Kapitel 30: Chapter 30
The gates to the Oblitus Penitentiary were heavily guarded and braced with all the security technology available. Lysandra had to state her name and wait until a guard came out to escort her inside. She had to let the guards on the inside scan her face and her eyes; she had to put her arm in a metal handcuff - a lie detector, probably - while she told them who she wanted to see and her relationship to that person.
"Simon Ferry," she said. "He's my father."
The guards watched the lie detector, but when it didn't react, they looked at each other in surprise. Possibly several other people had tried to get in to see Simon Ferry based on some sort of lie and failed. Lysandra wasn't lying.
"All right," one of the guards said. "We'll escort you to his cell."
Her father's prison cell was in the back of the building, past mazes of tunnels and cells, some with screaming prisoners behind their doors, some with silent prisoners within their depths, and some of them completely empty, which sometimes caught Lysandra off guard most of all. Her father's cell was one of the quiet ones, guarded by a large metal door. One of the guards stood at the end of the hall to keep watch while Lysandra held her ground right in front of the metal bars.
His face turned slowly toward her from behind the bars, and his expression contorted into one of recognition. His hair had grown out and become salt-and-pepper gray, and his face had more lines in it than it did in her memory.
"Lysandra," he said. "They shouldn't have let you in here."
Lysandra sucked in a sharp breath. "I'm your daughter."
"That's the reason." He shook his head. "I don't suppose you want to know about what happened."
"I do," Lysandra hissed through clenched teeth. "The first thing I want to know is - who was that man standing with you? The one with the dark hair and those awful eyes? Who was that?"
"The Memory Recoder," her father began. "You mean him."
"Yes, I mean him. What was his name? Where is he? What did he do?"
"Lysandra, I haven't seen the sun in two years. I haven't been outside these walls since they threw me in. I have no idea where he is. And if I tell you what he did, I might well ruin that memory chasm you've been storing in the back of your head since you were sixteen." He shrugged, devil-may-care.
"Please," she said, one hand reaching out and gripping the bars of the door. "Please ruin the memory chasm. I don't want it there anymore. I want to know what happened to me."
"There are right and wrong ways to go about remembering things you've forgotten," her father answered.
"I don't care," Lysandra cried.
"Lysandra - that man's name," her father began again. "His name was Morpheus. Morpheus Rose, in fact."
"The Memory Recoder?" she breathed.
"Yes," her father said. "And I'll be damned if you can find him now. He disappeared right after that incident with you."
Lysandra felt the anger, the powerlessness rise up in her again. She leaned forward, toward her father's cell door, and hissed, "Was he a Thief?"
But the mention of the term didn't bring the same reaction in Simon as it had in Zavier, or Cale. Simon didn't reel at her use of the word. Instead, he pressed his lips together and nodded.
"He is the Thief, Lysandra," her father said. "Every Memory Thief in Oblitus came after him. He worked alongside me long ago and . . . things escalated."
"Father." Lysandra looked at him, eyes pleading, but he didn't meet her gaze. She shook the metal bars of the door to his cell. "Father! What happened? Why won't you tell me?"
"Lysandra, when you have studied Memory Recoding cases as long as I have, you understand that you cannot reveal things in large pieces to patients. Their minds can't handle it. They break down," her father told her, his voice unnaturally calm. "I can't - couldn't - let that happen to you."
"But I need to know," Lysandra whimpered, sliding to her knees in front of the door. "It's my past."
"The past can be a painful thing," her father said simply.
"If I went to that man," Lysandra whispered after a silence, "the man you mentioned - Morpheus Rose - would he tell me?"
"You would do well not to go to him." Her father's voice grew hard, a warning. "He is a very difficult man to find. And if you did find him, he would likely do one of two things."
"Which are?"
"Forget," her father said. "Or lie."
Lysandra's hands trembled. She had thought her father was her last hope in terms of recovering her lost memories, but he clearly didn't have any intention of helping her. He seemed adamant in letting her go on forever without remembering a thing. He knew what had happened to her - but what it was, he wouldn't say.
"Lysandra, I advise you to come back in a few days," her father's voice said. She didn't even look up at him. "I will be able to tell you part of the story then."
"Will I ever really remember?" Lysandra asked. "Or will I just know some story that you recited to me?" The way Cale remembers his own past, she wanted to add, but couldn't.
"That depends," her father said. "Please, Lysandra. Go. I promise I will speak with you someday soon."
Lysandra stayed silent as she stood up. She turned and started for the door where the guard stood, and she didn't intend on even looking back.
Until she heard her father's voice say, "Goodbye, Lysandra."
She paused, turned her head, cast one last glance over her shoulder. But all she saw was a row of metal prison doors.
Geschenke
-- Geschenk
erhalten Wöchentlicher Energiestatus
-- Power-
Rangliste 
-- Power-
Stein