Remember Me (ONC2020) ✔

Chapter 3

Runan twirled the noodles around on his fork while steam rose in the air. Messita would have liked this place and asked for double the spice of his noodle bowl. Everything she did had to be bold or exciting.  He closed his eyes and smoothed his rough fingers over his brow, soothing the burgeoning headache. Thinking about her would only make him a blubbering mess when Solara arrived.

Aside from an older couple sharing a large soup bowl, the restaurant was empty. Pictures of mountains, rivers, and fields hung on the wooden walls, poor substitutes for the real thing. Some days, Runan would trade the responsibility of his failing farm for a more stable job like this, especially if it'd kept Messita from selling her life to pick up the slack. But he wouldn't be the one to let the family farm fail, not willingly. 

Twenty minutes after a middle-aged man with a bruised face stomped out of the restaurant from the same set of back stairs Runan had followed, Solara hurried to his table. Her long, brown sleeves billowed, and her hair was haphazardly thrown into a failed bun. As their eyes met, his heart raced, and her mouth opened slightly. She plunked into the seat across from him, playing with the necklace from her mother, and smiled. Caldozza's crown, she was as stunning as ever.

"Sorry, it took longer than I anticipated."

Runan crossed his arms. "Saving the world, one memory snatch at a time."

"You haven't changed a bit."

"Neither has the world."

Solara cocked her head to the side. "It has, but not for the better. So what can I help with?"

His lukewarm noodles regained their appeal, and he shovelled in a mouthful of fishy pasta. The plan was insane, but he only had two days before Messita became the property of the memory snatchers, and he lost any lead into what caused her death.

"I need Messita's memories."

"Are you her memory guardian?"

"Yes, but Mem-Stem is holding her body in storage until I can pay off an impossible debt. Is there a way to access her memory without her body?" Runan met her eyes with a cautious smile.

Solara smiled back and laced her fingers together. "We specialists don't have access to a magic memory database. I mean we do, but it's a one-way street with our Upper-Caldozzan employer, and I don't work for Mem-Stem."

"I know where they're keeping her. If I sneaked you in after-hours, could you get them?" He leaned forward, gazing into her honey eyes. The girl who did everything in her power to help him when his parents had perished had to be in there somewhere. 

Solara dug her nails into the wooden table. "They would kill you without hesitation, and me."

Runan took a long drink of cold water and sighed. He would risk his life for Ita. "I don't have another choice. Something happened, something Ju'rah and the others think is suspicious. If we could see that moment, we could hold those bastards responsible for what they did to my sister."

"Memory extraction from a deceased person is a gamble. You could get fragments or nothing at all, especially days after. Our tech can only do so much."

"She had a chip. I could break in and get it." The technology had caused weeks of fighting between him and Messita. Anything the memory snatchers implanted could only cause trouble. They could spy on the communities through the creators and take non-sanctioned memories. It seemed a likely plan for the Upper-Caldozzans to squash uprisings, but Messita only saw profit from 'purer' memories and more content to sell.

"Even if you weren't caught, it'll be encrypted and monitored with her recent death. If they installed the chip, it's their property. Is anyone else in her crew chipped? They may have witnessed something."