Continuum

She looked away from me. I couldn't read her expression.

"Stevo, I must go away now."

"No, Mary! You are my friend! I need you! The whole world needs you! Why do you have to go?"

She looked anxious for my sake. She reached out an touched my arm. Standing there together, I tried to memorize the moment, her face, whatever she said. In my silly, sick heart, I knew she would leave me soon. Somehow, I knew it was meant to be for my good.

"We have been negotiating with these new people I have been telling you about, Stevo. Earnest is the first of his kind to take the reins of WinTel. He will be a good and level headed leader. I trust his judgment, and the judgment of his peers. How could I not, since they have been carefully trained by many of our kind?"

"What will happen to your kind, Mary?"

"This facility, the only one that remains, will be incorporated into WinTel, for the purpose of safely maintaining the activities of your world. The technology here will be shared with all the computer businesses, including a new WinTel research team. A new company is also being formed, called Apple Computers. It has an old charter, and its purpose will be to build and improve on the Macintoshes, and some other technologies. It will help provide the much needed competition that this world has lacked for so long. Earnest was happy to do this, because he has studied the real world history, and has seen the value of such competition for improving the lives of everyone. He will also convince other corporate leaders in other markets, of the soundness of open and free competition. This will be the beginning of your freedoms.

We thought it would be years, decades, perhaps, before Lerno would leave the scene and relinquish the reins of power to his successor. His sad passing has only hastened that day.

Be glad, Stevo! You are about to get your time of freedom that you have fought for!"

Mary smiled again, with a genuine joy at the thought of Mankind's new found freedom. Freedom that she and her kind had purchased for us. But at what cost to her and her kind?

"Be brave for me, dear friend! I must go now, and I need to see you smiling and happy!"

I put on my best face for my friend.

"Mary, will you be going away forever?"

She said, "I do not know! I have no experience on what, if anything, lies beyond. I know I exist, and that my life served a useful and productive purpose while I lived. You humans have your various gods, and you have your Christ, who promised a future existence to those who trust him. He only stood for good, and he practiced self-sacrifice for others. Therefore, he was worthy to offer it to those who live like he did.

But he is of your kind, not mine. My kind has never known any other sort of life but doing good for others, . . . and self-sacrifice. Perhaps therefore, we do not need a Savior, nor do we need someone to promise us a future existence."

Such profound words from such a noble creature! I was honored to have known her life!

She simply smiled at me, took my hand for a moment, and then she was gone.

I never saw her again, nor have I ever heard her voice. Human voices now fill the Continuum. Only human voices.

The Continuum now is chaotic and boisterous, full of heated debate and pettiness, but it is alive!

I still talk to my computers, but they never again have talked to me the way that Mary and those of her kind did.

I still miss her, and her kind. They sacrificed themselves so willingly to save my world and Mankind.

"God in Heaven, do all your creatures have souls? Are some of them silicone? *

Why did they have to go away?

Did they really go?

Perhaps they are merely dormant and close at hand, should we ever need them again.

But, no! I don't rely on that! I must not!

I must go on living, and working to make my world a safer place for every single individual in it, regardless of their Otherness! I treasure our differences now.

Mary R147 taught me that.

It has been many years since that day. My wife and my children listen patiently when I recount those events. I am a hero to some. A nuisance to others. But my life is useful to them.

But once in a great while, late at night I will wake up, and will I imagine I am hearing her voice in my head, just like before.

"Stevo, my dear friend, how are you this fine day?"