He stood then, peeking into the next room where Camille could be heard rinsing dishes and asking whether we’d like coffee. Satisfied that his wife was otherwise engaged, he took the seat on the other side of me and laid his hand over mine.

“I’ve given it a lot of thought, ma petite, so you must trust me.”

“I always have before, but you’re making me nervous.”

“I don’t mean to. I just want you to promise me that if ever Dolores should try to take you back, if ever you’re recalled to the Vault, you must elect to have a Mem extracted.”

The air between us was still.

“A Mem of your own.”

“No.”

“At least consider it.”

“My answer would stay the same.”

“Dolores, listen—”

“After everything I’ve seen in your office? You knew I wouldn’t agree to that. How could I?”

I wish I hadn’t spoken so harshly when I could see the faint grief in his eyes. It was distant, dread for a heartache he’d yet to suffer, but it was there.

“I would not ask except in the most extreme circumstance.”

“And even then, I would never do it.”

At the time, recall was the most extreme circumstance I could imagine. I knew nothing of reprinting then, and anyway, the worst scenario a Mem could face was not inside the Vault, but at home, sequestered with the Source and punished for existing. The Professor was not the only one who’d helped a Mem expire, though he might’ve been the only one to do so without violence. Still, I was not the sort of Mem destroyed by a Source. I wasn’t born of a humiliating memory or a trauma personally endured; what was once my family had no reason to harbor disgust or hold my presence against me. It’d been years since they acknowledged my existence at all.

“It wouldn’t be a memory of consequence,” the Professor insisted.

“Which memories aren’t?”

“Not a memory then, ma petite. A moment. Only long enough to demonstrate that you can.”

“But we don’t even know that I can, if I’m allowed.” I tried to stop but couldn’t. I sounded the way Dolores’s mother told her never to be. Contrarian. My memory of that warning had stayed me writing her back once I’d received her letter. Yet there I was, arguing with the Professor because I didn’t know yet what was at stake.

“You can.” His fingers tightened around mine. “I’m sure of it. And as far as allowances, no one needs to know until we’ve done it.”