The Memory Snatcher

WARNING. MAJOR CHARACTER SPOILERS BELOW.

CASE TMS02-RS01 Edit: Well I finally got my answer to the above question, however it left a lot more questions than answered... Turns out "John Doe" was a pretty accurate name for him, as he is quite literally Corporal Jonathan Dough from the Inspector Query comics. Somehow, like Inspector Query and like Mimi and Meme, he too was able to leave his comic book world behind and manifest into this one. Unfortunately when he did, the first person he met was Felix, who promptly decided to try and possess the Corporal's cybernetic body. The two clashed, with Jonathan's system rejecting and even kicking out Felix's virus code, but in the process Felix inadvertently wiped Jonathan's memory drives, essentially resetting him to a blank slate.

Which is why he started "stealing" memories - he knew something was missing from his memory drive, so he assumed he simply needed to replace it, but couldn't quite figure out how. I'm not really sure how Query learned of his existence, but shortly after I found his horde of stolen memories, Renee Sage showed up at my door one night wanting to talk about her old partner in the Inspector Query comics. To this day she still has no idea what brought any of them into our world from their comic stories, but she remembers what it was like first appearing here: confusing, bright, loud, almost alien in ways. She felt isolated and lost for the longest time until she was able to get things under control and created the persona of "Renee Sage" to live as. Corporal Dough so far hadn't had any of that, and she was worried something that happened to him, given that she too had run into the Memory Snatcher, and he gave her the same eerie silent treatment he had given me. She wasn't even sure it was him until a nearby lamppost lit up for the night, revealing his face under all the darkness he hid it in for a brief second.

Together, Renee and I managed to track him down and even were able to convince him that we weren't enemies, but friends. He recognized Renee's voice, or at least it appeared that way, and seemed to really respond to her. Since then, I've not seen either of them much as she insisted that he lives with her, but I have been able to track down where his memories might have gone - or more importantly, who may have been the one to mess with them.

I believed that Felix may have taken them, and sure enough, I was right. It wasn't difficult to track the little virus monster down - he's been trapped inside a glass jar for months now with no access to any technology. He recalled meeting a cyborg with the "perfect body" but couldn’t get past the fire wall system. The little pest didn't even realize he took the poor guy's memories and isn't keen on giving them up. As far as Felix see's this, holding onto those memories is his own card for possibly getting out of his glass prison. Tough luck on that one. We did manage to eventually get them back however.

Unfortunately, even with the added memories, "Jon" never quite returned. According to Dr. Tulip, who has been helping try and rebuild and restore John, the alien virus's malware really did a number on the memory pathways for John. She believes he'll be able to maintain new memories, but it may not be possible for his old ones to ever be restored. They attempted one restoration that sent him into a rather scary reboot, in which we weren't sure he'd ever wake up again, but he did and I don't think there was any noticable change in him.

Renee was optimistic that he could bounce back however... but before they could even try again, he vanished. Whether the first attempt worked or not, I don't know, as occasionally I will get new clients claiming a strange man stole their personal items again, but Renee believes that, in time, Corporal Dough may return. I'm not quite sure myself, but this is all new territory for me.

-Flint