First Memory

Want to know what is scary, waking up in the middle of Times Square and not knowing who you are. Yes, it sounds a little like Blindspot, where do you think they got the idea for the show from? Some key differences were that I wasn't naked and I didn't crawl out of a duffle bag. I just had no idea who I was or where I came from.

My idea said that my name was Erica and that I was from Philadelphia. My thought was that I should start there, and figure things out. Like what the heck happened to me, why didn't I know my own name? There was only one way that I was going to get these answers, and that was to go to my home.

After a three-hour bus ride, I hailed a taxi and had them take me to the address on my license. There was a car in the driveway when I got there, for a moment I wondered if it was mine. I sucked in a deep breath and reached for the door, and noticed someone moving in the window. It figures I would have amnesia and get robbed on the same day.

I jumped out of the taxi and ran to the front door. The wood door opened at the same time as the screen door. The handsome man looking back at me, blanched. "Veronica? No, it can't be. Veronica?"

"Is that some sort of weird pet name that you have for me?"

"Umm, it's your real name. But you're dead. Or you're supposed to be dead."

"What? I mean clearly I'm alive."

"I can see that but I buried you."

"Well, there's something else," I pulled out the license and handed it over to him. "This says my name is Erica Tanner."

"I don't know who that is but your name is Veronica Baxter. We were married and then you were taken away from me a few months later."

"Who am I? and why were my memories taken away from me?" Just as I asked that question, the car in the driveway exploded. The sound and the heat from the fireball sent me and the man to the ground. "Also, who are you?"

"I'm Matt Baxter. Your husband."

A second grenade landed on the porch. Matt pulled me into the house, just as it blew up. "Who wants to kill me?"

"Someone with a good underhand, and that's close enough to see who you are."

We made our way to the side door and ran to the street. Whoever was trying to blow me up had disappeared. "Matt, why would someone want to kill me?"
"It's because you were, are a reporter. The last story you worked on--" He didn't finish because a bullet entered his forehead. The blood ran down his face. He fell to the ground.

Fight or flight? If I ran, the mystery of who I am would have remained unsolved. If I fought death was almost certain and the mystery would remain unsolved.

The needle entered my neck, and I felt the liquid rush into my body. My eyes were heavy and my brain was slowing down. As the blackness surrounded me, there was one thought I had: Everything came down to a man in the suit.

Normally when people awaken, there is light streaming in from the windows or a sexy lover next to them. When I woke up for the second time in less than five hours, I estimated, there was still blackness. As discreetly as I could, I wiggled my toes and fingers. They had me tied up but hadn't killed me.

"How long do we have to keep her?" A voice asked.

"Until the Boss says we can let her go." Another answered.

"I didn't sign up to be a CIA to watch some stupid reporter. And not even an A-list one at that, some two-bit who wanted street cred."

"Well we cleared her memory, so she'll never know that." The second voice was starting to become irritated.

And we should have asked her where she stashed the evidence before we wiped her memory. What if her memory comes back to her or she left herself some sort of clue."

"That's for the higher ups to worry about, not us. We keep her alive and drop her off wherever they tell us to."

So, I had been a reporter who had uncovered some story that the Federal Government had done something bad. Well that told me nothing about my identity, I was a reporter but not a very famous one. But I was on the radar of powerful enemies. The man in the suit must have been with the CIA.

"Do you actually trust them to take care of her? If they were so good at keeping secrets, how did she find out about Carmichael having his opponent killed and covered up by the FBI?" The first voice sounded very concerned.

Like the waterfalls of Niagara Falls, my memories came rushing back to me. Nancy Allen was the most powerful woman in the world, on her way to being President and beating the incumbent Carmichael. She suddenly died and the press went wild with speculations about her health. I, Veronica Baxter, had pieced together the vast conspiracy that resulted from a hit job that had been almost too perfect.
We came to a stop and the back of the van opened. I was pulled out and laid on a bench. After I heard them pull away, I sat up and noted that once again they put me in a New York tourist destination. This time it was Central Park.

I pulled out my wallet and was stunned to see a new ID and a sticky note on it. It read: "Grand Central Station, locker 49."

After an adventure on the subway, I got to my destination and opened the locker to find all of my evidence.

That was my first memory.