The carbon rods functioned exactly like regular trees but were made from environmentally friendly materials that could be built more quickly and cheaply than growing a tree from a seed. The carbon rod farms came too late to avoid some of the irreversible damage caused by man’s abuse of Mother Nature over centuries, but it was enough to keep everyone breathing. The excess oxygen that seeped out of the shiny black rods had a tendency to make people dizzy, and if you lingered too long here the rod farmers soon moved you on. The beach was more of a draw on this occasion and the couple passed through quickly. Wherever he lived in future he’d see more of them, but today might just be his last chance to enjoy his stretch of ocean before he was forced to cross to the other side of it.
On the far side of the rod fields the ground became sandier as the soil lost its fight against the march of the beach. Down a bank, past a group of small, wooden shacks that sold everything from refreshments to beach toys, over the open sewer line whose tunnels disappeared deep underground several feet below them, and finally they were on the beach. They discarded their shoes and allowed the warm, golden sand to wade between their toes. Down by the shoreline the sea was calm. Baby waves massaged the beach with their white, frothy wake.
“Do you remember the first time we came here together?” asked Christie, taking Jake’s hand as they lay down on the beach watching the sun struggle with the unnatural cloud cover.
“I remember every moment I’ve ever spent with you,” replied Jake.
“We can all look back, Jake, but do you really remember it?”
“How do you mean?”
“Without accessing the Memory Cloud. By letting your real brain visualise it.”
It wasn’t an easy task. Anytime you reminisced the cloud feed automatically opened to ensure the full details of your experience weren’t lost or misrepresented. Your own brain couldn’t compete with the technology and often gave up and let the implants do their work.
“I’m not sure I can.”
“Try,” said Christie. “Swipe everything away when it comes into your feed.”
Jake concentrated. Memories of his many trips to the beach flashed in his feed desperate to be centre of attention. He swiped them away as quickly as they arrived.
“It was June…the ninth,” he said. “It was the first time our parents let us come down here together, even though we’d been begging them for months. We were thirteen and a half. For once the sun stayed out the whole time we were down here and we both got sunburnt because we weren’t used to it.”
“Yeah, we looked like lobsters when we went home. My mum was so angry with me,” said Christie.
“You were wearing a little red bikini with a thin, white shawl over the top. I remember being embarrassed by the thought of your naked skin underneath it. We went for a swim, but you didn’t want to get your hair wet, so we came back here and lay on our towels.”
“Do you remember what happened then?”
“Yeah. I’ll never need a cloud feed for that moment, it’s imprinted in my brain and on my heart.”
“Our first proper kiss. I never wanted to kiss anyone else ever again after that,” replied Christie.
“We were naïve,” added Jake. “We didn’t understand what was coming in the future.”
“I still don’t,” she added tenderly.
Jake nodded but his face was drenched in despondency.
“How are you feeling about tomorrow?”
“Scared and angry,” he said hurling an empty seashell at the water. “It’s just not fair.”
“I know, but we’ll find a way to be with each other, won’t we?”
“I really don’t know how. There’s just no way two people can beat the Circuit and little value in logging a complaint. This is just how life is.”
“Don’t say that,” replied Christie staunchly. “There’s always a way.”
“How?”
“I don’t know. Maybe we have to…change things,” she said in a whisper.
Surprisingly the next sound wasn’t a violation alert as they expected. Instead Jake doubled over in pain, grabbed his head with both hands and let out a shrill scream that would have cleared the beach for fear there were sharks in the water. It was so loud that even Job and Dinah heard it up on the dune where they sat staking out their student.
“What’s wrong?” Christie pleaded.
“Flashback,” he screamed, writhing on the sand in pain.
Christie had seen him suffer with these incidents before and she knew from experience that there was nothing she could do when they occurred. Sometimes they were fleeting and sometimes they lasted for days. The only thing she could do was offer some comfort and support. Fortunately, this was one of his shorter episodes.
Jake’s pain eased and with it his screaming ceased. It had been months since his last flashback but when they started it generally signified the start of a sequence that would build in strength over the coming weeks. He took a moment to compose himself and allow the tranquillity of the sea to restore him to the present. Christie pulled him closer to her like a concerned mother.
“What did you feel?” she said gently in his ear.
“Not much this time,” Jake gasped.
“Tell me,” she said softly.
“Tension. Unbelievable tension like a kettle about to boil over. There was a dimly lit room only illuminated by a golden light that hung from the ceiling. There was an ancient, wrinkled figure sitting in front of me, but the scene was blurred and difficult to place. I felt anger and fear rise in me and when I looked down, I saw these huge feet and broad legs that didn’t belong to me.”
“What do you think it means?”
“I don’t know. I’m more concerned about who the memory belongs to, rather than what it means. It certainly isn’t one of mine. It’s interesting that I should have a flashback today of all days.”
“Maybe someone is trying to show you something?”
“Or scare me.”
“Why would they want to scare you?”
“I don’t know, but I’m sure the details in my letter and the flashbacks starting again are designed to stop me doing something.”
*****
“I don’t know why they get so emotional about it,” said Brother Job, pretending to perch on a rock while he spied on the couple through a pair of virtual binoculars.
“Emotional about what?” asked Dinah who was mostly running up and sliding back down the sandy dune that led to the beach.
“Ascension Day.”
“He’s totally bricking it,” said Dinah graphically.
“Would you say so?”
“Oh yeah!”
“The part of his personality that formed me isn’t concerned. I’m reading that he’s…” Job paused as he shuffled through Jake’s cloud. “Resigned to it.”
“Resignation doesn’t sound like a lot of fun, though,” said Dinah sensitively.
“Oh, I love a bit of resignation. You know where you are when you leave all the worries behind you and just get on with it in a stoic and restrained manner.”
“That sounds horrible. It’s definitely not as much fun as BASE jumping. I can’t wait to give that a go!” said Dinah pretending to BASE jump off the bank.