Thanks to Malady for his work in proofreading and ideas!

Chapter 4

I stared at Carla. “I’m your sister. Rose.”

Carla laughed! “I don’t think so. Rose looks pretty good, but you’re obviously a genetic female.”

“What?”

Daddy spoke up. “It must be her bots. They’re programmed to protect the individual. To do that, they might cut off any memories that will cause a mental breakdown.”

“But that would mean blocking out a huge amount of time,” I pointed out.

“It might be how he keeps those people.”

For a moment, I didn’t understand. Then I realized that if Amos’s memories were going to cause Carla to have problems, it would probably not be good to mention it. Who knows how far she would regress then.

“What are you talking about?” Carla asked me. “Who are you, really?” She looked at me closer. “I could almost believe you’re Rose, but… No. You can’t be.”

“Carla,” Daddy began, but John held up a hand. Daddy backed up and nodded. He was a teacher, not a psychologist.

“We need Rachel now,” John said.

“Who’s Rachel,” Carla asked.

None of us really knew how to answer her.

-=#=-

We entered me and John’s home, this time with our resident shrink, Rachel. Daddy was making good on his promise that I was in charge of the Carla project, so we entered my office, and I took my place behind my desk.

“What is the problem?” Rachel asked. Daddy apparently hadn’t told her anything.

As he didn’t seem to be ready to fill her in now, I jumped in. “Carla has some problems. She has no memory of any events after she was taken over by Amos.”

“How could that happen?” Rachel asked. She looked to Daddy. “I thought perfect recall was inevitable with bots and the crystals.”

“Under normal circumstances, but there are times when they may be programmed to cut off certain memories.”

“Cut off certain memories?”

I’m not sure if it was part of her psychiatric training, but Rachel had an annoying habit of repeating the last words someone said as a question. Like she was asking someone to come up with the answer.

“It appears that if a memory is going to cause severe psychological damage, they’ll stop it from getting to the brain.”

“Stop it from…”

“Getting to the brain, yes. The computer with the crystals is basically a file server. You know that.”

“So it’s not the bots.”

“They send the health of the brain to the server, and it locks out certain files.”

“Certain files?”

Daddy sighed. "It locks out the ones that have caused the problems, and apparently all like that.”

“Daddy,” I offered, “She couldn’t remember Amos’ name. Maybe it’s his memory that’s causing it. Everything that’s associated with him.”

“That may be,” Rachel offered, “but have you considered that she may still be Amos?”

“I don’t think that’s the case,” Mama said. “Rosie and I went into her memories. They were hers.”

“And I would imagine that they contained everything she had done with Amos in control as well. How do you know that his memories aren’t guiding her now?”

It pained me to say it. “I suppose we don’t,” I told her.

“I need to dive into her memories myself,” Rachel announced.

“Do you mean you want to dive with us, or alone?” I asked her.

“Alone, preferably.”

I shook my head. “Not gonna happen.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m in charge of recovering Carla, and I know I haven’t been taken over by Amos,” I told her, probably more gruffly than I would normally have.

“I don’t. I don’t like those odds.”

“I’m sorry. That’s the way it is.”

“Then I won’t dive.”

“Why?” Daddy asked.

“Because Rose is the most likely person to be under control by the bastard! She dove into his memories before we knew what the hell was going on.”

John snorted and said, “Right. And you’re a psychologist? You know, Rachel, I recommended getting you, but I think that was a mistake.”

Rachel smiled and said, “Are you trying to make me mad so I’ll want to prove you wrong? That won’t work, Mister Carlson.”

“No. I’m not. I’m pointing out how illogical what you think is. You say that Rose is the most likely person to be under control? From what I understand, before you became a trans-woman, you were a straight man. Correct?”

“Yes, that’s correct.”

“Yet now, because of what the bots did to you, you are quite happy being a trans-woman. That about sum it up?”

“So you think I’m under the influence of the bots?”

“Sure seems like it to me. Amos’ bots changed a primary part of your thought processes.” He paused to let that sink in. “You’re more under Amos’ control than my wife. She has always considered herself to be female. So she has the body to prove it. There is no change in her mind where that’s concerned at all. You, on the other hand, have a huge change.”

She started to argue, but he interrupted her. “No, you aren’t the most likely to be under his control. You are under his control.”

She stared at John for a little bit, then nodded. “Very well, Mister Carlson, I’ll bow out of the situation. You’re right. I’m compromised as well.”

“No!” I yelled, then in a quieter tone, “John’s right, but you will not bow out. We know how people like you have been affected, or at least we think we do. Paula was a straight male as well. Now she’s a straight female. Nothing else, except what would normally be different in a woman has been changed.”

I looked at John, “And as for you, back off, John!” I told him. “You’ve made your point very well. We have no idea about anyone, and we need her. ”

I turned back to Rachel. “You don’t want to dive with Mom and me along. That won’t happen, for exactly the same reason, with one small exception.” I took a deep breath. “You are basing your disagreement on self-preservation. I’m basing mine on the safety of my sister.”

Rachel sat there for a minute, mentally debating what she wanted to do. Finally, she looked up. “You and John are pretty good psychologists, Rose. What do you need me for?”

“Because, I don’t know how to keep those memories in those crystals from tearing her apart.”

-=#=-

Eventually, we came to the conclusion that we really didn’t know who we could trust and who we couldn’t. No matter what we did, we were going to be up against the same type of problems.

We entered Carla’s room, and Rachel introduced herself.

“You’ve lost a lot of memories, Carla, and your mom, Rose and I are going to try to help you retrieve them.” she told her.

“I see,” Carla said. “I can see my mom, and I’ve never met you before. I still have trouble believing that Rose is my sister.”

“I understand that,” Rachel told her. “She is, however. Trust us on that. If we can retrieve your memories, we’ll retrieve that as well.”

“So you want to ask me a bunch of questions?”

“No, Carla. We’re going to do what is called ‘diving’ into your crystals. We need to do that so we can understand what’s happened. We might have to make several dives to bring all your memories back to you.”

Carla looked scared. “I’m not sure I like that,” she said. “My memories are mine, not anyone else’s.”

“I know it. This is completely unheard of in my field, but it’s the only way to deal with this, I believe.”

Carla nodded. “Do what you have to,” she told us.

-=#=-

"Will I even know you're there?" Carla asked as we were preparing to dive.

"We're not sure," Mama told her.

Carla nodded, then the three of us touched the crystals.

Everything was turquoise again. The three of us were standing in an endless expanse of greenish blue. There were no discernible features anywhere around us, same as before. The difference was that Carla was standing near us. "Go away!" she screamed. "You're not welcome! Leave me alone!"

Rachel stepped forward. "Carla?"

"Of course!" my sister said. "Who are you?"

"I'm Rachel. You don't know me?"

"I've never met you before."

"Who are these people?" Rachel asked, indicating Mama and me.

"Mama, and ... Well, she looks like Rose, but she's not."

"I see," Rachel said. "Are you here to guard Carla's memories?"

"You're not wanted here!" Carla exclaimed again as if she'd just remembered her function.

"She's not real," Mama said. "She's like a sentry."

"I think so," Rachel said. "Can she block us from the memories?"

"I don't think so," I said. "Mama, where do we go?"

"To the beginning," Rachel said. "I need to see what happened when Amos took over."

Mama and I grabbed Rachel's hands and we dove into the maelstrom of memories around us.

-=#=-

I walked up to the building. I knew what my parents, brother, and sister said about Amos, and I was going to be careful. At the door, I was greeted by a young woman who ushered me in to see Amos. We entered what amounted to a throne room. I was beginning to see why my family felt the way they did about Amos. This was obviously some sort of hero thing. He was too proud and self-indulgent. There were actually girls in some type of toga, fanning him constantly with what appeared to be palm leaves.

When he saw me, he clapped his hands twice, and the girls walked out. "Carla Richards. Such an honor to meet you." He rubbed his hand together as if he was preparing to do something he'd been anticipating for a long time. He said something else, but I couldn't understand it. It was as if my mind was becoming incredibly sluggish. I felt pain as if my lungs were on fire. A moment later, the pain started to spread. My vision was as if I was staring through a flame.

I tried to turn, and felt I couldn't move. Finally, Amos walked down to stand directly in front of me. I still wasn't able to control my own body. "Who are you?" he asked me as he slowly walked around me. "I'm you, " I said. "I'm Amos Goodwin."

"Very good. But you're going to use the name Carla, as much as that distresses me. You're going to be Carla Richards for now. Until such time as we need you to take my place."

I nodded my head, then went with him to his laboratory. There were female slaves all over his palace, but now, I knew that these young women were actually she-males. Several actual women were used as furniture or decorations.

We entered his lab, and he turned to me. "Be very glad I have use for you, Carla." He spat out my name as if it were distasteful. "If I didn't, you would find yourself as this poor creature does. " I looked at the chair he proceeded to sit in.

It was a woman in a blue satin catsuit. She was bolted through her arms and legs in the frame of the chair, her bottom making the seat cushion, and her arms and legs extending up, as the chair back. Her face was covered, but I knew that a screw literally went through the bottom of her chin, through her mouth, and into her hard palette, holding her mouth shut. The rest of her restraints and the tubes entering her body, I didn't want to think about.

To my horror, I walked over to another 'chair' and sat down, crossing my legs demurely. For several minutes, I simply sat and listened as Amos told me his plans for my family. I tried to block what he was saying out of my mind, but couldn't. I had no choice but to listen.

Amos pulled a lever on the side of his chair and leaned back. The woman groaned in pain as her arms and legs were moved after a long period of immobility. She probably hadn't moved for days.

Suddenly we were flying out of the hell he had created, and we're standing back in the endless turquoise.

All of us were speechless at what Carla must have gone through. Was her entire existence for over fifteen millennia where she was simply a passenger in her own body?

Finally, Rachel said what we were all thinking. "That was disturbing."

"He's been doing that type of thing since the beginning." I had no idea how people hadn't known.

"Maybe they knew, but decided to leave the nastier bits out," Mama said.

I turned on Mama. “You’ve been in his memories!” I almost screamed at her. “Why didn’t you tell us about this?”

She looked at me and shook her head. “Rosie, did you really think that since he did this downstairs, that he hadn’t done it on Earth? He always fancied himself another Caesar.” She shook her head. “Rome done ‘his way’ has always been a fascination for him.”

I just stared. I knew that Mama was correct, but it was so hard to stomach. My arms and legs were bolted inside restraints and pony boots without any form of pain relief. I couldn’t imagine what those women had gone through to become furniture.

Rachel shook her head. “While that’s disturbing, that’s not what I was referring to.”

I stared at her. “What do you mean?”

“I was referring to being only a passenger in her own body. Do you think that is what she had to deal with her entire life?”

Slowly I nodded. “Yes. When Mama and I entered her memories at the end of her life, it was the same way, although not as pronounced. It was like she had stopped thinking about it.”

“When she was tortured, however,” Mama told Rachel, “she wished with all her heart that she could tell Paul who she really was, but Amos wouldn’t allow it.”

“He was determined that we should think he died.”

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--Rosemary