I never did go back inside the NEW LIFE, and now that I'm nearing the end, I can look back with a certain measure of clarity. If there's one thing that defines people — it's guilt — the guilt of abandoning a dying world, and the guilt at having a hand in destroying it. Charles Tillerman let that guilt overcome him, to turn him, to push him down a path of ever greater pain and injustice. I don't know where Amy is. The last I heard, she was still with him, determined to follow him no matter what the cost. For others, guilt tore them apart. Like Halloran, still clinging on to futile defiance; or Nancy, forced into a spiral of hate and self-loathing. D'Arcy still plans to cut away the pain, to seal off the NEW LIFE. She finds herself up against the True Sons, battling for the future of the Actual Reality. And the Terminal Building still stands, a goliath in white, tall and lumbering, towering at the edge of a once-great city. It's lights still shine, unaware of its treacherous children, while the Sleepers lie beneath, safe in the NEW LIFE, unaware of their mortal danger.
So, we all feel guilt, myself more than most, but it's how we deal with the guilt that truly defines us. Life gives you choices, many are impossible; some make you hurt the people that you love. I made those choices; I made the mistakes. And if there's one thing that I'm truly proud of, it's how I dealt with it. I never let guilt beat me, never let it put me down – never let it get the best of me.
To Audrey, I wonder, are you still waiting? Standing in the hall of our house in the virtual New England.
I still love you, and I'm sorry, but I'm with our daughter now.
Daniel Schultz,
Founder,
NEW LIFE CORPORATION,
League of New England.
YOU ARE READING
Actual Reality
Science FictionDaniel Schultz crawls across the floor after being forcefully ejected from his uplink pod. He finds himself old and withered: alone in a hostile world. Unable to remember his purpose, he must travel across the ruins of New England to confront the gu...
