Microstory 157: Cambrio Yates

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There are a few different kinds of memory. Semantic memory includes the things you know about the world around you, regardless of the means you took to learn them. This helps you recognize what a car is, or what planet we’re on, or that you’re a human. Episodic memory refers to everything that you have experienced; all the events in your life. Cases of amnesia are usually portrayed as affecting episodic memory (i.e. memories) but leave semantic memory alone, so that you’re not freaked out by the “first time” you see an airplane. Finally, procedural memory handles task that you are familiar with performing. It’s commonly known as muscle memory. You don’t actively concentrate on driving a vehicle. You’ve done it so much that it’s become second nature, and your body handles it on its own. Whereas Dathan Shapiro simply had a more robust memory system, Cambrio Yates had the ability to manipulate the functions of his own brain; primarily, but not limited to, memory. He was born with a sort of second brain that he likes to call the governor. It maintains control over the rest of his brain, and will revert his mind to its standard settings as needed. Though Cambrio is capable of having 100% recall of everything he’s ever experienced or learned, he can also delete information and suppress function at will. He’s been known to play around with his own brain, making himself blind, or temporarily hiding all semantic memory, so that everything he encounters feels completely unfamiliar. He’s watched movies for the first time multiple times, and even read books with his eyes closed by taking mental photographs of the pages in rapid succession, and then recalling the words gradually. His brother, Fraser could do the same things as him, but with other people. Cambrio encouraged him to experiment and practice his gift, but he was always very reluctant. Still, Fraser listened to his brother, and tried a few things out, and it got him killed. Cambrio blamed himself for his brother’s murder, and so he permanently deleted the traumatic memory from his brain, careful to leave himself with the knowledge that he should never attempt to remember.

Microstory 125: Alonso Silva

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Alonso Silva grew up in a small and quiet town in Spain. He had a passion for knowledge, but a complete hatred for learning. Going to school, listening to teachers, and reading books all felt like such a waste of time. He just wanted to get to the end where he knew everything. Fortunately, he was biologically designed to achieve such a thing. Once, when walking back home from school, he discovered a loosened eyelash on his cheek. He blew on it and made a wish. As the hair was drifting down to the ground, it started to glow with a grayish light. As the light increased, it began to take the shape of a door. When the door faded away, an exact copy of Alonso was left standing in front of him, wearing a simple gray tunic of some kind. There appeared to be no limit to the number of clones Alonso was able to conjure at any one time, however, each clone would only last for exactly four days. At that point, it would fade back into the gray, and Alonso would absorb its memories. The clones were not intelligent enough to make their own decisions, nor was he able to connect with them remotely, but they did have eidetic memories. It was this exploit that allowed the original to never go back to class, or anywhere else he wasn’t interested in, for the rest of his life. When Alonso was older, he found himself the owner of a factory in midwest Usonia with almost no employees. Nearly the entire workforce was made up of his clones, and they required no compensation for their work. There were only a few workers with their own identities that were used for appearance’s sake. These people signed nondisclosure agreements that basically set them up with guaranteed wages for the rest of their lives. Very little changed in terms of the factory’s day-to-day activities when Bellevue uncovered Alonso’s secret. He ultimately moved to the hotel, primarily to work in the medical department, but also to use his clones for grunt work. By the time the government started an investigation into the factory’s financials, Bellevue had gone public, and legal precedents needed to be set.

Microstory 64: The Package

My parents are on vacation in Hawaii, so I’ve been going to their house every few days to grab the mail and water some plants. When I get there today, I see a package. The label has their address, but it lists two names that I do not recognize. I send a text message to my mother, and she tells me that one of the people listed lives to the West of them, while the other lives to the East. She must be busy, because I don’t get a response when I ask which house I should take it to. It seems strange to me that two people who live in separate houses would both receive a single package. Perhaps the sender realized this and decided to split the difference by sending it to the house in between them. I flip a proverbial coin and walk over to place the package at the West house. When I get back to my parents’ I see the package has returned. And it must be the same package. I don’t have an eidetic memory, or anything, but the creases on the cardboard and the marks on the corners are the same as I remember them. If it’s just a duplicate, it’s a very good one. I take it back over to the West house, but the same thing happens again. I decide that the package magically knows where it’s supposed to be, and will default to the beginning until it’s put in the right place, so I take it over to the East house. Yet again, I find that it has defaulted to my parents’ porch. Before I can think of a third option, I hear ticking. On instinct, I run towards the street, but it isn’t far enough. The package explodes and sends me colliding into my car. When I wake up hours later at the hospital, the police inform me that the explosion stretched across all three houses, killing all those inside.