The Goldfish's Last Memory

The goldfish in the lobby tank at OmniCorp swam in endless circles, their orange scales flashing like pennies in a fountain. I watched them while pretending to review documents, waiting for the security guard to finish his rounds. Three years as a corporate spy, and I'd learned that the best disguise was always someone worth ignoring.

I wasn't supposed to be in the building. The merger documents I'd photograph would net my clients a fortune, and me, enough to disappear somewhere without surveillance cameras or dead drops. The work had seemed glamorous once — industrial espionage, the edge of something dangerous. Now it was just another kind of swimming, moving through water that never got clearer.

My contact had described the CEO as "a sphinx in Armani" — impossible to read, full of riddles she answered herself. She'd fired half her executives last quarter without explanation, and the board was nervous. They wanted leverage.

That night, I took my vitamins with a glass of whiskey. Vitamin D for the darkness I lived in, B-complex for stress, omega-3 for a heart that felt like it was hardening with every lie. The routine was the only anchor I had left.

The break-in went smoothly until it didn't. The sphinx was waiting in her office, not at the gala. She offered me a choice: her private security team, or a job that actually meant something.

"I know who hired you," she said, and I realized she'd been watching me longer than I'd been watching her.

The goldfish were still circling when I left the building, employment contract in my pocket. I wondered if they ever noticed they were swimming in the same water, following the same path, day after day.

Some days, I envied how easily they forgot.