The Memory Keepers Read Free

and international relations were at their most tenuous. And of course, the EU’s dissolution and the subsequent riots and mini-wars. And of course, the Warming had taken full effect on the world, with the British Isles’ climate mutating and the instability of the seasons. Temperatures were rising by an average of three degrees each decade. And of course  … ’
    Alba propped her head in her hands as though listening intently, her face dutifully cast towards the front of the classroom even though her eyes (not to mention her brain) were half-closed.
    Professor Nightingale was really not helping the situation, she thought. Practically everything about him was designed to make staying awake in his lessons even harder. His flat, droning voice and the way his face was shrivelled with wrinkles, as deep as the creases in his plaid suit. What was left of his hair clung to the top of his head in a wispy cloud.
    Alba’s eyes fluttered shut. Professor Nightingale was going on about something boring – no change there – and she felt herself drifting off on the current of his voice, a soft wave pulling her towards sleep. She sunk lower into her chair. The silk of her school-dress clung tightly to her skin, feeling as warm and cosy as her duvet back home, and she was just slipping away into dreams, when –
    ‘Mistress White? Could you tell us the exact date of the Independence Governance Treaty signed by all eight of the proposed city-states here in the British Isles?’
    Alba jerked awake. Professor Nightingale was staring right at her from the front of the classroom. His bug-like eyes wobbled behind round-framed spectacles. The room was silent, every student holding their breath (the mere mention of Alba’s family name was enough to do that to a class).
    Hurriedly, Alba straightened. ‘The sixteenth of January, 2101, Professor,’ she answered promptly.
    That was an easy one. The date was a Bank Holiday for Londoners, set to commemorate the event. All North children were taught how the British Isles had dissolved into eight city-states at the start of the twenty-second century to be ruled independently by separate Lord Ministers. It was the result of decades of conflict, competition for overseas business, and social tensions, which had grown too much for the national government. The cities were still bound to national laws observed by a representative board of delegates from each city, but for the most part they functioned individually. London’s current Lord Minister was a French-born man named Christian Burton-Lyon, elected mainly because of his connections with European traders.
    Professor Nightingale nodded. ‘Correct, Mistress White. Five-thirty p.m. to be exact. And could you also tell us the date of the subsequent Memory-Surfing and Trading Practices Summit, where the International Memory Laws were created?’
    This was a tougher one. Alba glanced down at her schoolbook; its pages were empty.
    ‘Oh, er  … ’ she murmured, trying to look busy by fussing with her notebook, her mind scrambling for the answer.
    They had not yet learnt the detailed history of memory-surfing. Alba knew roughly what had happened from Net programmes and articles, and brief overviews in their school textbooks. After neuroscientific breakthroughs in the late twenty-first century, the first memory-machines were created, right here in London. Though they had initially been used for medical research – diseases such as Alzheimer’s and dementia were on the rise – after the collapse of the national government the reduction in state funding meant the research companies turned to private investors. New consumer uses for memory-machines were developed, and with growing numbers of investors from overseas becoming involved, the technology was soon taken up by a number of other countries.
    The concept of memory-surfing and trading was understandably popular. At the time, oil reserves were almost depleted, international relations had been