It had been a typical hectic morning in the life of a married mother of two children; I’d dragged myself out of bed, made breakfast for the family, checked my kid’s schoolbags for contraband and (in)completed homework. My husband, Jack, was already well out the door before I hustled the kids to the bus stop. It was washing day – when wasn’t it with two kids – and I rolled up the sleeves of my dressing gown to get to work sorting sports gear, socks, and towels, from the massive hamper in the laundry room.
In moments like these, when tackling huge domestic chores, I liked to remind myself of what I had. Jack and I were lucky that we had his salary, this big house inherited from his parents, and that I didn’t need to work so I could be a full-time mum. We also knew that if anything went terribly wrong, we could rely on my parents to bail us out, as they were fairly wealthy, even though only my mother still worked.
I had a good life – no, a great life – and I knew many people would practically die to have it. My days might have a decent amount of domestic drudge to them, but I felt more useful here at home, looking after my family, than I ever had in an office where I’d been writing reports or replying to dreary emails.
The knock on the door was a shock; I wasn’t expecting anyone at this time of day, and it wasn’t the kids, as they had keys to let themselves in. It was a loud knock and an official sounding knock – the kind of knock a policeman makes, or a salesman going door to door.
I wasn’t prepared for company; I was in nothing more than a dressing gown and my hair in the world’s messiest bun. Clinching the cord of my gown tight, I quickly ripped out the hairtie and smoothed my hair down into some semblance of order. I noticed there were a few more white-silver hairs than I’d like – I might be only 36, but father time was coming hard at my follicles.
The knock sounded again as I reached the front door and checked the porch camera – it was two very official looking men in smart suits, one of them carrying a small briefcase. I could see some sort of metallic badge openly displayed on the hip of the foremost man.
Hand on my phone – you can never be too careful – I opened the door and greeted them with my sunniest smile.
“Morning gentlemen, how can I help you.”
“Good morning Mrs Pelton, we’ve come from the Restart Agency. We’re here to conduct a debriefing.”
It was not lost on me that they didn’t ask if I was Claire Pelton, they knew who I was. They didn’t need to ask.
“A debriefing?”
“It’s best if we all sit down, in your living room,” he nodded directly to our spacious living room, out of sight behind the kitchen, “as what we’re going to tell you will probably come as a shock.”
My mouth was suddenly very dry and my chores seemed very distant and unreal.
“Am I in trouble?”
He shook his head, his features unreadable, “No, you’re not in trouble Mrs Pelton” he said, a strange emphasis on my name.
Confused and with a growing gnaw of anxiety in my belly, I led them to the living room and seated them in the long leather couch, while I ducked into the kitchen.
“I’m getting a drink, my throat is dry. Do you gents need anything?”
“No thankyou,” came the gruff reply.
My hands were shaking as I poured a grapefruit juice for myself. I couldn’t fathom why they were here. What was Restart Agency and why was I being ‘debriefed’? Was I some kind of undercover spy? Had they come to relocate me and restart my life?
I filtered quickly through my memories; the birth of Jared most recently, then Carry, and before that, my marriage to Jack. We’d met at the legal firm he was a partner at, I was one of the legal secretaries and we’d fallen in love over several dozen long lunches together. Before that I’d been at college and flatting with my two best friends, Rona and Linda, one of whom was now married as well and living two blocks over, with her own daughter. I remembered high school and my braces and my bullies, I remembered being overweight and having stress alopecia and being teased for it when I was 9. Hell I even remembered by birthday cake when I was 4; it had been a unicorn and my mother had done an amazing job of it, with rainbow piping and glitter sprinkles.
Reassured that I was who I thought I was, I returned to the living room and sat down.
“Mrs Pelton, as I said, I’m from the Restart Agency. We’re a branch of Corrections, under the department of Justice.”
“I see,” I replied, not actually understanding at all.
“We are here to smooth the first part of your transition out of this life.”
Cold, jellied eels of fear flooded my stomach, writhing and coiling until I felt nauseous.
“Out of this life?”
“Yes,” said the second man, “this was the point of your death, in your original life.”
“Or rather, Claire’s life.” The first man said stiffly.
“My original life,” I croaked uselessly.
“There’s no easy way to say this Mrs Pelton, but you are dead. In the real world, you died in a bloody struggle on the floor of your kitchen, during an aggravated robbery that went wrong.”
I stood up and put my grapefruit juice down carefully on the sunflower coaster I’d bough three months ago, to match the dried sunflower display in the middle of the glass and walnut coffee table that Jack and I had bought when we’d moved into this house.
“No. This is either a mistake or it can’t be real.”
The men looked at each other and the younger of the two grimaced, “John, don’t.”
The older agent steepled his fingers in front of his face.
“My colleague here believes that you deserve compassion, that the transition back to your real life should be… smooth and with as little trauma as possible.”
He sighed, a deep, weary sigh that told me that this was a job he did a lot.
“But what we do is already deeply traumatic, so I personally don’t see the point.”
I’d started crying and I wasn’t sure why. All I knew was that I hadn’t done anything wrong. I was a nobody. A loving wife, a loving mother. I was good at both of those things. I didn’t even speed in my car and other than shoplifting for a dare once in college, I’d never committed a crime in my life.
“But anyway,” said the older agent, “you’re right, this isn’t truly real.”
Numbly I sat down, as my knees were trembling.
“Get out of my house,” I whispered hoarsely, between clenched teeth, “I want you out.”
The older agent nodded to the younger, who opened his compact briefcase and began typing on a small keyboard.
The room began to fade, impossibly, silently, until all that was left was the couches we were sitting on, and the coffee table with my drink.
“Have you ever seen The Matrix?” asked the younger agent.
I nodded. Grey-white space surrounded us, infinitely, without a hint of my home left in it.
“Imagine that it’s like that. None of us are really here, all three of us are hooked up to a simulation – a very good one – of the life of Claire Pelton.”
“Her memories were all scraped after she died. That’s part of what we do at Restart; we re-assemble the lives of the victims as much as possible, so they can be relived by other people.”
I could feel the blood draining from my face and my lips felt numb.
“I’m not really Claire, am I?” I said.
“No,” said the younger agent, “You’re Declan Morgan.”
“I’m a man?”
The older agent nodded, “That’s usually how it goes with these sorts of cases. Male on female crime, especially involving death, is more common sadly.”
The younger agent looked at him sharply, he must have seen the look on my face.
“What my colleague is referring to is you of course. You’re Declan Morgan, the killer of Claire Pelton.”
“No,” I managed quietly.
“Yes,” countered the older agent, “And we’re now going to reintegrate your memories with Claire’s.”
He said something more, but I couldn’t concentrate. There was a pressure building in my head, like a overfull balloon, straining at me, at Claire and intruding on her/my space in our head.
“You see, Mr Morgan, what we do here at Restart Agency is serve Justice.”
He said the last word with relish, I could imagine him licking his lips, but I couldn’t see anything; images and memories in a huge wrecking-ball jumble had slammed into my consciousness and pieces of another life were strewn through mine/Claire’s life like a bucket of Jared’s Lego poured into a bathtub.
“When we can recover a victim’s life, through scanning their brain on a biomolecular level, we can make a criminal re-live the victim’s entire life so that they know, intimately, what was taken away from the world.”
I could feel another personality rising, I could feel Declan trying to take over Claire, supplanting her/me with him/myself.
“As I said, my colleague here thinks we should be gentle, and make reintegration smooth, but personal I think you’re scum. You broke into this gorgeous, wonderful, kind, naïve and innocent woman’s house, stabbed her, raped her, then set her on fire while she was still alive to try and get rid of the evidence of your crime.”
As he said those words, I remembered.
I remembered how it felt.
In my mind the memories twisted and fought; I had access to it all now. I was Declan/me doing those things to me/Claire. I could feel her/my horror and I could feel me/his anger, lust, resentment and entitlement.
And then I was just mostly Declan, with Claire’s life in my past.
“You’ll wake up soon,” said the older agent, “back in your old body.”
“You’re going to find it hard,” said the younger, empathy in his voice, “most of you don’t make it past the first few months. Having to live with what you destroyed? Well, it destroys most people.”
“You’re changed now,” said the other, standing and buttoning his jacket, “You might not have cared about the humanity of others, about right and wrong, but she did. And now that you know what you did to her, what you took away from her, her kids, and her husband…”
He paused and licked his lips.
“Well, I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t be able to live with that.”
The agents and my body began to fade, everything fading to stormy grey.
“Goodbye Mr Morgan, I am certain that one way or another, we will never meet again.”