beaches.
“You can’t turn off the pain, and you can’t beat yourself up either,” continued Echo as we reached the sand and walked out onto the empty beach. “You’re not your parents, Rick.”
“I know.”
“I’m not sure that you do, actually.”
A silence settled.
“Nice out here tonight, huh?” I said after a bit, changing the topic.
Echo just looked at me and nodded. “Yeah, it sure is.”
We laid down in the sand, side by side, and looked up at the bright stars hanging silently above us. I tuned the ultraviolet and x–ray spectra into my visual system, and watched the night sky begin to glow in neon blues and ghostly whites above us.
“Beautiful to be alive, isn’t it?” I said to Echo, wondering to myself if I was just trying to run away again.
I hardly noticed that Echo didn’t respond.
I stayed out the rest of that evening, not wanting to explain a bloody and bruised face to Cindy in the middle of the night. Dodging responsibility, I had Echo leave her a low priority message that I was sorry, but that everything was fine, and that I’d be staying at the office overnight.
The next day was a blur after not sleeping again, so I gobbled more Sleep–Over tabs. On top of everything else, my body was trying to recover from my self–inflicted injuries.
The Command staffers were sympathetically amused at my purple, swollen face. Even though I’d tried to secure a reality filter over the top of it, most of them easily overrode it for a laugh. I was mostly just waiting till the end of the day to speak with Cindy.
“You look the worse for wear,” said Jimmy as we started going over the daily threat reports after lunch. He was smiling.
“Yeah, yeah,” I replied with a grin, “I am supposed to be the fighting part of this unit, remember?”
“Of course, Commander.”
He rolled his eyes, and I looked down, shaking my head.
“Hey, do you want me to finish up with this stuff?” Jimmy offered. “I can see you have a lot on your mind.”
The reports and diagrams floating in the shared display space between us seemed to stretch off into infinite space. Just looking at them made my headache worse.
“Actually, Jimmy, that’d be great.”
“No problem.”
“Rick, why don’t you just take the rest of the day off? I think Jimmy is right, go and take it easy,” Echo added. “I just checked with Cindy, and she’s got some time too.”
I looked up at him suddenly. “You talked to Cindy?”
“Yeah, I sure did,” Echo replied. “She was just checking in on you while you were busy with Jimmy, and she said she had the rest of the day free.”
“Good, thanks guys,” I said, looking at the two of them. “I really appreciate it.”
“Oh, Rick, by the way,” said Jimmy as I began to get up to go. “Your wife asked me to help her with some stuff with your proxxids, you’re okay with all that?”
“Yeah, yeah, sure,” I said, waving him on, “whatever she needs.”
I forwarded him my proxxid credentials and flitted off to wrap up some details.
I opened the door to our apartment after Echo had walked me home, expecting a wave of screaming kids. It was completely quiet, however, and right away that got me worried. Tentatively, I looked around inside and found Cindy sitting on a small couch in the center. Our place was a pristine white, featureless projection, very calm and quiet.
It felt creepy.
“Oh Rick,” she exclaimed as she saw me enter, getting up off the couch and coming to me, “what did you do to yourself? Echo told me you went out last night? This was all my fault…”
“No, no, it’s not your fault. It was my fault.” I held up my hands. “I’m okay, it’s just a big scratch. I was out doing some night drills for work.”
She looked unconvinced.
“About last night Rick, I know you had something important to say…”
“And I still do,” I interrupted, “look, I know it’s been a long time getting here…but…I’m ready now, and I know you are.”
I smiled. She smiled back and wrapped her arms around me, kissing me.
“That’s wonderful news, sweetie.”
She looked happy, but I had expected a little more, so I repeated myself. “I want to have a real baby with you now, you understand?”
She nodded and smiled, “Of course I do, and that’s wonderful news. Well, let’s get it just right, then.”
I took a deep breath, feeling relief wash through my body.
“So, where are the boys then?” I asked, looking around.
“Oh, they’re gone now,” she replied casually, surprising me. As long as she was happy, which she seemed to be, it was fine with me, but I had to admit I felt some sudden pangs of regret.
“But,” she continued, “I do have someone I’d like you to meet.”
A crack appeared in the flat white wall behind the couch, and she led me by the hand towards it as the wall slid open to reveal a room beyond. I could hear a soft gurgling sound. We walked up to the edge of a cradle, and Cindy bent over to pick up a little baby girl lying inside it.
She held her up to me, and I took the baby in my arms.
“Rick, please meet Brianna,” Cindy announced softly.
I looked down into my new baby girl’s face, and she was amazingly beautiful. We could try this out for a while.
Maybe I’d always wanted a baby girl.
5
TODAY CINDY HAD transported our family into a Norman Rockwell–like setting. We were outside, sitting together at an old weather beaten oak table at the edge of an apple orchard, behind a vintage white washed cottage, complete with peeling paint outside and a musty interior full of yellowing family photographs on mantelpieces.
It was warm, hot even, as the sun lazily set under a cloudless blue sky. We were on Martha’s Vineyard in a circa 1940s wikiworld. The fading day had a languid, easy going feel to it, which was nice after a hectic day of chasing down cyber threats. Sea air rustled in through tall unkempt grasses atop sand dunes lining the nearby beaches.
Like getting a new fix, our first baby girl proxxid had injected new life into our relationship, and the days and weeks had passed with a sense of rejuvenated expectations. Jimmy and Echo had sensed what was going on, and the pair of them had volunteered to take on a lot of my Command functions, giving me the time to work things out with Cindy.
The highlight of each day had become a ritualized homecoming to explore a new metaworld that Cindy would create for us, and, of course, to play with the latest proxxid. As time went on, we’d progressed, one by one, through Brianna, our first girl proxxid, and then Georgina, Paul, Pauli and eventually to our new favorite, Little Ricky- Two.
“Adriana was right,” commented Cindy, looking down into Little Ricky-Two’s face, “blue eyes are the best.
