The Shell of Casper

- 12 - Juvenescence & Blood

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Rosie shuffled into her bedroom upstairs, keeping the back of her hand against her split cheek that she had hastily swabbed clean with a fistful of leftover napkins in her dash. A childlike part of her imagined the headset clamping down on her fingers like opened jaws awaiting a mind to pick clean. Revolting, she tossed it onto her bed and sat on her desk chair. She blinked, looking at the awful device.

An abducted person had been wearing this. Cracked the locked band it off with whatever they could grab blindly. Rosie couldn't even imagine how they got past the gated security system. It was possible that like herself, the memory technology had faltered on another. They knew everything. This escapee could be her key to getting the ARC In A Blink program shut down. They knew what it was like inside. Rosie was only a bystander. She had to find them.

A knock rattled her door. Rosie tossed the corner of her sheet to cover the smooth, dangerous, foreign headset.

"Rose?" Her father, Gabriel Lowery poked his head through her door left ajar. "Back from work so soon?"

Rosie nodded, tight-lipped. She loved him with all her heart, but he always tended to come in when she was... well, hiding something.

"I've finished my service hours," Rosie gave him an unconvincing smile. "I've been dismissed."

"That's great, Rosie!" Her father shuffled over to sit on her bed.

"No," Her hands shot out, out of reflex. "... Huck is asleep under there."

Gabriel gave her a sideways glance, angling his head. "So that was a different scowling, orange cat I let out of the back door a minute ago?"

Rosie didn't know how many times that stupid beast would screw her over. Before she could explain, her dad strode over and flipped over her scattered sheet. He paused to stare at the headset. "What is that?"

"It's Casper's." Rosie stumbled, folding her hands in her lap. "From his gaming system." Gabriel raised a brow and jabbed the broken lock on the back. She prayed he wouldn't ask about it.

"Why?" Her dad's eye gleamed in her room. It was only lunch, so the dim light made his brown eyes glint. He grinned slightly.

"I miss him, okay?" Rosie rolled her eyes and fiddled with a pencil on her desk. The last time she had used it for actual homework was years ago. It seemed that university would never come. She didn't even know how she felt about it at this point. It'd be more satisfying to thrust her scholarship-contract into her fireplace and watch it crumble to charred dust.

"I know, Rose." He leaned forward, putting a supportive hand on her shoulder. "I always knew the day would come that you and Casper would have to separate. It's hard after high school, everyone you grow up with spreads out far and wide to go to post secondaries. But he is doing what he loves, and that's what matters."

"Yeah," Rosie looked at the floor, at her white and pink socks. She remembered after her first few days when the counterfeit Reapers had been revealed to her at ARC when she reported it to the police. They had brushed her aside, saying that the new building was set up for the production of select car parts. Her father hadn't even believed her. Casper's mother and father hadn't believed her. All they said was that Casper had sent them a call to tell them that he had gotten an apartment out of state at his new school. No one else from ARC had been able to back her up due to the goddamned headset memory alterations. She needed to find the runaway Reaper.

"I think I'd like to have dinner with Markus and Stefanie." Rosie murmured, looking up at him. "If they'll have me." Markus and Stefanie June, Casper's parents.