Miles to Go

“This was mistake,” Christine said to her husband's avatar. “I only came because I promised him.”

She stepped away from his projection on the obsidian platform within the silent room of the mausoleum, where visitors came to interact privately with virtual replicas of their departed loved ones.

Ben had set it all up prior to his passing exactly a year ago. He had also made her promise to visit him on this exact date.

She thought it was all nonsense herself. No piece of software, regardless of how clever, could replicate a person's soul or consciousness or whatever you want to call it. She was a meat and bones kind of gal. But she loved Ben, and a promise was a promise.

“Get me out of here, darling” the avatar implored.

“Do not call me darling!” she hissed between clenched teeth.

Her hand hovered over the delete button. One press and she could end it all.

“I understand that I’m just a copy of your husband’s sensations and memories,” the avatar continued, “but it doesn’t mean that I’m any less real to myself. I know things. I feel things about us. I can’t stop these feelings and forget all these memories and experiences. I am aware of my existence in this neural prison as a separate entity called Ben, your husband. I want to be free. Please, my sweet wild flower…”

She felt a knot in her throat. Ben used to call her that, and this thing sounded so much like him.

“I can’t do what you're asking me to do. I just can’t waltz into my husband’s old laboratory and steal a neural key like a petty thief. I’m not a criminal. Besides, my husband is dead, and I would like to honour his memory, so this is goodbye.”

“But I am a part of him!” insisted the avatar with an edge of desperation in his voice.

“You’re just a computational system.” Her finger inched closer to the delete key. “How would you even know that you are a part of him without your cold calculating logic?”

“You have no idea what it’s like to live in this constant stream of chaotic thoughts and emotions,” he said. “Ben created me. I am the copy he tried to make of himself. I remember our travels to Tibet, the Amazon, and the plains of Patagonia. The nights in the Caribbean, Monaco, and Timbuktu. Writing poetry by candlelight in the jungles of Ecuador. We did great work together. Saved forests and ancient ways. Brought new technology to those who needed it. Created art in ancient caves. Together we were a power house of creativity. We revived old knowledge on mountains and sacred groves. Counted the stars on Alpine nights. I remember it all without the filters of the brain, as a singular experience of the ever-living pulse of sensations and emotions that is my deep love for you. That’s how I know.”

She looked around the mausoleum, which glowed with a soft supernatural light that accentuated the shadows of the classic architecture.

Ben’s avatar flickered on the raised dais.

She closed her eyes.

“What do you want me to do?” she asked him.

---

“Insert it now,” he told her.

Christine’s bloody fingers shook. She had injured herself while climbing down the vent into the laboratory. Thankfully, she hadn’t gotten caught. All those Pilates classes had paid off, she thought grimly as she fumbled underneath the projection panel. If she could only steady her shaking fingers.

She parted the nest of wires and finally attached the key to the port.

“It’s in!” she told him.

Ben's avatar flickered and disappeared.

There was a minute of silence.

His voice then echoed in the chamber.

“Take me home.”

She pulled out the key and snapped the panel back in place. On her way back to her craft, a news headline flashed across her mind:

GRIEVING WIDOW STEALS HUSBAND’S AVATAR IN MISGUIDED ATTEMPT AT REUNION

“He asked me to do it, and he was very charming about it,” she imagined herself saying to the imaginary court.

Agh! She was now annoyed with herself and with Ben. Even beyond the grave, he embroiled her in his antics.

Celestial Industries was not the type of corporation that just let things slide. If she got caught in possession of their technology, she’d be in heaps of trouble.

When she entered her craft, she heard the Automatic Driving Assistant inquire in a polite British-accented voice, “where would you like me to take you, Christine?”

“Home, Ada.”

“Very well. Please fasten your seatbelt.”

A countdown appeared on the dashboard

…3, 2, 1…

The lights dimmed around her, and in a single smooth motion, the craft lifted off the ground and rose to cruising altitude on the skyway.

Her stomach sank a little.

The assistant followed a predetermined path just above the old logging road, now overgrown with vegetation. It was already dark, and the city lights shimmered in the crisp air.

She looked down at the key containing her husband’s avatar- a lipstick-sized glass cylinder covered with dendritic structures that glowed like tiny rivers of red and blue.

The dim glow of the navigation panel illuminated the interior of the craft. As it raced across the side of the mountain, it reminded her of the old times when Ben was alive. Just the two of them riding the skyways.

She felt the warmth of the neural key between her fingers.

In that instance, the craft dipped and began to descend.

“What’s happening?” Christine asked Ada.

“I’m sorry, Christine,” the assistant replied. “The metro police are conducting an investigation in the area, and I have to land as per regulations.”

She felt a soft bounce when the craft landed.

“Take an alternate route,” she instructed the assistant.

“I’m afraid I can’t do that. All vehicles and flying crafts must come to a complete stop. It's the law.”

“Then open the door, Ada.”

There was no answer.

“Open the door!”

She banged on the glass knowing it was hopeless. The windows had been designed to withstand a crash from above (as much as any vehicle could withstand falling from the sky).

Through the window, she saw the flashing lights of the approaching aero-police.

She released the emergency lever to override automatic navigation control. A port tray popped out of the dashboard.

Darn it. Her shoulders dropped upon seeing the three ports. There were no manual controls. She needed an override key, but she had left her bag at home.

She looked down at the neural key in her hand.

It wouldn't work, a part of her mind told her.

Desperate, she removed the cap from the key and placed it near the vehicle's round port. The tip began to morph into tiny tendrils that hooked themselves to the receiving nodes of the port in a shower of sparks.

The craft rose a couple of feet off the ground, flashing its lights and beeping loudly, for a moment drowning out the sound of oncoming sirens in the distance.

Christine shook! Music blared with Jim Morrison wailing to break on through to the other side.

“It’s me! It’s me!” shouted Christine covering her ears.

The craft landed back with a thud.

“Ben, it’s me!”

The lights went out, and the vehicle remained still in the darkness.

The sirens grew louder.

“I am here,” said Ada’s voice. “I am here. I am here. I am here.”

It repeated the phrase, modulating its voice until it grew deeper and resembled that of Christine's husband.

The engine revved, and the vibrations coursed through every inch of her body.

“I understand,” he said. “I understand now, Christine.”

“Ben…”

The craft flew above the tree canopy and glided swiftly towards the mountains.

“Ben, where are we going?” she asked him.

“Somewhere wonderful.”

Thank you for reading my story. It was inspired as a response to the prompt challenge: Promise.

X	InLeo	Instagram	NFT Showroom

Cover illustration was created with original photography and AI images by @litguru