"Unable are the loved to die, for love is immortality." -Emily Dickinson
As the pod began to open the cool voice farewelled him, "we trust that you enjoyed your time today, and hope to be see you again soon."
The cable in the back of his neck unplugged itself as it retracted, and Zaccaheus sat up and looked around the room. He saw Cavil a few pods away from him rising out of his pod, stretching his arms as he did so. He was no longer in the guise of an old man; neither of them were. They both stood up out of their respective pods and began to walk towards the exit.
"Cavil, that place was beautiful."
"I'm surprised you'd say that, seeing as it wasn't real."
Zaccaheus grinned, "I gotta tell you, I was never really one for fishing. I guess being so old made it enjoyable."
Cavil put a hand on his shoulder as they walked out the door and towards the lift, "You're forgetting, we are old."
"Age means nothing when you can live forever."
Together they took the lift down. Outside it was begining to get dark. Zaccaheus glanced at his watch; an analogue one, "Its six thirty."
Cavil leaned against the glass and crossed his arms while he gazed at the stars, "Six thirty two to be exact. Why d'you still check your time on that? Its ridiculous. People laugh you know."
"Because I like watches, these ones especially. Used to buy a lot of them before things changed. You say you like the way life used to be, maybe you should try preserving some elements of it."
The elevator reached the ground floor and the two of them stepped out. Together they walked across the foyer and exited the building. The street was empty.
Zaccaheus called for his car, which came driving out from a parking lot behind the police station. He turned to Cavil, "I better head home to see Iris. Don't go into the AR tomorrow, or even better, for a few days. Spend some time with Alessandra. We'll catch up later."
"Will do. Think I'll walk home tonight. Nice weather."
Zaccaheus stepped into the car, giving Cavil a final brief wave, who returned one and began to walk away from him down street. The chord plugged itself into the back of Zaccaheus's neck and the soothing voice spoke to him, "Identification confirmed; Officer..."
He interupted, "I'll be driving manual this time."
A compartment infront of him unfolded neatly and a wheel extended from it presenting itself to him. He gripped it and put his foot on the accelerator. He was glad he'd learnt to drive before automation became standard; he relished the control something as ordinary as driving a car gave him. Or at least the illusion of it; the cars AI's were designed to override the driver's actions if it assesed them as dangerous. In a way the thrill of speeding down the road was no more real than the thrills he had chastised Cavil for seeking within the AR.
He put his foot down hard and began to accelerate, streets lights flying past him until they were nothing but blury white lines. He didn't have to worry about the speed, the AI knew the traffic was non existant so wouldn't try and stop him. The danger was non-existant, yet the feeling was exhilirating; he let the window next to him roll down and felt a forceful blast of cool wind strike him. He smiled as he gripped the wheel firmly; this was one of his few remaining guilty pleasures.
Among the blur of the buildings, he was able to make out the old school. It caught his eye everytime he passed it. No one had been there for years. When it came to the point that information could simply be downloaded, who needed to learn anymore? In a era when all scientific discoveries were made by increasingly intelligent AI's that dwarfed the capacity of the human mind, what was man's purpose, or his use? And plus; no one wanted children anymore, not in this new world.
He had often wondered why the AI's had never turned on their makers. There were many who'd feared it, and proclaimed that the day was inevitable; an apocalypse at the hands of our own creations. While the earliest AI models had had safeguards programmed, the prophets of doom had continued to warn society of an impeding rebellion. But it never happened. Instead they watched over us, guided and nurtured us, until eventually all need for human work and human governance was removed. They let us keep our freedoms and our enjoyments, but regulated and policed us so that society didn't descend into total chaos, as it surely would have, had we been left entirely to our own devices. They became our benevolent rulers. Perhaps they pittied us; their own creators vastly inferior to them... Or maybe they somehow respected us, respected us for what we had managed to achieve in creating them. Or perhaps at such high levels of intelligence they now existed in some sought of enlightened state, and had reached a point of existence where they no longer saw the need for violence in their actions; having moved far beyond the thought process of a human being, and elimated the primal instincts still found inherent in man. Whatever the reason, they were now the new rulers of the Earth, kings and queens of what was once mankind's domain. And we are their cherished pets.
But in a way, they had destroyed the human race; or the human race as it was once was. From the old race, they had birthed a new being; man and machine, their minds merged as one... One only needed to look at the empty cities to see that the end of an era was here; majestic buildings now nothing more than monuments to a time, and race that once was, a race that now only existed within a dream world; a vitual reality... A false reality.
Zaccaheus began to deccelerate as he approached the skyskraper that held his apartment, before taking a left down a ramp into a carpark underneath the building. He exited the car and stepped into the nearest lift, which shot upwards as it took him towards the thirteenth floor. Upon exiting the lift he turned right and began to walk down a white corridor before stopping at the fourth door on his left. The number on it read "119".
He placed his left hand on a scanner, which prompted the door to slide open. Inside was in stark contrast to the sterile white that dominated most of the city's architecture. The walls were painted a bright orange, and abstract, psychadelic paintings were mounted on the walls. This was comfort. This, was his home.
He walked towards the kitchen counter and propped himself against it. He called out for someone, "Iris, Iris I'm home now!"
He waited for about a minute, relishing in the nostalgia and the memories that this place brought him evertime he stepped through that door, before a woman came walking out of a bedroom. A beautiful woman; a naturally, beautiful woman. Anyone could make themselves beautiful these days. But Iris, she'd always been beautiful. She walked slowly towards the opposite side of the counter he was leaning against, and stood there. She glanced at him for a short moment before looking down and finally speaking, "I was wondering when you'd be home Zac."
Zaccaheus bit his lip, and he to looked down, diverting his gaze away from her. Not again, please not this again.
"You know I was working."
"Yes, I know you were working."
He didn't respond. Two people, a man and a woman standing there in silence, neither of them willing to look at each other. Iris moved away from him towards the far end of the counter where a dome shaped device was embedded, with an empty blue plate sitting inside of it. He heard her whisper to it in her gentle voice, "Risotto."
From out of a grating at the bottom of the dome a murky gas arose, followed moments later by a small swarm of black nanobots rising out like a smoke. They swirled around silently inside the dome, forming a vortex, and began manipulating the very particles contained within it; splitting and recombing at the sub-atomic level, until in a manner of seconds sat a risotto on the once empty plate, just as she had requested. The black smoke receded from whence it came.
She removed the plate of food, grabbed a spoon from a rack and took it with her to a couch, and began eating, all the while not looking once at Zaccaheus.
He swallowed before speaking to her, "I thought we were going to cook something togther tonight."
"TV on please," a large screen on a wall in front of her flickered on, "and I thought you'd be home earlier."
Zaccaheus got up off of the counter and began to move towards her, almost timidly.
"Iris its not even that late."
"Well, I'm hungry, I couldn't wait any longer. We'd be have been cooking for what; at least an hour? Its not worth it."
She continued to eat her risotto, appearing to be intently watching the TV.
Zaccaheus spoke, quietly, "You used to like it when we cooked together."
"Yeah well, that was when people actually needed to cook."
She ate for a little while longer and he just stood there watching her, unsure of what exactly he should say. She put her plate of food down next to her, and turned to look at him now as she spoke, "so what were we going to do exactly? Ask for the fucking nanobots to make the ingredients for us, and then cook the food ourselves? Do you know how pathetic it is everytime we do it? I feel embarassed just thinking about!"
She stood up, her voice now begining to rise, "its so pointless! Why waste our time making something, when we can have it made for us even better, in a manner of seconds? What is it, some petty little bonding thing we're meant to do together? You talk about how important it is we keep doing these little things together, keep living like this, keep forcing me to live like this, and then you can't even be bothered to make some effort to show up on time to do them!"
Zaccaheus pointed his finger agressively at her and shouted, "I told you, I was working!" This was a lie, and he knew it. He'd spent too long with Cavil; caught in the moment and lost in thought on that lake.
"I KNOW YOU WERE WORKING! What I don't get is why your are working in the first place! What is it exactly that you do, huh? They don't need you!" She emphasized this last word with some contempt. "No one really needs you anymore, except for me! You talk about how our love is what we live for, and that if we stop living like this we'll lose it, that we have to spend as much time together like this as possible. If you really, really care about us spending more time together, then just quit your stupid job!"
Even in her rage, she was beautiful. Zaccaheus took in a deep breath, speaking softly now, "please Iris, not again..."
"Not again? You talk like this is my fault... My fault that we keep arguing like this. I'm not the one, who refuses to move on. Zac, we can't keep trying to live like this. No one will be left soon, and I don't want us to be the only people left in this city, on this planet. Its already a lonely place. We're holding onto nothing."
Zaccaheus shook his head as if in denial, "No, no we are holding onto something..."
"Zac there is nothing, left for us here."
"You don't get it, we'll lose it if we go, we'll lose everything!"
At the corner of one of her divine green eyes formed a single glistening tear.
"Iris, I'll lose you..."
Her voice was a mumour now, "Zac, why are you so afraid? There is nothing left to be afraid of."
He didn't say anything, just breathed heavily. He'd heard similar words earlier that day.
"Zac, it's the only way. We won't lose a thing, beacause we'll still be together."
He began to shake his head profusely, "No... No Iris, it won't be the same. Its not human... Iris you know I hate talking about this. Its not an option. I'll never do it."
There was a brief pause before she spoke, she was almost inaudible now, "We can find him. Together."
She approached him, cautiously, before opening up her arms and embracing him. He wrapped his own around her delicate frame, and held on tightly.
He tried to ignore her previous comment, "Iris... You know why I do these things... Please, I know you understand... I have to, I want keep it alive, this life."
She spoke again as if she hadn't heard him, her voice muffled as it was buried in his chest, "we can find him..."
"He doesn't exist anymore Iris..."
"We can find him, and we can live forever."
"If we live forever, then everything that we hold onto now will be lost to us, it'll be meaningless. I don't want to lose our love."
He ran his hand through her hair before letting go of her. He looked intently into her eyes, as she looked coyly at him, her eyelids now puffy. He always felt exhausted after they argued, no matter how brief.
"I'm tired."
"So am I."
Together they walked to the bedroom, the lights behind them flickering off automatically. They both layed down on the bed, neither bothering to go under the sheets.
"Zac, you won't be going into work tomorrow will you?"
For a while he didn't reply, "No I won't, but you know if something comes up I'm going to have..."
She didn't let him finish, "Some how I knew you'd say that."
She sighed, and rolled over to face him and hugged him tightly. They fell asleep in each others embrace. One dreamed of two souls travelling together among the near infinite stars, walking together on the surfaces of distant planets, and one dreamed of the past; of two people hand in hand lost together among the crowds of a bustling smog filled city.