April Topic: Help
*locked*
Someone must have helped me.
Which is more disquieting than it is reassuring, considering the results. I cannot remember most of the last one and a half years; the precise flow of my memories ends in Russia, after I shot my daughter Nadia. There are only fragments after this; fragments, and a letter. In my own writing, and using the Rambaldi codes only a very few save myself have been able to decypher.
Remember Julia. Do not look.
A few years ago, a great many people, including myself, were under the impression Sydney Bristow had died. As it turned out, she did not; after her resurrection, as it were, she had a gap of two years in her memories, and tried to find out what had happened in this time. In the end, as I recall, she discovered she had erased her own memories. The name she had chosen during the time she wished to forget had been Julia. This makes me inclined to believe that either I did write this letter to myself, or Irina must have done. No one else would have the necessary knowledge, not of Rambaldi, and not of me.
But if I did this, I cannot have done so on my own. There are several techniques I can think of to achieve this kind of selective amnesia, and all of them carry the risk of reducing the subject to a gibbering wreck. I have seen a man in this condition, a man who was something of a mirror to myself, and it defies belief to imagine I would trust anyone to do this to me. It also is hard to comprehend what could make me wish to forget so much that I would risk this.
After all, I remember Nadia.
I remember her eyes, dull with the red poison infecting her, I remember her struggle with Sydney, something Nadia in her right mind would have abhorred, I remember realizing she would not be in this condition if not for the search that I started. I remember realizing I had to kill her. My daughter. My Nadia. What memory could possibly be worse than this?
You achieved the Horizon.
Still my own handwriting, and yet I would suspect Irina of forging it for the above named reasons, perhaps as part of a game to both avenge the daughter we knew for all too little a time and, always an aim of Irina's, to win... except for something rather obvious. There is a way to test that claim, and I did.
It is not every day a man discovers he is immortal.
Immortality, you understand, is not Rambaldi's final promise, though that is what the dilettantes believe. It is, however, a crucial step. And yet in the memories I still possess, those predating what happened in Russia, I distinctly recall abandoning my quest. It was not easy, and it was, in a way, a betrayal of faith, but it was Nadia's condition for returning and....
I must have taken up the quest again after Nadia died, obviously. And yet. And yet. To obtain the Horizon, you have to die. Not by your own hand, and not naturally; by violent means. It is the ultimate test of belief, of couse, but it, too, is an indication that I must have had help. Now I have always been rather particular about my demise. I always thought that either Jack or Sydney would kill me; anything else would be a rude usurpation by someone not even remotely qualified. I was sure they would see it the same way; I still am.
This would indicate they believe I am dead, of course. And yet I did not find myself buried. One of the fragments of the past after shooting Nadia is does contain the sense of being underground, true, but not in a grave. I remember breathing considerable amounts of air, though I could not move my legs for some reason. I also remember talking to someone, but not to whom. Nothing before or after; just darkness, and talking to someone who was there with me.
Then Paris - why Paris? I like the city, but it was never one of mine in the way Florence was, or Zurich -; a rather mediocre hotelroom in Paris, and the letter. I must have gotten there after whatever procedure was undertaken to remove my memories; must have written the letter before that; someone must have left me behind. Together with a better than avarage letter opener, definitely sharp enough to investigate the Horizon claim, as that someone must have known I would.
I asked the concierge; he remembers me arriving alone, though he says I had a visitor. He can't recall anything about this person, not even whether it was a man or a woman. The night watchman who was on service when the visitor arrived has disappeared. Either I was very thorough in advance, or someone else was.
Never go back.
Back to where? Los Angeles? Russia? That place under ground, wherever it was? Go back to Rambaldi or go back to - but then, if there were Jack or Sydney to go back to, I would not have achieved the Horizon. I cannot believe I would have triggered the necessary circumstances leading to either of them killing me unless something had happened to separate me from them for good.
Well. I have all the time of the world now, it seems; and in the beginning at least, it might be useful to play along. With myself, and whoever else put me on this new path. Aquiescence can be as good a method to unsettle your opponent as any.
I should know. I had help.
Someone must have helped me.
Which is more disquieting than it is reassuring, considering the results. I cannot remember most of the last one and a half years; the precise flow of my memories ends in Russia, after I shot my daughter Nadia. There are only fragments after this; fragments, and a letter. In my own writing, and using the Rambaldi codes only a very few save myself have been able to decypher.
Remember Julia. Do not look.
A few years ago, a great many people, including myself, were under the impression Sydney Bristow had died. As it turned out, she did not; after her resurrection, as it were, she had a gap of two years in her memories, and tried to find out what had happened in this time. In the end, as I recall, she discovered she had erased her own memories. The name she had chosen during the time she wished to forget had been Julia. This makes me inclined to believe that either I did write this letter to myself, or Irina must have done. No one else would have the necessary knowledge, not of Rambaldi, and not of me.
But if I did this, I cannot have done so on my own. There are several techniques I can think of to achieve this kind of selective amnesia, and all of them carry the risk of reducing the subject to a gibbering wreck. I have seen a man in this condition, a man who was something of a mirror to myself, and it defies belief to imagine I would trust anyone to do this to me. It also is hard to comprehend what could make me wish to forget so much that I would risk this.
After all, I remember Nadia.
I remember her eyes, dull with the red poison infecting her, I remember her struggle with Sydney, something Nadia in her right mind would have abhorred, I remember realizing she would not be in this condition if not for the search that I started. I remember realizing I had to kill her. My daughter. My Nadia. What memory could possibly be worse than this?
You achieved the Horizon.
Still my own handwriting, and yet I would suspect Irina of forging it for the above named reasons, perhaps as part of a game to both avenge the daughter we knew for all too little a time and, always an aim of Irina's, to win... except for something rather obvious. There is a way to test that claim, and I did.
It is not every day a man discovers he is immortal.
Immortality, you understand, is not Rambaldi's final promise, though that is what the dilettantes believe. It is, however, a crucial step. And yet in the memories I still possess, those predating what happened in Russia, I distinctly recall abandoning my quest. It was not easy, and it was, in a way, a betrayal of faith, but it was Nadia's condition for returning and....
I must have taken up the quest again after Nadia died, obviously. And yet. And yet. To obtain the Horizon, you have to die. Not by your own hand, and not naturally; by violent means. It is the ultimate test of belief, of couse, but it, too, is an indication that I must have had help. Now I have always been rather particular about my demise. I always thought that either Jack or Sydney would kill me; anything else would be a rude usurpation by someone not even remotely qualified. I was sure they would see it the same way; I still am.
This would indicate they believe I am dead, of course. And yet I did not find myself buried. One of the fragments of the past after shooting Nadia is does contain the sense of being underground, true, but not in a grave. I remember breathing considerable amounts of air, though I could not move my legs for some reason. I also remember talking to someone, but not to whom. Nothing before or after; just darkness, and talking to someone who was there with me.
Then Paris - why Paris? I like the city, but it was never one of mine in the way Florence was, or Zurich -; a rather mediocre hotelroom in Paris, and the letter. I must have gotten there after whatever procedure was undertaken to remove my memories; must have written the letter before that; someone must have left me behind. Together with a better than avarage letter opener, definitely sharp enough to investigate the Horizon claim, as that someone must have known I would.
I asked the concierge; he remembers me arriving alone, though he says I had a visitor. He can't recall anything about this person, not even whether it was a man or a woman. The night watchman who was on service when the visitor arrived has disappeared. Either I was very thorough in advance, or someone else was.
Never go back.
Back to where? Los Angeles? Russia? That place under ground, wherever it was? Go back to Rambaldi or go back to - but then, if there were Jack or Sydney to go back to, I would not have achieved the Horizon. I cannot believe I would have triggered the necessary circumstances leading to either of them killing me unless something had happened to separate me from them for good.
Well. I have all the time of the world now, it seems; and in the beginning at least, it might be useful to play along. With myself, and whoever else put me on this new path. Aquiescence can be as good a method to unsettle your opponent as any.
I should know. I had help.