Subj: Remember (chapter one)
Date: 1/18/00 12:27:44 PM Central Standard Time
From: Melissa
This story is based on an episode of the New Twilight Zone called "Her Pilgrim Soul."
Remember
Chapter One
Quentin Collins flipped the switch and a tunnel of dusty-rose light rose up form the hologram that stood in the middle of the lab. I made a comfortable humming sound that comforted Quentin, as he made several notes. The office door opened and Will Loomis, his assistant, came inside. He looked up from the school newspaper, he looked surprised to see Quentin still in the lab. “Don’t you have a class?”
Quentin looked at his watch, “Damn,” he said taking
off his lab coat and picked up his sports jacket and brief case.
This would be the third time this week that he would be late to his class, he
would just make the ten minute rule. But before he could get out the door the
phone rang.
“Quentin,” Will said, “It’s your wife.”
Quentin took the phone, and said to Will, “Go to my class and tell them that I’m going to be there shortly.”
He didn’t want to take this call, he had been avoiding
his wife so they wouldn’t end up having this conversation again.
“Maggie.”
“Hi, Quentin, you left so early this morning I didn’t get to say goodbye. By the way where have you been? I’ve been calling all morning?”
“I’ve been working. I guess I just didn’t hear the phone.”
“Don’t you have a class now?”
“Yes, I was just on my way when you called.”
“Oh, well then I guess you’ll want to go now. I just wanted to know if you made the reservations for Claude’s tonight?”
Quentin had completely forgotten but he wasn’t about to let Maggie know this, she’d just blame him for not listening to her once again. “I called, is seven okay?”
“Yeah seven is great, so I’ll meet you there?”
“Alright.”
“Okay then, I love you,” Maggie said.
“Yeah,” Quentin said hanging up the phone, he grabbed
the phone book and call the restaurant and left a message.
He was relieved to have ended that conversation with Maggie, he didn’t understand
why he felt so uncomfortable around his wife lately. Then he hurried to his
class.
“I’m glad to see you all still here,” he said walking into the room, “Sorry I’m late, again,” he said, the class laughed, they were accustomed to him being as late to classes as they were, and they all joked about it together.
*********
After class he talked to two students who showed the kind of promise that Will had shown when he what in his class. He then went back to the lab, Will was waiting for him as usual. Quentin pushed the button on the answering machine. “Mr. Collins, this is Claude’s. I’m very sorry, but we are booked for the entire night. We hope you’ll come some other time.”
Damn, now he’d have to call Maggie and tell her that he had lied. He pushed the speed dial button, and tried to tell Maggie in his calmest voice that he couldn’t get the reservations.
“But you told me you had already gotten them.”
“I know I’m sorry. I forgot, they just called back and their all booked up.”
“Why didn’t you just tell me to begin with?” she asked.
Quentin began to lose his patience, “Why don’t we just go some place else? I’ll call Lear’s.”
“Don’t Quentin, I don’t care about the reservation, what I care about is that you had to lie to me.”
Quentin struggled with his anger, “Look, I’m sorry. Why are you making such a big deal?”
“I’m just trying. . . ”
“I have to go. I have some test to run. Make a reservation for any restaurant you want, then call me back and I’ll meet you there,” Quentin interrupted.
Confused and frustrated, Maggie remained quiet for a moment. “I know you don’t want to talk about. . . ”
“I really have to go. I’ll see you tonight okay?” he said and hung up. Why was every conversation with Maggie ending like this? He turned to Will, who was pretending to be working, to apologize. But something caught his eye.
“What the hell?” he said, Will turned to see what
Quentin was looking at, he followed Quentin’s gaze to the tunnel.
Floating inside the tunnel of dusty-rose light, as if suspended by a string,
was a human fetus.
Will and Quentin moved closer, “It’s not our program,” Will muttered.
Quentin turned to Will and said, “If this is some kind of joke. . . ”
“I didn’t do it,” Will said going to the keyboard. After several minutes of typing, Will looked at Quentin helplessly. The fetus was still there. “Who do you think did this?”
“Probably Alan. Get rid of it”
“I can’t, the program must be more sophisticated then ours.” Quentin felt the anger rise again, as he switched places with Will and try to dump the program. “This has to be from Alan from Life Science,” Quentin muttered as he thought about his options, but there was only one. “We’re just going to clear the memory, and use the back up memory.”
“But that’s going to take hours.”
“Have any better ideas?”
It did take them hours, so long in fact that Quentin had to call Maggie and tell her that he wouldn’t be able to make it to dinner after all. Maggie had accepted it with the quiet suspicion of a woman being put off. Finally at 8:30 that night, Quentin hit the keys on the keyboard to turn the hologram back on. “Lets see what happens,” he said. The rose colored light burst up, the tunnel was clear, as if nothing had ever been there to begin with.
“Well, I’m glad that’s over with,” Quentin said turning off the machine again.
“I wonder where it came from,” Will said.
“If it was Alan, I’ll make sure he regrets it, tomorrow.” Quentin got ready to leave, Will sat starring where the tunnel had been. “It was so real.”
“It probably was, a video,” Quentin said, “Are you coming?”
“Yeah,” Quentin shut the light off, and Will grabbed his coat and followed him out of the office.
Several minutes later the column of dusty-rose lit up the room, and now floating in the center of the hologram hung a newborn baby. The cries echoed in the empty lab.
*********
Maggie Collins had dinner waiting for Quentin when he got home, even later then he had said he would be. Maggie was a beautiful auburn haired woman with dark eyes. It was her air of peace that first attracted Quentin to her. She remained calm and self assured even in the most heretic deadlines at the newspaper, where she worked as a journalist. But here she was struggling to understand the man that was becoming a stranger to her. They ate in silence, when they were done, the conversation that Quentin had been dreading all day, moved into their bedroom.
Maggie sat at the side of the bed with a pillow on her lap, beside Quentin. “I thought that you wanted children when we got married.”
He carefully thought about what he was going to say. “I do, it’s just that I’m not ready. I have so much stuff to finish at the lab. . . ”
“Screw the lab Quentin,” Maggie said angrily, “I hardly see you anymore, and when I do that’s all you want to talk about.”
“This is my life Maggie, I’ve been working on it for years. I can’t just give it up.”
Maggie was silent for only a moment, “We’ve been married for four years, you can’t just through that away,” she said with a strange note in her voice, that Quentin had never heard before. He looked up and saw that there was fear in her eyes that Quentin had never seen there before.
He took her hands in his, “No, I don’t. . . ”
“Quentin, please tell me what’s been bothering you? It’s not your work I’ve seen you under pressure before. Is there anything I can do?” Maggie asked wrapping her arms around him.
Quentin stood up, “Maggie, I’m sorry I can’t deal with this right now. I’m going to sleep down stairs. Maggie watched him go, she didn’t know what she could do, Quentin was drifting away and she didn’t now why.
To be continued. . .