Aw, damn. That really complicated things. What the hell was he supposed to do with this information?
Io's voice approached from afar, growing louder as steps quickened towards them.
"We don't have time," Uari warned urgently. "You and I need to talk more. Leave with me."
"I—I can't do that," her stammer was uncertain, doubtful. Neither of them had any time to process things. "Fuck, I'm confused!"
"Fine, then just pretend like I'm taking you hostage, damn!" He cut through the restraint on his left hand, then pulled off his right boot as quickly as he could. As the door opened, he grabbed Wizah and turned the band on his toe ring three times.
His long-distance backtracking ring was really getting some use. He barely caught sight of Io's alarmed face before he and Wizah landed squarely on their asses in the middle of the boutique he had visited with Iria.
A nonplussed salesperson took one glance, recognised him as the generous client from several days ago, and immediately called for the boutique owner. Wizah raised an eyebrow at the deferential treatment but kept her mouth glued firmly shut.
Uari staggered his way into standing against the glass walls of the boutique, stretching the cramped muscles as the snooty little woman limped out of her office. She took one look at the woman sitting demurely on the ground of her boutique, and then at Uari leaving handprints on the glass walls of her precious store, and turned back instantly to return to her office.
She did not emerge again. Uari took it as a sign to return only when he had Iria with him.
They left the store and made their way back to Wizah's slovenly quarters in the ghetto, where Wizah made him replenish all the food he had taken from her fridge before.
They sat down in her consultation room—him in the same seat he had been tied to last time, and her in the seat of her Interface. "Talk," she ordered, without any reservations.
"Hey, I'm the one without my memories!" He protested. "What's going on with you?"
An 'ugh' left her as she dragged a hand over her face, unwilling to engage in his deflective nonsense. "You thought I might have been memory-wiped."
"I'm almost certain, yes."
"Why would they—you know what, never mind. Just tell me everything that happened from the moment you said we met. But."
She plucked a dusty medical tray from her Interface, wiped it clean on her pants, and sank her teeth into it without hesitation. "If I find out you're lying to me, I'll eat you. Got it?"
Uari did not want to find out if her threat was literal or metaphorical, so he nodded, and began to relate the information he had. Starting with Gaunt Man, he recounted every aspect of their time together on their original journey towards Gejuth.
"You can ask the Gaunt Man when he was last here. Then you'll know I'm telling you the truth."
She popped the last of the tray in her mouth and chewed it thoughtfully. Uari ignored her half-hearted mumble of 'his name isn't Gaunt Man, what the fuck' and awaited her to contribute to their conversation.
"You said Temmy is in on it."
"Who?"
"The person with the really big muscles? They were wearing earmuffs when I last saw them on the ground in your cell."
Oh, Glasses! "Their name is Temmy??"
"I'm not here," she leaned over to pinch Uari's arm as he yelped in pain, "to debate why someone would name their kid Temmy. Just answer the question."
"Jeez," Uari rubbed the affected area with as much dignity as he could muster. "Yea, the buff nerd knocked you out as soon as you brought me to base and mentioned that they would probably do a memory wipe on you."
Wizah mouthed 'buff nerd' in incredulity before shaking her head, probably to clear her mind. "Why would they want to wipe me? I brought you to base. If they knew to expect us then I probably warned them about it somehow."
"I'm not the one with the answers here, sorry."
"What're you playing at, anyway?"
"Trying to convince you to join me in the fight against non-consensual memory-wipes."
She snorted.
"I'm only half-joking," Uari noted, now truly serious. "Maybe for you they only wiped a portion of your memory, but it's different for me. You know that."
There were undying debates about what it meant to be alive, or what it meant to 'be someone'. There was never a clear answer to these debates, with academics constantly arguing about the semantics of what made up a 'self' and what constituted a life.
Uari had mulled it over with the limited education he had and summed it up neatly for his situation: if his current set of memories—the blend between those of the unknown Searcher's and his muscle memory as Old Uari—disappeared, the concept of who he 'was' would also disappear.
A different clone would be placed in the same apartment with only the Searcher's memories, and when the trigger was hit after the mission was completed, Old Uari would return.
It was simple. He considered his current self 'alive,' albeit as a different 'self' inhabiting the current body. He was unwilling to let that go and be wiped, even if he wanted answers.
Wizah eyed him as he explained his reasoning, and to his surprise, gave in with a sharp sigh: "I get it."
"Do you, really?"
"It's a common argument regarding memory wipes, in all honesty. You can see discourse on it online if you want."
"Mm."
She tilted her head back and leaned against the tall chair of her Interface setup. "Legally, all memory wipes need to be consented to, except in the case of minors where their guardians will assent to the wipes instead." Wizah mindlessly popped a tweezer between her teeth. "In a lot of cases, there are arguments about whether it's ethical to give children memory wipes. Some say certain circumstances are so traumatic that guardians should take the responsibility of wiping them to ensure they don't suffer the aftereffects. Others say that it takes away from the child's experiences and sense of self."
"There isn't a right answer."
"Correct. All of the memory wipes I've done on patients have been consented to. I may be a quack," she sniffed haughtily, "but I still follow the agreed-upon rules and ethics of my chosen profession closely."
"On the other hand, it does seem that there's at least one other person who doesn't seem to share that compunction."