Sunlight streamed steadily into the workroom from tall arching windows, refracting through fine, pearlescent dust, suspended and swirling with a magnetic field confined to a chrome funerary urn.
Deji's hands were sheathed in cool haptic gloves that shimmered with a low blue light, moving through the air with surgical precision, coaxing the particulate into a coherent, swirling pattern, a vortex of what once was a person.
An engram.
This was the foundation of her work, and the central dogma on which Paleopsychiatry functioned. Originally conceived as a specialist in the psychiatric conditions and mindsets of ancient peoples, the discovery and innovation of the Somatic Engram Theory had since changed this irrevocably.
Her field, was built on the simple, but terrifyingly complex premise – that consciousness left a physical scar, a psychic residue imprinted upon the very cells of the body.
Though early pioneers of SE Theory, had been dismissed as mystics. They argued that memory wasn't just stored in the brain, but in the muscles that remembered a lover's embrace, the nerves that recalled a shard of glass and in the very marrow that had hummed with the unique frequency of life. To resurrect a consciousness was to reassemble this scattered symphony.
Deji's fingers twitched, stitching invisible threads of data and bio-energy into the coalescing cloud. The field hummed, its pitch rising as the form within grew more defined.
The early detractors of the field were long forgotten, their skepticism buried under the sheer utility of the practice.
Why rely on witness testimony when you could question the victim? Why puzzle over a terrorist's motives when you could interrogate his ghost? The science had moved from fringe to foundational, from séance to standard procedure, and Deji Fadare was one of its most skilled practitioners.
A final, subtle gesture. The swirling dust snapped into a stable, humanoid silhouette, faintly glowing, a statue of captured light and memory. The Somatic Engram was complete, a vessel ready for the neural imprint that would give it a voice.
As if on cue, her personal comm, nestled in the crook of her ear, chimed. She tapped the accept button without looking.
"Fadare."
"Doctor," The voice of Detective Aminu was a soft, familiar rasp in her ear. She could almost envision is tall nose and slim northern features of the man himself.
"The Abbasi engram is loaded and waiting." He said. "It's been an hour since the meeting was scheduled," Deji's eyes flicked to the chronometer on the wall and winced.
Shit.
"Don't be late for your own interview."
He was right, and she was late, but she tried to play it cool. "On my way, detective. Just finishing up."
Then she terminated the call and bolted from the workroom, reminding herself to prompt the AI to allow important calls next time.
Taking the stairs of her modest Ikeja apartment two at a time. The rich, aromatic scent of fried akara hit her halfway down, a warm, living contrast to the sterile atmosphere she had just left.
"Deji!" her father's voice called on seeing her.
"Good morning, Papa" She quickly greeted.
Papa Fadare stood over the stove, a simple apron over his worn clothes, his movements slow but sure. "Food is almost ready. Why don't you just wait a minute, eh? You work too hard on an empty stomach."
Deji's heart clenched with a familiar blend of love and warmth. She swept into the kitchen, giving him a quick hug and a kiss on his cheek as she yanked open the refrigerator.
"No time, Papa. Big case." She said, grabbing a silver nutrient pack from the chilled shelf, tearing the top with her teeth. The thick, bland gel within was a poor substitute for his cooking.
"Always the big case," Pa sighed, but his eyes were soft. "This city doesn't rest on your shoulders, this girl. Just… just be careful."
She paused at the doorway at his words, the nutrient pack half-finished.
Her gaze swept over him, taking in full sight of him.
From the slight tremor in his hand as he stirred the pot, to the deepened lines of fatigue around his eyes. She said something she wished she had said a long time ago,
"And you too Pa,"
Her voice filled with an inexplicable sadness. "Don't overwork yourself. The doctor said rest."
Papa Fadare smiled, a genuine, warm thing that lit up his face, "And that doctor is you right?" He laughed.
Deji's lips pulled into a tight smile, "It is."
Then she opened a secret compartment in the side wall, inputted the code and flipped a switch. There was the sound of something deactivating, then her father's figure gained a transparency to it, solid light particles bleeding out of him and into void. He stood there as he faded, a big smile still plastered on his face as he waved her off.
"Go, go. Save the world. I will be here when you get back."
"I know, pa." Deji said.
The kitchen items floated themselves into the washer or back in place and the AI started to reset the kitchen as a gloom she hadn't known settled into the space.
Deji's gaze lingered for a moment before she headed out the door.
~