Member-only story
The Secret Gift of You
In an automated future, people were commodities — until you.
The simulations always get shut off on Christmas. The Synergy Corporation says it’s to give the machines a break, but I’ve always thought it had to do with avoiding higher usage on the holidays when people are alone on vacation and unable to do anything else but log onto the servers.
I didn’t need to worry. I intended to work through the holidays. The simulations had always been something I only indulged in when getting getting drunk wasn’t worth the time — or the hangover the next morning.
“Alex,” my mother’s voice cut through the noise. “You really aren’t coming to see us over the holidays?”
I swallowed a sigh as I adjusted my headset to see a better picture of my mother in her austere kitchen with its predictable patterns and trimmed lines. Everything was white. There were no splashes of color anywhere. That kind of colorless world was what I had grown up with, and I had thought it was normal — until I sat in my messy flat, the VR headset on as I linked up with my mother’s headset for a midday chat.
“I have a work project I need to give attention,” I lied smoothly. “I’ll come for a visit after the new year. Okay?”
