The pain behind your eyes begins to subside as you lay slightly disoriented against Max's arm. "Chipped?" you ask. "I can probably spew out a thousand items of technological nomenclature involving chips, and I've never heard that particular term."

Max looks at you with a slight sadness hiding within the darkness of his pupils, "The whole point of chipping is to record information for later retrieval, but the down side is that the process is extremely aggressive. The brain can only take so much stimuli before breaking down. Scar tissue begins to form and before you know it, the information that's being gathered is literally being cut from your memory."

You look at him with disgust, a rock of fear drops in your gut and the words spew out of your mouth like a dogs saliva as it violently barks. "Are you telling me my memories are being plucked from my head permanently?"

Max looks away from your hard gaze, "Yes." he utters, barely loud enough for you to hear.

Anger swells from within you as your arms push on his chest. "No!" You yell, the thought of your past being robbed fueling the fires of shock and irrationality. "Get away from me. I can't believe you're telling me this."

He holds on, pushing your arms away as you struggle against him.

"Laura, you think this is easy?" He says, but you're not listening.

Frantically, you're shaking your head, reason is lost. The sensation makes you stop; It was warm, but quickly cooled as it rolled down your cheek. You know the sensation, it's that of a tear drop tracing it's course toward the cold concrete below, but it's not your tears. You turn to look at Max, his eyes are bloodshot and brimming with saline.

"You think this is easy?" He repeats, the surface tension breaks as he talks and a flurry of tears race down his cheeks. His expression remains stern and calculated; as if his eyes were the only window into his soul which now poured out. "You can get angry, I understand. But if you think you're the only person being robbed of something, you're terribly mistaken."

You soften, but your heart is still racing as your feelings for Max explode into your mind. As you reach into the past instinctively, the pain returns ten fold, and so does the lack of consciousness as you go limp in Max's arms once again.

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updated Jan 2 '09 by Eckhouse