The Mnemosyne Gamble- Chapter Five: Through the Bluest of Seas

Rhynar loved the idea of hiking. She had grown up in the city, where hiking was something people did at gyms. The closest she'd ever come to the real thing involved a room with a floor-to-ceiling forest projection and specialized ellipticals that adjusted their resistance to simulate hills, roots, and uneven terrain. There were even fans that changed speed depending on the projected elevation. She'd always thought it was fun. The prospect of doing the real thing delighted her.

At the shops near the border station, Rhynar happily gathered everything the displays insisted a person needed for a proper hike. She paid for the supplies with a necklace and bracelet she'd been carrying with her, both gifts from Rollo years ago. She had kept the jewelry mostly because it made her look more established at the office. They were expensive enough to suggest permanence, though neither piece had ever seemed to match anything she wore. In retrospect, that was how she felt about most of Rollo's gifts. They were always beautiful, always expensive, and somehow never quite belonged anywhere in her life. She felt surprisingly little when she traded them away.

By evening, Rhynar was still enjoying herself. Tully was not. "This is just walking," Tully complained. Rhynar looked around at the trees. "It's hiking." Tully whined, "It's walking outside." There was probably some truth to that. Tully had grown up in the unincorporated territory. Trees, dirt, insects, and long distances on foot held considerably less novelty for her.

As the light began to fade, Rhynar excitedly unpacked the tent she'd bought.

"We should set up here," she said, looking toward the darkening sky. "We can see the stars." Tully stared at her. "What? We're not sleeping out here." Rhynar, confused, said, "I bought a tent." Tully rolled her eyes. "I know." Standing by her plan, Rhynar continued, "A very expensive tent." Tully, unimpressed, responded, "I watched you buy it." Rhynar frowned. "Then what's the problem?" Tully pointed beyond the trees. "There's an old housing complex not far from here. Nobody lives there anymore. We can stay in one of the houses." Rhynar looked in the direction she'd indicated. "You want to break into a house?" She asked, "You want to sleep outside where anybody can see us?"

That gave Rhynar pause. Tully was from here. Rhynar wasn't. "Fine," she said, stuffing the tent back into its bag. They reached the development shortly after dark.

At first, Rhynar thought Tully had been exaggerating when she'd called it abandoned. The houses were enormous, arranged along curving streets with sidewalks, driveways, mailboxes, and dead lawns. From a distance, it could almost have been an ordinary suburb after everyone had gone to bed.

Then they got closer. Windows had been broken. Doors hung crooked from their frames. Weeds pushed through cracks in the pavement. Whatever had once identified the neighborhood had been stripped from the stone monument at its entrance, leaving behind only pale rectangles where lettering had been.

Tully chose one of the quieter-looking houses and slipped through a damaged back door.

The interior was mostly empty. Cabinets had been torn open, fixtures removed, and dark rectangles marked the walls where screens and decorations had once hung. Still, it had walls and a roof.

Rhynar dropped her pack. "This is better than the tent?" It was eerily silent. "Quiet," Tully whispered. Rhynar looked at her. Tully immediately raised a finger to her lips. That was when Rhynar heard voices outside. Not one voice. Several. She moved toward the window, but Tully caught her arm and pulled her back.

Through the darkness, Rhynar began noticing movement between the houses. People wandered the abandoned streets in loose groups. Some carried bags and tools, moving from house to house in search of anything worth taking. Others were young and loud, treating the empty development like an enormous private playground. Music erupted somewhere down the street, followed by shouting and laughter. Farther away, Rhynar spotted people who seemed far more settled—nomads who had claimed whichever houses remained habitable and had no intention of surrendering them easily.

The neighborhood wasn't abandoned at all. It simply belonged to different people now.

As the night deepened, the streets became increasingly chaotic. Groups moved rapidly between houses, slamming doors, breaking whatever previous visitors had left intact. Somewhere nearby, glass shattered. Someone screamed, followed immediately by laughter.

Rhynar glanced at Tully. Tully gave her a look that said I told you so without making a sound.

Then voices came from directly outside. Tully grabbed Rhynar's wrist. They heard the back door open. Footsteps entered the house. Tully pulled Rhynar toward a door beneath the stairs. Behind it was a narrow staircase descending into darkness. They hurried down and eased the basement door shut behind them. Rhynar stood perfectly still at the bottom of the stairs, listening as strangers moved through the rooms above them.

Something heavy crashed onto the floor. Someone laughed. Another voice shouted from somewhere upstairs. Rhynar looked at Tully in the darkness. Only a few hours earlier, she had been disappointed that they wouldn't get to sleep beneath the stars. Suddenly, the basement seemed like the best accommodation she'd had all day.

They stayed in the basement until the voices upstairs finally began to fade. Rhynar heard the front door slam, followed by laughter spilling into the street. She waited another few minutes before Tully crept up the stairs and pressed her ear against the basement door. "They're leaving," she whispered. With a heavy sigh of relief, Rhynar said, "Good."

Tully cracked the door open. Rhynar began gathering their things, but when she looked up, Tully was still watching through the opening. "What are you doing?" Tully shrugged. "I think I'm going with them." Rhynar stopped. "What?" Tully, unfazed by Rhynar's disapproval, said, "They're having fun." Rhynar couldn't believe what she was hearing and snapped, "They just tore apart a house." Tully defended them, saying, "An empty house." Rhynar didn't like this one bit and tried to reason with her. "Tully." However, Tully was already slipping through the door.

Rhynar lunged after her and caught the back of her shirt. "Absolutely not." She felt like a mother trying to stop a disobedient child. Tully squirmed away. "Let go of me." Rhynar held fast. "No. We don't know these people." Tully argued, "You don't know anybody out here." Rhynar admitted, "Exactly." Tully twisted free. "Tully!" She hurried toward the back door, laughing as Rhynar tried to catch her again. "Wait for me at the park," Tully said. Rhynar, confused, "What park?" Tully, gleeful at having beaten her chaperone, said, "The one I told you about. Providence Park." Rhynar was not amused. "Tully, no." Tully, still unmoved, said, "I'll get them to drive us home. It'll save us days of walking." Rhynar spoke louder as Tully was off. "You don't even know them!"

But Tully was already gone. Rhynar stood in the doorway, furious and terrified in equal measure. Then she went after her. She followed at a distance, using the noise ahead to keep track of the group. They moved deeper through the development, collecting people as they went. By the time Rhynar caught sight of them again, they had reached an open stretch of land where an enormous bonfire burned between the shells of several houses.

Dozens of people had gathered around it. Music pounded from somewhere Rhynar couldn't see. People drank and shouted over one another. Someone threw a piece of furniture into the flames, sending sparks high into the night. Rhynar searched until she found Tully. For one hopeful second, she considered walking straight into the crowd and dragging her out.

Then she noticed how people were behaving around her. Tully was already trying to become one of them—laughing when they laughed, moving when they moved, pretending she belonged. Rhynar, with her corporate clothes, expensive pack, and obvious discomfort, would immediately draw attention. Worse, if Rhynar marched in demanding that Tully leave, Tully would have to explain who she was. And why they were there.

Rhynar understood with a sinking feeling that showing herself might not protect Tully at all. It might be the thing that put her in danger. So she stayed hidden. She watched long enough to convince herself that Tully wasn't in immediate trouble, then forced herself to walk away. Providence Park. That was where Tully had told her to wait. Fine.

Rhynar would give her the benefit of the doubt one last time. She would go to the park and wait until sundown the following day. If Tully hadn't appeared by then, Rhynar would return to the border station alone and have her formally marked as administratively unaccounted for. The phrase made the situation sound considerably less horrible than it was. She walked for what felt like hours.

The road stretched through long patches of darkness, interrupted occasionally by abandoned buildings and stretches of overgrown land. Without the forest projection or the carefully calibrated resistance of an elliptical beneath her feet, Rhynar was beginning to discover that real hiking was mostly exhaustion accompanied by uncertainty.

Then headlights appeared behind her. Rhynar moved farther toward the shoulder. The vehicle didn't pass. Instead, the engine roared behind her and then the brakes screamed.

Rhynar spun around. An ancient delivery truck had stopped several yards ahead. Its body was dented and patched with panels that didn't quite match. One taillight flickered uncertainly. The passenger window rolled down. An old woman leaned halfway out. "Where are you going?" Rhynar froze.

The woman waited. Rhynar considered running, although there was nowhere obvious to run to. "Just to the end of this road," she finally said. The woman stared at her. "The end?" Rhynar was unsure why that was an unacceptable answer. "Yes." The woman looked at the man driving. He looked back at her. Then they both looked at Rhynar. "You mean the beach?" the woman asked. Rhynar hesitated. "The road goes on for miles," she added.

"Yes," Rhynar said quickly. "The beach." The old man leaned across the steering wheel to get a better look at her. "Get in." Rhynar reflexively spat out, "No, thank you." He pressed, "It's not safe walking around here by yourself." Rhynar did not want to get in with them. "I'm fine." The man firmly spat back, "No, you're not," he said. Rhynar took a step backward.

The woman slapped his arm. "Stop saying it like that. You're scaring her." He explained to her, "I'm telling her the truth." The woman turned back to Rhynar. "Our house is on the way. We'll take you." Rhynar was starting to realize they would not leave her in peace. "That's really not necessary." The woman continued, "Honey, if we wanted to rob you, we'd wait until you got somewhere darker." Rhynar stared at her. The woman frowned. "That sounded better in my head." Her husband shook his head. Rhynar looked down the empty road behind her. Then at the truck. Then back toward the darkness.

Against every instinct she'd developed living in the city, she approached the vehicle.

The old woman smiled and pulled her seat forward. "Back there." Rhynar opened the rear door. There was technically a seat. She could see part of it beneath old blankets, plastic containers, tools, newspapers, tangled cords, several empty bottles, and something that appeared to be either a dismantled appliance or a piece of farming equipment. Rhynar stared into the mess. "Just move anything you need to," the woman said. Rhynar pushed aside a stack of boxes and climbed in. Something immediately toppled onto her shoulder. "Sorry," the woman said. Rhynar managed to uncover enough of the seat to sit down before pulling the door shut. The truck lurched forward.

Within seconds, Rhynar was almost completely buried beneath their belongings.

She sat rigidly among the junk, watching the abandoned development disappear through the dirty rear window and wondering whether getting into a stranger's truck had been the stupidest decision she'd made all day. Considering how the day had gone, there was considerable competition.

For the first few minutes, no one spoke. The truck rattled along the road while a talk-radio host shouted through blown speakers at a volume Rhynar couldn't understand anyone willingly choosing. Every few seconds, static swallowed half a sentence before the signal returned and the shouting resumed. Rhynar sat wedged between boxes in the back seat, trying to determine whether silence was reassuring or somehow worse. Eventually, the old couple seemed to forget she was there. They started talking to each other as though they were alone, carrying on a disjointed conversation that Rhynar couldn't follow. Then came the unmistakable smell of something burning.

Rhynar peered between the seats. They were smoking something that smelled like melted plastic and caustic chemicals. She pulled the nearest blanket over her head. It smelled terrible—dust, old sweat, mildew, and something she preferred not to identify—but she decided that whatever had accumulated in the fabric was preferable to breathing whatever was drifting through the cab. She would get out the next time they stopped. That became the plan.

Quickly, the truck turned from the road onto something considerably rougher. Rhynar felt herself being thrown from side to side beneath the blanket until the vehicle finally stopped.

Doors opened. Closed. Silence. Rhynar cautiously lowered the blanket. They had arrived at a cabin. At least, she assumed there was a cabin somewhere behind the mountains of trash surrounding it. Broken furniture, containers, rusted machinery, pieces of vehicles, appliances, and countless objects Rhynar couldn't identify had been piled around the property in walls of discarded possessions.

The old couple disappeared inside. Rhynar remained where she was. She checked her fob.

Nothing. No messages. No location information. No connection at all. She was too far from the main roads. Rhynar stared at the useless display. For the first time in her life, she genuinely had no idea where she was. She waited, occasionally peering through the dirty window from beneath the blanket. Minutes passed. She couldn't hear the couple anymore.

Fine. She would walk. She didn't know where she was going, but moving in the wrong direction seemed preferable to remaining buried in a stranger's truck indefinitely. Rhynar pushed the blanket away and carefully reached for the door. She pulled the handle as slowly as possible. The latch clicked. The front door suddenly opened. Rhynar dropped back beneath the blanket. The old man climbed into the driver's seat. The engine started. Rhynar lay completely still. He drove away. He had forgotten her. Rhynar couldn't decide whether to be insulted or grateful.

She stayed hidden until the truck eventually stopped again. The moment the driver's door opened and the old man stepped out, Rhynar shoved the blanket aside, opened the rear door, and practically rolled onto the ground. She gathered herself, grabbed her pack, and hurried away before anyone could notice. Only after she'd put some distance between herself and the truck did she look around. Water stretched across the horizon. Rhynar stopped. "The beach."

The old woman had been telling the truth. Morning was approaching, although the moon still hung brightly over the water. The place wasn't quite the endless ocean Rhynar had imagined when she'd heard the word beach. It was more like an enormous lagoon, protected enough that the water moved in gentle waves rather than crashing against the shore. She was exhausted. Her clothes were filthy. Her hair smelled like that disgusting truck. Every part of her body hurt.

Rhynar dropped her pack onto the sand and walked toward the water. It was warmer than she expected. She stood ankle-deep for a while, letting the little waves move around her legs. Then she went farther. Rhynar had never swum anywhere except a pool. That realization suddenly seemed ridiculous. She waded until the bottom disappeared beneath her feet and then pushed herself forward.

For the first few moments, she fought the water instinctively. There were no painted lines beneath her. No tiled wall waiting at the other end. No chlorine burning her eyes. No lifeguard watching from a chair. There wasn't even another person nearby. Eventually, she stopped swimming. She rolled onto her back. The water held her.

Rhynar floated above the deepest part of the lagoon, staring up at the moon while the waves gently lifted and lowered her body. She had never experienced anything like it.

There was no ceiling above her. No fluorescent lights. No voices echoing against tile. No one kicking water into her face or claiming a lane.

She thought about the last time she'd gone swimming alone back home. She had been showering afterward when a woman marched up to her and accused her of stealing her friend's towel. Rhynar had been standing there completely naked. The alleged victim was standing beside the woman. Holding the towel. "She didn't take it," the friend had repeatedly pleaded. The woman continued accusing Rhynar anyway. Rhynar had never understood what she was supposed to have done with the stolen towel, considering she very obviously didn't have it. It soured her on going to the pool. She hadn't been back since.

Floating beneath the moon now, the memory seemed even more absurd. Maybe something was appealing about living beyond all of that. No crowded pools. No pointless confrontations with strangers. No constant observation. No need to prove where you belonged or explain what you were doing there. Out here, nobody cared. Rhynar understood, perhaps for the first time, why someone might willingly disappear from the incorporated world altogether.

A small wave rolled beneath her. She closed her eyes. Of course, there were problems. The complete absence of infrastructure was one. The casual drug use was another. And she would strongly prefer never to spend another night hiding beneath a filthy blanket in the back of a truck belonging to people who had forgotten she existed. So perhaps she wasn't ready to abandon civilization just yet. Still, floating alone beneath the fading moon, Rhynar had to admit that the unincorporated world had finally shown her something the city had never managed to reproduce.

But the city had spent enormous amounts of money convincing people it could reproduce experiences like this. Artificial sunlight. Climate-controlled beaches. Forest projections. Wave pools programmed to mimic distant oceans. Entire buildings designed to give people the sensation of briefly escaping the city without ever actually leaving it. None of them had gotten this right. Rhynar opened her eyes.

The moon was fading as the first traces of morning appeared along the horizon. The water moved beneath her without machinery controlling it. There was no admission price, no allotted time, no employee waiting to tell her when her session was over. For once, she wasn't having an experience someone had designed for her. She was simply there. Dirty, exhausted, lost, and floating beneath a fading moon. But the day was growing on in hours. She knew she would have to continue too. Thankfully, there were old signs on the roadway, giving directions on where Rhynar needed to go for her to follow.

Rhynar walked the rest of the way to Providence Park. By the time she reached it, the sun was well above the horizon, and the pleasant warmth she'd appreciated at the lagoon had become considerably less pleasant on the road. She knew she'd arrived only because of a weather-beaten sign leaning crookedly beside the entrance.

PROVIDENCE PARK

There were no gates to climb and no locks to break. If there had ever been any, they were long gone. Vines crawled over the entrance structures, and weeds had overtaken the paths beyond them. Trees and brush had grown wherever landscaping had once been carefully maintained, swallowing benches and pushing through cracked pavement. Rhynar walked in.

It was strange to imagine that people had once paid to come here. She spent the remains of the day exploring while she waited for Tully. Providence Park had apparently been built around an old legend—or a scientific theory, depending on which surviving placard Rhynar happened to be reading.

The story was that somewhere inside the park, under the correct conditions, a person could send a memory backward through time to themselves. The park's creators had been remarkably vague about how.

One placard described memory as information and argued that information might not be constrained by time in precisely the same way as matter. Another described reports of people remembering events before they occurred. Others leaned considerably harder into the mythology that had eventually surrounded the place.

Rhynar found herself reading every one she could find. Some were faded almost beyond recognition. Others had been vandalized. One had fallen face-down into the weeds, forcing Rhynar to lift it if she wanted to read the rest. Apparently, the centerpiece of the attraction had been a particular location within the park where the phenomenon was supposed to be strongest. Visitors had been encouraged to stand there at certain times and concentrate on a memory they wanted their past selves to receive.

Rhynar smiled when she read that. She understood why people had eventually called it a scam. Still, she kept reading. As late afternoon faded into late evening, Tully still hadn't appeared. Rhynar returned to the front of the park. She was too tired to be angry anymore. She found a nice flat spot on the ground near the entrance and sat down on it to eat. She took out what remained of her food and watched the empty road while the light slowly disappeared.

If Tully wasn't there soon, Rhynar would have to leave without her. She'd already decided that. There was a procedure for this. She would return to the border station and report Tully as administratively unaccounted for. Someone else could decide what happened after that.

Rhynar finished eating. She would wait just a little longer. She hadn't slept the night before.

That fact caught up with her all at once. Rhynar leaned back against her pack, intending only to rest her eyes. Within minutes, she was deeply asleep.

When she opened them again, sunlight was burning across her face. Rhynar winced and raised an arm against an intense beam of morning sun. Something beside her crinkled. She turned. Tully was sitting a few feet away, casually eating food from Rhynar's pack. Rhynar stared at her. Tully looked back while chewing. For several seconds, neither said anything.

Then Tully pointed beneath Rhynar. "Did you mean to sleep on the park emblem or not?" Rhynar frowned. "What?" Tully gestured. "The emblem." Rhynar sat up and looked beneath herself. The dirt and weeds had concealed most of it the night before, but in the morning light she could see the design carved into the stone. She recognized it. Rhynar looked toward one of the placards she'd read yesterday. Then back at the stone. This was the spot.

The exact place where visitors had supposedly been able to transmit a memory backward to themselves.

"No," Rhynar said. "That was unintentional." Tully considered this. "What did you dream about?" Rhynar tried to remember. There was nothing. "Nothing that I remember." Tully laughed. "What a rip-off." Rhynar almost smiled. She looked at Tully again. There were at least a dozen things she wanted to say. Where were you? What were you thinking? Do you have any idea how dangerous that was? I followed you. I waited an entire day for you.

She could have started with any of them. Instead, Rhynar stood, brushed the dirt from her clothes, and took the food out of Tully's hand long enough to retrieve something for herself. Tully protested. "You have your own." Tully shook her head. "I ate mine." Rhynar commented, "Of course you did." Rhynar handed it back.

They gathered their things. Then, without ceremony, they left Providence Park and started down the road toward Tully's family's house. For once, Rhynar didn't lecture her. Maybe she was too tired. Maybe the last two days had exhausted whatever part of her still believed Tully could be reasoned into behaving differently.

Or maybe, after getting lost, hiding from squatters, being forgotten beneath a filthy blanket in a stranger's truck, swimming beneath the morning's moon, and accidentally spending the night on a stone that supposedly sent memories backward through time, Rhynar had simply run out of interest in telling anyone else how they ought to live.

So they walked.

Tully talked.

Rhynar listened.

Behind them, Providence Park disappeared into the overgrowth.