Emily

When it began, my eyes were shut tight, and all I could hear was the rhythmic clobbering of the unknown train on its unnamed track. I came to my senses with a jumble of wayward memories, all mixed up in the tornado of my mind, none of which related to why I was on a train, who I was, or how I got here.

The first thing that came into focus was the voice of a young girl crying for help.

The girl's cries were coming from outside the train, and I could see her running alongside us, desperately trying to keep up. She was waving her arms and shouting, but I couldn't hear anything she was saying over the noise of the train. We were steadily picking up speed, and pretty soon, either we would be too fast for the girl's faltering jog to keep up, or her platform would run out. There was no time to think - and I did not. So I banged the window open and shot out my hand.

"Grab my hand, quick!" I called.

She hesitated for a split second before she grasped my arm with both of hers, and I swung her in through the window. The sudden jolt unbalanced me, and I fell headfirst, taking the girl with me. We were both tumbling through the air when I saw the train disappearing into a tunnel. There was a loud screech, and my brain felt like someone had just split it right in the middle.

"Are you OK?" she asked above the racket.

I turned my head to see the girl's face for the first time. She looked about my age, with big brown eyes and dark hair blowing in the wind from the still-open window. The wailing from tracks outside was hellish - until it cut off as the window automatically sealed itself shut with one brisk thump.

"Yeah, I think so," I said, trying to sit up. "What about you?"

"I'm OK," she said. "That was a close one. I almost slammed into the tunnel there."

"I..." I stammered. "Do you know what train this is?"

She looked at me, confused. "Don't you?"

"I seem to have a problem with my thoughts", I admitted, unsure how to put it together.

She was taken aback, but not entirely. "This is the 9:45 to Richter's Landing", she said. Not the one that goes by Crater Lake, but the plateau above. This tunnel takes us to the top. Are you sure you are all right?"

"I don't know", I said. "I can't remember anything."

"That's OK", she said, taking my hand. "My name is Sarah. Maybe I can help you figure it all out."

For a moment, I was intrigued that she did not look too concerned by my memory loss, but I let it pass. We sat there for a while, not speaking, both of us deep in our thoughts, trying to figure out what to say next. Something about Sarah felt familiar, but I couldn't place it.

"Do you have a family?" I asked finally.

She nodded. "Yes, my parents and my brother."

"Where do they live?" I asked.

"They live back on Earth, in Richmond, Australia. Pretty rural area. What about you - oh - no memories, right? Pardon me."

"It's all right," I said. I was starting to feel a bit better now that I had somebody to talk to. "What about you? What brings you up here?"

Sarah looked at me for a long time before she answered. "I'm not sure", she said slowly. "I think... I think I might be running away from something. I guess that's why anyone comes to the Moon these days. There are always better places further away. The Jovian System, Titan, and even dusty old Mars are nicer. Does any of those places ring a bell, by the way?"

"No", I said, shaking my head. "I'm sorry."

She shrugged. "It was a long shot, anyway. Maybe when we get to Richter's Landing, somebody there will know you. Have you ever been there before?"

"I don't think so", I said. "Although... something about space itself, when I think about it, makes me feel... I don't know, at home, maybe?"

"Oh, then maybe you are a Spacer... One of those Nomads, perhaps?"

"Your guess is as good as mine," I chuckled.

Suddenly, the train lurched and screeched. Out of the dark window, we could see sparks and flashes. There was a moment of panic as vivid images of the train ripping open and ejecting us into airless darkness grasped my mind. Then we were running straight once more, albeit faster and faster.

Sarah was shaking. "That's not supposed to happen", she was aghast, "how fast are we going anyway?"

As if on cue, we shot out of the tunnel. I looked out the window and saw the lunar landscape rushing in a blur. "I don't know, but it doesn't look good."

Sarah nodded, her face grim. "This train is going to kill us", she said, fear in her eyes.

"We should find someone who knows what's going on!" I said and yanked on the door - which failed to open. "It's stuck!"

"It won't open", Sarah said, yanking on the other door. "We're trapped in here!"

The train lurched again, and this time we could hear things crashing around in the back of the car. "We have to do something!" I said desperately.

Sarah nodded. She pulled out her mobile. "It's dead", she gasped. "No reception. Do you have a mobile?"

I ran my hands over my jumpsuit. "No."

"Shit. Don't you remember anything? Maybe you know something that makes sense of all this..." she trailed off, looking at me with hope.

But I could only shake my head. "I'm sorry", I said. "I wish I could help, but I can't even remember my name."

The train started to wallow like a drunkard, and we were both forced down to our knees for balance. It felt like we could run off the tracks at any time if the train kept accelerating at this rate.

Sarah eyed the cabin. I could see her eyes darting from one object to another, trying to find anything that could help us out of our predicament.

"Hold on a second," she said, frowning her brow, "these doors are password-locked by the occupant... which seems to be you, which means..."

"I should know the password!" I exclaimed. But if only I could recall literally anything!

"Think! It should be something important to you," she said. I could read her desperation in her face.

I tried to rack my brain for any clue, but it was like grasping at straws. So I looked around for something that could jog my memory, but there was nothing.

Suddenly, the train made a hard turn, and we were both flung against the wall. I hit my head and saw stars, and among them was a deep-space platform. And on that platform was the familiar face of a uniformed woman, and I could almost bite onto her name. Then, as my vision cleared, Sarah was leaning over me, shaking me gently.

"Are you all right?" she asked anxiously.

I looked at her - so familiar! Suddenly, letter by letter, a name floated to the surface of my mind. "Emily?" I said tentatively.

Sarah's face lit up. "That's it! Now enter it in!"

I quickly typed in the password, and the door slid open, revealing the other side - tranquil darkness. Sarah grasped my hand and pulled my numb weight into the dark. It was positively a chamber, but none of the walls was lit, and the light from the compartment behind did not seem to make it into this strange space. I bumped into the soft back of a chair.

"Sit," she said calmly, and I obeyed, not knowing what else to do. The tornado in my brain seemed to have subsided, replaced by a vast emptiness.

Sarah began to rummage around, and her opening and closing drawers sounded like gunfire in the silence. "Aha!" she said eventually, and I heard her come close to me, holding something. "This should do it."

I felt a sudden warmth on my face and realized she had put a nerve needle onto my skin. My brain rushed, disjointed pieces starting to slide into place.

"Now, watch," she prompted, and the sudden glow of a big screen filled the room in front of me. Then, for a moment, it read MERT, and the logo of a fulcrum swung across a calm blue background. After that came a holo-recording. I watched myself wake up and go through all the frantic encounters that followed from a vantage point above and to the right.

There was a narrating voice:

"Subject has accepted the prompt", it said, in neutral calmness, as I pulled Sarah in.

"Engaging contextual localization", it said as we talked about the Moon, Earth, the colonies, and space.

"Crisis initiated", it chimed as the sparks flew off the side of the tunnel, and we started lurching forward with deadly speed.

Then Sarah started to speak.

"People always keep secrets," she said. "It's a part of the intelligence business". She looked at me. "You are an intelligence officer working for the Nomad Syndicate. Do you remember now?"

I nodded dumbly. This whole episode was starting to make sense. The mission, the agent, the target - But what was the secret?

Sarah continued. "And people generally like to keep secrets about themselves too. It's human nature. In your case, Doctor, it was the password to the compartment. However, it could have been a code, a bank account, the name of a target, anything..."

I frowned. "What are you getting at?"

"Your mind is a computer, and it's been hacked. Wiped clean. But computers never really forget anything. There's always a backup".

Sarah leaned back, looking smug.

"That is all your theory, actually, and a brilliant one at that, I must accept. Your pioneering work in mapping the neural pathways to subconscious backup neurons - We built all of this system on that premise. It creates a controlled crisis scenario in tune with the subject's neural architecture to burrow deep into the brain's backup and retrieve sensitive information."

I looked around, confused. Sarah continued:

"Doctor, you are our foremost expert on human memory. This entire facility is designed - by you, of all the people - to extract memory data, especially ones the host buries deep."

It all started to tie up. The memories, the false life, the secrets... I was in a top-secret government agency. And Sarah - Emily - was my colleague, confidante, and wife. She immediately detected the recognition on my face and smiled slyly.

"You know, for a moment there, I thought you would not remember my name, even though we wiped me clean off your memory, as per your instructions. Now that would piss me off big time!"

Emily then planted a long, deep kiss on my lips, and I realized how much I had missed her even without the whole memory of her.

"Welcome back, darling," she said, drawing back slightly to look into my eyes. "It was so brave of you to volunteer for the final test yourself. And you worried me sick the whole time. We have much to do to put you back together.

This was all too much for me to take in. The pain returned. I felt like my head was going to explode. "Where... where exactly am I?" I asked, barely above a whisper.

"We are on Ceres Station, in the Memory Extraction and Reactive Training facility, or MERT for short. And you, my dear husband, run it."

By now, the video recording was over. Someone dismissed the hologram and turned on the lights. Vaguely familiar faces behind a glass wall ahead waved at me. Some clapped, the sound of their clapping obscured by the sound-proof glass.

I was dazed. Could this be real? It had to be some dream or a nightmare. Or maybe I was insane, and this was all just a figment of my imagination.

But then Sarah - Emily - came over to me and took my hand. "It's all right. Now that we have unlocked your backup neurons, the rest of your memory should follow soon enough. Your predictions estimate the recovery time to be six to eight hours. So please do not dwell on it too much. I am dimming the lights now. Try to rest. We have a big celebration tomorrow. The test we just ran validates that all of it, our magnum opus, and your masterpiece is working."

She winked. "I'll see you soon."

The lights dimmed, and I was left alone in the room. My mind was still reeling from everything that had just happened. What Sarah - Emily - had said about my mind being hacked and this being some memory extraction facility - It all took on a scary sort of coherence. An unorthodox one, yet solid nonetheless.

In any case, I was mortally tired. Eventually, I drifted into sleep.

I dreamt of a life where I was loved and happy - a life with Emily. And in the morning, I knew it was all real. Because she was there, standing over me, smiling down at me with love in her eyes.

"Welcome back," she said softly, and all the rest of her came frothing up into my mind like warm childbirth.