It wasn’t my first time in Section A, but the first I had actually noticed it. As if nothing had happened just a few sections beneath them. Before, I always had to save someone. Didn’t have time with me to gaze. Besides, I didn’t want to step into the nest of those who took my love away, who wielded the flame blades that clawed at my heart. And what sliced my veins, what hacked my soul was that I couldn’t help but gaze. Didn’t want to. Made me feel hollow, but I guessed that was the point.

It was luxury, the fragrance of the Hanging Gardens, the sight of Versailles. Sunlit, circular plazas and gilded hallways connected by one mountainous mahogany grand staircase that lost its grandiosity as it burrowed its way through the lower Sections, until only concrete slabs remained at the base of the Tower, and high-speed glass elevators divided according to Section of residence, all roofed by platinum-coated indoor greenhouses which grew the plants that made up the bulk of the new world’s diet. The Achroites’ greenhouses, those inside, an Arcadia of fruits, vegetables, and tubers from all corners of the Earth. The lower classes’ greenhouses, the outside rocks, an array of hearty beans and other legumes. Though they still served the same purpose.

They were views I thought you could only get in the Wexford waterfront. Technology met the 1800s. To the point they believed they had achieved self-sufficiency in foodstuffs. But they still liked their meat from the southern territories. And would not do a thing to threaten it.

But no bridges connected the abyss. At least not in Section A, which grand trees ornamented as an indoor canopy that sprung forth life in a graveyard of souls. Guessed Zielkkenhom didn’t want to think of the Bridge. Or just lord over others. The Enhanceds of Section A could hover. The others needed the bridges. Dangerous things. Only protection was a security railing that reached to your upper torso. Enhanced torso. It reached my neck. No wonder Zielkkenhom made this. Had to look grand, regal. Because those inside were void as well. Vulnerable.

Because those inside needed him, depended on him for their monthly fix. Just like the Towers. Just like the paintings and holographic screens that crawled on the walls like the million eyes of flies. Staring at you. Always. Shot ice blades through my veins, sliced them. Didn’t know how Almyra could live like that. How anyone could live like that. And then I gazed at the gemstone marble floors, the achroite fountains, because they could afford to waste water there, and the platinum chandeliers that hovered over us. Simulating a baroque palace. And I realized why.

But I still wouldn’t live there. Not even if they paid me. Especially if they paid me. And then it clouted me. Gravity blasted my heart, tightened my chest. That these worldly things had entranced me like that. That I didn’t even think about those in the Zielkkenhomvilles. A single zoisite statue of theirs could buy an air purifier for a ville. And some food and water.

I was about to say something to Almyra, when I noticed her eyes, glinting autumn leaves, living death. Her father hadn’t come. All the newscasters had scurried away like flies. Until only the two of us remained. And she stood still, as a zoisite statue. Just waiting. Waiting for her father. Waiting for a hug that would never come. A kiss that would never take place.

The only one who deigned to come was a representative from Bernhart Industries, who handed Almyra some clothes and new smartwatches for us, with our old numbers. I wanted to punch him. Demand that he called Lloyd Bernhart right now. Ask him why the heck he couldn’t be bothered to even talk to his only daughter after she almost died. Even if that meant consequences down the line, even if that meant they’d think me a traitor, but I couldn’t let Bernhart’s disregard for his family slide like that. Ellie and my family would understand. The Harmonists and their sympathizers, not so much.

But I cared about Almyra. Didn’t want to be the reason for her tears. Didn’t want a repeat of that New Year’s Eve when I couldn’t do a thing to help the girl I loved. Not that I loved Almyra or anything, she was still a Bernhart, and we had just met an hour and forty-two minutes ago, but I didn’t want to forsake her. I even clenched my fists, and stepped toward the representative, but Almyra shook her head. And I knew what she wanted me to do. Because she didn’t want me to make a scene? Or because she was just used to her father not being around? I hoped for the former, but I knew the latter was more likely. Bastard Lloyd.

My soul squirmed my heart. I had Almyra Bernhart for a spoiled rich girl who got everything she wanted. But I guessed I was wrong. I stepped toward her and hugged her, but before I could even utter a sound, she shoved me back and said, “Let us head to VirtuaNet, Mr. Cavanaugh. Mildred had gone there yesterday. Someone might have been in sight of her.” Her voice composed, so I wouldn’t notice its brokenness, but I had. The Enhanceds didn’t tend to care about their families, but seeing it firsthand was a blast to my chest.

Perhaps, we Naturals were the rich ones.

And the Harmonists could end that with their bloodlust.

We sauntered to a VirtuaNet terminal—all but Naturals and Impures could access VirtuaNet through their smartwatches—and I leaped in, not into the Bridge, not into bleak hollowness, but into cheerful dismay, for the first time. Everything in VirtuaNet was a computerized model, yet somehow felt real and fake at the same time, where you could even step into an alternate reality to command massive robots as the vigilante leader of a rebellion in a Pacific island nation. Perhaps people wanted to believe VirtuaNet was real. I didn’t.

I wended my way through the crowds and collage of Victorian buildings and mansions, the free section of VirtuaNet, so the rich could flaunt their wealth in the premium section, virtualized islands and European cities they would not visit in the real world to prove their nationalism in the eyes of other Achroites, and curry favor with Zielkkenhom, and the poor could seethe in envy at the things they could not afford, at the things they would never have, lest they shot themselves with Eugenex. And could access better-paying jobs. I guessed that was Zielkkenhom’s main goal. Everyone becoming a slave to Eugenex, and he the kingpin drug dealer.

Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

I kept looking, until someone caught my eye.

Ashley Baker.

My Ashley, with her long auburn hair and hazel eyes. My Ashley, with her delicate face and kind smile. All of our memories together gushed into my mind again, as a stream that led to an estuary, as shoals heading to the surface. It was equal to me if I had imagined her. I leaped toward her and embraced her, as that day by the Hudson, when ashen cerulean still dyed it. “How …? I thought you … I saw you …”

“The how is not important. What matters is that we’re both together at last, here.”

That word zapped me back to reality, well VirtuaNet reality. Here. What did she mean by here? We had argued before about VirtuaNet. She enjoyed it, but she had never forced me to accompany her. She knew how I felt about it. Those two words—here, together. I thought she was fine with me not joining her there, but should I have? But I stopped myself right there. For the only question whose answer I didn’t want to know clouted my mind, the answer that meant the difference between everything.

But despite gravity compressing my chest, I was going to have to find out. So I took a deep breath, stepped back, and whispered to her, “Are you real?” almost as I didn’t want her to hear me, because I did not want the moment to end. If she was, then how was she alive? Had someone altered her DNA? Was she an Enhanced? But if she wasn’t alive, then I was losing my sanity.

She placed her hand on my shoulder. “It is of no importance if I’m real or not. Maybe I’m real, or perhaps, a figment of your imagination.” She then embraced me. “What matters is that I’m real to you. What matters is that I feel real to you,” she whispered in my ear.

I didn’t know what to think, what to do. On one hand, I wanted to stay with her. But on the other, if she wasn’t real, then Gieves Syndrome was beginning to affect me, and that meant a trip to the Zielkkenhom Sanatorium for the Mentally Ill or worse, the Frontier. But I thought about my family, about Ellie. How would they have felt if suddenly I vanished, if I had stayed in VirtuaNet forever, as a fake version of me? I couldn’t do that to them, nor to God. I wanted to be with Him forever in Heaven. “I can’t stay here with you,” I said, voice kind of breaking. “It isn’t living.”

She held my hand. “But we’d be together, just the two of us, forever. Isn’t that what you wish for?”

“It is, but not like this.” I clasped her hand. Felt as real as when I held her soft hands in the real world. “We wouldn’t be human,” I said. “We’d be copies of ourselves.”

Her eyes sagged, as glimmering carcasses. “I understand,” she said. “But I’m confident we’ll see each other again. And that you’ll stop your investigation and leave everything as is.” And just like that, she smiled and vanished.

And I hoped everyone was going to be gawking at me, which would have meant that Ashley was real, but no one was. Everybody acted as usual. And not even the most apathetic of the Enhanceds would have missed the chance to see a couple arguing. That always made good colloquies, or rather, textloquies among them, as did bruised Almyra pics online. The smarter our machines got, the dumber we became. And the more insane I was going to become if I kept thinking about what had happened with Ashley.

The fact that no one had seen her didn’t mean I was losing my sanity. It just meant that I missed her. That was all. It had just been my imagination. She knew I was investigating. The real Ashley wouldn’t know that. I had just imagined everything. Nothing more. Nothing less. But why did she want me to stop investigating? Or why did I want to stop? Was someone messing with my mind? Created a fake version of Ashley? The Harmonists? Julius? And then it clouted me. Perhaps I felt guilty about what had occurred that day, that New Year’s Eve. And then the images of that day began to blast my mind but thank God someone tapped my shoulder and brought me back into the world.

“Have you not listened to your smartwatch?” Almyra said.

And I almost told her about Ashley but shut the second I thought that if she considered me insane enough, she could have alerted the authorities. So I just told her the truth, minus the details. “I got distracted.” A feign smile crossed my face.

She knew something had happened, I could see it in her face, but she just said, “I found no evidence.”

All the Enhanceds gawked and gossiped as if it were a sport. Almyra didn’t.

“Everyone who had seen Mildred recently informed me of her wellbeing yesterday,” she said. “It seems Samuel murdered her.”

“He didn’t,” I said. “I’ll investigate in the Bridge.”

“I shall return to the real world.”

Almyra then logged off and vanished. I shut my eyes, leaped, and arrived at the closest thing on Earth to that place far from God’s presence—the Bridge. Still a purgatory of icy flames. I searched for possible clues regarding Mildred’s whereabouts, perhaps someone she had saved, but then something struck me, and not an antivirus, but a light burst. Lights bursts again. A cacophony of blazes, heading to VirtuaNet, the real world, everywhere. And then a flicker that grew into a crown of pearl lights that struck someone heading back to the real world. Paralyzed his transport. And then something that shot ice spikes through my veins.

Another bridger, who, in a second, snatched the immobile light blaze and escaped through a network device. And shut it three seconds before I could reach it. A Class A+? What on the …? But I didn’t even have a microsecond to ponder what had just happened. I’d just tell Almyra once I returned. Had only sixty seconds. Took me ten.

I leaped back to the real world, with a smile, but still thinking on that other bridger. Mildred was a bridger, and so was Samuel, but they weren’t so fast. It couldn’t have been them, so then who? I checked all other Class A+ bridgers’ records, and none had just rescued someone. None had entered the Bridge. So then, who? Or worse, what?

It hadn’t all been an exercise in futility, though, because of that possible clue. And thanks to the light shoals, though it bothered me a tad that I cared more about the lights than about that possible unaccounted for Class A+ bridger. Reminded me of fireworks, like those of that New Year’s Eve. Before the night’s dream turned into midnight’s nightmare. And I got to see Ashley again, even if I had just imagined her.

The bridger I had seen was real, right? Had to be. Had to.

For the first time I had seen Ashley since she returned to the Lord, but she was real. I felt it. Knew it.

I was not losing my sanity. I was not. Even if I was hoping it wasn’t the last time I saw her.

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

Hi, my fellow bridgers! Thank you so much for reading The Last God. It means a lot to me that you took time to read my story. Being able to share this story with others has been an amazing experience.

I will appreciate your comments and reviews because my work is intended for you. I invite you to share this experience in social media through the links below. Every single review or share matters.

Thanks again for reading. May God bless you. Have a great day!