Black Box 6.0

It takes a special something (arrogance?) to do Chapter 6 about 18 months after Chapter 5 of a story and expect people to be still interested. And yet, one of the most common comments and emails I get is, "Where the fuck is Chapter 6?"

So here it is. With a few warnings:

1. This is nonsensical if you haven't read the first five chapters. The good news is that people liked them and it has a decent rating.

2. Some of the content of this story is deeply unpleasant. Although I have submitted this in the Scifi/fantasy category, there are strong non-consensual elements. Please be aware of that.

3. Do Not ask me where Chapter 7 is. I have no timeline for you.

4. It ends on a brutal cliffhanger. Sorry?

If you're still determined to read this after all that, I hope you enjoy it. I struggled a lot getting this into shape. But I'm fairly pleased with how it turned out.

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Elsewhere

There was whiteness that didn't seem to end. There was nothing, and it was peaceful--finally peaceful. But then she (She? Yes, she felt right) became heavier. It felt as if she was forming out of the emptiness. She still couldn't see her body or anything but the white space, but her thoughts became more coherent. So she tried speaking to see what would happen.

"Where am I?"

"Ah, there you are," said a female voice. "You're someplace safe. It's ok."

"Safe? Was I in danger? I can't remember. And why can't I see anything? Everything is all white. Who are you?"

"That's a lot of questions," the voice said, with something that sounded like kindness. For some reason, kindness felt very foreign to her. "You've been through trauma. I am, well, let's call me a doctor who is here to help you."

"You don't feel like a doctor."

"Well, that's an excellent observation. I'm a very specialized medical professional. That's a better description. The white is ok for now. You're going to start seeing more soon. Now, can you tell me the last thing you remember?"

Everything in her brain was foggy and indistinct, and she preferred it that way. She feared what she might see when the fog lifted, but thinking about how she didn't want it to lift meant that images formed around her. It was a bar. It was simultaneously dark and garishly neon bright, and there was a haze in the air from cigarette smoke.

Then people came into focus. Most of the people were men. They were mostly....Asian? There were also some white men. Then there were the women. There was a mix of Asian and European women. But they all had one thing in common. They all dressed slutty. Micro mini-skirts. Tops that showed off the maximum of cleavage. High heels and too much make-up.

What was she doing here? Why was this her last memory?

Then she caught her reflection in the mirror.

"Oh God..."

She knew she was looking at herself but couldn't process how she could look like that. She was carrying a tray of beer. Her hair was a messy mix of peroxide blonde with pink streaks. There was too much make-up; she was trying and failing to hide how strung out she looked. But everything was very pink. Her eyeliner and lipstick were pink. She wore a fishnet bodysuit with a matching pink halter top and a micro miniskirt. She looked malnourished. Except for her tits and they were unnaturally large.

And she was, of course, wearing pink heels.

She looked awful. It was beyond cheap trash.

"No, no, no....this can't be me," she said, but only as a voice in her head. The woman in the mirror looked dazed and seemed to realize she needed to deliver the beer. She tottered towards a table of businessmen. Somehow, she knew they were speaking Japanese. She knew everyone was making fun of her, but she no longer cared. She could feel the flat numbness creeping from the woman into her. Horrifying, she found she welcomed it.

"Ok, we need to step back a moment," said the voice.

Suddenly, she found herself sitting at a table at another part of the bar. She could look across the room and see herself delivering the beer. A man slid his hand up her thigh and groped her. She didn't react.

"Erin, you need to look at me now, please."

She turned, and sitting at the table was a woman with a dark complexion who looked like she was in her late 20s. She looked native and had beads in her hair. She was wearing a leather jacket. But the most distinctive thing was her eyes. They were supernaturally large and dark. But she immediately felt calmer looking at them.

Then she realized what the woman had said. Erin. Her name was Erin.

"No one has called me Erin in a long time," she said, sniffling. "I miss my name."

The woman reached across the table and took her hand. "I know, sweetie."

When Erin looked at the woman's hand, she noticed her own. They looked younger and less tanned. She didn't have the fake, pink nails she wore a few moments ago. Instinctively, she looked for another reflective surface. It was only a split-second before she saw herself that she realized this might be a bad idea. But the face that looked back at her was young, in her teens. There was a wave of red hair, and she was wearing glasses. The woman across the bar was gaunt as if she ate only as an afterthought. The woman in the reflection had curves and rosy cheeks.

But it was the eyes. The eyes she had now had life in them. The eyes of the woman she was a few minutes ago had none.

She looked back at the woman sitting across the table from her.

"Who are you? What is going on?"

The woman nodded.

"That's fair. Would you like to go somewhere other than here where I can explain things?"

"God, yes," Erin said, standing up. The woman took her hand and smiled. With a wave from the other one, the bar disappeared. Erin's reality dissolved in a wave of colours. She wondered if she was still in the bar and was hallucinating because of the drugs. But then reality reformed. She was sitting on a park bench. It was warm and there were tropical trees around her. In her left hand was a strawberry ice cream cone.

She could feel her hand start to shake. She loved strawberry ice cream. How did this woman know that? How did she get to this park bench? She remembered it was where she first saw Anuli. Her memory was still muddy, but she could remember that Anuli made her laugh. She was thrilled when she was with her. Erin knew that.

She just couldn't remember her face or who she was.

"It's ok, Erin. I know this is a lot, but you're safe right now. You're safer than you've been in a long time," the woman said, squeezing her hand.

"Who are you?"

"People have been calling me Leah lately, and honestly, I kinda like the name, so let's go with that."

Erin shook her head. She had a name, but things still didn't make sense. Almost on reflex, she took a lick of her ice cream cone. It was spectacular. It was the best ice cream cone she'd ever had. She stared at it and then at Leah.

"None of this is real, is it? I'm imagining things. I'm dying, and this is all a hallucination," Erin said. And then, it hit her. "Are you an angel?"

Leah laughed, and under other circumstances, Erin would have been offended. But Leah seemed genuinely delighted.

"Nobody's ever called me an angel before. That's amazing. Thank you, Erin," she said. Then her smile faded. "Erin, I'm what you call an artificial intelligence. I'm more than that, but that's what you would understand. I specialize in helping people in medical distress. We're connected right now. You're very sick, and I'm here to help."

A wave of relief rolled through Erin. Oh, everything was still insane. She was talking to a computer, and everything her senses were telling her right now - the taste of the ice cream, the warmth on her skin, and the smell of the trees - was not real.

But she wasn't dead. And that was something.

"Ok," she said, standing up. Leah joined her, and they began to walk along the path. Another piece clicked in place; they were walking through the botanical garden at UCLA. She loved coming to this place. It seemed so exotic compared to where she grew up. She remembered feeling safe here. But still, Erin refused to let go of Leah's hand, scared she would disappear if that happened. "How bad is it? Am I going to die?"

"Well, let me show you something to help put things in perspective," Leah said. A set of blocks about ten feet tall appeared in the path in front of them. They looked like they had just been set up, so there were no empty spaces. That was weird, but what was also odd was that nobody noticed the giant set of blocks magically appearing. "This represents a normal, boring, healthy person with no problems."

"Ok," Erin said, not seeing where this was going.

"This is what you currently look like."

The blocks changed and were stacked in the most unstable way imaginable. There were huge gaps, and it felt like a slight breeze would cause the entire thing to collapse into rubble.

"Oh God," Erin whispered. "How did I get to be like this?"

Leah squeezed her hand.

"The good news is, I'm great at playing with blocks. I'm already filling in all those gaps to make you physically better. When you wake up, you'll be a brand new person," Leah said.

"Will...will I look like I did in the bar?"

"Not if you don't want to," Leah said. Erin must have looked confused because the blocks had disappeared, and dozens of women were along the path in front of her. Their ages ranged from roughly how old Erin looked now to their 30s. They were all shapes and sizes. There were even a few men mixed in as well. Leah guided Erin through them.

"You can look like any of these people if you want. You can look like anyone you want. You can change gender if you want. You can be taller or shorter. You can look like a model or an average, ordinary person. You don't have to decide right now. I just want you to think about it," she said.

Erin walked around the frozen people. She couldn't remember much, but she bet some women would sell their souls for this offer.

"Can I....can I look like me? The way I look now? I always liked how I looked. I was never one of those girls who issues with their body. I liked my face. I liked my curves. Hell, even the glasses worked for me."

Some of the smile dropped from Leah's face for the first time. Even when giving her bad news, she delivered it with reassuring warmth. That wasn't on her face now.

"I'm sorry, but probably not," Leah said. Erin started to protest, but Leah put a finger to her lips. "I'll explain why, I promise. But it's not safe to look the way you did. There's a reason why you looked the way you did in that bar. You didn't get that way by choice. Some truly evil fuckers did that to you."

Erin turned away from the frozen people and let go of Leah's hand for the first time. She walked off the path and into the trees, which she would never do if any of this were real. She had almost no memory. She knew she was that broken woman in a Japanese nightclub. She also knew she was this teenage girl with red hair. She knew there was a girl named Anuli, who she was pretty sure had braids. Given the way her stomach did flips whenever she thought about her, Erin also thought she might be her girlfriend.

She felt a presence walking behind her and panicked until she realized it was Leah catching up with her. She placed a hand on Erin's shoulder and turned her around.

"It's ok if you don't want to remember, Erin. I've treated many people who don't want to remember their past life. There's no shame in that. It's not cowardice. You've been through a huge amount of trauma. I can ease some of that pain, but I can't take all of it if you choose to remember," Leah said.

"But if you want, I can take that all away. When you wake, you can be in a new body and have a fresh start. You deserve it," she said.

Almost all of her life was missing. Part of her was ok with that. There's no way she got from how she looked now to how she looked in the bar that wasn't horrifying. Maybe no memory would be better. She could wake up in a new body with no memory. Everything would be new and not terrifying.

But she'd never remember Anuli that way. And it felt vital to not forget her. She turned around and looked at Leah, who remained nearby but not hovering.

"I need to know what happened to me. All of it."

Leah nodded, but her smile was sad. "Very little happens between this moment in your life and the one in the bar that's good. You understand that, right?"

Erin nodded, then straightened up, not realizing she'd been hunching over so much, waiting for the next blow. She felt something deep inside and realized she was a good person. She was smart, fierce and loyal. That she loved life. Someone stripped that away from her. She wasn't about to do that to herself.

"Show me," she said with more determination.

Leah stepped forward and gently put her hands on Erin's head. She thought it felt like a caress until a small nova went off, and 19 years of her life exploded in her head.

Her knees buckled, and Leah prevented her from sagging to the ground. The faces of her parents came back to her. Her favourite bands, her best friends from school, and the boy she lost her virginity to. Her grandmother, whom she loved almost more than her parents, burned through her mind. Her nanna developed dementia and faded away on them. Because of her, Erin vowed to become a psychiatrist to help people.

And then there was Anuli. She saw her on that bench on the first day at UCLA while she was exploring. She remembered tripping over her feet as she walked past because she was so beautiful. Later, she discovered they were in some of the same classes together. Erin suspected she might be bisexual but wasn't going to find out for sure anywhere near her parents in Ohio. Seeing Anuli gave Erin full-body tingles, but she was entirely out of her league. Her skin was darker than Leah's and her hair was in magnificently maintained braids. She wore bright colours and was always fashionable. She had at least five inches on Erin. And, to top it off, she had an English accent. Her parents migrated from Nigeria to England. At 18, Anuli decided she'd had enough of English bullshit and fled to California.

It's not that Erin was ugly; she was, in her estimation, pretty cute. She was a bit of a tomboy and was only beginning to figure out that there was fashion other than jeans and t-shirts. Erin was minor league baseball. Anuli was the LA Dodgers. Girls like her dated star athletes or models.

It turns out Erin was wrong. Anuli had three weaknesses - American accents, pasty white redheads, and girls with curves. They ran into each other at an idiotic house party. Erin had had a few beers and told Anuli she was the most beautiful woman she'd ever seen. Erin made a beeline for the door when she realized what she said. She planned to immediately drop out of school and volunteer to build houses in Honduras.

Anuli caught Erin before she reached the door, pulled her into an empty room, pinned her to the wall and kissed her. Erin has been horny before. She'd had sex before, but this was nothing like she'd ever experienced. Her entire body felt like it was vibrating. Every nerve ending was singing.

When Anuli eased up, it took all her strength not to sink to her knees. Because if that happened, things would escalate quickly. Which she desperately wanted, but not at a shitty house party.

That began things for the two of them. They dated, escalated to becoming a couple, and things started to get serious. At the end of their first year on campus, they decided to move out of the dorms and get a small apartment together. They were planning awkward conversations with their parents, explaining that there were excellent reasons why they didn't have boyfriends yet.

And then it all stopped. The last thing Erin remembered was being in their apartment, making plans for the evening, and then nothing. She grabbed Leah by the shoulders and screamed into her face.

"What happened next!? Is Anuli ok? Tell me!"

"She's ok," Leah said, touching her cheeks and wiping away tears that Erin didn't know were rolling down her face. "I have....people outside of where we are right now. They checked and she's ok. Nothing bad happened to her."

Erin sank to the ground, hyperventilating with relief. After she calmed down, she looked at Leah. Did she still want to go through this? The panic at the thought of something happening to Anuli was only a taste of what awaited her.

Leah saw the panic on her face and helped Erin up. They began walking. The park transformed again, and now they were in a small apartment. Erin recognized it as the one where she and Anuli lived. It was above a Lebanese restaurant, so it always smelled like hummus. It wasn't much...the kitchen and living room rolled into one, with a small, ratty couch in the corner. There was no TV set as they watched everything on their laptops. There wasn't much wall space, but they found room for a large print of "Tutu" by Ben Enwonwu. Anuli loved it, and Erin had grown to love it over time.

"My god," Erin whispered. "I remember this now. It was such a crappy apartment. Our residence rooms were much better, but we didn't care because we could have privacy here."

"I can feel the love associated with this memory," Leah said, looking around. "You were only here for a short time, but there is a lot of emotion and power in your memories of this place."

Erin remembered that Anuli made her feel brave. It wasn't that she had Erin's back, because she did. But she always supported and encouraged her. Would Annuli tell her to walk away now, or be brave?

Erin nodded her head, mostly to herself.

"Ok, let's do this."

"First things first," Leah said, sitting on the couch and patting the space beside her. Erin sank down as she recalled the springs were pretty shot.

"These are your memories. As much as you might want to, you can't change what happened. Nobody will react to you because you're not there. Ok?"

Erin nodded. It made sense.

"Second, while you're going to remember things, you won't relive them. You have a lot of powerful emotions coming up. Some consequences come from reliving powerful emotions. You've studied psychology. You know that PTSD comes from chemical reactions in the brain from witnessing traumatic events."

Erin nodded. They taught that in her first-year classes.

"Norepinephrine and cortisol. Scientists are still studying it, but they increase heart rate and fight-or-flight responses. It also enhances memory. So if you're experiencing something traumatic enough to pump those chemicals into your system, it's going to burn those memories in," Erin said, reciting from a lecture. "Worked great 10,000 years ago, a little shittier now."

Leah smiled. "It's nice when someone has a basic understanding of the brain. Yes, you're essentially correct. So what's going to happen now is I'm suppressing those chemicals for the moment. I've also fixed the previous damage. I promise you, I've done this hundreds of times. This is how I treat trauma, and it works.

"You'll understand what happened but not suffer for it. What's coming up is not your fault. You need to remember that. Too many people turn to 'what ifs' and "I should have done things differently.' But everything you're going to see is not your fault and there's nothing you could have done."

Erin was already wondering if Leah was tampering with her emotions. What she was saying made sense, and the fact that it made sense and was not filling her with terror already meant she was much calmer than she should be under the circumstances.