SILAS

"You're in there somewhere. I'm going to get you out."

That's gotta be one of the most ominous things anyone's ever said to me. And it doesn't help that the person who said it is exerting some strange power over me, keeping me from being able to move. Seriously. I can't even get up onto my feet. He's got me on my knees. Stuck. I might as well be paralyzed from the neck down.

Meanwhile, he just stands there, looking at me. The bluish glow from his arms light up his face, giving him a pale, ghost-like complexion. His long, unnaturally straight hair catches bright lanes of light that travel up and down his locks with every slight move of his head.

We are, the two of us, encased in a cone of blue hazelight, surrounded by shadows that stretch long and dark, into seeming infinity.

This kid. He's staring. Looking right through me. Past me, and to someone else. Some other entity.

"I am who I am," I say. "I don't need you, or anyone else, to tell me. I'm me."

"That's not what you told Salvo. You said you wanted to remember. And it's memories that make the sum of what we are."

If the surprise registers on my face, the kid doesn’t seem to take much note of it, or satisfaction in it. If he even cares at all.

“I had intended to delay your friends just long enough to complete a thorough examination of your memories. You woke up earlier than I expected. And now your friends are on their way. It's all quite inconvenient. But that's beside the point. You need someone to fix you. Here I am. Ready and willing. The only one standing in the way, is you."

I feel my independent spirit flaring up, alongside a persistent, panicky feeling that things are very wrong, here. Partly because of what he said. The way he said it.

It's something I hadn't bothered to consider up until this point. Right now, I have sixteen years worth of memories. But it sounds like I've existed for much longer than that. Maybe two or three times longer than the period of my initial suburban life.

Is it unreasonable to think that if I absorb the memories of all those past decades, all at once, it will be like a sort of death? An erasure of the self?

This kid seems to think so. He refers to me and my old self as two separate entities. He wishes to bring about one, while destroying the other.

"Do I actually get a say in this?"

"To consent, one must be both competent and informed. Unfortunately, you are neither of those things. And without my help, you never will be. You'll just have to trust me that it's for the best."

He lifts up one of his arms, as if gesturing toward a chair, inviting someone to sit. I feel my body actually begin to lift off of the ground. I hover in front of the kid, such that we are currently face to face, my legs still bent at the knees underneath me.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

I need to think fast if I want to stop this.

He said my friends are free. I can only assume he means Cade, Shiloh, and Razor. Which means if I can just distract him for long enough, maybe I can buy them enough time to find and free me.

"What makes you think I'm not better than the old Silas?"

"It's not a matter of what I think," the kid says calmly. He's begun to walk, transporting me alongside him by some means of telekinesis. "You could never hold a candle to him. The old Silas was much stronger. He had decades of combat experience. He knew the ins and outs of this world. He was well on his way to defeating SERAPHIM. He's the Silas we need, right now."

I'm suddenly hit with a flicker of an intuition. An idea, at least. Something in my head just got jogged loose by this kid's ramblings.

It's just an idea. It may not even be true, but I have a feeling it is. Besides, regardless of it's truth, I just need to get this kid to believe it. Or at least consider it.

"If that's true," I say, "Then why did he send me?"

The kid freezes, hesitating in the process of lowering me down onto the examination table. One half of his face is lit up by the TV screen to one side of the table, still playing and replaying the gas station dream.

The kid cocks his head at me, arm still outstretched. "Explain yourself."

I wet my lips. My throat feels hard, my mouth dry. “It’s like you said. It was impossible to hack this place remotely. There was a payload already waiting in the system. Who do you think put it there?"

He frowns, thinking about it. "I don't see the sense in it."

"That's because he knew something neither of us do, and he wanted to keep it that way. There's a progression system in my OS, tied to Protocol Assimilation."

"The Gates," the kid says.

"Exactly," I say. "With every Protocol, I get stronger."

"Nanobit reinforcement. Your energy sources become more potent."

"But that's not all. I think every time I open a Gate, I get access to new memories. Almost like I'm being drip-fed the pieces of my past. Like I'm not ready to see everything yet."

He takes a second to think about that.

"A compelling hypothesis," he says, finally. "But that's all it is."

"Maybe," I say. "But if you're wrong, what will the consequences be? How are you going to assess that risk?"

The kid stares at me, eerily plain-faced. Then his brow scrunches, and his lip curls. "He would have told me. He wouldn't have executed a plan like this without consulting me first."

"Unless he was doing it for your sake. Maybe he had a good reason to keep you from knowing."

The kid's expression contorts. For a second, I'm sure he's going to use his telekinesis to throw me across the room. But then his face relaxes. His eyes close. He takes one breath. Two.

When he opens his eyes, he seems to be back in control. "I have to admit you might be right. And if that's the case, restoring your memories prematurely, without exploring the matter further, would be a betrayal to him."

He moves his arm laterally, levitating me to the side of the table and down, until my bent knees touch the floor.

He stares at me intently, looking into my eyes and through them, to something else. To someone. "But I think I have no choice but to take the risk."

He lifts me up again, holding me aloft in the air, above the table. "Revenant is like a separate track of memory, running alongside yours. You've felt his influence, haven't you? I'm sure you've felt his guidance, like a ghostly presence on your shoulder. It must have felt like intuition. Latent knowledge bubbling up the depths of your consciousness. Without him, you wouldn't even be alive.

"Now, it's his turn."