by Nash, Lisa
There was a moment of silence as the group mulled over Dr. Getman’s explanation.
Duncan spoke. “So, what now?”
“What now?” Dr. Getman pondered the question. “You leave here. You go home. You enjoy your wife and your marriage. You’ll smile more. You’ll laugh more. You’ll be consciously aware that you’re happy. You’ll even to manage to make others in your life happy just by being around them. That’s how this works, Mr. Swane.”
“And Thomas,” Cora said, “will I ever forget about him?”
Dr. Getman smiled. “You will, yes. But, my dear Mrs. Swane, he never forgot about you. I hope you can leave here with some small solace that you made his life worth living. It is not the years we spend on this planet that matter. It is the lives we make better. It is an edict that rings true for humans and synthetics alike.”
Melissa Pope stood. The swelling in her face had gone down, but some slight bruising remained. She spoke too softly to be heard so Dr. Getman requested she speak up. “I’m just confused,” she said a little too loudly. Adjusting the volume of her voice, she cleared her throat and continued. “I mean, was any of it real, the storyline I mean?”
Dr. Getman grinned. “It was indeed real. Within that 72 hour period, every bit of it actually happened.”
Franklin Waters chimed in. “The story though, where did that come from? I mean the whole thing about congress and bio-synthetic rights and… I mean there was just a lot of detail. It seemed real. You know, like it was based on a real… story.”
“That is good to hear, my dear sir. We strive to make all our scenarios authentic. Dozens of engineers designed this particular group session. They do an excellent job of planning and adapting to nearly every little twist, both planned and unplanned. I don’t know exactly how they do it, but I do know they always mix fact with fiction. We’ve found the mind is more willing to embrace fantasy if it is immersed in fact. Grant Bio-Syn does exist, as you all can attest. Our founder, long since passed, did engage in some questionable tactics in the early days of the company in order to circumvent legal hurdles, maybe even a few ethical ones here and there. There was once a thriving bio-synthetic rights movement. You all used your real names in order to help you buy in. But beyond those elements everything else you experienced and played a part in was complete fiction. It only occurred in our 72-hour window.”
With blank, faraway stare, Cora asked, “About the 72 hours, is it true – I mean is that all they have… to live?”
Dr. Getman worked to appear empathetic before he answered. “It is not as exact as that, but they do have a very short lifespan I’m afraid. It is a simple limitation of the technology.”
Duncan said, “So the super fertility business and the bribing of the pharmaceutical industry and the other stuff, that was bullshit?”
Dr. Getman smiled to hide his irritation at what he considered the pointless nature of this line of questioning. “I wouldn’t put it that way, but they are all storylines borrowed from popular, unsubstantiated conspiracy theories throughout the years. Just as mixing fact with fiction helps propagate the story in your minds, so too does using popular rumors.”
Dr. Getman fielded more questions over the next hour. When the group had nothing further to ask, they filed out of the auditorium and headed for a cocktail party in the cantina. The newly happy and well-adjusted crowd chatted and laughed and carried on, completely free of any kind of stress.
Cora excused herself from a circle of people being entertained by her husband and made her way to the bar. She couldn’t fight the deluge of memories that came with spotting the stool where Thomas had been sitting when she first walked into the cantina three days ago.
“Why so blue?”
It was what Thomas had said to her to start their time together. The words stirred a sadness inside her that in some strange way made her feel vibrant and alive.
“Hello, why so blue?”
It took a moment before she realized she wasn’t reliving a memory. Someone was asking her why she was so blue. She looked up and saw the bartender staring back her from behind the bar. It was the same man that had been working when Thomas asked her that corny line.
“You.”
The bartender cocked an eyebrow. “You’re surprised? I work here.”
She nodded. “It’s just so confusing knowing who actually works where and does what and is real…”
The bartender placed a wine glass on the bar and filled it with a rich red liquid. “I get that.”
She took the wine.
“You never answered my question.”
“What question?”
“Why so blue? You seem sad.”
She hesitated. “I think I am.”
“The treatment didn’t take?”
She nodded. “No, it did. It definitely did. I feel better than I’ve ever felt. It’s just that I feel bad for…”
“Mr. Miller?”
She smiled.
“Yeah, he was a good dude. I liked you two together.”
She giggled. “Isn’t that supposed to be how it works. The perfect match and all that.”
He raised an eyebrow. “There’s perfect and then there’s perfect. You know what I mean?”
She shook her head. “No, not exactly.”
He thought for a moment and finally just shrugged. “I don’t know how to explain it. I just know I’ve seen thousands of matches walk in and out of those doors, and I never felt like it was completely right. There always something artificial about it. There was nothing artificial about the way Mr. Miller felt about you. I mean I know there was, but it just didn’t feel that way.” He laughed. “I’m not making any sense.”
“Yeah, you are.” She thought about rejoining her husband, but stopped to ask one more question. “Was I wrong?”
“Wrong?”
“For what I did to Thomas.”
“What you did to him? You gave him a reason to live.”
“That’s what people keep saying, but I’m starting to wonder if that’s just something we say to justify what this place does?”
“You want the truth?”
She nodded.
“If your Mr. Miller knew from the beginning what was really happening, he wouldn’t have changed a thing. Dude got to love someone completely and totally. The way I see it no one has lived a better life than Thomas Miller.”
Cora sighed deeply and thanked the bartender. By the time she rejoined Duncan, her fondness for Thomas was slightly less intense. Over the next minutes and hours she would feel less and less for him. She wouldn’t want to, but she would. In a week, she wouldn’t be able to conjure up the features of his face. In a month, she would have to work to recall his name. In a year, after spending countless moments of joy and comfort with her husband, she wouldn’t think of him at all.
Thomas Miller was a bio-synthetic humanoid who was designed to make Cora Swane forever happy, and he wouldn’t have it any other way.
-83-
Cora.
It was the last thought he had.
The End