Archive of Our Own

One of the lesser-researched symptoms of Stratt's interrogation drug was it's prolonged effects on the human brain. A footnote in a redacted addendum, if written down at all. Ironic, it seemed in retrospect, for the careful and deliberative DGSE to ignore what seemed like such a huge oversight. They had, after all, engineered the compound to behave like a ghost; Fast-acting and near-total in its erasure, metabolized cleanly enough to leave no obvious trace in a tox screen

Nobody on that tarmac had been thinking about long-term neurological follow-up. Nobody had been thinking about the subject surviving long enough for it to matter. 

Unbeknownst, the retrograde amnesiac Dr. Grace had been dosed with had one further inconvenient property, one that was never flagged on any checklist: it was irreversibly cumulative, bound to somebody's tissue for as long as they breathed. Usually, whatever residue remained in Grace's system sat inert. But sometimes, beyond rhyme or reason, Ryland Grace would begin to flounder. 

—

I lie still for a minute after waking up, floaty and weightless. My eyes are closed. My head feels… weirdly fuzzy, like there's molasses where my brain should be. Huh. Maybe I'm still dreaming. 

…The mattress is off. The air smells weird, like antiseptic or hand sanitiser. 

I just can't put my finger on it. It's like waking up in a hotel room and having that one moment of disorientation before realising, oh, right, I'm not home. 

…

Where am I?

I creak my eyes open, and blinding light sears my retinas. Why is it so bright in here?  

As my eyes adjust, I prop my sleep-heavy body onto one elbow and roll onto my side. The walls in this room are white, inlaid with brackets and buffers of sleek metal. LED lights shine down on me. Everything looks sterile, like some kind of hospital room.

Where am I?

The question comes with a little more oomph that time. Adrenaline is kicking in. I can feel my pulse start creeping up my throat. I sit all the way up, cataloguing what I can. The whole place is emitting a low, mechanical hum, coming from nowhere and everywhere. 

Do I know this place??

…No.

Yes. I'm certain of it for a split second! 

But then… No. I blink and whatever flicker that had gripped me is gone, I can't even recall the shape of it.

How the heck did I get here? I have no memory of this place whatsoever, but my head is reeling. It's the worst deja vu I've ever felt. 

Ooookay. Deep breaths. 

I get up slowly, one hand on the wall. The metal is cold. My skull feels like it's been stuffed full of cotton…

On a nearby table is an assortment of equipment. Amidst my half-formed thoughts, some choice words float to me in sudden, alarming clarity; There's a centrifuge tube rack, three tubes capped with an inky black gunk or sediment at the bottom. Next to that, a spectrometer, its readout face dark. Then there's a heavy-duty wrench, and a couple of big hex screws made of xenonite.

…Made of what?

I blank entirely, screwing my eyes shut. The word has already escaped me. It's like trying to grasp fog. 

Propped up on a toolbox just below the bench is a laptop duct-taped to a tablet. It has some program running, audio waveforms humming in low-frequency blues and greens. Fourier Transform, my brain supplies helpfully. Why do I know that? For whatever reason, it doesn't strike me as unusual at all. Maybe I use it often?

The waveform jumps suddenly, pitching into yellow territory as a computerised voice crackles from the crude contraption.

"Grace awake, question?"

It startles the crap out of me; I jump about a foot clean off the ground. Something moves in my periphery, and my body swings around so fast that I get a split-second of vertigo. Through the bulkhead, in some sort of polygon-hamster-ball, comes a- 

A-

Good. God. 

What is that???

A dog-sized arachnid stares me down, encased in a carapace of craggy brownstone. Five legs sprout from a pentagonal thorax. It has no face.

A series of clicks and croons emanates from within its glass prison, its body tilting this way and that in jagged little movements, like it's trying to get a read on me.

I panic.

I scramble back, blubbering something that isn't even words, my hand slapping across the surface of the table behind me, searching blind for anything, anything. It closes around the wrench, and I throw it as hard as I can at the creature without a single conscious thought beyond terror. It hits the ball with a terrible clang and bounces off. 

The thing inside squawks with alarm and skitters back, wobbling too and fro for a second as the glass-like panels tilt face-to-face on the floor under its weight. It chirrups and squeals at me loudly, frantically waving two of its arms. The computer to my left spits out; "Grace!! Grace!! Is just Rocky!!"

My back hits the wall. I'm hyperventilating. Before I know it, my butt's on the floor, the back of my shirt bunched behind me from being dragged downward against my weak-kneed body.

"Wh-Wh-Wh-" I whimper uselessly, scared witless.

The creature seems to take the hint and keeps its distance. We're now in a very tense standoff from opposite ends of the dormitory. It looks as scared of me as I am of it. It's shimmying back and forth anxiously, little claws wiggling and tapping together.

"Grace!" The computer says again, and this time the name lands. Oh. That's me. "Grace forget again, question??? No threat, no threat! Rocky is Grace friend long time! You remember this, question?? Petrova line! Save stars! Save Earth save Erid!"

I don't. I don't and I'm so strangely terrified I could cry. 

These are just words to me.

But then, some part of my foggy brain snags. 

The sickly deja vu gains a sudden depth to it. I know this voice. I know these words. 

The "creature" across from me fades back into the familiar shape of my friend, tiny bits at a time.

Recognition dawns. My mouth is bone dry when I speak. "...Rocky…?"

He seems to slump a little with relief, the vents atop his carapace giving a soft whoof.

"Yes yes! Grace remember now, question?" 

It all comes back to me.

"Oh…" I mumble. Guilt washes over me. "Oh… I did it again, didn't I…"

"Yes," Says Rocky, who's visibly ruffled. "But is okay! This time last not as long as other times." He's trying to soothe me, but I can see his fingers fidgeting a mile a minute. I scared him.

I sniffle loudly, my eyes are fogged over.

"Grace, do list."

Right. The list. 

"Um." The back of my wrist cops the snot before it drips too far. "My name is… Ryland Grace. I'm a… A scientist from planet Earth. I'm on a spaceship. Called the Hail Mary."

"Yes yes." Rocky wiggles his carapace. "Words of encouragement."

"I'm with my best friend Rocky. A-And we're on our way to Erid. To save the stars."

Rocky chirps and throws up some jazz hands for me, satisfied with my level of cognitive function. There's a scratch on his glass where the wrench hit. "Good good good!"

I burst into tears.

Rocky's carapace jumps up in alarm, and he hastily rolls over to semi-circle me. 

"Nonononono, why sad, question!?"

"That was really bad, wasn't it?" I sob, hunching over my messily bent knees. "Am I getting worse? Oh my gosh, I threw a wrench at you! I'm so sorry!"

"Not worse," Rocky insists quickly, still pacing around me. "Bad wake. Not pattern yet." He pauses and hunches down a little. "Apology… Rocky was not here to watch Grace…"

Ugh, that's not his fault. I'm always the one reassuring him that I'll sleep perfectly safe even if he's a room or so over, where he can "see" me anyway. He's a busy guy. There's no amount of man-power wasted on board the Hail Mary, the Ship of a Thousand Quick Fixes. 

I grab two weak fistfuls of my own hair. "I feel like I'm losing my mind."

"Mmm, no understand."

"Going crazy." I specify, sniffling again. "I'm scared, Rock- I'm scared- What if I wake up one day and I just- don't remember? Ever? I don't want to forget everything." My throat goes tight. "I don't want to forget you."

He's quiet at that. Thinking, no doubt. His carapace sags a little. 

I press the heels of my hands against my eyes til I see shapes.

Rocky thinks for a long moment before speaking up. Obviously, he's had plenty of time to mull over these grim possibilities. He's no idiot. I can tell he worries about me.

I hear a soft thud and open my eyes. Rocky's pressed the vents of his carapace to the upper planes of his bulb. 

"Grace come. Hug time."

Too exhausted to do anything except what I'm told, I shift my weight forward onto my knees, draping myself and my arms against the warm glass. My wet cheek presses against him, and he's kind enough to make no gripe about my gross human fluids on his ball. 

So he's resorted to distracting me. This works.

I cling onto the janky sphere (a hedron of some sort, technically) and let the heat from inside leech into my skin. It's comforting, on the most primal level. The human brain loves warmth and proximity. 

I close my eyes, and just breathe. 

"Grace okay now, question…?" His words come slower, like he's walking on eggshells. 

"Yeah. I'm okay, Rock."

The truth is, I'm terrified. Is this how it's gonna be for the rest of my life? Not knowing when I'm gonna wake up as a stranger in my own brain? Throwing wrenches at my only crewmate? Some best friend I am.

It's not always this bad. I want this on record, if only for my own sake.

This is just the worst bout in a long long long record of varying bouts, stemming from fresh out the coma til now. 

Most of the time, it's nothing to write about. I'll feel stupid for a few minutes for forgetting some inconsequential little things, and Rocky will giggle at me or send me straight to bed. 

Every now and then, I'm shaking post-it notes off my belongings; Another one of my ingenious coping solutions. Leaving a paper trail for myself, just in case. Just so that some fogged-out future version of me doesn't panic as much. There's no clean line between the days I need it and the days I don't, so better be safe than sorry. It's a little weird stumbling across notes in my own handwriting that I have no memory of writing, but hey, if it works, it works. Sometimes it's as dumb as a note tacked to Armando's "head" that says Armando.

Sometimes, in more notable instances, I'm not even scared. I just feel… far away. But even with no recollection of who I am, there's always this knowledge in the back of my head, that I'm in a very important place with a very important job to do. Maybe the mission is just ingrained into me beyond the scope of the amnesia now. I'm too used to it. The knowledge of nothing comes with the knowledge that this is familiar. A learned skill. I might be a husk of a person, but I'm a husk that can operate spin drives.

When that happens, Rocky is uncharacteristically patient with me, even when I keep forgetting his name (Though it seems my brain holds onto the gut knowledge that whoever this is, he's my friend. That's nice). 

On worse-off nights, he has to cop the brunt of delicately re-breaking the news to me that I am, in fact, on an interstellar ship currently about 15 and a half light-years away from Earth with no way of returning. That's never pretty. Although after the fourth or fifth or twentieth time hearing it, my response seems to have absolved past panic, into something exhausted and resigned. And though he's too stubborn to admit, I know it's wearing Rocky down, too. He has this nervous cadence when he talks, where his notes gain a quaver on the tail ends. Because he knows what he has to say is going to hurt me and there's no way around it. It sucks for all parties involved. 

Neither of us says it, but I think we both know this isn't sustainable. Emotionally. 

This isn't something he can fix, even if he's tried like heck. I'm a busted machine in need of constant repair. It's just not fair on him…

Not to mention whatever horrific things might be in store for my future. My guess is some degree of early-onset dementia. I am definitely not looking forward to that. The idea of your own brain deteriorating and betraying you must be a unique kind of horror to Eridians. Explaining all that to Rocky right now just feels cruel. We have work to do. 

"Grace?"

I blink slowly. Oh. Me.

"Hm?"

I turn to look. My friend is there, the, uh, rock spider. Yeah, that's my friend. He's got that friend shape to him.

"How long since last sleep, question?"

"I, uhh... Don't remember."

He taps a disapproving claw against the glass buffer. "Move to bedroom, or else you fall asleep at workbench again! No good for Grace spine! Grace will complain complain complain about sore back."

I frown. "I don't complain. Do I?"

"So so so much." Mr Spider counters. He keeps chattering as I get up and stretch, and follows me down the hall towards the dormitory in his little tunnel. He talks a lot. I like that about him. I just know I do. He sounds like whalesong and a pipe flute. 

"I look at Earth thinking machine today," he says, sounding like he's pleased with himself about something. "Many many articles. About memory and human brain and drug like one in Grace. Found interesting thing."

"Mhm?" I hum. I sit on the edge of my bunk and start slowly working at my shoelaces.

He continues, undeterred by my obvious fog, or maybe just used to it by now: "Human doctors try many treatment for brain-not-working. Some very old, very bad. Electricity to brain, very bad idea, don't worry, Rocky already rule this one out." He pauses, like he's checking his own enthusiasm. "Some new. Humans call this 'cognitive behavior therapy.' Lots of talk. Rebuild pathway with repeat and repeat and repeat. Like Grace list." 

Rocky watches me fold my legs up onto the bunk and pull the thin blanket half over my lap, and only then does he seem satisfied enough to keep going. 

"But list slow. So Rocky have new idea!" He holds up two hands and gestures a little rainbow. "Make counter-drug. Drug is what make Grace forget, so we make new drug that make Grace remember. Grace big-time smart with science, will be easy for Grace and Armando to do!"

"I don't think it works that way, pal. It's not that simple."

"Why not simple, question??" Rocky stomps a foot at me, irked at my quick dismissal. "Human scientists have made all kind of drug do all kind of things!! Un-forgetting drug will be easy! Humans dumb for not making it sooner!"

My body sags with a sigh. I can tell he's put a lot of thought into this, and I feel bad shutting it down.

"They haven't made it because it's not possible," I say. I rub a hand over my face, trying to find the thread of it through the fog, and it's slow going, but it's there. "Amnesia isn't a- A single disease you can cure with medicine. It's symptoms of damage to different parts of the brain." 

Huh, I must have researched this myself, too.

Rocky huffs, frustrated. He tries again, "Human chemistry and Grace molecular biology same!"

He's not totally wrong; there's a lot of overlap there. I remember suddenly that I've been teaching him some Earth science, and he's been teaching me Eridian engineering.

"Grace smart smart smart. Can do if try!"

"The hard part would be knowing what to make. I'd be guessing. And guessing with brain chemistry is- " I stop myself before I say something that sounds too much like a lecture. I just sigh again. I'm so tired. I distantly wonder if Armando is trained to lobotomise someone.

My cheek hits the pillow, and I hike the blanket up with me. "Sorry, Rock. It was a good idea."

He stands there, looking as peeved as he has every right to be. I can tell he isn't remotely ready to give this up yet. 

…But then his posture loses its edge, like he knows it's not a fight worth picking. Not tonight, anyway.

"No apology. Rocky will find a way to fix."

I manage a smile, but it feels bittersweet at best. 

"Maybe we should try the electricity."

"Bad joke Grace, not funny."

"Who's joking?"

"Grace." He warns me pointedly.

"Okay, okay, sorry." 

Rocky settles in his tunnel above me, in a comfortable little node overlooking my bed. He tucks all his legs in close, like a cat.

"Sleep now. I watch."