Allison Keel sat in her dimly lit lab, the only light coming from the cold, blue glow of her computer screen. Her fingers flew across the keyboard, typing in complex code with a look of intense focus in her eyes. She had spent countless nights like this, lost in the ocean of numbers, chasing one goal: to prevent human memory from being as fragile as a soap bubble.
Her research had never been able to solve one fundamental problem: how to ensure the integrity of memory, how to make sure a person's recollections of the past would never be tampered with. Despite advancements in technology that allowed people to relive every moment of their lives in virtual reality, these developments had created a massive risk—memories were becoming increasingly fake and unreliable.
"Just like every other day," Allison murmured under her breath.
She hit the enter key, launching the experimental program. The screen displayed a set of complex 3D brain scans. She had managed to extract traces of memory from the brain, digitize them, and store them. But the unresolved issue still lingered—memory wasn't just data; it was a mix of emotions, experiences, and perceptions. Over time, they were altered by factors like time, environment, and personal bias, making them inherently unreliable.
Allison's mind drifted back to her childhood.
Her mother's smile, her father's warmth, the golden sunlight filling the house on that summer evening—everything felt so clear, as if it had happened just yesterday. But she knew, deep down, that it might not be exactly as she remembered.
The night of her mother's fatal car accident was always hazy in her mind. She remembered her mother's crash, her father's anxious expression, and herself standing outside the police station, feeling lost. But every time she recalled the details, something seemed to shift, like the memory was slipping away.
"I remember…" Allison said softly, almost to herself, as if she were seeking answers from the screen in front of her.
She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and touched the old photo album lying on her desk. She flipped open a page to find a photo of her and her mother on a beach vacation. It was one of the happiest moments she could remember. Her mother's bright smile, Allison's eyes filled with warmth.
But suddenly, her thoughts were interrupted by a cold buzzing sound. Allison's eyes snapped open as the images on her screen began to warp, the data flowing erratically. The lights in the lab flickered as if the room had entered a state beyond her control.
Her heart raced as the images on the screen became even more distorted. Allison quickly checked the computer system, trying to stabilize it. But when she saw a line of text on the screen, her blood ran cold:
"Memory data conflict. Please verify source data."
Source data? She remembered that every set of experimental data had been meticulously saved and verified. Why, then, was her once-clear memory of her mother's accident showing discrepancies?
Her trembling fingers clicked the "retrace" button and selected the file marked "Mother's Accident." When the system rewound to the original memory source, Allison's eyes widened in shock—
The memory image had changed. She saw a scene before the accident had occurred: her father was still in the car, but her mother was nowhere to be seen. Allison sat up straight, and the data on the screen shifted again, followed by a strange new line of code:
"Memory data has been tampered with."
In that instant, Allison's heart felt like it had been struck. What had really happened to her mother? Could anything she remembered truly be trusted?
Staring at the screen, a chill spread through her body. Then, a realization hit her—she was standing on the edge of something far deeper, something she had never dared to touch. Her gaze turned to the city outside her lab window, bathed in the night's shadows, as if the world itself were silently watching her every move.
And this, she knew, was just the beginning.