Distance often keeps family apart, and as science progresses, distance may become very, VERY far. Gransparents will want to see their grandsons and granddaughters, but when the distance is far enough, we will see what is real, and what isn’t…
Alise
Dad had only met his grandsons once, and now he was dying. His urgent message hit as I was mindtapped, dancing Bournonville’s ballet La Sylphide. Now the news, and this part of my life, had a soundtrack.
I hadn’t seen Dad in the flesh for almost seven years. Before that, another ten. Not that I didn’t want to. The expense. The huge expense. And the time away from work. The last visit had swallowed years. Earth’s a long haul from Titan, and we couldn’t afford the express. I stopped myself from making excuses. It was too late now, and I had to live with it. Somehow.
Our relationship had its ups and downs, but ever since Blaise and Simon were born, we’ve been better. Maybe he made more effort with his grandsons. Maybe we actually needed the distance.
“We need a gameplan, guys. Help me out.” The boys and I sat around the dinner table, eggplant lasagna steaming in plates, but no one hungry. At least cooking was something I could do and not cry. “There’s an option, but we have to work on it hard for the next few weeks.”
I had their silent, sullen, skeptical attention. They knew we weren’t taking the trip to Earth. And they always thought my ideas were the worst. “We could send Granpa substitutes.”
They both blinked: Blaise in surprise, Simon in confusion.
“Are those robots?” asked Simon.
“No, stupid,” replied Blaise.
“Cut the insults,” I warned in mom tone. “They’re living copies of us,” I explained to Simon. “We load up what they need to know and what to say to Granpa. They give him hugs. They share memories. It’s just like having us there.”
“So there’ll be copies of us walking around on Earth?” Simon’s face scrunched up as he tried to grasp the concept.
“After their visit with Granpa, they kill them,” said Blaise, asserting his wisdom of twelve years.
“That’s not exactly—” I tried.
“Cool! How do they do it?” asked Simon.
“They chop their heads off!” said Blaise.
“Mom! We have to do this!” Simon fidgeted with the excitement of a ten-year-old boy.
“Guys, please, calm.” I drew in a breath. “If we do substitutes, we have to send the company, Biologics, our DNA code, along with a lot of video and stuff. These copies can do a few visits. I think it would make him happy. They can be there when he…passes. He set a date to…end things.”
“So, will he know these are copies?” asked Blaise.
“That’s the thing,” I replied. “We can tell him that we’re making the trip and let him think these are really us. Or we can tell him we’re sending subs. What do you think?”
“He could probably tell, then he’d get mad,” said Blaise.
“But what fun is that?” Simon sounded decided. “Who wants some old copies around? He’d rather think it was really us.”
“Since he hasn’t seen either of you in the flesh for years, he’d be fooled.” I hoped. “And it would make him really, really happy.”
#
Claude
I should have tried to die years ago! All three of them are making the trip! I pushed my Big Day forward a week to accommodate their flight schedule. After seeing the ticket prices, I asked how the hell she could afford the Titan-Earth express. I swear I could feel the guilt wafting off that reply, that she’d saved a lot of money over the years. Implying, obviously, that by never visiting, she had a nice stash of cash. Works out in the end, I guess. The real end. I’ll get to lay my own eyes on my grandsons and my daughter one last time.
As I sit here in hospice (a nice and comfortable joint, except for meeting new people who die on you rather often), a friend’s been selling my stuff. I had planned on giving the money to Blaise and Simon, but now I wanted to get them gifts. Real gifts to remember me by. As long as the brain-eating amoeba doesn’t make me too damn stupid before they get here, I’ll get to see their smiles as they open them.
Naegleria fowleri, you incurable jackass, slow down your brain munching.
#
Alise
These subs weren’t affordable, but my credit was sufficient. And now, maxed. Much cheaper than an express flight, though. And I couldn’t skimp on the upgrades. We had to make sure these things could fool Dad, so we ordered Biologic’s Luxe Package with unlimited uploads so the subs could recall memories and really act like us. Other perks: daily full sensory recordings, video and pics of the family and Dad together.
Down payment sent. DNA sent. Compiling all the videos we could find from the past few years. Still on the agenda: extensive personality tests, video interviews, follow-up interviews, written biographies with everything that involved Dad.
The timeline was tight: Five weeks before the express flight hit Earth. The subs would visit three times, the last day being The Last Day, the subs holding his hand as he passed on. The substitutes had to be vat grown, which took only twelve or so hours —— absolutely mind-blowing. The uploading and testing consumed more time to ensure they performed flawlessly as possible. Biologics would send us videos of the staff interacting and interviewing them, then we’d make more suggestions, and so on. The voices might have to be adjusted, especially for me, I was informed. Like if I’d smoked or yelled a lot in my life. Yes to both. I’m a mom.
This was the right thing to do, right?
Right?
#
Claude
Their gifts arrived. For Blaise, the musician of the family, an antique violin from the 21st Century. Certified, of course. I’d kept every video of his recitals and performances. After I made the order, I watched the last one again. And applauded. Talented kid.
For Simon, a pair of Titan jousters in midflight, sculpted from black soapstone. He’d sent me plenty of jousting matches with his colorful commentary. That kid’s mouth was dirtier than mine!
For my daughter, my heart, I discovered an 18th Century ballerina carved of wood. She loved ballet when she was young. Still a big fan, I hear.
I can’t wait to see their faces. The day can’t come soon enough. Has there been anyone more excited for their death day?
Speaking of my health, the techs keep upping my pain meds.
As far as my mind, I was keeping it together.
So they told me.
#
Alise
The first video of the subs arrived. So odd watching a copy of yourself walk around in a sterile, white room, talking, interacting with their “handlers.” I felt queasy. The boys didn’t.
“My hair’s all wrong!” cried Simon.
“Is that my nose? I mean, seriously?” complained Blaise. “I look like that?”
“Yeah, you do, dick nose,” quipped Simon.
“Guys!” I shouted louder than intended, but I had their attention. “Look your copies all over, write down anything that needs changes. They don’t have my voice right, for instance.”
“So, what’s with your sub’s voice?” asked Blaise. “Weird.”
“Yes, they said they’re already making an adjustment.” I sighed. “We get this done tonight, alright?”
“But my nose—”
“Your nose is fine, Blaise.” I know I didn’t sound reassuring.
#
Claude
This last month had been a blackout since Alise and the boys slept on the ship for the trip. Friends visited, which was damn uncomfortable for everyone. They felt weird and bad because I was dying. And I felt weird and bad because I knew they felt awkward hanging out with a dying friend. Every time visitors left, I watched videos Blaise and Simon had sent me over the years to cheer me up.
But I made it! The day finally came!
A staffer helped me get dressed in some nice clothes: button shirt, dress pants, leather shoes. I didn’t want to greet them in crappy, worn pajamas and slippers. They assisted me into a large, cushioned chair in a private room with no hospital equipment, just plush carpet, tasteful nature paintings, and a simulated fireplace that I couldn’t tell from the real deal.
Alise walked in through the open door first. “Dad?”
I stood up on my own for the first time in a week to hug her so tight. My eyes leaked all over the place, especially on her shoulder. I breathed her in and I was taken back to the time she was just an infant, a wriggling, happy baby on the carpet of that old apartment. Odd how a scent can send you back. Alise held most of my weight before I was done with the hugging.
She helped me back to that big leather chair, and I took in the sight of my two grandsons. Blaise, taller, skinny, a mop of dark hair I badly wanted to comb. Simon, stockier, and his hair white —- I guess the little folks dyed their hair to look like old folks. They came together to give me the best hugs of my life.
They pulled the sofa close to sit across from me. The boys acted a bit shy at first, but they soon warmed up and we talked and laughed for hours. We could only send videos the past six years, time lag and all, and now here we were going back and forth like old friends.
Alise looked so proud. And I was proud of her. She made a fine mom, and all on her own. “The gifts! Alise, could you get the boxes from under that table back there?”
“Dad, getting us gifts is too much. Really.”
“Bah! Bring them over here!”
#
Alise
Once the visit downloaded, we all eagerly plugged in to the mindtap to experience the day back on Earth. Feeling Dad’s hug for the first time in oh, so long made me break down so hard, the boys stopped the feed and comforted me.
I got it together; we went through the rest. My sub held his hand in both of hers for long stretches of our conversation, not minding his cold dampness. I was so glad she did —- that was so me!
Oh my god, he got us gifts. For the boys, they were wonderful, thoughtful, expensive gifts. The ballerina, though, opened an old wound. Dad had pulled me from ballet when I was sixteen, wanting me to focus on “career-oriented” things. Ballet was a huge part of my life since I was five, and I had never fully forgiven him. I didn’t want this to fester after he was gone, and maybe this was his weird way of making things right. Maybe just to spite him, I had used my low-grav architecture degree for this gig in the Outer to get away from him. I assisted at a local dance school to fill the ballet hole in my heart.
Anyway, I’d have the gifts shipped, so we wouldn’t hold them in our hands for another six months, but then we’d celebrate his life all over again.
None of this sat well with Blaise. “He got these gifts…he thinks the substitutes are really us.”
“Blaise, honey, hold on. He got those things for us. For us. Have you ever seen Granpa so happy? Tap back in and look at the joy on his face. He’s in pain, he knows he’s going to die in a couple days, and yet, he’s like a first-chair violinist getting a standing ovation. Don’t you see?”
“Yeah. Yeah, I guess.”
“If he didn’t think we really made the trip, that we were really in the room with him, he wouldn’t feel that way. Understand?”
He nodded and left the room. I let him.
Everyone dealt with grief in their own way. I gave him space.
#
Claude
Blaise stole the show the second day. He played two songs on that antique violin. He didn’t even need sheet music. What a talented kid! I clapped until I nearly passed out.
Simon sat on the arm of the leather chair and told me tales of him and his friends. That shit would have bored my ass off before, but now his story about skipping rocks on a lake of methane and laughing at the farts steaming from his friend’s thermals delighted me. For an old man facing the Big Empty, childhood tales were sublime.
As the day’s light dimmed through the window, the hugs were tight and long. And no tears this time.
I held Alise back for a moment. “They know what’s happening tomorrow, right?”
She nodded and bit her lip, maybe holding back the floodgates.
“I want them there beside me,” I continued, “but if you think it’s too much…”
“No. I mean, it will be a lot. But I’ve talked with them. The circle of life and all. And how it will be peaceful for you, and how their presence would make things easier. They love you and want to be there.”
How did she end up being a parent light-years better than me?
A staffer helped me back into my room and I fell right to sleep. When I woke up, it was night. The bedside screen blinked with a message. I ignored it, made the four steps to the bathroom and back gripping the wall rail. I gave the blinking text a glance. My world turned ass-backwards and upside down.
ORIGIN: LIGEIA MARE CITY/TITAN/SATURN SYS
SENDER: BLAISE BRODEUR
Everything about that made me question the last two days. Hallucinations were part of the deal with this damned brain-eating thing. Was my mind screwing up this badly?
“Play message,” I whispered, mouth dry.
There sat Blaise in his room, only half lit by a desk light in the background. The poster on the wall over his shoulder rotated stills of heroes from his favorite movies and games. He named them all for me once. His eyes were red and wet like he’d been crying.
“Granpa? I’m sorry, but I couldn’t let some substitute say goodbye for me. I had to do it myself. It all doesn’t seem right. And my sub played the violin —- I’m not even that good. That’s not me. It’s just not. It was nice to feel a hug from you, it really, really was. And I’m sorry, really sorry that I might have screwed everything up. But I couldn’t sleep. Maybe I couldn’t sleep ever again, I don’t know. But I love you. I wanted to tell you myself.” He tapped his chest. “This is me, the real me, your grandson. You mean everything to me. I will miss you. A lot. And I love you. Okay?”
He went on some more but I couldn’t see through the tears of anger and hurt. Emotions boiled up and over. I shook with rage and betrayal. Subbies. Alise had sent me fucking subbies. All this faux window dressing. Damn it all to hell she could have transmitted a handwritten card and it would have been more authentic than this bullshit robot freakshow!
Anger gave me more buzz than any injected energy cocktail or a fat line of coke. I grabbed a framed picture from the wall and smashed it on the post of the bed, and I kept smashing until I had four staff members in there wrestling me down. “They sent me subbies! And you motherfuckers were in on it!”
A fifth strode in with a loaded sedative.
“Yeah! That’s right! Kill me early! Do it! I want this sham of a life done! All I got is a fake family!”
That shot in my arm hit me so hard I went from cursing to drooling down my chin in a minute. My limbs morphed from rigid weapons to limp spaghetti. I sat in the chair opposite my bed and watched helplessly in an emotionless fog as they cleaned away the debris and changed my bed linens. They laid me down and tucked me in like a small child.
The darkness took me, and I welcomed it.
#
Alise
The wall clock told me Dad was gone now, if everything went according to schedule. The substitutes would have walked out into a waiting van, their mind recordings downloaded and transmitted, the internal kill switch activated to stop their hearts.
This was going to be a long seventy-five minutes.
We sat around the dinner table sharing stories. Around we went, telling anecdotes. Blaise’s dark expression told me this hit him the hardest. Then came the chime. In silent agreement, we rose and sat in the living room to tap in.
On a plush scarlet sofa, our subs sat in the antechamber, all holding hands. Pleasant floral scents mingled with hints of incense. Flourishing plants sat in patterned pots atop ornate tables. The orange sun sank into the forest through the bay window.
Formally attired in a white jacket and deep blue vest, a staff member opened the double doors. We followed him in to where Dad sat in silk pajamas propped on pillows, looking small and smiling on a four-poster bed.
“Don’t you all look perfect. I can’t thank you enough for coming all this way. It means everything.”
Our substitutes each performed our small goodbye speeches flawlessly. Then came the final hugs. Dad held me close, and I swear he smelled more like a newborn baby than a frail, dying man. Everything comes full circle, I guess. He told me I was the most wonderful mother, and he was so proud of me. My sub teared up. And so did I in my living room, millions of miles away. The boys also received their Granpa’s accolades of pride. Through the blurring tears, I swear I saw Dad whisper something to Blaise. By the time my sub wiped her eye, both boys stood back from the bed, fidgety and uncomfortable.
“Alise? Come around to the other side and take my hand.” Dad’s hand felt warm and dry. “Boys, if you could share my left one here.” He paused to look at each of us in turn. “I’m lucky, eh? It was a good life. And leaving now is a good thing. Suffering doesn’t sit well with me, so out I go. I really love you guys.”
Dad nodded and the formally attired gentleman returned and wiped an analgesic on his neck. He gently pressed a jet injector to his skin, and Dad’s eyes glazed as he languidly smiled. The first drug contained a feel-good cocktail with a heavy downer.
The following pull of the trigger set the end in motion.
His eyes closed, but the trace of a small grin remained.
#
Alise
I had a nice dinner brought in, vegetarian bourguignon. I’ve been to funerals where people ate and ate. But this was a good-bye, not so much a funeral, and the food was nothing more than aroma for the apartment.
Me and the boys sat in our shared gloom. Me with my regrets, and I supposed the boys were absorbing the harsh fact that there was no more Granpa, just memories and videos.
Simon seemed to process faster. The notes of his voice had returned to normal, although his words were few. He excused himself and went to bed early.
Blaise was distant, his expression pained.
“I think what we did for Granpa was perfect,” I told him. “Surrounded by the people that love you. I can’t think of a better way.”
He barely nodded.
I patted his hand, an odd gesture that didn’t feel genuine, but I know when Blaise wasn’t in the mood for an embrace. “We don’t like that he’s gone. We all wish he would be with us longer. But Granpa had a good ending. And he lives on in us.”
Blaise cast his eyes to the floor, looking through it, to what, I didn’t know.
“Did he say something to you when he hugged you last?” Was it jealousy that nagged me? Did I truly need to be a part of some private moment between Blaise and Dad?
He flinched as if I had poked him in the ribs. He was slow in responding, but said, still looking down, “He told me to go out there and do good, I have a helluva life ahead of me.”
Now definitely jealousy twisted in my heart like a small, sharp blade. Blaise got this final bit of counsel and praise, but nothing for me? Nothing for Simon?
“I think I’ll go to bed.” Blaise started down the hall, not looking back, not saying goodnight.
The pain of loss and regret sharpened when alone. I tapped into the lead in the ballet Giselle and danced and danced as the shadowed audience cheered after every movement. Dying in the arms of Albrecht was a fitting and satisfying end to this day. Two hours had passed when I finally emerged, panting and sweating from the exertion.
I looked in on Simon, sleeping, one leg hanging out of the bed. I arranged him in a more comfortable position. He didn’t stir.
Blaise slept atop the sheets. Actually, playing opossum. I could tell by his breathing. I pulled a blanket over him and kissed his forehead.
Alone again. Sleep was not an option. After some mental hand-wringing, I tapped in, but this time into Blaise’s sub. I’ve tapped into plenty of bodies for games or movies, of course, but putting on my son’s body gave me an odd, foreign shiver. I knew it wasn’t really his, but as I felt his clothes through his preteen male body, up surfaced a spectrum of guilt, of wrongness, of violation.
I undocked quickly, jarring me back to my own body, to the present. I adjusted the feed to include only audio and video and tapped back in. I forwarded to near the end. Through the sub’s eyes I watched Dad hug Simon, and now Blaise drew close. Dad leaned in and whispered, “I got your message last night. It’s okay. You didn’t ruin anything. It meant the world to me. You go out there and do good, okay? You—”
I yanked out the tap. Message? What message? Every muscle tensed. A drizzle of cold slid down my spine. What had happened?
Cursing, but not loud enough to wake anyone, I went through the comms.
SENT: 23:13/EARTH SYS/EU/ MARQUIXANES/ MERCY HOSPICE
A message, all right, a video, but it had been erased in the outbox.
And Dad. Oh, Dad. He must have figured out that I meant well. He had known we were substitutes on his final day, but didn’t let on.
I had let him down. So hard. I didn’t make the time to visit when we probably could in years past. And now, of all times, I had dropped the ball.
I wiped my face with my sleeve and was surprised to see Blaise standing there, tears steaking his cheeks, too, his eyes large with hurt.
His voice quavered, “I have to tell you something.”
E N D
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