I quickly pinned her shoulders to the bed as her eyelids fluttered. I held my breath, waiting for her to make a move. She shook her head and brought her hand to her forehead. She gave a moan, and tried to sit up. When she couldn’t move her eyes opened at focused on me.

“Don’t panic.” I said. Her eyes filled with fear.

“Who are you?” She asked.

“My name is Robert.”

“Where am I? How did I get here?”

“You’re in my tank, and how you got here is complicated. If I let you go, will you try to kill yourself again?”

“Kill myself? Why on Earth would I do that?”

“I was hoping you could tell me.” I said slowly releasing my grip on her. She sat up and took a look around the room.

“I’m not in ‘Monica’s’ room, am I?”

“Nope. We saved you from her.”

“We?”

“Yeah, I spotted you and Tina got Monica to hand you over.”

“Tina? That sounds like a Babylonian name.”

“She is a Babylonian. My Babylonian to be exact.”

“So she owns you?”

“Yeah, but it’s not so bad. Anyways, I was hoping you could explain a few things for me.”

“Why should I do anything for you? I don’t know anything about you other than your name.”

“Ok. Ask away. Anything you want to know you can, but, just FYI, I have a block in my head. I may not be able to answer every question you ask.” For the next ten minutes we played twenty questions. She asked question about anything and everything. Where the house came from, what I knew of the Babylonians, my life so far. At some point in the conversation we had taken a seat at the dining room table.

“Do you trust me know?” I asked.

“More than before, but not fully yet. I want to meet Tina.”

“Ok let’s head outside.” We got up and walked out the door. We took a step outside and to see Tina give a smile. Sky suddenly froze. I quickly asked her what was wrong, but she didn’t say a word. I only saw her eyes darting around all over the place.

“I actually made it out.” She whispered as if it were some great secret.

“Yeah, you did.” I said smiling. I walked up to her and said. “Are you ok?”

“I actually made it out.” She said again. “I actually got free of the bitch! I’m not a slave anymore!” She laughed and hugged me. Sky was strong for being so mistreated. She picked me up and swung me back and forth, then I was dropped on the ground. Suddenly Sky’s hands were on the side of my head as her head flew forward.

Our lips collided for only a few seconds, but it was long enough for something in the back of my brain to spark. Some memory had gotten free of the devise’s control for a spilt second. In it I saw a girl, but I couldn’t see her face. She had the same color that Sky had. I couldn’t see much of what was behind the girl, but it didn’t look good.

“Robert!” I heard. Suddenly I was yanked back to the real world. Sky was shaking me. “Robert! Sky to Robert!”

“Stop! Look! I’m back alright.” I said as I squirmed away from her.

“Good, what happened?” She asked.

“Well you know how we have the implants in our heads right?”

“Um…yea.” She said.

“Well when we kissed, one of my memories got free for a second.”

“Really? What was it about?” I told them what happened in the memory.

“Well.” Miry said, having appeared next to Sky during my expiation. “It’s common for memories to be recalled by things like taste, or smell is the biggest way to remember things. The device, though, should’ve blocked anything like that from happening. Whatever the memory was, it was strong enough to slip past one of the strongest memory impairment devices.”

“What could have a memory be so strong that it could break the memory impairment thingy?” Sky asked.

“Only one associated with extreme feeling can break the MID that’s in his head.” Tina said. “Doesn’t matter if it’s a strong good or strong bad or strong any other emotion. Whatever you were doing with the girl in your memory instilled such a strong emotional response that it got pasted the best MID money can buy.”  

“Would kissing Sky bring the full memory back?” I asked.

“That’s unlikely.” Miry said. “The MID you have changes and morphs with you. The more you have memories come back the more is clamps down on your brain. Long story short, if it didn’t clamp down, it will if you try again.”  

“And speaking of Sky,” Tina said. “we may have a problem. The law. It dictates that if a confiscated human is found to be healthy or at least not completely insane, then the confiscator has to turn the human into the nearest shelter. If they don’t they face heavy fines.”

“What are you saying?” I asked. “Are you saying that we have to send Sky to a shelter?”

“I wish there were another way Robert. I wish”

“Answer my question.” I said.

“Yes Robert, Yes we do.”