QK Agent Round: (Ad. SciFi) Memento Mori

Nickname: Memento Mori

Title: MEM

Word Count: 77K

Genre: Adult Science Fiction

Query: 

Sometimes forgetting is a gift, other times you have to pay for it.

In Mori’s world, memories are commodities. Ruled by MEM, a memory alteration company, the occupants of City can buy, sell, and alter their memories, remaking themselves at whim. It’s been twenty years since Mori was kidnapped as a child and drained of his memories. Now he works at MEM, investigating cases of illegal MEMtech use in the hopes of protecting others from the dark side of City’s greatest industry. Instead, he spends the majority of his time placating dissatisfied customers. Just as he loses faith in his ability to do any real good, he’s presented with a file that connects his abduction to a new case. He’s ecstatic; finally, a chance to investigate the past he’s never truly understood.

The case centers on a group of kidnap victims suffering under full memory wipes. When one of the victims commits suicide, an autopsy reveals that the kidnappers have kept one precious prisoner: a newborn baby. What had once been an opportunity for self-discovery turns into a grave responsibility to save the child.

MEM is a soft science fiction complete at 77,000 words. MEM will appeal to those who enjoyed MINORITY REPORT and INCEPTION.

First 250:

I’ve forgotten many things since my childhood both by choice and by chance but there is one memory that I’ll always cling to, one memory I’ll never choose to forget. It must have been like being born when that door opened and my eyes were bombarded with light for the first time I could remember. 

My abduction and the theft of my memories inspired me to become an ethics officer, to investigate the work of illegal techs like the ones who kidnapped me and tore me from my home, my family. I always dreamt that someday I would be on the other side of that door, rescuing victims from the darkness. 

▲

Gilman sweeps his thumb across the comp on my desk, flooding the screen with digital files extracted from the small information chip embedded under his skin. “Played the game and won big time, Mori. Now you’ve gotta take the punishment.”

“Remind me later; I hate games.” Sighing, I reach out my palm and pull the files towards me so I can skim the list of complaints. A yawn stretches my jaw and floods my eyes with moisture, rendering the screen in front of me into a generalized block of luminescence. It’s nine in the evening and all I can think of with any focus is the bed awaiting me at home. My head starts to dip without permission.