Al knelt on the charred wooden floor of the home he once shared with Betty, surrounded by the ashes of what used to be their life together. The only colors around him were black, white, and their in-betweens. Not even Betty was exempt from the monochrome palette.

The version of Betty Al was looking up at never spoke. Or, he hoped, just hadn’t yet. Instead, she watched him with immovable, unblinking eyes. He thought about what they looked like before they burned out. The first Betty he met here had hazel eyes even though they should have been a light brown. It was a mistaken memory manifested—something she teased him about in another life.

That first Betty in this ruined place also didn’t speak but her mouth hung open like she was just about to. Her face was frozen between two expressions—the warm smile she wore when Al arrived home that evening and shock at the deafening bang and expanding blast wave. When he spoke her expression would change in an instant, like a video missing frames. Sometimes it would snap to the lowered brow and curled lips she’d flash at him after a joke. Other times it would be the patient, relaxed gaze she would hold when he was rambling on about a work project. A clever segue would often follow that expression but here, with this Betty, the words never came. This version of her made Al realize he couldn’t remember the sound of her voice. After seventeen fucking years, he would scold himself thinking.

“I miss you,” Al said, looking up. The tears burned his cheeks just like the flames had on the last day they were together.

Al hadn’t considered success would come with consequences. His recent promotion to Sr. Director is how they justified the unit that sat above their building’s sky lobby. The web of skyways connecting it to neighboring towers meant they could find everything they needed without having to descend to street level. That kind of luxury can keep one ignorant to the increased risk a new role at a major conglomerate might come with. If Al was the reason Nearspace’s starmap ware, Providence, was leading the market then the loss of his leadership would be a setback. It could, perhaps, create an opportunity for a rival like Luna Star Concern to catch up. Accidents can happen to anyone, even those living high up in a megatower.

Al stood up in phases; his body ached here, too. He reached out and touched this Betty’s face—the shadow of a shadow of a radiant woman. Her facial features were the only clear details left on her too-pale, desaturated skin. The birthmarks and scars on her body had faded. Even the curves of her figure sometimes changed when he looked away and back.

Betty’s gaze shifted away from him, towards the windows that blew out of their frames. She moved towards them, nowhere near as fast as she had on that day. Al frowned before following her into the living room. He glanced at the empty spot on the black, featureless sofa. Betty’s slab rested on the coffee table between it and the holo display. A soundless episode of Mysteries in the Rim was playing.

He crossed the room and joined Betty at the edge. Crisp air whipped at him as he looked out at the view they used to enjoy together—the shifting glow of neon ads playing on the faces of adjacent towers’ lower floors, the jittering beacon lights affixed to air taxis as they weaved through invisible lanes, and the unbroken strings of bright red and white stretching to the horizon on the elevated highway below. Without the trapped reflections that danced along the windows, it was even more breathtaking.

Al glanced to his side but Betty was gone. He felt the heat at the back of his neck and tried to resist the urge to look down. He never could. Fighting tears, he looked over the precipice, down into the outdoor garden attached to the sky lobby. A dark shape expanded beneath Betty’s tangled limbs.

Al turned around, took one step away from the edge of the room, and a searing sensation sizzled up his spine before settling into the space behind his eyes. His eyelids receded and his pupils glowed as the flames licked the walls. The sofa was a supernova and the holo made loud popping noises as its internals liquified. Al clawed at the back of his neck and fell to his knees again, this time from the physical pain. He looked up and Betty was there, again, standing over him. For a moment he thought he saw concern. He hadn’t seen that expression in years; the tears filled his eyes once more. The pain he felt as they flashed to steam was excruciating. He screamed and his vision went white.

Al woke in a fit as his limbs thrashed against the restraints of the interface chair he was strapped into. Cables ran from the back of it to a wall of blinking, thrumming hardware behind him. A single flat ribbon cable snaked around the front, socketed into a port just above Al’s collarbone. He squinted in the dim red light of the claustrophobic booth he rented. The display on the wall next to the door in front of him showed his usage time at 2:17:28. His body could only handle the virtual environment at a low crank—just a quarter speed—and even that was pushing it. His last couple of hours compressed to a brief thirty-five minutes with Betty.

The dive shop used a “min-plus” pricing model which meant Al had the booth for at least two hours but could stay longer and pay the per minute rate. The max allowed time fluctuated throughout the day as the algorithm running the prices recalculated it based on customer activity. Some days the rates on the plus time were egregious. Other days it was extortion. Most days it didn’t affect the regulars.

Nearspace had covered Al’s medical bills but the minor brain injury he suffered when the explosion threw him into the wall left him with a degenerative condition. His ability to use virtual was diminished when he woke from the induced coma and it worsened every day. Despite a lifetime of safe usage, he began to suffer from virtual sickness just like the addicts in adjacent booths who spent their entire lives escaping from the real world. It meant he could never work for a glom again, not that he would have after what happened.

He was given a small stipend from Nearspace as a consolation for the assassination attempt. They had him sign an NDA and a non-compete in exchange. It was just enough to pay for pain and withdrawal meds, his evenings with Betty, a little bit of food, and an underground cubby in a decaying megatower. On days when the nausea was heavy he’d skip eating and eke out a few more seconds in his shattered memories.

With the worst of the pain subsiding, Al sent the confirmation command to disengage from the chair. A few moments later, the shackles snapped open and the numbers on the display changed. The session time was replaced with the amount of credits he just parted with; it was around his average. He glanced at the finance widget suspended in his peripheral vision. It was hard for him to believe that number used to have multiple commas in it.

Al unplugged the cable from his body and peeled himself off the chair. He grabbed his jacket from the hook and walked through the automatic sliding door. He’d rush home after crawling out of that hole, hoping to get in bed and fall asleep before the sickness came on.