The Memory of You Lingers E-Book

Robert Jeschonek

• Herausgeber: Pie Press
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019

Beschreibung

Baird the convicted rapist knows no peace. Ten years of haunting by the digital ghost of his victim, Frieda, have left him a basket case…but freedom awaits. If he can just make it till tomorrow, his sentence will end, and the digital ghost will become vaporware. But Frieda has no intention of leaving quietly, and the going-away present she has in store for Baird could be far worse than the digital nightmare he has already endured. Don't miss this story by award-winning STAR TREK and DOCTOR WHO writer Robert Jeschonek, a master of unique and unexpected science fiction that really packs a punch.

Leseprobe

The Memory of You Lingers

A SCIFI STORY

ROBERT JESCHONEK

Contents

Also by Robert Jeschonek

The Memory of You Lingers

About the Author

Special Preview: Six Scifi Stories Volume Four

THE MEMORY OF YOU LINGERS

Copyright © 2023 by Robert Jeschonek

http://bobscribe.com/

Cover Art Copyright © 2023 by Ben Baldwin

www.benbaldwin.co.uk

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved by the author.

Published by Blastoff Books

An Imprint of Pie Press

411 Chancellor Street

Johnstown, Pennsylvania 15904

www.piepresspublishing.com

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Also by Robert Jeschonek

Battlenaut Crucible

Scifi Motherlode

Six Scifi Stories Volume One

Six Scifi Stories Volume Two

Six Scifi Stories Volume Three

Six Scifi Stories Volume Four

Sticks and Stones: A Trek Novel

The Memory of You Lingers

"Happy anniversary, Baird!"  The old woman's voice whispered in his ear.  "Congratulations, sweetheart!"

Baird rolled over in bed without opening his eyes.  He knew she was standing over him, watching for his reaction.  She'd done it a million times before.

Baird wasn't going to fall for her game anymore, though.  He knew it wasn't his long-awaited anniversary. Not for one more day.

He just wanted some damned sleep.  Not that Frieda would give it to him.

"Wakey wakey, darling boy," she said.  "It's the first day of the rest of your life!"

Baird opened his eyes.  He didn't need to roll over to see Frieda, because she'd jumped into his line of sight.

She crouched alongside his bed, beaming angelically at him, haloed in the morning sunlight streaming through her tiara of wispy white hair.  There wasn't a hint of cruelty on her broad, flat face, not even a nasty twinkle in her bright blue eyes. She looked the same as always, right down to the sky-blue housedress with white polka pots.  She spoke with complete sincerity and deep, heartfelt affection.

"Welcome back to the world of the waking, dear sleepyhead!" said Frieda.  "Don't want to miss your anniversary day, do you?"

Baird coughed and sat up in bed.  As he reached for a cigarette from the pack on the bedside table, he saw the time on the clock radio:  5:45 A.M. Too damn early, as always.

He was exhausted but knew he was lucky.  Frieda had gotten him up only twice during the night instead of the usual five or six times.

"I have a surprise for you!"  Frieda raised her white eyebrows and nodded.  "She's waiting downstairs right now!"

Baird lit the cigarette, drawing in his first lungful of the day.  "Who's 'she?'"

"A reporter!"  Frieda clasped her hands against her chin and grinned.  "She's doing a story on you!"

Baird scratched the back of his head with the hand holding the cigarette.  "Thank you, Frieda. I'll go talk to her right away."

Never argue with Frieda.  That was one of the things he'd learned in the one-day-shy-of-ten-years that he and Frieda had been together.

* * *

"Good morning, Mr. Gilliam."  The reporter hated him. Baird knew it in spite of her warm, sweet smile, because that was how everyone in the world felt about him.  "I'm Libby Challenge, BNN Breaking News Network."

"What do you want?"  Baird lit a fresh smoke as he shuffled into the living room in his wife-beater t-shirt and ratty bluejeans.

The girl had huge dark eyes and showed hundreds of teeth when she smiled.  "An interview, of course." She smoothed the red blazer and tight black skirt over her slim, sexy figure.  Baird guessed she was in her mid-to-late twenties, though it was getting harder to tell these days thanks to the magic of rejuvenating genetic therapies.

"An interview."  Baird wished he could say "no," but "no" wasn't part of the deal he'd cut with the federal attorney.  Instead, he patted his wavy brown hair, tamping down the worst of the bed-head cowlicks, and hitched up the tattered jeans sliding off his scrawny frame.  "Let's get it over with."

The reporter tapped her right eyeball, which started to glow yellow.  She'd activated her contact lens camera. "How does it feel to be the longest-living haunted con in history?"

Baird took another drag from the cigarette and stroked the soul patch on his chin with his thumb.  "No big whoop."

"No other convicted criminal in the Forget-me-not Program has survived this long.  Most kill themselves within the first eighteenmonths."  Libby cocked her head to one side.  "Yet here you are in Baltimore, alive and kicking after almost ten years.  What's the secret of your success?"

"I take it one day at a time."  It was Baird's canned response. The deal said he had to do interviews, but it didn't say anything about how original his answers had to be.

"So the implant hasn't bothered you?" said Libby.  "You don't mind being haunted by the digital recreation of your victim?"

Baird wondered where Frieda had gone.  She wasn't in her usual place at his side; in fact, she was nowhere to be seen.  "I've gotten used to it, I guess." He took a last drag and stubbed out his cigarette in an overflowing ashtray on the plywood-and-cinder-blocks coffee table.

"And now you're one day away from freedom."  Libby nodded slowly. "Do you think you can make it just one more day?"

"I hope so," said Baird.  "I'm praying on it."

"Praying.  Yes." Libby's mask of friendly sweetness slipped for just an instant, revealing a trace of a sneer.  "Well, we have a real treat in store for our viewers today."

Baird frowned.  "What's that?"

"We have a very special guest," said Libby.  "Coming to us via live feed from your implant.  This will be the first televised interview with a haunt-con and his digitalspook side by side on camera at the same time."

Suddenly, Frieda popped up beside Baird.  For the first time he could remember, she was wearing a different outfit--a white dress with black trim--and she looked as if she'd put on fresh makeup and fixed her hair.  She smiled serenely for the camera.

"Frieda Baumgardner, welcome," said Libby.

Frieda patted her hair.  "Thank you very much, dear."

"What's it been like?" said Libby.  "Haunting the man who raped your flesh-and-blood predecessor?"

"Well, I don't really know anything else," said Frieda.  "It's what I was created to do."

"So the fact that he raped the original Frieda Baumgardner means nothing to you?" said Libby.

"I'm an electronic simulacrum of her," said Frieda.  "My memories and feelings are not perfect replicas of hers."

Libby pointed a finger at Baird.  "The fact is, shortly after this man raped 85-year-old Frieda Baumgardner, she died.  She never recovered from the emotional trauma!"  Libby spread her arms wide. "Doesn't the simple fact of what he did fill you with outrage?"

Frieda leaned toward Baird.  Her shoulder, a digital construct visible only to Baird and the camera lens, seemed to pass through his elbow.

Frieda smiled.  "Malice is not part of my programming.  I am content that he has paid for his crime."

"Okay then."  Libby smiled back at her.  "Here's a question for both of you.  Tomorrow at noon, you'll go your separate ways after spending every minute together for ten solid years.  Will you miss each other?"

"I don't know," said Frieda.  "I haven't thought about it."

"Me neither," said Baird.

* * *