Someone Else’s Memories

Case #4721-B

Status: CLOSED

Date: October 31, 2047

Officer: Detective Sarah Vance, Homicide Division

Victor Mendez died at 11:47 PM on October 29th from a single gunshot. His body was discovered in his study, slumped over his desk. Gun belonged to his wife, Margaret Mendez. She confessed immediately.

Case is closed. Margaret Mendez is in custody awaiting trial.

What follows is my complete investigation, documented in reverse chronological order per Captain Morrison's request. He thinks this method will help identify where we failed to prevent this.

OCTOBER 29, 11:30 PM - THE CONFESSION

Margaret sat across from me, shaking. His blood was on her blouse. She looked straight at me when she spoke.

"I shot him," she said. "He was at his desk. I took my gun from my nightstand, walked downstairs, and shot him."

"Why?"

"Because he wasn't going to stop."

I waited.

"He was going to publish it. Everything he'd found."

"Found about what?"

"About them. About what they did to us. To everyone."

Her lawyer arrived twenty minutes later and she stopped talking.

OCTOBER 29, 11:15 PM - THE CRIME SCENE

Victor Mendez's study. He sat in his leather chair, head tilted back. Blood had pooled on his desk, soaking into hundreds of pages of printed documents.

I photographed everything before forensics arrived.

His computer monitor was still on. Document titled "THE MEMORY WARS: A HISTORY OF CORPORATE THEFT, 2031-2047."

First line: "They stole fifteen years from us. This is how they did it."

I bagged his hard drive personally.

OCTOBER 29, 10:52 PM - THE CALL

Dispatch patched me through at 10:52.

"Detective Vance? This is Margaret Mendez. I'm at 4178 Oakwood Drive. I just killed my husband. Please come."

She sounded like she was ordering takeout.

"Ma'am, are you in danger?"

"No. He's dead. I shot him. I'm sitting in my kitchen."

I got there in twelve minutes.

OCTOBER 29, 8:30 PM - THE ARGUMENT (RECONSTRUCTED FROM NEIGHBOR TESTIMONY)

Mrs. Chen from next door heard yelling around 8:30. Couldn't make out words, but she knew both their voices. Margaret sounded desperate. Victor sounded like he'd already decided.

Mrs. Chen almost called us. She didn't.

From recovered texts on Margaret's phone, I pieced together what probably happened:

Margaret: "Please don't publish it. Please."

Victor: "I have to. People deserve to know."

Margaret: "They'll kill you. You know they will."

Victor: "Maybe. But I'm doing this."

Margaret: "Then I'll stop you myself."

OCTOBER 29, 3:00 PM - THE MANUSCRIPT

Spent six hours reading Victor's manuscript after we seized it. Captain Morrison wanted a summary before the FBI takes over.

Victor Mendez was a journalist. Three years investigating NeuroSync Corporation—the company that pioneered "therapeutic memory modification" back in 2031. His research claimed:

NeuroSync didn't just erase traumatic memories. They erased entire chunks of people's lives.

Between 2031 and 2044, over four million people got procedures they never agreed to.

A lot of these were corporate whistleblowers, political activists, journalists.

Government knew. Helped hide it.

Victor had documents. Leaked emails. Testimony from former NeuroSync employees. Brain scans showing identical modification patterns across thousands of patients.

He had actual proof.

OCTOBER 28, 9:00 AM - THE WARNING

Victor's phone records show a call from an unlisted number at 9:00 AM, day before he died. Call lasted four minutes.

Got a partial transcript from the phone company. Voice was electronically modified:

"Mr. Mendez, you've been asking dangerous questions."

"Who is this?"

"Someone who knows what you're working on. You need to stop."

"I'm not stopping."

"Think about your wife. Think about Margaret."

"Are you threatening her?"

"I'm giving you information. Margaret Mendez underwent procedure #47823 on June 14th, 2039. Check her medical records. Then decide if you want to publish."

Call ended.

OCTOBER 28, 2:00 PM - THE DISCOVERY

Victor broke into his wife's medical files that afternoon. Found his handwritten notes in his desk drawer.

"Margaret - NeuroSync procedure, June 2039. Why? What did they take?"

"She doesn't remember. Eight years and she never said anything."

"What was she trying to forget? Or what did someone want her to forget?"

"She has a scar. Behind her left ear. She told me childhood accident. She's had it since I met her."

"That's where they cut."

OCTOBER 15, 2047 - THE INTERVIEW

Two weeks before his death, Victor interviewed Dr. Patricia Huang, former NeuroSync neurosurgeon. Found the recording in his files.

Dr. Huang: "We were told we were helping people. Trauma victims. Veterans with PTSD. People who couldn't function anymore."

Victor: "But that wasn't all you did."

Dr. Huang: "No. Sometimes we got special cases. Flagged files. We weren't told why. We just did them."

Victor: "How many?"

Dr. Huang: "I did maybe two hundred over six years. I quit when I figured out what was really happening."

Victor: "Which was?"

Dr. Huang: "Erasing inconvenient people. Not killing them, too messy. Just taking away whatever made them a problem. Memories of what they saw. Relationships with people who might believe them. Sometimes their whole personality."

Victor: "Did you keep records?"

Dr. Huang: "Everything. I copied everything before I left. Patient names. Procedure dates. Authorization codes. I've been sitting on it for years, too scared to do anything."

Victor: "Would you give it to me?"

Long pause.

Dr. Huang: "Yes."

JUNE 14, 2039 - MARGARET'S PROCEDURE (SPECULATION)

No official record of what Margaret had erased. NeuroSync's files on procedure #47823 are sealed by court order. National security classification.

But I found something.

Margaret was a journalist too. Back in 2039, she worked for the Metropolitan Chronicle. I pulled her old articles.

Her last published piece ran June 1st, 2039. Corporate fraud at a medical technology company. She'd been investigating for six months.

Two weeks later, she quit journalism. Told friends she was burned out, wanted something calmer. Became a librarian.

Met Victor in 2041. Never told him she'd been a journalist.

Because she didn't remember.

MAY 2039 - BEFORE (RECONSTRUCTION)

Can't prove this part. But I think I know what happened.

Margaret found something. Maybe about NeuroSync. Maybe about whoever funded them. She was young, good at her job, not afraid of anything.

She was going to publish.

Then someone grabbed her. Or invited her somewhere. Or just showed up at her door.

They strapped her down. Opened her skull. Found every memory of her investigation and deleted it. Found her drive to uncover things and burned it out. Found whatever made her dangerous and erased it completely.

Gave her new memories. A nice boring desire to work with books. A comfortable feeling that investigative journalism wasn't really her thing anyway.

Sent her back to her life. She never knew anything had happened.

OCTOBER 30, 2047 - MY REALIZATION

Writing this at 2:00 AM because I can't sleep.

Victor found out his wife had been erased. Not killed, erased. Turned into someone else. Someone harmless.

He was about to publish proof that this happened to millions of people.

So, Margaret killed him.

But here's what I keep thinking about: Was it really Margaret who pulled that trigger?

Or was it whoever she used to be? The journalist who got too close but still buried somewhere in her brain, protecting herself the only way left?

If you erase someone's memories, are they still the same person?

If that person kills someone, who's actually responsible?

FINAL NOTATION

FBI seized all of Victor's research this morning. Captain Morrison says the case is out of our jurisdiction. National security.

Margaret's lawyer is arguing diminished capacity. Going to claim she doesn't know why she did it. That she felt compelled. That it wasn't really her.

Maybe that's true.

I have a scar behind my left ear. Had it my whole life. My mother said I fell off a swing when I was seven.

Been a homicide detective for twelve years. Love my job. Never wanted to do anything else.

Tonight I'm going to check my medical records.

I'm scared of what I'll find.

CASE CLOSED