Lucas had the most infectious little laugh. Brendon could hear it now, bubbling up from his son's chest as the waves crashed over his tiny toes. This was one of the reasons he loved this recording. It was the first time Lucas had ever seen the ocean, ever felt sand. Brendon was holding him under his arms, trying to keep him steady while the boy stomped and splashed, sending water everywhere in pure, unfiltered joy.
Brendon remembered it took some skill to keep Lucas's breathing tube in his nose and his hospital-issue O2 holster dry while he wriggled and giggled whenever the sea hit his legs.
Grace was standing in the water too, filming on her smartphone, recording the memory. She had her jean legs rolled halfway up her calves, a white loose linen t-shirt, and raven black hair flowing in the wind, whipping across her face. It was a perfect beach day—one of those moments that felt like the entire world had paused just for them.
Then everything froze. The recording ended.
Brendon took his hands from under Lucas, leaving him frozen mid-motion, and stood up. Grace was still in front of him, her avatar glitching slightly every few seconds. The waves and birds were still too, though Brendon could still hear both. He shifted on his feet and took out his phone, scrolling through his recordings. Maybe if he could stitch enough of them together he could go back in time, maybe change things.
If he could relive one moment of his life, which would it be? Which memories would he want to make real? If they seemed real and felt real, were they? If all that was happening was a machine was fooling his brain to see, hear, touch, and smell that moment, that snapshot of his life, did that make it wrong or fake? If a simulation felt like the real thing, was it a simulation? If it was real in every way that mattered, then why couldn't he stay here and live this?
It had been Grace's idea to take Lucas to the sea that day. Brendon remembered being worried about the dirt and sand getting into his tube or him falling in the sea and catching an infection, but Grace was insistent. She wanted to take him outside, to give him a day in the sunshine for once, something fun. In the end, Brendon was thankful, as it had given him one of the best memories he had of his little boy.
He found the clip. Everything around him swirled as the scene re-rendered. He felt his body being gently maneuvered into position.
The clip was from later that same day. Further along the beach. They'd gone for lunch in a quirky diner by the shore and were sitting on its wooden decking just finishing up. There was a trellis overhead covered in dried palm leaves that gently swayed, making a mellow shadow dance on the wooden floor.
The debris of lunch, burgers, fries, and milkshakes, still lay on the table. Brendon was holding Lucas in his lap, pointing out things to him on the beach. "Can you see the kite, Lucas? Look at the boats on the sea." It was one of the few clips where Brendon was holding Lucas close. He could feel the touch of his skin, smell the top of his head, press his cheek into his, kiss him.
Except it wasn't really him.
It was just a digital rendering of a memory caught on a phone over three years ago. His hair didn't smell right. His hair should smell like strawberries, like Grace's organic shampoo made it smell. Instead, it smelled like antiseptic. Like a machine's guess at what a memory should smell like.
Grace sat across the table eating carrot cake. She loved carrot cake. She smiled when he looked at her. She'd been happy that day. For those few hours, they'd managed to change reality just by believing it could be different.
He looked over at her. She smiled. "What are you looking at? Have I got cake on my face?" He smiled back and shook his head.
"No babe, you're fine," he said, then paused. "I love you Grace. I wish things could have been different for you. I'm sorry I wasn't there."
His eyes welled up. "I wish..."
She smiled at him, carrot cake filling in her cheeks.
Recordings were playback-only. He couldn't interact with her beyond what had already been captured. He didn't know what she would say if he said that to her for real. Especially now. After he hadn't seen her for over a year, and hadn't heard from her for six months.
After Lucas died, they both retreated into themselves. He managed to claw his way out again eventually, but not soon enough to save her. By the time he came around to what was going on with Grace, it was too late.
They'd been childhood sweethearts. Brendon's father worked for her family. One night, after a beating that went too far, Grace found him in the back of a car, bloodied, bruised, barely conscious. She brought him inside. Showed him kindness. Saved him.
From that moment, everything good in his life came from her. When his father died, when he wanted to quit medical school, when darkness came, she was there. She pulled him out every time.
But when she needed him, when it was finally his turn to save her, he wasn't strong enough. He missed it. By the time he realized what was happening to Grace, she was already gone, lost to something so deep he couldn't reach into and pull her back from.
He supposed that was why he tortured himself replaying these moments. A penance for a debt that he could never repay. He cried. She ate her carrot cake.
His arm buzzed, not the soft notification, but a sharp, insistent pulse. A warning light flickered at the edge of his vision in sickly amber: "NEURAL SATURATION: 82%." Below it, a countdown timer began ticking: "AUTO-EJECTION IN 9:47."
Brendon's temples throbbed. His real body was starting to protest. He could feel it now, a dull ache creeping up the back of his neck, a tightness in his chest that didn't belong in this perfect beach memory. His fingers tingled. His breathing felt shallow.
He looked back at Grace, still smiling at him over her carrot cake, unaware that his time was running out. The warning pulsed again, more insistent. 9:23 remaining.
Still holding Lucas on his lap, he covered the notification with the sleeve of his shirt. He took a beat and stood up, carrying Lucas in his arms, still facing him out to sea.
He walked him over to Grace. She took him and cradled him. "Oh, come here, my gorgeous boy. Mummy loves you so much."
She adjusted his oxygen holder and secured his breathing tube, then gave him an enormous kiss on his cheek. The boy giggled.
Brendon remembered this part differently. He remembered by now Lucas was getting tired and groggy. Grace had lost her shine and the clouds were beginning to darken. He gave each of them a kiss and, without speaking a word, got out his phone.
"Where are you going?" she asked. This struck Brendon as every other time he played this recording she'd never said anything.
"I need to leave, I have an appointment," he replied.
"Ok, babe, we'll see you later." She was bouncing Lucas on her knee, making faces.
"Sure," he replied, slightly perplexed.
"I hope you find what you're searching for."
Her head tilted. Not the natural tilt of curiosity or affection, something else. The angle was wrong, too far, like a puppet with a loose string. Her smile remained fixed, but her eyes didn't follow. They stared past him, glassy and unfocused.
The words came out slower than they should have. Each syllable stretched just a fraction too long, the cadence mechanical, like audio being played at 0.9 speed. Her lips moved, but the synchronization was off, a half-second lag, as if the signal was weak.
Brendon's blood turned to ice.
She'd never said that. Ever. He'd played this recording hundreds of times, memorized every word, every gesture, every breath. Grace had never said anything like that before.
For a split second, her face pixelated. A digital glitch rippled across her cheek like static on an old television, then snapped back into place. Her smile remained frozen, too wide, too perfect.
The AI was writing dialogue. The system was listening and generating her words. His hands trembled. This was a violation. The system had reached into his most sacred memory and messed with it.
"Grace?" he whispered.
She bounced Lucas on her knee, oblivious, her movements looping in perfect repetition. The boy giggled on cue.
Brendon's temples began tightening. His fingers fumbled for his phone, nearly dropping it as he searched the menu. He scrolled through the menu options, vision blurring, until he found the exit protocol.
He stood for a moment, unable to move. His hand trembled as he reached for the exit protocol. Part of him wanted to ignore the notification and try to fix this, make sure he was leaving this memory of Grace and Lucas intact. Make sure they were them. His fingers hovered over the button.
Then the warning pulse hit again, harder. 95% saturation. His temples throbbed.
He tapped it. The beach didn't dissolve, it shattered.
The sky fractured first, blue fragments splintering like broken glass, revealing black void beneath. The ocean froze mid-wave, then exploded into a million pixels that scattered like digital confetti. The sand beneath his feet cracked open in jagged geometric patterns, polygons tearing apart at their seams. He screamed, his head feeling as if it were in a vice.
Grace reached for him, her mouth forming his name, but her arm phased through empty air, her fingers dissolving into wireframe before reforming, glitching, breaking apart again. Lucas's laugh distorted into a warped, slowing audio file, then cut to silence.
Brendon felt it then, the pull. Like hooks buried in his chest, his spine, his skull, yanking him backward through reality itself. His stomach lurched. The world tilted violently. He was being ripped in two directions at once, his mind dragged one way, his body another, the sensation of tearing so visceral he gasped.
The restaurant, the beach, Grace's face, all of it collapsed inward, sucked into a singularity of darkness that swallowed everything. He was falling. No, he was being ejected, thrown out like a corrupted file being purged from a system.
The void hit him like ice water.
Total darkness. Total silence. His body didn't exist. He couldn't feel his hands, his legs, his face. Panic surged. Was he still breathing? Was his heart still beating? He tried to scream but had no mouth, no lungs, nothing.
Then the light came.
Not gentle. Not gradual. It exploded toward him like a freight train, a blinding white portal that tore through the void with the sound of shattering glass and screaming metal. It engulfed him, swallowed him whole, and he felt his body snap back into existence all at once, every nerve ending firing, every muscle seizing, his lungs gasping for air that burned like fire.
The light was too bright. Too harsh. His eyes watered, his head pounded, and his stomach heaved with nausea. He was back. He was real. He was—
He blinked, gasping, disoriented, his hands clutching at something solid. The armchair. The apartment. Reality.
His chest heaved. Sweat soaked his shirt. His hands wouldn't stop shaking.