My limbs twitch. I pace the floor of the employee lounge on the third floor of Varga Industries, trying to shake it off. Sleek white tables and midcentury modern gray fabric couches make employees feel at home where they feel most comfortable.… in a laboratory. There’s even an eye-wash station in the corner, just in case. My heels click on the white linoleum floor, leaving black scuff marks. I’m supposed to be in Advanced Software Engineering, but I can’t possibly sit still in a classroom right now. Not when every precious moment of my life might be going the way of the digital recycle bin. Not when I have no idea the scope of what I’ve lost.
I glance at the clock and curse under my breath. My brother said he’d be here in two minutes.… twelve minutes ago. I let out an aggravated growl that does nothing to assuage the panic coursing through me. I have to do something. Screw trying to recover the data. I have to preserve what I already know in a way that can’t be deleted.
I frantically grab a pen from my messenger bag and uncap it. I roll up my sleeves, flip my forearm over, and overwrite the ugly, creepy scar with thick black letters.
Someone’s deleting your memories. Suspects: Veronica, Teddy, anyone else you’ve stolen memories from.
One long breath slips from my throat. I turn my arm over and write more evidence.
You’re working on your project with Sebastian.
I change the size of my handwriting to fit more info on the canvas of skin that stretches between my inner elbow and wrist.
Sebastian: good-looking in a geek chic way; speaks every language ever invented, including Klingon (I asked); knows a lot of useless trivia competition fodder; doesn’t remember anything about you, or him.
Memories missing: something involving a test. HiveMind recovery steps: reboot failed, diagnostic indicates 7k+ memories went missing, and var log scan didn’t return any errors.
Today’s events: Simon begging me for Veronica’s memory of her cheating then asking me to delete it. Slipping an SSD drive into an IT monitoring computer. Having a discussion with Sebastian directly after Kimmel’s class in the hallway about how he doesn’t remember our project either. Making plans with Sebastian tonight after dinner. Watching a memory disappear from my account.
I hastily pull down my sleeve to cover the writing and the scar. Relief washes through me at the information stored in a place that can’t possibly be deleted or torn out. Not without going through me.
Leo barges into the room, raking his hand over his shaggy hair. Redness rims his eyes like he hasn’t slept in days. As soon as he makes eye contact, his features crumple and he starts to cry.
He barrels toward me with the speed and heftiness of a linebacker and wraps his arms around me. He buries his head into my shoulder and sniffles. “Thank you,” he tells me. “I needed this.”
“What’s wrong?” My voice comes out high-pitched as the cells in my body vibrate on high alert. My mind can latch onto only one thing that can possibly be wrong. “Are you—are you missing memories?”
He pulls back to study me and wipes a tear from his eyes. “What are you”—his breath hitches—“talking about?” He drops his arms from around me and stumbles back. “Didn’t you call me so you could comfort me?”
Pretty much the opposite, buddy. “I wanted to know what you remember about Dad.” So I can check his version of events and compare it with my own.
Now it’s his turn to look at me confused. I wave him over to the couch. He sways for a moment, unsteady on his feet, but follows.
“Okay, you tell me what’s going on, and I’ll tell you,” I offer. Growing up, I was always the analytical one, following in my dad’s more technical footsteps to whittle something down to data-driven facts, while Leo and my mom were the same way: focused on biology, the emotional reaction, the parts of you that make you you. When something went wrong, I was always the one to assess the situation and make it right again while he sobbed in a pile on the floor. Mom would always take action right away, swooping in to fix them the fastest way while my dad would pause and analyze, trying to find the best solution.
Leo hiccups. “Brandon broke up with me.”
My hand flies to cover my lips, hoping I’m misinterpreting his words. Brandon couldn’t have broken up with him. Those two were like atoms and protons: magnetic. But then my mind flashes to earlier in the IT room, when Leo’s ex-boyfriend sported the same tearstained cheeks and asked me if Leo sent me.
My chest constricts, and I go stiff in a sudden desperation to stay calm. They were my shining ideal model of a couple, flaunting the kind of love I only dreamed to find. They can’t possibly be over for good. My heart aches just thinking about it. No, this must be a temporary glitch in their relationship continuum.
“Why?” The tone of my voice rises in volume and pitch. “Why would he be so stupid?”
Leo shakes his head, dark locks bouncing. “He said our careers were going in two different directions. That I’m on my way up and he’s probably on his way out once HiveMind goes live and a fully blown IT team takes over.” He drags his hands down his face. “I said we can work past that, but he kept saying he doesn’t want to hold me back.”
I reach for my brother and rub his back. Leo sniffles. My free hand balls into a fist at the thought of that jerk Brandon hurting my brother. “He’ll regret it. I know he will. He doesn’t realize what he just threw away.”
A soft shudder moves through him. “I thought you knew. I thought that’s why you called me to meet.”
I swallow hard. I was going to tell him about my missing memories, but I don’t want to alarm him. Not when he’s already so sad. So I come at the question from an indirect angle. “What do you remember about Dad?”
He squints at me, his chest stilling, the sobs subsiding. “What do you mean?”
“Your last memory of him. What is it?” I hold my breath.
“My last memory is at the hospice. He had that yellow blanket pulled way up to his chest.”
“The one Mom knitted for him.” She learned how to do it, just for him, so he would always have a piece of her with him during his final days. She hasn’t knitted anything since.
“His voice was all gravelly. He could barely keep his eyes open for longer than a second. But he looked right at me and told me he wished he wasn’t leaving so soon, because now he’d never get to see the great things I would do.”
I squeeze Leo’s hand.
“You?”
My eyes flutter shut as sluggish relief courses through my veins. “Same.”
He tugs my arm toward him, squinting at the writing peeking out of the bottom of my sleeve. “What’s this about suspects?”
I yank my arm back. “Nothing. Just a thing for one of my classes.”
Leo’s phone alarm buzzes. “Shit. My eukaryotic cultures need to be inoculated. Cellular regeneration doesn’t like to be kept waiting.” He gives me a tight smile. “Thanks for this. I hope whatever I said about Dad helped.”
Leo leaves, but I feel more out of sorts than before we spoke. There’s a thump in my heart, electricity making my knee bounce. The words on my arm aren’t a way to remember, they’re an omen. I might lose more, and next time, I won’t even know what I’ve lost. I have no way to fix HiveMind and no way to stop more memories from disappearing. I have to back up every precious memory I have to an off-line source.
With trembling hands, I grab an external hard drive from the supply closet in the room, lock the door, and then open my laptop. I locate some of my most precious memories, which boast little star icons indicating they’ve been favorited. My heart pounds in my ears as I peruse each and every one. The day Zoey kidnapped me for my birthday. When I won the national hackathon competition in fifth grade. The last day with my dad. And my favorite memory of him. It’s only a small moment, but it made a big impact on me.
My throat feels thick as the realization that I might only be able to choose one crushes me like a two-ton truck weighing down my shoulders. How do I decide what to save?
There’s a gun pressed to my head, pressure mounting, as I slide my finger down the list and choose which memory is the most important. Which is the only one worth saving. It’s the last one that my finger lingers on. The one I can’t live without.
Hot tears press against the backs of my eyelids, and the lump in my throat expands. I have to watch it. Just in case. At least then I’ll retain a fragment of it if the main memory gets deleted, the ghost of a memory, me watching something that will no longer exist.
I close my eyes and let the moment settle over me like a warm blanket.
“The beach?” I ask in the memory as I get out of the car and teeter on the rock-filled parking lot. The last remnants of blue sky cling to existence. A sea-salty scent rides a breeze that tangles my hair. The ocean looms in the distance, wide and foreboding, white foam rising and disappearing.
I just turned nine years old, and I’m struggling to keep pace with my dad as he trudges through the sand. This was one of the very first memories I synced with HiveMind.
In the distance, wooden planks cover the windows of the Old Crab Shack restaurant, which is usually hopping during the summer. A blue tarp surrounds the lifeguard stand like a wrapped present. The sand stretches for miles in each direction without another soul.
“Not a very good scientist, are you, kiddo?” Dad grins at me before spreading out a large quilted blanket. “You’re supposed to analyze the evidence and present a hypothesis.”
I harrumph, placing my hands on my hips. “I did.” I tug at my wool sweater. “This is not beachwear. And dinner at Mama Ferrari’s is nowhere near the beach. Which clearly means this beach excursion is merely a distraction while Mom sets up the surprise party.”
Dad winks at me. “Well, I guess I take back my earlier statement.”
A cold wind rustles my hair and blows sand onto the blanket like a dry tidal wave. I rub my hands along my goose bump–covered arms. “I think what I’ve proven here is that it’s my birthday. And on my birthday, I get what I want.”
Dad lounges on the blanket, stretching out his legs in front of him. “You’re not guilting me into telling you your birthday present, are you?”
I sit up on my knees and look him square in the eye. “I want you to tell me how HiveMind works.” I’ve already been digging around in it and perfecting my coding skills, but I’m ready for the big guns.
He shrugs. “It’s all just ones and zeroes.”
I roll my eyes. “I may be a kid, but I’m not an idiot. Binary,” I say, repeating the mantra he used to tell me every night before I went to bed. A good-night story. “Something made of or based on two things or parts.” I tick off my fingers, one two. “Two formats. Two digits.”
“The universe at harmony,” Dad says, almost absentmindedly, the next line in our nightly script.
“But how does it all work?”
The sunset gives his tan a golden hue. “Everything in the universe is made up of chunks of information—essentially ones and zeroes. This means the human mind is no different from a single atom to time itself to the abstract theory of dreaming. All of it can be broken down to its basics and quantized. And once it’s quantized?” He cups his hand around his ear as if waiting for me to shout the answer, but I sit there, my chest stilled. “It can be harvested by scientists—like me.”
I cough. “And me.”
He nods. “And you. And used in any number of ways. Software, cures for diseases, plastic surgery without ever using a knife.”
“Storing memories.”
He points a finger gun at me as the wind sneaks puffs of air under his button-down and causes it to balloon in places. “Exactly.”
“Show me.” I lean closer, my voice insistent. The heavy sun dips, leaving an orange ribbon in its wake.
He shakes his head. “Arden, you’re way too young. You—”
“I can help you. I want to work on it. Mom lets Leo help her out in the bio lab sometimes.” I throw the last part at him in a petty way, but it’s a bold move. A checkmate.
Dad studies me, his pupils swimming back and forth. And then he abruptly stands up. He shakes sand off the bottom of his jeans. “We have an hour to kill before we have to be at the party. That’s just enough time to get you synced up to the software. But remember, honey, it’s just a prototype. There are only a few others connected.”
I nod frantically, hopping to my feet as well. “Yes. Let’s do it right now.”
“And one more rule.” Dad squints into the distance, thinking. “No peeking in other people’s heads. Especially mine. The software doesn’t allow it, but … I suspect you’ll find a way around that.”
A blush sweeps across my cheek. That’s the best compliment my dad could ever give me.
I didn’t realize at the time that his warning to stay out of his mind wasn’t concern over security breaches, but concern that I’d learn the devastating truth of the cancer that was spreading throughout his pancreas.
I draw my finger over my lips to say they’re sealed even though what I really mean is I agree.
“And second.” He shoots me with a devious grin. “When you come up with an idea for the program that far surpasses anything I’d come up with, let me at least take a little bit of the credit?”
I shake my head. “Not a chance.”
The memory fades. I’ll never know what my dad was really thinking that day, or any other for that matter. The emotions that ran through him when he held me the first time and his fading dreams as he took his last breath will forever be stored in the hard drive of his brain, buried in the ground. I never dug into his mind out of respect and request, and now I never will. When he passed away, my mom asked me to lock away his account and preserve it forever, untouched and inaccessible.
Since then it’s become policy to lock away accounts when anyone connected to HiveMind dies. Locking an account away means copying it to an external hard drive, encrypting it, and deleting it from the server for good so no one will be able to access it again.
With renewed vigor, I copy the memory onto the external hard drive. If the hacker smashed my other hard drive once, they could probably do it again, which is why I can’t let this one out of my sight.
Because of HiveMind’s limitations, I can only copy a single memory at a time and each one takes between several minutes to several hours depending on the file size. Copying every file in my account would take days. I don’t have that kind of time. I have to do this strategically.
Once the memory of my dad ends, I peruse the list of favorites again and wrinkle my nose. Each one has a value and none of them seem to be as hot a commodity as preserving the information I already learned today. Sure, I have the high-level details scrawled on my arm, but if there’s any way to preserve the memories too, I need to seize it.
I start from my most recent memory logged today and work my way backward, copying one at a time. It works much faster when I leave the computer alone, so as much as I want to see if the SSD drive is still connected and hack around, it’s way more important to protect everything I’ve learned today first. When I get to my first memory from this morning, I switch to Sebastian’s account and start copying his.
The whole thing takes an hour and a half, forcing me to miss two of my classes. Just as I start on yesterday’s memories, movement in the file list on the hard drive catches my eye. A file disappears directly from the backup as I watch. Someone is accessing my computer right now.
Heart hammering, I yank the hard drive out of my computer and hug it to my chest. As long as it’s not plugged in, it’ll be safe. As long as it’s in my arms, it can’t be destroyed.
But neither safeguard stopped the hacker last time.