She opened her eyes on the other side and took her first breath like a man who nearly drowned. Leila laid on a soft velvety bed in the quantum BCI streaming lab. Exactly where she left about a year prior. The lights were dimmed low and a friendly face met her.

  “Hello, Leila, how are you feeling?” Dr. Ron said.

  It took her a minute to get her bearing, and her head felt foggy. She turned her gaze slowly and the bed next to her was empty.

  “Where’s Michael?” She asked.

  Dr. Ron took her hand, it was cold. But vitals were stable post-unlinking.

  “I’m afraid he passed away a few months ago,” he said quietly almost as a whisper.

  Leila tried to sit up. “Whatever do you mean?” He was here, alive and linked when I left…”

  “I know,” Dr. Ron said. “I know you are probably very close by now, and we tried our best to save him. It was always a risk with someone like him…After five years of neural linking, the body atrophied just too much.”

  “No…no…” Her head was spinning. And she dropped her hand from his.

  She wanted Michael’s hand. Calloused and dusty.

  Dr. Ron continued: “Then we discovered another problem…neural overload. This was all new territory for us. Over time, the neural link prioritised Michael’s mind’s presence in the sim, depriving the brain of real-world stimuli.”

  “It was devastating.” Dr. Ron sat back and clasped his hands. “For me, personally, to lose him.”

  Leila shook her head. “But he is still in the sim, alive…”

  The doctor sighed. He dreaded this conversation. “Yes. The brain has flatlined. But his consciousness was projected and emulated for over five years… Strengthening and learning. It doesn’t know it detached from the hardware and continues to exist seamlessly as if nothing has happened.”

  “So what are you saying? He is now digitally immortal in the sim?” Leila struggled to stand up but her legs were wobbly and she nearly fell.

  “That’s one way of putting it. Another is to say that his brain’s quantum state is copied and collapsed inside the digital world.”

  “But…but I promised him…he thinks I betrayed him…he gave me the codes…Apollo and Daphne….”

  “Apollo and Daphne?”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” Leila accused as she tried to stand up again.

  “We had no way. We could only wait for you to sever the link.”

  Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

  Wait for me to sever the link. Leila thought. It was a one way street. She thought it was an advantage. “So he’s been dead for months? But he seemed so real…sculpting and creating…”

  “Leila this is unprecedented.” Dr. Ron watched her wobbly carpet walk. Like a newborn foal. His voice soft and soothing: “His consciousness was mirrored into the sim at near-instantaneous speed, creating a perfectly immersive experience. I mean, he contributed a lot to the system design…His thoughts, memories, and emotions were copied to create continuity… everything as if it’s real, with all five senses engaged. And this has been going on for six years, with the quantum neural streaming creating a compounding effect. The more time he was linked the more immersive the experience became—but at the cost of physical atrophy.”

  “Well then, I have to go back. And tell him—“

  “Leila, he probably knows. And there is no going back. Look at your body after one year of neural linking. 20% loss of muscle mass…I’m afraid we can’t allow it. You will end up like him. Actually we need to shut the system down and re-evaluate…”

  Leila stood in front of the large wooden mirror and could hardly recognise herself. She was gaunt. Skin on bones. Her hair brittle.

  I am much prettier in the sim. With Michael.

  It was then when an officer from The Order entered the lab. He ignored Dr. Ron.

  “Leila good to see you!” The moustached officer bellowed.

  “I must be linked back! I must go back!” Leila pleaded wide eyed.

  I won. I won.

  “Nonsense! You succeeded in your mission splendidly. Give us the codes and we will terminate the sim publicly so everyone can see that AA is the only safe way to create art.” And he went to give her a welcome back hug but Leila jerked back.

  “But now I can’t. If you terminate the sim, Michael dies!”

  And I must claim my love. Real or fake.

  “But he died months ago! Would you like to visit his grave as proof?”

  Leila recognised this man from a year ago. She could still smell his acid breath and the sound of his horse laugh never left her ears. As her heart rate increased, she saw it on the screens which monitored her vitals.

  “It’s just the body,” she said calmly. I must remain calm if I am to… “But his consciousness lives completely and fully inside the sim!”

  All of Leila’s pleas fell on deaf ears. Dr. Ron sympathised with her but at the end it was a fascinating case for him, and he was already thinking how to fashion it in into a scientific article to be published.

  The Order was less than kind. They immediately requested the codes to collapse the sim and Leila refused. She cited that it would be murder. She was arrested and jailed pending her trial, where she weakened further with muscle atrophy and depression. She remembered her promise to Michael, to project his statue in the plaza—as the last sculpture to be fashioned by the last artist on earth. She didn’t keep her promise and Michael probably felt so betrayed.

  She remembered their last kiss. She could still taste his lips.

  The taste of victory.

  Maybe she was wrong. Maybe it was better to remain unheralded and free to create, than in bondage fighting for glory.

  The weeks passed and finally her trial arrived. She was sentenced to ten years in prison unless she turned over the codes. On the stand she finally folded:

  “I will turn over the codes once Apollo and Daphne are projected and placed as a permanent exhibition in the grand plaza of this city.”

  And that’s how it was on a sunny and strange Tuesday.

  Leila dug into the encrypted corners of the AA database and retrieved the sculpture. Using quantum streaming it was projected and rematerialised like a mini simulation in the centre of the city hall plaza. It was done without ceremony, but all who passed by it marvelled at its beauty and splendour.

  My beauty.

  When Leila touched it she felt not only the smooth marble, but Michael’s hands were still on it.

  If you can only see, the cosmic glory you achieved with this…with me.

  ***