Evening sunlight cascaded shades of red and orange onto the rippling waters of the small mountain lake while a light breeze whispered and danced through late summer leaves. The trees arched down to touch the dappled water's surface, stretching their long boughs down to within inches of its hidden depths. In the distance, a splash and radiating circles decried dinner for one of the scaly inhabitants of this quiet refuge. It was bucolic perfection, just the way he remembered it. This was why all those years ago he had so carefully chosen this location, special for so many reasons, to ask her to marry him. He would never forget the look on her face when he had feigned seeing something in the grass, and bending down to 'investigate' had instead swiveled onto his knee to produce the concealed ring. What a perfect day that had been.
Now he sat up on the back of the same bench where they had watched that other sun set, his feet resting in the seat where they had held each other and dreamed of the future. A smile crept across his face at the sweetness of the memory. Slowly a frown formed along his brow. What was taking her so long? She was always here by now…
As if on cue he felt the gentle touch of her hand run delicately across his slouching shoulders.
"You know we can't keep meeting like this." Her voice was distant with a hint of sadness in it. She walked around the bench and sat next to his feet. For a long while they sat staring straight ahead, both watching the sun slowly sink as the reds and oranges swung toward purple and blue. Finally he broke the silence, eyes still scanning the placid lake.
"I looked everywhere for you. The townhouse in the city, our favorite restaurant, even at your parent's place." He shifted down from his perch and sidled up next to her, hesitantly easing his arm around her shoulders. "I was beginning to worry I wouldn't be able to find you."
Beside him she seemed to nod in agreement, or perhaps just let her head sag a bit, but she remained silent so he continued. "You remember this place, right? We used to come hiking up here all the time." Glancing down at his clenched fist for a moment he turning it palm up to reveal his wedding ring. He stared at it for a long moment before speaking again. "I wore it yesterday." Everything was still but for the droning of a passing bee.
He abruptly closed his fist and jammed the ring into his pocket. "But enough of that. Today is a good day, because we are here together." Again they sat in silence.
"I miss you," he said barely audibly, gripping her shoulder tighter with the hand still around her back. He turned to look at her at last, sadness filling his eyes. She stared fixedly at the ground near their feet, her hair masking her features. After a moment he said, "Why won't you look at me?" When she still would not answer he haltingly reached out his hand and carefully cupped her chin, forcing her face up toward his.
His heart lurched in his chest and he recoiled back in shock falling awkwardly to the ground, leaving her sitting in the same position he had moved her into. The world went on as it had the moment before, everything perfect, except for her face. Where there should have been the familiar features, the bright eyes, the full lips, there was instead a void – a nothingness that defied logic. "No!" he cried, then again quieter, "no." Slow realization appeared on his face. For a long moment he stared at the ground, then slowly off at the sunset once more.
'You knew this would happen eventually, why are you so afraid now that it has?'
He leaned his head back. The trees shimmered and shifted along with the cloudless sky. In a moment the tranquil scene began to fade gradually being replaced by drab walls with peeling paint and the distinct musty smell of black mold. Now he could hear the traffic rumbling endlessly past beyond the ancient single pane windows that let through the cold and heat, whatever the season. He sat on the warped floorboards of the mostly barren room, a kerosene camping lamp providing the only illumination beyond the vague streetlights filtering in from far below.
Without looking, he reached out his hand to scrabble for the small bag he knew was nearby, but his hand wasn't functioning properly. With a struggle he brought both hands up before his face and flexed them feebly, yet no matter how intensely he willed to them they simply wouldn't respond correctly. A slurred curse stole from his slightly too moist mouth as he struggled into a position where he could better spy the bag. As he saw it, the pastoral image of the lake washed over him and he struggled hard to focus. Slowly the dingy room coalesced once more and he was finally able to bring the small satchel onto his stomach. He rummaged through it thoroughly but cursed again when he couldn't make his fingers behave. Indignantly he dumped the contents onto his chest where they tumbled careless into his lap. Two syringes, one empty and one filled with a deep crimson liquid, along with a bent and worn photograph. The happy couple's smiling faces looked up at him, a frozen moment in time.
He reached down and laboriously maneuvered the full syringe into his clumsy fingers but somehow a wire had slipped between his ring and middle fingers in the process. He traced its length up to where he lost sight of it at his shoulder. From there he knew that it ran up to the gash on the back of his head where the implant was located. His poor excuse for surgery, if you could call it such, had seemed to work up until a moment ago. Now he traced the length back through his clawed grip to the broken piece of stone propped against an old car battery. Somewhere in his foggy mind he vaguely felt sorry for the person who would awake tomorrow morning to find their vehicle vandalized and their battery mysteriously the only thing missing.
The stone was jagged on the bottom from where he'd smashed it against a tree trunk. He hadn't wanted to break it, but it had proven too heavy to carry either quickly or discreetly and he couldn't risk being caught. Now all that was left of the beautiful carvings were the deeply etched letters RIP that arched along its top face. There was no trace of the name and dates that he had paid to have chiseled into the solid rock, a monument to both his love and his loss. In the hurried moment of desecration they had not mattered as much as the chip imbedded into the tombstone, the twin of the one in his head.
As he lay on the filthy floor staring at the headstone, the thought of that day when they had both stood in line for hours to get their Tier 1 VirtuCorp chips installed rushed back at him. The excitement had been palpable and though the wait had been over 14 hours, no-one had complained. Quite the opposite had occurred and a strange comradery had arisen between them and the individuals in their general vicinity. She had been quite nervous when they finally reached the head of the line so he had volunteered to go first. They had both come out smiling, incredibly happy with their new technology.
In the days that followed though, while he experienced no ill effects, she had begun to slowly slip away. It was intermittent initially, short periods of inactivity, as if someone had pressed a pause button. At first he had thought she was just engrossed in some exciting form of virtual entertainment, but when he had linked up their input feeds he had found only an empty void. By the time they finally obtained a coveted in-person appointment with the VirtuCorp tech support it had been too late. Degenerative brain damage had begun and within weeks she had been in a vegetative state. Yet a strange thing had happened near the end, she had reemerged inside the virtual world of the chip and there they had spent what little time was left wandering through the memories of their life together. VirtuCorp technicians had told him it was impossible and that it was merely his brain's neurochemistry heightened by the stress and emotions he was experiencing that caused his seemingly interactive memories with her. But once she was gone, he could not find her in his virtual memories anymore.
The inevitable lawsuit had followed, and dragged on for over a year before the lawyers finally convinced him to settle out of court for an ungodly sum of money. All he wanted though was her chip which they had removed after her death. They wouldn't let him have it for any concession so he had resigned himself and taken the cash. Yet VirtuCorp had found a new method of extracting money from a complacent user base and a glimmer of hope had appeared for him. It was called VirtuValhalla Memorial Services, and while extremely expensive, in the wake of the settlement he had definitely had the money. Included was a plot in the VirtuCorp Valhalla Memorial Cemetery along with the chip of your loved one embedded into a customized headstone. Twice a month subscribers could come to the cemetery and, with the aid of a proprietary blend of "natural and organic stimulants", visit the grave of their loved one and speak with an enhanced virtual representation - a residual shadow impression of them left behind on the chip - once more. But it was real to him, and to have her back had brought renewed meaning to his life.
While he still hated VirtuCorp for destroying his happiness, VirtuValhalla had been a godsend. He had cried when he held her again and they had talked and hiked hand-in-hand through the mountain paths of the Swiss Alps as they did on their honeymoon. When his visitation time was up VirtuCorp's burly security officers had had to warn him that his privileges would be revoked if he did not comply and exit the grounds immediately. And so he had existed for the past six months, arriving as soon as he was allowed and remaining until they forced him to leave, but it had not been enough. Soon the proprietary drug they provided began losing its effectiveness, his interactions with her becoming fuzzy and muddled. He complained but the VirtuCorp techs just told him that some degradation of service was to be expected when using the service as often as he did. So he had taken matters into his own hands and started taking supplemental stimulates before his scheduled visits. The results had initially been all positive. But these too began to have diminishing returns and their interactions had degraded even worse than before. He'd had to search farther afield for illicit drugs that were more effective.
The toll on his brain had begun to catch up with him at last though. At first it had been a tick here and there, a stutter he'd never had before. From there the symptoms progressed rapidly to where now he had trouble with even some of the most routine tasks. His hands had been the worst affected, and he suspected that his inability to sign the log in sheet last week had been the deciding factor for VirtuCorp revoking his VirtuValhalla service. And that had been it, no argument, no explanation or appeal, just unequivocal denial of access to the premises in perpetuity. He'd snapped and attacked one of the security guards but in his current state he had presented little threat to the big man and been easily subdued until the police arrived to arrest him. At yesterday's court hearing the judge had berated him about the virtues of good citizenship and the moral decline of society, all of which he had let roll over him like the wrath of a crashing ocean wave. The pronouncement that the judge was awarding civil penalties to VirtuCorp along with the requirement to return all VirtuCorp property in his possession had sank in slowly. The date for forced removal of his integrated chip had been set for this morning, but thanks to making bail he was long overdue for that appointment.
Last night after the taxi had dropped him off he had waited in the alley across the street from the VirtuValhalla Memorial Cemetery and watched carefully until around 3am when the overnight guard's head finally drooped down in unintended sleep. As nimbly as his impaired limbs would allow, which wasn't actually nimble at all, he'd snuck past the gently snoring guard and clambered over the fence. He didn't care that the security cameras could clearly see and record what he was doing. The mere fact that it would be her stone that was taken would have been evidence enough for them to know who was the culprit.
And now here he was, staring once more at the syringe in his hand, the cocktail inside four times the recommended dose, the same that had been in the empty one he'd injected just 30 minutes ago. Somewhere in the distance he was vaguely aware of the sound of sirens. It wouldn't be long now.
Clumsily he fought the needle into his arm, taking more than a dozen tries to finally hit the vein, and sank the plunger slowly until it could go no further. The sensation was intense and immediate and the clamor of screeching tires and slamming doors faded away to be replaced by the lake and sunset and her radiant face one more time.
Press Bulletin: VirtuCorp Inc.
Due to the tragic death that occurred last week, VirtuCorp will be discontinuing its VirtuValhalla Memorial Program indefinitely while we thoroughly investigate the circumstances surrounding the vandalism and theft of company property. We regret any inconvenience this may cause our customers. We are 100% confident that there is absolutely no danger whatsoever to any current or future users of our VirtuCorp Integrated Chips®. Quality and reliability is synonymous with our brand and always will be. Rest assured that VirtuCorp takes your safety and privacy very seriously, protecting you is our #1 goal. We look forward to a bright future of providing our loyal customers with new and exciting products. Keep an eye out next week for some truly amazing news about our new Tier 4 chips. We are positive you are going to love them!