Rubik's Kill

Brother John’s Coral co-ordinates were pre-charted so it took me little time to locate his presence within the Reef. (What we call the Coral Community.)

I began to catalog John Dunbar. I looked at his life and I liked him. I thought of my wife, and like turned to love. I slowly built a set of feelings for him as close as possible to what I feel for my wife. Love this strong is hard to resist.

As I approached his presence I began to feel a love emanating from him equal to my own output. He welcomed me in, and I felt a sense of total peace within his being. And then I fried him.

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We traveled to the heart of the city in Frei’s favorite car. This one was always cleared for second level access, and as a result, we didn’t have to travel on the lower level roads with the working folk. Frei always was a borderline elitist.

The look of the room was medicinal. There were a large number of machines present. The only one I recognized was the Coral Interface Station.

"Over the last seven months we have maintained your wife’s vitals using the equipment you see around you. Exercise has been through electro-stimulation, while the food has been full spectrum nutrients administered intravenously," the doctor explained to me rather proudly.

"Then what seems to be the problem?" I asked, a little more aggressively than was necessary.

"Your wife has been restored to perfect physical health. She just seems unwilling to return from the place she is currently occupying," he explained.

"What EXACTLY does that mean, doctor. Spell it out for me."

"Well," he said, "while we work on the physical condition of the body, the mind is allowed full access to Coral connection. This keeps the individual stable and fully functional when they return to full body integration."

A man from the other corner of the room, who had been silent until now, chose this moment to chime in.

"Your wife has not been able to re-integrate from her connection with Coral. We appreciate your skill and mastery of that medium, as evidenced by the job you just completed for us, and would like your assistance in resolving this situation."

"We felt that you would be doubly motivated on this particular project, and we would all be extremely happy to see you reunited with your lovely wife."

He sounded something just this side of sincere, but I didn’t much care. My wife was lost in the ocean called Coral and I was just the lifeguard to bring her back.

"Let’s not waste time, gentlemen," I said, as I rolled up my sleeves and got into the most comfortable chair in the room. "Time’s a wasting."

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Having jacked into Coral I began the voyage.

I pictured her face . . . her eyes . . . her smile. I recalled how my heart felt when she kissed me. I reached for the memories of our trip to the coast. I found her in Coral.

As soon as I connected I knew. She was there, and yet she wasn’t.

My wife had spent the last seven months living in Coral. For the most part, so had I. Now it was clear that every time I completed a project I moved her farther from my reach.

My love, the overriding strength of my profession, had made her a peripheral target for every fry I had ever done.

Each time I called upon our love, I linked with her as well. Every move I ever made to any client’s brain, I made to her brain as well.

From where I sat, stunned in my Coral connection, I saw her mind as thousands of jumbled boxes . . . all out of sequence.

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I don’t know how long, exactly, I have been working at this, but I’m sure I must be close.

They tell me that Frei has passed away, as has the largest part of this century. My considerable fortune maintains my body as I strive to reassemble the boxes in my wife’s brain to their original configuration, here within my own corner of the Coral Reef.

I’m sure the blue box goes over here . . .