Memory Lane...(Part Seven)

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Alice and Dane stood near the computer screen while Gloria leaned in the door frame listening to their conversation.

"There, that. Is that what I think it is?"

Dane leaned in and looked at the code on the screen. "It's definitely extra isn't it?"

"Yeah. That's a marker right?"

"What does that mean? A marker?" Asked Gloria.

"You know how this works right? The cloning of memory?"

Gloria gave a sort of circular nod, "Pretty much. The brain works on electrical impulses, when you clone a memory you record those impulses and the program converts that to code to store. Then when you have someone who wants to have the Experience it converts the code back to electrical impulses which are close to but not exactly like the original memory. Right?"

Dane nodded, "That's pretty good. This part here," he tapped the computer, "is an extra bit of coding I programmed in to the formula. It's added when you save the files. It's a way of marking it as a cloned memory. It doesn't affect the way the conversion happens, but gives a proprietary marker on these files."

"Okay. So?" Gloria was lost now. Why were they in the lab with a nervous Alice looking at something that was automatically done by their computer systems? "I don't understand what the issue...oh wait." Understanding suddenly came to her, "These are the California files aren't they? They shouldn't have those markers because they weren't our files."

Alice shook her head. "No. I mean, yes, I mean no. The California files all have the marker as well. Just a different one. All of the companies that bought our system have a marker that shows the technology is ours but the company doing the cloning owns the file. Every company that bought the system from Memory Lane got a custom marker included in the algorithm."

"Wouldn't all of that extra code cause trouble eventually?"

"No, not really. It's not actionable code. See here, look," Alice pointed to the string of code on her computer again, "See that symbol? That's the end of the memory. Everything before that would be an experience, everything after it is basically just record keeping. When it's converted from code to an experience the extra part works sort of like transitional time. The experience stops and the Experiencer comes back to their own reality. That's this marker code firing. The brain doesn't process it as memory or anything but time really. It's just there as a buffer."

"Okay, then I'm still not seeing what the issue is. If these files are marked with the California code and we purchased their entire catalog then we just need to add a note somewhere that these markers are now our markers, right?"

Dane nodded, "We're actually deleting the end code and resaving the files with our own codes. That's been part of the sorting process. It has also given us a chance to weed out substandard files. They weren't always the cleanest with their copying. I would have been embarassed to offer some of these files as experiences."

Gloria shrugged, "Okay, but I'm still not understanding the issue here. The file has a marker, it's not our marker but it's not unexpected, you've been cleaning up all of these files anyway and..."

Dane held up his hand, "You're right. The California files having a marker isn't unexpected. This isn't the marker from the California company."

"Oh... crap. You mean they have files they didn't clone themselves? Crap. Crap. Crap. Crap. Now we will have to figure out who owned them and how they came in to our possession and if we even have a legal right to them and if we are liable for..."

Alice was shaking her head, "These aren't from the California files."

"What?"

"Look at the screen again. Not just the code."

Dane peered at the screen closely then took a step back to take in the whole thing. "This is an unsaved file."

"Yep."

Gloria held up a hand, "Hold on, you just told me that the marker is added when you save the file."

Alice nodded.

"So how is that possible?"

"There have been instances where a memory was accidentally deleted..." Dane started.

"Oh yes, of course, and then the donor just gets the memory as an experience without the 'this isn't real' lecture, I knew that."

"Except...that should happen from the raw file. We know if there is a problem before they ever leave the office. They wouldn't get a tagged file, it wouldn't have ever been saved. If there is a problem with donation there can be a problem with the experience so we just give it back, so to speak."

"Okay." Gloria was trying to process everything they had talked about. They were looking at a file that had a tag that had never been saved. It wasn't theirs and it wasn't from the California purchase so..."Where did this come from?"

Alice grimaced, "This is why I think we might have a bigger problem. It came from someone who swears they have never made a donation or even had an experience. This is from Jean."