“So you don’t remember me now?” he asked, his expression becoming more serious. “How much did he wipe out?”
“When I woke up here a couple of days ago, my latest memories were from March,” Mia explained, watching as the K’s jaw tightened.
“That fucking bastard,” Adam said, anger seeping into his voice. “I’m sorry, Mia. I wish I’d been here –”
Mia waved her hand dismissively. “Don’t be silly. Nobody suspected anything; he was too good. He even managed to sneak into the fight yesterday and almost kill Korum.”
“Yeah, I heard about that too,” Adam said. “I watched the recording of the fight this morning.”
“Oh, right.” Mia tried not to blush. If Adam had seen the fight, then he might’ve also watched the celebration afterwards.
“Do you want to go inside?” Adam asked, motioning toward the ruined building. “I think we can extract a lot of the files and data. I spoke with the other apprentices, and they’re fine with it.”
“Sure,” Mia said quickly, grateful for the change of subject.
Walking up to the building, they climbed through a ragged opening in one of the walls. The usual wall-dissolving mechanism appeared to be malfunctioning – which was hardly surprising, considering the condition of the building.
“What’s going to happen to the lab?” Mia asked when they were inside. “What’s the normal protocol for something like this?”
Adam shrugged. “There is no normal protocol. This lab is Saret’s, so technically we’re now trespassing on his property. Although I think the government might own it now, given Saret’s crimes. I’m not really sure how these things work. My best guess is that most of the information will be transferred to the labs in the other Centers – and maybe some other mind expert will want to open a new lab here in Lenkarda.”
“What about you? Why don’t they have you take over the lab?”
“Me?” Adam raised his eyebrows. “I’m too young and inexperienced as far as they’re concerned.”
“You are?” Mia looked at him in surprise. He looked to be a man in his prime, outwardly similar to Korum. “How old are you?”
“Oh, that’s right, I almost forgot that you don’t remember.” Adam smiled. “I’m twenty-eight, only a few years older than you. I am also a fairly recent arrival in the Centers. I grew up in a human family, you see.”
“You did?” Mia’s eyes went wide. “How?”
“I was adopted as an infant,” Adam said. “Now why don’t we start going through some of Saret’s files and see if there’s anything useful there? Maybe we can shed some light on your condition.”
Mia was dying to ask more questions about Adam’s origins, but he didn’t seem to be in a mood to talk about it, so she focused on the task at hand instead. Adam showed her how to operate some of the lab equipment, and they began digging through mountains of information, searching for anything memory-related.
Six hours later, Mia got up and rubbed her neck, her brain feeling like it would explode from everything she’d learned today. Adam was still as focused as ever, going through file after file with no trace of tiredness.
Hearing Mia’s movements, he looked up from the image he was studying and gave her a warm smile. “You should go home, Mia. It’s getting late. I’ll work here some more, and then I’ll leave as well.”
Mia hesitated. “Are you sure?” She was mentally exhausted and starving, but she felt bad leaving Adam on his own.
“Of course,” Adam said. “Now go. This is plenty for today.”
* * *
Korum paced in the living room, too wound up to sit still. When he had gotten home an hour earlier and found the house empty, his immediate thought had been that something had happened to Mia – that Saret had found a way to get to her after all.
Of course, that wasn’t the case. A quick check had revealed her location, and then it had been easy to access the satellite images and see her talking to Adam outside Saret’s lab several hours earlier. Still, those few seconds before Korum had been assured of her safety had chilled him to the bone.
Now he was fighting an urge to go to the lab and bring Mia home. He wanted to hold her and feel the warmth of her body in his arms, maybe for the last time. Once he told her the truth about her condition, she would be more than justified in wanting to leave him. As terrible as her memory loss had been, the other procedure was far more invasive, altering her brain in a way that she would likely find unforgivable. Now she would never know if the way she felt about Korum – or about anything in general – was real or if it was a result of what Saret had done.
A dark temptation gnawed at Korum. What if he didn’t tell her? What if she continued in blissful ignorance, happy with her life as it was? Other than Saret and Korum, no one else knew the truth. He could keep her, and she would love him – and he would be the only one to know it wasn’t real love.
A couple of months earlier, Korum wouldn’t have hesitated. He had wanted her, and he’d simply taken her, disregarding her wishes. If he had been faced with this dilemma then, it would’ve been an easy decision to make: keep her and all else be damned. But he couldn’t do that anymore, couldn’t treat her like a child or a pet, as she’d once accused him of doing. He wanted her to stay, but it had to be of her own free will – even if that free will had been somewhat tampered with.
No, he had to tell her, and he had to do it soon.
Finally, Korum saw a pod landing outside. Mia came out, and the aircraft took off, heading back to wherever it came from.