Alternative

| Chapter Two

Driving home sometimes brought me peace. I didn't want to work for Alt-Life, not after what they had done to my life. Yet, at this point, there wasn't much of a choice. Remaining a harvesting agent was a necessity.

The paychecks are nice, providing me with more than enough funds to live comfortably. Alt-Life gave every employee a place of residence, which meant I live rent-free; no monthly housing costs were a definite perk working for them. Health insurance was standard, company car was wonderful, but those weren't the real reasons I remained.

What I needed were copies; ripped and duplicated files from every Alt-Life contract I accepted or renewed.

I do this for her.

As the moon sits high in the night sky, I pull my black sedan into the driveway of my house and tap the USB drive against my lips. Having a successful harvest was always a good day for an agent. But when I managed to copy the right amount of data for myself, it was a great day for me.

There were at least twenty different events on the drive made at Miss Rogers' house. Some were simple, normal days; mornings where she ate breakfast under a bright full sun, or nights where she sat beneath a dark sky littered with stars. The applicant only meant to share the memories of her adventures swimming with the dolphins in Florida and the day she visited the Grand Canyon. Without her consent, I had copied and downloaded everything else.

Alt-Life did nothing to prevent the spheres from copying additional data. It was as open as the internet; up for grabs and widely available.

"Emery?" With the drive still against my lips, I stare at the front windows of my house. There are no lights brightening the rooms. Every bit of the space seems quiet, silent. A heavy ball settles in the pit of my stomach as I pull the car keys out from the ignition.

Have I been sitting here for too long? I pocket the drive. Did Emery go to bed already? Where is she?

Emery has a habit of going to bed without telling me. Normally, a person shouldn't have to tell another when they were going to sleep for the night. But with Emery's condition, I need to know every detail of her daily activities. If I don't properly track her, I can lose her. Literally.

She might have texted me and I missed it. Yet, when I reach for my cellphone to double-check, it rings. Accepting the call is an accident.

"Ray!" Joe's voice chimes in, loudly, from the other line. Immediately, he sends a request to switch the phone call from voice to video. I accept that, too, and smile down at my phone's screen.

When Joe's face appears, he's grinning ear to ear. I can tell in his mind I'm a happy camper. "So, how was she?" he asks.

"How was she?" I repeat his question as I slide my hands up through my short, wavy hair. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"I mean, was she like Emery? Did I do a good job?" Joe sits at his kitchen table, his head resting on his hands. There is a container of Chinese take-out next to him, half-eaten, with a fork sitting inside of it. Judging by the full garbage can next to him, I can tell he's had a lot of take-out lately.

I scrunch my nose at his living conditions before I shrug. He had done a good job, but I did not want to stroke his ego. "The upload was smooth," I say to him. "No hiccups."

"Okay, cool. So you did it. You ripped them." Joe scratches his five o'clock shadow as he unbuttons the top of his cardigan to get comfortable. "How many mems did you take?"

Mems. Memories. Pieces of life. When did such precious data get a useless nickname?

Joe coined "mem" within Alt-Life. The CEOs rolled with it the moment he had said it. But I didn't like it then, and I don't now. I think it's cheesy.