CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

MEMORY WILL ALWAYS PLAY YOU

It was cool. Arabella Rashid and James Ryan at the secret library. Talking and enjoying themselves, looking through and reading all kinds of fascinating things during the day—having all kinds of fascinating fun and games at night.

The days passed wonderfully.

It was a good time for both of them.

A free time.

Away from it all.

Away from politics.

Away from duty.

It was too short a time of course, but neither of them would ever forget it.

They talked a lot about books. She wanted to see one of the rare book rooms. The one with all the hard-boiled vintage era paperbacks.

“Come on, James,” she said, leading him down the hall, hand in hand. She wore a short mini- dress, she’d told him it was the latest rage-style back on Earth. All very sexually and politically incorrect these days. “You like the way I look?”

He loved the way she looked. The fact that she’d dressed that way for him was almost too much for him to believe. He didn’t say much about it, but he thought a lot about it. Her. Finally he said, “It’s very nice. You look great.”

She smiled, she knew it only too well. She said, “You know, it’s not on any of the approved clothing lists.”

Ryan laughed, “Only on Earth would they have approved clothing and unapproved clothing. Of all the damn stupid things. Do they actually have...?”

She nodded back to him, “Oh yes. There are laws and they enforce them. Rigorously. It’s been the law for a long time almost as far back as LastCen. Today it’s become mostly custom and fashion. Approved fashion, of course. Unapproved fashion is dangerous, it can lead to a prison term. Or worse. You could be labeled a trouble-maker or an “incorrigible.” That can lead to a Brain-wipe. Reprogramming.”

Ryan shook his head.

She told him, “There was this girl, she was a low-level secretary in one of the hundreds of DOC agencies. I didn’t know of her. I certainly did not know her, but I heard it all afterwards. She’d been involved in some kind of clandestine sexual relationship. Actually, it was worse than that, it was a secret marriage! Can you believe that? And in The DOC with another DOC worker. I mean, the guy wasn’t just a Citizen—he was DOC. I think he set her up for a promotion. Then he betrayed her!”

“Marriage is still outlawed?” Ryan asked.

“Official DOC policy, and it’s frowned on in the general culture also. And we all know the general culture always follows the lead of the elite’s,” she said in a matter of fact tone.

He nodded, not surprised at all.

She continued, “But back to this secretary. She ended up getting secretly married. Some of that kind of thing goes on among citizens and lower-level workers. They know they’ll never rise high no matter how hard they work, so nothing matters to them. They flout the rules. Of course, with good sense, only up to a point. This girl went too far.

“She was found out, betrayed. She talked of having children. And raising them herself! The general Earth culture frowns on sex. Except for procreation only by the elite, of course. Citizens are the workers and they’re job is to work. And obey. They’re not allowed time for children and raising families. The girl was taken away. Never seen again. I heard later she’d had a complete brain wipe. But the process didn’t work right, it fried her mind. Killed her. Such a waste.”

Ryan asked, “Did you have anything to do with her disappearance?”

Arabella Rashid sighed, said, “No, darling, she was so far below my level, you know? I never come into contact with those people. But it was taken care of under my watch. I was essentially responsible.”

He said, “But could you have done something?”

She said, “What? Even if I had known. What could I have done?”

He repeated, “You could have done something to stop it, to help her. To save her. Maybe change the rules?”

She looked at Ryan, “Darling, I’m the one who makes the rules. I am there to ensure these rules are carried out. DOC’s function is to ensure obedience to those rules from all citizens.”

“I know,” he said, “I just thought I’d ask.”

She looked at Ryan closely. She saw his disappointment. Her face was a mask. But inside, deep inside her she felt pain. Such hurt. She was so sorry.

* * * *

They reached the Rare Book Room and a sign that said: “Hard-boiled Paperbacks.” It was the biggest RBR in the secret library. Ryan had made it the best of the lot. It was his personal thing. It had one copy of every damn paperback he could find, buy, beg, borrow, steal, smuggle, transship, grab, grope, get, weasel, intimidate, or cajole for his library. Here he displayed, filed, researched, stored, shelved, or collected as much of the classic hard-boiled fiction from LastCen as he could find. Old Baxter Moneybag’s collection simply paled by comparison. Had Baxter but known....

There was a lot to look at.

“It’s very impressive,” Arabella Rashid said, looking over a near complete run of rare 1950s Lion paperbacks. There seemed to be only a couple missing, one was #99, and allowed a wry grin. She knew that book well, but she stayed mum about it all for now.

The books lay shelved with their colorful, garish spines shown in all their wondrous glory. Many were also displayed face-out so the covers could be viewed. “They’re really beautiful books, James. Little pieces of art, like posters. The women.... They’re so....”

“Vibrant, vivacious, alive,” he said. “Like you.”

She smiled, actually blushed. He could barely believe such a thing was possible. Or was it just an act? Even now?

She said, “And the men, they are so strong, so hard, so intent. Just like you.... Just like you were last night, baby.”

Ryan smiled, said, “You keep talking like that and I’ll end up keeping you awake all night and we won’t get any sleep tonight either.”

* * * *

Memory really can play you. Sometimes Ryan wondered what was real and what was fake. What was a lie and what was true? These days it was impossible even to ask those questions. You’re bombarded with government lies and propaganda, your mind and thoughts influenced, if not downright controlled. Sometimes brain implants full of syntha-prop begin in the womb. Inputs are surgically implanted into the fetus. The baby is plugged into supposed “education” software while still in the womb. They don’t waste any time. By the time an Earth child is born he or she is not brainwashed actually—one would wish their techniques were that primitive! By birth the newborn’s mind has already been so conditioned and programmed, charted and controlled, that they are made into the perfect Citizen. Brain dead, accepting, harmless. And helpless, just the way The DOC likes them. And if there’s ever a flaw or problem, bio-link implants and neural chips filled with government approved reinforce womb programming kick in.

It works only too well.

Ryan shuddered. That had never existed on Mars and never would while he was in charge. He saw to it that all of that stuff had been reversed and deprogrammed over the last twenty years here. Mars was an entire planet of self-sufficient, in-your-face, angry, independent, free-thinking, incorrigibles with bad attitudes!

It was wonderful.

It offered hope.

But the mind could still play you. The DOC was all-powerful. They played mind games that were mysteries to all. Sometimes Ryan wondered if he really was on Mars at all. Maybe he was lost in some secret DOC virtual program. Was there really a secret library or was it just a thought, a fantasy, from the corner of his mind that Arabella Rashid and The DOC had caused to be brought up to play him? Was there even space travel to Mars yet? Wasn’t he really still back down on Earth? Back in solitary confinement. Naked and alone in the dark. Mumbling to himself. Clutching a copy of that old paperback to his stinking hide and trying to read the words printed on the old dirty paper.

Now what the hell had been the title of that book?

He remembered it now.

Mars Needs Books.

Yes, that was it. Macky had told him once that hard-boiled fiction held in it the true seed of American individualism, culture and freedom much like the earlier era represented by western fiction did. That mirrored the attitude that made a country and people great once.

Ryan had laughed then and told Macky, “There is no America anymore.”

It was long gone by then.

A memory now, but Ryan could hardly remember it.

America had been cut up, divided, walled off. Some states had seceded, other states secluded themselves, cities became Security Districts. The Underpeople, the refuse of the Earth who were too poor and useless to society to bother to brainwash, came to be eventually led by some replicant. Not even a human-being truly, but some pseudo-robo-bio cyborg. His name was Moses Sage. Ryan remembered what Arabella had told him about it. The secret war back on Earth. Moses Sage, and nanotech warriors that he had thought had only been a rumor. Like The DOC was a rumor. The interesting thing was the revolt. It seems that some of the nanotech government knights had defected and had joined Moses Sage in a scheme to free the Underworld.

Was it true?

Could he trust Arabella Rashid?

Or was he being set up?

Of course.

It had to be a set-up.

But why?

More importantly, by whom?

If it was not Arabella, if it was not The DOC, then who the hell was behind it?

Ryan had an ally on Earth. His only ally. His brother.

Was his own brother the person setting him up?

Ryan’s brother—who was not his bio-brother, not his true brother at all who had died in the war—shipped him boxes of paperbacks, or so the story went. Over the last twenty years hundreds, if not thousands of boxes of paperbacks had been sent out to Mars. Ryan would trade them with the miners and other men of Mars. There had been many huge crates with tons of paperbacks marked “mining supplies.” These were separate and had been the basis of the secret library.

They—and Ryan was not sure who they might be—seemed to be allowing him to indulge his paranoia and fantasy here. But why? It seemed that they didn’t really want to destroy the old books, the old knowledge, the truth it all held. Maybe what they really wanted was to get it all off-planet. Off Earth. To keep it safe. Somewhere else. Away from the people who would destroy it. To keep it all somewhere where the masses couldn’t get at it. Where only the elite could get at it. Like on Mars, or maybe where the government and The DOC wouldn’t get at it? Which was it? Why the secret library?

Ryan shook the thoughts around in his head. Was he being played? Acting out parts and plans that he thought were his own, but were in fact orders he had no knowledge of from secret masters? Who was pulling his strings? It had happened before. With him and with Macky. It happened with many millions more down on Earth every single day.

If so, then why not here on Mars?

Memory can always play you.

And so can the DOC.

Memory can always be played with also.

And the DOC loves to play with your memories.

And so can Arabella Rashid.

Maybe Ryan should have killed her.

Then again, he loved her and perhaps, just perhaps, she was the one real hope of his world.

The world of Mars.

Unless she was its doom.

Then she would be James Ryan’s doom as well!