Level 2 (Memory Chronicles) Read Online Free PDF Page A

where I remember the door opening. Where Julian stood. I shudder.
    “Where are you going?” Virginia follows me.
    “There was a door. Right here.” I pound the curved wall, drawing back as the sound echoes dully though the hive. “It was open and Julian stood right here.”
    “A door.” Virginia looks at me like I am insane. “Really. I’m starting to think some of that smoke inhalation from Beckah’s fire has given you hallucinations.”
    I bite back my frustration and push past her, returning to Beckah’s chamber. “Let’s just check on Beckah.”
    I peer into Beckah’s chamber. Her eyes are open, staring at her lighted console, and her hands are folded across her chest. She looks peaceful. She looks dead. “Beckah?”
    Beckah turns her head and looks at me. “Who are you?” she asks in a little girl voice. “Where’s my mommy?”
    I’m speechless. Virginia gasps behind me, and then she’s beside me, reaching out to take Beckah’s hands in hers. “Beck-ah!”
    “You’re not my mommy,” says Beckah, pulling away. She scrambles as far from us as possible, which is not far. Then she pulls her legs to her chest and huddles against the smooth back wall of her chamber. “I want my mommy.”
    I exchange a look with Virginia, and we both straighten up at the same time. “Is this weird enough for you?” I whisper.
    “But what’s going on with Beckah?” Her eyes grow unnaturally wide. “Is this what is going to happen to us?”
    “Maybe it’s my fault. Maybe by programming a memory of five-year-old Beckah, I made her regress to that state?” I start to pace. It helps me fight through the sludge in my head so I can think. Ten long strides from Beckah’s chamber to the erstwhile door. And ten long strides back. “Maybe I can get in there again and try to program something else?”
    “Such as?” Virginia drops down to the stair closest to Beckah’s chamber. “The day her momma left her? The day she got beat to a pulp by her stepdaddy because she didn’t wash his dish fast enough?”
    I stop in my tracks and glare at her. “No need to be sarcastic.” Then I continue my pacing.
    From what little I know of her life, Beckah didn’t have a lot of good days, especially as she got older. And what was it going to help if I programmed in something from when she was seventeen and not five? She still wouldn’t remember us, since she didn’t know us while she was alive. At least if she were older, though, maybe she’d be more able to help herself. I know she’s tougher than she looks.
    “I can rent a comforting memory off the net for her,” I say. “Calm her down.”
    “You know as well as I do that Beckah never has any credits. No one wants to rent her awful memories.”
    That’s not entirely true. Beckah does sometimes getgood credits for her careful and thoughtful reads of classic and modern literature. In literary circles on the net she has some cache, especially because she was often patient enough to read entire books in one sitting. She’s no S. K. Love, the top source for quantity and quality, but her memory editions get their fair share of rentals. The problem is, she spends whatever credits she gets as soon as they come in. I guess I might too if my life had been like hers.
    “I can try transferring some of my credits to her.” I amass way more credits than I can ever use. Turns out people here pay top credit for travel, and I did a lot of that in my short lifetime. It’s the new experiences and sensations people clamor for, as everything familiar tends to produce a powerful state of ennui once you’ve done it enough.
    “If that works, you can send some my way too.” Virginia grins. “I’m getting critically low myself.”
    “Uh, yeah. I’ll get right on that.” I duck back down to check on Beckah. She’s whimpering softly, chattering her teeth as if she were cold. Which she can’t be. Either our afterlife bodies aren’t sensitive enough to know the difference or the