Meghan Lee smiled into the camera, awaiting Dan’s signal to begin and trying not to look too much like the enthusiastic newbie she was. But gah! Her very own segment! She was young. She was pretty. She was on fire!
“You’re go in five, four…” Dan held up three fingers, then two, then pointed at her.
“Hello,” Meghan said, intentionally letting her smile falter somewhat. “This is Meghan Lee reporting to you from Central Park where masses of empty shells are…” Meghan paused, thoughtfully. “Should I go with empty shells or human husks?”
“What?” Dan wasn’t paying attention to her; he had the camera pointed toward a hauntingly lovely young woman with dark hair, bronzed skin, and dull, empty eyes.
“Empty shells or human husks?” Meghan asked impatiently. “I need this first segment to be perfect. Some people are calling them zombies, but–”
“That’s offensive,” Dan replied.
“Exactly, so empty shells or human husks?”
“Have you ever known one?” He looked annoyed, suggesting he had. But he’d been a cameraman a lot longer than she’d been a reporter.
“I talked to some of these yesterday, before I pitched the segment.” Meghan waved vaguely at the people behind her. It hadn’t been precisely these people, although she thought she recognized a white-haired man sitting on a bench, but they’d all had more or less the same things to say: Can you spare some change for the memory exchange?
Creepy.
“My brother ended up like this,” Dan said with a scowl. “Kept trading up his memories for better memories until there was nothing left of him.”
“That’s why we’re doing the segment, to warn people away from disreputable memory brokers.”
Dan scowled again. He never seemed to approve of Meghan, no matter what she did, and he acted like he was at least a decade older than her when in fact, he was barely twenty-five. Maybe he’d gone to a disreputable memory exchange, too, and was remembering what it felt like to be an eighty-year-old man.
The thought made her smile.
“All right, let’s start over.” Meghan stood tall and stared at the camera.
“Go with lost souls,” Dan said as he reset the shot.
“A bit poetic, but…” Meghan shrugged. Maybe. She started rehearsing possible lines in her head as Dan once again cued her to begin.
“Hello, this is Meghan Lee reporting to you from Central Park where the scourge of lost souls continues to grow by the day. These people were once our brothers and sisters, moms and dads, daughters and sons, but now they wander aimlessly on errands not even they comprehend for they have forgotten even that which drives them.”
Meghan stared into the camera for another few heartbeats, then began walking along the path toward the white-haired man she was pretty sure she’d seen yesterday. He was particularly gruesome, and would punctuate her segment nicely.
“Excuse me, sir, may I have your name?”
He looked up at her vaguely, his eyes struggling but finally finding focus on her face. “Do you have some spare change? I’ve run out of memories to exchange.”
“Do you even know your name?”
“It might be Tom. Or Donald. Or Beth.”
“Which memory exchange do you use?”
“Do you have some change?” he asked again.
Meghan had been expecting this. She motioned to Dan to cut the recording while she passed a fistful of bills to the old man, knowing exactly what he would do with them. As soon as he had his cash in hand, he stood up from the bench and began to walk across the park.
Meghan and Dan followed.
He led them precisely where she’d known he would – to a seedy memory exchange in a bad neighborhood. The people hanging out on street corners here or leaning up against graffitied walls had almost as little hope as the lost souls in the park. The fact that most of their memories remained intact was more a testament to the inherent value of living someone else’s poverty than it was to their desperation. Even when “hungry for a day” became all the rage on the memory exchange, the supply always exceeded demand.
Dan set up for a shot outside the seedy exchange while Meghan watched the white-haired man go inside. She couldn’t follow without permission from the store owner, so she stood outside the door with a clear shot of the establishment’s name by her side.
Dan cued her to begin.
“The lost soul we interviewed at the park was able to get some money and made his way here, to this unregulated memory exchange where thousands of lost souls are being taken advantage of, selling off one memory to pay for another, always at a loss, never quite getting back as good as they gave. The only thing that seems to remain, by design we fear, is the drive to continue buying new memories to fill the empty void their souls have become.”
The door jingled open and the white-haired man emerged, stumbling slightly on the single, jagged stair.
“Excuse me, sir, what’s your name?”
He blinked at her in confusion. “Don’t I know you?”
“I’m Meghan Lee, Chanel 8 On Your Side.” Although this was her first segment, and it hadn’t aired yet…
“I’m Jackie. I work at the deli up the street. I’m sure you’ve been in there before.”
“Well, Jackie,” Meghan said, forcing her smile into place, “thank you for taking the time to speak with us today.”
Jackie wandered along the street, Dan’s camera following her progress until she disappeared into a little deli on the corner. He kept his camera dutifully trained on the front door of the deli until a couple minutes later when the perplexed-looking old man was tossed bodily out onto the street.
“Tainted memories,” Meghan said as the camera panned back to her. “He thinks he is Jackie, at least for a few hours or a few days. He doesn’t just remember what it was like to be her. The core identity is corrupted by so many exchanges and by the slipshod work of these unlicensed dealers. So who are these criminals taking advantage of our most vulnerable citizens? Let’s see if one of them will answer our questions.”
Meghan turned and knocked firmly on the door, which rattled in its hinges. To her surprise, it opened, revealing a tall woman with long braids hanging down her back.
“I’m Meghan Lee, Chanel 8 On Your Side, and I’m here to ask you some questions.”
The woman smiled, revealing straight, white teeth. “I’ve been expecting you.”
“What do you have to say to the families of the thousands of people who come to you for hope and leave as human husks, lost souls unaware of their own identities?”
“I say a surprising number of people want to be someone else, and want to forget who they were. Maybe if those families treated them better, they wouldn’t have a problem.”
“But you don’t exactly make them someone else, do you? You strip them of any sense of identity.”
“I provide a service, and at far more reasonable prices than the memory cabals uptown.”
“Those memory cabals, as you claim, offer premium memories and wish-fulfillment experiences in safety and comfort.”
“Yes, the safety and comfort only the super-rich can afford. But where do the memories come from? Do you think they’re stripped in safety and comfort?”
“Yes.”
“So if someone wanted to remember being a reporter for a day, you’d sell your memory?”
Meghan shuddered at the eerie path this conversation had taken. They’d definitely have to do some creative editing back at the studio.
When she turned to tell Dan to stop recording, he wasn’t there.
“I wouldn’t sell to a place like this,” Meghan whispered.
“No, Meghan Lee wouldn’t sell to a place like this. The people who bought it from her would – this one’s been making the rounds.”
Meghan stared at her, trying to remember the woman’s name. Trying to remember her own.
“Are you ready to resell and try for something else?” the woman asked. “Resale is usually ten percent, but I’ll do fifteen for this one. Special one-time only offer.”
Meghan shook her head, confused.
“Oh, honey, do you have any original memories left?”
“I-I-I-” She looked for Dan, once again, still confused when he wasn’t there. Maybe he’d gone back to the park for some B-roll?
She’d just go back there and look. After all, this was her first segment, and she wanted to make sure it was perfect.
Christine Amsden is the author of nine award-winning fantasy and science fiction novels, including the Cassie Scot Series. In addition to writing, she is a freelance editor and political activist. Disability advocacy is of particular interest to her; she has a rare genetic eye condition called Stargardt Macular Degeneration and has been legally blind since the age of eighteen. In her free time, she enjoys role playing, board games, and a good cup of tea. She lives in the Kansas City area with her husband and two kids.