“AAAAAAHHH!!!” I woke up in the chair screaming. The nurse looked at me with a clumsily disguised smirk. She tried to cover it up with an obviously fake look of concern.

“I’m glad to see that you are awake Mr. Avery,” I squinted and looked towards the voice. “Is this your first time getting a memory?” she asked.

“Umm yeah, sure.” I lied. Suddenly I remembered where I was. I had just gotten a memory from 40 years ago of someone skiing in the Swiss Alps. I had gotten dozens of memories and remembered the nausea and confusion associated with waking up. This one was different. This one was bad. I had never gotten one that was scary. They were all fun and adventure filled.

“It can hurt a little bit as the memory melds with your brain.”
“Yeah” I nodded as I stood up. I started to walk out of the room and right as I got to the door I turned around.

“How does your company get memories?” I asked.

“Well,” she said, obviously startled by the question. “People can choose to sell their memories for a certain price that they feel is fair. It is completely optional.”

“Really,” I said as I walked out. “It seems that it wasn’t optional for Rob and Ben.” As I closed the door I saw a look of contempt and fear wash over her face as she picked up the phone.

I took the bus home from the Memory Hospital and worked on some homework until dinner. After dinner I went to bed. It was a normal night and nothing was new. Until I woke up to my mom shaking me awake.

“Max, Wake up!” She whisper-shouted.
“Uggh, Mom what are you doing?” I looked at my digital clock. It was 2:15 in the morning.
“Well there is a man from the government here and he wants to see you.”
“WHAT?” I got out of my bed and walked downstairs in a daze. I had no idea what I had done. I was a star student and I never even got in trouble at school. There was a thirty-something man at the door wearing a black suit and sunglasses. I saw him and my half-asleep brain decided to say,
“You know that it’s the middle of the night. Why are you wearing sunglasses?” If looks could kill I would be six feet under.
“I am from the FBI. I am going to need you to come with me. We need to ask you a few questions.” I looked at my mom with a scared look. She just nodded. (Genius Mom Strikes Again)
“OK?” I stepped out of the house, still in the shorts and t-shirt that I slept in, and followed him to a sleek black Mercedes.
“Get in Max.” I stepped into the car. The inside was all smooth leather and shiny faux wood. I felt like an intruder on this luxury. He climbed into the driver’s seat and took off his glasses. What looked like a middle aged man actually began to look like a teenager like me. I almost said something, but he started talking.
“We need your help Max.”
“OK – wait what?”
“I said that we need your help.”
“I heard that but why do you,” I gestured at him, “Need help from me?” I gestured at myself.”
“My name is Jerome. I work with a group called the Memory Liberators. I’m sure that you’ve heard of the Memory Thieves. You probably thought that they were a myth that is until today. Tell me about your memory.”
“Wait a second. You aren’t from the FBI are you?” I asked. He smiled and shook his head. “Well my memory started out fine, just like a normal memory, but then it got bad and I think that people stole this memory from the person who had the memory originally.”
“The nurse didn’t want to explain it and then she called someone as I was leaving.”
“That is because Memory Thieves stole the memory too early. They made a mistake and stole it as it was happening. The mission of the Memory Liberators is to stop the memory thieves.”
“OK? But why me? I am just a normal kid.” I protested.
“That’s exactly why we need you. You are a kid. They won’t suspect a kid. An adult will stand out like a sore thumb.” He said. “Besides, you have one of the bad memories; you know what it’s like.”
“I would love to help you guys, I really would, but I already have a great life! Why would I want to risk it all just for some people that I hardly know. I need to go home now, I need to go to sleep, and then I will wake up for school tomorrow like normal.”
“I am sorry that you feel that way, but I understand.” He said as he turned the car around. We rode all the way back to my house in silence. I stepped out of the car and looked back.
“I really am sorry. Good luck.” I said to him.
“Thanks, and if you ever change your mind, here’s my card.” He handed me a plain white card with his name and number on it. Without another word, I walked inside. The first thing that struck me was that the front door was wide open. The second thing was the note on the counter.
If you ever want to see her again come to the memory hospital in 24 hours.
-MT

My heart was racing. We had only been gone for ten minutes. How could they have known? I needed to call Jerome. I picked up the phone and dialed his number as fast as I could. He answered on the first ring. I quickly filled him in on everything.
“I will be right there.” he said. In less than five minutes he and I were in my living room. I was pacing back and forth and he was sitting calmly on the couch.
“First we need to get you to somewhere safe. They could be watching this house right now. The memory thieves are not usually this bold. This means that your memory is valuable to them. Come one lets go to the Memory Liberators HQ.”
“What? No! We need to get my mom back!” I yelled.
“Doing that will only get us hurt. We need to go to the HQ and get backup. Come on, let’s go.” I followed him to his car again and sat numbly in the back. He started up the engine and we drove away from my house. I had a horrible feeling that it would be the last time I would see it. The car ride took about an hour and I just sat and looked out of the window. We started getting into a warehouse district and the buildings looked more ruined and decrypt. About five minutes before we got out of the car he grabbed a hood and threw it back to me.
“Security measures.” He said as I put it on. When I took It off it felt like I had entered another world. Everything was bright white and I was in a square room with two people and Jerome.
“My name is Mr. Jones,” the man says. “Please tell us about your memory.” The other person in the room was a girl who looked about my age. I quickly filled them in on everything that happened.
“OK we will get you cleaned up and you can spend the night here. Tomorrow we will go to the memory hospital when you will go and ambush them. Opal here will take you to your room.”
I stood up and followed her out of the room. We walked down endless hallways and finally I asked her. “How do you not get lost?”
“I have lived here for almost my whole life” she said. My parents were kidnapped when I was 3 years old and had their memories completely wiped by the Memory thieves.”
“Wow. I’m sorry. That must be tough.” I said
“Yeah, for the first few years it was all I thought about, always wanting to get revenge on the people who did it. I still want revenge but I have other things now. I help people who have gotten their memories stolen. I can’t wait for tomorrow when we get to finally get back at them.” She looked at me. “My uncle, the guy who introduced himself as Mr. Jones, won’t let me go. You have to help me. When we are leaving, cause a distraction, anything, and I will sneak into one of the cars. My uncle is a good guy, he really is, but he is just extremely overprotective.” With that, we are at my room.
“Here is your room. Remember right before we leave cause a distraction.” I nodded and walked into my room. As soon as my head hit the pillow I was dead asleep.
I woke up to an alarm blaring.
“OK, OK, Mom I’m awake!” Suddenly I remembered all that had happened. I got out of bed and remembered that I was still wearing the same clothes as the night before. Maybe there is breakfast here, I wondered. I opened the door and walked out. As I was walking down the hallway Jerome turned the corner in front of me.
“Hey Max. How’d you sleep?” He asked.
“Pretty well considering that my mom was kidnapped by a group of psychopathic memory stealers.” I said sarcastically. He wasn’t amused.

“We are leaving in one hour. Be ready by then. Breakfast is in the cafeteria. Opal will show you the way.”

“Yeah, Yeah… I’ll show the new kid where food is.” I turned around and there she was. She turned around and I followed her. After another maze of twists and turns, we arrived in a large room where about 40 people of all ages sat eating and talking.

“Wow.” I said. “How many of you are there?”

“Oh, about a hundred, most of them are sleeping or off doing other things. Come on, let’s go get some food.” I followed her to the end of the line of people getting food. I expected her to wait at the end of the line but she just walked up to the front.

“Being the daughter of the director has its advantages,” she smirked. The food was surprisingly good. We had scrambled eggs and bacon with a glass of orange juice. After we finished Jerome came to the table with his food and to go over the plan. The Memory Liberators were going to go to the hospital a few hours earlier to get inside. Then at the twenty four hour mark, I would go in alone. Whatever happened we wanted to get my mom back and take out as many bad guys as possible. We also wanted a memory thief to interrogate.

“Time to go Max,” he said. I stood up and Opal locked eyes with me as if to say Remember the distraction. I nodded and followed Jerome. He led me to a large hangar shaped room with a small fleet of large trucks and SUV’s.

“Wow. Who funds all of this?” I asked

“There are a few ‘donors’ that provide us with everything we need.” He responded. We walked towards the nearest truck. Suddenly I remembered the distraction.

“Ummm, do you have a bathroom?” I asked. I doubted that he was going to buy it. It was the worst excuse in the book!

“Yes,” He looked at me with a weird look. “It’s that way and the first door on the right.”

“Thanks, but I have a horrible sense of direction could you show me?” He barely concealed an eye roll. I followed him into the hallway. I then went in, stood there for a while, and flushed the toilet. I hoped that Opal would have enough time to get in a truck. After I finished, we walked back out and got in an SUV. We started up the SUV and drove out of the garage. About 6 other SUV’s followed us as back up for our mission.

We drove to the Memory Hospital which was about 5 minutes away from my house. On the way it struck me as how different memories were to me now. Getting a memory used to be a fun thing that my friends and I would do on weekends. Now it represented something evil.

When we got there agents got out of the trucks except for mine. Our truck included Jerome, 3 agents, Mr. Jones, and me. After that it was basically a bunch of waiting. We waited in the car for about 6 hours, doing almost nothing to pass the time. Finally, after what seemed like waiting forever, Jerome told me I could go. It was eerily dark and calm outside. I hurried into the hospital. We hadn’t seen any suspicious activity from the Memory Thieves, or anyone for that matter. I walked in and the hospital was empty. I didn’t know where to wait because they didn’t specify. I decided to wait in the lobby.

Where were the agents? Were they supposed to meet me inside? Suddenly I was having second thoughts. I started to move towards the door. This empty hospital was a little bit too much like Silent Hill. I walked towards the door and grabbed the handle.

“I believe that you have something of mine,” said a deep gravelly voice from behind me. I froze. Slowly, I turned around to see a tall and skinny hooded man.

“Who are you?” I asked.

“I am your worst nightmare, or should I say worst memory! My name is unimportant, besides, you won’t remember anything at all within the hour. For now though, you may call me Riot 54.”

“Riot 54? But that’s my literature teacher’s YouTube name!” I exclaimed. Where was my backup?

“Oh really? What a coincidence, except I don’t believe in coincidences!” He sneered.


“Look I don’t know why you are doing this to me,” I said as I tried the door with my hand behind my back, it was locked, “But I think that we should both just leave and forget that this ever happened.”

“Oh, wouldn’t that be just great! Aside from the fact you have an incriminating memory, we could just be the grandest pals! I just need to get that little memory from your head and you will just be free to go. Except…” He stopped. Everyone knew that when a memory was given you couldn’t take it back without killing the person. I turned back to the doors and looked out. Mr. Jones, Jerome, and the agents were running towards the door. I turned back towards Riot 54. He had started slowly walking towards me.

“We can just make this as painless as possible.” He said with a smile.

“What about my mom?”

“Oh as long as you cooperate she will be fine”

“Let me see her at least.”

“Fine,” he scowled. He turned around and walked towards one of the closets. He opened the door and my mom was standing in there tied up.

“Happy?” he asked. I set my jaw. I wasn’t going down without a fight. He walked towards me again. As soon as he got close to me I took a wild swing at him with my arm which he easily side-stepped. He got to me and shot a lightning fast jab right under my ribcage. I groaned and slumped towards the ground.

Mr. Jones, Jerome, and the agents were pounding on the door now. I hit the ground and he kicked me. I saw stars and started to black out. He raised his foot to kick me again and I braced myself. Instead of passing out I heard a groan from him as he slumped to the ground. Standing over him was Opal. She smiled at me and helped me up. I was sore but still helped her force open the door. They rushed in and the agents immediately started searching for their missing comrades.

“How did you do that?” I asked

“It’s the Vulcan Nerve Pinch, everyone knows that!” She said with a smile.

I saw my mom and ran over to her and untied her. She was crying with joy and she hugged me. Suddenly I heard shouts and gunfire. I looked down the hallway and the three agents were holding off a group of masked men. In a room beyond, I saw the rest of the agents tied up. Quickly I got my mom and I to cover. I needed to think of an idea fast before our agents were overrun. I looked up. Think! I told my brain. Suddenly I saw it. There were metal ventilation shafts running all along the hallway. I yelled at the guards to come back. They looked at me like I was crazy, but one look from Mr. Jones and they were sprinting back.

“Give me your gun” I told one of the agents. He reluctantly gave it to me. The Memory Thieves, seeing their chance, started rushing down the hallway. Wait for it, wait for it. I told myself.

“Now!” I yelled. I sprayed bullets onto the ventilation shaft, hoping that a few of them would strike something important.

One did. The whole structure came crashing down on them. They were out cold. The agents got up and tied the Memory Thieves up, and then untied their comrades. We had won. The memory thieves were no more and we took out their leader Riot 54.

Now as I write this in the parking lot, the police taking them away for multiple charges, I have time to contemplate. Will we see anyone of them again? What will happen to all of the memories that were stolen? It makes me think of something my dad used to say. Sometimes it is hard to remember, but you never forget.