» Thu May 03, 2012 2:52 pm Conspiracy of Memory
It seemed so strange that such a grand conspiracy would fail so utterly due to only the most basic of malfunctions. However, the two Vault security guards who sat in my room assured me that it was the case. The Overseer was with them and his expression was stern enough that little doubt remained, though I supposed at that point it was more likely denial. So how had this happened? How had my life turned upside down so quickly? And why did I now have to make a decision that would affect who knew how many people?
It began three days before. The immunity unit in my room had malfunctioned, and wouldn’t give me my injection before bed. That is Vault 95 policy after all. Every night before bed, every resident received an immunity shot. There was no real hassle to it. All I had to do was stick my arm into the slot and I’d receive a dose of medicine to help fight off infections. I’d done this every night before bed since the day I was born. Except that night, the damned thing malfunctioned, and wouldn’t give me my dose.
I had every intention of informing the Overseer the next morning, and getting my life back to normal. However, I was so shaken up by the dream I had that night, the vividness of it, the surrealism combined with the clarity, left me in a state of distraction. In the dream, I was with several of my fellow Vault dwellers. We were in the midst of a training session. Except, we weren’t training to repair the Vault or learning first aid procedures. We were learning how to fight. We practiced with fire arms of all sizes and shapes, learned to fight with a knife and our bare hands. We trained to sneak up behind an opponent and kill him noiselessly.
What was even more astounding was that, in the dream, I wasn’t the same Jacob. I looked the same, but I was different. That Jacob was calmer, quieter. He… I had more confidence. I recalled eating my breakfast that next morning, looking at my fellow Vault dwellers, picking out those who’d been there in the dream. In particular, I noticed Janna. In the dream, she’d been remarkably different. While she hadn’t been exactly what I’d have called kind, she’d shown more affection to me than any of the others, even going so far as to crack jokes and tease me. Something that this Janna wouldn’t have even thought of.
I was so wrapped up in this fantasy that I forgot to send a maintenance request for the immunity unit. It wasn’t until I laid down for bed that night that the thought even crossed my mind. However, that lapse in concentration was forgotten by the next morning, for once again, I dreamed of being someone else.
This time, the other Jacob was outside the Vault; outside, in the wasteland, performing a “Covert Ops,” as the Overseer had outlined. The dream had evolved, growing in its sense of realism. I was no longer just another soldier. I was the team’s scout, the silent eyes on the battlefield. Janna, meanwhile, was our sniper, guiding me through the maze of shattered buildings and ruins of the wastes. And the wastes… how had my subconscious imagined something as truly, devastatingly awful as that hellhole? A once great city, a tribute to the ability of all of humanity, which was collapsing in ruination.
There were two distinct things I noticed about this dream that I had not before. The first was my state of mind the next morning. During the dream, we’d been ordered to “take it easy” in preparation for the next night. That day, I couldn’t help but feel lethargic, as though the dream had had some kind of lasting effect on my conscious mind. Though that was intriguing, it paled in comparison to the cut I found on the back of my hand. In the dream, the other Jacob had cut his hand while climbing over a destroyed vehicle of some kind. And there it sat, in the exact same spot, the exact same size, the exact same cut.
But, it couldn’t be real, could it? I tried to dismiss the notion, the purely insane notion that the dream was real. In my state of detachment the day before, I must have cut my hand, and my subconscious had filled the gap. Yes, that had to be it. And yet, I could still feel the wind in my face, the confidence of the other Jacob, his excitement and adrenaline.
So, that day I concentrated on my work. I forced my mind to focus on maintaining the Vaults reactor. I even managed to remember to ask one of the mechanics I worked with to look at my immunity unit. When I looked at Janna, I forced myself to see her as the Vault dweller who’d never made a joke in her life, instead of the hardened, sarcastic sniper who’d guided me through the ruins of the wastes. And when I returned to my room that night, finding a note that the immunity unit would be fixed tomorrow, I had convinced myself that I’d conquered the fantasy, that I would no longer be plagued by the other Jacob.
I was wrong. That night the dreams were all the more vivid. That night, we didn’t train or exercise. We didn’t practice or learn techniques. We put them to the test. I silently stalked into the heart of the ruined city, my footsteps cautious, and my heart drumming in my chest. As I made the painstaking approach toward the campfire, Janna guiding me around obstacles and away from high visibility spots, I spotted our target… our prey.
They were knights, some brotherhood responsible for overthrowing the American government. Their overconfidence in their abilities proved to be their downfall. As silent as a whisper in a crowded room, I crept behind the closest enemy, and calmly slid my knife into his throat. Before the others had time to react, I threw their comrade into the fire, extinguishing it. While my night vision had been all but ruined by getting so near the flames, my squad mates had been careful not to do the same. And when the fire went out and the camp was enshrouded in darkness, they leapt into action.
In the dark, all I could hear were the muffled shouts of the dying knights, the occasional rattle of silenced rifle fire. As my vision began to return, I spotted an armored figure standing within inches of me, his weapon drawn and pointing at my face. But, an instant later, he lay on the ground, a sniper round firmly lodged in his brain. I gave a silent nod to Janna, grinning at my teammates, who were only visible as eyes and mirrored smiles under their face paint. All the training and practice maneuvers had paid off. We were a silent assassination squad, utterly unstoppable.
And what was mildly frightening was that I liked it. The feeling of power, and confidence, that we were making a difference, it felt good. It felt righteous and exhilarating. And, after we’d vanished without so much of a trace left behind, returned to the Vault with no one the wiser, Janna had pulled me into her room. That night she fulfilled every wild fantasy that I, the other Jacob, had ever had about her.
That morning I awoke shaking and sweating, sure that I’d find Janna next to me. She wasn’t, nor was I her in her room, but the realism of the dream had been so absolute. When I looked into the mirror that morning I didn’t see Jacob the reactor maintenance man. Instead, there was this soldier, this warrior who killed men without warning. There was a man who took pleasure in taking others’ lives. But that didn’t make it real! I wanted to shout it, to scream to myself that this was all just a fantasy, some half mad delusion my subconscious had invented. And it was as I tried to determine my sanity that the idea for proving it one way or another finally came to me.
The Janna from my dreams, the cold sniper with a sense of humor, had a scar on her neck. It was small and low enough that the Vault jumpsuits would keep it hidden. As crazy as it sounded, as manic and bladder-loosening-mad as it must have been to hear, I asked Janna if she had such a scar. The look in her eyes had started as fearful, the way a person looked at a rabid dog. Admittedly, I wasn’t feeling in a rational state of mind, but when she brushed her hand against her neck, her eyes glazed over.
“I must have done that in my sleep,” she’d stated in a monotone voice. Had I been in a clear state of mind, I would have asked how she managed to get a scar in her sleep. Instead, I scurried back to my room. Right to where the Overseer and a pair of Vault security personnel waited for me. They’d politely asked me to sit down so that they could explain the situation. At first I expected them to lie, to tell me that it was all some coincidence.
But they didn’t. Instead they informed me that I had stumbled onto something I wasn’t supposed to know about. They said the immunity unit was responsible for wiping away the memories of the other Jacob, putting one half of my mind to sleep while the other came to. And the other Jacob did the same for me. They also told me that I had two options: I could either resume taking my medications, just the same for everyone else in Vault 95 or I would be taken into the wastes and executed by my own team.
My first thought had been to gladly accept the former option. After all, wouldn’t it be simplest to return to the life of blissful ignorance? But, the other Jacob would still be there, wouldn’t he? He’d still go venturing into the wastes, slaughtering foes and narrowly escaping death. What if he was killed? What if he decided not to go to take the same treatment that kept my mind passive while he did his soldiering? Would I just disappear? But, in the end, I knew I wasn’t him. I couldn’t survive in the wasteland. I couldn’t avoid my teammates, and would they even see me as the same man who’d fought alongside them?
So I took the first option and never dreamt of the other Jacob again. Only a day or so afterwards, Janna suddenly expressed an interest in me. It was fortunate too, because only a short time after we tied the knot, she started showing. The doctors put it down to our honeymoon night and a quickly developing pregnancy. I knew better, though I never said anything. There were times when I found myself tempted to disable the immunity unit, to intentionally remember the other Jacob and his exploits. But those were fleeting whims. I didn’t want that life of killing. The excursions into the nightmarish wastelands. Besides, if I didn’t remember it, then it wasn’t really real… was it?
Footnote: The title of this was inspired by the Persistence of Memory by Salvador Dalí, but very little else of the story did.
