Revenge Of The Mutant Algorithms! Are Memories Made Of This?

Throughout November I'll be releasing new weird sci-fi short stories. Each one is a stand-alone story. Think of them as technological campfire horror yarns, each with a little twist. Your feedback is highly appreciated.

Everything you read is possible - there's no magic, just sufficiently advanced technology.

Chapter 1 - Are Memories Made Of This?

"Holly, I don't mean to be rude but you're not my best friend any more!"

That was the bullet which ripped through my world. A moment before the words were spat from Tiffany's lips, I'd been a perfectly happy girl. Now I was devastated.

Had it been a few years earlier, our spat would have been resolved by the end of playtime or forgotten before tea. Had it been a few years later, we would have thrashed it out with the certainty of teenage superiority.

But they were the wrong words, at the wrong time, from the wrong person. I thought we were inseparable. Our friendship was my rock. Tiffany wasn't a queen bee and I wasn't her drone. We weren't outcast kids clinging to each other. We weren't special - but I thought our friendship was. All I'd ever wanted was for us to be best friends forever.

I've never been able to forget that horrible moment. I can still feel the way my stomach dropped and my eyes began to overflow with tears. Why? What had I done to be the victim of such cruelty? Even now, as an adult, I return to that memory again and again. It is an itch that I can't resist scratching. It is buried deep in my psyche - a permanent scar which disfigures every relationship.

My psychiatrist (the fourth or fifth I think) holds a placid expression. I think she thinks it makes her look calm and neutral. In reality, she looks like a vacant barn-animal chewing the cud.

"I see," she says, before spitting out some platitudes about letting go of the past.

"But that's just it!" I struggle to keep my voice from whining. "I don't want to let go. I need to explore it. I want to go back there. I have to see it again. Properly. I have to be there one more time."

"Holly, you understand, of course, that we don't do time travel?" Christ her tone is patronising. I'm not an idiot. I don't want to explode at her again, so I take a beat. I practise my circular breathing.

"Yes. I am a physicist."

This is a lie. I've dropped out of every study programme I've tried. So many snakes in every class. Professors who can't be trusted. Lab partners going behind my back. At least, that's what my stupid brain wants me to think. Every time I get close to someone, I see Tiffany's smirking face. I see that childish, condescending smile, as her lips part. Whenever someone asks me on a date (a rarity these days) I can hear Tiffany mocking me. She is the ghoul that haunts me.

My last shrink put me on psychedelic therapy. Dosed up on love-drugs and LSD, I was meant to have a guided journey through my past trauma.

"Confront your demons! Tell them you love them!" The Shaman whispered in my ear. "Embrace your past and let go of the pain."

But I couldn't. Tiffany's betrayal was my entire personality now. And over what? I hardly remember.

The first shrink was adamant that it was a romantic fixation. "A crush, perhaps? Or an argument over a boy? Was she jealous of your physical development?"

Ugh. A creep, like so many of them. They lure you in with promises and then turn on you. Snakes in the grass.

I fixed the new shrink with my calmest expression, mirroring her crumpled posture, and adopting a neutral tone of voice.

"When our friendship broke down, it broke me. I don't think I've ever recovered. My life is dominated by this one moment. If I could just see it again, properly…"

The shrink scribbled something on a pad. Probably about how pathetic I was. She glanced up, over those stupid half-rim glasses which she used to make herself look intellectual.

"And have you spoken to Tiffany since then? Do you know how she's doing? Have you reached out to try and reconcile with her?"

"After the betrayal, she shunned me at school. Her parents moved shortly afterwards and she was just gone. I thought that would bring relief. But…" my hands flailed and I could feel the tears brimming.

"And as an adult? What about Facebook? Do you know where she works?"

"Every time I find her on a social network, she blocks me. I need to speak to her, just once, just to understand what happened." I could feel myself getting hysterical. "Everyone says this lab can work miracles. That's what I need. You're my last hope."

I hated how pathetic I sounded. I didn't even know if this was an act or how I really felt. Tiffany was sneering at me. I could feel her taunting me. Her cruelty was an earworm playing over and over and over.

"You do seem like an excellent candidate for memory retrieval. But you do understand this is an experimental trial?"

Oh, I knew it was a trial - and a bloody expensive one at that!

She started lecturing me an interferonic lasers, something about quantum entangled neutrons, and the bits of my skull they'd need to open up.

I signed the papers. So many disclaimers. I would do anything to go back. Sure, it wasn't actual time travel. But they could put you back in the moment. Perfect memory recall. The ability to relive a moment from your childhood but with the maturity and wisdom of an adult. You couldn't change the past, but you could understand it. Process it. Find your peace with it.

My head was in pieces. Holes had been bored into my skull to allow a hundred wires and fibre optic cables into my brain. Quantum processors were embedded into my wetware and their nanoscale tendrils gripped onto my memories.

Even with the epic doses of painkillers, I could feel my mind burning. Every thought I had was like an electric iron pressing into my synapses. I was delirious with pain - but through it all, I thought of

Tiffany

Tiffany

She was standing in front of me.

No.

The lasers beaming into my eyeballs were showing me what the computers had reassembled from my mind. They slurped up my obsession and refined it into reality. I was seeing the world as I had last seen it decades ago.

Tiffany.

She was beautiful!

How had I forgotten that? She was a perfect little angel. I had thought her a grubby and unkempt kid, wearing hand-me-downs. But she was radiant. I looked around the playground and noticed the details I'd suppressed. The dinner-lady having a crafty fag. The pre-fab hut crumbling behind us. And Tiffany's smile.

"Are you ready?" Dr Noruen's voice boomed in my ear. I couldn't reply. I was transfixed.

"This happens sometimes," I heard her say to the gathered researcher. "Holly, we're going to play the memory now."

I braced myself for what was coming. The wires in my head started fizzing and pulsing. The throbbing of the magnetron ramped up its intensity, playing an unholy rhythm on my nervous system. The lasers burned brighter until Tiffany's face was seared onto my retinas.

I wasn't watching the memory. I wasn't in the memory. I was the memory. I could feel myself albeit at one step removed. I looked upon my childhood friend dancing towards me. As a child, I felt a pang of jealousy and as an adult I understood why I felt this way about my dearest friend. She came closer. She beamed at me. Her eyes were radiant and her delight was pure. I stared at her lips. The horrors which were about to be unleashed. How could she do this to me? Finally, I would know. Finally, I would be able to understand what happened on that awful day. Finally!

"Tiffany."

What was this? Those were my lips moving. I could feel a cruel and sarcastic smile playing about my tweenage lips. My nose was crinkling as I sneered at her. Though she was barely taller than me, I attempted to look down on her. The bile rose in my throat and I wasn't entirely sure if that was part of my memory or the horror of what I was experiencing.

"Tiffany, I don't mean to be rude but you're not my best friend any more!"

That was the bullet which ripped us apart. How could I have been so needlessly cruel? My friend - my sweet and innocent friend - was crushed. I saw the spark leave her eyes. Her face collapsed as she tried to keep her composure. I felt myself relish in the power I held over her. I screamed. It was me. It was me. I did this. I was the architect of my unhappiness. As my neocortex exploded with suppressed memories, I understood what a bitch I'd been to Tiffany. I was the one who had driven her away. My petty insecurities manifested in a targeted rage against those I loved. My adult inadequacies were nothing more than trying to reconcile my childhood cruelties.

I spasmed and screamed. The cuffs around my wrists kept me from tearing the wires from my brain. I shook and wept and howled until Dr Noruen whispered in my ear: "I'm going to give you something to calm down. Try to count backwards from 10."

10. Tiffany. What had I done to you?
9. Tiffany. How can I forgive myself?
8. Tiffany.
7.

Nothing.

I awoke knowing my life was a lie. I had a few more sessions with the psychiatrist, but I felt worse than ever. I had seen, clear as day, that I couldn't blame my problems on my childhood trauma. I was the cause of all my failures. I'd probably done more damage to Tiffany than I would ever understand.

Holly was broken. The foundations of her personality were built on a void. She had shifted her blame inwards. The one constant in all her failed relationships wasn't Tiffany's betrayal; it was her own jealousy and spite.

Holly was anonymised in the research paper.

Doctor Tiffany Noruen was delighted with how Holly's physical scars were healing. The synthetic bone covered the somewhat excessive holes which had been carved out of Holly's skull. The intracranial bleeding had stopped and the retinal damage was only moderate. More importantly, all the psychiatric testing came to the same conclusion. The silly cow actually believed that the surgically implanted memories were true.

Thanks for reading

I'd love your feedback on this story. Did you like the style of writing? Was the plot interesting? Did you guess the twist? Please stick a note in the comments to motivate me 😃

Hungry for more? You can read:

• 2024's "Revenge Of The Mutant Algorithms"
• 2023's "Tales of the Algorithm"