Black Star

Chapter Fourteen

Ramona Stone was nothing but a good time drone; she wasn't dead because she had never been alive. When she was around physically, it was easy to believe she was more than that. Discovering the disc was blank took that realisation to a new level. The knowledge it was possible to order another to the same specification changed nothing in his mind. She was erased, a drone could be rebuilt, but it wouldn't be her would it, not without their experiences. She wouldn't tell stories about a life she never had, whose moral undertones lifted and cajoled his subconscious. A new Ramona wouldn't keep the other lovers she never had a secret so as not to upset him. She wouldn't drive him into a rage one minute and have him in the palm of her hand the next. He could order another Ramona, and probably he could afford to do so. That was over now and all because of one spiteful, jealous act.

He'd found cold comfort in the belief she existed in that little plastic disc until he'd discovered she wasn't there after all. He was bitter at losing Ramona and perhaps he'll never know why Jagger acted with such malice because he could never bring himself to ask. The disc was an insurance policy, something or someone to fall back on. Like an ex waiting with open arms and that would always be true of her. The pain was doubled because the person he cared most about had destroyed the thing he cared most about. There was nowhere to go, no reconciliation.

The next morning Jagger arrived as normal and went into the lab to start work as usual.

It struck him how calm the end was, in the same way as when he discovered her.

"I think you should leave."

"Excuse me?"

Jagger looked up and saw his love holding something between his thumb and finger. A small black disc with a patch of gold that glinted in the light. Jagger understood and immediately began packing belongings.

Jagger must have realised there was no point in dialogue. He went around the apartment, placing personal belongings into the bag he had brought with him. They were few, but they were symbolic of an official end to the relationship on any level. Touchreik stood by the door and waited patiently until Jagger approached and looked him up and down. His eyes were moist as he leant over and kissed Touchreik on the forehead. That act of physical defiance in the face of everything that had gone on was both an insult and a mark of respect. He walked out of the door and down the corridor without looking back. When Touchreik went to the window and dropped the augmented display, he saw Jagger cross the courtyard and suddenly stopped. 

His head half-turned and then as if he thought better of it, he began walking again briskly across to the waiting Mag Pod, stooped into the cockpit and was gone forever. Touchreik cut off access to the Duke and his accommodations and turned to look around the empty apartment with a sigh. To say he hadn't missed Jagger would have been a lie. Over the years, he had done the opposite with his memories as he did with Ramona. Jagger became greyer and less beautiful than he may have actually been. Unlike Ramona, he wasn't dead, he was probably still alive and admiring his collection of artefacts somewhere. 

As the pain ebbed and the years passed, Touchreik finally did something inexplicable even to himself. Around ten years after that final encounter, he had physically visited his accommodation, getting as close as the street opposite. Afterwards, he was pleased not to have bumped into him or be seen, even if he was still there. The realisation he hadn't gone for reconciliation but for confrontation. Wanting someone to scream at but there was no one. His only targets were his friends and students, but they were smart enough to get out of the way of his anger. Instead, he festered in his own self-pity, more alone than ever.

He never forgot his friend Nova and what he had said before they parted. That he would grow old in V-World and die there just like in reality, just like the 21st century.