Jaehyun began his 15th Recall at 4:23 on a Wednesday afternoon. Over 3 years he had performed 14 Recalls. In 11 of those 14, the suspect's face had been identified. 9 of those 11 had led to a conviction. The Recall protocol's rate of admissibility as courtroom evidence: 82 percent. Jaehyun was the man who produced that 82 percent. The lights in the implantation room shifted to blue. Electrodes were fixed to both sides of his head. From the temples to behind the ears. The skin beneath the electrodes itched. Jaehyun didn't scratch. Shift an electrode and the coordinates go off. Off coordinates, and the memory shatters.
Inside the culture dish before him were brain cells. The deceased: Yun Jeong-a, 34, cause of death blunt-force trauma to the head. Estimated time of death between 1 and 3 a.m. on March 8. Temporal-lobe cells viable for implantation within 72 hours of extraction. It was now the 61st hour since extraction. 11 hours left. When the cells die, the memory dies with them.
"Culture medium at 36.4 degrees. Cell survival rate stable."
Technical assistant Han Sora read off the monitor. Sora's voice was flat. It was the 15th Recall. For Sora, and for Jaehyun. Both of them were used to the procedure.
Jaehyun closed his eyes. The implantation began. A microsyringe pierced Jaehyun's scalp, passed through a micro-bore in the skull, and reached the temporal lobe. Yun Jeong-a's brain cells were injected into Jaehyun's brain. 12 microliters. Roughly 40,000 cells. When the 40,000 cells made contact with Jaehyun's neural network, the visual memories stored within them would replay through Jaehyun's visual cortex. What the victim had last seen, Jaehyun would come to see.
Waiting time after injection: 8 minutes. The time for the cells to form synapses. Jaehyun waited with his eyes closed. The air in the implantation room was cold. The air conditioning was set to 19 degrees. The temperature the cells needed to survive. Goosebumps rose on Jaehyun's forearms. Jaehyun gripped the armrest of the chair. The stainless surface was cold. His fingers slid across the metal.
The memory began.
Darkness. Then light. The light of a streetlamp. Orange. Light coming down from above. It was the world seen through Yun Jeong-a's eyes. The field of vision was narrow. It was night. An alley. Jaehyun saw the alley through Yun Jeong-a's sight. There was graffiti on the wall. Blue spray paint. There was a puddle on the ground. It seemed to be after rain. The streetlamp's light was reflecting in the puddle.
Yun Jeong-a was walking. At the lower edge of the field of vision, the hem of Yun Jeong-a's coat was visible. Beige. One button undone. The hem swayed, as if in a gust of wind. Jaehyun was used to the sensation of seeing the world through someone else's eyes. He had done it 14 times. But every time, the first 3 seconds were dizzying. Seeing the world from a vantage point that wasn't his own body. The height of the sight line was different, the habits of focus were different, the speed of turning the head was different. Footsteps. Yun Jeong-a's footsteps. The sound of sneakers on wet asphalt. The bag strap slid off her shoulder. Yun Jeong-a hitched the strap back up. With her right hand. In her left hand was a phone. The screen was lit. The time was visible. 12:47. Within the estimated window of death. Jaehyun checked the time inside the memory. It needed to be recorded. A memory replays only once. Once the cells form synapses and transmit the memory, they perish. Once.
Yun Jeong-a reached the end of the alley. A main road came into view. A crosswalk. The traffic light was red. Yun Jeong-a stopped. She turned her head. She looked left. There was a convenience store. Its lights were on. Someone was standing in front of the convenience store.
Jaehyun's heart quickened. On the chair in the implantation room. Inside the memory it was Yun Jeong-a's heart. Yun Jeong-a looked at that person. The person standing beneath the convenience-store light. Wearing a hood. A black hood. The upper half of the face was concealed. Only the jaw and mouth were visible. Yun Jeong-a's gaze stopped at that person's jaw. 3 seconds. The person raised their head. Beneath the hood, the face was revealed. The streetlamp's light lit the face.
Jaehyun saw that face.
It was his own face.
Jaehyun's eyes. Jaehyun's nose. Jaehyun's mouth. The mole beneath the left eye. The scar above the right ear. The face Jaehyun saw in the mirror every day was looking at Jaehyun from inside Yun Jeong-a's memory. A sound came out of Jaehyun's mouth. A single syllable. Without his meaning to. Sora looked at Jaehyun. Jaehyun couldn't see Sora. Because the memory was still replaying. Jaehyun's hand clenched the armrest. The stainless creaked under his palm. Jaehyun's breathing quickened. The air in the implantation room scraped his throat. Cold, dry air.
The memory went on. After seeing that face, Yun Jeong-a turned away. Her pace quickened. Her sneakers struck the puddle. Water splashed. Yun Jeong-a looked back. That person was following. The person with Jaehyun's face. The distance was closing. 15 meters. 10 meters. Yun Jeong-a began to run. The phone slipped from her left hand. The phone fell to the asphalt. The sound of the screen cracking was inferred from the sight of it. Yun Jeong-a looked back once more. Briefly. 0.5 seconds. In that instant the face was visible again. Jaehyun's face beneath the streetlamp. Closer now. 7 meters. The bag swung. The breathing grew ragged. Yun Jeong-a's breathing. The sound heard inside the memory was inferred hearing, keyed to the sight. Not real sound but sound the brain reconstructed from visual information. But it was vivid enough.
Yun Jeong-a fell. Her knees met the asphalt. Her vision shook. She saw the ground. Wet asphalt. Water lit by the streetlamp. On that water, a face was reflected. Jaehyun's face. Jaehyun's face looking down from above. A hand came down. It was holding something. Too dark to make out the shape. Yun Jeong-a's vision narrowed. Darkness pressed in from the edges. Her vision shook. Impact. The vision was gone.
The memory ended.
Jaehyun opened his eyes. He saw the ceiling of the implant room. Blue light. His body was soaked with sweat. His shirt clung to his back. His heart was beating over 110 times a minute. His hand gripped the armrest, tight. His fingers had gone white.
“Recall complete. Total playback time, 4 minutes 12 seconds. Beginning the record.”
Sora said it. She held her tablet and looked at Jaehyun. Waiting for the record. The procedure of reporting aloud what he had seen. A procedure performed 14 times over 15 Recalls.
Jaehyun opened his mouth. Closed it. His mouth was dry. His tongue stuck to the roof of it.
“Want some water?”
Sora asked. Jaehyun nodded. Sora poured water into a paper cup and handed it over. Jaehyun drank. The cold water went down his throat. He set the cup down. The cup made a sound against the table. A small sound. The implant room was quiet.
“Let’s start the record.”
Sora said again. The tablet’s recording light glowed red.
Jaehyun ordered the memory. The alley. The streetlamp. The convenience store. The hood. The face. His own face. Jaehyun opened his mouth.
“The victim was moving through the alley at approximately 12:47. At the mouth of the alley, in front of the convenience store, she sighted the suspect. The suspect was wearing a black hood and appears to have pursued and assaulted the victim.”
Sora was writing it down.
“Anything notable about the suspect’s appearance?”
Jaehyun was silent for 2 seconds.
“The hood made facial identification difficult. Only part of the jaw was visible. Presumed male.”
Jaehyun lied. For the first time in 3 years. His tongue knew the words leaving his mouth did not match the truth. The tip of it felt cracked, like something gone dry. He had seen the face. His own face. But he did not say it. Because it was being recorded on Sora’s tablet. This recording would become evidence in court. If Jaehyun reported that he had seen his own face, he became the suspect on the spot. For a Recall technician to name himself as the suspect mid-Recall was without precedent in the protocol.
Sora set the tablet down.
“If the face can’t be identified, the next step is a request for a second Recall. Another technician re-implants using the remaining cells.”
Jaehyun’s back went cold. A second Recall. Another technician would see the same memory. Would see Jaehyun’s face. And then it would be out of his control.
“What’s the survival rate on the remaining cells?”
Jaehyun asked. He kept his voice flat.
“Currently 68 percent. A second Recall is possible within 48 hours. After 48 hours the survival rate drops off sharply and memory playback becomes impossible.”
48 hours. Jaehyun looked at the number. 48 hours. Longer than the last stretch Yun Jeong-a had walked before she died. Of Yun Jeong-a’s final 72 hours, all Jaehyun had seen was the last 4 minutes and 12 seconds. The remaining 71 hours, 55 minutes, and 48 seconds would vanish with the cells. He had 48 hours to decide.
Jaehyun left the implant room. The sound of the door closing rang out behind him. The corridor. Fluorescent light. A faint trace of disinfectant mixed into the air. His shadow stretched long across the floor. Jaehyun walked the corridor. He went to the restroom. Closed the door. Looked in the mirror. His own face. The mole below his left eye. The scar above his right ear. The same as the face in Yun Jeong-a’s memory. The same mole. The same scar. Jaehyun gripped the edge of the sink. He looked at his own face in the mirror. Was this the culprit’s face? In 3 years, across the memories of 14 victims, Jaehyun had never once seen his own face. He had only ever seen other people’s faces. Strangers. Culprits. On the 15th, for the first time, he had seen himself. Seeing your own face somewhere other than a mirror was a strange experience. It was different from a photograph. His own face, moving. His own face reflected in another person’s eyes. The porcelain was cold. His fingers clamped down on the edge.
There were two possibilities. One: Jaehyun killed Yun Jeong-a. The early morning of March 8. Jaehyun remembered where he had been that night. At home. Alone. No one could prove it. His phone’s location record that night placed him at home. But he could have left the phone behind and gone out. Two: Recall contamination. During the implant process, Jaehyun’s brain had interfered with the memory. His self-image had been overlaid onto the suspect’s face in the victim’s memory. Recall contamination was theoretically possible. Three cases were reported in the academic literature. All 3 involved emotional entanglement. It occurred when the technician had a personal relationship with the victim.
Jaehyun did not know Yun Jeong-a. He had never once met her. He had seen the case file for the first time today. Yun Jeong-a. Resident of Banpo-dong. Freelance translator. Found in an alley in the early morning of March 8. No witnesses. The surrounding CCTV cameras out of order. Physical evidence insufficient. Recall was the only means of securing evidence. There was no emotional entanglement. The conditions for contamination were not there. In that case, was the face real? Was Jaehyun the real culprit?
Jaehyun couldn't pull his eyes from the mirror. The face in the glass was looking back at him. The same face Yun Jeong-a had seen last.
Jaehyun left the bathroom. He went to the office. He sat at his desk. He turned on the monitor. His fingers stopped above the keyboard. 3 seconds. Jaehyun looked at his fingers. Had these fingers ever struck a person instead of these keys? He opened the case file. Yun Jeong-a's photo hung on the screen. A photo from life. A bob cut. She was smiling. Not an ID photo—it had been cropped from a picture of her with someone else. On her shoulder you could see another person's hand. A hand cut away at the edge. Jaehyun looked at the photo. The last thing this person had seen was Jaehyun's face. Jaehyun turned off the monitor.
He opened the drawer. Inside were the files on his previous Recalls. 14 cases. In 14 Recalls Jaehyun had never once experienced contamination. All 14 times the victim's memory played back clean. No contamination. The odds of contamination suddenly occurring on the 15th were low. Low, but not 0.
Jaehyun leaned back in his chair. He looked at the ceiling. The office's fluorescent light was flickering faintly. 48 hours. Once a second Recall proceeded, another technician would see Jaehyun's face. Jaehyun would become the suspect. A way to stop the second Recall. Destroy the remaining cells. Raise the temperature of the culture dish and the cells die. The memory vanishes. The evidence vanishes.
Jaehyun checked the access log for the transplant room. At night no one was there. The culture dish sat inside the incubator. Raise the incubator from 36 degrees to 42 and the cells would die within 6 hours. His access card would get him into the transplant room. It would leave a record, but he could explain it as going in for an equipment check.
Jaehyun looked at the clock. 6:14 p.m. Sora left work at 7. The night shift changed over at 10. Between 7 and 10 the transplant room stood empty. 3 hours. Raise the incubator's temperature and walk out. Confirm the cells' death in the morning and a second Recall became impossible. The memory would be extinguished for good.
Jaehyun stood up from his seat. He went out into the hall. He stood before the elevator. He rode down to the ground floor. He stepped outside the building. A March wind blew. Cold. Jaehyun put his hands in his pockets. He walked. He circled the building. Once around. Twice around. On the third lap his feet stopped. A guard smoking a cigarette stood at the entrance to the parking lot. The guard looked at Jaehyun. He nodded. Jaehyun nodded back. The guard turned his head away, cigarette still in his mouth. Jaehyun passed by the guard. The smell of cigarette smoke stung his nose. It was the parking lot behind the building. There was a streetlamp. Orange light. A puddle lay on the ground. It had rained yesterday. The lamplight was reflecting in the puddle.
It was the same as Yun Jeong-a's memory. The streetlamp. The puddle. The reflection of orange light. Jaehyun stood before the puddle. His own face was mirrored on the water. A distorted face. A face stained orange by the lamplight. Jaehyun crouched down before the puddle. The lamplight trembled on the water. Yun Jeong-a had walked under this light too. Jaehyun looked at the puddle. Yun Jeong-a had walked stepping through a puddle like this too. Yun Jeong-a had seen Jaehyun's face under a streetlamp like this too.
Jaehyun took his hand out of his pocket. He took out his phone. He woke the screen. The time showed. 7:03 p.m. The time Sora had left work. The time the transplant room would be empty. Jaehyun put the phone back in his pocket. He entered through the rear door of the building. He climbed the stairs. 3rd floor. The floor with the transplant room. No one was in the corridor. Jaehyun tapped his access card. The door opened. He stepped into the transplant room.
The incubator stood against the wall. A green indicator light was on. Temperature reading: 36.4 degrees. The culture dish was inside. Yun Jeong-a's brain cells. Cells that remembered Jaehyun's face. Jaehyun stood before the incubator. The temperature dial was on the left. All he had to do was turn it. From 36 to 42. A thing he could do with a single finger. The simplest motion in this building. Jaehyun looked at his own hand. He couldn't know whether this hand had ever killed a person. He did know this hand was about to kill evidence. In 6 hours the cells die. The memory dies. The evidence dies.
Jaehyun's hand went up onto the dial. His fingers gripped the metal dial. Cold. Jaehyun stayed frozen, gripping the dial. 2 seconds. 5 seconds. 10 seconds. The incubator's motor hummed low. A steady sound. The sound of keeping the cells alive.
If Jaehyun turned the dial, Yun Jeong-a's memory would vanish. The evidence to pin down the real culprit would vanish. If Jaehyun was not the killer, then Jaehyun would be destroying evidence and setting the real killer free. If Jaehyun was the killer, then Jaehyun would be covering up his own crime. Either way, Yun Jeong-a's last memory would vanish forever.
Jaehyun took his hand off the dial.
Jaehyun stood before the incubator and looked at the culture dish. Through the glass he could see the growth medium. Clear liquid. Suspended inside it were Yun Jeong-a's cells. Cells too small to see with the naked eye. What remained of the 40,000. The ones that held the memory of Jaehyun's face. Jaehyun looked at the dish. These cells carried the truth. Whether Jaehyun was the culprit or not. Whether it was contamination or the real thing. The answer was inside these cells. But to confirm that answer, a second Recall would have to be run. These cells would have to go into another technician's brain. If that technician saw Jaehyun's face, Jaehyun's life was over. If they didn't, the contamination would be proven and Jaehyun would be free.
Jaehyun closed the incubator door. It sealed with a small hiss. A faint sound of air. The sound of cells staying alive.
He left the implantation room. The corridor. Fluorescent lights. Jaehyun's shadow stretched long across the floor. He went back to his office. Sat at his desk. Turned on the monitor. Opened the request form for a second Recall. The cursor blinked in the first field of the form. 'Reason for Recall.' Jaehyun rested his hands on the keyboard. He didn't type.
Jaehyun opened the drawer. 14 Recall records. 14 victims. Jaehyun had seen the last memories of 14 people. All 14 times, Jaehyun had reported the truth. Said exactly what he saw. On the 15th, for the first time, he had lied. He had seen the face and said he hadn't. Jaehyun looked at the 14 files. The corners of the paper files were worn soft. The marks of being turned again and again.
Jaehyun closed the file. Closed the drawer. He looked at the monitor. The cursor was blinking. Jaehyun began to type.
'First Recall yielded insufficient identification of the suspect's face. Requesting a second Recall. Reason: during memory playback, the resolution of the visual information was too low to determine identifying features.'
Jaehyun pressed enter. The request was submitted. It couldn't be taken back. The system would automatically assign it to the next available technician. Jaehyun didn't know who would be assigned. It could be someone Jaehyun knew. A colleague who worked in the same building, even. 'Submission complete' appeared on the screen. The second Recall would proceed within 48 hours. Another technician would receive Yun Jeong-a's cells. Would see Yun Jeong-a's last memory. If that technician saw Jaehyun's face, Jaehyun's lie would come out. If they didn't, it would be proven that the first Recall had been contamination.
Jaehyun switched off the monitor. The office went dark. Streetlight came in through the window. Orange. The same color as the streetlight in Yun Jeong-a's memory. Jaehyun sat in his chair and watched that light. In 48 hours the answer would come. He took his hand out of his pocket and set it on the desk. The hand was trembling. Faintly. Jaehyun watched the trembling hand. Whether this hand had ever struck Yun Jeong-a or not, even Jaehyun himself could not know. The streetlight lit the hand on the desk. The veins on its back looked blue under the light. Jaehyun turned it over. Looked at the palm. In the very center of the palm was a small callus. It had come from gripping a pen for a long time. Formed while writing Recall records. A mark left from recording the memories of 14 people. Jaehyun pressed the callus with his thumb. It was hard. The lines of his palm were stained orange by the light. What this hand had done, he would know in 48 hours.
