"What?" came her daughter's voice from inside. She sounded distracted, or just uninterested.
"Your father and I need to have a talk with you, may we come in?" There was a lengthy pause.
"I'm doing my homework..." Resentful. Mary thought this was unlikely to be true, but these days, Kaycee never lied in a way that you could actually catch her at it. If she burst through the door this second, she'd undoubtedly see her daughter hunched over a school book, giving every indication of diligent study.
"Please, Kaycee? It's important."
"Fine, whatever..." Mary opened the door and stepped in. She felt queasy. Some of her nausea was the sort she often felt when she saw Kaycee's room, or even Kaycee herself. The walls were covered with black-light posters, elaborate depictions of skulls with snakes crawling through the eye-sockets, or crows feeding on severed body parts. Aside from the garish light from the posters, the room was lit only by the computer screen showing some message-board, red text on black.
Her daughter's beautiful blond hair, so like her own, was dyed both jet black and blue and twisted inappropriately into ropy skeins. Her eyes were outlined in heavy black and her otherwise pretty face was far too pale, though Mary couldn't even say at this point whether it was makeup or just years of avoiding normal things, like sunlight. She was wearing black shorts over layers of tights, sloppy holes exposing ovals of color beneath, and a green lace top that wasn't even remotely decent, doing little to hide the bra beneath. As expected, the teen had a book open, though it was a paperback, not a school book.
"'Homework?'" Kaycee briefly held up the book to show the cover. Island of the Blue Dolphins.
"It's for lit." More resentment. In the mean time, Mr. Watkins had entered the room behind Mary, and flicked the switch by the door, flooding the room with unaccustomed yellow light. "Jesus," the girl complained, shadowing her eyes with one hand. "A little warning, maybe?" Mary tsked.
"Language," she admonished automatically, at the abuse of the Lord's name. Not that they were a religious family, but that didn't mean they shouldn't be courteous. Her daughter said nothing, she didn't even look sorry. It made Mary despair, but also firmed her resolve a bit. "We need to talk about your...attitude." Kaycee's face was a study in insolence, her eye-roll perfected over the past few years to evoke a withering combination of scorn and disinterest. She pushed herself back on her bed until she was pressed against the wall, legs and arms crossed in front of her. Mary did her best to pretend she hadn't seen the eye-roll and sat on the edge of the bed, while Mr. Watkins remained in the doorway, his own arms crossed sternly.
"Your father and I...we just want you to help us understand," she started, her voice dripping with Parental Concern. "Why can't you show just a little effort?"
"Who's not showing effort? I'm not wearing any piercings, am I?" It was true, though Mary could see that the numerous holes in her daughter's ears and nose hadn't closed, which meant she was still wearing them outside the house, which was really worse, when it came down to it. Mary refused to get drawn back into that discussion again and instead soldiered on.
"You're not using the recycling bins properly, for one," she pointed out, calmly.
"I forgot." A shrug, carefully calculated to convey a complete lack of concern.
"Once or twice is forgetting," Mr. Watkins said, his voice rough, "never doing it is disrespectful. Criminal." Kaycee looked up at him in disbelief.
"Um. We're talking about paper, here...it's not exactly the end of the world..."
"That's exactly what it is, young lady, it's people like you that are ruining the planet, and I won't stand for it-" he took a step forward, pointing angrily, but stopped when Mary raised a palm towards him, interrupting.
"What your father means is, even if you don't believe it's important, couldn't you accept that it's important to us, and try a little harder? We just don't see why you don't seem to care what we think." Despite her desire to remain firm, a pleading note had crept into Mary's voice.
"Why should I? You obviously don't care what I think." Kaycee turned her head away, sullenly. For a moment, no one said anything.
"We'd already decided, Mary, but you asked for one last chance first, and there's your answer," Mr. Watkins said to his wife. "Let's just get it over with." A tear fell from a corner of Mary's eye as she nodded meekly. She rose from the bed and stood next to her husband, wringing her hands.
"Stand up, and face the wall," ordered Kaycee's father. She looked at him with a sort of sneering confusion. "Now!" he barked. The girl jumped at the sudden shout, but sullenly obeyed, sliding forward off the bed and turning away from them. She looked over her shoulder nervously.
"You're not going to spank me, are you? I'm sixteen, that'd be kinda creepy..." She was still trying to needle, though her voice wasn't as confident as it had been. Mr. Watkins grabbed his daughter's wrists from where they hung at her sides and brought them together behind her back, holding them together in his wide hand. He pulled a plastic zip-tie from his pocket and looped it over her hands, pulling it tight enough to pinch in to the skin. "Ow! What the hell?"
Mary pulled a plastic bin into the room from where it had waited in the hallway. It was blue, about two feet wide and tall by three feet long, with a split lid hinged at either end, and bold white recycling symbols on the sides. Kaycee tried to pull her arms away, but her father's grasp was too strong. Mary opened the flaps of the bin lid, showing it empty aside from a cloth kitchen rag.
"Step in," growled Mr. Watkins, shoving Kaycee forward but keeping a firm grip on her wrists.
"What? What's going on, you're hurting me, please just tell me what's going on?" The girl was obviously frightened now, confronted by this unfamiliar behavior from her parents. But she made no move to do as he'd ordered, so her father put his free arm around her waist, pressed her wrists into her lower back and lifted her. Kaycee kicked her legs, knocking the bin aside, and started screaming. "God, what are you doing!? Help! Somebody help!"
"Mary!" shouted the man, and his wife let out a little sob, but stepped forward and moved the bin back, then wrapped her arms around Kaycee's legs, pushing them down into the bin. Her father forced her the rest of the way, bending at the knees and waist until she was entirely inside and only then released his hold on her wrists, quickly shutting the lid. Kaycee strained, trying to stand back up, but her father was holding the lid closed.
"Help! This is sick, please stop, oh God!" she shrieked, now in a full panic. But she felt her muscles going limp and her thoughts growing sluggish. There was a sharp odor in the bin, coming from the cloth rag, and the small space was full of it. "What...why are...please..." Her protests trailed off into silence, but Kaycee's parents waited until there hadn't been any sound or movement from the bin for a full minute before they removed the rag and loaded the bin into the back of their minivan.
- - -
"So, how would you like your recycling credits applied?" asked the technician. He was a good-looking man in his late-twenties, clean shaven, brown hair neatly cut and styled. The man reached into a pocket of his white lab coat and pulled out a small digital tablet, tapping at it for a moment.
Mr. and Mrs Watkins glanced at each other from where they stood nearby. A few feet away, the blue bin that held Kaycee was held by a large motorized arm that both supported it and for the moment, held the lid shut. The arm was affixed to a large machine of futuristic design. It was comprised of mostly unrecognizable components, but included a large glass-walled compartment about four feet on a side, with an open top and a metal mesh on the floor.
"We hadn't really talked about it," said Mr. Watkins hesitantly. "Don't we just get a check?"
"The monetary balance can certainly be made available as a cashier's check if you'd like..." he tapped at the tablet again. "Your current financial investment in the item amounts to $214,953.21, plus another roughly twenty-four hundred in existing incidentals...computer, wardrobe and whatnot, and less our processing fee of fifteen percent. All together, it comes to $184,750.23." The couple blinked as they absorbed the figure. "But since our patented Quantum Solvent will also recover much of the time you've invested in the item, we can calibrate things to take advantage of the necessary adjustments to your personal history. For example, we could apply the cash to a larger home, which you would find yourselves already living in, thus avoiding the hassle of shopping around, real estate agents, closing and such."
"I think we'll just take the check," Mr. Watkins said after a moment. "I guess it still 'would have been' our decision," he continued, making air quotes, "but I don't mind haggling, and it's a buyer's market right now."
"Very well. And the time? It amounts to, in aggregate, roughly 18,000 hours for you, sir, and nearly 30,000 for your wife. You can have spent that time getting a degree or two, or learning a language, perhaps a musical instrument? You can page through the options yourself...anything unused we can of course apply to your respective employments, which would translate mostly into additional cash recovery, but possibly career advancement as well." The technician handed the tablet to Mr. Watkins, who began swiping down the list while Mary leaned into his side to look as well.
While they browsed, the technician moved to the machine and entered a command on the attached console. The mechanical arm moved up and rotated, tipping the bin upside-down over the glass compartment. Kaycee tumbled out, landing heavily in a heap on the mesh floor. Her arms behind her were pressed apart by the angle of the impact, snapping the zip-tie around her wrists. Partially roused by the heavy fall, she began to stir, raising her head and looking around in confusion.
"What...?" she said weakly, holding a hand to her head, then rubbing her wrists. As Kaycee regained her senses, she grew more and more alarmed, looking around frantically. The machine had, by now, closed a shutter over the top of the container, also clear glass, except for a thick tube fastened to the center. The girl saw her parents and pounded on the glass to get their attention.
"Mom! Dad! What is this, what's going on?" she yelled, though outside the cube her words were only barely audible, her pounding similarly muffled. Her parents looked up for a moment, but Mr. Watkins quickly went back to browsing.
"Look, Mary, they have both kinds of Chinese," he said, and Mrs. Watkins dutifully attended to the tablet, though with a glance at her daughter that spoke of at least mild misgivings. The technician took it upon himself to answer Kaycee's question, holding a button on the console and leaning forward to speak into a microphone.
"You're at Family Recycling Center #39, Westford. I must inform you that your parents have elected to recover their mutual investment in you, and repurpose it in more enriching and/or satisfying ways," the technician said. His voice was not unkind, but it sounded as if he'd delivered this line quite a few times.
Kaycee had seen the ads on television, of course, but she'd always thought they were just for people whose kids joined gangs or went gay or something. She'd never heard of it happening to anyone she knew, never even imagined it might happen to her. Unfortunately for the teen, she'd never been curious enough to read the FRC's website. Since the quantum nature of the Recovery Process(tm) essentially rewrote history with respect to the "recycled item", she had no way to remember the friends she'd already lost, or from her current perspective, never met.
"Oh my God. This isn't happening. This isn't happening! You can't do this!" Her shouts were terrified, and tears had begun to trail her eye makeup down her cheeks. Her palms made a drum-beat on the glass as she desperately tried to get her parents' attention. "Please! I'm sorry, I'll do the recycling, I'll do whatever you want! PLEASE!" Kaycee's father didn't even look up, though her mother did, looking very uncertain, even a bit guilty.
"This isn't uncommon," said the technician, who'd noted Mrs. Watkins was about to speak. "Bargaining. You are of course welcome to engage, even take the item back home if you think that's best," he explained calmly.
"I'm not an item, you fucker, I'm a person! You can't do this!" The technician ignored the girl's shouts and continued in his ultra-reasonable tone.
"However, it's worth pointing out that of clients who take that route, 77% are back within a week, and 93% within a month. To be quite frank, once things have reached the point that a family has come to us, it's very rare to see any kind of sustainable improvement." He ended with a sympathetic smile. Mrs. Watkins gave her daughter a long look.
"Mom...please. Please don't do this. Please? I'm sorry, I love you. Please take me home. Please." Kaycee's palms against the glass framed her black-streaked face. Mary looked at her husband, then shook her head and looked down at the tablet again, pointing something out. Kaycee, who'd been half-standing, leaning against the glass, fell to her knees and sobbed, her face in her hands.
After a few minutes, Mr. Watkins returned the tablet to the technician, their selections finished. He nodded approvingly and entered their choices into the console, then queued up the final command.
"You're welcome to watch or not as you wish...even if you choose to watch, the way the process works, you won't really remember it afterward," explained the technician.
"Might as well then," said Mr. Watkins. "There's no shame in wanting to get back what we've wasted, none at all." Mary didn't say anything. The technician nodded and pressed a key. Immediately, a clear blue fluid began to fill the glass cube. Kaycee was splashed and the cold liquid momentarily shocked her out of her despair. She scrambled out of the way, pressing herself into one corner, but the liquid quickly spread and rose above the mesh at the bottom, chilling her feet. Her tears grew more frantic and she began to plead again, but almost incoherently.
"Please, no, nononono...I'm your daughter, you can't, you can't, you can't..." As the fluid reached her knees she began to shake. The teen couldn't bear to look down anymore, instead locking eyes with her mother.
"Mommy, I love you, please don't, please, please, it's not too late, please don't let them do this, pleasepleaseplease..." The teen craned her neck back awkwardly to keep her mouth above the liquid while still hunching over to stand, but in seconds it completely filled the chamber. Now floating almost horizontally in the center of the tank, Kaycee kept her palms against the glass, still pleading with her eyes. In the blue liquid, her skin didn't look quite so pale, it was almost like she looked back when Mary understood her... Mrs. Watkins took a sudden step forward and put one of her own hands to the glass against Kaycee's.
"I'm sorry," she whispered. "I should have been a better mother."
The metal mesh at the bottom of the container began to glow bright blue, with strange coruscating threads of energy dancing across it. It rose steadily, and as it contacted one of the girl's feet, kicking to keep herself pressed against the glass, it seemed to pass without resistance, her foot and leg dissolving and leaving behind only a wispy white residue. Mother and daughter ignored it, staring into each other's eyes until the mesh rose above them, leaving only a confused woman looking at nothing at all. Mary noticed her cheeks were wet and wiped them with her hand. Had she been crying?
The technician gave them a folder with some literature about the process, tips on adjusting to their "new" memories and skills, and various investment prospectuses the FRC recommended for newly-wealthy couples. They confusedly shook hands with him, then made their way back to the Lexus.
Mary tried to make sense of the papers as they drove back home. They explained what had happened, the choice that had been made for the "obvious benefits" to their lives. It was strange, since they'd made that choice sixteen years ago at the clinic, hadn't they? But now here was all this money, and congratulations on her "proficiencies in Cantonese, pottery making, and classical piano". She supposed she was happy with her life, but she'd always felt a little lonely...always wondered what it would've been like if she’d actually raised her daughter. Though it must've not been worth it if in the end, they'd had to go to the FRC...right?
"So, how would you like your recycling credits applied?" asked the technician. He was a good-looking man in his late-twenties, clean shaven, brown hair neatly cut and styled. The man reached into a pocket of his white lab coat and pulled out a small digital tablet, tapping at it for a moment.
Mr. and Mrs Watkins glanced at each other from where they stood nearby. A few feet away, the blue bin that held Kaycee was held by a large motorized arm that both supported it and for the moment, held the lid shut. The arm was affixed to a large machine of futuristic design. It was comprised of mostly unrecognizable components, but included a large glass-walled compartment about four feet on a side, with an open top and a metal mesh on the floor.
"We hadn't really talked about it," said Mr. Watkins hesitantly. "Don't we just get a check?"
"The monetary balance can certainly be made available as a cashier's check if you'd like..." he tapped at the tablet again. "Your current financial investment in the item amounts to $214,953.21, plus another roughly twenty-four hundred in existing incidentals...computer, wardrobe and whatnot, and less our processing fee of fifteen percent. All together, it comes to $184,750.23." The couple blinked as they absorbed the figure. "But since our patented Quantum Solvent will also recover much of the time you've invested in the item, we can calibrate things to take advantage of the necessary adjustments to your personal history. For example, we could apply the cash to a larger home, which you would find yourselves already living in, thus avoiding the hassle of shopping around, real estate agents, closing and such."
"I think we'll just take the check," Mr. Watkins said after a moment. "I guess it still 'would have been' our decision," he continued, making air quotes, "but I don't mind haggling, and it's a buyer's market right now."
"Very well. And the time? It amounts to, in aggregate, roughly 18,000 hours for you, sir, and nearly 30,000 for your wife. You can have spent that time getting a degree or two, or learning a language, perhaps a musical instrument? You can page through the options yourself...anything unused we can of course apply to your respective employments, which would translate mostly into additional cash recovery, but possibly career advancement as well." The technician handed the tablet to Mr. Watkins, who began swiping down the list while Mary leaned into his side to look as well.
While they browsed, the technician moved to the machine and entered a command on the attached console. The mechanical arm moved up and rotated, tipping the bin upside-down over the glass compartment. Kaycee tumbled out, landing heavily in a heap on the mesh floor. Her arms behind her were pressed apart by the angle of the impact, snapping the zip-tie around her wrists. Partially roused by the heavy fall, she began to stir, raising her head and looking around in confusion.
"What...?" she said weakly, holding a hand to her head, then rubbing her wrists. As Kaycee regained her senses, she grew more and more alarmed, looking around frantically. The machine had, by now, closed a shutter over the top of the container, also clear glass, except for a thick tube fastened to the center. The girl saw her parents and pounded on the glass to get their attention.
"Mom! Dad! What is this, what's going on?" she yelled, though outside the cube her words were only barely audible, her pounding similarly muffled. Her parents looked up for a moment, but Mr. Watkins quickly went back to browsing.
"Look, Mary, they have both kinds of Chinese," he said, and Mrs. Watkins dutifully attended to the tablet, though with a glance at her daughter that spoke of at least mild misgivings. The technician took it upon himself to answer Kaycee's question, holding a button on the console and leaning forward to speak into a microphone.
"You're at Family Recycling Center #39, Westford. I must inform you that your parents have elected to recover their mutual investment in you, and repurpose it in more enriching and/or satisfying ways," the technician said. His voice was not unkind, but it sounded as if he'd delivered this line quite a few times.
Kaycee had seen the ads on television, of course, but she'd always thought they were just for people whose kids joined gangs or went gay or something. She'd never heard of it happening to anyone she knew, never even imagined it might happen to her. Unfortunately for the teen, she'd never been curious enough to read the FRC's website. Since the quantum nature of the Recovery Process(tm) essentially rewrote history with respect to the "recycled item", she had no way to remember the friends she'd already lost, or from her current perspective, never met.
"Oh my God. This isn't happening. This isn't happening! You can't do this!" Her shouts were terrified, and tears had begun to trail her eye makeup down her cheeks. Her palms made a drum-beat on the glass as she desperately tried to get her parents' attention. "Please! I'm sorry, I'll do the recycling, I'll do whatever you want! PLEASE!" Kaycee's father didn't even look up, though her mother did, looking very uncertain, even a bit guilty.
"This isn't uncommon," said the technician, who'd noted Mrs. Watkins was about to speak. "Bargaining. You are of course welcome to engage, even take the item back home if you think that's best," he explained calmly.
"I'm not an item, you fucker, I'm a person! You can't do this!" The technician ignored the girl's shouts and continued in his ultra-reasonable tone.
"However, it's worth pointing out that of clients who take that route, 77% are back within a week, and 93% within a month. To be quite frank, once things have reached the point that a family has come to us, it's very rare to see any kind of sustainable improvement." He ended with a sympathetic smile. Mrs. Watkins gave her daughter a long look.
"Mom...please. Please don't do this. Please? I'm sorry, I love you. Please take me home. Please." Kaycee's palms against the glass framed her black-streaked face. Mary looked at her husband, then shook her head and looked down at the tablet again, pointing something out. Kaycee, who'd been half-standing, leaning against the glass, fell to her knees and sobbed, her face in her hands.
After a few minutes, Mr. Watkins returned the tablet to the technician, their selections finished. He nodded approvingly and entered their choices into the console, then queued up the final command.
"You're welcome to watch or not as you wish...even if you choose to watch, the way the process works, you won't really remember it afterward," explained the technician.
"Might as well then," said Mr. Watkins. "There's no shame in wanting to get back what we've wasted, none at all." Mary didn't say anything. The technician nodded and pressed a key. Immediately, a clear blue fluid began to fill the glass cube. Kaycee was splashed and the cold liquid momentarily shocked her out of her despair. She scrambled out of the way, pressing herself into one corner, but the liquid quickly spread and rose above the mesh at the bottom, chilling her feet. Her tears grew more frantic and she began to plead again, but almost incoherently.
"Please, no, nononono...I'm your daughter, you can't, you can't, you can't..." As the fluid reached her knees she began to shake. The teen couldn't bear to look down anymore, instead locking eyes with her mother.
"Mommy, I love you, please don't, please, please, it's not too late, please don't let them do this, pleasepleaseplease..." The teen craned her neck back awkwardly to keep her mouth above the liquid while still hunching over to stand, but in seconds it completely filled the chamber. Now floating almost horizontally in the center of the tank, Kaycee kept her palms against the glass, still pleading with her eyes. In the blue liquid, her skin didn't look quite so pale, it was almost like she looked back when Mary understood her... Mrs. Watkins took a sudden step forward and put one of her own hands to the glass against Kaycee's.
"I'm sorry," she whispered. "I should have been a better mother."
The metal mesh at the bottom of the container began to glow bright blue, with strange coruscating threads of energy dancing across it. It rose steadily, and as it contacted one of the girl's feet, kicking to keep herself pressed against the glass, it seemed to pass without resistance, her foot and leg dissolving and leaving behind only a wispy white residue. Mother and daughter ignored it, staring into each other's eyes until the mesh rose above them, leaving only a confused woman looking at nothing at all. Mary noticed her cheeks were wet and wiped them with her hand. Had she been crying?
The technician gave them a folder with some literature about the process, tips on adjusting to their "new" memories and skills, and various investment prospectuses the FRC recommended for newly-wealthy couples. They confusedly shook hands with him, then made their way back to the Lexus.
Mary tried to make sense of the papers as they drove back home. They explained what had happened, the choice that had been made for the "obvious benefits" to their lives. It was strange, since they'd made that choice sixteen years ago at the clinic, hadn't they? But now here was all this money, and congratulations on her "proficiencies in Cantonese, pottery making, and classical piano". She supposed she was happy with her life, but she'd always felt a little lonely...always wondered what it would've been like if she’d actually raised her daughter. Though it must've not been worth it if in the end, they'd had to go to the FRC...right?
The couple drove home in silence.