F Paul Wilson - Novel 05 Read Online Free

your memories
you have no past, no family, no friends, no experiences. You haven't been
anywhere or seen anything or met anyone. You are defined by the accumulation of
your day-to-day experiences. With no memory of those experiences, who are you?
You're a cipher."
                 "Which
is why our foundation finds your research so intriguing. But surely not
every memoryscape looks like this."
                 "Absolutely
not. Lorraine had a fairly prosaic upbringing. I've been in 'scapes where it's
not so sunny and there aren't any white picket fences — "
                 "Like
a ghetto?"
                "Right. But even subjects with
a ghetto background have these rolling, well-organized, wide-angle landscapes.
It's just that the empty areas tend to look like vacant lots and the buildings
look like
tenements."                                                      
:
                 "Might have been more interesting to visit one of those."
                 You
feel your jaw muscles bunch. You're taking this man on a tour that only a
handful of people in the world have experienced, and already he's grousing.
                 '"One
of those' wasn't available — at least not one who'd allow
a stranger to open the book of her life."
                 "But they let you — "
                 "Only
after they get to know and trust me. Lorraine trusts me implicitly. And she
doesn't feel she has anything to hide."
                 "Everybody's
got something to hide."
                 You
can't argue with that, so you say, "Let's go take a closer look, shall we?
Pick any structure you want."
                 You
rotate the visual field, giving a panoramic view of the memoryscape. A
gallimaufry of structures dots the terrain below: ranch-style tract homes, the
brick edifices of public grammar and high schools, churches, fast-food joints,
college dorms, taverns, movie houses, soccer fields, the Eiffel Tower, Big Ben,
and, towering over everything, a huge white two-story colonial house.
                 "Why
the landmarks?"
                 "Lorraine
spent her junior year abroad in Europe. Don't forget, the memoryscape doesn't
exist in her head; it's a symbolic virtual environment — computer generated. Lorraine's mind determines what's
important, the computer simply accesses that hierarchy and fashions an
environment — her personal memoryscape — -from it. Every significant person, place, and event in her
life is down there."
                 "And
the not so significant?"
                 "Down
there too. Usually tucked away in and around the big ones. You just have to
know where to look. The presence of adrenaline or noradrenaline in your system
at the time of the event embeds those important moments more firmly in your
memory."
                 "Well,
if big equals important here, let's have a look at that huge white house."
                "Good choice. That's where she
grew up. Lots of memories there. Hang on."
                 You
work the glove, pointing, banking right and swooping down to ground level.
After so many visits to Lorraineville, you've become Top Gun navigating the
memoryscape. It's fun showing off. Sometimes you feel more at home here than in
the real world.
                 The
white colonial looms ahead, towering above you. Yet as you approach, it seems
to shrink, continuing to diminish until, by the time you reach the front steps,
it's been reduced to normal size. You're used to this phenomenon, but your
passenger is not.
                 "What
happened?" Henderson sounds alarmed.
                 "Size
can be whimsical in the memoryscape. As the saying goes: You ain't seen nothin'
yet."
                 As
you approach the front door you push on it and it swings open. You