The elevator opened and Daphne jumped out.

"Looking a bit disheveled," I teased.

"You too," she commented.

I looked down and noticed that my shirt was on backwards.

"Yeah, well, I had to dress quickly."

"Me too. Whose clothes are those?"

"Isaac's, whose clothes are those," I kidded.

"Zac's, he has a thing for women's clothes," she commented with a giggle.

We walked back to her room and stopped outside the door.

"I should probably go," I whispered.

"Yeah, are you going to be okay getting home?"

"Yeah, I should be fine. Bye, Daph," I said giving her a kiss on the forehead.

"Bye, Will."

I started to walk off.

"Will?"

I turned and looked at her.

"Um, thanks for letting me come over and meet them again. It was really nice seeing them again, and I probably wouldn't of without you."

"No problem. However, now you have to tell me what happened between Zac and you in the hotel room," I teased.

"Do you really want to know," she asked me.

"I'd like to know, but if you don't want to tell me you don't have to. Just know that I saw the chemistry between you two and I am going to try to get you two together because you two would be perfect for each other."

"How do you know that?"

"I just do," I replied.

Why do I feel like I know Zac better than I should from just meeting him once? I shook that thought out of my head.

"Will, you know back in New York the last time I saw them?"

"Yeah," I said.

"Well, um, Zac and I kissed in the hotel room. He tried to trip me, and when I was falling he grabbed me and pulled me back into his lap, and…and…we kissed in the hotel room, but please don't tell anyone because it hasn't happened again since," Daph told me.

"I won't, don't worry."

She smiled and I realized just how happy she was.

"Okay, you're holding back on me. Why are you so happy," I asked with a smirk.

"He asked me out on a date. I never actually thought we would ever... Why can't I stop smiling?"

I walked over and gave her a quick hug.

"I told you Michael was stupid to leave you."

"And I told you Taylor would be stupid not to love you," she added with a smile.

The door to her room flung open.

"DAPHNE! Oh, hi, Taylor," Cristin said.

Amber was right behind Cristin screaming, "DO YOU KNOW WHAT TIME IT IS?!"

"I'm sorry," Daphne cried as she pushed her way into the room.

The door was slammed in my face.

I shrugged and mumbled, "Bitches."

Amber had always been too stuck up for my taste, and Cristin was just too flaky. Both of them were fake, and how Daphne was able to put up with them I had no idea. Together the three of them did have beautiful harmony, and Cristin and Amber were just as talented as Daphne. Still it kind of hurt that Amber and Cristin disliked me so much.

The saddest thing was while they both claimed to be cool with anyone homosexual or bisexual (having several friends that were). However, I didn't have a doubt in my mind that the reason they separated themselves from me and wished Daphne to do the same was due to my feelings for Taylor, which I had so foolishly confided openly to them. It didn't matter though. It was better to have one close friend like Daphne and two enemies, rather than just three friendly acquaintances.

*          *          *          *          *

"What the fuck?" Zac yelled.

"Zachary," Dad snapped suddenly in response to Zac's vulgar outburst.

"Sorry, but geeze, Dad, why?" Zac almost screamed.

I glanced over at Taylor, his face was ashen, even the color had drained from his lips.

"We all need to buckle down and get things finished here," Walker said rubbing his forehead.

"Dad, you don't really think," Tay started quietly.

"Son, I'm not going to go there, I simply want Will and Daphne to let you guys have some space for a while, and I mean space, no hanging out, no coming to the hotel," Dad continued.

For the moment I was happy that I was married, and nothing could change that. I glanced over at Taylor, my stomach dropped. My heart sank and I felt that horrible feeling again. This was the Taylor we had arrived in Florida with. The same depressed, sad and creepy Taylor.

"Dad, I have to ask, can't we at least set up maybe once a week or so to meet up and have lunch or something," I asked hoping that I might have some more pull since I wasn't among those who desperately needed Will and Daphne.

"Ike, right now I don't know," dad said quietly looking out the window.

*          *          *          *          *

"That's what I fucking thought," I thought to myself as I saw Will walking across the parking lot. I watched him get into his small black sports car and pull out.

The cell phone rang.

"Yeah," I answered.

"I've squared it away, Will and Daphne have been removed from their schedules. Jammer, you know this puts even more stress on my boys; they do need interaction from friends," Walker began defending.

"Listen, I have nothing against friends, but when they are sleeping with my livelihood," I said wincing as the words left my mouth.

"Don't make me go back into that subject again. They have our permission to totally break contract and quit right now if they so desire. You remembered what Chris told you when you took over direct on site management, the boys called the shots, they were to make the decisions with your counsel," Walker flapped on.

I pulled out of the parking lot and followed the small black car.

"I understand," I lied, I knew what he was saying, but it wasn't going to change my mind.

"I'll be in later tonight," I said as I hung up the phone.

*          *          *          *          *

"I've never seen anything like this before," Evan said as he held the chip up under a magnifying glass.

"Neither have we. We were hoping you could tell us something more," I said as I walked up beside him.

"Well it looks like it could do a number of things," he began again.

I tucked a lock of my red hair back behind my ear and watched him point out areas of the chip as he described their possible uses.

"Dana, this is very high tech, it can store information, it can transmit information, it can do a number of things," he muttered.

"Could it control a human being, if it were implanted against the brain stem," I asked.

He looked over at me with wide eyes.

"This is a part of the MAST isn't it," he muttered quietly.

Now I felt my eyes getting wide.

"Don't ask, don't tell, just remember we also hear stuff on the outside too," he smiled.

"So does that mean you have anything of use to us," I smirked.

"Possibly, since I heard of the MAST I began tinkering with the idea, and how one might go about using it," he said shuffling a file folder towards me.

"Evan, even I don't have this information," I almost gasped as I looked over the highly sensitive information regarding implementation and operation of some areas of the MAST system.

"Well, as I said, don't ask; don't tell. Anyway I've got something similar to this," he said pointing at the central transmission grid of the MAST its self.

"I've been doing hypothetical tests and running simulations, with this chip, I think I might be able to figure some parts that have had me puzzled," he said as he began tapping away at the computer in front of him.

After a few keystrokes, and taps he placed the small green chip into a slot on what appeared to be a mass of chips, wires and plates.

"Rather, Frankenstein-ish of you here," I smiled nodding towards the pile of crude wires.

"I don't have government funding," he sneered.

I smiled.

A moment later he tapped a final key and the screen flickered then a symbol flashed up.

"I'm in," he gasped looking at the green chip, which now appeared to be giving off a very dim glow.

"In what," I asked anxiously.

"The chip, my MAST simulation accessed the chip, it's scanning the chip right now."

"I have a feeling that's not going to be much help to you," Fox said as he walked up behind us.

Just as he finished speaking a line appeared on the screen.

"Maximum command space one hundred percent."

"You're right, it's empty," he frowned.

"Do you remember those strange file listings back in fifty one," Fox asked me as he glanced at the screen.

"Yes," I said as Evan whipped around in his chair.

"Were the file types ending in AMF," he asked.

Fox looked a little surprised.

"Don't be, he's been shocking me all day, seems he knows more than we do about this system," I grinned.

"Yeah they were AMF files," Fox said.

Suddenly I began to feel very bad.

"The MAST has been used," Evan said with a pale face.

"What exactly does AMF stand for," I asked almost not wanting to know the answer.

"Well, this is just an assumption, but I'm going to say 'Altered Memory File.'"

Fox looked at me and then at Evan.

"Tell me, if I were able to give you access to those files, is there any way you could look at them from here, or view them," Fox asked.

"Well, with the chip here, I'm sure I could store them, depending on their size on this chip, then run the chip through the MAST simulator," Evan said with a look that mixed excitement with fear.

"Slide over," Fox said sitting down.

Fox clicked, typed and scanned through windows and screens, moments later he smiled. Evan leaned over his shoulder.

"Fuck me, you've got a back door," he hissed.

"Just to the storage system, the MAST isn't connected to the internet," Fox said before Evan could start getting any ideas.

"Holy shit, look," Evan yelped as he looked at the screen and saw the list of altered memories.

"CWH, DFH, CIH, JTH, ZWH, TWQ, look at all these files," he said in shock.

"Which one should I pick," he asked.

"Does it make any difference," I asked.

"The file sizes on JTH TWQ are the largest," he said as he looked over the screen.

"Then there must be quite a bit of 'memory' in those files, it might help unlock exactly what's going on," Fox said as he looked over at me.

"Alright," Evan said as he sat back down and began clicking away again.

"Ok, I can fit, I think both of them on this one chip, I'm not sure, I'll go ahead and set it to download JTH first, then depending on how much space is left we'll try for TWQ," Evan said glancing at the screen.

"How long will this take?" I asked.

"About eight hours," he frowned.

"Eight hours," Fox and I almost yelled.

"Yeah, geeze," Evan jumped.

"What kind of modem are you on, twelve baud?" Fox snapped looking at the computer.

"I don't think so, I'm on DSL, these MAST files are enormous, the file equivalent of JTH is about nine thousand gigabytes."

I watched as Fox's eyes nearly popped out of their sockets.

"And all that can fit on that little chip," he almost gasped.

"Yeah," he said staring down at the small chip that was now pulsing with green light as it filled with the data.

"We can view it here right," I asked suddenly.

"Let me run a short preview of the data stream, and octet settings and see if it will display properly on a regular flat screen," he said clicking away again.

"Fuck," he muttered.

"Something wrong," Fox asked.

"No I just blurt out obscenities for the hell of it," he sneered.

"Fox had turrets once," I smirked.

"Really," Evan said slightly shocked.

"No, not really, now what's the problem," Fox replied giving me a shove.

"These file formats are strange, they are linked and formed in a VR style coding, almost," he continued as I cut him of.

"Almost holographic," I asked with a raise eyebrow.

"Exactly," he almost yelled as if he had figured it out just as I had said it.

"Can you handle that," I asked.

"Well, I'm going to assume the MAST is equipped with a flexible polyfiber screen," he said impressing me with his knowledge of top secret technology.

"Do you have one of those," Fox asked.

"Ha," Evan cracked.

"I take that as a no," Fox said glancing at me with a smirk.

"Are you kidding, those things cost more than twenty five thousand dollars," he laughed.

I smiled.

"And that's for a small one, I'm gonna guess the one on the MAST is pretty damn big. Actually I can handle it, only I'll have to set up the Virtual Reality system through the mirror refracted projector and aim it through the bend in my old Hologram Game system."

"And that will work," Fox asked.

"Yeah, in a manner of speaking, only instead of glowing vibrant totally three dimensional living color it'll look more like Princess Leia did when R2D2 projected her for Luke Skywalker," he smiled.

"Help me Obi-Wan Kenobi, you're my only hope," he laughed quietly as he turned back to the computer.


On to Chapter Fifteen

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Memories ... Of A Forgotten Past is Copyright © 2000 by Taylor W. Quest.
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