by Dima Zales
“I don’t want Ada to think I’m proposing for the wrong reasons.” I use my IV-free hand to wipe my suddenly sweaty forehead. “Like because I knocked her up.”
“Silliness,” Mom says and folds her arms across her chest. “Look, kitten, I love you, and you know I think highly of your intellect, but Ada is twice as smart as you are and would never worry about such nonsense.”
“There’s also that ‘I love you’ thing,” I remind Mom. “How do I know if Ada even believes in a traditional marriage? She’s got radical views on so many things that—”
“It doesn’t matter what the two of you call your relationship,” Mom interrupts. “Whether she says ‘I love you’ every five minutes or once a year, that girl does love you, and you’re crazy about her as well. If she’s not into a traditional marriage, if she wants to call it something else, like a social union or a banana, you should remember that marriage is but a piece of paper anyway. What matters is how the two people feel about each other—and this you know.”
“I guess you’re right. It’s just a bit scary.”
“I understand,” Mom says. “But you’re in luck. I’ll help you with at least one decision, but I have to go.”
Before I can say anything, Mom gets up from the bed and almost runs out of my hospital room.
I stare at the closed door, thinking that the trick of telling Mom about the baby might’ve worked a little too well. I guess I wanted her to fuss over me for a little while before running off to who knows where.
“So, you’re still awake,” Mitya says out loud as he enters the room.
In a weird Russian tradition, Mitya brought me apples and a box of candy. He puts them on the end table near the bed and sits on one of the cushy couches.
When he catches my questioning look, he pretends to misinterpret it and says, “This isn’t an avatar. My plane finally landed, so I figured I’d visit you.”
“No, really? And here I thought you gave me virtual food.” I feign a snarkiness I don’t feel. “So, what’s up?”
He tells me he already hired Golan Dahan, and he’ll get him to come to the US from Israel shortly. Then he asks me about my health, and I tell him I’m feeling fine. Soon, our conversation turns to the same subject Mom and I were talking about—marrying Ada.
“Have you thought about the how of it?” Mitya asks. “I’m not an expert, but maybe a nice romantic proposal is the way to go?”
“That might be tricky for some time.” I look down at my white hospital gown. “I don’t know when I’ll get out of this bed, and I want to talk to her about this as soon as possible.” Suddenly, an idea hits me. “By the way, do you still own that virtual reality video game development company? The Samurai Ostrich or whatever it’s called?”
“Penguin Ninjas,” Mitya responds, his expression telling me he might already see where I’m going with this. “Yes, I still own them.”
“Well,” I say conspiratorially, “here’s my idea.”
By the time Ada mentally informs me she’s close, Mitya and I are almost done coding the ideas we came up with during a conference call with Penguin Ninjas.
“I got it from here,” Mitya says telepathically. “Just give me a few minutes.”
The door opens, and Ada enters.
“Hi, Ada,” Mitya says out loud as he gets up. “I was just leaving. I want to go check on Mr. Viktor Tsoi.”
“Hey,” I say out loud. “Let’s not tease Muhomor too much. The guy just lost his ability to walk.”
“You didn’t tell him about Project Iron Fly?” Mitya asks Ada reproachfully. “It’s the coolest thing we’ve done in the last hour.”
“No.” Ada walks up to my bed and sits on the edge. “I’ll tell him now, though.”
Mitya leaves, and Ada switches to mental communication as she explains that Project Iron Fly is a high-tech suit she and Mitya designed as a surprise gift for Muhomor. They started off by reading everything in the field of robotic exoskeletons, both military applications (what little is public) and suits designed to let paralyzed people walk. They then designed their own model that, if all goes well, will look like a pair of ski pants that the Brainocytes will seamlessly operate.
“This should allow Muhomor to run faster than a regular person,” Ada concludes, “and without ever getting tired.”
“You can weaponize this thing too,” I say, getting into the spirit of it.
“Yeah.” Ada rolls her eyes. “The first thing Mitya wanted to do was put rockets in the feet, hence the project name.”
The first part of Muhomor’s name means “a fly” in Russian, so Iron Fly is a pretty apt name for a superhero-type suit that Muhomor will wear.
“I want to help build this thing.” I imbue my message with excitement. “But I think Muhomor will want to participate in the design too.”
“He can build part two if he wishes,” Ada counters. “If we left it up to him, he’d design a glorified wheelchair that sits on top of the most compact super server he can cram under his butt so he can hack things without reaching out to cloud servers.”
“Not if we really turn his bones into computing substrate, but you have a point.” I look at the opening door and say out loud, “Oh, hey, Mom.”
Mom enters the room, smacks herself on the forehead in a theatrical gesture, and says, “Ada, I feel so absentminded. I forgot to pick up Misha’s grilled vegetable sandwich.”
If Ada notices Mom’s glaring attempt to speak with me privately, she doesn’t show it and instead offers to go pick up the sandwich.
“Okay,” Mom says as soon as Ada leaves the room. “Here it is.”
She walks up to my bed and extends her hand, palm up.
There’s a ring box in her hand.
I reach out and grab it. Opening the box, I stare at the glorious piece of jewelry in fascination.
“Your great-great-grandfather was a jeweler,” Mom explains. “Your great-great-grandmother was the most beautiful woman in Tomovka—a tiny Jewish village in Ukraine. Since he wanted to marry someone so out of his league, he managed to somehow get that rock”—she points at the two-karat, orange-colored diamond—“and it worked. This ring has been passed down in our family ever since.”
“I don’t even know what to say.” I didn’t even realize diamonds came in such colors, but the internet confirms they do and that this type is very rare. “Thank you so much, Mom.”
“Of course,” Mom replies and leans in for a kiss on the cheek. “I’ll go find my brother. You best think of what you’ll say to her when the time comes.”
After Mom leaves, I finalize the app Mitya and I developed and test it out a few times. Then I do as Mom suggested and think of what I’ll say when the time comes.
Ada brings the sandwich I never asked for, and I gladly munch on it as she and I speculate in Zik about the future of our planet once the Brainocyte technology is inside the heads of a large portion of the population.
“Smarter people will be in a position to eradicate the last remnants of age-old problems, like famine, diseases, and war.” Ada walks up to the window and looks out at the impressive view of the Manhattan skyline. “We can also hope to solve some of the uniquely modern problems, like cancer and lack of long-term planning.”
“I’m sure it won’t all be so rosy.” Though I share Ada’s optimism, someone in our soon-to-be family needs to play devil’s advocate, and it might as well be me. “It’s only a matter of time before someone finds a way to use Brainocytes for something evil, like to spy on them as Muhomor fears.”
“Tema makes spying difficult.” Ada turns away from the window and comes toward me. “And we can always write an app to address whatever problems might arise.”
I see a perfect segue way for my big surprise and say, “Speaking of apps, I designed something with Mitya’s help, and I’d love to experience it with you.”
I send Ada the Ninja Penguin app in question and wait for her to signal that she’s launched it.
“Got it,” Ada info
rms me. “You want me to start this app now?”
“Let’s do it together,” I say and activate my version of the app. “Close your eyes once the app is up and running.”
Ada stops in the middle of the room and closes her eyes.
I initiate the app, and as soon it starts, I close my eyes as well. Instead of the backs of our eyelids, the app makes us see a fantastical garden all around us.
“The app takes Augmented Reality to the next level,” I explain as I look around in awe. “It’s safer to call it Virtual Reality.”
Ada looks around, takes in the candlelight coming from every corner of the virtual environment, looks at the myriad of delicate flowers, and smiles at me—or smiles at who she thinks is me but is really my avatar.
My version of the app is a little different from Ada’s. Ada’s body controls her avatar, and the avatar is in the exact part of the room she’s in. The only difference is that her avatar is clad in a glorious evening gown with a low-cut back. In contrast, because I’m currently bedridden, I control my avatar the way I would a video game character. My virtual self is sharply dressed in a tux, and he’s standing next to me in the virtual environment, mainly because it’s easier to control him that way.
Ada looks around some more, her amber eyes wide at the new marvels that appear as the sun sets behind the trees—details Mitya and I stole from one of Ninja Penguin’s more popular VR games.
The garden is full of surreal luminescent plants of every variety, but I can tell Ada’s favorites are the ones that remind me of cherry blossoms.
Birds that look like deep-water sea creatures float in the black-purple night sky. Behind the birds, we can see bright star constellations that don’t resemble anything viewable from Earth.
“I get it. You’re going for ‘very romantic.’” Ada looks my avatar up and down appreciatively. “And you clean up nice—virtually.”
“You look amazing yourself,” I reply, a little at a loss for words. “Come here.”
Ada walks under the spindly vines, brushing her fingers against the branches. A couple of shiny alien butterflies try to land on Ada’s shoulder, but she shoos them away.
“If you’re planning to sell this game, or whatever this is, the Avatar movie franchise might sue you.” Ada’s Zik message is teasing, but she looks serious as she stands under the luminous cherry blossoms, next to my virtual representation.
I activate the command that causes the leaves to fall, and before Ada knows what hit her, my avatar gets down on one knee and extends his hands in that classic gesture.
Ada looks at me intently, her eyes shining with unreadable emotion.
“Ada,” I ceremonially say out loud. My heart rate spikes, and I worry a nurse might barge in on us in the real world. “Will you marry me?”
I open the ring box, and the virtual ring shines with an iridescent orange light that reminds me of the suitcase from Pulp Fiction.
“Wow,” Ada says out loud. She sounds overwhelmed with emotion, but since she’s talking in English and not Zik, the emotions are unclear. “I didn’t think you’d actually go through with it.”
“You what?” Her words catch me completely off guard.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Ada says, still out loud. “Now that I’ve seen it, it’s incredibly romantic and almost not corny at all. I didn’t mean—”
I turn off the app and look at Ada in the real world. She must do the same thing, because she’s facing me and not my avatar.
“You knew I was going to propose?” I ask, switching to Zik.
“Again, I’m sorry. I considered acting like this was a surprise, but I didn’t want to repay such a nice gesture with a lie.” Ada walks up to my bed and sits on the edge again. “In my defense, if you wanted this stuff to stay secret, you and Mitya shouldn’t have committed your fascinating Virtual Reality code into our shared source control repository.”
She gives me an innocent smile that makes me want to smack my head.
Before I can actually do so, she gently touches my left hand just below the IV entry point and says, “Also, when you shut down your Share app, you need to remember to turn off the one running in Mr. Spock’s head as well, like you did at the fake shrink’s office.”
At the mention of his name, Mr. Spock runs out of his hiding spot behind the large cushion in the middle of the room and gives Ada a drowsy nod.
“And finally,” Ada says out loud, “if you want privacy, you need to make sure your room doesn’t have any cameras.” She points at the hospital security camera above the big TV on the opposite wall.
“So you knew.” I find the bed remote and raise myself into a sitting position so I’m looking directly into her eyes.
She nods sheepishly.
“And yet you let me go through with it.” I look at Mr. Spock for support, but he loses interest in us and goes back under the cushion.
Ada nods again.
“Well,” I say and pull out my right hand from under the covers. I’m still grasping the ring box containing the real-world ring Mom gave me. “You must’ve heard me say I want to marry you because I want to be with you and not because you’re pregnant.”
“Yes, I heard that.” She leans closer and studies the ring box curiously.
“And you’ve had time to think about your answer?” I open the box, and though this version of the ring doesn’t have the otherworldly shine of its VR twin, it does sparkle in the room’s halogen lights.
Ada looks at the ring for a moment and then back at me, making me feel like I’m a small prehistoric bug about to get stuck in amber for millennia.
Finally, with almost ceremonial gravity, she says, “Yes.”
“Yes, you’ve had time to think about the answer?” I ask as my heart rate equipment starts to beep.
“No.” A Mona Lisa smile plays in the corners of Ada’s eyes. “I was answering your other question.”
“Which one?”
“No, not ‘which one.’” Ada grins. “Will you marry me?”
“Yes,” I say confidently. “Of course I’ll marry you.”
“I wasn’t asking you. You were asking me.” Ada reaches out as though to touch me with her left hand, but instead of touching me, she simply spreads her fingers apart.
“And you said yes.” I take the ring and slip it on her extended finger.
Without saying a word, Ada leans in for a kiss.
As our tongues begin to dance, a single Zik message from Ada reverberates through my head, a message imbued with an emotion Ada hasn’t used until now—something warm and fuzzy, the Zik equivalent of a heart emoji.
I read the message attached to the feeling and deepen the kiss.
The message states, “Yes.”
THE END
Thank you for reading! If you would consider leaving a review, it would be greatly appreciated (please click HERE).
The final book of the Human++ series, Neural Web, is coming soon! If you’d like to be notified when it’s out, please sign up for my new release email list at www.dimazales.com.
Other series of mine include:
The Last Humans (please click HERE) — futuristic sci-fi/dystopian novels similar to The Hunger Games, Divergent, and The Giver
Mind Dimensions (please click HERE) — urban fantasy with a sci-fi flavor
The Sorcery Code (please click HERE) — epic fantasy
I also collaborate with my wife on sci-fi romance, so if you don’t mind erotic material, you can check out Close Liaisons (please click HERE).
If you enjoy audiobooks, please click HERE to check out this series and our other books in audio format.
And now, please turn the page for a sneak peek at Oasis (The Last Humans: Book 1), The Thought Readers (Mind Dimensions: Book 1), and The Sorcery Code.
Excerpt from Oasis
My name is Theo, and I'm a resident of Oasis, the last habitable area on Earth. It's meant to be a paradise, a place where we are all content. Vulgarity, violence, insanity, and other ills are but a dist
ant memory, and even death no longer plagues us.
I was once content too, but now I'm different. Now I hear a voice in my head, and she tells me things no imaginary friend should know. Her name is Phoe, and she is my delusion.
Or is she?
Fuck. Vagina. Shit.
I pointedly think these forbidden words, but my neural scan shows nothing out of the ordinary compared to when I think phonetically similar words, such as shuck, angina, or fit. I don’t see any evidence of my brain being corrupted, though maybe it’s already so damaged that things can’t get any worse. Maybe I need another test subject—another ‘impressionable’ twenty-three-year-old Youth such as myself.
After all, I might be mentally ill.
“Oh, Theo. Not this again,” says an overly friendly, high-pitched female voice. “Besides, the words do have an effect on your brain. For instance, the part of your brain responsible for disgust lights up at the mention of ‘shit,’ yet doesn’t for ‘fit.’”
This is Phoe speaking. This time, she’s not a voice inside my head; instead, it’s as though she’s in the thick bushes behind me, except there’s no one there.
I’m the only person on this strip of grass.
Nobody else comes here because the Edge is only a couple of feet away. Few residents of Oasis like looking at the dreary line dividing where our habitable world ends and the deserted wasteland of the Goo begins. I don’t mind it, though.
Then again, I may be crazy—and Phoe would be the reason for that. You see, I don’t think Phoe is real. She is, as far as my best guess goes, my imaginary friend. And her name, by the way, is pronounced ‘Fee,’ but is spelled ‘P-h-o-e.’
Yes, that’s how specific my delusion is.
“So you go from one overused topic straight into another.” Phoe snorts. “My so-called realness.”
“Right,” I say. Though we’re alone, I still answer without moving my lips. “Because I am imagining you.”
She snorts again, and I shake my head. Yes, I just shook my head for the benefit of my delusion. I also feel compelled to respond to her.