“What? How is that possible?”
“There’s a number of possibilities, but I’m waiting on the footage from the cat before I jump to any conclusions.”
“What possibilities?” Beth asked. “I’d like to know what’s on the table.”
“Well, perhaps it’s like you said: some sort of activity in the brain brought on something like a stroke,” Peter started. “However, I have serious doubts about that. He would have to have some totally-unheard-of condition afflict his brain just at the end of his life, something that we have no modern neurological reports of. It’s possible, like I said, but extremely unlikely.”
“So, what do you think it is?”
“If I had to guess, I’d say that the husband’s N.I. falsely picked up the readings of his wife’s I.I.” Peter suggested.
“So we’d be seeing Janine’s brain scans rather than Simon Sr.’s?” Beth asked.
“It’s just a theory,” Peter replied. “Honestly, I’m grasping at straws, too. Until we get better data, though, I don’t have much to work with.”
“Well, it would make sense,” Beth said. “At least from a non-expert’s point-of-view, seeing Janine’s neurological data instead of the husband’s is what I would expect if she had taken control of the body, perhaps just long enough to commit suicide.”
“It’s plausible, but like I said, we don’t know anything for certain just yet.”
Beth was about to lean back in her chair and take a generous bite of a cookie when a sharp rap came at her door. It was still ajar from Peter’s entrance, but whoever knocked didn’t seem comfortable taking the invitation.
“Come in,” Beth said.
I wonder why they didn’t use the signal tone, she thought.
A young woman entered the room, a look of desperate uncertainty on her face. Her eyes darted from Beth to Peter, unsure of which one to address. Luckily, the coroner took the lead.
“Tia, hello,” he greeted her. “Do you have it?”
The question seemed to take her out of her anxious trance and her eyes locked onto Peter.
“Yes, doctor,” she said. “I’ve just transferred what footage we could extract from the cat.”
“Very good,” the coroner replied. “Did you watch any of it?”
Tia blushed a little.
“No sir,” she answered. “That would be inappropriate, not to mention illegal.”
“Excellent, Tia,” Peter said. “That was just a test, you know. You can relax.”
The young lady acted like she was relaxing, letting her shoulders descend and a sigh of slow air to escape her lips, but the tension in her eyes persisted. She looked at Beth, who met her eyes without comment. The anxiety returned to Tia’s face and she looked away.
“Is there anything else, doctor?” she asked.
“No, Tia, that will be all,” Peter said with a gracious nod. “Thank you.”
The young woman gave a sort of awkward bow before excusing herself from the office. Once she was out of earshot, the coroner turned back to the detective with a chuckle.
“It’s literally her first day,” he explained. “Please forgive her.”
“There’s nothing to forgive,” Beth said. “It’s good to know I can still terrify the newbies.”
She took a bite of her sugar cookie as Peter seemed to become immersed in his implant. A moment of silence passed as the detective chewed.
“Ah, yes, there it is,” the coroner said, breaking the quiet.
“The cat footage?” Beth asked, swallowing the last bit of her treat.
Peter nodded.
“Care to see it now?” he asked.
Beth wiped her hands off on her jeans, letting the crumbs fall to the wood floor beneath her desk.
“I don’t see the point in delaying,” she answered. “Sync it up to me.”
A blank stare returned to Peter’s face as he went back into his implant. Even though she saw it dozens of times every day, Beth couldn’t shake the unnatural feeling that seeing someone’s “implant face” inspired in her.
“Alright, starting it up now,” Peter said.
The office gradually faded away, like a stage light dimmed until the darkness had taken everything. Just as slowly, a new scene replaced the office. It was a perfect reconstruction of the Mendezes’ apartment, rendered in flawless holographic 3D, transmitted by Peter’s neural implant and Beth’s cerebral computer. To every sense, it seemed as though they had been standing in the apartment all along, only caught up in a daydream that they were in Beth’s office. But she knew better. Even though everything looked like the Mendezes’, it didn’t quite “feel” like it. Perhaps it was a sixth sense humans didn’t know they had. A Spidey-sense.
Once the scene materialized entirely, Beth noticed Simon Mendez, Sr. standing in the living room with a gun in his hand. He held the weapon loosely, his arms down at his sides, but there was a slight tremble in his extremities. She could see the man breathing heavily, taking in the trademarked breaths of a being in sheer panic.
“This is where the footage starts because the cat wasn’t in the room until now,” Peter explained. “It’s the best we can get.”
Beth shushed him, her eyes fixated on the holographic man. His head was bent downward. She took a few steps around the fake sofa so she could see Simon Sr.’s face. Tears were streaming down his cheeks, illuminated by the soft glow of a lamp that had been on in the Mendez’s apartment. His eyes were closed and his mouth hung loosely open.
“Why?” the recording of Simon Sr. asked. “Why now?”
Both Beth and Peter looked around the artificial living room, looking for someone the husband was speaking to. It was dark with deep shadows cast behind every corner, but no form could be found. It appeared Simon Sr. was alone, at least physically.
“Because now it’s time,” the older man replied to himself. “It’s been a long time coming.”
“I just don’t understand,” Simon Sr. also said aloud, but in a more vulnerable tone.
“That’s okay, Dad,” he spoke in a calm, almost menacing manner. “I don’t need you to understand.”
“Please, son, don’t!” Simon
