Fixing the mismatch

Joanna kept typing on the device. What the fuck is she typing? you thought. Your head felt strange, like something was pressing on it from all sides. It’s like she’s writing an essay! The pressure grew, and parts of your scalp felt tingly. _What’s_ going on? You didn’t have to wait long to find out.“What’s your name, cutie?” she asked casually, breaking the silence without even looking up from the device. “Lucia Bianca Cortez,” you said without thinking, surprised at the unfamiliar words stumbled off your tongue. Joanna smirked. “I thought you might need a more fitting name. And where were you born, Lucia? “Tijuana.”Tijuana? That wasn’t right, you had been born in—you couldn’t remember. Why couldn’t you remember?

Tijuana was the only place you could think of as your birthplace, but you knew it was wrong. “And finally, Lucia, what’s the derivative of six X squared?” You knew this! You’d aced the Calculus test covering this just last week…but you couldn’t remember. In fact, you no longer knew what a derivative even was, let alone how to solve one. “Derivative? ¿Qué es? No entiendo…” You clutched your aching head as you sat down hard on the edge of the bed.

You could feel all of your knowledge escaping. “Don’t worry, Lucia. Lance isn’t all gone, he’s just…locked away.” Locked away? “Of course, all that brain space keeping the old you safe may have knocked off, ah, just a few IQ points…not too many though. You can still function normally.” What? You looked around, confused. Joanna was getting harder to understand. You understood the basics, but anything overly complex in English was almost impossible to understand. “Qué haces, Mistress? Wha—why arre you doing this?” You rolled your “r”s without thinking.