The morning sunlight crept through the thin lilac curtains, waking the man up. The remnants of the sweet dream could still be sensed all around the room. The warmth of it made him beam. Her soft voice, the hug and words were echoing in his mind. The thought of Brandon assembling this gadget still seemed distant and delusional. Gillean opened the window and breathed in some chilly early morning air. The excitement about the looming experiments grew bigger with every single minute. Suddenly, someone pulled the door open and came in. It was Asteria. She brought a strange black bag with her.
“Rise and shine!”
“I’m not asleep”.
“How’s the mood and spirit for today?”
“It’s all right”.
“You seem quite out of sorts. Just confess about what has happened”.
“Oh, you’re incorrigibly nosy, but basically that’s what I like about you!”
“So?”
“ I had a weird and simultaneously warm dream. I feel empty after it. There was my colleague Gwendoline Gull. She’s a detective. This girl is so energetic that you can’t just sit in front of her, her energy makes you want to act and move forward. I think I love her. Otherwise I wouldn’t have felt as if I was suffocating and dying in the cold without her”.
“ Oh dear, frankly speaking , I’ve never felt this way”.
“ It’s not a desirable feeling to have”.
“Maybe a morning coffee and a stroll could cure it?”
“ Not so sure about whether it cures, but at least stupefies”.
“ Let’s walk round the territory then?”
“Ok, I definitely need some fresh air”.
“ I’ll get us some coffee in that vending machine”.
“Fabulous”.
“ Don’t be so grumpy!”
***
“I miss him so much… I need to get to him ASAP”.
“ Oh, Gwen. I have designed the thingy for you but please , I beg you, don’t get too obsessed and go overboard”.
“ Brandon , it’ll be alright”.
“Promise?”
“Of course”.
“ I’ll look after you”.
“ You’re so considerate!”
“ Don’t flatter me , it’s nothing special”.
“ All right. I’m gonna go and work and think what to say to him next time when I get to his dream”.
“ Give him greetings from me and say that everyone in the department misses him”.
“Sure”.
“Bear in mind: I’m watching over you!”
“Brandon!”
***
“ Hey , bro! You Ok?”
“ Yep”.
“ You look startled though”.
“ I just zoomed out”.
The two people left the building and went in the green and sunny premises. The place was way different from the customary city landscape. The shrubs ,trees and green grass made him feel alive again. The singing of the thrushes pacified the whirlwind of emotions that have piled up inside of his troubled mind lately. They passed by a thin crystal blue stream of cold and fresh water. Gillean sat down right in front of it and looked at his reflection in the water. His face looked jaded. He bent over the gurgling stream, and dipped his face right in there.
“Ah”.
“Dudes , whatcha doing here?”
“ Hello Marcus”.
“You see, he’s just getting used to the new surroundings”.
“ Actually, it’s already time to start our experiments”.
“ Hold your horses, I need to brace myself!”
“All right, waiting for both of you by my office door in fifteen minutes”.
Gillean got up and sighed. The fresh water helped to clear his head. Asteria started running and he tried to keep up with her. He tried not to trip and managed to reach her. Slowing down the pace, they reached the office.
“ Ready?”
“Yes”.
***
“You are finally here!”
“ Are we supposed to start today?”
“ Gillean , I’ll explain everything now” said Marcus gravely.
“ Guys, look here: today is our first experiment. Asteria , you will be my assistant. Your task is to control Gillean’s neural circuits. You will be given a stun gun . Gillean will be tied to a chair and he is to wear a peculiar pair of glasses. They aren’t VR , it’s an absolute game- changer. The glasses project every single piece of information that gets to your brain. Apparently, the stun gun is a sort of pistol with a bunch of different random memories. The two pieces of tech are connected to each other via internet, which is pretty straightforward. Gillean, now I want to spell something out for you: in your memory will be loaded some recollections of mine. First of all, you need to watch them and try to interact with the past version of me and whoever else might be there. Asteria will record all your vitals ,most importantly the changes in your brain and the nervous system as a whole. Finally, we will find out whether our actions will influence my perception of the past and I’ll sort of interrogate you with some questions prepared beforehand”.
“ Gotcha, boss!”
“ Gillean , are you ready?”
“I think so. I’ve got butterflies in my stomach though”.
“ It’s obvious. You haven’t had an experience of such kind before, have you?”
“ Of course”.
***
“Brace yourself!”
Gillean sat down and Marcus tied him to the chair. The straps were too tight and he felt that it was hard to even breathe. His head pulsed with the nervousness and adrenaline. He closed his eyes and felt the glasses being put on his face. Something started stinging in his face right afterwards. It was hard to stay concentrated and conscious.
***
“ Marcus , what are you doing?”
“ Oh, mum, I’m trying to construct my own robot “.
“ It’s already one am! Go to bed immediately! Otherwise I’ll take away all your tech and instruments”.
Something dropped on the floor and broke in smithereens . Young Marcus got under his blanket started crying quietly. He tried to stifle the cries not to make his mum furious.
Gillean started panicking. “How should I react to this? I can’t influence his past at all”.
The only thing he came up with was to try to calm the child down. He mulled over the words he wanted to say to the underestimated kid and approached his bed. He lifted up the blanket and patted little Marcus’s shoulder.
“ Hey, dear .Listen to me.”
“ Holly cow, I’ll call the police!”
“ No, no ,there’s no need to do it. I’m Gillean , your future fellow at work. You’re gonna be a scientist conducting a lot of different experiments. They are mostly connected with memory. You made one big mistake – killed a woman . It happened during one of your experiments , but you feel remorse for it. We’ll rule everything out and save the world”.
“ Oh , I get it …”
“ You gotta move on and your efforts will definitely pay off. Your mum loves you really much , she just shows it in another way”.
“ You mean it?”
“Yes, of course . Just look in my eyes . I never lie to anyone and can’t stand anyone daring to do so”.
“ Ok. You’re really generous ”.
They hugged and the memory faded away. For the first time Cullen felt that he could impact something and make someone feel good. It was a warm feeling, when your words matter. He wanted to retain this emotion and stay here forever . He couldn’t have imagined such an outcome of someone else’s past.
“ Hey , fella! Wake up”.
“ Oh, guys it was so kooky”.
“ Drink some water. There you go”, Asteria handed the glass of water, trying to help him get over the experience. His hands were absolutely uncontrollable , he could barely hold the glass.
“ You alright ?”
“More or less”.
“ Now : Asteria, you may be free , I’ll be interrogating Gillean about the vision”.
“All right. Call me in case I’m needed”.
“ Gillean , let’s go to my office so you can sit on the sofa and try to relax”.
“OK”, Gillean said feebly and listlessly. It was hard to find energy to simply get up from the chair.
***
As Gillean and Marcus made their way to Marcus’s office , Gillean couldn’t shake off the strange mixture of emotions coursing through him. The experience of delving into Marcus’s past had left him feeling both exhilarated and drained. He followed Marcus into the office , sinking into the plush sofa as instructed.
Marcus settled into the chair across from Gillean , his expression serious yet intrigued. “ So, how was it? What did you see?” Marcus asked, his tone blend of anticipation and curiosity.
Gillean took a moment to gather his thoughts , still feeling the lingering effects of the memory dive.
“ It was … intense”, he began slowly. “ I witnessed a moment from your childhood , with you and your mother . You were trying to build a robot , but she wanted you to go to bed.”
Marcus’s brow furrowed as he listened intently . “It works! You saw the correct memory”. His serious expression brightened up immediately. “What was your next action?”
“ I… I tried to comfort your younger self”, Gillean continued, his voice hesitant. “ I told him about the future, about our work together ,about … the mistake you made”.
Marcus’s eyes widened slightly , a mixture of surprise and apprehension flickering across his features. “You told him about that?”
Gillean nodded , feeling a weight settle on his shoulders. “I thought… maybe I could offer some comfort, some guidance. Help him understand and move forward”.
Marcus leaned back in his chair, processing Gillean’s words in silence. After a moment, he met Gillean’s gaze with a blend of gratitude and uncertainty . “Thank you” , he said softly. “For trying to help for … caring”.
Gillean managed a small smile , though weariness tugged at the corners of his lips. “Of course” , he replied, his voice tinged with exhaustion. “That’s what teammates do, right?”
Marcus nodded , a hint of smile playing on his lips. “Right”, he agreed. “Teammates”.
As they sat in a companionable silence , Gillean couldn’t help but wonder what other memories lay buried in Marcus’s past , what other secrets and regrets he carried. But for now, in this moment, they were simply two colleagues, bound by a shared purpose and a mutual desire to uncover the truths.
And as the day stretched on and the sun dipped below the horizon, casting long shadows across the office, Gillean found solace in the knowledge that no matter what challenges lay ahead, he wouldn’t face them alone. For he had Marcus by his side, and together , they would navigate the mysteries of the mind and uncover the secrets of the deeply buried past and far future.
***
“ Great job, Gillean. You tested the possibility of influencing the past , so technically we’re capable of intruding in the future. Now you can go and have some time to yourself.
“Goodbye”.
“Bye”.
Gillean came back to the stream to look and the water and ponder everything that has happened. “How to save him from being wanted in the 2024 Detroit? How to make him not guilty again?” he thought and looked at his face reflecting in the pure water. “ I need to catch up with Gwen this night and rule this out ASAP”. It was queer to find out this side of Marcus’s mind. He was an unloved and misunderstood child who just wanted someone to acknowledge and support his accomplishments , but not break the dream and something you tried so hard to build. This lack of care from his mum played a bad trick with the grown-up Marcus, when he killed his innocent neighbor Anne-Marie Hansen.
Suddenly , something started falling from the sky. It wasn’t hail , but something much bigger. Gillean had a closer look and realized that there were some green balls falling on the ground. They smelled like nitric acid. He jumped in the stream as there was no way to shield from the acidic ball bombarding. He felt that he started suffocating after spending too much time holding his breath. Everything went black.
People tried to protect themselves from the phenomenon, but not everyone managed to. There were dozens of corpses lying on the asphalt everywhere. In the parks, near malls or cafes ,there were bodies dissecting due to the acid exposure.
Asteria turned on the TV to watch the evening news. Her TV took up two walls and was actually replacing them. There were just screens on the customary space of the walls. She saw screenshots of the disaster going on outside and jerked up from the armchair. “ How could I have not heard this?” She put on the special protecting costume and other gear and ran out to look for Gillean.
***
“ Hey dude !Where are you?” she was yelling and running around in panic.
She ran towards the stream to catch if he was there and saw someone lying half in the water and half on the ground. It was Gillean. He tried to get from the water and managed to pull out only his upper body and then he passed out because of losing energy and suffocating.
She was doing the indirect cardiac massage when she heard someone running towards them.
“ Asteria , is that you?”
“ Yes. Gillean isn’t breathing , I’m trying to resuscitate him!”
“ I’ll be right back!”
Marcus came back with a huge machine and some medicine. He brought an accumulator and plugged in the piece of tech there. He poured the liquids from the flasks and switched on the thingamajig. He put the hoe in Gillean’s mouth and the machine got all his vitals back to normal again.
“ Aaah , what’s going on?” Gillean felt totally disoriented and everything around him was blurry.
“ It doesn’t matter. Let’s get you back to your room”.
Marcus and Asteria lifted him up and carried to his room. He was in his bed, feeling absolutely lost.
“What was this circus for?” he asked in a weak and indifferent voice.
“ As the news says some terrorists broke in the parliament and tried to explode the building. This acidic balls bombarding was a punitive measure for folks not to dare to repeat actions of this kind” Asteria said and held his hand for a while.
Then Marcus came in and gave him a some kind of pill.
“ It’s for a better sleep. A remedy from nightmares”.
He washed down the pill with some water and lied back down again.
“ Thanks guys, without you I would have been dead” he said and nodded off.
“ It’s too much madness for one day”.
“ Oh yeah, Asteria . If we don’t bring in an changes in this shitty authoritarian government, every day is gonna be like this”.
