It was a
sorrowful Sunday morning in the hospital when the rain stopped. It’s funny
isn’t it? How a rainbow symbolizes happiness, but a blood-curdling scream was
heard at the end of the hospital.
“We’ve tried
everything but even though he’s alive, he won’t be able to do anything as his
body has shut down,” the man with the long white coat said before he cleared
his throat. ”We’re going to have to shut down his life support”
“There must
be something you can do! There mu-“, the fresh tears of the woman halted her
ability to speak. She rubbed the sweat from her forehead away as she tried to
catch her breath.
She looked at
the doctor desperately with her tired red eyes. “Can I please just say a proper
goodbye?”
The doctor
nodded.
She walked
slowly towards the room completely drained of strength; unable to twist the
doorknob open she collapsed on the floor. There, she saw her husband lying on
the bed with his eyes shut. She glanced at him and stared at his hospital
plastic bracelet, wishing that the patient’s name “Tucker Wilkinson” would change
into somebody else’s. Suddenly, an insane idea popped into her head. She pulled
out her phone and dialed a number. She rose from the floor, using all her
strength to force herself up. She walked to her husband’s limp body and waited
for the call to pick up.
“Make sure
he’s breathing” the woman whispered through her disposable mask, holding the
portable life support. She is now dressed in the same uniform as other nurses,
walking alongside Tucker underneath a sheet on the gurney.
The male orderly pushing the gurney gave the
thumbs up.
As the same
doctor who patted her shoulder walked on a different direction, she grasped the
handle of the gurney and she sped up.
“Again, why
are we doing this?” he whispered. “Apparently the doctor said that only his body is shutting down, in spite
of that, his brain is still working”.
----------------------------
Not far away
from the hospital, there was a house of the Wilkinsons. It didn’t look like the house a famous IT engineer would have, but they liked living the
ordinary lifestyle. At the edge of the house, a room was filled with a bunch of
old computers, cables and IT tools.
“Liv,” the
blonde man with the male orderly uniform sighed. “Are you sure you want to do
this?”
“Ye- Of
course, Seth. Don’t you want him to still be he- with us? He was a big mind and
we don’t want to lose him.” she talked too fast that she choked on her words.
“Liv, Brain-computer
interface is a collaboration between a brain and a device that enables signals
from the brain to direct some external activity, he is not some kind of a
machine!”
“But they can
actually enable his mind to speak-“
“Through the
words on screen.”
She wrinkled
her forehead and sighed helplessly. “Please”.
Seth sighed
and looked at her, thinking. He opened his mouth and rolled his eyes. “Sure
thing”.
Nights passed,
an empty coffee packet lay on the floor, and 34 cables are all tied up on the
bald man on the table on his head, all 34 cables locked up in 3 computers. From
all the nights that they had been working on, a night was made.
At 4:05 am Friday
morning, they woke up to the sound of a computer.
“Is anyone there?” a green line on the black
screen popped up.
The feeling
of happiness and excitement combined together. She held up the webcam and laid
it down the table. “Liv, I can see you”, the exact same heavy voice of Tucker
laughed nervously. “Where am I? Why can’t I move around?” his voice seemed to
struggle. Olivia pursed her lips. “Your body system has shut down. But you’re
now here, like how we’ve planned to be with each other forever” she smiled. “Now,
I need you to get me on school database, wall street, social media an-“,
before he could finish the sentence, his friend had shut the computer. “It’s
not him, Liv. Two minutes coming up alive, and
he already wanted to connect to Wall Street? Does it sound anything like Tucker?
I have known him long enough and he’s not anything like someone who wants to
rule the world.” the line had been an opening to an argument scene for hours,
and at last, Seth took his bag and left with his shoulders down.
A few moments
later a group of police officers knocked the front door of the gigantic
lab of the Wilkinsons. “Run!” the green line had pop up on the computer screen.
Liv packed her backpack and wore it around her shoulders. “Copy all the files
to my phone and delete them”, she whispered as she tried to manage her
breathing. “I already have”, his raspy voice replied. She rushed to her dusty
car and started the engine. All of sudden, her phone let out a beep, she pulled out her phone, which
says, “I have put down your reservation in this hotel, and I’ve arranged the
payment”, then just in a blink of an eye, the GPS located a hotel, hidden
behind an unused building.
Tucker and
Liv had a strong bond and connection. It all began in a research center, their
second home. Seth used to tease Tucker and told him that she’s out of his
league. He was a love struck for her and he would risk anything just to see her alluring dimples. “What’s your
dream?” Tucker would always ask, wishing that her answer would change one time.
“I want to create a better world. Don’t you just want this world to be filled
with only good people in it?”
Five years
later, year passes by, Tucker’s power grew stronger and
stronger. But also, the world have been much better ever since Tucker
have changed. ‘New Texas’ newspaper
have changed criminal issues into the increasing line of economy. The people of
the city were clueless, but their happiness has made them forgot about what’s
actually happening.
“Would you
like some more wine?” said a polished haired man on the huge monitor. “Tucker,
have you heard about Seth?” Liv rested her shoulders on the luxury white couch.
“Hmm, let's see, he hadn’t been posting on Twitter, Instagram nor Facebook for the last five years. You know, he used to say how much he hated technology, but
it’s his job”, he laughed smugly. Liv glanced at him and stared at her shoes.
“Well he sent me a message. Handwri-“ in a heartbeat a group of masked men had
crashed down the windows and took Olivia away.
------------------------
She woke up
to find herself, all tied up in a dark place with a spotlight aiming at her
direction. Her heart pounded so fast that it felt like it is about to jump out
of her extremely sweaty body. “Let me go!” she yelled. Fifty-nine pictures of well-known criminals
showed up ahead of her. The dark place was not just a dark place. On the screen
she saw a baldheaded old man who used to kidnap kindergarten students, next to
him was a well-dress man who stole four billion dollars of tax money,
followed by fifty-seven other villains. “Does it make any sense to you?” a
familiar voice of a man called out. She titled her head. “Does it make any
sense to you that all these people are killed with radiation?” the heavy voice
replied. “Should we not worry about that?” she ended her question with a cough.
“Who killed
all of these people? Must’ve been the one who have the access to every network
in this world. It must’ve-“.
“My husband
is not a murderer” tears fell upon her cheek.
“It’s not
him, Liv. Your husband died five years ago”
“Seth?! Seth,
Tucker is just making the world a better place for us to live”
“By playing
God? Killing all these people? Measuring your hormones and planting all the
trees? It’s not him. He doesn’t love you.”
“Then how do
we stop him?”
“We can
upload virus on him. But I don’t know how”
“Give me the
virus. He can upload me”
“But you will
di-“
“With the
real Tucker. I’m the only one he
trusts”
---------------------------------
She rushed to her condo as the old memories flashed into her mind. Everything is a
lie. Who is that 24/7 guy in her condo who had given her expensive jewelry,
food and shelter? If it was my dream to make a better world, shouldn’t that be
Tucker? She thought to herself. A polished looking brown haired man with his tuxedo
stood up after her eyes made her stop her steps. He looked so familiar.
“Tucker?” she dropped her jaw as she was trying to catch her breath. The man
looked deeply into her eyes and sighed helplessly, “Sorry it took a long time.
I was just trying to make you feel comfortable. I was creating the Tucker you
knew with the tissues and the hormones of the.. Seth showed you” he avoided her
eyes. “It was really you?” her eyes were watery. He gripped her hand and closed
his eyes, his veins contracting. “What are you doing?” she shrieked
horrifically. “Uploading the virus.
This is what you want, isn’t it?” he replied with his well-known raspy voice.
She broke into tears, watching him slowly dying in pain, didn’t know how to
stop his suffering. With his last breath, he said “It was always me all along”.
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