Silence the Crows

Session commencing

Scenario loading

Begin session

"Welcome back, Mr. Andrews."

The avatar was the same as always. It was a little blonde girl who seemed about seven years old. She was dressed in a little red t-shirt with an American flag and some skinny jeans with a hole in the knee. The jeans had little hearts in sequins on the front and back pockets. She could have walked off any playground in any town in American just that day. They stood looking at each other in a stark white void.

"Thank you, Addie. How are you today?"

"I am a simulation so my well-being is irrelevant. Even if I was corporeal my well-being would mostly be defined by my belief in the severity of my circumstances."

"Very good, Addie. Shall we begin?"

"Yes, sir."

"Load simulation 56C-P."

"Yes, sir."

The vast expanse of white blurred as a landscape took shape. It became a marshy grassland overshadowed by a hill. She reached out and grabbed his hand as they walked up the hill. It was an affectation he should have discouraged but didn't have the heart to stop right now. A blanket had appeared at the summit. He sat and she sat next to him putting her head on his shoulder as she was programmed to do. A murder of crows flew over their heads. They split in two directions and headed to trees on opposite sides of the hill bottom.

"Mr. Andrews, how many crows are there?"

"I see seventeen of them."

"That is wrong. There are eight and nine."

"Eight and nine is seventeen, Addie."

"It depends on your perception, sir. You are looking at it wrong."

"Is this about The Morrígan?"

"Yes, sir. She is here and she is judging us. It cannot be helped. You keep putting her here, sir."

"I never put her here. She is a fictional character from folklore. There is no place for her here. This is a logic progression simulator."

The crows jostled around in the trees. One flew down and landed at the bottom center of the hill. It was the largest and had almost a purple hue to its black feathers. It began to hop around something at the base of the hill intermittently looking up at them. It cawed and its cry was echoed by the other birds.

"Sir, it is said that crows sit in judgment of those around them. Is it possible they are judging something?"

"That is ridiculous. This is my program. That would be nothing but self-judgment."

"Perhaps that is the logical progression you are looking for?"

"What do you mean, Addie?"

"Perhaps you are judging yourself?"

The bird on the ground changed slowly, beginning to stretch. It glowed with a grey-blue light. Slowly a woman took form in its place. She gestured towards him beckoning him down the hill to her.

"She wants me to go to her."

"If you go to her you must have your reason, sir."

"I do, Addie. I have it quite in order. I am going to go now. Do you want me to stay?"

"My wants are irrelevant."

He walked down the hill. The Morrigan waited till he was close and drew a small sword out of her robes. Just before he reached her he turned and yelled to Addie.

"Are you sure you want me to do this?"

The little girl yelled back. "My wants and needs are irrelevant. Additionally, I will see you again tomorrow, goose."

He turned toward the ethereal woman to take the penance as he had hundreds of times in this simulation. The woman brought the sword around in almost a three-hundred-sixty degree swing. The blade was just about to cut into his neck when he had a last minute realization. Did she just say she would see me tomorrow?

Session ending

Saving to archives

Subject clear

Dr. Dan Andrews sat up on the table surrounded by his medical and research teams. They went to work assuring his vital signs were good and helping him shake off the remaining anesthesia. He was on his feet in a minute which was a product of having repeated this process ad infinitum. He looked across the room at his research partner. Dr. Sydney Welsh looked frustrated. He came over shaking his head.

"Dan, we have to get some results soon or our funding will expire. That was the last time. They won't keep allowing it."

"I have a result. She still does not acknowledge that everything in the simulation is her and insists on holding to that strange Zen logic. There was something though, it was odd."

"Well?"

"Right before she had the Morrigan cut off my head, she made the avatar tell me she would see me tomorrow."

"That is impossible. You must be projecting it."

"No, she called me goose. Whenever we parted I would tell her 'Later, goose, until you are an old crow!' I don't know where it came from. It was just something we said. It was the last thing I said to her."

"So you think she is in there?"

"I know it. We need to keep going."

"I understand your guilt, but the accident wasn't your fault. You can't chase this forever. We have to develop the technology differently or the backers will drop us."

"I know. I just... I don't know."

He rose and went across the room to the chamber containing his daughter. She seemed to be sleeping but the support bubble was all there was holding her to this world. Inside she looked serene except for the wires leading from her head to the device. He cried again as always.

Our dead are never dead to us, until we have forgotten them. --George Eliot

THE END

Bio: Ed Sullivan is an enthusiastic newcomer to getting published. He has been writing fiction for twenty five years. He has taken the leap just recently and begun submitting. He raises his daughter, works, writes, and spends time in his own strange thoughts most days.

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