Page 79 - Tales Apocalyptic and Dystopian

Cannon’s Last Case

room had been advanced by that amount, matched by the same
interval in the laboratory. That gave the operators plenty of time to
administer a gaseous anesthetic with an admixture of hypnotic and
psychedelic chemicals; then a pre-recorded set of false memories was
implanted at high speed through headphones. The human
imagination, as you might know, is capable of filling in any missing
pieces of such sketchy recollections, each retelling increasing in self-
credible detail. The clocks, of course, had been retarded to the
correct time just as the client regained consciousness, and he or she
was none the wiser—a curious twist on the relativistic time dilation
effect predicted for wormhole travel. But the plaintiff in the
grievance I was working on did not respond normally to the
unauthorized cocktail of psychotropic drugs, and the implanted
memories were tied to terrifying unconscious material he would
never be able to assimilate into consciousness. It was an open-and-
shut case once the drugs were found and a couple of the con artists
turned state’s evidence. I was on the stand, not what a private eye
wants, but it had to be done. And that is how you found me.”
The old detective slowed for a few paces, catching his breath. The
young woman, impatient but cognizant of archaic forms of respect,
gave him a barely perceptible period of grace before restarting the
conversation.
“If you could do that, Spike, then I’ll bet you can help me.”
“Eh,” he wheezed. “I was younger then than you are now. But I’ll
listen. Not too much wrong with my hearing.”
“Okay, thanks.” She noticed that they had already made at least
one circuit of the garden; some of the jumbled junk looked familiar.
“What do you know about the Me Museum?”
“Nothing. I suppose I’ve heard the name, but I can’t attach it to
anything.”
Mary adopted a schoolmarmish tone.
“Then I’ll give you a brief description. I did some on-the-job
research once I received the extortion demand. Based on your age
and behavior, Spike, I can tell that you retain a very old-fashioned
view of yourself; that is, that you exist as a separate entity controlling
both your exposure to others and theirs to you. As I said before, that
changed within your lifetime. People adjusted to what you would
consider intrusive probes into your invaded privacy; they adjusted by

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