jacksjg89
PROCRASTINATOR
Everyone's head went to johnny cash while mine went to Phil Ochs
Great chapter, although an English gentlemen would avert his eyes
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- Thread starter Jollyrei
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Great chapter, although an English gentlemen would avert his eyes
I do apologise for the continued delay on this story. For those not 'in the know', recent IRL events have placed me in the UK for a couple of weeks, and my online and writing time are quite limited. Rest assured that the next chapter is underway, and I even know where the story is going. Things will get considerably more "exciting" for our heroine as soon as I get back to my real keyboard (around next weekend). In the meantime I thank you for your interest and continued patience.
Naraku
Draconarius
For those not in the know; modesty prevents Jolly from telling you he is in the finals at Wimbledon.
We await you triumphant return.
Repertor
Artifex Imaginum
So that's why he's always playing with balls.
windar
Teller of Tales
WHAT DOES "LOVE - 40" MEAN? IS THAT GOOD?
40 is NOT too old for love. Neither is 60, for that matter.
Loxuru
Graf von Kreuzigung
Ask all those you once told : 'GAME-SET-MATCH!'WHAT DOES "LOVE - 40" MEAN? IS THAT GOOD?
IT DOES BEG THE QUESTION WHETHER I ACTUALLY EVER LOSE. PERHAPS WE JUST PLAY ANOTHER SET. LOTS OF TIME, ME.Ask all those you once told : 'GAME-SET-MATCH!'
Chapter 7: In through the out door
She felt…she didn’t know. Everything was familiar, and everything was strange. James was here. It just accepted this as part of her life. She was naked on the bathroom floor, and this person she had hardly met had his arms around her. She wanted him here. That was the part of her that wasn’t thinking.
The other part, the intellectual thinking part still said this wasn’t real, and James was a stranger. This familiar stranger was explaining something.
“Bill sent you to this scenario, but I set up the background. I wanted you to be safe,” he was saying. “Something about your situation bothered me, and when I found out you couldn’t live outside, I tried to make a place for you inside. This is like the places you lived before, before you lost your memories. You had a husband and friends. So here you are.”
“But why not just put me in here and let me build a life?” she asked. His arms were still around her naked body as she sat on the tile floor of her bathroom. Their bathroom. “Why make yourself my husband?”
“I need to keep you safe, and I need to track the virus,” he said. “I was right when I said you were in danger. I think your consciousness is marked by the virus. It didn’t finish its job before, and it will try to complete it’s task. To protect you from it, I have to be in the same story.”
“They said you were dead,” she said.
“Somewhere, I am dead,” he said. “Back there. I can’t go back. Neither can you – your body outside is dying. Maybe that’s why I feel connected to you. I need to get you out of it, the way I got out of mine.”
“How did you die there?” she asked.
“Someone wasn’t happy that I was so close to tracking the base installation of the virus,” James said. “They had an agent inside the complex I guess, or infiltrated. They got to me. I suppose they murdered me. I got away, but I was done for. I uploaded myself as part of the box background – inside the main program. I’m still me, but I’m not just an upload. I’m inseparable from the program now – my consciousness is part of the box system. I’m sort of a real AI character; a not-artificial intelligence. It’s hard to explain. That’s what I wanted for you, but you didn’t…”
“So, I’m still tied to my external body?” she asked. “I’m not safe here? The Romans are still out there?”
“I didn’t want to pull you in against your will, but I did a terrible job of explaining things. I had to set up the alternate facility in a hurry, and I had only a limited time to explain. There was no reason for you to trust me. I was disappointed when you rejected the green button option, but I had to try again. I think sooner or later the Romans, as you call the virus, will come after you again, because the virus will recognize your consciousness’ and see it as an incomplete job. It’s programmed to delete people.”
“That’s what Bill told me,” she said. “He thought it was religious extremists.”
“Yeah,” said James. “That’s the working theory. There have always been “pure lifers”, people who think life in the boxes is cheating death or cheating God’s plan, and Bill figures they decided to invent these Romans to act as God’s revenge. Whoever it is, it’s a nasty virus and hard to track. If they come back, I can trace them. As long as it’s dormant, I can’t see it. Sticking close to you like this, I have a chance to find it and kill it.”
“Bill said it was gone,” she said.
“As far as he knows, it is, but if so, why was I…why was my body killed? We keep losing people inside here. That’s what he didn’t tell you. He doesn’t believe it’s the virus, but it happens too regularly to be an accident.”
“So I’m just a decoy to you?” she asked. “You’re just using me to find this thing, and then you’re off again?”
“No, I wanted to give you a real life again, but as things stand now, either your body will die, and you’ll die, or the virus will get you and you’ll die anyway. I want to stop that. And then there’s this,” he said.
He picked her up and carried her to the bed. “I really wanted to do this,” he said. “I know you think this is strange, and we don’t know each other.” He kissed her on her lips and she found herself kissing him back. He pulled his shirt off.
“But I really want to do this,” he said. She embraced him, as he threw his pants to the floor. She didn’t know him, she thought.
She wanted him. He spread her thighs open and lowered his body over hers. Had she had lovers in the other boxes? She didn’t remember other boxes, or other lives. She felt his erection spreading her labia open, and then he thrust forward. She heard herself groan, felt the pleasure of herself spreading open, her vagina enveloping him, the force of the length driving into her body. When she had him deep inside her, she stared up at his face.
“What if it’s just the way we’re programmed?” she asked. “It could be the box telling me that you’re my husband. Telling me to care about you.”
"Who is telling me to care about you?” he asked. “I want you.” He stopped talking and took her, thrusting hard into her until she cried out in release and submission, and felt him tense and gasp and explode inside her. It was electric, and harrowing, terrible and the best thing that had happened to her.
“Wow,” she murmured. “That felt pretty real.”
“Better than real,” he said still shuddering against her, “remember?”
“No,” she said. “I’m sort of a virgin. For all I know this was my first time. I don’t have anything to remember.” She held him against her.
“Then this is reality,” he said. She couldn’t argue with that. His softening penis withdrew from her pussy and he slipped off her onto his side, holding her. She looked into his eyes, his glasses still on. She smiled at him.
“I saw a monitoring video of you, when you were in the resort box,” he said. “You were so beautiful. I wanted to meet you. I may have obsessed on your case a bit, I suppose. That’s why I programmed myself to be your husband.”
“So now what, Mr. Wilson,” she asked. “Do we just keep playing at being married until we’re used to it, or do we go for a torrid fling and a messy divorce.”
“I would opt for the first scenario,” he said, “if you don’t mind. But there are a couple of practical things to take care of.”
“Like?” she said.
“Keeping you alive,” he said. “Your body is only held in the stasis field temporarily. You need to get out, before something bad happens, and before the virus can get to you. I don’t even know what it looks like now – it mutates.”
“I usually get saved by technology glitches,” she said. “Not that it’s pleasant.”
“Yeah, well this time you’re in a box that the virus was specifically tailored for. There won’t be any glitches. If it gets you, you’re done. We have to be alert for anything – the other people here – they’re part of the box. The virus doesn’t treat them as real people. It won’t see me as a real person. You’re the one at risk.”
“So, how does that work?” she asked.
“We have to get you back to the false facility – that’s a sort of in between box, where you’re still in your body, but it translates your consciousness to the artificial intelligence level, independent of your body.”
“So I’ll die?” she asked. “Like you?”
“Are you dead now?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” she said getting up and putting on a blue kimono style robe. It felt like a robe she had always worn, despite the fact that she had never seen it before. She liked it. She ran her fingers over the silk texture, examining the intricate stitching of the gold and red dragon design.
“New gown?” he asked, smiling.
“Shut up,” she said. “You know I’ve never seen it before. Somehow it feels like mine.”
“Just like I feel like your husband,” he said. She was about to contradict him, but then realized that it was true. “It is part of the program of this box that I’m your husband, and the programming makes that seem sort of familiar to you,” James said.
“So I’m in an arranged marriage?” she asked, smiling at him. “Isn’t that sort of rigging the situation to suit you?”
“I guess so,” he said, “I really wanted to fuck you, but I didn’t program a lot of background memories of our courtship, or a fake romance. I just wanted a plausible reason to be here with you. I didn’t have much time to do it. Someone was out to kill me, remember?”
“What’s the next step?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I need a way to get you to an ‘in between’ box. “I have to go away again for a bit, to poke around and find a ‘back door’. There’s usually a way that the engineers outside can install updates to the boxes. If I can find one, I can maybe slip out of here and build a bridge for you.”
“Does it have to be that creepy place with the disappearing cafeteria staff?” she asked.
“No,” he said. “I really just need a way to get you into a different box from this one, and get me there too. My transfer unit will do the rest, you know the hand control unit with the green button.”
“I should have just pressed it,” she said, “but I didn’t know you then.”
“You barely know me now,” he said, touching her cheek.
“I know a couple of things about you,” she said, feeling herself blush. “How long will you be gone?” she asked. She found herself feeling apprehensive and anticipating loneliness again.
“It’ll seem like only a couple of days to you,” he said. I’ll make sure that I come back in two days of your program time. Remember, time works differently in different boxes. When I come back, I’ll have the plan.”
“Just make sure you come back,” she said. “I’m not ready to be a widow yet.”
James left after breakfast. She found herself kissing him and hanging on to him as if her life depended on it. I was never going to be that girl, she thought. She was still afraid, she realized, despite the pastoral surroundings.
She sat and stared at her tea cup for a while, trying to figure out what to do. I can’t be a shut-in, she thought. Being a prisoner in this cottage is as bad as being a prisoner in my withered body ‘outside’. She decided to go see the town again.
Maybe I can do something with Jamila, from the Indian shop. It was a start of a plan. She went outside and walked around the cottage. There was an interlocked brick driveway leading around the house to the back where there was a garage that she hadn’t paid any attention to the night before. It had old fashioned gate doors that swung open easily on well-oiled hinges. The doors were a happy green colour, freshly painted. She liked the colour.
Inside, she found a blue Volkswagen Golf. A key in her handbag fit the lock, and part of her seemed to remember that she owned a car. It seemed familiar.
But, of course, I’ve never had a Golf before. I have one now. She wondered when the box would stop surprising her. I’ve only just arrived, she thought.
She got into the car, on the right – British steering side, she thought – and it started easily. James will be handy with cars, wouldn’t he? He would make sure he was the technical, handy sort of guy. She thought she could probably stop thinking about him. She didn't think she wanted to. She only objected to the box programming making her want him. Part of her didn't care.
She didn’t understand this business of being uploaded into the box, or being in the base programming, and how that was different, but he seemed convinced that the Romans couldn’t ‘see’ him, but if they were still around, they would find her. Still, the sun was shining, the birds were singing, and there was a fresh breeze carrying the scent of flowers from her garden. It was hard to think that anything bad could happen.
She backed the car out of the garage, went to close the doors, and then turned around carefully to drive out of the yard. A few minutes later, she was motoring down smooth black pavement into the outskirts of the little village. It wasn’t market day, so the square was empty, but she saw some ordinary looking people walking around, and spotted a used book shop. Jamila and Indian food could wait. She parked the car carefully on the left side of the road, and crossed the street to the shop. A cheerful bell rang as she entered.
She left the shop with two books and a new friend. Charlie Watts was an old retired soldier who had served with the Royal Army in Flanders in ‘the War’.
Which war? Were real people killed? Real countries invaded, or was it all just background to some AI program?
Charlie seemed real enough. He was friendly, cheerful, and wistfully nostalgic, especially when he talked about his late wife. Would she be a late wife someday? James had implied they could live forever. Why was Charlie’s wife dead? She didn’t ask, but expressed superficial sympathy.
“Oh, don’t fret,” said Charlie as he rang up her purchases on an old cash register. “She wouldn’t want me to pine.” She bought a vintage edition of Jane Eyre because it seemed small-townish to do so, and a paperback by an author she didn’t know, because it had a bright cover promising adventure and was thick and would take some time to read. "Come back soon," Charlie said as she left. "It's nice to have you here in our town." She couldn't remember anyone ever saying that to her before. Of course, she thought wryly, she couldn't remember a lot of things, not even dating her own husband.
She ran into a woman on the street. “Oh, hello Mrs. Wilson,” said the woman cheerfully. Everyone seemed to know who she was, as if the box was made just for her. “All settled in? I hears as your young man is back.”
“Just on leave for now,” she said and surprised herself at how naturally the words came. “He’s had to go back today, but he’ll be home for good in a few days.”
“Well that’s a mercy,” said the woman. “Mercy,” she repeated in a strange, quiet, sad way. Then she seemed to shake her head and get her voice back. “You’ll be happy to have him home,” she said cheerfully. “Sorry I can’t stop,” she added. “My Davie is already going to be late for his violin lesson, and those teachers cost real money.”
She wandered down the street and finally came to a shop that said “Taj Mahal – Home Cooked Indian Food” She smiled. The aroma from the shop smelled wonderful, a mix of coriander, chili, and cinnamon, with some cumin thrown in. Jamila was at the serving counter inside the door. To the left was a seating area with about six tables, all set with white table cloths and clean place settings.
Jamila grinned at her. “So, you couldn’t stay away after having our samosas,” she said.
“You have me figured out,” she said. “Actually, James left on duty again this morning, and I was feeling sorry for myself, so I came to see you.”
“Ah, it’s sad. I’m your only friend,” said Jamila. “Sorry, a bad joke. Look, my shift is over. Let’s go out and have some not-Indian tea and maybe ice cream. We can share stories about how we’re never getting out of this town and will never fulfil our dreams of becoming big movie stars.”
“Anything is possible,” she said, thinking about the past few days of her life.
“I like you,” said Jamila. “You’re an optimist.” They both laughed. They walked out of the shop and headed up the high street to a brightly painted café that promised ice cream. When they came out, they were both still chatting and laughing, and she realized that she had made another friend.
They’re so real, she thought, but part of her was already taken in and no longer observing but was ready to believe that this was reality. She realized that she had been lonely for a lot of her previous recent experiences. In the box, if I’m the central character, does everyone become who I want them to be. Or maybe I’m just good at making friends. Maybe these are just nice people.
They walked back toward the Indian shop, and her car. The sun was setting on the hills, highlighting a strange regular square shaped formation that she hadn’t seen there before.
“What’s that?” she asked.
“Up there?” said Jamila. “I haven’t seen it. Looks like a ruined fort. There are old Roman forts all over the countryside. This was an old outpost of theirs, they say. It’s probably that.”
“Was it there this morning?” she asked.
“Of course,” said Jamila. “It’s always been there.” But she looked like the words were having trouble forming, as if this was a new and unwelcome idea.
“Oh,” she said as her shoe slipped on loose gravel. “Hey, there’s no pavement here!”
“When will those people learn to put up road works signs?” asked Jamila. “Look, drive carefully, right? And I really had a lovely time. We should do this again, and if James knows any other handsome men, maybe he can bring one along for me to meet.” She winked.
“Okay, deal,” she said. James, come home, she thought. “I’ll drop in and actually buy something tomorrow.”
“Great,” said Jamila. “Bye.” And Jamila dashed off into the shop.
She opened her car and got in. Everything was fine, she said. It’s just old ruins and road works. Just like anywhere.
She turned the car around and drove carefully down the street toward her cottage. She saw Mr. Hounslow on the side of the road, the man who looked like the Roman centurion. He was strolling with his hands in his pockets, but waved when he saw here. Impulsively, she pulled over and rolled down her window.
“Hello, Mr. Hounslow,” she said. “How are you?”
“Can’t say I’m badly off,” he said. “Fine evening. Just out for a drive?”
“Been doing some shopping and visiting,” she said.
“Aye,” he said, “well that’s a fine thing.”
“Do you know anything about the Roman ruins on the hill to the East?” she asked.
“Ruins?” he asked. “Don’t rightly know about anything like that around here. Don’t reckon them Romans came this far north. Who’s been telling ye stories?”
“I may have been mistaken,” she said. “I thought I saw something, and Jamila said…”
“Ah, well,” he said, “they’s new in town too. Mayhap they be thinking about other villages in the south. True many of them started as Roman forts, but not up here.”
“Okay, thanks,” she said, “have a nice evening.”
“Should do,” Hounslow said smiling. "Drive carefully, Mrs. Wilson."
She drove on down the road. Half way home she hit another patch of gravel road, the stones and dust pinging off the underside of the car. There was no sign indicating work. The pavement started again just as she got to her cottage and she drove up the interlocked stone driveway to the green door of the garage. She noticed that the knuckles of her hands were white on the steering wheel.
She hurried into the house, feeling the safe familiar feel of the small sitting room and her kitchen. She made a cup of tea and settled down on the sofa, turning on the radio to a music station. Some light smooth jazz came through the speakers and she felt better. She was getting all upset over road works.
Everything here was as it should be. She sipped her tea and watched the sunset. Somewhere along the way she might have dozed off.
She woke up with a start on a hard stone floor covered in dirty straw, as a gray light shone through the bars of her cell. A Roman legionary was clanking a key in the lock of the cell.
She almost cried. Her dream had seemed so real. What was it? Friends. She had friends. A lover, perhaps? It was all fading, along with her happiness. She felt that remembering the dream was important, but the more she tried, the faster it seemed to fade. Reality was this gray stone and pale dawn.
She couldn’t remember. She was in a cell. She must have done something to be in here? What was it? Who was she? Did she have a name? This couldn’t be real.
She couldn’t remember. She was sure she had a name. Everyone had a name.
The cell door swung open. A centurion walked in. For some reason, he looked familiar.
“Time for you to get up, bitch,” he said.
to be continued...
She felt…she didn’t know. Everything was familiar, and everything was strange. James was here. It just accepted this as part of her life. She was naked on the bathroom floor, and this person she had hardly met had his arms around her. She wanted him here. That was the part of her that wasn’t thinking.
The other part, the intellectual thinking part still said this wasn’t real, and James was a stranger. This familiar stranger was explaining something.
“Bill sent you to this scenario, but I set up the background. I wanted you to be safe,” he was saying. “Something about your situation bothered me, and when I found out you couldn’t live outside, I tried to make a place for you inside. This is like the places you lived before, before you lost your memories. You had a husband and friends. So here you are.”
“But why not just put me in here and let me build a life?” she asked. His arms were still around her naked body as she sat on the tile floor of her bathroom. Their bathroom. “Why make yourself my husband?”
“I need to keep you safe, and I need to track the virus,” he said. “I was right when I said you were in danger. I think your consciousness is marked by the virus. It didn’t finish its job before, and it will try to complete it’s task. To protect you from it, I have to be in the same story.”
“They said you were dead,” she said.
“Somewhere, I am dead,” he said. “Back there. I can’t go back. Neither can you – your body outside is dying. Maybe that’s why I feel connected to you. I need to get you out of it, the way I got out of mine.”
“How did you die there?” she asked.
“Someone wasn’t happy that I was so close to tracking the base installation of the virus,” James said. “They had an agent inside the complex I guess, or infiltrated. They got to me. I suppose they murdered me. I got away, but I was done for. I uploaded myself as part of the box background – inside the main program. I’m still me, but I’m not just an upload. I’m inseparable from the program now – my consciousness is part of the box system. I’m sort of a real AI character; a not-artificial intelligence. It’s hard to explain. That’s what I wanted for you, but you didn’t…”
“So, I’m still tied to my external body?” she asked. “I’m not safe here? The Romans are still out there?”
“I didn’t want to pull you in against your will, but I did a terrible job of explaining things. I had to set up the alternate facility in a hurry, and I had only a limited time to explain. There was no reason for you to trust me. I was disappointed when you rejected the green button option, but I had to try again. I think sooner or later the Romans, as you call the virus, will come after you again, because the virus will recognize your consciousness’ and see it as an incomplete job. It’s programmed to delete people.”
“That’s what Bill told me,” she said. “He thought it was religious extremists.”
“Yeah,” said James. “That’s the working theory. There have always been “pure lifers”, people who think life in the boxes is cheating death or cheating God’s plan, and Bill figures they decided to invent these Romans to act as God’s revenge. Whoever it is, it’s a nasty virus and hard to track. If they come back, I can trace them. As long as it’s dormant, I can’t see it. Sticking close to you like this, I have a chance to find it and kill it.”
“Bill said it was gone,” she said.
“As far as he knows, it is, but if so, why was I…why was my body killed? We keep losing people inside here. That’s what he didn’t tell you. He doesn’t believe it’s the virus, but it happens too regularly to be an accident.”
“So I’m just a decoy to you?” she asked. “You’re just using me to find this thing, and then you’re off again?”
“No, I wanted to give you a real life again, but as things stand now, either your body will die, and you’ll die, or the virus will get you and you’ll die anyway. I want to stop that. And then there’s this,” he said.
He picked her up and carried her to the bed. “I really wanted to do this,” he said. “I know you think this is strange, and we don’t know each other.” He kissed her on her lips and she found herself kissing him back. He pulled his shirt off.
“But I really want to do this,” he said. She embraced him, as he threw his pants to the floor. She didn’t know him, she thought.
She wanted him. He spread her thighs open and lowered his body over hers. Had she had lovers in the other boxes? She didn’t remember other boxes, or other lives. She felt his erection spreading her labia open, and then he thrust forward. She heard herself groan, felt the pleasure of herself spreading open, her vagina enveloping him, the force of the length driving into her body. When she had him deep inside her, she stared up at his face.
“What if it’s just the way we’re programmed?” she asked. “It could be the box telling me that you’re my husband. Telling me to care about you.”
"Who is telling me to care about you?” he asked. “I want you.” He stopped talking and took her, thrusting hard into her until she cried out in release and submission, and felt him tense and gasp and explode inside her. It was electric, and harrowing, terrible and the best thing that had happened to her.
“Wow,” she murmured. “That felt pretty real.”
“Better than real,” he said still shuddering against her, “remember?”
“No,” she said. “I’m sort of a virgin. For all I know this was my first time. I don’t have anything to remember.” She held him against her.
“Then this is reality,” he said. She couldn’t argue with that. His softening penis withdrew from her pussy and he slipped off her onto his side, holding her. She looked into his eyes, his glasses still on. She smiled at him.
“I saw a monitoring video of you, when you were in the resort box,” he said. “You were so beautiful. I wanted to meet you. I may have obsessed on your case a bit, I suppose. That’s why I programmed myself to be your husband.”
“So now what, Mr. Wilson,” she asked. “Do we just keep playing at being married until we’re used to it, or do we go for a torrid fling and a messy divorce.”
“I would opt for the first scenario,” he said, “if you don’t mind. But there are a couple of practical things to take care of.”
“Like?” she said.
“Keeping you alive,” he said. “Your body is only held in the stasis field temporarily. You need to get out, before something bad happens, and before the virus can get to you. I don’t even know what it looks like now – it mutates.”
“I usually get saved by technology glitches,” she said. “Not that it’s pleasant.”
“Yeah, well this time you’re in a box that the virus was specifically tailored for. There won’t be any glitches. If it gets you, you’re done. We have to be alert for anything – the other people here – they’re part of the box. The virus doesn’t treat them as real people. It won’t see me as a real person. You’re the one at risk.”
“So, how does that work?” she asked.
“We have to get you back to the false facility – that’s a sort of in between box, where you’re still in your body, but it translates your consciousness to the artificial intelligence level, independent of your body.”
“So I’ll die?” she asked. “Like you?”
“Are you dead now?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” she said getting up and putting on a blue kimono style robe. It felt like a robe she had always worn, despite the fact that she had never seen it before. She liked it. She ran her fingers over the silk texture, examining the intricate stitching of the gold and red dragon design.
“New gown?” he asked, smiling.
“Shut up,” she said. “You know I’ve never seen it before. Somehow it feels like mine.”
“Just like I feel like your husband,” he said. She was about to contradict him, but then realized that it was true. “It is part of the program of this box that I’m your husband, and the programming makes that seem sort of familiar to you,” James said.
“So I’m in an arranged marriage?” she asked, smiling at him. “Isn’t that sort of rigging the situation to suit you?”
“I guess so,” he said, “I really wanted to fuck you, but I didn’t program a lot of background memories of our courtship, or a fake romance. I just wanted a plausible reason to be here with you. I didn’t have much time to do it. Someone was out to kill me, remember?”
“What’s the next step?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I need a way to get you to an ‘in between’ box. “I have to go away again for a bit, to poke around and find a ‘back door’. There’s usually a way that the engineers outside can install updates to the boxes. If I can find one, I can maybe slip out of here and build a bridge for you.”
“Does it have to be that creepy place with the disappearing cafeteria staff?” she asked.
“No,” he said. “I really just need a way to get you into a different box from this one, and get me there too. My transfer unit will do the rest, you know the hand control unit with the green button.”
“I should have just pressed it,” she said, “but I didn’t know you then.”
“You barely know me now,” he said, touching her cheek.
“I know a couple of things about you,” she said, feeling herself blush. “How long will you be gone?” she asked. She found herself feeling apprehensive and anticipating loneliness again.
“It’ll seem like only a couple of days to you,” he said. I’ll make sure that I come back in two days of your program time. Remember, time works differently in different boxes. When I come back, I’ll have the plan.”
“Just make sure you come back,” she said. “I’m not ready to be a widow yet.”
James left after breakfast. She found herself kissing him and hanging on to him as if her life depended on it. I was never going to be that girl, she thought. She was still afraid, she realized, despite the pastoral surroundings.
She sat and stared at her tea cup for a while, trying to figure out what to do. I can’t be a shut-in, she thought. Being a prisoner in this cottage is as bad as being a prisoner in my withered body ‘outside’. She decided to go see the town again.
Maybe I can do something with Jamila, from the Indian shop. It was a start of a plan. She went outside and walked around the cottage. There was an interlocked brick driveway leading around the house to the back where there was a garage that she hadn’t paid any attention to the night before. It had old fashioned gate doors that swung open easily on well-oiled hinges. The doors were a happy green colour, freshly painted. She liked the colour.
Inside, she found a blue Volkswagen Golf. A key in her handbag fit the lock, and part of her seemed to remember that she owned a car. It seemed familiar.
But, of course, I’ve never had a Golf before. I have one now. She wondered when the box would stop surprising her. I’ve only just arrived, she thought.
She got into the car, on the right – British steering side, she thought – and it started easily. James will be handy with cars, wouldn’t he? He would make sure he was the technical, handy sort of guy. She thought she could probably stop thinking about him. She didn't think she wanted to. She only objected to the box programming making her want him. Part of her didn't care.
She didn’t understand this business of being uploaded into the box, or being in the base programming, and how that was different, but he seemed convinced that the Romans couldn’t ‘see’ him, but if they were still around, they would find her. Still, the sun was shining, the birds were singing, and there was a fresh breeze carrying the scent of flowers from her garden. It was hard to think that anything bad could happen.
She backed the car out of the garage, went to close the doors, and then turned around carefully to drive out of the yard. A few minutes later, she was motoring down smooth black pavement into the outskirts of the little village. It wasn’t market day, so the square was empty, but she saw some ordinary looking people walking around, and spotted a used book shop. Jamila and Indian food could wait. She parked the car carefully on the left side of the road, and crossed the street to the shop. A cheerful bell rang as she entered.
She left the shop with two books and a new friend. Charlie Watts was an old retired soldier who had served with the Royal Army in Flanders in ‘the War’.
Which war? Were real people killed? Real countries invaded, or was it all just background to some AI program?
Charlie seemed real enough. He was friendly, cheerful, and wistfully nostalgic, especially when he talked about his late wife. Would she be a late wife someday? James had implied they could live forever. Why was Charlie’s wife dead? She didn’t ask, but expressed superficial sympathy.
“Oh, don’t fret,” said Charlie as he rang up her purchases on an old cash register. “She wouldn’t want me to pine.” She bought a vintage edition of Jane Eyre because it seemed small-townish to do so, and a paperback by an author she didn’t know, because it had a bright cover promising adventure and was thick and would take some time to read. "Come back soon," Charlie said as she left. "It's nice to have you here in our town." She couldn't remember anyone ever saying that to her before. Of course, she thought wryly, she couldn't remember a lot of things, not even dating her own husband.
She ran into a woman on the street. “Oh, hello Mrs. Wilson,” said the woman cheerfully. Everyone seemed to know who she was, as if the box was made just for her. “All settled in? I hears as your young man is back.”
“Just on leave for now,” she said and surprised herself at how naturally the words came. “He’s had to go back today, but he’ll be home for good in a few days.”
“Well that’s a mercy,” said the woman. “Mercy,” she repeated in a strange, quiet, sad way. Then she seemed to shake her head and get her voice back. “You’ll be happy to have him home,” she said cheerfully. “Sorry I can’t stop,” she added. “My Davie is already going to be late for his violin lesson, and those teachers cost real money.”
She wandered down the street and finally came to a shop that said “Taj Mahal – Home Cooked Indian Food” She smiled. The aroma from the shop smelled wonderful, a mix of coriander, chili, and cinnamon, with some cumin thrown in. Jamila was at the serving counter inside the door. To the left was a seating area with about six tables, all set with white table cloths and clean place settings.
Jamila grinned at her. “So, you couldn’t stay away after having our samosas,” she said.
“You have me figured out,” she said. “Actually, James left on duty again this morning, and I was feeling sorry for myself, so I came to see you.”
“Ah, it’s sad. I’m your only friend,” said Jamila. “Sorry, a bad joke. Look, my shift is over. Let’s go out and have some not-Indian tea and maybe ice cream. We can share stories about how we’re never getting out of this town and will never fulfil our dreams of becoming big movie stars.”
“Anything is possible,” she said, thinking about the past few days of her life.
“I like you,” said Jamila. “You’re an optimist.” They both laughed. They walked out of the shop and headed up the high street to a brightly painted café that promised ice cream. When they came out, they were both still chatting and laughing, and she realized that she had made another friend.
They’re so real, she thought, but part of her was already taken in and no longer observing but was ready to believe that this was reality. She realized that she had been lonely for a lot of her previous recent experiences. In the box, if I’m the central character, does everyone become who I want them to be. Or maybe I’m just good at making friends. Maybe these are just nice people.
They walked back toward the Indian shop, and her car. The sun was setting on the hills, highlighting a strange regular square shaped formation that she hadn’t seen there before.
“What’s that?” she asked.
“Up there?” said Jamila. “I haven’t seen it. Looks like a ruined fort. There are old Roman forts all over the countryside. This was an old outpost of theirs, they say. It’s probably that.”
“Was it there this morning?” she asked.
“Of course,” said Jamila. “It’s always been there.” But she looked like the words were having trouble forming, as if this was a new and unwelcome idea.
“Oh,” she said as her shoe slipped on loose gravel. “Hey, there’s no pavement here!”
“When will those people learn to put up road works signs?” asked Jamila. “Look, drive carefully, right? And I really had a lovely time. We should do this again, and if James knows any other handsome men, maybe he can bring one along for me to meet.” She winked.
“Okay, deal,” she said. James, come home, she thought. “I’ll drop in and actually buy something tomorrow.”
“Great,” said Jamila. “Bye.” And Jamila dashed off into the shop.
She opened her car and got in. Everything was fine, she said. It’s just old ruins and road works. Just like anywhere.
She turned the car around and drove carefully down the street toward her cottage. She saw Mr. Hounslow on the side of the road, the man who looked like the Roman centurion. He was strolling with his hands in his pockets, but waved when he saw here. Impulsively, she pulled over and rolled down her window.
“Hello, Mr. Hounslow,” she said. “How are you?”
“Can’t say I’m badly off,” he said. “Fine evening. Just out for a drive?”
“Been doing some shopping and visiting,” she said.
“Aye,” he said, “well that’s a fine thing.”
“Do you know anything about the Roman ruins on the hill to the East?” she asked.
“Ruins?” he asked. “Don’t rightly know about anything like that around here. Don’t reckon them Romans came this far north. Who’s been telling ye stories?”
“I may have been mistaken,” she said. “I thought I saw something, and Jamila said…”
“Ah, well,” he said, “they’s new in town too. Mayhap they be thinking about other villages in the south. True many of them started as Roman forts, but not up here.”
“Okay, thanks,” she said, “have a nice evening.”
“Should do,” Hounslow said smiling. "Drive carefully, Mrs. Wilson."
She drove on down the road. Half way home she hit another patch of gravel road, the stones and dust pinging off the underside of the car. There was no sign indicating work. The pavement started again just as she got to her cottage and she drove up the interlocked stone driveway to the green door of the garage. She noticed that the knuckles of her hands were white on the steering wheel.
She hurried into the house, feeling the safe familiar feel of the small sitting room and her kitchen. She made a cup of tea and settled down on the sofa, turning on the radio to a music station. Some light smooth jazz came through the speakers and she felt better. She was getting all upset over road works.
Everything here was as it should be. She sipped her tea and watched the sunset. Somewhere along the way she might have dozed off.
She woke up with a start on a hard stone floor covered in dirty straw, as a gray light shone through the bars of her cell. A Roman legionary was clanking a key in the lock of the cell.
She almost cried. Her dream had seemed so real. What was it? Friends. She had friends. A lover, perhaps? It was all fading, along with her happiness. She felt that remembering the dream was important, but the more she tried, the faster it seemed to fade. Reality was this gray stone and pale dawn.
She couldn’t remember. She was in a cell. She must have done something to be in here? What was it? Who was she? Did she have a name? This couldn’t be real.
She couldn’t remember. She was sure she had a name. Everyone had a name.
The cell door swung open. A centurion walked in. For some reason, he looked familiar.
“Time for you to get up, bitch,” he said.
to be continued...
Glad you had a good time in Blighty, Jolly, but good to have you back... the Centurion has been waiting!
It must be difficult to keep continuity in a story like this. Very good chapter, Jolly...
Many thanks. It's a good thing I started the chapter before I left for England - it gave me a starting point. Even so, I had some time remembering some of my own characters.
Now we're getting back to some action. "She" doesn't remember anything again, of course. So where are we? Are we back at the beginning, or is this new? What's reincarnation like? Perhaps she just goes around and around again, sort of like Barb.
Many thanks. It's a good thing I started the chapter before I left for England - it gave me a starting point. Even so, I had some time remembering some of my own characters.
Now we're getting back to some action. "She" doesn't remember anything again, of course. So where are we? Are we back at the beginning, or is this new? What's reincarnation like? Perhaps she just goes around and around again, sort of like Barb.
Perhaps she just goes around and around again, sort of like Barb.
Is that a "demeritable" statement? Not sure. So, letting you off easy this time.Great chapter!
Barb is not sure if she heard that or if she is in her box...Perhaps she just goes around and around again, sort of like Barb.
View attachment 517653 Is that a "demeritable" statement? Not sure. So, letting you off easy this time.
Great chapter!
D
Deleted member jedakk
Guest
I know that feeling! I do have character descriptions for some of my more complex stories so I can go back and check what color their eyes are supposed to be, relationships with others, attitudes, etc. There are forms available on some of the writing sites for that purpose.
Perhaps she just goes around and around again, sort of like Barb.
View attachment 517653 Is that a "demeritable" statement? Not sure. So, letting you off easy this time.
Why is it assumed that I am trying to be insulting? Honestly, have I not always shown proper and appropriate respect?Favouritism.
Forms? We are made of stern stuff here, flying by the seat of our pants, etc.
