Mahina had planned to go back out today, but with Booster backing out to take care of something, she decided to take a break as well. She had spent most of yesterday riding around in a Heyerdahl and didn’t accomplish much. It seemed to have made an impression on Booster and he wanted to prepare better.

At first, her plan was to stay in her room, meditate, maybe do some shadow sparring, or read a book. She tried all those and then 10 am rolled around and she was bored. She decided to go check in with Thaigoon. Something was still niggling at her about him.

She knocked on his door. There was no answer. Normally, she would have left, but that feeling wouldn’t let her. “RETA, is Thaigoon in his quarters?”

There was a momentary hesitation. Not long, but too long for normal. “Yes.”

“Is he ok?”

“He is non-responsive. Of course, his body is medically fine. Nevertheless, he is non-responsive.”

“How long has he been non-responsive?”

“He has not seen or spoken with anyone since you last saw him. I am not certain at what point he became non-responsive.”

“Is he dressed and otherwise not in any compromising positions?”

“He is dressed and, on his bunk, leaning against the wall. There is nothing of consequence on display in the room.”

Mahina wondered if RETA would be so responsive if there was something on display in the room. “Open the door.”

“Are you certain you would not prefer to contact someone in the leadership first?”

“No, I’m not certain. But open the door anyway.”

“Since you have special permissions, I can comply with this command.”

The door slid open. The room was dark save for the same lights of various gadgets on an assortment of surfaces blinking in the background. Somehow, she imagined there should be a sort of foul smell, yet there wasn’t. “RETA, bring the lights up 25%.”

The room increased in brightness sufficiently that normal vision could make out the occupant sitting on his bed. He sat there staring straight ahead.

“Thaigoon?” Mahina called out. “Are you ok?” She moved toward him and took a closer look.

This is an area where a simulation simply doesn’t match real life. In real life, you can’t sit on your bed for days staring at a wall and look as fresh as if you were just getting ready to go out for dinner. The skin doesn’t get sweaty and greasy. The eyes don’t redden from dryness and strain. There is no scent of stale sweat in the air. He just sat there.

She sat on the edge of his bed and reached out to gently touch his face. “Thaigoon?” she said softly.

His eyes darted toward here and his face went through minor contortions as it attempted to display whatever he was feeling.

“What are you doing here?” He spoke with no inflection. There was no intent behind the words. No hostility or fear. It was almost a statement.

“Checking on you. I can’t say why. I just felt like I should.”

“You don’t need to worry about me. I can’t do anything.” He went back to staring straight ahead.

She wasn’t sure about what he meant about the last part, but she had a pretty good idea. “Have you eaten anything?”

“It doesn’t matter. I can’t starve.”

“But you still feel hungry right?”

He shrugged. “It’s a little uncomfortable. But it’s not like it’s killing me or anything.” He snorted. “I can’t even accidentally shit myself. I can’t do anything.”

That phrase again. “What do you want to do?”

His eyes darted back at her trying to decide if he wanted to say. What did it matter if he did? What were they going to do to him? He thought he could say it as if it was nothing. Like it was asking RETA to open a door. “I want to die. I want to throw myself off a cliff or burn myself on a pyre. I want to slit my wrists and slowly bleed out. I want to do anything that will end my misery!” His volume was slowly rising. “I just sit here and fantasize about the ways I could end my pathetic existence if I wasn’t stuck in this fucking prison!”

“What do you mean? Prison?” She kept her tone soft.

“This!” He gestured to the room around him His voice was thick with emotion. “This place! This scrum! It won’t let me die!”

“Why do you want to die?” She immediately was uncertain if she should have asked that question.

“Because I’m a worthless coward! I traded something wonderful and lovely for nothing! Because I was afraid!”

“I don’t understand. What did you trade away?”

“The only person I ever loved. The only person I ever had a responsibility to care about. Everything! I can’t move! I can’t breathe! I can’t...” He started choking and gasping for air as a panic attack set in. He lurched to his feet as he struggled with his own pain.

“Hey! Hey! I’m here.” And she pulled him into a hug. “It’s going to be ok.”

The door that was holding everything back within him crumbled. His eyes watered. His face crumpled. And he sobbed. The pain that had been pent up within him came flooding out. Mahina held him. And Thaigoon cried into her shoulder now unable to hold anything back.

----------------------------------------

A short time later, the worst of it had passed and he pulled away from her. “I, uh, I’m so sorry.” He said between gasps and aftershocks of the emotion that ran through him and threatened to take control again. He started to get up to move away in shame.

She pulled him back to a sitting position on the bed. “Hey, it’s ok. I don’t know what you’re going through, and I know we don’t know each other that well, but if you need someone to talk to, I’m here. I don’t have any place I need to be. And you don’t need to apologize.”

He looked at her, but it was hard to meet her eyes. He looked down and saw the mess on her shirt. “Ah! Your shirt!”

She smiled at the look of horror and embarrassment on his face about her shirt. “It’s fine. It’ll dry in a moment. Even if it didn’t. It doesn’t matter.”

He almost writhed in discomfort from indecision. He wanted to accept her words, but he didn’t want to feel so vulnerable at the moment. “Still, I’m sorry I lost control.”

She put a hand on his back next to his shoulder. “I think I know how you feel about that. But tell me if our roles were reversed here. Would you think less of me?”

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

His eyes met hers, “No, of course not.”

“Exactly. I don’t see anyone weak or worthless. I see a human being in pain. And I want to help if I can.”

“You cannot. No one can.” His head dropped.

“What do you mean?”

His head swam. Where should he start? And what did it matter? It’s 80 light years away and in the past. “It doesn’t matter.” He shook his head.

She reached over and gently grabbed his chin, turning his face toward her. “It does matter. I don’t know if I can help. Maybe I can’t. But you definitely need some help of some kind. Perhaps we should get a counselor?”

“If I tell you, you will think I’m weak and worthless.”

“Maybe. Maybe not.” Mahina thought about it. “Let’s start with the same question as before. If your story happened to me and I told you that I did what you did, would you think less of me.”

He shrugged and felt the worm of discomfort within him again. “Maybe. Maybe not.”

“How old are you, Thaigoon?” Mahina asked.

He was a little surprised at the question. “I kind of lost track a little. After a while it just didn’t seem to matter.”

RETA spoke up. “Thaigoon is 39 years old.”

Mahina sucked in at her teeth. “So young. Any idea how old I am?”

Some things don’t change among human cultures. One of those things is attempting to guess a woman’s age. Thus, he stared at her dumbly.

RETA helped him out. “Mahina is 246 years old.”

“Pretty old, huh?” Mahina asked.

“You don’t look a day over 100.” He said with a slight smirk.

“Oh,” Her eyes opened wide with a wry grin. “Someone is feeling a little bit better.”

“Well,” she continued. “I can’t remember where I heard this but it is said that the closer you get to immortality the closer your chances of being buried alive approach 100%. If you are immortal and live long enough in an infinite universe where all things are possible. Eventually, you are likely to be buried alive at some point. Maybe from an avalanche, or a collapsed mine, or landslide. But eventually, you will probably be in the presence of one or all of those things. Do you follow?”

Thaigoon nodded thoughtfully.

“That may be a little hard to swallow, that living long enough will eventually lead to being buried alive. How likely is it though, to make a huge mistake?”

Thaigoon saw where she was going with this. “Pretty likely, I guess.”

“How likely is it, given enough time, that a person will make a decision or action, mistake or not, intentional or not, that will affect hundreds or thousands or more?”

“Possible to some extent or another.”

“And yet I can tell you from experience that the mistakes that affect 1 or 2 people, can have a greater impact on you.” Her face darkened. “They can be life changing. Especially depending on which 1 or 2 people are affected. Right?”

He nodded somberly.

“I haven’t always been like this.” She gestured toward her body.

“You mean, hot?”

“Heh, definitely feeling better.” She smiled. “I mean full cyborg. Most people think I did it because I could or because it was a gratuitous display of wealth, or I’ve even heard it said that it was a manifestation of already being an inhuman person.

“That last one may be more correct than I would like to admit. It was a mistake made out the shallowness of being a wealthy heir. Here’s where we put your previous statement to the test. Let’s see if you think less of me. I know I certainly did.

“You’ve heard of Formula A racing? It’s kind of died out in the last 100 years. But it was a big thing when I was still going to Uni. My Father was a huge fan and had bought an original edition Stellar Starconveyor Chrysomallus FA. It was basically a limited-edition Formula A aerial vehicle built for the consumer market.

“I had just finished my graduate studies for a business degree, and I was in Tokyo attending a variety of celebrations with my best friend, Iku. She was the daughter of one of the families that was an officer in my family’s company. We had done everything together growing up. We had never fought once, that I can remember. She was always by my side. If I’d had an unselfish thought in my body before the following events, it was my genuine affection for her.

“I was looking forward to growing old with her by my side. I was anticipating the life events we would share like marriage, children, everything. There is simply nothing I wouldn’t have done for her. She was a truly wonderful human being.

“At one graduation party we met Sadato. Sadato was a Formula A pilot and a bit too old for me at the time and a conquest that I wanted. It casually came up in conversation, because I specifically made a point to mention it, that my father had the Chrysomallus. Of course, he wanted to see it. And I wanted him to see it.”

Mahina just about goes into a trance as she relived the story.

“Sadato sat in the pilot seat and marveled at the vehicle. His racer was built for speed with concessions to allow a pilot and some attempt to keep the pilot safe. The Chrysomallus was built for comfort. Right before we decided to go for a joyride, he pulled out an inhaler and took a hit. He offered us both Halo. He assured us that it just will make us feel good and there will be no real debilitating effects or addiction, which was true of most designer substances at the time.

“At first, Sadato stayed in traffic lanes, but he became a little frustrated at the traffic. He slid out of normal traffic lanes and moved parallel pouring on speed to test the maximum acceleration. Iku and I were nervous but kept laughing and trying to stay in the thrill of the moment as we were pushed back in our seats. He shut off the autocorrection features of the car as they kept fighting him.

“Sadato was aggressively maneuvering between traffic and stationary vehicles and signs and markers. He slalomed through the skyscrapers. The whole time he had a gorgeous, wide grin on his face.

“I couldn’t help but stare at him. I was feeling the adrenaline and the thrill of felt like freedom and self-determination. The look on his face was highlighted in the starburst ring from the hit of Halo. I was rapt with the expression of sheer joy on his face and wished I could grasp that and hold onto it. I didn’t care where we were going. I was mesmerized by his talent and his skill.

“I had been fighting the expectation that I would join the company soon. I had felt like my life was laid out for me by everyone else. And in that moment, I had felt like I was on the verge of understanding my place in the world. As if, I suddenly knew that everything would be ok. That feeling. I would give almost anything to feel it again. But I’m also afraid because the last time I felt it...the cost was so high.

“The joy and concentration on Sadato’s face shattered into horror. His eyes opened wide as he spun the vehicle to the left and hit the thrusters to gain altitude. Everything seemed to change to slow motion.

“There was a pylon in front of us that was protecting a landing platform on the side of a building. The pylon should have had a light on it and be painted brightly reflective but had probably been hit recently as the paint was hardly there and there was no light at all. Sadato tried to spin the vehicle so that it would impact on his side and futilely increased altitude to fly over it.

“I heard her scream as the vehicle rolled over and over and plummeted to the ground. There was a violent collision.” Mahina dropped her head. “And I heard Iku’s scream cut off.”

“I sacrificed my best friend because I was too self-absorbed to accept the wonderful life I had laid out before me. I was being a petty and unruly child. I ruined my body as well. Sadato committed suicide long before I woke up. He had survived with hardly a scratch.

“They installed basic cybernetics on the parts they couldn’t save at all while I was in an induced coma for months. But even the parts they could save were in terrible shape. I have to admit. At the time, I chose cybernetics because I felt like I didn’t deserve anything better. At the time they were pretty terrible.”

“Wait,” Thaigoon’s eyes narrowed. “Your family owns Ningentek?”

Mahina nodded.

“You started the Second Cybernetic Awakening. You changed the lives of millions perhaps billions of people for the better.”

“That’s what they say. And yet, I would trade all of that for my friend. Which is worse? That I did it in the first place? Or that I would undo it all if I could?”

Thaigoon sighed. “Neither. But I will say that was a heck of a recovery. You made life so much better for so many people.”

He looked over at her somber face and added, “But I am sorry for your friend.”

She tilted her head up. “Me too. Thank you.”

“My story doesn’t have a happy ending.”

“Not yet. How do you think the world looked when I woke up in the hospital with terrible cybernetics on one side of my body and a mass of scar tissue on the parts of my body that I did have? Maybe it won’t have a happy ending. But you never know if you don’t give it a chance.”

Thaigoon rubbed his face in his hands. “I don’t even know what that looks like.”

Mahina nodded, “I get it. Tell you what, let me decide for a while. I mean, when a person is depressed, they just want to stay in and do nothing and stew. That is not working for you so it’s time to do something different. I will come pick you up tomorrow and we will go out and explore this world.”

“Isn’t that kind of dangerous?”

She gave him a smirk now. “It won’t kill you.”

“Touche.”

She pulled him into a hug again which he gratefully accepted. And they sat there for a while like that neither one quite willing to let go.

“I never told you what I did.” He said.

“It’s ok. Maybe someday you can tell me. Is it worse than what I did? Is it worse that some vanity and petulance causing the death of your best friend?”

“Yes. No.” A moment later, he added. “Maybe. I don’t know.”

“Do you think less of me?”

“Not at all.” He said quietly.

They continued standing there in an embrace.

“Why did you choose the name, Thaigoon?”

“I was angry with myself and wanted something self-deprecating.”

“But why that?”

“My family is originally from Bangkok.” He paused. “And Thaifool was taken.”

“Maybe it’s time to choose another name. A new start for a new person.”

“Hmm.” He mulled it over. “What do you think of Bangkok?”