The troubles of knowing yourself

New mem-ries

A set of Mem Cakes were laid out on the table in front of her. She hummed thoughtfully.

Eight didn't know why exactly, but reuniting with Ilkani was making her think about her Mem Cakes again. She'd went through every test down there, regained much of what was taken from her, but...

She turned to the other items on the table. Several sheets of paper; one blank, and the other bearing a list.

All the tests she hadn't been able to complete. The fourteen trials she couldn't do, no matter how hard she tried. Marina had had to hack the system for her, if only so she could pretend she'd triumphed over everything the Metro had thrown her way.

She looked over her list...

• C04- Move It Move It Station
• C08- Right Round Station
• D07- Targetbuster Station
• E08- Da Bomb Station
• F03- Pop Star Station
• F05- Popalicious Station
• F08- Jump Station
• G02- Hasta La Vista Station
• G05- Bustalicious Station
• I05- Righteous Rail Station
• I06- All Eyez Station
• I09- Poppin' Fresh Station
• J03- Girl Power Station
• J05- Stick 'n' Move Station

She frowned. She wasn't good with target crates or balloons, apparently...

She shook her head, annoyed at the memories that surfaced from reading over her fourteen failures. Thinking about them wasn't why she'd made the list. The stations themselves weren't the focus here.

The fact that she had fourteen memories that would forever escape her was.

And it wasn't so much that she knew what she was missing at all. She didn't, and that somehow made it easier to bear; the problem was more that...she had holes in that part of her past...that made her wonder if she should miss it.

What if she had managed to get all her memories back? Would she know what had happened to Benny? Would she be able to hold a conversation with Octavio without panicking? Would...would she care about Three as much as she did?

Or would she still be in love with Ilkani?

She shook herself off again. Dwelling on her past wouldn't help her much now. If she wanted those Mem Cakes, she'd have to go get them, and she'd rather die than go back down there.

She held one of the Mem Cakes she'd set out up to her face, scrutinizing it. It was the one that looked like Pearl. The poem she'd written for it back then, it had been about what she'd known of the other up to that point, and no more. It was strange, like that Cake in particular had been crafted specifically because she'd formed an impression of the other while she was down there. Marina's wasn't like that: she'd heard of her escape, used it to inspire her own. She knew about Marina before the Metro.

Eight hummed as she looked over Pearl's Mem Cake some more. Hmm...it may have escaped her when she'd gotten it...but she'd made that memory herself, as her, not as Garratia. She'd been making new memories the whole time she'd been up on the surface. Maybe they didn't all have Mem Cakes to go with them, but surely the principle was the same, right?

She set Pearl's Cake down on the blank sheet of paper, near the top. She got out a pencil...

Enthusiasm and thrown shade
To those she loves, she's wild and proud

Eight spent about five minutes trying to think of a fitting last line. The last word would probably be 'fade,' but she was having trouble with everything before that. Hmm...

"Spitting rhymes, her smile won't fade?" She pondered aloud. "No, no that doesn't sound right..."

She knew Pearl a lot better now, it really shouldn't have been as hard as it was to come up with something...