Retrospect

One

I slipped through my window at around midnight. The rain had begun to pour down so I had to race back and turn in early. Climbing up the new, slippery fire escape was a pain, but I'd choose it over passing by the building's security worker tonight. I didn't want them knowing I had been out. When the news got out about what I'd stolen, I wanted the workers to think I had been asleep the whole time. There had to be no reason for them to suspect I took it. I had found the tracker on the device too before I had gotten home, so I ditched it on a street far away from mine.

The rain continuously pounded on my windows as I headed over to my kitchen, taking a last bite of the apple I had swiped before throwing it down the garbage chute. I clapped twice and a dim light lit up the room. Pulling off my wig and setting it on the counter, I spun around to open my fridge. It buzzed to life then, the little blue light blinking on its screen.

"It's too early for breakfast, wouldn't you agree Cory?" It asked with amusement. I rolled my eyes and stared at the many options of snacks I could choose from. A bunch of junk food occupied more than half of my fridge and soda cans lined the shelves. I picked up a pudding and the fridge spoke. "Approximately 170 calories."

I shrugged and closed the door, opening up the lid immediately. The smell of chocolate wafted out and I sighed with delight. The fridge beeped. "If you like pudding," the fridge said monotonously, "you may also like lettuce."

I laughed, shaking my head as I grabbed a spoon. My fridge had been keeping track of what I ate the whole week, and it had been constantly bugging me about it. I tried to eat the healthy things it suggested, but I couldn't after the first day. Soda, cupcakes, and hot dogs somehow found their way into my fridge despite the meal plan.

Taking a bite of the pudding and reaching down, I pulled off my sneakers. My feet were dirty after my long night outside, so I ate more of the pudding, and pulled off my socks. I tried not to gag as the smell from my feet interrupted the taste of my snack. This was definitely a reminder that I should've taken a shower days ago. But after everything that had been bothering me for so long now, I didn't have time to.

As I took my last few bites of the pudding, my mind drifted off to where it always went whenever I wasn't focused on something. It was dangerous sometimes, so I tried to avoid it as best as I could, but it was inevitable when the secret gnawed at my brain every time I laid down to sleep. The truth about my parents. If they were really dead.

The day it all began, I had received news from the security worker that had worked in my parents' apartment building at the time. All he gave me was a droopy slip of paper that explained "a tragic incident happened" at my parents' work. That was how I knew it was serious news. They hadn't just sent me a message to my phone or told me through a hologram; they delivered a paper letter in person.

My mom and dad had both had jobs at the Hale building, the one where the people wearing the white lab coats worked. Those people in white were known solely as "the workers." A very original name. Mom and Dad would put their uniforms on every morning when I was younger and I remember admiring them: their clothes, their jobs, their bravery to go to a place like that.

A place like that should be burned if what the paper really stated was true. That the "incident" was my mom and dad boiling in the large pools of chemicals they used for their specific line of work. The paper had mentioned that they were able to rescue the bodies but they had been in there too long for them to actually be saved.

The first time I heard this a little less than three months ago, I was moved into a new apartment and forced to grow up. I packed up anything that meant the most to me or my parents and left. Another family had moved into my parents' apartment after I had gone, but they made better use of the space than a lonely, 18-year-old ever would. I locked myself inside my new house (that I could only afford by living off the money my parents had left) for the following two weeks. I had believed everything the paper had said.

I never once questioned, like I did now, if the whole thing was a lie. That building in the center of the city had always been heavily guarded and active but it seemed quieter now, like they were trying too hard to lay low. They said they did good things there and that the workers dedicated everything to their jobs. The workers extracted memories, or that was what my parents said they did. Once someone died, they took the brain and somehow were able to put the memories from that person onto a tiny, metal chip. How they did any of this was beyond me. A tiny chip could contain someone's whole life on it, but they only took the most useful memories, the ones that they said would keep our city alive.

Memories from every kind of person that had died were in that building: the rich, the poor, thieves, doctors. They said memories from all citizens helped them decide what would be best for everyone in the future.

I still couldn't wrap my head around all of this though. I had tried to convince myself that it made sense, that it would make a better city. Yet my thoughts always came back to my parents. There was no way they had died. I knew falling into the gallons and gallons of chemicals was possible, but it hadn't happened in twenty years. My parents were strict about my safety and they were strict with theirs, so they wouldn't be so careless as to even be in the same room as a pool full of dangerous, burning chemicals. My dad didn't even work in the same room as the chemicals.

When I was able to escape my mind, I was still holding my spoon and an empty pudding cup. My hands were shaking slightly and I could feel a small headache coming on. Heaving a big sigh and throwing the pudding cup down the garbage chute, I spun on my heels and headed into my cramped bathroom just around the corner. Clapping on the bathroom light, I stood in front of the mirror, taking in my tired reflection. My white-blonde hair was all over the place and the false brown lenses on my eyes made me unrecognizable, even to myself. I had just noticed I was still wearing them so I leaned forwards in front of the mirror and opened each eye up, popping the lenses out. I threw them away and turned back to face the mirror. Now, two blue eyes stared back at me with exhaustion.

"Cory, you are 45% clean," the shower stated all of a sudden, making me jump. "Would you like a shower?" It beeped and shampoos and conditioners shot out from the wall, almost hitting me square in the face at lightning speed. I looked over the shampoos, spotting a vanilla one, and thought about how nice a shower would be right now. It would definitely ease my mind and it would give me a distraction from my intrusive thoughts. I just wanted peace at least once this month.

"Yes, start the shower," I commanded, unwrapping my jacket that was still tied around my waist from earlier tonight. Thinking about earlier, I put my hand in my pocket and brought out the device I had stolen. Turning it over in my palm, I took note of how it looked just like a pen, so it easily blended in with the workers' uniforms. Nobody would have expected it to be the key to getting into that building, except for me. For months I'd been trying to figure out where the entrance was and how to enter. And now that I knew for sure and finally held my ticket to sneaking in there, I couldn't help feeling a little nervous. If you so much as pressed the button on the device for the incorrect amount of time, it'd alert officers and I'd be arrested on the spot.

My heart was beginning to beat faster the longer I looked at the device. I had to tear my eyes away from it and stuff it in my jacket, waiting impatiently for my shower to start up. I found myself glancing back down at where I put the device and I couldn't help thinking; I would know the truth about my parents. I would know for sure that they were alive. I would figure out why they hadn't come out of that building in five months. I wouldn't have to live every day wondering if I was right all along about them.

My headache grew worse as I shut my eyes. I needed to make sure there weren't any chips with my parents' memories on them. That was the first step in finding them; only the deceased had chips. It was much easier said than done though because in that moment, I realized once the workers figured out I had stolen the device, security would be crazy. And tomorrow was an annual celebration of the city's future accomplishments which meant the workers would be going into that colossal building at midnight. They couldn't miss hearing about themselves at the celebration. This particular celebration could serve as a distraction and the little light of midnight would hide me.

That meant I had to do this as soon as possible. As soon as tomorrow night, no matter how tired or unprepared I was. I had to do it, whether I had the confidence to or not.