“You just showed up and defused an argument between the Duke and a man named William Corcoran. I am assuming those two are the Duke and the Illusionist.”
“You’re kidding me,” Vic said.
“I’m not,” I said. “There would be no point. What are you doing?”
“Nothing!” he said. “I’ve been flirting with the women and gathering intelligence. Did you know Tremblay is a bachelor still?”
“Shut up,” I said. “You’re telling me you weren’t here?”
“Well. I didn’t think I’d be here,” he said.
“What do you mean? It’s easy. Either you were here, in which case that is you, or you weren’t, and this is some weird effect of the Echo.”
“Mmmm. Eddie never told you, did he?”
“Eddie never told me what?”
“I’m not sure how or where to start, but basically.... Okay. So. Vampires are undead, right? We have physiologically improved musculature, strength, and speed. Right? Now, why aren’t we out pioneering new technology and riding into space?”
“I don’t know. Well. Maybe because the sun is out there.”
He paused.
“Okay, fair point. No. What I was getting at is. The process, the Turning. It doesn’t affect the neural synapses. What that means is. We have human brains still. Sure, we have a lot of hormonal and biological differences, but in essence, we still have a processor core not that far removed from monkey brains. You with me so far?”
“Yes,” I said.
“Alright. So let me ask you this. What did you have for breakfast this morning?”
I thought about it. I blanked.
“I have no idea,” I said. “Wait. Toast, maybe? A handful of chips. Some oatmeal.”
“What about yesterday?”
“Hold on, I’m still on this morning. A half a grapefruit. I had some leftover Chinese food that was going to go bad, so I—”
“Oh my God, not the point. Stacey. What did you have for breakfast when you were fourteen?”
I shook my head.
“I have no idea. There were like. 365 different occasions. I am willing to wager none of them were eggs.”
“Exactly. Do you remember shopping for shoes at fourteen?”
“Uh. Ummm. Maybe there was a…” I petered out and then sighed. “No, you’re right. I got nothing.”
“Okay. The Turning solidifies a major chunk of your brain and crystallizes your living memories. That leaves whatever’s left over as your random access memory. After a certain point in time. You start to run out of space. You start jettisoning stuff that’s older than a certain point, because there’s literally not enough room.”
“That’s awful,” I said.
“No,” he said. “It’s a blessing. I don’t want to remember half the things I got up to, Stacey, because they weren’t all nice. If a vampire had to live with every death they caused, they wouldn’t make it. Any who do remember everything wind up Facing the Sun. The bloodline that frees up all that memory is damn near gone, and it’s an evolutionary adaptation at this point. We’re still human, up here, and can remember about a lifetime’s worth of data. When you start living more than that, though…”
“So, you don’t remember being here at all?”
“You would think Tremblay would have recognized me.”
“I did,” a nearby wall fixture said.
