THE CONSTRUCT: In The End

PART THREE

2.

On the exact stroke of twenty minutes since he last spoke the mysterious lady friend of his, Nigel enters the train's dining carriage and sees her sitting at the table they had shared the evening before. She is sitting facing the side from which he enters so she sees his arrival. She smiles sombrely and briefly glance down at the table she sits at, as if she has disastrous news with which she has to impart upon him.

He moves towards her with caution, feeling as if he may not be ready to hear whatever it is she has to tell him. And at that too, is there still a killer, a murderer upon the train, or was all that malarky some sort of breakdown on his part?

'May I join you?' he asks, repeating the words she first soke to him in hope of lightening the mood somewhat.

'You may ... and I even promise not to slip off into some sort of daydream on you ...'

He takes a seat and smiles, more out of politeness than anything else. 'That's funny, I guess though that we're not here out of any reason that could be considered ... fun.'

'You are right in saying that, though all this, all that you see, was sold to you on the premise of ... fun. Well, perhaps not sold but ...'

'How do you mean?'

'All that you see here initially was designed to be a luxury holiday on a luxurious train, a getaway with a difference. With all this, you are not just heading on a rail version of what a cruise ship would be, but it is also an escape from yourself. The likes of this program ... is to ...'

'Wait, what?'

He was prepared to sit in silence and hear what this lady has to say. The words she had just spoken ... well, they certainly were not what he was expecting to hear, not that he was expecting anything in particular. If anything, perhaps, there might have been an explanation as to how she was dead one moment and alive the next.

'Do you think any of this is real?'

'Excuse me?'

'This train. It doesn't exist ...'

'So, I am not the only one here going crazy ... this is madness and apparently it is contagious.'

This is absurd, not as absurd as sitting across a table from a lady who was dead just thirty minutes prior to this moment. Nigel stands with the intent of heading back to his cabin, for he can't seriously entertain a conversation as this. If he were to think about it for a second or two ... he may just be willing to at least hear her out.

'Please sit down, Mister Allen ...'

'Alan, who is Alam?'

'Do you not recognize your own surname?'

'Surname? That is not my surname.'

'Then, what is?'

'It's ... it's ...'

'You can't remember, can you?'

'What the hell is going on?'

'You are in a simulation, an artificial construct, a virtual reality partly created by an artificial intelligence, ... all based upon your design.'

'You're having me on, right? Had me going there for a minute. Your play dead routine was quite convincing.'

'There is no joke here. It's ... on ... you ...' her voice breaks up as if she were on some sort of video call that is on the blink, then the same thing begins physically.

She is fading in and out of reality ... so to speak, as if she were a hologram malfunctioning. Vanishing for fractions of a second, numerous times until she simply is no longer there. She is gone ... vanished, removed from existence. This catches Nigel in a way it has him fall to the ground. Others pay him attention, question as to why he is on the floor and not questioning the fact that his companion has suddenly vanished.