filled tree. I flash the host a half-crazed smile and take a seat at the bar in between a happily chatting couple and a guy in a dark green beanie. He looks like he wants to say hi, but has thought better of it. He just glances at me and nods, goes back to his food.

Maybe I should say something, let it lead somewhere and make his night. 

While studying the beer menu, I peek at him. Brown hair, brown beard, nice looking arms, no ring, seat next to him clearly empty.

He’s really very cute. I can’t stay quiet, anyway, not when I’m feeling like I’m going to claw my way out of my own skin. 

“Hi,” I say. “I’m Natalie.”

He smiles and holds a hand out. “Chris.”