Restart Initiated
15 Apr 2016TheDarkLord
Leesti. September 3296.
Time is running out for me in the Pollux Medical facility. I have to get myself ready to head out into the galaxy again. I have to be able to feed myself, clothe myself, to make my own way. And I have to be able to do this before the money runs out.
I’ve built up a rapport with the staff here in the facility, and I’m sad that I’ll be leaving them. I’ve worked hard to get myself operational again, and it seems that I’m broadly OK after that lynching all those years ago. I’m thinking about those first tentative steps outside of this facility when there’s a knock at the door.
‘My’ doctor, Nerina enters holding a folder of printouts. She seems hesitant.
“I think it’s going to be hard for you to go back out there not knowing anything about your past. So I did some research.” She puts the folder on my bed. “There’s not much, but what I found is in there.”
“Oh,” I say, looking up at her and smiling. “Thank you. You didn’t have to do that.”
“No, I know. But I also know a little bit about what it’s like to not know your own past or the people around you, so I thought I’d see if I could help you. I also think I found your real name. You’re definitely no ‘John Jameson” anyway.” The hesitancy is gone, replaced by a triumphant air of someone who knows they’ve done something good.
I look at the folder. There are just three letters on the outside, “TDL.”
“See you later Tony,” she says, and she’s gone from the room before I can say anything more.
I open the file and start to read. There are snippets of data. Nerina has certainly put some work in: everything in the file is cross-referenced and validated, but there are large holes in my history. There’s a genetic birth record though, which is how she’s found my real name – Anthony De Lamont, apparently known throughout school as Tony. I was born on Zaonce, but moved to Lave at a young age.
The last record of me that Nerina found is an Internal Security Service citation for racing docking bay cargo trucks on Lave Station.
“Anthony De Lamont. Tony. TDL. De Lamont” I say my name over and over, as if learning it for the first time, trying it on for size. I wonder how I got from Tony De Lamont to John Jameson. I get out of bed to stretch, thinking more and more of my departure. I pick up the file that Nerina had left, and head on over to the data terminal. As I sit down at the screen, my gaze passes over Ashley’s letter. My heart breaks a little again over the pain I must have caused her, and the fact that even after all these months I have absolutely no recollection of her.
I think about looking Ashley up. My fingers hover over the keys of the terminal while I sit at the mental crossroads.
“No,” I verbalise unintentionally. The journey back to me restarts here, now. I key in the function location for a program called “Reclaim lost identity” in the Federation Civic Data Processing Stack, and commence the process of re-becoming Tony De Lamont.