By H. M. Hershberger
The sound of a Harmony Patrol was distinctive. You could hear them blocks before they arrived in sight, the crisp stamp-tramp of their shiny white boots synchronized to the point of being robotic.
Lise shuddered. Underneath those spotless helmets were the bones, blood, and beating hearts of men and women who were all too human. Too human in the Memories; too human now. She glanced out the window, down Central Street.
Nothing yet.
Three months previously, a cream letter in a cream envelope arrived on their doorstep, politely commanding them to close the Library due to its harboring of “Distressing and Problematic” content.
Gemma had dropped the missive straight into the fire. “Remembering is by nature distressing and problematic. Forgetting cannot undo tragedy.”
Lise had exchanged glances with her cousin Adrian. That was the day the contingency plans started.
Now an armed patrol was marching on their home.
She tapped her fingers against the chipped lacquer of Recall Bank 17A—Old World Holidays—watching her aunt work. “We haven’t got much longer.” The Harmony Patrol was meant to arrive to the empty husk of the Library.
“We have some time yet.” Gemma plugged the dump drive into the side of the bank, fingers weaving a merry dance across the keyboard.
Lise imagined those graceful hands weaving in a polka, skipping to a waltz, then drifting into swing. She doubted any of the Patrol knew what dancing was, had ever felt the velvet notes of a violin caress their ears. Most people didn’t care about Before. Too painful. Too messy.
But Lise and Adrian and Gemma did. It was why they watched over the Library, stewarding the memories of What Once Was against the encroachment of the regulation sameness the Harmony Collective championed. Too many people only remembered the pain of Before. They forgot the beauty. The joy. They called the past a problem.
Wanted to erase it.
“Done.” Gemma ejected the drive, screwed on the cover, and ran a fine chain through the top. She handed it to Lise, the light glinting off her non-regulation red nail polish. “Keep them safe.”
Lise swallowed, placing the summation of Before around her neck. The dump drive was far too light for the weight of the history it contained. The specter of departure loomed large before her. A lifetime of watching Memories had not prepared her for the sick feeling rising in her stomach, had not transmitted to her the courage she would need to face what was coming. “I—”
The pounding of feet on the staircase cut her off. The door swung open and Adrian barreled in, hair flying in all directions. “They’ve sent more soldiers around the back. We’re surrounded.”
Gemma pursed her lips and tsked. “That’s hardly sporting of them.”
“Sporting?” Lise shook her head. “The Collective doesn’t… isn’t sporting.”
“This is what happens when you forget the past. Rules of polite warfare go completely out the window,” Gemma grumbled. “Philistines.” Steel shone in her eyes. “Adrian, open the weapons cabinet. Lise, my dear, I’m afraid I’m changing the plan.”
Lise choked. “Leave you behind?”
Gemma squinted down the length of the throwing knife she had conjured from one of her pockets. “We don’t intend on dying, child. We are going to employ some—”
Adrian reappeared, arms full of an assortment of guns and oddly shaped sticks Lise suspected were explosives. “Percussive negotiations?” he suggested, mimicking his mother’s lackadaisical drawl.
“Precisely.” Gemma looked up from her knife and offered Lise a smile. “You’ve a strong head on your shoulders. You’ll be fine.”
A crisp knock sounded on the door below. Lise’s heart stuttered.
Gemma pressed a kiss to Lise’s forehead. “Into the tunnels with you, my girl.”
Adrian grabbed the side of Bank 17A and pulled. It swung open. Lise glanced into the maw of the tunnel, then back at her aunt and cousin.
They smiled at her, calm and unafraid.
Gemma nodded.
The knock came again, less polite.
Lise took a deep breath and nodded back. Then she stepped into the tunnel. Adrian shoved the door shut behind her, and she began to climb.
Down, down, down.
There was no light, but Lise did not need one. She had grown up playing in the tunnels and hidden passages that riddled the Library, a remnant of a war Before.
The clash of raised voices tumbled through the darkness.
Lise climbed faster. Adrenaline coursed through her veins. Memories of a dozen desperate climbs, so similar to her own, rushed through her mind. Sometimes they ended well. Others…
Her boot found concrete. She reached out a hand, fingers closing around the pack Gemma had instructed her to leave by the ladder three months previously.
Light fell down the shaft, along with the sound of percussive negotiations.
Lise shouldered the pack and ran.
Straight, always straight.
Shouts came behind her.
She wrapped a hand around the dump drive and didn’t look back.
On and on Lise ran, until her palms slammed into the rough countenance of a brick wall. She scrabbled for the ladder and hauled herself up the rungs, into a stand of scrubby trees that smelled like Christmas. She found the hatch’s bolt and slid it home.
Gemma would approve.
The mountains loomed in the distance. She was just outside the city walls. A pall of smoke climbed from the direction of the Library.
We don’t intend on dying, Gemma had said.
She should have made her promise. In the Memories, they always did. And they fought tooth and nail to keep those promises. Glorious, painful, beautiful promises.
Keep them safe, Gemma had said.
Lise pressed the drive to her lips and tucked it in her shirt. “I promise,” she whispered to the wind. Then she turned and pushed deeper into the trees. She had Memories to safeguard. If the Harmony Patrols had half the sense Gemma and Adrian possessed, they would try percussive negotiations on the hatch.
Lise had no intention of being around when they did.
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