earbuds

thirteen

"You're not close?" George speaks up, watching me hang up the phone.

"No. I don't have close friends. We just kinda hang around each other at school." I say, fiddling with my thumbs.

"Oh." George mumbles and it falls silent between the three of us. "So me and Clay want to talk to you about the plan."

"Let me guess." I paused and they nod at me to continue. "Something with placing me to go in to talk to my parents, I sneak off with, probably some sort of basic hacking training or a flash drive that would connect George to the system, we get into the database and either shut it down or tap into security. Then, we sneak Clay in, or something like that." I look at the both of them.

"Kind of." Clay says, placing down his phone. "This," He points to a room. "Is the room I need you to sneak into." The picture shows a bunch of computers and other things. "It's the room that has all the wifi and computers they use to run the building."

"Ah." I nod, looking between him and the phone.

"This," He touches the screen to another picture. "Is where your parents should be."

"Mhmm." I nod again, looking over at George who was fiddling with his thumbs.

"George will have a flash drive of sorts with his software which will help him connect his laptop outside the building to one inside the building." Clay explains, moving away from the phone. "We need to contact Nick. He's our gun guy."

"Oh?" I turn around to where Clay was walking, sitting down on the couch arm. He nods, looking behind me and at George.

"He's also running from the law though, and he's probably more hidden than George, so we'll have to track him down ourselves. Give George a couple days." He gets back up, walking towards me and the phone he left on the counter. Leaning over me, he grabs his phone, but freezes. I take a shaky breath in and out, feeling warmth radiate off of him. I hear him chuckle and my face goes red. "We'll be here for a few more days, but we'll finalize the plan over the next few days and just give Nick a recap, since we'll have to be on the move." He pauses his speech, pulling away from hovering above me. "We have one day where we can chill, and so he can have us pick our weapon."

I nod, swallowing the knot I had just mere seconds ago. He walks back to the couch, sitting down. George walks to his PC to get started on the tracking, I assume. I just sit there, at the kitchen counter table thing, thinking about what's about to happen within the next week or so. "So.. Mind control."

"That's what they're gonna do, yes." Clay nods, watching me get up and walk over to sit by him.

"They were always so proud and protective of them, the earbuds I mean. They'd go off to work for weeks sometimes, just to make sure that they would get done. That's when Becca and Tay would come in, pretend like they were my friends. I have a feeling that my parents paid them or their parents or something. Because no one wants to be friends with someone's child who's parents work for the government." I immediately closed my mouth once I noticed that I was beginning to ramble and spew. "Sorry."

"It's quite alright."

We go silent again.

"I hate to bring this up, but do your parents care about you?" He looked up, over at me, sitting next to him on the old couch. It was an uncomfortable couch, small, kind of smells. Stains of blood and probably cum.

"I thought they did, ya know? They're my parents, but thinking of all the times they chose the earbuds project over me.. I'm beginning to think they don't." I hug myself in comfort, even though it does nothing.