COUNTERFEIT

Chapter 3 - Ballad of the Ideal husband and his disappearing daydream.

I am running as hard as I can from someone right now. My heart is pounding as hard as a jack hammer. All of a sudden, I don’t feel my right leg anymore. It amputated my leg ! I am bleeding. I fell to the ground and started crawling away from the dangerous figure lurking behind me. Furthermore, I can't quite see it's face, as it approaches me it's silhouette becomes clearer. As I was about to beg for mercy, it shoots me in the heart.

I screamed and realized that it was all a dream. I woke up and saw my beautiful wife lying beside me.

"Are you alright, darling ? Looks like you had a bad dream" Asks Natasha.

"How would I not be alright when you are here?" I said kissing Natasha.

I see the clock saying the time as 7:00 AM. The date was 21st December 2139. I picked up myself and started to get ready for work.

Hi, My name is Vikram. I work as an A.I. programmer for Accounting. I have everything a man could dream of : A Large Sweet Hover Mansion floating on the Atlantic, A Lovely, Beautiful and Intelligent wife. Not only that, but I'm sure that I married the woman of my dreams but sometimes my life all feels like a dream.

As I walk to the dining room hoping to eat breakfast, Albert my personal Robot Butler greets me with my favorite breakfast Aloo Paratha. Albert's been with us for five years. Having Albert with us made us feel less lonely as our trails to begin a family were useless. I thanked Albert for the breakfast and began to eat.

I went off to work with my VR pod and continued on with my boring professional stuff. Until I heard a fire alarm notification. I signed off my pod and rushed to the hallway to see Natasha extinguishing Albert.

" Babe, you agreed to book an appointment for Albert to change his coolant. Now look at what happened. He overheated." said Natasha.

"When did you even tell me about this ? I didn't even get a notification."

"Not again, babe. I just told you yesterday and I reminded you this morning too. The notification came a week ago and the maintain teams didn't come home because of the strike."

"OH ! That is a lie! And I did not see a notification. Must be a glitch in the system."

" I trust you babe, but you're leaving me with no choice. Home, Access Vikram's phone and show the notifications from December 14th. Access Code - Ezjd2131." yells Natasha to the Home A.I.

" Welcome, Natasha. Accessing Vikram's Notifications from December 14th. One Notification - Coolant Change alert from Robutler Inc." the robotic voice of the Home A.I. reads.

I didn't know what to say. Was I really going nuts ? The same thing happened last month with house security. I almost got kicked us out of Insurance. What am I going to do when a baby comes into this house ? These were the series of questions that hit my mind.

I didn't even know that I was crying until Natasha took me in her arms and said - "Don't Worry, babe. You must be tired. It happens sometimes. Why don't you wait for 48 hours until Albert reboots himself and take him to Robutler Kiosk right around the corner ?" 

I agreed and continued with my work. Before I know it, it was almost my bedtime. I greeted Natasha who just came home from her stressful job as a VR Architect. We made dinner ourselves after a very long time, thanks to the breaking down of our dear butler.

The Night was so romantic. Although the dessert I made was pretty sweet, the night got spicy after the dessert. Natasha passionately and I passionately made love under the stars as there was nothing that stopped us. I felt that this time we're definitely going to conceive the child.

I closed my eyes and slowly crawled into sleep with that good feeling. Furthermore, I tried to sleep but I can't. It almost felt like something kept calling out to me. I woke up and poured myself a glass of water. I walked all around the house to find the "sleepill" that makes people sleep safely without any side effects. This has been happening pretty often lately. Must be because of my excessive screen time. I was very lazy to call a doctor, although my condition can be cured right from my home. So I called a doctor yesterday, and he recommended me sleepill.

Albert would've found it right away and gave it to me. As I walk through the living room and lights turn off behind me, I find the sleepill on the table. I see the front yard lights turning on and a figure lurking near my door.

Whoever they are, they must have disabled the alarm system. Luckily we had a backup alarm system placed. So obviously the alarms rang, and the traps went out. I walked outside to see a person in a trench coat and hat escaping from the taser traps. For some weird reason he seemed so familiar. There's no chance that he can escape from the traps.

As he started walking towards me, he saw something behind me and started running the other way. He got on his bike and started hovering away. I quickly got on my bike too and started chasing him. I chased him for quite some time before catching up to him in an abandoned alley.

"Who are you ? Why were you breaking into our house ? Answer me fast, the police are just a click away." I asked him

" Vikram, there's something important I need to tell you. Listen to me very carefully! You are, You are........" before he could finish the sentence, he is shot in the head by a plasma ray.

I was shocked to see what happened. Before I could step back and try to get on my bike, I ran into something. My legs trembled, a chill ran down my spine. It was the same creature that I saw earlier in my nightmare. I felt weak in the legs, I didn't know what to do. I was horrified. As I gulped down and began to utter a word. It shot me right in the heart. I wanted to get up and see its face in the dark alley, it raised its hand and shot me between my eyes.