I run a company.

I sell goods.

These goods are really quite useless.

I charge a memory to make a new one.

But people are stupid, and have given away all their memories of me scamming them in the past, so they keep coming back.

My business is simple. I take their memory, briefly enjoy it, and file it away in the register. Then, I send them over to my one employee (though I don’t remember his name) for a fake memory-making production. It’s sort of like a movie, where the customer is immersed enough that they’ll think for a moment it’s real in their memories (doctored by imagination as they often are), even though their conscious brain knows better.

I’ve worked this business for so long that my hippocampus is in a general state of nothingness. Everything is too repetitive and plain to be memorable, and even if it was, it would be gone in return for a slice of stale bread at the bakery down the road. The memories I get from customers are like little trailers of their lives, entertaining for a moment, but fleeting and unsatisfying.

One thing I do remember, that I’ve worked so hard to keep a grasp of, is something I really shouldn’t know.

Many think the memories we trade are just floating around from person to person like dandelion seeds blown into the wind.

They would be right.

But every memory prostituted for goods also goes straight into the government databases. It’s part of a project that they call “The Retention Reserve.”

The purpose of this?

The same as always.

Control.

Control over people.

Control over their minds.

Knowledge too.

Knowledge of where people are at any given time.

Knowledge of what makes people tick.

Blackmail.

That’s why I run my business.

Fake memories don’t tell them anything.

It dilutes their real data.

But maybe if there was a way I could hack their system…

Maybe I could do more.