"One could get used to this!" Vijay sighed in pleasure and relief as Nina pressed her thumbs into his neck and massaged it deeply. His headaches had been so bad lately that he had taken to inhaling contraband Xenobid filled in his oxygen inhaler. And instead of going home he had driven his motorbike all the way to the seedy Z class suburb and was squatting on her floor, her exquisite but bony knees digging into his shoulder-blades as she massaged away his pain.
"Why don't you go to a doctor, Vijay?" Nina's husky voice showed concern, "I can ease the pain for a little while, but what if the headaches hit you when you are on duty?"
"You know I cannot go to the doctor, Nina jaan," Vijay continued, "I would be relegated to the desk, analyzing digitals of other people's cases instead of investigating my own. Besides, the doctor might prescribe send me off to the madhouse on the moon for your mumbo jumbo cures."
"It's not a madhouse; it's a spa, the Tranquility spa. And we did great work there, healing stressed out souls with ancient R'n'R techniques." Nina snorted. "And now that you are back to insulting my institute, I think your headache has gone. So go on, you can go too. Back to your murders and what is it that you are working on now? Ah yes, people overdosing on some new drug!"
The headache had indeed gone. Vijay knew he had made a mistake the moment he mentioned the spa. He turned around and kissed her knees, smelling the lavender. She let him, which was good sign, but did not ask him to stay.
As he climbed down the stairs, he spotted the long haired kid who lived next door. The kid sported long hair and smelled of marijuana. He waved away a cloud of smoke that had enveloped him as soon as he saw Vijay. "Officer Vijay!" the young boy smirked,"You are finally here to arrest Nina for possessing bergamot and lavender and ylang-ylang? Or just slumming?"
Vijay smiled at the lad's attitude, "No, Rats, I am not arresting Nina, but I might just decide to take you in for your long hair! You know it is not legal!"
The boy smirked now, "Only a civic cop can arrest me, and you are a Narc.! But hey, I could offer you a chocolate chip cookie to keep quiet about my hair?"
Vijay pointed to the blinking red light on his MemAide. "I've never tasted a chocolate chip cookie. And I've recorded this conversation to the chip, you know. You can be booked."
Rats let out a shriek, "You brought the brain-eaters to our Boho 'hood! We're dead now. Thanks a lot, Techno freak!"
Before Vijay could react to that bizarre statement Rats had bolted up the stairs and was out of sight. He shook his head and fished out the keys to his motorbike. "Boho freaks!" he muttered childishly, as he climbed down two more flights. "How could these people live without modern conveniences!"
His investigations depended largely on the MemAide implant. Relying solely on the brain like Nina or Rats was so last century. Today you could not get ahead in life if you depended on your brain alone, he thought. Nina could have been a first rate healer if she only allowed herself to be technically savvy. But she chose to live the natural life, as a Boho. They were not exactly illegal, but lived in the fringes of society. And that's why she could not afford to move to a better neighborhood. He wished he could whisk her away to his own home, but Nina was as stubborn as he. He checked the time and decided to go back home. He would go to the precinct tomorrow. He needed to rest. And think.
His travel vouchers allowed him access to the fast track highways and he was home in twenty minutes. His apartment was located in a neat C class government housing suburb. He took his boots off and sat down in front of the TV to catch up on the news. There was yet another report of suicide. And this time it was a kid from a class A suburb, the daughter of a business magnate. The news crew was at the girl's house, where the mother was making the most of the media presence, her diamonds outshining her grief. Vijay sighed as he tugged on his boots, and answered his cell phone with, "I'll be there in ten."
But it wasn't the office. It was Nina. "Hello?! Vijay? Rats says you need to..."
"Not now honey," Vijay interrupted, "There has been another suicide. I have to go back to the office."
As he drove past other cars on the fast track highway, he enjoyed seeing the blue blur of the MemAide towers. He set the bike to auto pilot, and switched the implant to sound mode. The red light had been blinking madly. The message said they had found two more bodies at the scene, and he needed to be there.
Damn these kids! Vijay turned the motorbike around and allowed the MemAide to direct him to the A class suburb. The CityPol had done a great job. The media vans were gone. Only the detectives remained.
They pointed him to the room where the victims lay. The girl, not older than eighteen, lay on her bed, a strange, calm expression on her face. The other two, a boy and a girl, seemed to have died as they sat on the sofa, holding hands. As a Narc, he had seen many 'death by overdose', but never had he come across people dying happy. An overdose was usually marked by contortions and twists of the body in the throes of reaction to the drug. But these people had died happy, and the media had dubbed the case as 'Happy Happy Joy Joy'. After today the body count would be twenty three.
Vijay knew there would be no drugs in the house. Vijay also knew that there would be nothing found on the kids that would prove the media theory that the kids were a part of a secret suicide cult. But it was his job to make sure everything was thoroughly checked and accounted for.
Suddenly he heard the mother of the victim speak in a very harsh, loud voice. It was not the voice he would associate with the recently bereaved. He came down the stairs silently, and stood by the curtained entrance listening.
The mother was screaming at someone, "How dare you! She has been dead not more than a couple of hours and you people! Vultures! Cormorants! When we paid for the gold MemAide, they said that the implant was for a lifetime. We came to you so she could forget her daddy's horrific death. You took away all her bad memories! You left her so happy she died! What did you do to her? And why are her friends are dead too! Get out of my house this instant!"
A shaken yet firm voice answered, "Madam, I understand your grief. We helped you when you needed it. How can you blame us now? Your daughter went home happy. Did she not? Don't blame us for the cult deaths in there. I regret to impose, but MemAide Corporation has a reputation to protect. We cannot be associated with any suicide cult. I am afraid we have to remove the MemAide implant now."
Vijay could not stand by the door any more. He knocked on the door and before the lady of the house had barked, "Now who is it?" he entered the room. The mother of the victim and a man in a white suit stood by the sofa, arguing.
They were both looking at Vijay, one with relief and the other with irritation and suspicion. The lady welcomed his intrusion. "Officer!" she pouted, "This horrible man from MemAide wants to remove the Maya's Implant right away. I did tell him that CityPol was still investigating, and that he had to come back later to remove the implant, but he wont' listen."
"I am as duty bound as you are officer," the man from MemAide Corporation. "Our company co-operates fully with CityPol, you know that. And we are bound by law to give you full access to her memories, and all our records are above board. But with all the rumors about cults...we do not want any undue attention. Please let me remove the device. It won't take more than fifteen minutes."
"What is it that I heard about memory erasure?"
The man rattled off as if he had memorized it from a brochure, "The Hippocampus Mem Isolator can erase sad memories. The process is faultless and leaves all your happy memories intact. We guarantee money back results." The man paused. "It is true, that we have helped Maya erase memories of her father's death. But we do not want to be part of this bizarre cult that she might belong."
Vijay narrowed his eyes. Why would MemAide Corporation worry if a customer had died in some happiness cult ritual? Why was there such hurry to remove implants?
The man called his office and explained the situation. Three minutes later, Vijay had instructions from the HQ to let the man get on with the job as MemAide Corporation had offered all the memory logs of all the victims present in the house. Convincing the mother proved easy, as the Corporation had already credited the gold implant costs back to the woman as a favor.
Vijay watched the implant removal procedure with interest. The man put on a magnifying visor and undid the gold MemAide bracelet from the dead girl's left arm. Two fine digital cables were attached to her neurons with small crocodile clips. The clips were disengaged in one quick snap. The implant was then removed and placed carefully in a case. Vijay could see no damage to the corpse. The man, now pleased with an audience, proceeded to offer a visor to Vijay so he could take a closer look. He made a quick job of removing the other two implants and beamed at Vijay, "Don't try this at home!"
Vijay handed the visor back, and raised his arms in a gesture of mocked surrender, "I am very happy with my implant."
The man was obviously enjoying his superiority now. Grinning broadly he said, "Let me text you my number. There are many new services we now offer. Maybe I could use my influence and have your implant upgraded. Thanks for helping me back there with the lady. Sometimes people in grief tend to over-react."
Vijay was surprised when the text message arrived on his cell as soon as the man had finished talking. The man smiled even more. "As soon as anyone has an implant, we have their cell number, address, everything. My implant here is the most advanced. See!" The man pointed to a gleaming titanium device implanted behind his ear to Vijay. "This is the MemAide T2. It is very sophisticated. I can transmit data directly to my cell phone. Very handy when one is driving, or eating. And so discreet, even my dining partners don't know I am texting data as I eat."
Vijay watched him leave. He liked gadgets. And saw nothing wrong in a big corporation like MemAide distancing itself from cult rituals gone wrong. There was a huge underground Boho community that was probably inducting these people into the Natural way of life, and something must have gone wrong. Well, he could always get information out of Nina if there was any connection established with the Bohos.
By the time he got back to the CityPol headquarters, he had received six or seven messages from Nina. He hated mixing work and pleasure and decided to just wait until he reached home to call back to hear what she had to say. A bloke could not allow women to get in the way of his work. And he had plenty on his plate. The department was clueless about the suicides and these three fresh ones would further lower the morale of the team.
He needed to sit down and make a detailed analysis. He knew something would come up. He was not going to give up something that seemed suspicious simply because they were suicides. He sat at his terminal when a blinking icon altered him to mail.
There was a strange text message from a non-access number on his official mail.
File scan showed no virus so he opened the file. It had a long list of telephone numbers of public hospitals and private clinics and against each hospital was a list of patients treated in the last six months with severe headaches that lead to gradual loss of memory. The file was blatantly named, 'Not happy Not joy'.
"Nina!" Vijay ranted at the computer and diverted the information to his secure mailbox, destroying every trail that mail had created
He tried to concentrate on the case at hand. His team was working on nothing else but the strange suicides. And they had made enough allowances for his headaches. All of them had suffered those headaches. It was considered to be a part of their stressful routine. In fact a couple of the fancy boys from Crime were at the Tranquility Spa, recovering from moderate memory loss due to headaches. This mail from Nina just made Vijay even more determined. He turned his attention to analysis.
No drug was isolated in the 'happy happy' suicides. He tried to place the suicides geographically, but they were dotted across the city, and none of the victims knew each other. There was no common economic background, and no social thread connecting them. The victims belonged to a random age group and there were as many women dead as men, so gender was also not a criterion.
The only connection they had was that they died happy. The memory logs showed all of the victims thinking of really wonderful events in their lives when they died.
The possibility of a cult ritual began looming illogically on his logical horizon. And his headache was getting worse. "Go down to the Med. head," advised one of the boys on the team, "You look like hell."
Vijay ignored him and continued scanning the city reports for something, anything that would help them crack the case. Just then, the phone on his desk rang, shrill and strident in its demand to be heard. Nina was calling on an insecure line? What was the matter with her?
"Yes!" His voice was as official as he could make it.
"You'd better come here fast. I think I know what your happy victims were suffering from. Star has..."
"Not a word more. Give me half an hour."
"Call me when the chem. analysis on the new victims comes in!" Vijay inhaled Xenobid in front of his astonished team and ran to the elevators. All he could hear is that Nina had said 'star' instead of 'rats'. That was their secret code if she was faced with a 'life or death' situation. And what was that nonsense about his case? He kicked himself for having ignored her previous calls. He roared out of the headquarters on his motorbike and drove at barely legal speeds.
Her neighborhood looked quiet. He zapped an electronic shield over his motorbike before he ran up the stairs. Nina's door was open. Dammit! She should know better than call over an insecure line and then leave the door open.
"Nina!" he shouted, "Nina!!" He ran inside, throwing open closet doors and peeking into the bathroom, his hand on his electron gun, but there was no one in the apartment. He came out. "Nina!" he shouted again.
"Psst...! Vijay, come here!!" came a really bad stage whisper from the apartment next door.
Vijay turned around. And before he could react, something struck his head, hard, and he collapsed like a pile of bricks in front of Nina's door.
"I told you we should have let him come inside first! He's as heavy as a truck!" Panted Rats as he and Nina dragged Vijay's inert form inside.
When he came to, he knew he had been disarmed and he was on a cold floor. He heard Nina whisper, "Did I hit him too hard?"
He opened his eyes in a flash. And sat up. Nina and Rats sat grinning on the sofa. A frying pan on the table was testimony to his downfall a little while ago. He rubbed his head. He saw bits of wire and some sort of gadget smashed up nearby.
"Nina, Rats! What the heck...?!"
Rats pointed to the smashed up bits on the table. "We have destroyed the cause of those blinding headaches officer!" he announced dramatically.
"What you have destroyed is government property. You are in big trouble!" Vijay answered, realizing that Nina and Rats had removed and destroyed his MemAide implant.
Nina was shaking her head. "Your headaches were getting worse, and we knew the only way to help you was to remove the implant first."
"Did you have to hit me so hard?"
Nina handed him a cup of chamomile tea. Vijay was quiet. Rats looked uncertain for the first time, as if he was facing an examination. Nina said quietly, "Go on Rats."
Rats fiddled with the smashed up implant and lifted up two chips with a magnet. "See this? This chip receives data for your brain. That's how your implant is supposed to work. Receive and store information because you think you need extra memory. But what do you think this other chip does?"
Vijay shook his head, and Rats continued as though he was not expecting an answer. "If you look closely, you will see that this is a data retriever. Cleverly disguised as a chip. It does not store data that you need for your brain, it taps into your brain and takes away stuff from there."
"A snoop chip! I have been bugged?!" Vijay almost shouted.
Rats looked triumphantly at Nina, "His sentence construction is fucked but brain seems to be working.. Maybe you should marry him."
Nina smiled at Vijay, "See! You did not need a MemAide implant!"
Rats was grinning again, "You and everyone who is wearing the implant is bugged. This clever little thing has been stealing stuff from your brain slowly but surely.
"Why would anyone need data from my brain?"
Rats shook his head in despair, "Vijay, Vijay! However did you ever make it to the elite Narc.Unit?"
"Remember, how you were struggling with a mole in your department last year?" Nina reminded him, "You guys did not really find anyone, did you?"
"Crapola history!" Rats interrupted. "We are digressing, and time is running out on you my dear Vijay. You had better show him the records Nina. Otherwise it will be too late."
"Too late for what?" Vijay asked. Maybe his brains were not working after all.
Nina opened an ancient personal electronic hand held data device he had seen only in the tech museum. He read the collection of news clippings completely fascinated.
'Paul Allen Creates History. Human Brain Mapped.'
'"MemAide, for an intelligent planet," Paul Allen spreads the message of his new company.'
'MemAide Corporation celebrates its 2.8 billionth implant.'
'Paul Allen dead. Doctors pronounce Suicide'
'Free MemAide implants for all civil servants.'
'Scientists at MemAide Corp. isolate memory zones.'
The next bit was an obituary of a scientist who worked on memory isolation.
Nina looked at Vijay, "Read it," she requested.
The obituary was standard but for a single line near the end. The inventor of the Hippocampus Mem Isolator at MemAide Corporation is survived by a daughter, who has been estranged from the family for three years. The funeral arrangements have been made by the Corporation. His absence will be deeply felt...'
Vijay looked up at Nina. There were tears in her eyes. "My father knew his work would be misused the moment he succeeded in isolating memory. And now so many people are dead, and the information is being used to fund all sorts of illegal activities. I should have said something to you before, but I could not. I am sorry."
"Why would people die? And happy?"
"When you're so blissed out, would you want to face reality? Their brains just shut down."
"At the Corp though, erasing unhappy memories wasn't enough. They got greedy. They wanted to add happy memories. But creating happy memories that were not synthetic would mean research and time. So they did the next best thing."
Rats piped in, "They stole your happy memories, Vijay! You don't even remember what a chocolate chip cookie tastes like. Someone else is enjoying that memory now. It was so easy for them. Each time you zipped past the Blue light emitting MemAide towers you lost a bit of your head."
Nina sighed, "Don't start plotting the downfall of the big corporation, Vijay. You cannot. All those who tried to spill the beans have been dead. Rats worked for MemAide, you know. One day we will have enough evidence to hang them. But until then..."
"I cannot let people die!" Vijay's head was reeling under the information overload.
"MemAide already knows that your implant has been destroyed, Vijay. You cannot go back."
"Stay with us and fight."
Vijay stepped out of the apartment blindly. Neither Nina nor Rats stopped him. He ran down the stairs and stood in front of the bike. As soon as he removed the force field that was guarding the motorbike, it exploded in a thousand pieces. Vijay ducked for cover and heard Nina scream. He knew then Nina was right. The government, the police, and the people - everyone had been taken for a ride, and with the explosion a personal war had just begun.