Virtually Dead

Chapter Forty-One

All the doors in the house were open. A warm breeze blew through it from the ocean. Michael sat on the terrace staring at the chess board on which he had so often done battle with Mora. Every piece stood in its starting square, ebony facing ivory in an eternal stand-off. And he knew that he would never move these chessmen again.

He looked up as a squat, square man in blue overalls appeared at the open door. “You want me to pack that now, sir?”

Michael nodded and got up to let the removal man wrap and box the chessmen and board and free up the table and chairs to be taken out front to the truck. Virtually everything was gone now. The boxes packed all those weeks ago. The furniture. He had donated a lot of it to charity. After all, it would take much less to furnish the small apartment he had taken for rent further along the coast. He would still have his beloved sea-view and a small balcony where he could sit out and read, but a single man required less space and less baggage.

He had decided not to go back east. He had got too used to the sunshine. It would be hard to return to the cold, grey winters of New England.

He wandered now through the empty house that he and Mora had once animated, and knew that finally he had reached a place in his life where he felt able to move on. He had quit his job, and had no idea what the future might bring. But there would be no more looking back.

“You want us to pack up your computer stuff?”

Michael turned to find another removal man regarding him quizzically. “No, that’s alright. I’ll be packing it in the trunk to take to the apartment myself.”

“Okay, sir. Well, that’s us finished for now. Have a good day.”

“Sure. You, too.”

When they had gone, he went through to his office. There was no chair. So he lifted his computer and monitor carefully down to the floor and squatted in front of it with the keyboard in his lap. He would check his email one last time before dismantling it all. There were a couple of mails from his lawyer, another from the bank, one from Sherri, who was holding him to his promise of fifteen percent. In the end she had sold the property for just under four million, so she had earned her fee.

He dealt with them all, and was about to shut down, when his eye fell upon the Second Life icon on his desktop. It sent a tiny shard of regret deep into his heart.

He had said goodbye to his lawyers outside the courthouse in Santa Ana, and then stood for several minutes before deciding to go back in. The public benches were almost empty when he slipped into the back of the courtroom to listen to the proceedings. Gillian MacCormack had been sitting with her back to him, unaware of his presence. Legal arguments on both sides were presented to a judge who knew she was just going through the motions. No one had wanted to charge this genteel sixty-seven-year-old with anything, never mind manslaughter. After all, her timely intervention had saved a man’s life. And so, in the end, the judge had found that there was no case to answer, and she was free to go.

Michael had hurried out again, even before Gillian had got to her feet. She had never known he was there.

Now, on an impulse, he opened up his browser and went to the Second Life website. There he created a new account, able once more to choose the name of Chas Chesnokov, since there was no record that it had ever existed.

He opened up the Second Life software and logged in with his old user name and password, and rezzed into Orientation Island as the basic AV he had been on his first sojourn into the virtual world. He looked around at the familiar landmarks, the volcano, the learning islands interlinked by bridges. And watched the newbies wandering around bumping into each other, waving their arms in the air, falling into the water. He clicked on his blank Lindens total at the top of his screen and bought himself twenty dollars’ worth. Then went on a spending spree.

Body Doubles, and Naughty Island. A Brad Pitt body shape; Gabriel skin, Golden Tan with Facial Hair 4; Paris Blue Eyes; a shock of blond hair, Untamed in Golden Bay Multitonal III. And then a clothes mall. Rusted green cargos, white shirt and cream sweater, black grunge boots. Within twenty minutes he had remade Chas in his original image. There would have been no way to tell the difference. And in some strange way that he could never have quantified, Michael felt whole again. Chas had pulled him back from the brink once. Perhaps he would do it again.

Chas rezzed into Twist’s office. For a moment he was almost overcome with melancholy. This was the place Janey had made. This was the persona she had wanted to be. And now she was gone. When the tiers expired, so would her office, and everything in it. But it occurred to Chas that he could keep the name, set up his own agency in her memory, maybe even live out the fantasy for her. But, then, he knew that he was unlikely to stay here. Like other parts of his life, it was time to leave it behind and move on. This was just a last stroll down memory lane.

He went into the Search window and found Midsomer Isle. A final visit.

The sun was setting, just as it always had been. Trees and ferns and bushes swayed in the sea breezes, and roses rezzed all around the entry columns. Chas looked at the empty chairs and the chessmen awaiting some avatar to come along and move them, and felt a pang of regret. Without Doobie he would never have survived, in either SL or RL. He remembered the confidences they had exchanged right here on this circular terrace overlooking the sea, the meal they had shared, and their first dance among the hidden columns somewhere further up the mountain.

He wandered across the terrace to the sweep of the retaining wall and looked out at the dying sunlight coruscating across the water, light reflecting all the way to the horizon and the setting sun.

Doobie: Hello, Chas.

Chas swivelled around.

Chas: Doobie!

She was wearing a black evening gown with a deep-cut neckline, her hair piled up on her head and hanging down in ringlets at the sides. She wore opal bangles on her wrists, and an opal pendant on a silver chain that fell between her breasts. And he thought she looked quite beautiful.

Doobie: I was down at Puck’s Hideaway and saw you appear on my radar.

Chas: I heard they decided not to bring any charges.

Doobie: No.

There was a long, awkward silence.

Chas: I guess... I never did say thank you.

Doobie: What for?

Chas: Saving my life.

Doobie Littlething smiles.

Chas: There was something I’ve been meaning to ask you.

He hesitated.

Doobie: Yes?

Chas: That stuff about your husband being killed. And the baby...

Doobie: It wasn’t a lie, if that’s what you’re thinking. It just happened a very long time ago. In the sixties. They were fighting in Vietnam then. Who knows why.

Chas: And you never married?

Doobie: No. I never wanted to. It was like I was dead for a long time. Just like you after Mora. And then Second Life, for me, was like being born again. A chance to go back and do the things I’d never done, be the person I’d never been. In a way, it gave me back my life, gave me a second chance.

Now they stood looking at each other. Neither certain of what to say next. And the silence hung. And hung. For what seemed like an eternity. Until finally it was Doobie who found words.

Doobie: I missed you, Chas.

Chas: I missed you, too.

Another silence, then,

Doobie: We were good together.

Chas: We were.

Doobie: We could be again.

She took a step toward him, then seemed to think better of it. She stopped.

Doobie: Does it matter how many years there are between us? We are who we are.

They heard the sound of the wind in the trees. SL ambience swelled and faded. Somewhere a bell sounded. Or it might have been windchimes.

Chas: Would you like a game of chess?

Doobie: I’d love a game.

Chas right-clicked on the nearest seat and sat at the table. Doobie sat opposite him. He looked up.

Chas Chesnokov smiles.

Chas: Your move, Doobs.