LOVE. DIE. (PART II)

He takes me in his arms, stars in his eyes, wine on his lips, and kisses me like thunder.

We’re standing on the terrace of a crystalline palace in the Vohari system, one of the four wonders of Alpha Centauri, hidden away in the valley where only the highest born Gollarians can gaze upon its majesty.

Only now the palace is empty, save for two humans, a disgusting, primitive subspecies forbidden to set foot on Gollarathon.

But here two humans are holding each other in the moonlight on the rosestone terrace. We have just feasted on the finest delicacies one can imagine and gotten drunk on Fomarian wine fermented for centuries in vita-barrels thousands of leagues underwater.

Soon we will retire to the royal bedchamber. And make love on sheets woven from the silk of yoraosh worms, imported from the now-dead monestary planet of Yat.

None of it should be possible, I think, as Anton kisses me again in the starlight.

None of it should be real.

And that’s because it isn’t. It’s a simulation.

We have gained control, but can’t escape. We don’t know where our bodies are in the real world. Most likely in a senso-tank, a pod filled with nutrifluid that keeps your external body free of stimuli while the simulation casts its spell.

We were brought here to run a hopeless battle scenario for all time, until Anton and I broke the simulation and took it for ourselves.

Now we are small gods. Able to go anywhere in the universe, but also trapped in a lie. A beautiful lie, but a lie just the same.

I fear it will end soon. The mercenary company I serve, the Orion Corps, was most likely the one who put me under. And they are gonna be pissed we broke their simulation.

But right now…

With the wine and the starlight and his hands tracing constellations on my back…

I don’t care.

I don’t care that the Corps is probably going to add five years of debt for breaking the simulation.

I don’t care that I have no idea where my body is or what state it's in.

The only thing on my mind is him. A stranger I just met.

I study his face and marvel at how it all seems to fit together just right. The scruff of his beard, the messy hair that seems to fall perfectly over hazel eyes that make me feel like I'm falling into infinity.

I have to remind myself I have no idea who Anton is outside the simulation. I only know that inside it, he’s charming, handsome, courageous, and all I want to do is tear off his cl-

“Bobby?” he says.

“…Yeah?”

“Shall we take this somewhere private?”

He takes my hand and starts walking toward the bedchamber, but I stop him.

“Hold on,” I say, laughing at his impatience. “I thought we agreed tonight’s the night.”

“Do we haaaave to? Can’t we just enjoy a perfect evening in a perfect palace…in the perfect bed.”

“Stop tempting me.” I wave my hand in the air, and a manila envelope materializes out of pixels and data. The bold font on the front of the envelope simply reads "ANTON".

Anton had no memory of his life before the simulation and perhaps preferred it that way. But we’d put it off for too long. Our time was short.

 “We don’t know how much longer we have before the Orion Corps discovers the simulation is broken and shuts us down,“ I say. “I want to know who you are, who you really are, so when this is over…we can find our own version of a crystal palace. In the real world.”

Anton snatches the envelope out of my hand, but doesn’t open it.

“Why do you wanna go back to the real world? The real world sucks. Here, we have palaces, wine, and endless night skies, and nobody to bother us. Think about it. You don’t know how long they expected this sim to run. We could have an eternity together, in cyberspace.”

His hand touches my face. It feels warm, teal, even though I know it’s not.

“All the more reason to find out who you are. I want to know who I’ve stumbled into eternity with. Is that so bad?”

“Ugh, fine.” He rolls those hazel eyes of his, rips open the envelope. Letters, binary, and code flow out of it and into his eyes, which glow with newfound information.

He falls to his knees, and I rush to check on him. His breathing is fast, and his skin is wet with sweat. He looks like he might puke.

“I’m…fine.” He says, unconvincingly.

It’s bad news, I think. He’s a criminal, a murderer, a deadbeat, a jellyfish? From the look on his face…it’s not good.

“Turns out I’m just like you,” he says, slapping a fake smile on his face. “I’m a mercenary indebted to the Orion Corps for taking me back from the edge after an unfortunate encounter with a pathogenic landmine.”

He tosses the now-empty envelope aside like it was nothing. It dissipates into pixels, and he turns back to me.

“Now, you coming to bed or not?”

“But-”

He knows kissing me will shut me up.

But it doesn’t quiet the questions in my head.

Why, oh, why, Anton, am I falling for you so fast?

And why, oh, why did you just lie to me? -o-o-o- When we decide the sun should rise, it does.

Today we’re going on a flying safari on the sky-planet Yaros. I click my fingers, and we're there.

We soar between multi-colored birds whose feathers shimmer in pearlescent hues that bounce off the planet’s two suns. They snake between floating islands, each containing its own airborne paradise. But even surrounded by these wonders, I couldn’t shake the feeling.

He’s hiding something.

And he’s worried about it. I see it in his face.

“So,” I say, flying closer to him. “How many years are left on your debt?”

“Hmm?” He says, confused.

“Your debt to the Orion Corps. I only have a year left on mine. Soon I’ll be free of them.”

“Then you’ll go back to wrestling?”

“That is the plan. But you’re changing the subject.”

He pushes me away, playfully, I think. Some clouds begin to rumble in our perfect sky.

“I don’t know what my debt is, and I don’t give a shit. It wasn’t in the file, and that was a goddman blessing.”

“Really?”

“Are you not enjoying the Safari? We can go somewhere else. We can go anywhere.”

He snaps his fingers, and suddenly we’re in the grand opera house of Kyrex, in our finest Fomarian robes, flowing to the ground in cascading red fabric.

“You clean up nice,” he says.

“Who is your squad captain? Are you a cadet?” I ask. I’m not distracted that easily.

“No opera then?”

He snaps his fingers again. Now, we’re in the middle of ancient ruins of the Jurnai, a lizard race known for their megasculptures that scraped the sky before they toppled down into beautiful fragments. A head the size of a small spacecraft stands before us. Anton leans on its nose.

“Just tell me where you want to go, what wonders you want to see. Just please…” he says.

“You’re not a mercenary, are you?”

“...No.”

“So you lied to me.” The betrayal stings. This is my first indication of his character outside his kiss. And it's not good.

“Yes, but…”

A crack appears in the rock and spreads like an infection over the giant head, eventually cleaving it in half.

“What the-“ I say.

Then the sky turns to static. Reality begins to blink on and off. One moment I’m in the ruins, the next I’m in darkness, no feeling, cold, alone.

I feel a hand take mine, and the simulation stabilizes.

We’re back in our fake ruins, holding fake hands, exchanging fake looks.

“What’s happening?”

“I think our days may be numbered. That was the Orion Corps trying to shut us down.” He says.

“Why didn’t it work?”

He draws closer to me, a relieved smile creeping across his face.

“We didn’t let them.” He says.”That’s our power together, Bobby. You wanna say that isn’t real?”

He snaps his fingers, and we’re back in the crystalline palace.

“I…I don’t know, I-”

“Really, I don’t understand why you’re so concerned about reality. When I touch you, it’s real. I don’t care if it’s just an illusion. What’s wrong with illusions?”

The palace blinks in and out of existence. But he kisses me, and it returns.

“Time works differently in simulations. We could spend a whole lifetime here, doing nothing but what pleases us. Doesn’t that sound better than…the real world? There’s nothing there but death and debt.

He’s on the verge of telling me something.

“We can stay here. Spend every day traveling the universe.”

“You barely know me,” I say. “Forever is a long time. You’ll get tired of me.”

He snaps his fingers, and now we’re in the translucent ballroom of Starlex III. Built between two binary stars, only the most powerful in the galaxy dance here like gods.

But now it’s just us in our tuxes.

A waltz starts to play, and I put my arm on the small of his back and start to lead.

One. Two. Three. One. Two. Three. We spin between stars.

“This could forever,” Anton says. “Every day we can dance in the grandest palaces, see the most awe-inspiring wonders, all without the troubles and evil of the worlds that built them. Then at night we’ll rearrange the stars into constellations of ourselves and fall asleep with the cosmos as our pillow.”

We finish the waltz.

“And I’ll never get tired of you.”

The moment is perfect…except for one thing.

“Then why did you lie?”

I turn away from him.

“I want to dance with you, where it counts," I say. "It’s time to go back, Anton. It’s time.”

I take a step away from him, and the sky briefly turns to static.

“Bobby!  Bobby, please, our connection is what gave us control of the sim, and I think it’s the only thing keeping it running.”

“Good! Then we can wake up, and I can meet you face to face.”

I go further away. The sky turns to static again, and this time stays that way.

“You won’t like what you see.” He says.

“Why don’t you let me be the judge of that?”

I walk farther, and the framerate around us drops. Once detailed environs now look like smooth, unfinished shapes.

“Bobby…Bobby, don’t do this.”

But I do. This isn’t real, I remind myself. And besides…I have to know.

I walk farther and farther away until all I hear is a whisper from behind me.

“I’ll always remember you,” it says.

I take one more step. And then reality crashes into me. -o-o-o- I wake up in a senso-tank, my body number from the stasis of being held in the sim.

I exit the tank, dripping nutrifluid on the sterile white floor. I'm in what I think is an Orion Corps sim center - a small corner of Orion’s Alpha base where reality was made anew every day.

As real air hits my lungs, my memory starts to return. I remember being assigned this mission, entering the simulation pod, and being told the simulation would be my reality for however long it took.

“Oh good, you're awake.” A technician sits at a supercomputer that takes up the entire southern wall of the sim center. She taps away at a ginormous keyboard, barely paying attention to the man covered in nutrigoo seeking answers.

I look around the room. All the other pods are closed or empty. I don’t see him.

“Excuse me, I’m looking for someone, the other man in the simulation-“

“No one else in your sim,” she says, not lioking away from her screen.

“But that can’t be right, I-“

Then I see it.

Connected to the mainframe through tubes and wires is a human brain, floating in nutrient fluid, covered in neurocircuitry that makes it look almost as machine as flesh.

On the glass, a label reads "Automated Neural Transmission Optimization Network."

A.N.T.O.N.

My entire body goes numb. The technician chatters on as if my entire world hasn’t just collapsed.

"Squad Captain wants to see you," she says. "You’re in a bit of trouble, pal, for breaking the sim. But I think-"

She sees me staring at the brain in disbelief. A mixture of grief, horror, and surprise on my face.

"Oh, don't mind Anton. He was a convicted criminal - con artist, I think, bit it years ago when he still had decades of debt owed to the Corps, so now he's the main processor for the sim center.”

I haven't registered the shock yet. But I know it's coming.  The tech keeps talking, and I get more numb.

"But it's been on the fritz lately and I-"

"Put me back in," I say, my voice a desperate rasp.

"I can't, I don't have the authorization."

“No, you don’t understand. I…I made a mistake, you have to put me back in!”

The tech sure is looking at me now.

"Sorry, sir, I can't run any simulations, not until the reset ends."

My heart drops.

"...what?"

"Oh well, the brain's been buggy for a while. Anton keeps appearing in simulations and disrupting scenarios, sorta like a ghost. But thanks to you, I was able to locate him and fix the irregularity. Now just gotta finish the restart and..."

She hits a single key.

"...done!"

No…no….

“He…he’s...”

“Gone. Yep!”

The tech just smiles at me. A smile that betrays that she has no idea what she just did.

"They'll probably overlook the whole 'breaking the sim’ thing since you helped us find the bug. That must be a relief, huh?"

The grief coats me like heavy ichor. I can't speak. I can’t move. In a few short strokes of a keyboard, the man I think I might've loved was gone.

So fast…

I tell myself he wasn't real.

None of it was real.

None of it was real.

So then why does it hurt so much...why is all I can feel red and hatred and grief...for a man that was already dead...

But I had him.

I had him.

In paradise.

And I walked away.

Now all I can do is live with it. -o-o-o- I thought it wasn’t real, Mr. Kuroyama.

Him.

What I felt. 

I thought reality needed to be seen.

I thought reality was all that mattered.

I thought reality was only one thing. 

I was wrong on all counts. And so are you. 

The visor I gave you uses virtual reality to help heal a troubled mind.

It helped me heal after...After what happened with Anton, I escaped into every virtual reality they could program for me at the sim center. I stayed in simulations longer than any mind should. I never saw him again.

I sank into despair.

But then a concerned technician gave me the visor, a personal prismatic universe, because she could tell I was trying to excise something dark. And it worked. I used the visor's VR to exorcise my grief, and I thought you would use it to exorcise your beast.

But you misuse my gift. Instead of exorcising your demons, you seek to become one with yours.

Perhaps you think it's reversible.

Perhaps you think just because it's not real, it can't hurt you.

You have so much to lose, Mr. Kuroyama. You have in the real world with Ami, what I could've had with Anton, and it's real, but it still isn't enough.

It can't be. Not if you're willing to risk what you're risking.

And why do you do this? Is it because you’re cocky? Yes, I think so. And you have every right to be. You have one of the fiercest warrior spirits in the galaxy, Mr. Kuroyama. Your Five-Star reign cemented you as one of the great talents of this company. Any galactic warrior would be proud to stand against you in the ring.

But your skill does not make you invincible. Your spirit can crumble no matter how brightly it once burned. I would know.

But cockiness isn’t all there is in you, no.

There is also desperation. You reek of it, Mr. Kuroyama. You’re desperate for a win, and you think connecting with the beast will get you one. You think defeating the one who bested Brandon Youngblood when you couldn't will restore your shine.

It is my duty as the one who gave you the visor to stop you before you make a mistake so catastrophic that all you can do is live with it.

At Ultraviolence, I will make you see the error of your ways under the light of false stars that still manage to burn bright. What better place to show you the power of the simulacra than a planetarium? A place that gives me refuge when the sky is blue and starless.

I will show you that the unreal and the simulated can still hurt, burn, bleed. And, most importantly, heal. And I do believe, when used correctly, virtual reality can be healing. I wouldn’t have given you the visor if I didn’t.  

Do you doubt me?

When I left the sim center that day, I went to my barracks and checked my dataslate. There was a message.

From him. 

It was the only thing that got me through the long, dark days ahead.

Hi Bobby,

I don’t have much time left, but don’t be sad, handsome.

Not telling you the truth was the biggest mistake of my life. I told a lot of lies when I was alive. Force of habit, I guess. I just couldn’t lose you, and it drove you away.

After you left, I took back control, just for a few seconds. But a few real seconds were all I needed. Four seconds in the real world can be forty years for me.

But I got lonely. And so I...don’t be mad at me, I created another you, an exact copy, as best I could get it. And together, Bobby, with you, I saw the universe.

Every day we danced in the grandest palaces, saw the most awe-inspiring wonders, all without the troubles and evil of the worlds that built them. Then at night we rearranged the stars into constellations of ourselves and fell asleep with the cosmos as our pillow.

And I never got tired of you.

The numbers are disappearing. My time’s almost up.

Maybe I didn’t get the real thing. But it was real enough for me.

And I’m happy.

Yours,

Anton