DEVON ALONE - PART III
A Fragile Existence (5/5)
by Nicole Mayer
The door chime sounded, and Devon instinctively looked up. She wasn't expecting anyone, in fact, she was curled in her favourite chair (the one she used to rock Uly in). Every day, it seemed, she saw some trace of the son she loved dearly. A fleeting presence in the corners of the room or a heartwarming recollection of happier times : the memory of his young voice haunted her. Devon missed Uly terribly.
She was staring at a holo-image of him as she ordered the doors to open. John Danziger stepped inside.
"John!" Devon was startled. She hadn't expected to see him for a while yet, at least not until she had collected her thoughts and decided what to do. She knew that she couldn't go on lying to him, but Devon couldn't stand the idea of a life without John in it.
Perhaps it was time to tell him the truth, after all. "Devon," Danziger began, his voice a little strained, "I think we need to talk."
Smiling bravely, Devon motioned him inside. Danziger remained standing by the door although he did allow it to slide shut behind him.
Danziger shifted from foot to foot, unsure as how to begin. He didn't want to alienate Devon, and he didn't want to hurt her if it turned out that it was all a big misunderstanding. On the other hand, if she *was* a Council spy, he wasn't leaving until he knew.
Finally, he gathered the courage to speak. "Devon...I'm worried about you."
Devon allowed herself an inward smile. He cared. That was a step in the right direction. But her happiness was short lived as she heard the rest of Danziger's words.
"You live in a world of secrets. And forgive me if I'm wrong, but I think I have a right to know what's going on."
Danziger's attention was caught by the small holographic imager that Devon turned over and over in her hands. The picture was of a young boy, one who showed the visible signs of the Syndrome. "Who is he?" Danziger asked.
Nervously, Devon said, "Maybe it is time..." "For the truth?"
"John," she replied, and her voice was wavering, "I never told you about my son. Ulysses."
"Is that him?" Danziger softened his voice, and was rewarded by Devon's mute nod. "He looks like a great kid."
"He was," she whispered.
Danziger heard the past tense in her voice, and felt a rush of compassion for Devon. He crossed the room and knelt beside her, taking her hand.
"He died," Devon managed to say.
"I know," soothed Danziger, caressing her face in a comforting manner. "I can see it in your eyes."
"I tried so hard to save him," Devon explained, tears filling her eyes. "The whole campaign, my whole life, everything was for Uly. But in the end, nothing I did made any difference. I couldn't save him, and I couldn't save any of those other children either."
"I'm sorry." There wasn't much else Danziger could say. Devon swallowed hard.
"That's why I've been a little, well, crazy recently," she admitted, hoping that he would leave it at that. "I felt as though I'd lost my purpose. I'm sorry for dragging you into it."
"Into what?" Danziger asked, feeling his suspicions rise again.
"Into my depression," Devon quickly amended. Her eyes darted across his face, almost if she could see the distrust that lurked there.
"You know, talking about it helps," suggested Danziger. "Tell me about your son. Was it the Syndrome?"
"Yes..."
Now came the crucial question for Danziger. There were still a lot of holes, and time discrepancies, in Devon's story. "How long ago did he die?"
"Six mon...no, almost two years ago," replied Devon, confused. For her, there was no exact moment that Uly had died. She didn't remember his actual parting, only the horror of leaving the Program and finding out that Uly was gone quite a while ago.
"Maybe you should go see someone. Two years is an awful long time to be grieving so much," suggested Danziger wryly.
"And what would *you* know about it?" Devon suddenly flared. She had to *make* him understand and accept this, she had to! "My son, my only son, died! Doesn't that give me the right to be upset?"
"Yes, but..."
"How would you feel if True died?!" Devon burst out. Danziger paused. "It would be..." His voice took on a new tone as a realisation struck him. "How the hell," he began, fury growing in his voice, "did you know about True?!"
Devon gasped. How could she have made such a slip? "It was in your record," she quickly ventured. "I read about her, and I always wondered why you didn't mention that you had a daughter..."
Danziger jumped to his feet, pulling Devon up with him. "My record," he spat, "says that True died almost three years ago."
"But she's not dead!" protested Devon. "No she's not, but no one knows that. You hear me? NO ONE!" Danziger roared, anger and fear surging through his body. If Devon knew about True, then how many others did? All the trauma he and Kassidy had endured to hide the girl, and get her to safety, was useless if the Council knew that True was still alive!
"I'm so *sick* of your lies," raged Danziger. "You've been lying to me from the first moment we met. Oh, you had your quick answers ready, but they don't cut it anymore. I want the truth."
Defiantly, Devon stared him straight in the eye. She'd never seen John Danziger this angry before, and was a little afraid. Yet deep in her heart, she realised that it was time to end the madness. It was time to tell him the truth.
Slowly, she backed away from his menacing stare. "John, have you ever had your mind copied?"
He was taken aback by the question. "What the hell does that have to do with anything? The Council..." Possibilities suddenly ran rampant through his mind. The Council had injected him with a monitoring device, they knew everything! Or...
"Trust me, John," Devon said softly. "I'm not with the Council. I just need you to tell me this. Please," her big eyes begged. Danziger felt his heart softening a little.
"Yes, I had my mind copied, just before True went away." "And Kassidy?"
"Her too," Danziger admitted. "It was a good way to make a lot of credits, fast. But I always regretted it, for putting my memories into the hands of the Council."
"There was nothing incriminating in your memories," Devon assured him, suddenly taking on the stronger role in this confrontation. "And I'm the only one who knows that."
Danziger placed his hands on his hips, exasperated. "Do you wanna try explaining just *how* you know all of this?"
Devon took a deep breath. "Okay," she finally said. Now there was no backing away from it. She would tell John the whole story, and then, then he would understand everything. Especially that they were destined to be together.
"I would have done *anything* to save my son," Devon began. "When he died, I was stricken with grief, or so they tell me. I really can't remember any of it. But Blalock - you know who he is?"
"I know *of* him," replied Danziger in a dark voice, suggesting that his knowledge was grim in nature.
Devon went on. "Blalock offered me the chance to see other children saved. I had faced so much opposition in my quest to colonise a distant planet, that I grasped at any straw, no matter how slim my chances were. I agreed to the Program.
"The Program was a VR simulation of colonising a new planet designed to test me. And everything that could go wrong, did. I was inside the program for a year."
"So that beach - it was part of that planet you were on in VR?" interrupted Danziger.
Devon nodded. "That was New Pacifica, my final goal. *Our* final goal. Because you were there."
Now things were beginning to make sense to Danziger. "John, they used the copy of your mind to, in essence, make another John Danziger. And another Kassidy, only she was called Bess, and she was married to someone else, called Morgan Martin, and he's real too..." Devon was babbling, and she knew it.
"The thing is," she tried to explain, "I didn't know that it was an illusion. I thought the whole thing was real, I lived every day as if it were my last on that beautiful, forsaken planet. It was my dream, and it became my life."
Danziger was curious in spite of himself. "So what happened?" Devon dipped her eyes to the floor. "They pulled me out of the Program. With no warning. One moment, my life was near perfect, and the next, I woke up here, with no one. No friends, no son, no life..." Involuntarily, Devon sniffed.
"I thought that none of you were real," she went on. "Most of you weren't." She was speaking as if all of her friends from G889 were there to listen to her. "But John, then I found out that you, of all people, were alive and real! It was the most wonderful moment of my life since VR," Devon admitted.
Danziger was nervous. Devon was staring at him with a strange kind of intensity in her eyes. "Why me?" he managed to ask.
"Oh, John, can't you feel it? Don't you sense it in your heart? You and I are meant to be together!" Devon gazed at him lovingly, her whole soul shining from her eyes as everything was focussed on him. "We were together in the Program, and that's when I learnt that I love you. And you love me." Her heart was beating wildly. This was it, the moment when he would realise it too...
His next words almost destroyed her. "Devon, as much as I like you...you fell in love with a computer image!" Danziger burst out.
"No!" Devon protested. "He was you, you are him, you're identical...you love me, you have to!"
"And what about Kassidy?" protested Danziger. "She's my wife!"
"We can fix that," giggled Devon, her eyes glazing over. "Kassidy, no, Bess, no, Kassidy...you just wait until she meets Morgan Martin. They're another perfect couple."
Danziger was stunned. Never had he dreamt of revelations like this. And he had *never* heard of anything like Devon Adair was telling him now.
"You think," he sputtered, "that you can just arrange everyone's lives like this? Based on a *simulation* with computercontrolled characters?"
"But they were *us*!" cried Devon. "John, I love you! I tried to tell you so hard through that glass, when I was dying! You have to know it, you have to love me!"
To her horror, Devon saw him shaking his head. In desperation, she wrapped her arms around Danziger's neck and pulled him into a passionate kiss.
"No!" Danziger was pushing her away. "Not like this, Devon. I don't know you."
"You *have* to love me!" Devon burst out. She reached for him again, but he was backing away.
"You can't control people's lives!" Danziger shouted. "You're not God here!"
"John-" she shrieked. He keyed open the door. "You need help, Devon!" he yelled. "And I can't give it to you." He stormed through the door.
"No! Don't leave me alone!!!" Devon screamed. "Not alone...Please John, I love you!"
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Dison Blalock threw back his head and laughed. He felt invigorated, he felt powerful, he felt in control. He had just been promoted.
Gone from his record was that nasty mess with Devon Adair. Blalock shouldn't have worried so much about that situation, for the Council took care of its own. He knew that. Well, he knew that now.
He was vaguely curious about his reinstatement as head of the VR technology which caused all the trouble in the first place. One would expect the Council to keep him well away from it. But in the meeting with his superiors that morning, there had been a strange gleam in their eyes.
Almost as if they were...studying Blalock. Masters with their new creation. The man shook his head, fighting the odd thought. He needed to focus his entire life on the well being of the Council now. No more annoying distractions, no more flirtations with women, no more wasting his time.
Blalock belonged to the Council, and now everything was so clear. He laughed.
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John Danziger was gone. He had just walked out of her life with no compassion, no looking back. "John, no!" Devon cried again. "No, no, nononono...not alone, not alone..." She sank to her knees. She had lost John Danziger forever.
"No," she whispered again, the realisation sinking in. "No..." Devon was alone. And it was a loneliness far greater than she had faced before.
There was nothing left for her. Gone were the hopes and the dreams, and the promises. She had been foolish to ever think she could make a difference. Uly was dead forever, Morgan would never change, Bess hated her, and Danziger - John, would never love her in the way Devon needed him to, the way she knew he should.
"There's nothing left," whispered Devon. A grim sense of acceptance began to come over her. She was doomed.
"I cannot live like this," she stated into the empty, dark room. Time seemed to have stopped. The world was silent save for Devon's heavy breathing as she picked herself up from the ground.
Everything stood out in stark detail. Devon watched, with a detached interest, at each step her feet took across the indifferent floor. Nothing in this world seemed to touch her anymore, for she was beyond caring. A great darkness called to her, a call she knew she could not resist. For she could never return to the awful pain and horror of the living world.
"I will not be alone," Devon vowed. The months of pain and suffering had finally come to a head, and now she would put them behind her forever. There was only one thing left for Devon to do. "Not alone..." she whispered, feeling her links to the reality of life grow thinner with every passing moment. "Not alone."
-The End-
Chapter End Notes:
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