She tapped away inputting characteristics to personalise his trip.

“Now, there is always a primary love interest, by that I mean a woman you will ultimately end up with apart from the other characters we will write in to flirt with you. You need to describe your ideal fantasy woman to me so we don’t disappoint you”

His mind immediately linked back to his dreams and he chose features from 3D holographic representations of women until he had replicated his mystery woman.

“Wow she’s hot”

The woman said uncharacteristically and smiled at Doug which made him feel a twang of guilt for being so specific right down to selecting her thirty four F cup breasts which he imagined she would have.

“Now the final parameter we need is her height, default is five foot eight....”

“Um, can you make her taller than me?”

“Of course we can do anything, so you are what six foot?”

“Yyeh”

Doug answered feeling like the woman was finding this a touch amusing but if it was to be perfect then he knew she had to be tall.

“So, would you like her just taller than you in her heels or would you prefer if she towered over you”

“the later”

“Ok, so now she will definitely look down on you”

Following another summary of his preferences he nodded in agreement.

“So now we will scan your brain , identify your memory centre and away we go”

“Wait, how long will it take? “

“Once we deep scan your brain and verify we start up a channel to begin loading the memories, you will feel a tingle or two but then it will be like the trip has just started. You will have all the experiences acted out in your head in seconds and find yourself here at the end of it in about five minutes”

“An entire weekend in five minutes?”

He was in awe of the technology and settled back to receive his memories.

“Begin deep scan Ernie”

The woman instructed an unseen operator via her intercom and the machine glowed blue with its arch like structure covering the sides of Doug’s head and he felt a tingling sensation building up making him groggy.

Suddenly there was an alarm, a red holo panel with warning lights lit up before the woman and she seemed to panic.

“Shut it down Ernie, shut it down!”

She shouted and Doug looked across concerned coming out of his previous groggy state of mind and back into sharp focus. The machines glowing stopped and a worried looking man rushed out from behind the scenes to confront his colleague.

“Who the hell are you!”

The woman questioned and looked at Doug who’s head was spinning now with new images and thoughts he couldn’t process fast enough.

“What’s going on?”

Doug snapped.

“You, you’ve been to Mars, I mean really been to Mars and someone didn’t want you to know about it!”

“He had a memory cap?”

Ernie asked the lady and then looked at the holo displays for some data

“Oh he has a big one! Shit! We’ve just unlocked part of it!”

Doug sprang to his feet trying to fathom the situation, whatever they had done he was suddenly aware that he needed to get out of there as it wasn’t safe. It was a gut feeling.

“Ernie, look he’s even got tech onboard”

As Doug made for the door the two just looked on knowing that the man who was walking out at a rapid pace had some sort of miniscule chip planted into the base of his neck that was revealed by their deep scanner and this was most unusual with its purpose unknown, only they knew it was military grade and very advanced.

Compelled to leave Doug headed for a cab instructing it home, he really didn’t have a clue what had happened at Recall but his mind was flooded with confusing information. He seemed to know about Mars about the security systems at the space sport and the layout of the space sport itself? What the hell had Recall done to him? And what was that stuff about a memory cap and tech inside him? As the taxi drove he felt the back of his neck and a small hardly perceivable lump the size of a little mole, he was suddenly aware that he had allowed something to be put in his head but he didn’t know by who or what it was, he was so confused.

“Mouser?”

Doug heard a strange voice, a man’s voice and turned to the Jonny Cab robot and questioned it.

“Did you say something?”

The robot spun around to speak to Doug still able to drive by its sensors.

“I’m sorry sir, I don’t understand the question, can you repeat please?”

“ I said did you say something?”

Again he heard the voice saying “Mouser, can you hear me?” but it didn’t come from the robotic driver it came from inside his head!

“Don’t worry drive on”

Doug said alarmed at hearing voices in his head.

“Come on, are you there or not, we haven’t got long before they may trace this local transmission”

There was an urgency about the voice in his head and suddenly Doug seemed to understand what was going on, there was a chip in his head he could remember having it slipped under his skin so that he could receive telepathic thought projection, only his memory was so screwed up right now he didn’t know why on earth he had allowed someone to do this.

“I’m here, who’s that?”

Doug concentrated and thought these words back activating the chip’s two way link.

“Mouser it is you! We haven’t much time before they are on to me. You told me to scan this frequency if you ever disappeared, man where have you been all this time!”

“What’s going on? Who are they?”

“Shit we knew it, we knew they must have given you a memory cap no wonder you’ve been impossible to find, you don’t even know yourself”

“Know what”

Doug thought back confused by the exchanges.

“There isn’t time to explain, go to the hover bus exchange, I know you are within the city, head there and bio scan at the desk for a locker, it’s the stuff you said to keep by in case this ever happened”

“what?”

“Oh and Melina sends her love!”

The man’s projected thoughts stopped broadcasting into his brain and Doug pinched the skin at the back of his neck and his nail managed to scoop out the technology which was little larger than a couple of millimetres across. He crushed it instinctively between his finger tips as if he was programmed to do so and dropped it on the floor of the cab. What did the man say? He asked himself and came back with the sentence Melina sends her love. Melina, that name he knew and it stirred feelings deep inside him, feelings of love. As he thought about this Melina he was shocked to discover that he now actually knew the name of his mystery lover, Melina was his mistress from Mars!

“Stop the cab!”

Doug shouted and the driver complied pulling over close to Doug’s address, but instead of getting out he instructed the cab to the hover bus terminal at the centre of the city.

Walking into the bus terminal he tried to retrieve more information from his foggy brain about Melina, he could picture her and he knew they had been close but he could not really remember anything other than she was in Venus ville. This all didn’t make sense why was he implanted with a high tech communications device and why all the cloak and dagger with the man who spoke to him on it, he sounded concerned about being discovered by someone. Maybe the locker at the bus terminal would solve the weird day he was having.

His thumb was scanned for security at the desk within the bus terminal and he was directed to a locker. He didn’t know how they had got his thumb print but it registered him as the paying owner of this locked cubicle. When he was alone he opened up the door using the scan of his thumb once more and there was a small brief case inside. Taking it out he opened it up for a peek expecting almost anything to be in there and suddenly he saw a gun or at least it resembled one of the tazortec units the police might use, only its barrel was different. This discovery shocked him, but there was more inside. There was a compact holo projector with a recording unit attached and some other green box he had no clue about. There was also a small card with an advert for a Venus Ville Hotel called “Mel’s” and as he flipped the paper over in his fingers there was the name Melina scribbled across it. He recognised the hand writing it was his own! How it got there and what mystery was unfolding he really didn’t know yet he felt he was in some form of danger from an unknown adversary. It was getting clearer to him that somehow he was mixed up in something perhaps illegal or more likely secretive in some way and it all revolved around Mars and this Melina.

Quickly he snapped the case shut and placed it back into the locker, he felt it would be safer there until he could figure out what was going on and how safe it was to take this case outside. The lockers intelligent mechanism changed the security profile and asked him to select another method from iris recognition, password activation or voice recognition. He decided on a password as the other he knew could be faked. “How do I know that?”

He asked himself as this fact popped into his mind and he started to suspect that he could have a whole side to him that he wasn’t aware of that had been suppressed by the memory cap. The deeper he thought about the memory cap the more he wondered why someone had repressed some of his memories or worse installed some false memories! That last thought made him more than nervous and he suddenly feared that Lori could be in danger as well. Leaving a verbal password of anilem, which represented Melina in reverse, he quickly found a Jonny Cab to hurry back to Lori.

As he entered the door Lori was already home from work as he could see her discarded heels by the main door, she had probably returned early and he knew she wouldn’t be best pleased to see him standing six foot tall again.

“Lori? Honey?”

He called and she came to greet him, her face was shocked to see her husband equalling her height.

“What have you done?”

She said almost sad to see him eye to eye .

“I’m sorry Lori but I had to do it, but my height isn’t important now. My day has been so weird and I think we both could be in danger?”

“Danger? Doug what are you talking about come here”

They walked to hug each other and he felt her new chest planted firmly against his, it was fuller and he had forgotten that she’d been to Reform.

“Do you like?”

Lori smiled and stepped back to show off her side profile making Doug’s eyes widen with appreciation of her fabulous new curves.

“Wow”

He complimented.

“Not as wow as they would have been if you had stayed as a short guy, now what’s all this rubbish about us being in danger”

“Lori I think we need to leave here, we need to get to Mars and find out what’s going on”

“Mars? Doug, what’s got into you?”

“I went to recall, I was thinking about Mars again and wanted to rid myself of these silly dreams I’ve been having. I chose a trip, a long weekend to Mars to have planted in my memory. I was going to be a spy, it was a themed weekend full of espionage. But their machine detected something, it found some hardware in my head a telepathic communicator chip which somehow activated in the cab on the way home. They told me I had a memory cap in place, someone was trying to keep me from what’s really in my head and I think it’s starting to unravel, I think people, maybe bad people need to keep me away from Mars. I know people there Lori, I think I have even been there before.....”

“You went to Recall those brain butchers? Doug something went wrong, you don’t have a memory cap or technology in your head. It sounds like they screwed you up and now you think you are a spy, and your creating an elaborate plot around you but in the real world....”

Doug paused but then decided how best to convince Lori, it was a gamble as he knew it may upset her but he decided on it anyway.

“Lori, when I dream about Mars, the woman in my dreams, her name is Melina and she’s real. I know she is real”

“Mel..Melina?”

Lori fainted into his arms and he carried her to bed, he certainly hadn’t expected this response. Within seconds she came around and held her head like it was on fire with a rocketing headache. But soon her head was clearing.

“That name it means something to me as well. It’s like a door is opening in my mind telling me to.....”

Standing up she walked over to the other side of the bed and towards her wardrobe. As if under instruction she bent down and pressed against the base of the wardrobe by the front panel, there was a click and a secret compartment was revealed.

“What is it?”

He questioned eager to find out and Lori reached inside and picked up a pill of some description and popped it into her mouth.

“Honey that could be dangerous you don’t know what that is or what it will do to you?”

Again she almost fainted and held her head but suddenly she seemed to recover and produced a different smile on her face, one he hadn’t seen before. She knelt down to reach further into the secret compartment and pulled out a strange gun identical to the one that he had seen in the locker only half an hour ago!

Instantly she turned to point the gun at him and he was shocked.

“Why did you have to spoil things Doug, why?”

The way she talked sounded different like a new personality was emerging from inside Lori that had been suppressed.