6 Memory Probe

Arthur stood over an absurdly long mahogany oak table, littered with dozens of steaming plates. The pungent scent of seafood filled his nostrils as he looked from one plate to the next. Most of the plates had sushi rolls, lobster tails, salmon, or shrimp on them, however, one caught his eye. The metal plate at the center of the dinning table was enormous, and on it was a pink, flayed dolphin. His stomach churned at the sight.

The spacious dining room was lit with natural sunlight, causing the golden sets of cutlery and silver plates to sparkle ever so slightly. Interestingly, the room had no windows, and was instead lit up by a flaming ball of fire that hung from the thirty foot high ceiling. The artificial sun was a chandelier of sorts, one that only the supremely wealthy could afford. Arthur could have probably afforded to buy one himself, but then would have had to sell everything he owned - his company included - and in turn had nowhere to hang the thing. Besides, it was far too bright, and not at all practical. Just another way for the trillionaire class to flex their financial muscles.

Two figures sat on either end of the table, eating silently, their cutlery clanking against their plates as they did. Half a dozen Mina units tended to them, refilling their wine glasses, cooking more fish on skillets, and stirring their exotic-looking soups. The bronze robotic assistants were of the hospitality variety, and that meant that, unlike Nina, they were only proficient at performing one specific duty; preparing food and drink.

Tessa Vanderbelt stirred in her chair and stopped eating, a troubled expression painted across her face. The blond beauty was dressed in an extravagant open-backed strapless dress, and much like the enormous rubies on her necklace, it was crimson red.

"Was that a threat? Let's get one thing straight," she said loudly, her eyes glaring daggers at the man who sat at the other end of the dinner table. "Don't you ever presume that you can tell me what I can, and cannot do. I will see whomever I want, whenever I want."

"Tessa, you know for a fact that I don't care who you bring to your bed," Liam Vanderbelt said nonchalantly, dressed in plain white pajamas, and cutting a pink piece of dolphin meat with a golden knife and fork. Liam had close-cropped black hair and a square jaw similar to Arthur's own, and clean shaven. "This time, however, I need you to stay away from Jason! This is not up for discussion."

"Stop," Britney said from Arthur's left, closing her hand into a fist and gesturing forward. Liam had a greasy piece of fried meat staked through with his metal fork and halfway to his mouth when everything went still. A droplet of grease was in the process of dripping from the meat onto the table before it froze in place midway there. "Nina, analysis. Is Liam lying?"

"I believe it is customary for humans to say please when making a request," Nina said monotonously.

"Oh for Hermes' sake… Just do what you're told!" Britney replied, rolling her eyes. "Last thing I need is to be taking etiquette lessons from a glorified toaster."

Nina looked towards Britney, her eyes glowing orange and annoyed. "I would like to remind you that my programming only requires me to do as Arthur commands… And since you're not him, I do not have to obey you. However, if you ask nicely, I'm tempted to reconsider,"

Britney turned towards Arthur, rubbing her pale freckled brow. Arthur shrugged and said nothing.

"FINE. Can you please perform an analysis on Liam? Is he telling the truth?"

"Ah much better," Nina said, her eyes glowing with a vibrant green. She looked towards Liam and went silent for a moment. "According to my analysis of his facial expressions and memory sensory data, it is clear that Liam Vanderbelt is telling the truth. He has no quarrels with his wife sleeping with other men, however, he wants her to stay away from Jason."

Probing a memory was tedious work, and often required going through the same sequence of events over and over again, combing through every little detail, and hoping to find a lead. Arthur, luckily, had access to a supercomputer that could help him with parsing through the immense amount of sensory information found within a memory. It came in the form of his metallic friend; Nina.

Ever since the dawn of the Eye, humans have been able to store their memories if they chose to do so. A stored memory captured everything its owner experienced at the time it was taken. Everything they saw, tasted, smelled, or even felt was captured in digital form and stored on the cloud. However, storing memories with this level of detail expended an enormous amount of digital storage, making it extremely expensive to do so.

That meant that only the employed and wealthy could afford to capture memories, and even then they typically only had dozens of captured memories throughout their lifetime, spanning a couple of minutes tops. Luckily, saying the Vanderbelts were wealthy was like saying the sun was merely warm. A massive understatement. Every experience that Tessa Vanderbelt had been through since she was in her early twenties had been captured and logged to the cloud. Reluctantly, Tessa had agreed to share every memory she had saved over the last month with Arthur... well at least the ones that had her missing husband present within them.

"Interesting. I didn't get that from his psychological profile," Britney continued. "I was honestly under the impression that he'd be a lot more conservative than that… There's more to him than meets the eye. But I suppose that's true for anyone."

"Yes. I believe there was a proverb that the ancients used that perhaps perfectly fits within this context; never judge a book by its cover," Nina said, turning to face Britney. "Oh and another thing Ms. Law, I believe it is customary for humans to say thank you after a service was extended to them."

Britney gave Nina a blank stare for a moment, then she grinned and stuck up her middle finger towards the robot.

Nina's neck whirred as she shook her skull-shaped metallic head, eyes glowing an angry red.

Britney opened her still clenched right fist, gesturing for the memory to resume with a swipe of her open palm.

The grease droplet frozen in mid air between Liam's fork and the table suddenly splashed against the mahogany oak surface of the dining table, followed by many more. A Mina unit cleaned it almost immediately, extending its bronze arm out by a few feet in order to reach from the other side of the table.

"Not up for discussion? Oh, you have some fucking nerve!" Tessa said from the other end of the long table, her face reddening with anger. "Actually, you're right. It's not up for discussion. This thing with Jason, it's not just physical, it's way more than that, and I think you know it. Is that what this is? Jealousy? After all these years..."

"It's most definitely NOT jealousy dear… As I said, you can fuck whoever you want!" Liam said, no trace of the earlier nonchalance he'd displayed earlier on his face now. "Look, please... I'm begging you, just stay away from him."

"It sure sounds like jealousy. But maybe you're not jealous about me?" she said, her straight blonde hair up and over to the right side of her head, a mocking smirk on her red-lipsticked lips. "Are you upset that I'm taking your assistant from you? You don't think Jason told me about all the late nights at the office when you two would 'relieve' each other?"

"It's not about that!" Liam bellowed. "It's true, Jason and I… We did have our own thing, once. But this is something entirely different. Look, you're putting your life in danger. I need you to trust me, you need to stay away from my assistant."

"Putting my life in danger? What are you talking about?" Tessa asked, a confused look on her tanned face. "Is this about what you found hidden in Mark's office? Plans for a device called the atomizer?"

Liam looked away from Tessa. "It's not that. Our CEO and I are on some great terms… Look, the less you know the safer it will be for you,"

The strangest part of reliving through someone else's memory was being able to experience their feelings as your own. By going through Tessa's memories, Arthur was beginning to know her far more than he ever could've if he'd just spoken to her. At that moment, he could tell that Tessa had the utmost respect and admiration for her husband of twenty years and her true partner in business and in life, but she was torn. She was in love with his assistant; Jason.

"If after two decades of marriage, you still can't bring yourself to trust me with what's going on with you…" Tessa said, sighing and standing up, adjusting her strapless dress. "Then I'm not going to stop seeing Jason. I'm going to his apartment, and I'm staying the night, so don't wait up. I'll see you at work tomorrow."

The memory ended, and as soon as it did, everything in the room vanished. Arthur was back to reality, getting his bearings in order with some effort. He felt like he'd just woken up from a long, disorienting dream. He was now in a nondescript room, surrounded by Nina, Britney, and four white paneled walls.

"Well, what are your thoughts, Britney?" Arthur asked, stretching his body out, some of his bones and joints making a popping noise as he did.

"Honestly? That was the best memory we've probed yet." She replied, shaking her head undoubtedly in an attempt to reorient her own bearings. "A lot to unpack there, and not business talk like all other memories we've seen with her husband, but real leads that could actually lead us to find Liam. And both of them were sleeping with the assistant?… That was a twist I didn't see coming."

Arthur nodded. "Yes, I agree. In my experience when a person goes missing, someone close to them is responsible more times than not. Maybe that applies to this case, especially since Liam said that Tessa's life may be in danger if she continued to have relations with Jason. Perhaps this was a crime of passion? Jason removing Liam from the picture so he could have Tessa to himself? "

"Or perhaps Liam simply ran away? Maybe he was jealous of Jason and Tessa's relationship, and couldn't bear the thought of his wife loving another man," Britney replied, cocking an orange-red eyebrow. "And what's this atomizer device they're talking about? Could that be relevant somehow?"

"Yes, you're right, all of those are valid points," he said, rubbing his chin contemplatively. "At the very least we now have some threads to pull on, even if they present us with more questions than answers… Alright, let's relive this memory a few dozen more times to ensure we don't miss anything. Then, after that, we go through the others. Hope you don't have any plans today Brit because we're in for a LONG night…"