Don't Let Me Forget - SCP Foundation

The two women looked into each other's eyes, searching for something. Whatever it was, they found it at the exact same time, pushing themselves together, a soft, gentle kiss shared in the midst of this desolate abyssal wasteland.

⚠️ content warning

Don't Let Me Forget

There is a room. Inside of the room is a box. Inside of the box is nothing.

The child draws a hole on the side of the box, because the child wishes to create. The hole lets nothing out of the box. The box is empty. The room is nothing.

There is no child.

A man wants to pack all of his possessions into a box. He has far too many things for the box, it will never fit.

The man only cares about his heirlooms. He throws himself into the void, clinging to those cherished objects.

The man puts all of his possessions into the box. Everything fits. The box is empty. The man has nothing.

There is no man.

A story is told on the wind, a celebration of a different time. The story is a breath, living and consuming empty air. Many people tell the story, and it changes, influenced by each mouth that speaks it.

A woman meets nothing. Nothing begs her for a tale. The woman thinks, and obliges. She puts every ounce of will she can into her thoughts. She remembers the story, knows the story, lives the story. She gives the story to nothing.

The woman looks up. The world is empty. There are no other stories. She has the only story left. A prize. She covets it. Hides it. Keeps it to herself.

Years later, the woman tries to tell the story to her children. Nothing comes out.

"FUCK!"

Heather woke up in a sweat, grasping at the bed sheets. As the panic surged through her, she looked around, trying to calm herself down.

Let's see. Right. I'm in… I'm in Lillian's room.

As Heather tried to calm down, the now-familiar bedroom enveloped her. She looked over, and found Lillian staring right back.

"Everything alright? Normally you don't scream in bed, unless I'm involved."

"Yeah I'm okay Lils. I think I just had a nightmare."

Lillian nodded her head — any researcher in the Foundation has had their fair share of nightmares.

"What happened?"

"I think I was—" Heather paused, losing her train of thought. "Shit. Sorry, I can't remember."

Lillian replied through half-closed eyes, yawning as she settled back into bed.

"S'okay, just wanted to make sure you were…" Lillian didn't even finish the thought as she drifted back to sleep. Heather stared at her, racking her mind, trying to remember what the dream had been about.

Why can't I remember?

She didn't sleep another minute that night.

"Hey Heath. Did you manage to get back to bed?"

Heather hadn't; after lying in bed watching Lillian for hours, she slipped out, went back to her own dorm to change, and headed to the mess hall for breakfast. Staring down at the abyss-like cup of black coffee she had in front of her, Heather barely managed to shake her head in the negative.

"That sucks. I guess I'll just have to figure out a way to exhaust you before bed tonight, right?"

Lillian looked at Heather with a mischievous grin. The two hadn't publicly shown any signs that their relationship had changed, but that was just how they liked it. It was much more fun for them when people speculated endlessly and made up wild rumors. Heather smiled back.

"Maybe. I could be interested."

"Good. By the way, I was thinking about 8688."

The computer Lillian forgot about. The first time we'd even heard of 'absence'. The first revelation into the lurking threat I've been doing my best to ignore.

"I think we need to do more research." Lillian continued. "Despite our literature review, we still don't know anything concrete about this 'absence'."

"So what do you suggest? We tried to find as much as we could, and hell, even then we barely found anything." Heather remembered how many nights the two of them had spent digging through the archives, looking for any scraps of information to help them better understand what was happening with 8688. If that was any indication of how much work this would be, it could take months.

"I think it's time we brought in an expert."

Heather and Lillian stood in front of a closed office door, a sign hanging on the handle read 'On Call, Do Not Disturb'. Heather had blindly followed Lillian after she left the cafeteria, so she didn't know where they had ended up. A quick check told Heather that it was Dr. Harold Blank's office.

"I guess he's busy. Should we come back later?" Heather asked Lillian, who seemed to be trying to stare through the closed shutters.

"Nah."

Lillian tried the handle, but the door refused to acquiesce. Without missing a beat, she reared back and placed a single swift kick beside the handle. Scratches along the doorframe told Heather that this was not the first time Lillian had done this. Storming into the room, and pulling Heather with her, Lillian quickly made her way to Harry's desk.

"–trying to determine the provenance of that, unfortunately— I'm sorry, can you excuse me for a second?" Harry looked up from his phone and saw the two women who had just barged in. He didn't manage to get another word in before Lillian reached over and hung up the phone.

"Hey Harry."

"Hey Li. What can I do for you?"

Heather was stunned. Lillian had kicked down the door, hung up on Dr. Blank's call and he didn't even seem to flinch at it. I guess other people are used to Lillian too?

Heather's thoughts were interrupted as Harry's phone began to ring again. Lillian grabbed it before anybody could react, ignoring the call and putting it into airplane mode.

"There, now they'll get the hint. We need your help Harry."

"What's wrong? Is this about the—"

"No, not that. This is about Heather."

Heather stepped forward. She hadn't been standing far behind Lillian, but it felt like she wasn't even part of the conversation before that. She gave Harry a sheepish wave.

"Hi. Nice to see you again."

"Nice to see you too." Harry turned back to Lillian. "You two are asking for help? What do you want from a boring old librarian?"

"You're my favourite librarian?"

"You're damn right I am. What's the problem?"

Lillian turned to Heather. Heather shot her a glance, still unsure of what was happening, but Lillian gave her subtle nods, encouraging her to go on.

"When Lillian and I were researching 8688, we did a literature review to try and identify an entity. 'Absence'. We found people talking about it from a ton of different eras and locations, but there was one consistency: anybody who wrote about or discovered 'absence' has disappeared."

"Interesting. Do you think there's an antimemetic effect extending to documentation on it?"

"No," Heather continued, "it doesn't seem like the effect is on the documentation. Something is happening to the people themselves."

"Right." Harry leaned back in his chair, and looked at the two women. "So what's with the urgency? I know you hate waiting Lil, but to break into my office because you need my help going through old documents doesn't seem to match the urgency of the issue."

"Heather didn't tell you the full story." Lillian answered. "We were doing the Lillihammer Test—"

"You convinced somebody to do the Lillihammer Test?"

"Heather convinced me. Anyways, we're high as fuck, when Heather notices that her memories are fuzzy. Empty. Missing details."

"Okay…"

"Anomalously so."

"I mean it's not like she has your memory Li, maybe it was just—"

Heather cut in. "When I made my 'Deadname Meme', I had tied my deadname to what I thought was the concept of 'nothingness' at the time. Turns out I tied it to 'absence', and now it's coming for me."

"Oh." Harry thought to himself for a second, analyzing the ramifications of what he had just learned. "Are you two free to start now?"

Lillian and Heather nodded. They needed answers.

Harry had led the two women through Archives and Revision's corridors, weaving through them with ease. The clean, modern aesthetic slowly began to give way to a more aged region of halls, leading back further behind the Section.

"Hey Harry?"

"Yes Lillian?"

"Where the fuck are you taking us? Aren't the A&R terminals the other way?"

"We're not going to use terminals, we're going to the salt caves."

Heather had heard about the salt caves during her day one orientation. Site-43 kept one of the largest document repositories in the Foundation just behind A&R, within a massive salt cave that naturally kept the humidity down. Why the salt caves?

A sign on the wall indicated that continuing down the hallway would lead to the main document storage chamber. Harry, instead, turned right, down a different hallway and stopped at a set of doors that looked like they hadn't moved in years. A sign above read 'Orphaned Document Storage'.

Harry scanned his ID and pulled the door open, the hinges creaking in protest. Heather and Lillian walked through the threshold, a sprawling dark void ahead of them. Harry turned on the lights, and as they flickered on, the true scale of the room was revealed.

Huh.

Whatever Heather had been expecting, this wasn't it.

The room was like a warehouse in scale — it was filled with wall to wall shelving, each piled full of boxes, presumably containing documentation from around the world and throughout history. The salt cave ceilings loomed high above, the air dry and crisp. As Heather peered down off of the metal catwalk the door led out to, she was astounded by the sheer scope of information they would need to dig through.

Harry followed them in, leading the way down a set of nearby stairs.

"Welcome to the orphaned document storage room, better known as the 'Smokestacks.' Back in the day, this was one of the main locations Archives and Revisions worked out of. The thing was, because the room is so big, you'd rarely see any of your coworkers unless you were trying to find them. You could tell you weren't alone when the smoke from a freshly lit cigarette drifted up above the shelves. Hence, smoke stacks." Harry paused. "Of course, they banned smoking once the supervisors caught wind of it, we didn't want to damage any of the documents further, but the name stuck."

"So what are we doing here Harry? Why can't we just check the Deepwell?"

"The Deepwell doesn't have everything. You wanted my expertise, right? I can go back to my call if you'd…"

"Fine. I just don't know what you're looking for." Lillian said, her face failing to hide her frustration with Harry.

"Why aren't we in the main document archives?" Heather asked, looking around, overwhelmed by the sheer amount of information surrounding them.

"The main archives are pretty well digitized at this point, with only a handful of exceptions. If you had checked the Deepwell, anything in there would have come up in the search." Harry paused, gesturing to the shelves as they walked through them. "This room is where the uncategorized fragments go. Any incomplete documentation, partial information or unsorted papers live here. If we want to find out more about 'absence', this is our best shot."

Harry had led them through a maze of the shelves, opening into a small clearing furnished with a single small ancient computer monitor, and a handful of desks. He placed his bag down onto the table, and turned to face the two women.

"First off, explain to me again what you discovered, and how you two found it."

"Heather had been working on digging into 8688, when I noticed a connection between it and somebody Zwist had told me about. Somebody who had developed their own cryptomancy, and was obsessed with finding lost knowledge. I say somebody because we have no idea who the person was, but I did manage to find a transcript of one of his 'seminars'. He was talking about some end-of-the-world memetic bullshit, and kept mentioning 'absence'."

Lillian had sat down onto another table while she talked. Without thinking, Heather sat down beside her. She started to lean onto Lillian, but caught herself a second before she did. Shit, did Harry notice that? Nobody else was supposed to know. With a quick glance at Harry, Heather let out a sigh of relief. Either he didn't see anything, or he's pretending not to.

Lillian spoke, drawing Heather's eyes towards her.

"We ended up searching the Deepwell for any documents we could find talking about 'absence', but only found a handful of references. All from people we know nothing about, all saying the same things. 'Absence' is some being in noospheric space that consumes information."

Harry nodded.

"Anything else?"

Heather chimed in. "Nope. It took us a week to find those scraps."

"Okay. Well that's why you brought in the expert. Li, did you keep the—"

"Reference numbers? Of course not, I love when you lecture me about the importance of them." Lillian sarcastically replied as she reached into her dazzlecoat's pocket, pulling out a scrap of paper with a string of three letters, followed by a set of numbers, all delimited by hyphens.

Harry took the scrap and looked at it briefly.

"Right. We should start by trying to find the files related to these cases. The reference numbers should at least help us find the right sections, but we'll need to do a bit of digging to find the relevant boxes. I recognize the reference numbers for the first two sources, I can start there. Heather and Lillian, can you find the third box?" Harry had copied the final reference number onto a separate scrap of paper and handed it back to the two of them.

"You got it." Lillian saluted Harry and started heading towards Heather. Harry nodded, before turning and disappearing into the smokestacks immediately.

When Heather and Lillian first left the desks in search of the records, they were extremely confident that they would be able to find it immediately. How hard could it be for two intelligent, resourceful and gorgeous Foundation scientists to find a simple box?

"Okay, so it's none of those fucking rows. What the hell is left?"

Heather consulted the crudely scrawled map Lillian had made to track the places they'd already checked. Could Archives and Revisions employees be anomalous, the way they navigate these shelves with ease? Maybe the archive itself is anomalous? Heather mused.

A wave of lightheadedness swept through Heather out of nowhere, a fog spreading through her mind. She took a step back and leaned against a shelf, closing her eyes and breathing deeply.

"You okay?"

Don't tell her how bad it is.

She opened her eyes to see Lillian's twinkling greens staring back at her with concern.

"Yeah. I just don't know what I'm supposed to do." Heather couldn't tell Lillian the full truth. That she was terrified of what was happening to her, that she had been forgetting more and more as time went on. That she felt helpless against this force of nature.

"I mean, I can think of a couple things we could do." Lillian was biting her lip, gazing deeper into Heather's soul. Heather jumped at the chance to get out of her head, and pulled Lillian into her. Their lips met, roughly kissing as Lillian pressed Heather against the shelf behind her.

She grabbed at Lillian's neck, desperate for the human connection. Lillian pulled away for a second, and Heather followed her movements, their lips reaching for each other.

Lillian laughed. "I'm coming right back, you know." She had shrugged her dazzle-coat off, leaving her in just a button-down shirt. Lillian began to pop button after button, her shirt parting to reveal a tank top she was wearing underneath. It was lilac, with text on the front reading 'It's a girl!'. That's… That's my shirt.

She didn't have the time to ask when Lillian had stolen it before she was once again rendered speechless, in the best way possible.

"We're back!" Lillian and Heather had made their return to the gathering area, sheepish looks on their faces. Harry noticed that Lillian had a button fastened wrong on her shirt, but didn't say anything. Not right now, anyways.

"Did you two get lost out there?"

"Yes, but we also found the file."

"Took you long enough Li. Now come over here and look at this." He pushed the page he had been reading out towards them on the table and spun it around for them to see. "I found the main diary from the British expedition that had mentioned 'absence', and noticed something on the file manifest with it. The box is supposed to have the diary, as well as some drawings, receipts and other miscellaneous ephemera from the expedition."

"Okay, and?"

"The box was empty."

"What?"

Lillian made her way over to the box, tipping its contents out onto the table. The diary fell out, but nothing else came with it.

"Are you sure that's the latest—"

"Yes Lillian, I checked that. And I checked the access logs, nobody has been in this room other than me in over six months. The documents are just missing."

"How?"

"I don't know. I don't think they're that important, but still — why would somebody take only the irrelevant information from the archive, leaving the diary that had all the details?"

Harry and Lillian stared at the diary, both hoping it would have some answer that they hadn't thought of yet. Heather interjected as a thought crossed her mind.

"What if those pages were consumed? Just like the files on 8688."

Lillian spun and looked at her with excitement.

"Yes! That has to be it!"

Harry just looked confused. "I'm still out of the loop ladies, can one of you explain?" Heather gave him a sheepish grin and continued.

"SCP-8688 had been using some sort of anomalous compression to make smaller file sizes. The developer logs and research confirmed that none of the main or important content was missing from the files, but it had somehow removed what it determined to be 'irrelevant data'. That computer was routing the files through the same place in the Noosphere as where I tied my deadname. It was using 'absence' to compress the files."

Harry realized what the two women were excited about.

"So you two think the anomaly extends beyond digital media."

Lillian jumped in. "Exactly! What if the same effect is present on all written documentation about 'absence'? What if the entity consumes the irrelevant documents somehow?"

"That would make sense. The writings with specific details are still here, but the—"

"Useless information is lost—"

Lillian and Harry both trailed off, looking at each other. Heather watched as they seemed to communicate silently, firing thoughts back and forth, each taking the conversation to its logical conclusion. For her part, Heather just stared awkwardly, unsure of what to do. After a beat, she softly started.

"Is there anything that I—"

Lillian jumped back into talking to Harry as if they had never stopped, not having noticed Heather. "We need to cross-reference 'absence' with known memetic POIs."

"Oh my god, that's right! If we look at cases where the individual had the ability to understand memetics, even slightly—"

"—then we might be able to find a more complete record. Exactly. We might even figure out if the effect is antimemetic or if there is different mechanism for consuming physical media."

"Lillian, can you help me dig through the diary? I think I saw some references to relevant groups, I'm just not as familiar with them as you are."

Lillian scooted her chair beside Harry, and the two began to pore over the text, muttering to each other, with the occasional quiet joke or murmur escaping their focus.

So… Where do I fit in?

Heather didn't know what to do with herself. She sat down at a table behind them, watching from a distance, trying to look like she wasn't as useless as she felt.

Why am I so upset? It's not like I'm jealous of Harry, I just… Heather paused to correct herself. She was jealous of Harry. Jealous of the bond the two had. Watching them just told Heather how little she knew Lillian, it was daunting and endlessly intimidating. Hey. Breathe. It's fine, you and Lillian have your thing. You don't need to get jealous over her friendships, it's—

Heather's internal thoughts were interrupted as a foreign feeling enveloped her mind. She froze mid-thought, suddenly aware of the boundaries of who she was, noospherically. It was a pseudo-out-of-body experience, where Heather was no longer herself, but rather, was aware of the thought patterns that made up Heather Garrison.

What's happening?

Heather focused; she could feel a fleeting thought in the back of her mind, just out of reach. She closed her eyes and began to meditate, navigating through her noospheric field the way Lillian had showed her recently.

There!

Heather could feel it. An abstract memetic presence, darting into a further recess of her mind. She followed the thought, trying to chase it down. Her mind was inundated with ideas and memories, things she hadn't thought about in years. She couldn't lose focus though, she needed to catch up to the memetic thought fleeing her. Her memories began to become fuzzier as she did, details falling away, leaving her in a dead end in her mind.

The thought that she had been chasing was missing. Gone. It had disappeared right as she was about to reach it, to understand what it was.

Was that 'absence'?

Heather tried to find any clues about what had just happened. Everything is… hazy? The memories here were faded, only slight glimpses of moments or emotions left. It felt empty. Heather was constantly thinking, so for there to be a part of her mind that was empty and quiet felt unnatural.

Like something is fucking with my mind.

Heather opened her eyes, disoriented and worried. She almost said something, but hesitated, biting her tongue. Should I tell Lillian what just happened? I just don't want her to worry about me.

Heather looked up at Harry and Lillian — they were head-to-head, reading through the diary. Harry made a comment Heather couldn't quite hear, and Lillian laughed, knocking her head into his.

Maybe it's better if I leave them to it.

Heather scowled. She quietly slipped out, back up the stairs, heading to her dormitory to take a nap. She needed the rest, and it wasn't like there was anything she could do to help in there.

A woman wanted to tell the world a story, but she had nothing. There were no stories.

She tried to make a story, but sacrificed a part of her self. In return, nothing gave her a story to share with the world. The woman did. The story grew, moving from person to person, nothing following in its wake.

One day, the woman tried to take the story back. You cannot take the story back. Everybody knows the story.

Everybody knows nothing.

Nothing is always there. Staring. Taking. Observing. Perceiving. Consuming. Absorbing. Lurking. Longing.

Not even a story is forever.

It wasn't until a couple of hours later that Lillian and Harry noticed that Heather wasn't with them anymore. Lillian tried not to worry about her, assuming that she had gone to try and get some rest. In the meantime, Harry and Lillian had continued digging into the documents, looking for connections to other fragment documents.

"So. What's going on with Heather?" Harry broke their comfortable silence with a seemingly innocuous question, but Lillian knew that he wouldn't have asked if it wasn't more than idle chatter.

"What do you mean?" What does Harry know? Did he hear us?

"I was just wondering how you've been handling your surprise employee? How does she feel about your 'hands-on' approach?"

Yeah. He knows something. Asshole. Lillian thought.

"She's a great researcher, she's smart and I don't find her utterly exhausting. We're good at collaborating, so I think we're adjusting well to this." Really? I don't think I can keep dancing around this…

Harry stopped reading a paper and faced Lillian with a knowing look. "You know that I'm not one to interfere with an office romance—"

"Oh my god Harry, do we have to do this?"

"Look. I'm just making sure that you know what you're doing. I don't want to see you get hurt, professionally or emotionally."

"We're really doing this? Fine. Let's get it all out in the open." Lillian couldn't tell if she was blushing, but she wanted to get this over with. "Yes, Heather and I have an extracurricular relationship, no, I don't know what it means, no, I don't know where it's going, and no, I don't plan on registering it with HR. Does that answer your questions?"

"I didn't ask any questions."

"Smarmy prick."

"Look, as long as you're happy, I'm happy for you." Harry smiled. He'd seen enough of Lillian's self-destructive relationships to know when she was making bad choices; this wasn't one of them.

"I… I am happy. Thanks Harry."

"Always Li." Harry turned back to the loose papers strewn on the workspace and began to dissect the next piece. Lillian wasn't quite done, however.

"So how did you find out?" Lillian knew that Harry knew her better than anybody, but if she had slipped up, it would be better to know before somebody else found out too.

"I wasn't positive, but you wouldn't ask for my help unless you really cared about somebody." Harry mused. "For what it's worth, I think she's good for you."

"Shut up, idiot."

They went back to their research, settling in for a long night together, just as they had for so many years. Lillian smiled.

At least he didn't hear us earlier.

"Oh, by the way. You did your shirt buttons up the wrong way."

Asshole.

Heather woke up and knew that things were much worse.

Why do I feel so… empty?

She tried to think about her most recent dream, but it was like trying to hold onto a dissolving bar of soap. She remembered less than nothing. It was like she hadn't fallen asleep at all. Shit. How much am I forgetting?

Today is Thursday, right? What did I have for lunch on Tuesday? Heather couldn't remember.

Fine, what about the side projects I've been working on? Heather kept drawing a blank.

Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck. Do I remember anything from yesterday? Heather concentrated hard on her memories. I remember… I know I went with Lillian and Harry to the archives. I remember being in there, I remember what happened with Lillian… Heather blushed, remembering what they'd gotten up to. Focus girl. What happened next?

Heather nodded to herself. Next Harry and Lillian started doing their thing, and I left early. After I left I… what did I… where… Heather couldn't remember anything after that. She frowned.

Seriously? How can I not remember anything from this week? She focused on dredging up as many memories of the past week as possible. What she ate, where she went, who she talked to, what she was feeling. It was all a blur, a fog of forgetfulness. Fragments of memories, a word here or there, but nothing coherent, nothing solid. Slowly, Heather started to find a handful of memories and tried to visualize them as best as she could

—Lillian laughed, taking another drink of her cocktail. "Fine. But next time I get to choose the bet." The dinner she'd had with Lillian.

…Lillian's tongue slowly traced down her torso, trailing further and further— She remembered that. Oh gods, did she remember that.

Lillian's face, staring back at me. She looks peaceful. I never get to see her like this.

Heather tried to find the pattern, everything had a pattern somewhere — why were those memories the only thing that she could recall?

The problem sat in front of Heather, slowly unravelling itself from a complex overlapping pattern into an organized set of facts. Then it hit her.

I can only remember moments with Lillian. She realized abruptly. What the fuck does that mean?

Heather didn't know what to do. So she went to the only person she could count on.

"I want you to teach me how to have an eidetic memory."

Lillian had barely opened the door to her office before Heather walked inside, settling in like it was natural.

"Yeah, I don't know babe. That's not how that works." Babe? Lillian thought to herself. I think I'm going soft…

Thankfully, Heather seemed not to notice the new pet name, instead continuing on the same thread.

"What? Why not? We're the Foundation, right? I'm sure there's a way to—"

"Hey, let's slow down there for a second." Lillian sat down next to her. "What's going on?"

Heather was looking around the room, eyes darting around as she tried to figure out how to tell Lillian the truth. After some time, she looked up and spoke.

"I… I think I'm losing my memories."

"What do you mean?" Lillian felt her heartbeat quicken. Why hasn't she told me anything about this?

"It just started with my dreams, I wasn't able to remember the specifics. Then I wasn't able to remember anything other than the last moments of the dream. I didn't think about it that much, I figured it was just one of those things, right? But now I can't remember anything."

"If it's just your dreams it might be—"

"It's not just my dreams. I can't remember anything from this past week. My entire time since I've joined Site-43 is fuzzy. I'm sure I'm forgetting even more, but I don't even know what I'm losing."

Heather looked scared. Very, very scared.

Lillian knew that in your time at the Foundation, a researcher would only be truly scared for a handful of reasons. The most common source of fear was when your supervisor found out about the project you'd been running in secret. The less common, but more severe circumstance was when you're facing down your inevitable death at the hand of an anomaly and have no way out. No. I won't allow that. Lillian needed to find a way to get Heather out alive.

"What do you remember?"

"I remember you."

Lillian hadn't been expecting that answer. She was stunned. Did she— what?

Heather continued. "If you were in my memory, I can see it. I can remember everything clearly, I can catch every detail. I know every color, every reaction, every minute of the time that we've spent together. The memories with you in them are the only ones that don't fade away."

Heather reached out and grabbed Lillian's hand, searching for anything that could keep her from disappearing.

"What the fuck is happening to me Lillian?"

The silence hung in the air, like a slowly creeping miasma.

"We're going to figure this out, okay?"

Heather didn't respond.

"Okay? I'm not going to let anything happen to you Heath, you're too important to me."

Heather blushed. "Okay. So what do we do now?" she eked out.

Lillian thought for a second, and then answered with as much confidence as she could muster.

"Now, I teach you everything I know about memories."

Lillian had cleared out a space in the center of her office, and arranged pillows on the floor beside a small, portable whiteboard she used occasionally. Heather was sat across from her, looking anxious.

"So. Tell me what you know about memories."

Heather nodded. "Memories are representations of things that happened to us. A memory is an event, perceived by you, and processed by your senses."

"Right. What about memories as they relate to the Noosphere?"

"I'm not sure. I would guess that a memory is a memeplex, combining the idea and how you perceived it?"

"You're pretty close, but let me fill in the blanks."

Lillian began to draw on the whiteboard, a half-circle at the top.

"This is the Noosphere. Every concept that humans can conceive of exists in here. Each idea in the Noosphere can be thought of as the base unit of a meme."

Lillian drew a stick figure at the bottom of the board. Above the figure, she drew another circle. She drew a line between the figure, the new circle, and the Noosphere.

"This is you. The part above you is your noospheric field, consisting of your mind, your thoughts and your memories. You interact with the Noosphere via your noospheric field. I know that you know this, but just bear with me, okay?"

Heather nodded back, enraptured by Lillian's speech. No matter what she was doing, no matter how dull — Lillian had a way of hypnotizing Heather. Her words and subtle little looks would pull her in, like a sailor chasing after a brilliant siren.

"When you experience something, two things happen. The concept, the meme, already existed in the Noosphere. Your mind grabs that idea and brings it down into your noospheric field."

Lillian drew a blue circle in the noospheric field, and added other red circles around it.

"The blue circle is the new idea, and the red circles are memories, ideas you already know about, and thoughts that you've already had. What the Noosphere does naturally, upon interacting with your mind, is it creates associations and connections between the new idea and the ideas that are already in your noospheric field. You with me so far?"

"Yeah."

"Great. A lot of people think that these blue circles are your memories. That's wrong. Your memories are—"

"Memories are the collection of existing ideas, connected in a network to the new one?" Heather interjected.

She nailed it. I expected nothing less, Lillian thought as she drew lines between the red and blue circles, creating a web of connections.

"Exactly. That's what a memory is: a memeplex — an idea, and it's correlation to the other ideas that already exist in your mind. Those are what form new nodes in your noospheric field."

"Right. So a memory is a memeplex, but how do we forget or remember things?"

Lillian nodded as she wiped the whiteboard clean.

"Right! How does that happen if all of our thoughts are just interconnected and correlated ideas? But the thing is, your mind isn't a net. It's not a sheet, where a missing memory is a hole in the middle, or a gap on a bridge."

Lillian drew an anchor at the bottom of the whiteboard, with a chain leading to the top.

"Huh. Is that an—"

"It's an anchor."

"I was going to say that."

They flashed a smile at each other.

"Think of your mind more like an anchor, with the Noosphere being the surface of the water. There's a chain, linking your anchor to the Noosphere — every thought and memory you have is tied to it. The more fundamental or integral to who you are, the lower the thought is connected and placed."

Lillian added lines coming off of the chain, adding circles at the ends.

"So what happens when we get a new thought from the Noosphere? Like we discussed before, you interpret it and create a memeplex that serves as your memory. But where does it connect to the anchor?" Lillian asked, watching Heather start to connect the pieces of how this works.

"…the top? As in the closest place to the Noosphere on the chain?"

"Almost. It connects to the most relevant node. This is typically near the top, where your most recent memories live, but sometimes it can attach lower down."

Lillian adds additional lines and circles, building out a web that branched out, narrowing at the bottom and getting wider at the top.

"Your mind is like a tree. The further out a thought or memory is, the less important it is. The less relevant you find it, the less it matters."

"Those are the things we forget first?"

"Exactly!"

"Okay, so I get all that, but how does forgetting something work?"

Lillian couldn't hide her excitement; she loved this part.

"So. What do you think forgetting looks like?"

"The bonds within the memeplex weaken as they aren't being thought about, and eventually they break, drifting apart?"

"More or less, yeah. What actually disappears though is your relations to the ideas. The idea still exists, and you could even rebuild the connections through focused attempts to remember, or something that reminds you of it. It's not fully gone."

Heather nodded. "So is that what amnestics do? Do they remove those bonds?"

Lillian shook her head. "If we did that, people could break through amnestics way too easily. An amnestic blocks the bond, redirecting your mind around it. If you try and think about the walled off concept, you just can't follow the connection. The bond is still there, and if you pick at it enough, sometimes you can break the blocker, but most of the time, you don't think about it and the bonds fade over time naturally."

"What about other ways of erasing memories?"

"Good question. Some work by removing the idea and your perceptions from your mind, leaving an empty void where the thought used to be. The issue with this is that you can always find that thought in the Noosphere again, and put it right back into the same slot, remembering everything that you had forgotten."

"Is that what's happening to me? Are my memories being removed completely?"

Lillian paused. She didn't want to speculate, but—

I know that look. I see it every day, staring back at me from the mirror.

The look that says I'm going to solve this problem even if it kills me. If I don't find an answer, Heather might do something stupid and… I won't let anything happen to her.

Lillian took a deep breath, and started to think.

"I.. I'm not sure, but I don't think so. When something like this happens, your mind recognizes the void and builds around it. It reroutes itself, skipping the problem area and making sure that a connection further down the line isn't lost."

Lillian paused, and erased a circle in the middle of the chart.

"What I think is happening is that the memeplex isn't being removed from your noospheric field at all. If it was being fully removed, then you would be able to remember more details or unimportant aspects that are tangential to the core idea. I… I think it's worse than that."

Fuck. Lillian thought, panicking. Wrong choice of words.

Heather was fidgeting now, unable to sit still. "Worse? What's worse than your memories being deleted?"

Lillian paused for a second, putting down her marker.

"What do you think would happen if I destroyed the idea in the Noosphere, and not just in your mind?"

Heather froze, the realization dawning on her.

"…if the idea was destroyed in the Noosphere, it would disappear from the center of the memeplex. The memeplex would degrade, falling apart. Right?"

"Yeah. Your memories become conceptual fragments, adrift in your noospheric field until they fade away, being abstracted over time."

"What…" Heather stuttered, looking to Lillian for support. "What happens to the thoughts that were only connected to your mind through that memeplex, that node? What happens to the nodes further down on the chain?"

"They wither. They wither and disappear. And there's no way of getting them back."

Lillian hadn't known that they would end up here when she started explaining it to Heather, but it made sense. Follow a train of thought for long enough, and you inevitably arrive at the answer.

"Do you think… do you think 'absence' is destroying my memories in the Noosphere, and that's why I'm forgetting?" Heather shuddered as she said the name of the anomaly.

"I don't know. We still have to do more research. Harry and I made some progress last night but—"

"Wait Lillian, what about you? How do I remember everything about you? Why is it that every moment we've spent together is stuck in my mind, in perfect detail. What makes those memories unable to be forgotten?"

Lillian thought about that for a second.

"Let's say that I'm right, and 'absence' is consuming ideas in the Noosphere based on your memories, destroying the chains."

"Sure."

"But I have my eidetic memory. I can't forget. Even when I shift dimensions or timelines, I can remember everything that happened in both instances. No matter what 'absence' does, it can't destroy those ideas, because every time it tries, the Noosphere pulls the idea from my mind and restores itself."

"The Noosphere can do that?"

Lillian shrugged.

"Maybe. Weirder things have happened, right? We'll need to do some research into it, but if I'm right, we might be able to find a way to save your memories."

"Right. Okay, we can figure this out, right?" Heather took a deep breath. "Thanks for helping me understand this. When I was developing the Name Changer, I focused on purely memetics and memes in an isolated sense. I had no context for what memories were."

"I've got you Heath. We've got this."

Heather yawned, her shoulders loosening, as she relaxed for the first time in hours, maybe days. Lillian shuffled around until she was sitting behind Heather, who leaned back into her embrace. Lillian began to massage Heather's neck and shoulders, pushing and pulling on the knots in her body. A small gasp escaped Heather's mouth and Lillian chuckled.

"So what's next?"

Heather sounded calm. She sounded determined. She sounded like the badass Lillian knew she was.

"Next? How about we hop inside your mind and kick some tires?"

Nothing was waiting for them.

Lillian and Heather were in a sterile testing chamber, each woman waging their own independent battles against the otherwise silent room. Lillian was pacing back and forth, muttering to herself, while Heather sat in a chair, picking at her nails.

"Do we even need Harry here?" Heather said, breaking the quiet.

"I want him here in case something goes wrong. We're both going to be under, so we need at least one person who will stay awake and monitor us." Lillian checked her watch. "He's not late yet, but he's cutting it close."

Heather nodded, and looked around the room. It was small, with little in the way of furniture. Lillian had cleared it out, leaving only a small table, and three chairs. On the middle of the table was a deck of cards, and two small vials. The vials were filled with a dark iridescent fluid that Heather didn't recognize.

"Afternoon Heather! Lillian, why am I here?" Harry asked as he casually walked into the room.

"You didn't tell him, Lillian?" Heather glared.

"What? I knew that he would come if I asked him to." To that, Harry simply shrugged in agreement.

"I still want an answer, by the way." Harry sat down beside Heather, looking at the items on the table. "What are we doing with your deck, Lillian?"

"All part of the plan. Let me explain what's going to happen." Lillian sat down opposite Heather. She felt Lillian's foot stroke her leg and give her a little tap — it might not have been her intention, but it did calm Heather down.

"Something is attacking Heather's noospheric field, I would bet my life on that. But we're still not positive what the damage is, or why it's happening. The plan is pretty simple though, so it should be relatively risk-free."

"I never like when you say that Li." Harry lowered his eyebrows in doubt. "When has anything you've ever done been risk-free?"

"Alright fine, it could be really dangerous, but we won't know until we're in."

"Where are you two going?"

"We're going into Heather's mindscape."

Now it was Heather's turn to ask a question. "But how are we going to do that, Lils?"

Lillian picked up a vial, twisting it back and forth, the shimmering liquid distorting the light around it. "You probably don't recognize this, because it's not mixed into a tea. This vial contains—"

"MC-88?" Heather filled in.

Lillian smiled while nodding. "There she is. Yeah, this is MC-88, the drug that allows our noospheric fields to merge. We're both going to take this, so you can come with me while we go examine your anchorpoint."

"…so what's with the playing cards?" Heather asked, piecing things together.

"Have I really never shown them to you?" Lillian asked, incredulously at herself mostly. Heather shook her head, so Lillian continued. "Wow. Right, so this deck is my own creation; each card has a different cognitohazard printed on it. I'm immune to them, so I can use the cards to help with interrogations, quick escapes, or in this case, the card will knock us both out and bring us to your anchorpoint."

"You can do that with only the card?" Heather asked, excited about the possibility space a deck of cards would give her.

"Babe, I can do a lot more with just a card. There's one in here that just gives you a five minute orga—"

Harry coughed. "Thanks for that Lillian, I always love having a front seat to your flirting. Can we get back to why I'm here though? I'm blowing off a meeting to be here."

"You would have found any excuse to avoid that meeting, don't act like you'd rather be there." Lillian scoffed. "But okay, fine. You're here to make sure we don't die when we're in Heather's noospheric field. I don't know what would happen if an entity tried to consume the conceptual representations of ourselves while we we're in there, but… you know what? I think it might be an interesting idea to explore. Would it cause an ego death or…"

"Hey, Lilli?" Heather said, grabbing Lillian's hand. "Stay focused, right? We need to do this soon. I'm starting to feel like it's coming. 'Absence'."

Lillian nodded, passing a vial to Heather while grabbing the other one for herself. They both removed the stopper, and drank the liquid.

It's both thick and thin at the same time? Heather thought, the dose of MC-88 trickling down her throat. But it tastes like nothing.

Lillian grabbed her deck and began riffling through it, looking for a specific card. "Perfect." She placed the rest of the deck down on the table, holding the card concealed in her hand.

"I'll be right behind you." Lillian assured Heather, her tone betraying just how much she cared.

"I'll see you inside." Heather replied, her tone betraying just how terrified she was.

Lillian flipped the card around, revealing it to Heather. She only had a moment to take in the pattern before she was pulled down into the depths of her mind.

Nothing was here.

Heather didn't know what to expect; she'd never been in any noospheric fields before. She opened her eyes and found herself standing on a massive black outcrop of stone, floating adrift in a massive void, an even blacker suffocating darkness. In front of her, a fair distance away, stood a towering spike piercing into the black stone, embedded deep into the ground.

That must be my anchorpoint, she thought, hearing her thoughts out loud as she did, reverberating throughout the empty vastness of her mindscape.

"Wow. That's going to take some getting used to."

"That's what she said." Heather turned to face Lillian, who was looking back with a shit-eating grin.

"Thanks for finally joining me, I wasn't sure if I should wait for you."

"I just had to focus on letting the cognitohazard affect me, it took longer than I thought it would." Lillian surveyed the uneven mindscape, trying to get a lay of the land. Heather continued to do the same, her gaze returning to the monolithic anchorpoint.

At the top of the spike was a ring — connected to that ring was a massive chain, link after link, raising straight up. Other links branched off of the main chain, bending outwards like a tree. Amongst the chains were what looked to be metallic orbs, but they were both solid and transparent; Heather focused on one, and it slowly became clearer, revealing an image of a dog.

Is that… oh my god! It is him! I haven't thought about General Goose in years!

Lillian laughed "Who names a dog 'General Goose'?"

"Shut up! It's not fair that you get to hear my thoughts too." Heather blushed, trying to conceal her embarrassment.

"Well we are in your mindscape. I promise the next time we do this, we can go back to my mindplace."

"Hopefully, we won't ever need to do this again." Heather muttered, as her attention went back to the chain. She continued to follow it upwards, the twisting metal leading higher and higher. Just where it began to fade, it met a barrier of sorts. A cavalcade of flickering lights, distorting images, shifting colors, tones and more, all moving faster than she could keep track of.

"That's the Noosphere. Way up there — the chain is your connection to it." The two women stood side by side, towering over the landscape, gazing towards the heavens. Even if you stared for years, you would never have the exact same view twice; the sky was lit by a continual dance of ideas, thoughts and the collective consciousness of the entire human race.

"It's… it's more beautiful than I thought it would be."

"It's cool, right?"

"It's super fucking cool Lils." Heather smiled, grabbing Lillian's hand. "So, what do you think of my mindscape?"

"Can I be honest?"

"When are you not?"

"Fair enough. Your noospheric field is all sorts of fucked up. It's really fucking bad in here, I won't lie to you. I don't think I've ever seen one that looked like this, even when looking at somebody who went through years of memetic torture."

"Oh. Well that's fun for me." Heather laughed at the insanity of things, knowing that if she stopped, she would break down into tears.

Nothing was everywhere.

Heather and Lillian stood in front of the monolithic spike and chain, a shimmering oil-like blackness coating it. The fluid flowed freely, twisting around the metal obelisk, hints of iridescent colors peeking through the abyssal depths of the inky black.

"So what's so different about me?" Heather asked Lillian, her hand hovering inches away from the spike.

"Lots of things. You're smarter, prettier, way better in bed than most—" Heather shoved Lillian playfully.

"You know what I meant. Why is my noospheric field different?"

"Well, for starters… I mean I've never seen an anchor quite like this."

"What do you mean?"

Lillian started walking around the roughly hewn spike — it was massive in size, so Heather walked with her.

"So normally, an anchor is something more normal. It's typically a physical object, something that meant a lot to the person. Think like a childhood toy, or a fondly remembered chair."

Lillian raised her arm and pointed at the obsidian pillar. It towered over them, the initial loop looming high above.

"I don't know what the fuck this is."

Heather was shocked.

"You don't know what it is? Lillian, what the fuck should it look like? Is everything wrong?" Heather couldn't keep it in any longer, her fears accelerating as she began hyperventilating. A dead, disembodied cold coursed through her body, freezing Heather to her core.

Lillian turned back around, rushing to Heather's side.

"Hey, breathe, just breathe. Listen to me, you are going to be okay. I'm going to help."

"You're going to help? How? Lillian, you don't even know what's wrong with me!"

"Heather, I can't do this unless you can work with me, okay? We need to stay—"

"Stay calm? Are you fucking joking? You're not the one disappearing! I can't believe you of all people would let me down."

Lillian flinched. And then her masks slipped away.

"I'm sorry I don't have all the answers, Heather, but the unfortunate news is that I'm not perfect. Spoiler alert, but I have emotions other than snarky and horny."

Tears were curving down Heather's cheek now, glistening with the same shimmer as her anchor.

"You're not—" She trailed off, gasping for air, trying to take slower breaths, but she kept stuttering and failing to say anything.

"What? I'm not what you wanted? Let me guess. You only wanted to be with the famous 'Lillian Lillihammer, Memetics Genius', perfect in every single way, always knows exactly what's going on at all times? And now that I can't help you, we're finished?" Lillian stared at Heather, the harsh glint in her eyes fading to a softer, anxious gaze. "I cared. I really cared. I trusted you with my heart, Heath, but I guess… I guess you're just like everybody else."

Lillian began to turn away. Heather fought to control her breath, but kept hyperventilating. "Lilli–" A gasp. "No Lil–" A sob. "That's not–" A shaky exhale.

But Lillian hadn't stopped, her arms wrapped around her body as she stared at the mirror-like surface of the spike. Heather opened her mouth, but nothing came out. She closed her eyes, focusing on her slow breathing.

Lillian, I hope this still works. That's not what I meant, I'm sorry, I never meant for you to feel like that. You're not perfect; you're flawed. I am too. But your imperfections are exactly what drew me in. I don't see you as anything other than the woman who intimidated me until I fell head over heels for her.

Lillian had turned around, her eyes red, but with no evidence of tears. She stroked her arm with her hand, comforting herself. "Do you… do you mean that?"

I do. I really do. I'm so sorry that I ever made you feel like I was using you, I don't want to be like everybody else — I want to be as special to you, as you are to me. I was just scared. Scared of losing my memories. Scared of not knowing what to do. Scared of losing you. I couldn't bear the thought of that, I needed to find a way to fix this. To fix whatever is broken in my mindscape so that I wouldn't forget the time we spent together.

Heather was breathing more slowly now, Lillian sitting down onto the smooth stone floor beside her. She opened her eyes, and looked at Lillian.

"Hi."

"Hey."

The two women looked into each other's eyes, searching for something. Whatever it was, they found it at the exact same time, pushing themselves together, a soft, gentle kiss shared in the midst of this desolate abyssal wasteland.

Heather pulled back after some time, sitting back down beside her.

"I'm sorry about that. I didn't mean to lash out at you, I'm just… I'm fucking terrified."

"No, I can understand why you felt that way. I'm sorry I snapped at you. I never meant to act like that to you, I was just angry and worried that you didn't actually…" Lillian stopped, trailing off.

"That I didn't actually like you?" Lillian scrunched her nose, and knowing she was right, Heather continued.

"I like you Lil. I really really like you."

Lillian looked over at Heather, as if she would say something, but she hesitated. Heather grabbed Lillian's hand and gave it a squeeze — and Lillian spoke.

"Did you really fall in love with me?"

There was no hesitation.

"Yes. I think I might love you, Lillian Lillihammer. I was just scared of saying something. Worried you might be scared and break things off with me. I couldn't imagine being here without you."

"I might love you too, Heather Garrison. I just might."

The two women laid down on the ground, holding each other in their arms, looking up to the dancing lights of the Noosphere. And for a moment, things were peaceful.

Nothing could ever stay peaceful. Nothing was always changing, always consuming. Nothing was, for the first time in a very long time, confused.

"So. My anchor looks different. What does that mean?"

Heather and Lillian had sat up, sitting and staring at the metallic obelisk that served as Heather's anchorpoint into the Noosphere.

"Normally an anchor is small, and the chain is more of a conceptual link, or a series of strings and strands branching out from object to object, each representing a memory with all of the context of who you are."

Lillian stared up into the sky, looking at the sheer scale of the chains overheads. "It's almost as if your mindscape knew it was being attacked and changed its shape. Its form becoming larger, stronger, more secure — trying to survive as the weaker parts were being consumed, your memory chains fraying like the edge of an old carpet."

"I'm fading away? Shit. Okay, why are some of my memories still here? Where is 'absence' coming from?"

As if saying its name summoned it, both Heather and Lillian felt a shift in her noospheric field. They looked around, but saw nothing. Heather looked up, squinting her eyes.

"Lillian, what's going on up there?" Heather was pointing now, her arm making slight circles.

"Up where?" Lillian followed Heather's moving finger into the rainbow cascade of images flickering throughout the noospheric sky, tracing her path as she moved up the chain, forked off and ended just around the first memory node down this branch.

At least Lillian assumed that it was, because she found herself unable to look directly at it.

"Heather, what if it's something we can't look at? Like… a hole in the middle of your noospheric void, a hole to somewhere outside of total human consciousness?"

"Is that a thing?"

"It will be once we're out of here and writing the research paper about it." Lillian gave her a small, but forced, smile. "Wait, I— I think it's doing something."

Heather could see it too; the distortion was shifting, moving further down the branch drifting lazily across the false sky. It paused, hovering on top of a metal orb, Heather's memory nodes. The iridescent hues of the chain began to shift, as if the colors themselves were being pulled out of reality.

The metal orb strained against the gap in space, refusing to give, but the sustained force was stronger. The orb burst into pieces, colors and images of people and places Heather knew, cascading out into the abyss, hurtling towards the unknowable point in her noospheric field.

"Are those my memories, Lillian?"

"Shit. I've never seen anything like this — is this what's been happening to you?"

Heather's memories sped towards the gap, no, towards 'absence'. Her memories fell into 'absence', disappearing as they did. And then, out of nowhere, everything snapped.

The iridescent fluid had returned, flowing across the chain like ants, climbing over top of each other, dashing to salvage what they could. It swept across the remaining surface of the orb, stretching out across the gap, reaching for itself. It swirled around the hole in the memory until it was fully covered, once again hidden by the moving fluid.

'Absence', seemingly sated for the time being, slowly shrank into itself, fading away until nothing was left. The two women could stare at the nothingness — but 'absence' had gone, leaving nothing behind.

"Are you okay Heather?"

"Yeah. I mean, no. But yeah."

"Do you know what you lost?"

Lillian sat Heather down, pushing her hair to the side while checking her vitals. Lillian's thumb brushed her cheek, holding onto Heather, refusing to let her fade away. Heather smiled.

"No Lillian, I forgot them. Duh." Heather teased.

"Heath. What's going on? You're acting like I just asked the weather. I don't know if you were paying attention, but holy shit you just hemorrhaged memories like a burst pipe!" Lillian eyes were wide. "What the fuck are we going to do about that?"

It was Heather's turn to take charge, and she seized it.

"I know what we need to do next. I know how it's coming here."

"You do? Did it eating your brains give you the sudden inspiration?" Lillian was being sarcastic, but was clearly engaged, waiting to see what Heather had to say next.

Heather pointed up at the repaired memory node, shimmering under her gaze. "No, it ate that node." She moved her hand, trailing her finger to point to the root node of the memory chain, where 'absence' had first appeared to them. "It's coming through from there, 'absence' uses it like a portal."

"How do you know?"

Heather shrugged. "When it first appeared, I thought of something that I hadn't in a long time. Something that I wouldn't think about unless it was pushed to the forefront of my memories, something buried deep and at the core of who I was and used to be."

Lillian quietly gasped, having followed the logic to the end. "Your… Your deadname."

"Yeah. Back when I created the Name Changer, I linked the conceptual idea of my deadname to the same point in noospheric space that was compressing 8688's files." Heather wiped her face with her hand, pushing her hair back. "My deadname went through, into a place outside of the Noosphere where 'absence' had lain dormant in for millennia."

"And that ended up tying your deadname to 'absence'."

Heather looked at Lillian, tears rolling uncontrollably down her cheeks. "I think it liked what it tasted. And now it keeps coming back for more, using my deadname as a portal."

Lillian reached out, gently brushing the tears from Heather's face. "So. How do we stop it? Any ideas?"

"Yeah." Heather said, a grim smirk appearing on her face. "But you're not going to like it."

Harry had been watching the women with half-hearted interest. Lillian asked for your help Harry. You know Lillian, she wouldn't do that unless it was important.

"But this is boring." Harry said, directing his statement pointedly at Lillian's unconscious body.

At that moment, Lillian and Heather sat upright, their eyes opening. For a second, they were dazed, shaking off their cognitohazard-induced slumber.

"Are you two okay? What happened in the—"

"—you fucking crazy? You think that's a valid solution?" Lillian yelled, ignoring Harry.

"It would work, wouldn't it?"

And they're… continuing their argument in the real world. Perfect.

"Hello? Can somebody fill me in? What happened?" Harry stared at the two in confusion.

"Harry, sorry. Yeah, we're fine, mostly. 'Absence' appeared, stole a bunch of Heather's memorie—"

"What?" Harry exclaimed. "Shit. I'm sorry, I was watching you two the whole time and nothing happened out here. You were both fine!"

The two women tilted their heads to the side at the same time as they considered that.

Heather spoke. "I guess that makes sense. I didn't really feel anything, so why would my body react?"

"Makes sense to me. Now back to your plan, Harry, will you tell Heather that her idea is basically mental suicide?"

"Oh my god, Lils, you're being dramatic! I'll be fine!"

Harry considered himself to be a great moderator. He had spent years of his life sitting in on meetings between squabbling researchers, fighting over the validity of an idea or project proposal. He liked moderating them even, skillfully framing ideas to make two parties collaborate and agree on an outcome.

They don't need a moderator. They need a relationship counselor.

He sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Can somebody fill me in on the plan first? Otherwise I'm probably just going to leave and go grab lunch."

Heather replied before Lillian could get off her snarky comeback. "So 'absence' uses a single memory core to enter my noospheric field — it comes into our world through my deadname. I think we need to destroy that idea, permanently. That's the only way we can stop 'absence' coming through, and save my memories."

"And I'm telling Heather that if we destroy such a core memory, we're pruning that entire branch. Every memory down the chain from there, every correlation and connection that you can follow back to that core part of who you are? All of that would disappear!"

Harry, now with context, was suddenly feeling a lot more useful. "If it uses the meme you made, can't you just negate the meme? Li, I've seen you do that thousands of times, it should be no sweat, right?"

Heather shook her head. "It wouldn't work. I made my chosen name into an infohazard, carrying the concept of the Name Changer with it. Even if I were to neutralize the hazard, it would have mutated as it went from person to person. Shifting ever so slightly, like a virus. A vaccine can only treat a single strain, but there are thousands at this point, if not more."

Harry looked at Lillian, who nodded. "She's right. There's no easy way for us to neutralize it fully, the moment Heather thinks about her name, hears it from somebody else, gets an email addressed to her? The door is open again and 'absence' comes right back."

"So if you can't do that, what other options do you have?"

The room was quiet for a second. Then a second more. Before they knew it, the three individuals were lost in thought, working out potential alternatives to suggest.

After ten minutes, Heather broke the silence.

"There aren't any. We barely have time to create the solution, there's no time left to explore ideas to figure out an alternative. It's the… My only option. I have to forget my deadname entirely. That means everything else that goes with it too."

"How much memory loss are we talking here? Major memory gaps, partial amnesia, forgetting how to eat? Unless we know the potential ramifications, I don't think we should rush into anything." Harry said, trying to help in the best way he knew: gathering information.

"Harry's right. Think about it. Heather, you wouldn't only be losing your deadname, you'd be losing every memory that your deadname was in. That's major swathes of your childhood, fuck, it could be huge fundamental memories that shaped who you were! Your research and knowledge? It could all just disappear."

"If we don't do this, I will disappear."

Lillian looked like she was about to reply, but she stopped, biting her tongue. But Harry knew that look in her eyes.

Lillian knows what to do.

"I think know what we need to do."

Called it.

Brainstorming. Lillian's idea was brainstorming.

Harry had gone to bed after a few hours, while Heather and Lillian stayed up late, the group having relocated to Lillian's office. Lillian sat on her desk, staring at a whiteboard covered in calculations, brainstorming notes and the chaotic ravings of three people working to find an answer, despite only partially knowing the question.

Heather was lying down on a couch Lillian had in her room, having tried to get a bit of sleep. It didn't work. She leaned up, shifting Lillian's dazzle coat — she hadn't even noticed, but Lillian must have put it overtop her as a blanket.

"Harry didn't have to stay up with us." Heather dreamily began. "He seems nice."

Lillian looked over at the sound of Heather's voice, and softly smiled. "There's no way he would just stop now. Harry's always been a great guy, and I can always count on him."

"You two seem close."

"We are, always have been. Since even back before I… well before I was me."

Heather sat up, keeping Lillian's dazzlecoat as a blanket for her legs. "Would it really be that bad if I lost all memory of my deadname?" Heather asked.

"What? Yes, obviously, it would be bad."

"Just think about it. A person isn't defined by their basal memories, right? We are who we are because of the millions and trillions of ideas we've ever encountered, and the connections that we make between those ideas."

Lillian interrupted. "Yes. And your deadname is probably connected to the majority of those ideas, potentially rendering you braindead if we do this."

"So what? It's just my deadname! It's not who I am anymore."

Lillian turned to face Heather, leaning forward and resting an elbow on her raised knee. "Heath, it's too dangerous. I'm not going to prune that entire tree and just hope for the best, there has to be an alternative."

So then we don't prune it.

Heather couldn't tell if what she'd had was a great idea, or a half-baked fatigue induced moment of insanity. After a second, she had the answer.

"We're going about this all wrong. We're trying to remove every possible thing that my deadname touched, but you're right. If we did that, we'd have to quarantine the entire branch and everything could go wrong."

"Okay, first off, I told you I was right. Secondly, if we're doing this the wrong way, then what is the right way?"

"We modify my Name Changer. Instead of trying to neutralize it, we modify it."

"We… Fuck, that's smart! Your infohazard already knows the difference between thoughts tied to your deadname and thoughts that are unrelated to your deadname, so we use that."

"Yes! We would just need to figure out some way of having it actively modify, no, actively destroy the memories. My Name Changer is passive; once somebody is infected, its just a filter for their thoughts and speech. It's not much smarter than autocorrect."

"So we change the payload."

"We… we change the payload?"

Lillian jumped off the desk and ran to the whiteboard. "Yes! So right now, your Name Changer operates by laying dormant in a person until it detects the meme or concept of your deadname entering active cognition. At that point it injects the replacement idea, your chosen name, preventing your deadname from being recalled."

Lillian was sketching out a rough draft for a memetic array in real time, as she continued to speak.

"We need to change that; not only does the payload need to destroy the targeted memories, it needs to do so in a way that they are gone. For good. So we need to neutralize them."

"Do you mean…" Heather stood up, walking to the board and grabbing a wet-erase marker. She uncapped the pen, joining Lillian in drawing on the same memetic array. "We need to use an antimeme. An inverse of each idea, negating them entirely, pushing them back into wherever 'absence' is."

Lillian's arms danced around Heather's, as the two women moved around like a practiced routine, in perfect harmony and synchronicity.

"So we don't let it inject an idea, we make it take a photo negative." Lillian and Heather's hands were moving faster now, coalescing into further defining the nexus of the memeplex. "We create the reverse, merge the thoughts, and close the door."

Their marker tips sang across the board, their symphony reaching its grand finale.

"And I only lose my deadname. I guess not quite, I lose every memory that mentions my deadname, or is so closely related that they're inextricably tied. We keep the damage to a small radius around the target, and minimize the loss. I keep who I am, what I've done, why I am the way I am, I just… I forget I ever had a different name."

The dueling markers met in the middle, each woman having finished at the exact same place and time. Their hands drifted downwards, each woman placing their marker onto the ledge. They reached out, pulling the other close and embracing in the joy of having found the answer.

After a few moments, Heather could feel Lillian tense. Is she hesitating? Lillian pulled away, a serious look on her face. "Heather, you know what this means. You're going to lose every memory from your childhood up until you realized you were trans, no, even further. You could even lose every single memory until the moment when you started thinking of yourself as 'Heather'."

Heather looked back at Lillian, determination in her eyes. "I… I can live with that. I thought you might get it, just think about it Lilli — imagine a world where the only thing you can remember is your chosen name and the life after you became yourself. You leave behind every hurt, every dysphoric memory, every instance of your deadname from your mind!"

Heather was energetic now, making large movements as she spoke. "Imagine what it would be life if the only thing you have ever known yourself as was Lillian. Wouldn't that be… liberating?"

"I…" Lillian trailed off, searching for the answer. "Heather, I didn't transition until my 30s. I knew I was different, but I didn't really realize anything specific for a long time. If it was my deadname, I could lose three decades of my life, my entire time in school and my start at the Foundation. I couldn't risk losing that much."

Heather was silent. Lillian looked like she had more to say.

"I think it's harder for me. To think about losing memories. I've always had my eidetic memory, so I've never truly forgotten anything. With enough time, I can almost relive any moment."

Heather reached out her hand, which Lillian took. Heather pulled her closer towards her, brushing a stray stand off hair away from her face.

"I'm terrified of the idea of forgetting anything. It would mean… it would mean that I'm fallible. If I can't rely on my mind and my memory, then… Then I have nothing, Heath."

"Lilli. It's okay. You're perfect, you're never going to ever forget anything, you perfect genius badass." At least that got a small laugh out of Lillian.

Heather began gently. "I transitioned when I was in my early 20s. Sure, I'd be risking everything from before then, but, honestly? That's not important to me."

"What's so important that you would risk giving up so much of what made you who you are?"

"You."

I— She… I'm why she's risking it all?

Lillian, for the first time in a long time, was shocked and blushing uncontrollably. She sputtered, looking for the words, but Heather beat her to it.

"I'm scared of losing you. Forgetting you, the time that we've spent together here. I'm okay losing my past, but the last thing I want if for me to forget you. It's a pretty easy choice for me, I'd rather be here with you than in my mind, reliving my history. I am who I am right now, and right now, I want to be with you."

Lillian looked at Heather, hair rippling down the front of her shoulders, little curls guiding the way.

Heath is just standing there, vulnerable and anxious, willing to sacrifice so much. For me.

Heather filled the silence. "No matter what happens, I need you to promise me something."

"Anything."

No matter what, I swear.

"When we do this, if I forget you or something makes me change how I feel about you… Just please don't think I don't want to be with you. You have to help me remember. Please."

"I promise. Even if you forget about me entirely, I promise to win you back."

The two gingerly kissed, sealing the promise. Lillian picked Heather up, who jumped, wrapping her legs around Lillian's body, still locked in their embrace. Lillian walked over to the couch, and sat down.

Heather was straddling her.

I didn't mean to do this, but… I mean damn.

"You're beautiful, you know that?"

Heather blushed, and instead of trying to hide anything, she just cracked a grin at Lillian.

"Really?"

"Yeah. And I promise you that I will do whatever it takes to win you back. Even if I have to start from scratch, I will get your heart. And I'll do it again and again and again if I have to."

At this point? I think I'm an expert at doing things over and over again.

"Thank you Lilli. I… I think I figured something out."

"What's that?"

"Well, I've been thinking about it a lot, and I think it's a certainty now. I love you."

"Yeah? That's works out well, because I love you too Heath. No buts about it."

Speaking of butts…

Lillian grabbed Heather's ass. Heather giggled, and began to strip.

Nobody ever walked by Lillian's office, since you would never have a reason to go that way. The hallway leads to nowhere but her office — unless you were going to see Lillian, there was simply no reason whatsoever to walk down this hallway.

That was a good thing too, since neither woman tried to keep it quiet.

Two women, bonded with their passion and love, searched the world for the story of nothing, desperate to understand it.

Instead of finding the story of nothing, they found nothing.

Nothing saw the two, and tried to break their bond. No matter what happened, nothing could not break it. Their bond was unknown to nothing, an affront to the abyss. It refused to bend, even in the face of its own end.

They gave up on the story that nothing had held on to for so long, the prize that gave nothing everything. They rejected the story, leaving it to nothing.

It was time to write their own.

Heather, Harry and Lillian were back in the barren testing chamber, making the final checks before taking the risk of a lifetime.

But I'd risk anything. For her.

Heather gazed at Lillian, determined to commit her to memory. Forcing herself to observe every centimeter of her skin, taking every imperfection and detail, desperate to ensure that she knew everything.

"Heath, are you ready?"

Shit. I was not listening.

"Yeah, I'm mostly ready."

Harry looked at Heather. "Mostly ready?"

"You weren't listening to a word I just said, were you Heather?" Lillian rolled her eyes.

"…Not at all."

"Do you remember the plan?"

Heather nodded — she knew that much.

"Yeah, you and Harry are going to be out here, watching my vitals and waiting for my signal."

Lillian nodded, a rare glimpse of anxiety peeking through.

"I look at the first memetic hazard, a modification of the meme that let me enter my mindscape. Unlike last time, anything I say while I'm unconscious, I say in the real world as well. Once I'm in there, I need to draw 'absence' out, bring it into my mindscape."

Harry, despite being out of his element, looked prepared for anything. "Do you think you can do that? Draw it back into your mind? Or would it be better if we waited for it to return on its own?"

Heather shook her head. "Maybe, but I can't wait any longer. I've got a really good guess, and that has to be enough. And if I'm wrong, then I'll just figure something else out."

"That's my girl." Lillian said, smiling. "So does everybody remember what the code word is?"

In unison, both Harry and Heather spoke the code word aloud. "Release."

"Exactly right." Lillian nodded her head, having finished making sure they had everything ready. "At that point, Harry will open your eyes, and I expose you to the targeted memeplex. If everything goes right, it should infect 'absence', cascading through each of the memories tied to your deadname and destroying them until nothing is left. Hopefully, if it works like we think it should, 'absence' will go with it."

Lillian looked at Heather, sitting in a chair, fidgeting with every second they waited.

I wish… I hate that I can't go in there with her.

As if Heather could read her mind, she spoke. "I'm ready. I can do this, and I can do it alone."

Harry and Lillian nodded, getting into position.

"Okay, whenever you're ready, you can pick up the first cognitohazard and observe it. Remember, since I won't be in there with you, you'll have a bit more control. Not reality bending level shit, but your mindscape is an extension of you. You can control it, just like any other muscle."

Heather nodded, closing her eyes and taking a deep breath. She brushed her hand across the table, sweeping over the card. Heather grabbed it by the edges, tremors in each of her fingers. She began to raise the card, but paused, looking at Lillian.

"See you on the other side. Hopefully I recognize you."

You will. I promised.

Heather looked at the card, and quickly lost consciousness.

The dark was not comforting, and her noospheric field had not changed since she had last visited.

"Okay! I'm in my mindscape and everything seems to be normal. I'm alone, but hopefully I can figure out how to change that."

The people who write about 'absence', they're the ones who end up disappearing. So maybe I can summon it with its name?

"'Absence'. Hey, 'Absence'! 'Absence', are you coming?"

She looked around, scanning the pseudo-skyline for any signs that it was appearing. The images of the Noosphere swirled overhead, but otherwise, things were silent.

"Shit. Seriously?"

Okay, probably not the best idea to have only made a single plan, but let's improvise! I need to get closer to my anchorpoint first.

Heather began to walk towards her anchorpoint, focused on getting there quickly, but instead of walking, Heather was drifting through the air, flying towards it.

I guess this is what Lillian meant by me having more control? Let's go right up to the problem node then.

Heather quickly shot up, flying higher into the void, directly towards a memory node. She moved with the grace of a trained dancer, soaring through the air with an unnatural ease. She paused in front of the memory node, realizing the scale of things. The metallic sphere was easily over ten meters in diameter, covered in the thick oozing layer of iridescent protection.

"Right, I'm at the memory node that my deadname is tied to an—"

Something had changed, and Heather knew it. She couldn't see anything, but she knew that meant nothing.

What did I do to summon 'absence'? Was it…

Anything was worth a shot at this point, right?

"Is that what you want? My deadname?"

Heather felt it again, the familiar wrongness returning, growing stronger slowly — she tensed, ready to yell the code word. For a minute, everything was still, complete silence within the vacuum of her mindscape.

Maybe… Maybe that's not enough to bridge the gap and create a portal to the other side? But if that's not strong enough, what is?

And then she realized it. She knew exactly what had to be said. Something she hated to say, something that she refused to think about or acknowledge. Something that she thought she had gotten rid of through her memetic abilities.

The thing that created this problem in the first place.

Lillian and Harry were looking at Heather, both waiting anxiously. When her first plan hadn't worked, Lillian wanted to pull her out immediately, but Harry convinced her to hold on and trust Heather.

"She'll figure this out. She will." Lillian nodded, full of energy with nowhere to direct it.

"She sounds like she's figuring things out, hopefully she says the code word soon, and then we do our parts." Harry said, trying to calm Lillian down.

They watched as Heather opened her mouth to speak — but nothing came out. Silence.

"Do you know what that means?" Harry asked, concerned.

Lillian had the same look. "No. I have no idea what that means."

Heather stared at the memory; a small swirl of nothingness had appeared, beginning to grow. Something was different though, like the scales had tipped ever so slightly.

I can look at it now. She realized, looking directly into the face of 'absence'.

It didn't have a face, or anything else to look at. But Heather knew exactly where 'absence' was, and more than that, she was able to understand it.

Patterns. Stories. Forms.

So 'absence' is a pattern dweller? But they can usually enter our world, even the Noosphere, at will. What happened to 'absence' to change that?

The void in her mindspace began to slow its expansion, ever so slightly looking as if it would snap shut.

Oh no you don't.

"█████"

Heather repeated her deadname, hoping it would work the same way. And it did, drawing the void back open, larger, 'absence' becoming clear to her as she did.

HUNGER.

Heather could feel a maelstrom of ideas and emotions, barely coherent. Like a teacup in a monsoon, she could only hold a bit of water at a time.

"█████"

The portal grew further, the force of the abyss growing stronger with each second. Heather knew it was a risk, but she had to wait until the very last moment to call out. She had to make sure that 'absence' was gone, for good.

"█████" Heather yelled, her body and mind screaming in exhaustion, the rage and frustration spilling out, the years stuck in her body.

Thoughtless. STARVING. DESPERATE. IDEAS.

"█████" Heather yelled one more time, a dirge to who she once was, echoing far into the being that couldn't let go. It was here fully — 'absence' was in her mind. She could sense it, know it, feel it; the tables had turned.

HEATHER.

"Release!"

Lillian sat at Heather's side, wiping her forehead with a cool cloth. Heather had spoken the code word, and Harry and Lillian did their job perfectly. They had expected Heather to wake up shortly after, but it had almost been an hour. Heather hadn't moved since. She had a steady pulse, but was otherwise unresponsive.

"She'll be okay Li. She will."

"We don't know that Harry. Fuck, we built all of this last night! What if something went wrong? What if she's go—"

Heather stirred, her eyes fluttering open slowly, disoriented and out of it. Lillian held her breath, and waited.

Harry broke the silence. "Heather, did it work? How much can you remember?"

Heather was unsure in her reply, as if she had never spoken before in her life. "I… I think it worked? I can't remember what we were doing, but part of me knows that whatever happened, it was what we wanted."

Does she know who I am? Lillian thought, unable to speak for the fear of finding out.

"That's okay, we knew that you would forget some things. Do you know what we were trying to do?" Harry continued, while Lillian was paralyzed with anxiety.

Heather nodded, hesitantly, the thoughts forming in front of them. "We were trying to stop… we had to stop 'absence' from destroying my memories. It was linked to… to something. Fuck, what was it linked to?"

Lillian needed to know.

"Do you know your name?"

Heather looked at Lillian for the first time since waking up, but was still dazed, a slight glaze over her eyes.

"Yeah. It's Heather."

"Has that always been your name?"

"What kind of question is that? Yes it has always been—" Heather trailed off looking down at her hands. "It… It has always been Heather, right? It feels like I'm missing something, but I don't know what. All I can think of is that my name is Heather, but part of me feels…"

"Empty?" Harry suggested.

"Yeah. Missing."

"What else are you missing?" Harry continued, doing his best to take notes.

"I… I can't remember anything from before I turned 19. After that, it's better, but there are still empty spots." Heather had closed her eyes and furrowed her brow, concentrating. "I… I know I have a family, but I can't remember anything about them. I remember joining the Foundation, I remember my thesis. No. I remember the how and why for my Name Changer, but I don't remember the context. I don't know what I was changing anymore."

Heather opened her eyes in a snap, the fog gone from her. She stared at Lillian with piercingly intense brown eyes, the eyes that Lillian had fallen for in such a short time.

I can't wait, I need to know.

"Heather, do you remember me? Do you know who I am?" Lillian said breathlessly, frozen in place.

"You're…" Heather trailed off, focusing as she did.

Oh god. She—

"I do know you! You're my boss. How could anybody forget about Lillian Lillihammer, memetics genius?"

Lillian couldn't breathe. Heather continued.

"There's just no way that Lillian Lillihammer would ever let somebody forget about her! And if they did, I'm sure she'd just keep trying and trying until they did. Right?"

Wait. Did she just— "Are you fucking with me, Heather? I swear to— "

One look from Heather told Lillian all that she needed to know.

"Me? Fucking with you? Quite possibly. Probably. Literally, even. Maybe I just want to watch you try and win me back. Maybe I just want to tease my girlfriend for a second — not that we've talked terms yet, but girlfriend feels right." Heather gave Lillian a mischievous grin. "Hey Lilli. I still remember you, dummy."

The two kissed, reveling in the moment.

"You're an asshole!" Lillian said, swatting Heather on the arm. "An asshole, and my girlfriend. I… I was terrified that you'd forgotten about the girlfriend part."

"Lilli, I remember everything about us."

Harry smiled, having set his pen down.

She's just as bad as Lillian. They're… weirdly, imperfectly, perfect together.

The two women were staring into each other's eyes, whispering back and forth. Their foreheads were pressed together, each unable to take the smile off of their faces.

Harry pulled out his phone, and managed to take a picture without either of them noticing.

I can't wait to see Lillian's reaction the next time she barges in and notices this picture, framed on my desk. Harry smiled. Sometimes, things just work out.

In Redmond, Washington, Emma Garrison walked across her kitchen, headed to call her daughter. She had been watching TV when a memory of— Emma froze in her kitchen, staring at her cellphone.

Oh god, not another senior moment. What was I just doing?

Emma never remembered the memory.

Jordan Wheeler, a Foundation researcher, stuck in a tiny containment site just outside of Toledo, Ohio, looked up from his terminal with a look of confusion. He had been drafting an email to somebody at Site-43, but he couldn't remember who.

The blinking cursor sat, mockingly, as he tried in vain to remember why he was writing the email in the first place.

Nothing had lost the story. But stories don’t die. They shift, changing with the times, reshaped by those who remember the fragments.

Nothing wasn't quite done yet.

The Lillihammer Test

Forgotten Memories

Love Between The Margins