by Silas Vale
There had been a prototype AI that had nearly launched a nuclear missile at its mother country before it was shot down. That had been five years ago.
Those were dark days.
"But you... I feel like you could do it."
"I have been working on it, actually." Willow nodded, glancing back at him. "I've had a bit of an AI pet project going. His file name is D3N-N15, but I call him Dennis." She grinned, tilting her head to the side. She was obviously very proud of her work. "He's just on my computer right now. Super basic so far, but... I think as long as I set the right perimeters he could grow into something quite beneficial. I'm being very, very careful with him."
The trash robot picked up the wrapper, and then with an amiable chirp wheeled itself back under the bed.
"I could show him to you, if you want. But he's kinda boring right now." She shrugged. "He just answers very basic questions, nothing much."
Nych nodded, smiling. "I've built something similar before, and she's still sitting on my computer, just waiting to be opened. I actually got pretty far in my AI; I could hold a full conversation with her. I stopped working on her when..."
He seemed to go distant, before he came back to the conversation.
"When she erased part of her code when I told her I had cancer, and she effectively killed herself."
He had created a friend on his computer, and even she had left him.
"I have the code saved, of course, but... I didn't want to bring her back into a world she didn't want to live in."
"... Oh. Wow." Her brows furrowed, and she shook her head. "They really must have a mind of their own, huh?" She grew somewhat solemn, pursing her lips as she set her pile of blueprints down on her desk. "... What if we could bring back people?"
What? That was a very out of the blue question.
"... Like, I don't know. If we somehow preserved the brain and personality of the person, we could bring them back. Stick them into a robotic body that has the same functions as a human body, and they could continue on their lives as usual." It was evident she had started thinking about this earlier that day, as her thoughts seemed somewhat scattered. "... Do you think that would be plausible? God- I guess there's no way to tell unless you had a brain to test it on. And that oxygen was still provided to that brain during the transfer process."
Nych's smile continually widened as she spoke, until finally, he nodded his head.
"Yes. I very well do think it's possible. In fact... I built an apparatus to test it."
What?
"In my lab, there is a box. The box is a very special box, because it is filled with a very special liquid. It is, for all intents and purposes, a type of preservative spinal fluid that regulates the oxygen level within the box. Therefore... The box could keep a brain alive, or even bring a brain back to life in some cases, so that it can be used later."
That... Was a miracle.
"I think it would have to be a mixture of hard drive and brain, in order to provide electricity to the brain in small enough bursts. It would also help for data storage, considering a brain begins deteriorating rapidly after death. In fact, if a brain isn't pulled from the body in three hours or less, it won't work."
Willow nodded slowly.
"... And, hypothetically. If one were to ask that of doctors, so to have their brain 'preserved' for science, they would remove the brain after the fact to keep it alive?" Her voice garnered a strange sort of tone. "And perhaps could have that box used. Because if it's a person's so-called 'religious' values, they would have to do that, no?" She sat down on the edge of her desk, tilting her head to the side.
Willow had an idea.
And once she had one, it was very hard to make her forget about it.
Nych tilted his head, giving her a strange expression, and then shook his head slowly. "No, that wouldn't work. Doctors aren't allowed to release brain matter into the custody of an individual person, even if it is for religious purposes. Disease would spread too easily that way."
Damn. That put a fork in her plan.
"If a person is an organ donor, however, their organs are often preserved quite well until they can be passed along to the next person."
Well... It might just work.
"... But the brain is iffy." She bit her lip as she thought. "Perhaps if a special request was made? Like if one wanted it preserved the same as the other organs so it could be donated to a university or science program." She thought for a moment or two. Yes. That would work. The university sometimes used donated human brains in labs, or simply to have them for study in some of the higher scientific programs.
She looked up at him.
"... Can I steal your brain from the hospital?" She asked after a second, quite bluntly.
...
Nych simply stared at her, his eyes cold, unreadable, calculating.
"...Yes."
That was certainly an unexpected answer.
"But only if you promise that you'll bring me back only when everything is perfect. I don't want to come back inside of a computer, Willow. If I do, I will corrupt my coding. I want to come back in a body, if that is possible. If it isn't, then I am dead. End of story."
He narrowed his eyes at her, a smile coming to his face.
"You'll have a bit of trouble, though. Brains infected by cancer aren't typically sent off for scientific purposes. They're nearly impossible to get."
"Deal." Willow nodded, and after a moment tilted her head to the side with a grin. "I'll get Blake to help me. A grand heist of the hospital. I think it'll probably be a lot easier, considering we're dating and that I'm going to probably be the one arranging everything funeral wise." It hurt a bit to talk about, but she was somewhat lightened by this new prospect. She would bring him back, if it was the last thing she ever did.
And it would be her crowning achievement.
"I'll stash it at my parents’ house. In the crawlspace. Nobody would ever think to look there, if they could even find it in the first place." She shrugged. "I can start planning everything now. Making sure I'll be able to get into where I need to go."
He looked to her dubiously, before he nodded his head. "Fine. I couldn't really stop you anyway, considering I'd be dead. But you do you, boo. And if you can bring me back... Hell, that'll be great."
He looked around the room, a slight smile forming on his face.
"But that's enough death talk. We should probably sleep soon."
He was right. It was getting late. He was very happy that he'd be sleeping without fresh bruises that night.
"Yeah." She nodded, and glanced around the room. "So... I guess we can sleep in here. But I don't know. Do you want to go to bed now, or stay up and watch a movie for a little while?" She asked, gesturing towards the TV that was mounted to the wall across from her bed. "We also have popcorn in the cupboard, so we could make a bag of that if we wanted." She walked over, and sat down on the edge of her bed.
So she wasn't making him sleep on the couch after all.
She looked up at him, and tucked one strand of ginger hair behind her ear. "Up to you."
Thirty minutes later they were laying together in the bed, a bowl of half-burnt popcorn in front of them and the newest horror movie playing on the large television.
The room was, of course, entirely black.
"I can't believe you don't watch any horror movies." Nych muttered, gesturing towards the TV. "They're obviously the best." They were pressed up against each other, and honestly... It felt amazing. There wasn't anything even intimate about it; just their proximity, their skin pressed against each other... It was intoxicating.
Perhaps both of them had been starved for affection.
"I... Might want to stay here more often."
"... Blake said you could move in, if you wanted." Willow glanced up at him for a second, and then looked back towards the TV screen. She sighed internally. Him and Blake were going to get along great, with their stupid love of horror movies. She really didn't understand the
appeal. They just used the same cheap scare tactics every time, and they were predictable as all-
There was a bang in the movie, and Willow jumped.
"If you want." She continued, playing it off like she totally hadn't jumped. "We'll help you move."
Nych stared at her in absolute awe, a slow smile spreading across his face.
"Weren't you the one complaining about moving fast?" He laughed, wrapping his arms around her and laying his head on her chest. It showed he was comfortable around her.
He also wrapped his legs around hers, which signified something completely different.
It signified that he wanted to be closer to her.
"Oh, whatever." She rolled her eyes, but relaxed when he moved closer to her. It was nice, having someone be so close. To be able to feel his breathing, the warmth in his body, and more importantly, how his body felt against her own. She could really get used to something like this.
She knew it would be cut short, however. But it was still something she desired.
She pushed her thoughts aside, and lightly laced her fingers up into Nych's hair. She ran her hand through it, lightly stroking it and trying to soothe him as she wrapped her other arm around him to hold him as well. Her eyes were still locked on the horror movie, but all of her actions were focused on Nych.
It was at that moment that Nych held a hand up to her chin, turning her head slightly so that her eyes were looking directly into his own.
A beautiful green against a strange, beautiful orange.
He pressed his forehead against hers, their bodies now moving as one as he lightly pushed her down, moving so that he was on top of her.
And then, he asked something he never thought he'd ask.
"Can I kiss you, Willow Grace?"
Her cheeks tinted, and she looked up at the man on top of herself. She stared into his beautiful eyes, and for a moment she didn't dare breathe, simply taking in the beauty of the man in front of her. The man who had charmed her so effortlessly, and the man who was now asking to kiss her.
So instead of answering him, she did just that.
She leaned up, letting her eyes flutter shut as her lips pressed to his. It was a soft and tender kiss, nothing too passionate. She didn't want to frighten him off for any reason, but she held the kiss and let her hand drift to his cheek. His skin was so warm against her own, and it was like molten rock had been encased in living muscle. And his lips... She had never thought another person's lips could be so soft.
For a few precious seconds, Nych was shocked into stillness. Then...
He kissed her back.
Dreadful silence
It was when Nych collapsed in the middle of making love with her that Willow knew something was terribly wrong.
She gasped, looking up at the man she’d been grasping at and quickly rolling him off of her. She moved his body into a recovery position, and panicked as she looked around the dimly lit room. "Fuck, fuck, BLAKE!" She screamed for her friend, wrapping Nych in a blanket to try and keep him warm as she put her hands on his cheeks. "Oh, no, Nych-" Her heart started racing, and she desperately tried to get some kind of reaction out of the man she had fallen for.
This couldn't be happening.
"God dammit- BLAKE!" Willow screamed louder. "HELP ME!"
The door was thrown open wildly to reveal Blake, who was only just dawning a bathrobe. She did, however, have a knife in her hand, and it was obvious that she had thought Nych was doing something awful to Willow.
Now that she saw the reality, however, the knife clattered to the floor.
"Call 911. I'll have to get him down to the entrance so they can load him into the ambulance quicker. Hurry, Willow."
This was a side of Blake that no one ever saw.
The worried side.
Willow looked up at her friend with desperate eyes, tearing up as she clutched the man she loved in her arms. He couldn't be gone now. Not so soon. She couldn't lose him. "No- I-" She shook her head, and when she blinked, tears rolled down her cheeks. "I'll take him. Call an ambulance." She sat up, wrapping herself in a housecoat and putting Nych's pants on to at least save his dignity as Blake dialed for an ambulance.
She was panicking. Not yet. This was too soon.
She sobbed, heaving him into her arms and running for the door, bursting through it and running down the hallway towards the elevator.
Eventually, as they sat outside the building, waiting for an ambulance to arrive, Nych opened his eyes.
He looked around slightly, though it obviously pained him, and he sighed.
"I guess I'm just not good at anything anymore, Willow. I wish we'd started talking a few months ago. Maybe then you would've had a bit of time to get to know me."
He was talking like a dead man, and that wasn't good.
Willow jolted, and then looked down at him with a sob. She clutched him in her arms, holding him tightly as she leaned down to press her forehead to his. "Don't say that." She whimpered, a couple tears falling down her face. "You're the most amazing man I've ever had the joy of meeting. And you're going to be fine. You've still got time, we… We can finish those bots and we can fix you, you hear me?"
She didn't want this to end here.
"Just... Take it easy, okay?" She sniffled, furrowing her brows. "It'll be okay."
He held a shaking hand up to her face, just as an ambulance pulled up in front of them.
"It's almost the end for me, Willow Grace. But not for you. You can live on and do great things. You can do amazing things, just please... Keep my name alive. If anything I created goes anywhere, make sure people know that I died for what I loved."
They began loading Nych onto the ambulance, and the medic asked Willow to ride with them and explain his condition.
She was the only one who knew anything specific about him.
"I... I..." Willow clutched Nych's hand as she sat beside him in the ambulance, her hands shaking with the liquid terror that was running through her veins. They were supposed to have more time. This wasn't fair. How could life be so cruel to them? Internally, she cursed whatever God was watching them up in the sky. They had caused this, or they had watched it and done nothing. They could've saved the world together.
"He has stage four acute myelogenous leukemia." Willow looked up at the paramedics, panic evident in her features. "I... Please... Help him."
She knew they couldn't. But she would beg for them to do so anyways.
The medic's face fell as he contacted the driver on his walkie, and then looked back to Nych.
"This is stage four? Why aren't you hospitalized?"
Nych let out a choked laugh before he responded. "I'm an inventor before I'm a genius, Mr. Drew." His name was printed clearly on the name tag attached to his shirt, but it still appeared to slightly spook the man. "And I won't lay in bed all day waiting for a cure that won't come when I can work on the cure myself."
The medic looked up to Willow in exasperation, and he asked, "What is your relationship with this man?"
"We're together." Willow sniffled, clinging to Nych's hand tightly and bringing it up to her face so she could gently press her lips to his knuckles. She wanted him to be comfortable. If this really was going to be the end for him...
She wanted him to feel loved. Because he was.
"Can you do anything?" Willow asked desperately, letting out a shaky sigh as she tried to steady herself. She had to be strong. She had to be strong for Nych.
"I... I don't know, we'll have to see what the doctors say. If possible, we can could do a full-body blood and bone-marrow transplant, which might buy him a little bit more time-"
"It won't work." Nych said, sighing. "My blood type is Rhnull. The golden blood. And I doubt you've got a body's worth of that lying around."
The man's face paled as he looked back up to Willow. He tried to form words, but none would come out.
So he closed his mouth and began taking Nych's vitals.
Tears silently streamed down Will
ow's face, and she looked down at Nych as she held his hand tightly.
She supposed that no good deed went unpunished. The world was a cruel, ugly place. She took a sharp stuttered breath inwards, and reached down with one hand to gently press it to his cheek. She ran her thumb along it and sighed as she examined his broken, battered form.
"... I'm sorry." She whispered.
He shook his head, taking her hand in his own. "You have nothing to apologize for, Willow. You do understand that you made these days amazing, don't you? You made them worth living again. I never wanted to keep living as much as I do now, and I promise, I'll fight until the very end. But when I'm gone... Make sure I come back as I was."
He meant that wholeheartedly.
The medic didn't bother to ask questions; he'd heard stranger things aboard the ambulance.
"Thank you for giving me my happiness back."
"I should be thanking you." She sniffled, leaning down so she could be closer to him. "You're brilliant. You actually challenged me. You're a genius, and spending these past couple days with you was all I ever wanted to do with my time." She leaned down, pressing a tender kiss to his lips before she pulled away and looked down at him with sad eyes.
"I will rebuild you." She said, absolute determination in her voice.
And she would.
He shook his head, a sad smile in his eyes.
"I have no doubt in my mind that you will try your very best. But if I never come back... I just want you to know that I love you, Willow Grace. I know it's fast, but fast is all I've got now. I love you, and if you think that you'll be able to bring me back..."
He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close, finally beginning to cry.
"Then wait for me..."
"I will." Willow whimpered, and after a couple seconds of holding back, her tears started to fall as well. She wrapped her arms around him, and sobbed into his chest. She didn't want this to be the end. She still had so many things she wanted to do with him. So many things they could build together. So many diseases they had yet to cure, cancer being one of the innumerable few, but one of the most important.
