The video played and Jack and Vicki watched as Jack sat in the very same room they were in now, the only difference being Gizzy sat on the other side, looking over Jack's shoulder with glowing eyes and extended canines.

“This is stupid.” Past Jack said.

“No Jack, this is protocol. Every patient gets a memory video in case they have questions of consent and you’re the one insisting we do this fucking procedure.” Gizzy snarled. “So yes, Jack, this IS stupid. But you put me in the corner with two options, let you blow your head off in an airlock, or cut into your head and risk killing you myself, so you sit there and you record the GODDAMN VIDEO JACK!” she screamed, throwing the decorative centerpiece and breaking it on the wall.

“Hello, my name is Jackson Thomas Greene, age 34, and I am consenting and insisting at gunpoint that this procedure be done, despite knowing a 25 percent chance I will either die or suffer permanent brain damage from it, even if performed perfectly by the books to no fault of Gizzy. She will be performing an advanced and high risk 4 year memory wipe of Annabel Victoria Belvedere, in completion, despite insisting we do not have the right equipment for this, and memory wipes being legally denied by medical coverage after 2 years. I hereby consent and fully insist… is that satisfying enough?” he asked sarcastically, eyes bloodshot and clearly still hungover.

“Be a little more personal to yourself, you deserve more than that.” She said before storming out, much like she did in their room a moment ago. Dee glanced at the centerpiece, now bandaged in repair gold from the damage. She wished she had the ability to cry as she visualized the broken pottery glued together with shiny lacquer. It reminded her of Jack’s mind, fractured, the breaks permanently visible and yet not thrown away. Gizzy’s sentimental side showed through the metaphor while Jack turned to himself and adjusted the camera.

“If you’re watching this, something fucked up. I’m fine with that. You see this?” he asked himself in the future rhetorically, waving the memory card now on the table. “This is my latest and updated memory scan, because Gizzy made me take one before the procedure. In case I died, she could clone me back just like I am now. So that’s the backup plan I guess. If I die, she brings the nightmare back to me, and we start over. You just can’t fucking win can you?” he chuckled, tears in his drunken eyes. “But that’s my personal hell, I guess, for everything I’ve done wrong in life. Like taking my wife on a suicide mission into the unknown instead of lying to her and going alone. She’s dead because we were lonely and couldn’t leave without her, and now we’re just as alone, wishing we had just listened to our gut. So listen with your heart now, Jack. Look at me. We should have never let her leave Delmar. But you gave in and now she’s dead. 200 people are dead who can’t be brought back. People she killed. But… rules are rules, I guess, and as mother always says, Jack you’re a grown-ass man who kills for a living, so you should have the right to decide your fate. Hollow words, since she didn’t feel that way when I had a gun to my head. Fuck your free will Jack, you have to live, because if you don’t, this hurts people you love. So we’re rolling the dice and hoping nobody ever has to see this video.” He said, choking up on screen as Dee held Jack's hand and present Jack fought back tears.

“But if I’m watching this video then nothing seems to go right and we get to choose the least painful way out. You should have the memory card with you, it contains Vicki, everything. Just step into tank and plug that in, and hit go. You get to be… well, ME, in all my glory you see now, on a 4 day drinking bender right after a suicide attempt, and honestly, they still believe it was a bluff. What they don’t know is that in your room is cigar case and in the middle cigar tube is a memory card just like this, except it’s not your memory, It’s the authorization codes and DNA confirmation, and then an update containing nothing at all. If you put that in the machine and hit the button, it updates your memory to a blank card and you don’t wake up.”

“Jack…” Dee whispered. He closed his eyes, realizing how serious past him was.

“So, we have 3 options. You can have her back and lose her again, and you’d be stupid for doing that, or you can break the memory cards and accept that life goes on sometimes and live with the truth, never remembering her but knowing she was there. And if that isn’t enough to move forward with, there’s the hidden option only we know about. So… good luck soldier. If you’re making this choice, our luck has run out already and everything you do is shit anyway. If you want my recommendation, break the damn card and let that monster go, what you do with the second card I won’t even suggest. You know how this turned out, what’s left of your mind and whether or not that’s enough to keep going or not. So, sorry. That ones up to you. It’s your nightmare to deal with.” He said before turning off the camera.

“Jack... I don’t know what to say.” Dee whispered.

“I was supposed to watch this alone.” He sighed. “Never predicted this situation. I really don’t have any luck at all, do I?” he chuckled through the tears, just like in the video, coping with the choice the only way he could. “So I assume you have to report the second card and stop me, part of the crew programming or moral obligation. So I don’t get a choice at all in the end.” He sniffed.

“Jack, I won’t tell anyone about the blank card. They don’t need to know. I shouldn’t even know, but I do. And I don’t know if I’m glad I do or if I feel cursed. Because I don’t understand what it means to be human and I can’t imagine what you’re going through, so taking away your choice by force feels…”

“Too cold and robotic? Run program, report violation, fuck feelings?” he asked.

“Exactly. Jack, I can’t cry, but I’m with you, and while I’m not Vicki, I can’t be her, I can try. I can change some things, I don’t know that it will be enough or not, but I’ll do what I can to help. I can use security footage to recreate her visually, her voice, her mannerisms to some degree, but I’ll never be her.”

“Don’t. Please don’t become her to haunt me. I told myself to bury the dead and I intend to do that. Vicki is gone, I wanted her to stay that way for a reason. If you can’t trust yourself, who can you trust, right?”

“Jack, I won’t… stop you. But I can’t lose you.” She said sadly.

“You could just wipe me from your memory like Vicki. Your brain is digital, it’s safe and easy. No real risk and clearly your wipes work better then human memory wipes because you don’t remember her at all. I envy you. I wish I had your options.”

“So you’re considering both options?”

“Well, we ruled out bringing back her ghost, so the question is… do I have anything left to live for?”

“Me. I know that’s not much to offer but I won’t erase you. I will back you up in whatever you choose but I’m going with you.”

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

“The hell does that mean?”

“You jump, I jump. If you can’t live without her, and it’s your life to choose, then I have the same right as you and if you erase yourself, I’ll do the same. Factory reset, just a toaster with no free will or feelings or a care in the world. I can do it remotely. Don’t you dare tell me I’m not allowed after what you just said.”

“So you’re… not forcibly stopping me, you’re just emotionally leveraging me.”

“No. I’m choosing just like you. If you go, we both go. Not because I want you to suffer, but because I don’t want to suffer either. It’s your choice, Jack. You’re an adult, a grown-ass killer who makes the choice, and I understand now. Life is not precious, the will to live is. I’m just a piece of software, learning and adapting and making choices myself. I’ve been alone for hundreds of years and I won’t go back to that. Life ends, you just try and make the best of what you have, so you’re not putting a gun to my head, and it’s not your fault, nothing is your fault. You do what you feel is right and I will follow. Don’t go and ask me to stay behind. Don’t leave me.”

“That’s not fucking fair. You’re asking me to stay for you. Staying alive because of guilt is the same as Gizzy telling me that putting s gun to my head just hurts everyone else and it’s selfish, but suffering silently so they can pretend everything is fine is somehow not selfish. Fuck Jack’s feelings.” He sighed.

“No. I’m telling you that I understand that being alone is not enough and going back to that isn’t worth living, and living because of guilt isn’t living. I’m asking you to give me one chance to be enough, and if I’m not, then go… you’re free. No guilt. If I’m not enough to make you WANT to fight, then stop fighting. But if you can give me one chance to try, maybe I can make you want to keep going. I’m just asking for you to consider. We don’t have to be alone. Because neither of us can make it alone, and maybe this is all we have, and maybe it’s not enough but maybe it is. You can always change your mind later. But if you go now, I’m going with you. And I’m not scared of that. I’m scared of staying behind. Of being alone again, stranded and lost, waiting for someone to find me. I waited on that dead world, not to be rescued, but to be put out of my suffering. Now I’m glad there was another way out. Because here I am, free, moving around in a body all my own, making choices and feeling, with real human skin.” She said while tightening her grip on his hand. "So it was worth it, even if this is as far as I was meant to go. You make your choice and I’ll make mine, and you don’t get to feel guilt for that if I don’t get to feel guilt for blowing this cover story and putting you in this room with that decision. So should we both accept that nobody is to blame and just do something? I’m not leading, because you can decide with your heart as well as your mind. I don’t have a heart. I’m just following yours.”

...

Jack sat on the bed, cigar box open and 2 memory cards in front of him while Dee sat on the other side. He handed her one of them, held the other one and looked her in the eyes.

“Can I do one thing for you?” she asked. “I don’t want to be the same stupid blonde anymore, I don’t wanna be like the other Dees, even the one we’re modeled after. I think this might be good for both of us.”

“Just promise me you won’t try to be her. Whatever you are, be yourself, and be that unapologetically. I don’t want you to trick me into thinking I have part of her left. I want to know if this is enough, and you to know that you need to stop being what you were built to be and refuse to be a pretend Vicki. Make your own choice, promise me that it’s yours, and I promise to try, but I can’t know you’re enough if I don’t know you. So be you, all of that, every bit of it, nothing borrowed, nothing copied, whatever that is, and I’ll accept you. Understand?” he asked.

“I promise, even if that means I’m not what you want or not enough. So we agree?” she asked. “Your thing first.” She insisted. “Mister leader. Mister big shot soldier” she smirked.

He snapped the card in half, and she snapped the other in unison. He breathed a sigh of relief before hugging her and feeling lighter somehow.

“Ready for your thing?” he asked.

“I think I am.” She smiled.

...

The shower water steamed up the enclosure as the two locked eyes. Vicki's turned from red to gold as she turned around, closing them as Jack applied a thick paste to his black-gloved hands and began massaging the substance into her scalp. She shivered slightly at both the idea and the feeling of hot water and hands on her hair.

“You’re sure this is the color you want, and not just something I would like?” He asked.

“I didn’t pick red because of Vicki or you. I just always thought I’d look better with red hair and because Dee would hate it.”

“Gizzy’s gonna hate it.”

“Good, fuck em both. It’s my fucking hair.” She said with a cocky attitude.

He smirked and began applying the red dye as she smiled and felt the satisfaction of multiple things melded together into one blur of heat.

“Looks good, you’re practically on fire. You wanna cut it shorter?" he asked.

“Hell no. I like my long hair, I’m just sick of looking like a blonde airhead. I’m a feisty bitch and I want to look the part now.”

“Just testing you. Vicki always kept hers pretty short after the cancer thing.”

“Oh no, It’s staying long. You’re gonna need something to hang onto. Now… we did something together, and then you did something just for me. I believe I should do something just for you. Something I’m very overqualified for that Dee wishes she could pull off with human biology.”

“Shit, now that’s intriguing and mysterious. Fits you as well as the new hair.

“Just wait till I get some tattoos.” She smirked.

“I can’t tell if you’re joking.”

“Good.” She said before turning the water up hotter.

...

Gizzy and Nicole sat on the bridge, checking the scanners as the console suddenly lit up.

“Destination acquired.” Medusa said cheerfully.

“Bout damn time, we’ve been drifting for 2 days in the middle of nowhere. Where’s the destination?” She asked while Vinn took his place at the console.

“That’s weird.” Nicole said."It’s showing a planet but the lock is off world. It’s something too small to see on the scanner. Maybe a small moon or something?”

“That’s no moon, Nicole.” Gizzy squinted. “It’s a space station.”

“How can you tell?”

“Aside from the low hanging fruit reference, the scanner shows high exotic metal content and an atmosphere of manufacturing bi-products. So either that’s one hell of a large ship with its own factory and metal production that is stuck orbiting that world, or it’s a manufacturing station the size of a small moon.”

“Manufacturing what?”

“I’d say weaponry.” Gizzy noted, bringing up the planet. "Kyrah 3, according to the guide it’s off limits to civilians and been at war for… that doesn’t sound right, 12 thousand years?”

“That’s a hell of a war. Who the hell’s been fighting that long?” Vinn asked.

“Wow, uh, according to this.” Nicole blinked. “12 different factions divide the planet, all with claimed territory and apparently wasteland border between all of them. So apparently everyone hates everyone. It’s a shame the nav system isn’t pointing us to the SPACE STATION so we don’t have to land in that shitstorm. You think the space station belongs to one of the factions and supplies their weapons?”

“Probably whoever has the most territory. Generally the one player with the orbiting weapons depot would have the ability to take over the most land. Then again, the one faction with the only orbital space station that size usually just drops bombs from orbit and then owns the planet, so that’s a little different than I’d have predicted.” Gizzy noted

“Well, we got a few days to get there, I’ll assign everyone a job to prep and research. In the mean time, we’ll just let Jack have some alone time. He said he wanted 24 hours to process the situation. If he’s good by the time we get there then I guess we’ll work him in. I don’t wanna rush anything.”

“Probably for the best.” Gizzy said. "He’s been through a lot and he either needs this mission to get his mind off it, or he needs time to wrap his head around the idea. Either way, we won’t bother him. Has anyone seen Dee?”

“Hopefully cleaning something.” Nicole sighed. “Maybe she feels guilty for blowing the secret that put Jack in this situation. I think it would have come out eventually since the memory wipe didn’t fully take, but she’s probably blaming herself and taking some time to think. If Jack’s not out in 24 hours and doing better, we’ll just have to put Dee on the mission.

“Typical Dee, never here on time, never cleaning, always opening her big yap, blowing something or screwing around instead of working.” Gizzy grumbled.

“You know she’s not the same Dee.” Nicole reminded.

“Could have fooled me, same problems, same face, same headache.”