can't forget

had the feeling the rest of this conversation was not going to be something I wanted to create a written record of. "So what is the Word of Kemmler, Bob?"
"Not a clue," Bob said.
I glowered. "What do you mean, not a clue? I thought you were his skull Friday."
"Well, yeah," Bob said. His eyelights nickered suddenly, a nervous little dance. "I don't remember very much of it."
I snorted out a laugh. "Bob. You never forget anything."
"No," Bob said. His voice shrank into something very small. "Unless I want to, Harry."
I frowned and took a deep breath. "You're saying that you chose to forget things about Kemmler."
"Or was compelled to," Bob said. "Um. Harry, can I come out? Just inside the lab? You know, while we talk."
I blinked a couple of times. Bob was full of mischief on the best of days. I didn't let him out except on specific intelligence-gathering missions anymore. And while he often pestered me to let him out on one of his perverted minirampages, he had never asked permission to leave his skull for the duration of a chat. "Sure," I told him. "Stay inside the lab and be back in the skull at the end of this conversation."
"Right," Bob said. A small cloud of glowing motes of light the size of campfire sparks came sailing out of the skull's eyes and darted to the far corner of the lab. "So anyway, when are we going to work on the new blasting rod?"
"Bob," I said. "We're talking about The Word of Kemmler."
The lights shot restlessly over to the other side of the lab, swirling through the steps on my stair ladder in a glowing helix. "You're talking about The Word of Kemmler," Bob said. The glowing cloud stretched, motes now spiraling up and down the stairs simultaneously. "I'm working on my Vegas act. Lookit, I'm DNA."
"Would you stop goofing around? Can you remember anything at all about Kemmler?"
Bob's voice quavered, the motes becoming a vague cloud again. "I can."
"Then tell me what you know."
"Is that a command?"
I blinked. "Do I have to make it one?"
"You don't want to command me to remember, Harry."
"Why not?" I demanded.
The cloud of lights drifted in vague loops around the lab. "Because knowledge is what I am. Losing my knowledge of what I knew of Kemmler took away a... a big piece of my existence. Like if someone had cut off your arm. What's left of what I know of Kemmler is close to the missing pieces."
I thought I started to understand him. "It hurts."
The lights swirled uncertainly. "It also hurts. It's more than that."


Dead Beat Chapter 3, Page 26-27