Carmen, the fixer-upper

As soon as the semester ended, I could have Carmen to myself for 2 full months, with none the wiser. And after seeing who Leah's friend truly was on the inside, I couldn't help but wonder who she might've been.

If someone had cared for Carmen when she was a child, would she have turned out differently? Would Carmen have turned out more like Hana, independent and driven? Or more like Leah? Optimistic and full of life?

Or would she still grow up to be a tough-as-nails rebel, enduring all challenges and showing no vulnerability except for loyalty to friends?

As I sat back next to Carmen's inert form, pondering the question, I suddenly knew what my next project would be. And this time, it'd be my most ambitious project yet.

I released Carmen none the wiser after our encounter that night, with the memory of a touching heart-to-heart with Leah.

To cover, I copied a similar memory Carmen had of confessing to Leah about her challenges of being an alcoholic, and the self-loathing it brought of having something in common with her father. I then modified the copy so it was Leah talking to Carmen about being addicted to painkillers, instead. I changed a few other details, but the important part was I associated the forged with extremely strong emotions of TRUST and ANTICIPATION.

I also went ahead and skimmed Carmen's memories for all the relevant information I'd need to get ready for semester's end. I kept a copy of her brain afterwards, both as a backup, but also so I could grab anything else I needed if I'd forgotten something.

Afterward, Carmen left our apartment hopeful, if slightly disoriented. It wasn't a perfect cover but it'd hold for now.

I spent the last weeks of the semester preparing for Carmen's rehabilitation.

Leah's friend was dealt a terrible hand. She'd suffered ****, a lack of parental guidance and love, and a social predisposition toward **** **** and addiction. The weakness to addiction might've even had a genetic component. My plan, if you could even call it that, was to try to fix all that. To fix Carmen.

The premise of my plan was simple. Carmen had a terrible childhood, so I'd give her a new one.

Crazy, right? It was a far fetched idea, but the longer I thought about it, the more I caught myself wondering, why won't this work?

For Hana, I'd gone through her memories and recontextualized her internal narrative to fit. For Leah, I was developing all new core memories, which I eventually planned to reintegrate with the rest of her psyche.

For Carmen, I'd mate the two approaches. Making new memories, but in context.

This new plan required commitment. It'd eat more time and effort than either Leah or Hana's tracks. I didn't know if it'd be worth the effort, or even if it'd work at all. However, until I put the method into practice, I couldn't know for sure.

This was exactly the type of challenge I'd been looking for since I discovered what my AI powered memory-image device was capable of. So, while everyone else studied for finals, I prepared the experiment.

With Carmen's memories on my computer, it was trivial to call and cancel her and Leah's plane tickets and reservations. Looking further, I discovered that unlike me and Leah, Carmen was a local. This was perfect. Her mother Charlotte owned a modest home in the suburbs just outside of town. So, I paid her a visit with the helmet.

Ideally I'd get Carmen's mother's help with my plan, but unfortunately, decades of smoking and **** **** had done a number on the woman. I had no interest in working with Charlotte any more than necessary - especially not after seeing the memories of how she'd treated her daughter. As far as I was concerned, Charlotte had forfeited her right to be a mother at all.

After copying her memories to my drives, I erased Carmen from her mother's mind and sent Charlotte back to reconnect with her estranged family on the other side of the country. Being generous, I even programmed the woman with a conviction to enter rehab and get herself cleaned up.

It was more than she deserved.

Charlotte's absence added a new wrinkle to my plan, but it was nothing I couldn't handle.

With the house emptied, me, Leah, and Hana spent the last weekend getting the place deep-cleaned and cleared out. All that was worth keeping was packed in boxes in the garage. I wasn't sure what was going to go back into the house just yet, but I knew if my plan was going to work, I needed total control over every piece of furniture, knick-knack, and decoration in the place.

Before we knew it, the date of Carmen's Europe trip was upon us. She and a friend were preparing to leave at an ungodly morning hour to catch their flight. Naturally there was no way for Carmen to know it'd all been cancelled, but that didn't matter. Tomorrow, she wouldn't get so far as the freeway.

Only one more thing needed to be prepared for tomorrow. It was time to collect Carmen's new mom.