The First Cycle

The lawyer lifted her chin and smiled faintly. “Badly.”

“And I want to tell you. But I can’t. Not yet.” He’d almost told her, and that would have been a mistake. “I just need to know if it’s even worth pursuing.”

She shrugged one shoulder, watching him intently. He felt like a specimen in a Petrie dish the way she stared at him. That was a clue that he was behaving perhaps somewhat eccentrically, but he couldn’t help it. Everything weighed on her answers to these questions and there was no way he could skirt it.

“I’m used to clients being a bit cautious, Ramone. When money’s on the line it can make even the most generous person into a miser. Whatever you’re considering, this seems very serious,” she said.

“I’m often serious, but this is an exception,” he said. “I’m being more serious than normal this time.”

She pursed her lips and studied him, not speaking for a few moments. When she did, it was with a smooth, cajoling tone as though he simply needed to be charmed.

“Can you give me any more information? Would it be in direct competition with your current employer?”

He moved his gaze away from hers, feeling the chemistry like he’d just walked into an electrical storm. He stared out the window. “I’ll give you more information as we move forward.”

“Then do you think that we will move forward?”

When he chanced to sneak a look at her again, her gaze was fixed to him like she was studying a painting in a museum.

“I’d bet a year’s salary on it,” he said. “My main concern continues to be whether you have the power to protect what I want to do from more powerful forces.”

Somewhere in the back of his mind, he knew that what he was doing was completely useless against those powers. Legend had it that Ethan Kirkwood, the owner of Kirkwood Broadcasting and Ramone’s boss, had gotten into bed early on with federal lawmakers to protect all the assets that now policed the entire US in the guise of entertainment. It was bread and circus, like never before. Typically that phrase was applied to milquetoast solutions compared to what the nanocameras, the feeds, and the Sweet Life system were. The system was the ultimate application of security and entertainment. No one needed to worry anymore, about anything. Or at least, the main problems that people needed to worry about was whether or not they were getting enough views and watches of their personal feeds so that they could benefit from the celebrity status that would come from garnering the top views.

He watched Blythe for her reaction, vaguely aware of how small he was against the Goliath of Kirkwood’s empire. Ramone knew that the legends were true—Kirkwood had built his empire upon Ramone’s back. And so no one else understood how true it was that Kirkwood was protected from disruption better than Ramone.

Blythe squinted in response to Ramone’s direct question, and that was as much as she gave away.

“I think you’ll find, Ramone, that I’m very good at my job. I’ve never left a client unsatisfied with an outcome. That’s partly due to my rates, but also because I work tirelessly to protect their rights. If you want to work with me, that’s how invested in you I’ll be.”

He liked the sound of that—his rights being protected. Even more, he liked the idea of her being invested in him.

“That sounds like what I need.”

He avoided her gaze, which somehow never flinched or veered away from him like it would if she was awkward. She was bold and brash, and rested simply in her body like it was natural. Like the thing to do was look into someone else’s eyes like you understood their humanity.

She was something beautiful like that. And she disarmed him in all the best ways.

* * *

The meeting with the lawyer rang on his tongue like he’d just sampled an exclusive wine from a region of France reserved for the elites of the world.

She did something to him that he couldn’t understand. He puzzled on it even as he prepared dinner that night. Sue would arrive at any minute. Despite the wandering thoughts of the lawyer that nudged a sleeping part of his brain, Ramone really wanted his old life back.

It was his job to remind his wife—the divorce wasn’t final and his goal was to stop it before it got there through reminding her—that she’d be giving up something special.

Dinner was an Italian style salad, couscous, and bread with balsamic and olive oil. Ramone had made the bread himself. It was something he did to tune in. A meditation. Kneading the dough was a focus on the here and now. It was a practice he’d begun back when the feeds were new and no one yet grasped how they’d eradicate every form of solace a person could ever hope to find in the modern world.

The timer beeped. Ramone donned an oven mitt and removed the bread from the fiery temperatures. He let it cool for a few minutes while he set the table and lit a few candles.

He hoped to shake the feeling that all his actions were pointless by just powering through them. One part of his brain stood with its arms crossed and the question on its lips “wouldn’t this be so much better with Blythe?” while another part screamed that he had to hold onto the comfortable and save it from total annihilation. He could not lose what he’d once held. Sue was his, no matter what happened now.

Besides. Blythe was married. At least, he recalled seeing a ring on her finger.

The bread had cooled. Everything was ready. He scanned the setting and congratulated himself on a great performance. Now, to have the reason for it show up.

While he sliced a serrated knife through the baguette, Sue sauntered in, her high heels clacking across the bamboo floors.

“There you are,” he said, attempting to be his most charming self.

“Here I am.” Her agreement was awkward, but he moved past it quickly, determined to not end up fighting or souring the whole night with misfires and bad cues.

“How was your day?” he asked.

She stared at him as she removed her jacket and draped the handle of her purse over one of the chairs at the six-person dining table. “Just fine. How was yours? I have a thing at the gallery later. So this needs to be quick.”

He pressed his lips together. That was fine. Of course she had a thing, of course. He approached her as though to give her a hug in greeting, but stopped when she crossed her arms like she was warding him off.

That was fine too. Alright, no hugs then.

He put the bread on the table, then brought the other serving bowls to it and invited her to sit with a gesture.

The noise of feet and chairs scuffing across the floor was too loud. He grabbed a remote and flicked on some soft vocal jazz that he knew Sue liked. He didn’t mind it, but it wasn’t for him. It was for her.

They sat and began dishing up food. Ramone attempted several times to catch her eye, but she avoided it. For a brief moment he felt like an animal in the wild, doing some kind of primal mating dance that wasn’t working in the least. Why am I doing this? he found himself wondering a few times. She doesn’t want to be here. She doesn’t love me. Do I love her?

None of that mattered. He needed to preserve something. He needed his life back. That was the main thing–to salvage something that his invention had destroyed.

“How’s Darwin?” Saying their Bernese’s name punched a hole in Ramone’s gut. The ache of that separation flushed through him.

“He’s good, good. I got him groomed the other day.”

I miss him, he thought, but didn’t say. Guilt wasn’t the tool he wanted to use to bring Sue back. “He’s a good dog.”

“The best.”

“I still remember the day we got him.”

“He smote us both immediately.”

“His eyes melted me.” Ramone poured a glass of the red wine and held the bottle aloft, cocking his head in question.

Sue nodded. “Thank you, yes.” She held out her glass for him. “All those puppy licks did me in.”

“Very much so,” Ramone agreed, putting the bottle down once her glass was full. This was good. They were connecting. Getting into a rhythm. “His tongue was like velvet. Mossy and perfect.”

“I like that,” Sue said lifting her glass, her eyes shining in the candlelight.

Ramone raised his own, feeling smitten for a moment with her beauty. That was a big deal to him—that after all these years and the ways that they’d aged together, he still found her sexy as hell.

“To new beginnings?” He ventured.

She cocked her head, opened her mouth to say something, then clamped it shut with a sigh. “To new beginnings,” she agreed.

Should he ask what her hesitation was? He chose not to. The toast had multiple interpretations and that was why he’d used it.

They began eating. Ramone sipped his wine and listened to her concerns and thoughts about the gallery and her clients. When Sue had chosen to open her art consulting business, he’d been thrilled for her. Always an artist, he could see the possibilities for her in the decision to take up the business side of it and perhaps create a new revenue stream for what she loved. Her paintings earned small amounts—nothing to rave about—but there was more for her to offer. The idea of his wife evolving a branch of her talents gave him an interesting thrill. He found it… sexy. Alluring.

He didn’t understand art, not the way she did. But he appreciated her skill with it and her passion for it. The two of them were opposites, and that was something he’d always found delicious about their dynamic.

As she spoke and he listened, he found himself perplexed again by what wasn’t working for them, by what made her want to leave him, by whatever it was he’d done that had chased her away.

“Have you spoken to James or Ellie lately?” he asked during a lull.

“Ellie and I had lunch the other day.”

“How was she?”

“You really should invite her around.”

“I have. She’s angry with me for some reason.”

Sue nodded. “Have you asked her about that?”

He shook his head.

His wife—she was still his wife, despite the divorce nearly being final—sighed and sat back, putting her fork down. She took a big gulp of wine and then swirled the dark red zinfandel around, watching it instead of Ramone.

His eyelids drooped. The flame of one of the candles caught his gaze and he found himself drifting. Something was building between the two of them. She was about to say something. He knew her disappointment already in the way he let their kids have their own space. Sue inserted herself in their lives, and he respected that. Ramone saw them as adults and allowed them to come to him. When they needed him, he was there at the drop of the proverbial hat. Help with math homework? There. Help with how to change a flat tire? Immediately there. Insight into negotiating a pay raise? He had techniques for that.

“Why don’t you call her again?”

“She has her own life.” His words showed just the slightest slur.

“You’re part of her life.”

“I’m here when she needs me.”

“She’ll always need her dad.”

“I can’t change the past, Sue.” That was an allusion to the feeds. His family blamed him. When his kids had discovered the truth, they’d both been so angry. Which surprised him, despite how angry he himself was at what his beautiful invention had become. He’d thought his kids would accept it for just being The Way Things Are. They’d grown up with the feeds.

It was to their credit that they saw something inherently wrong with the system. Smart kids. They must be his.

“Can’t you, Sam? Really?” Her voice was laced with disdain.

“What’s done is done.” The argument never went anywhere. Even if he wanted to change things, it exhausted him. It would take so much, even if he could almost do it, even if he wanted to do it.

And did he tell her about the boy who died in his arms? No. There would be questions—what were you doing? Why were you doing that? What were you thinking? He died because of you. Even if Sue never said that the boy’s death was Ramone’s fault, he’d likely hear the recrimination in her voice and assume she believed it and that would crush him.

“Maybe you can’t change the past, but what we have now isn’t working. You work for the enemy. Change that, at least.”

He worried about the Editor’s seeing the conversation. That was an ever-present concern, but he brushed past that and dug his heels in. “It paid for your business. It paid for the kids’ college. It did more than anyone ever thought it could.”

“You think I’d rather have a business than a family? Than a moment all to myself? Privacy in the shower? You think I want to age onscreen? Even if no one ever watches my feeds, someone is always watching.”

“I know,” he said, hanging his head. “I know that part.”

She pushed her chair out with a sudden sharp noise that cut into Ramone’s ears and his heart like a knife.

“This was a mistake. I’m sorry.” Her voice was a whisper as she stood up.

He blinked and stood as well. “It wasn’t. I wanted to see you.”

“You wanted another fight? You’re more masochistic than I realized, Sam.” A crooked smiled touched her lips. She would always call him Sam, and she was the only one, really. It yanked on his heart to hear it on her voice. She frowned. “I can’t keep doing this. And I don’t think it’s good for you either. I love you enough to accept that.”

She loved him. But the way she said it tore a hole in his gut that he didn’t understand.

He followed her to the front door. “Please don’t leave like this, Sue. We can work through it.”

“I don’t think we can.”

“You don’t believe in us?”

“We’ve set things in motion. What’s the point in stopping them now?” She opened the front door and walked out into the chill autumn air.

He followed her out as she strode across the sidewalk. “The point is not letting the feeds win.”

“Sam, come on. They won a long time ago. And if you can’t see the truth right in front of your face about what you need to do, then why keep beating us up like this? It’s time to let go, I think.” She turned and, without warning or a hint of being self-conscious about it, touched him softly on the cheek. She let out a sigh.

A storm began to brew in his chest. “I’m not a child.”

“No?”

The storm roared. “That you believe I am cuts, Sue.”

“I want it to. You’ve been asleep too long, Samuel Ramone. It’s time to grow up and accept a few things.”

She turned and walked away, leaving him staring after her like a fool.

* * *

He finished the dishes, wiped the surfaces down, and sipped the zinfandel again. He leaned over and blew out the candles from the failed dinner. The smell drifted under his nose and he questioned whether the dinner had failed or not.

It smarted still, what she’d said as she walked away. A surge of irritation grumbled through him.

He left the smoldering candles on the table, another reminder that he perhaps stupidly wasn’t giving up on his wife. But why?

Samuel Ramone just never quit. He wasn’t a quitter. Once he started, that was it. He’d see anything through to the end.

But when was a relationship over? Did they have natural endings? Maybe this was his problem. It was obvious when machinery was finished. Engines burned out. Power-sources failed. Projects were completed in a shower of champagne celebration.

A life-long love? When did that end? Did it just naturally fall apart or did it have to end with a death?

It was messy, unlike machinery. He understood the working parts of things like nanomachines that he designed and built. He could accept their shortcomings and work with them. But his own? Those of his wife? He was willing to always love her. That seemed to be the important thing.

He stood in the intersection between the dining room, the kitchen, and the living room, staring vacantly at the TV on the far wall. There was never anything on it, so the black screen was simply a cyclopean void in the wall over the fireplace. The majority of entertainment that could play on it were feeds of some kind—reality generated content churned out by people who never had to care where the cameras were, they just were. All the creators had to do was pretend to be a star.

Years ago he’d sworn them off. Bitterness filled his mouth as he thought of what he might find on them, tonight.

Was the relationship really over? Divorce seemed like an ending, even if he didn’t want it.

Before he could reconsider, he held a remote in his hand and flipped on the TV. His eyebrows shot up when he saw that the thing still worked and didn’t need some kind of software update.

He figured out the intuitive navigation and searched through the most popular feeds. Some of them seemed intriguing—informative, clever, heart-wrenching. That was a surprise. He’d expected all the material to be terrible, gratuitous, the worst of humanity.

He finished his wine as an idea occurred to him. He sat down on the sofa and placed his empty wine glass on the coffee table. He used the remote to punch in a search string and hit enter.

There it was.

The dinner with Sue. Himself. Looking old, looking like a stranger. He heard his own voice as he discussed their dog—the dog which he hadn’t seen in weeks, who he missed terribly. He heard the ache in his own voice that he’d tried to disguise—poorly—and it caused a bubble of pity for himself to boil up in his gut. And Sue, goddamn, well, she positively glowed, looking elegant as ever.

Some enterprising Editor inserted a song over the conversation, editing the voices so that they were louder and instead of the jazz tracks that Ramone had picked for the dinner, it was some silly, poignant song about breaking up.

It didn’t matter that it was him. It didn’t matter that he was angry and confused and annoyed that his own story was being exploited for… what… he checked the number of live viewers tuning in… barely one hundred. A tiny number. The story of himself ripped his heart out and he could suddenly see the allure, the reason the feeds were such a well-devised trap. These explorations were the ultimate reality.

And it was his pain, the wreckage of a life splattered all over the screen like a once healthy body destroyed by C4. Gore and guts and a once happy, beating heart. And it was being exploited.

But what could he do? Rage against the machine?

As he watched his wife leaving him for the second time that night, the split in the narrative of her taking off caused an interactive choice to pop up on the screen. He was being given the option to stay with the male subject or the female.

Proceed with A) Male subject, or B) Female subject.

His finger froze over the remote. He’d just about selected himself.

That would be the noble thing to do. The honorable thing.

But if they were really over… If he could just know, if he could see what she did after she left him, that could tell him so much. What if when she left, she got into her car and cried? That information could help him. If she got in her car and drove off and seemed emotionless, that would tell him something else.

Was he that terrible that he would use this power to see into her private life? He sucked a sharp breath in through clenched teeth.

He tossed the remote away like it was a viper about to sink its fangs into him. He threw himself back into the couch cushions, just to put some extra distance between himself and what he’d almost done.

He’d never spy. He would accept her words and believe them. There was dignity in that, despite the pain of rejection.

It was over.