“It went fine. You know they only have to check the footage to know you left?”

Szah casts me a suspicious look over Midhurst’s shoulder. “They already know,” Midhurst crosses his arms. “But pretend you don’t.”

I hesitate. “And if things get tricky?”

“Stick to a story. O’Neil will back you.” He always does.

Midhurst glances behind him and it is only then that I see the fourth person in the room: a man in standing on the chaise, fiddling with the laser. “You ready?” Midhurst says to him.

“Almost,” is the baritone reply.

“Ladies, this is Dr Young. He’s a freelance engineer – he’s made tremendous leaps in the field of neurotechnology.”

I hate neurotechnology.

My Slab Specs don’t auto-identify to confirm Midhurst’s introduction. I frown – why does it never work when it needs to? – then remember I switched it off. I tap the rim again.

The man hops down from the chaise. His black hair is slicked back, and he also has a familiar pair of Slab Specs over his eyes, the blue grids faintly glowing from the outside. The orange then green gears on my Specs flash:

Dr Jinseo Young. Bio-technician. Freelance. N.C. resident. Born 2744, 7LC.

His gaze flits from Szah to me, me to Szah – his Specs probably identifying. He has time to nod in greeting before Midhurst rubs his palms together. “We’ve upgraded the Rereader – trial run, if you will.”

Szah and I exchange glances. We might walk the thin line between friends and enemies, but ‘tremendous leaps’ in Rereading is the last thing either of us want. Either they find a way to make Rereaders obsolete by converting brain signals to binary or they find a way to make it more ‘real’ and drive us crazier faster. A lock her hair falls into her face and I remember she never told me she’s marrying Preston. I turn away.

“A new Rereader?” echoes Szah.

Dr Young twitches, looking uncomfortable. “More of a newer model.”

Midhurst isn’t having any of it. “It’s revolutionary. An additional microprocessor developed by Dr Young helps the foreign brain tissue data embed more seamlessly into the receiving brain.”

Again, Szah and I exchange looks. Looks like it was the latter. Midhurst spots our shared reaction and must have taken it for cluelessness because he continues: “It’ll be easier to remember things – less meditation time, less stress, less frustration.”

Confirmed, then. I roll my shoulders to dispense the traction. “Does that mean we’ll remember the memories for a longer time period?”

It is Midhurst’s turn to exchange looks with Dr Young. “Yes,” he sounds painfully hesitant. His eyes fall to me. “In today’s political climate, it might be a good idea.”

“A traumatising idea, you mean,” Szah says, her tone casual. But I have known her since we were children; she is rigid and her words are tense. She leans back, the firm set of her features a depiction of her anger.

“With the Foreman’s latest propaganda against Rereading, do you really think it’s ideal to wander around saying: ‘I solved a murder case a few days ago but I can’t remember who did it – but I knew then, don’t worry.’ Really instils faith, doesn’t it?” Midhurst tone grows faster and louder. He does not like to be questioned. Perks of being a control freak. It doesn’t bother me, but someone with Szah’s strong personality is averse to blindly following orders. She sits up straight, her fists clenched tightly.

“With the vulnerable state our minds are in, do you really think making those memories permanent helps us process and recover?” Szah practically spits. Midhurst is still with cold fury, and undeniable reason. Szah is hot with emotion, shaking with rage. I don’t want to be prone to delusions from dead people, but I don’t want to be made an example of in Ita Ru’s campaign to prove the pervious nature of Rereading.

Rereading is fickle thing. Beaming a dead person’s brain tissue into your brain is a fickle thing. It’s also a dangerous thing. Another person’s brain tissue is another person’s brain tissue. With the REM protocol, trained Rereaders can ‘read’ another person’s memories, but it is their brain tissue that stores the memories, not ours and though we experience their memory real-time, retaining it is a lot harder. We retain our experience of their memory, which sticks in small details and fleeting facts, never really the whole image. A memory of a memory.

Most Rereads take on a dreamlike quality, making them fuzzy around the edges and incomplete in some instances. Frustrating, because you know what happened – you just saw it – but it’s difficult to remember. Like a scene from a dream you had last night, that’s familiar but transient. While solidifying the foreign memories in your brain, could theoretically make the Rereading more efficient, it also leaves you with more than the ‘thought’ that you died. It leaves you with a vivid experience that haunts the sleep from your every limb at night. I tell myself this new Rereader’s powers just conjecture. It might not even work; it is theory. I tell myself this, because already, with an ‘inefficient’ machine, I find myself touching my stomach, and holding my throat, as though looking for stab wounds and cuts and bullet holes. Already, with an ‘inefficient’ machine, I am plagued by ghost contusions, and sweaty nights awake remembering a death that wasn’t mine but at the same time, was.

I interrupt the glare session between Szah and Midhurst. Enough is enough. Young is looking awkwardly at the wall, as though willing himself not to be inadvertently involved. “So why are we here?”

Midhurst snaps back to life. “To discuss and test the improvements. Aylah can’t go under – she was yesterday.”

His eyes land on Szah. She squirms and grapples for a way out. “Shouldn’t Lio be here? Why can’t he do it? He loves this stuff. There are three Rereaders in N.C. for a reason.”

She doesn’t specify what reason.

Midhurst is silent. “When was the last time you entered alt-con?”

Szah visibly recoils. “That’s not what we’re here for.”

“Isn’t it?” Midhurst cocks his head to the side. “Lio and Aylah go under regularly. I haven’t heard from Dr Sollidum. If I had to guess, I’d say you hadn’t seen the inside of a Precinct in months.”

“Crime rates aren’t high in Norshire,” Szah plays it cool, leaning her elbow on to the arm rest of the loveseat. But that’s the thing about growing up with someone, you’re always aware of the way their eyes dart right and they wind their fingers through their hair when they’re lying.

“Colden has the lowest murder rate in N.C. – and Lio was under yesterday.” I perk when Midhurst says this. Was that where he disappeared to yesterday?

Szah is losing. She knows it. She eyes the door, though she knows that running is futile…and pointless.

“If I didn’t know better, Szah, I’d say that fiancé of yours is keeping you out of the workplace.” Midhurst watches her for the slightest reaction. Preston is…calling in favours and keeping her off the charts? Midhurst may know better than to believe that, but I don’t. It is exactly what Preston would do.

Szah breaks. “That’s not the point,” she raises her arms and drops them to her sides. “The point is, Lio should be here. He’s part of Precinct: Colden, which, last time I consulted a map, is a part of New City. Why does he get excused and I don’t?”

Dr Young must have had enough of standing around aimlessly because he taps Midhurst’s shoulder. “We do need him here, sir. He should know. The instalments are already complete in Colden.”

Midhurst gives Szah a long look. “I’ll go speak to Xio.”

Szah opens her mouth to protest but the banging door speaks first. Her lips thin. Unstrapping her bag, she leaves it and her rebreather to rest against the loveseat’s legs. I sink back into my chair. I don’t know how long the wait will be.

On the opposite side of the room, Dr Young paces, with thinned lips and an aura of hesitation and impatience. I would be given to think he does not come out his lab very often. It feels true from the way he avoids eye contact when he speaks; the way he hesitates only slightly before saying what he thinks; how he keeps his hands stuffed into his pockets; how he insists on fidgeting or twitching or making some movement to pass the time. He pulls out his glass tab from his pocket, identical to mine and begins to tap at it.

It is only when I am certain he is absorbed in whatever he is seeing on his Specs and Szah supposedly is too, that she speaks: “What do you think is going on here?”

I look at her and there are creases on her face and bite marks on her lips. She leans in close and I can smell the coffee on her breath. It makes me think of Ola for a second. She didn’t tell me she was marrying him. I roll my eyes, and lean back, ignoring her. “Nothing, it’s just a routine upgrade.”

“Really?” She throws her hands up and stands gesturing wildly. “That’s how you’re going to play this?”

Her fast movements catch the eye of Dr Young and he stares at us for a moment. We revert to silence and stillness, and only when he visibly turns his attention away, do we continue. “Play what?” I whisper. “This isn’t a game, Szah. These are our lives –”

“That’s it,” Szah cuts me off. “You can’t even try to be objective where Preston is concerned. I’m not sitting here and listening to how unreasonable you become whenever his name is mentioned. And I’m certainly not sticking around to be made into some sort of guinea pig because you and Lio are ‘too tired’ to go under again.”

“Yes, indulge me. How long has it been since Preston last got your duties written off?”

Szah turns to me with a force. There is no doubt that Dr Young is watching now. No one could be that absorbed in their Specs to be missing this festival. “Don’t you dare. You know what this thing does to us. Are you even you anymore?” She throws her hands up again. “Is anyone? I can’t even sleep at night, I can’t go down certain alleys or eat in certain restaurants or even be in rooms a certain colour. I keep searching my body for imaginary wounds – I’m going crazy. You can’t tell me I have to go mad to find a few chance killers.”

I close my eyes and inhale slowly. These words are familiar. I know them too well…but not from her lips. “We’re saving lives, Szah. Those killers could kill again at any point in time. We’re part of the police force for a reason.”

Szah grabs the strap of her bag and stands up. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe we are? But did we ever want to?”

My jaw tightens and my heart rate accelerates just a little.

“Exactly,” Szah says, shaking her head. And then she walks out and silence walks in. I take a deep breath. Her words – Preston’s words – still ringing in my ears. It’s too be expected. It's natural for her to be paraphrasing him; she’s marrying him She didn’t even tell me.

“She’s an interesting one,” Dr Young pushes off the chaise and straightens.

“You don’t know the half of it,” I say. Then I think about something. I look him straight in the eye, and beneath the blue grids of his Specs, his eyes are dark – somewhere between a deep brown and an ultimate black, I cannot tell. I don’t want to think about Szah and Preston anymore. I like keeping interactions with Lio and Szah to a minimum. Szah…because of Preston. There are some obstacles too big even for a friendship that had you sharing toys since three years old. Lio, because he’s…Lio. Maybe that’s the thing about Rereading, it does something to you – to your social skills – and you wander around completely inept until you give up entirely.

I inhale and hope that in the filtered air I am swallowing, there are some molecules of courage. “So,” I say, trying to sound conversation-like. “What got you interested in REM protocol? I mean, a new microprocessor – you don’t come up with that overnight.” I pause and look at the ceiling laser he was just fiddling with. “Or manage to build it so quickly too.”

He shrugs, his hand cupping the back of his neck, his gaze dropping to the floor. “It’s not one of my usual projects,” he admits. “But the money was good and it was correspondence work; I didn’t have to do it all by myself. That helped.”

There is silence again and I try for a weak smile. “What about you?” he asks. “Why’d you go into Rereading?”

Whatever trace of a smile I had managed to summon up, vanishes immediately. I involuntarily stiffen. Choice. Now that, that is a special, stupid thing. I panic, thinking about how I could answer. I opt for casual ‘Oh, it just happened’ but before I can speak, the door is pushed open. The light metal swings aside to reveal Xio, standing in her black slacks and white blouse, her hair in a disarray, looking like she took a tumble down the emergency stairs instead of climbing into the lift.

“Aylah, Dr Young,” she says between swallow breaths. “You have to come upstairs. It’s Lio.”

I stand up. “Lio?”

“Yes,” she stumbles over the word. “He’s  dead.”