Reflections

Samir’s anxiety spiked. He’d watched in silence as Virginia left the room and disappeared into the kitchen. Not to be outdone he too had retreated to the opposite end of the apartment, to his sanctuary: a chair in the corner of the spare bedroom. His fingers fidgeted with his Ring as he whispered: “Aida, can I talk to Virginia?”

“Of course,” the digital voice whispered back into Sam’s ear. “Shall I call her for you, Samir?”

“That’s okay, if I can talk to her dop, that would be fine.”

“Of course, Samir. Here’s Virginia Rose’s Mirror.”

Speaking to Virginia’s dop, or Mirror to use the brand name, had long ago stopped feeling awkward, even when the real Virginia was just in the other room. The dop pretended to be who it was based on, to the best of its ability. If you somehow weren’t aware, or you weren’t steeled against it, the effect could be disturbing. But when tensions flared between them, he just found it easier to talk things through with the dop rather than the actual person. Her dop was more reasonable, Sam had found. And though he wasn’t sure what to make of it, he found Virginia’s dop more like the woman he fell in love with.

When he and Virginia spoke these days it often felt like going through the motions. She was distant, he was defensive, she’d fixate on something he found trivial, he’d struggle to get any of his points across. It had never been like that until recently. And it still wasn’t like that with her dop. He could lay on the bed in the dark speaking with her for hours on the phone, the same way he had with Virginia when they were in school. It was nice. The dop even cared about music, and understood why he was so worried about her work at Magenta. He hoped the real Virginia would somehow hear how they were with each other, so she could be reminded of what they’d lost.

The floor was cold. He had gone almost straight to it tonight, only cross-legged next to the bed for a moment or so before tipping to the left and resting his head on the hard wood. At the time he assumed tonight would just be another night. Virginia would finish her tea, then head to the bedroom and stew, or whatever it was she did once the door was shut. He didn’t know what she got up to when she was alone. Maybe she talked to his Mirror, the way he talked to hers. Did they sit on opposite sides of this wall, speaking to virtual copies of each other? It was a thought he’d never entertained, and it wasn’t something he could really ask. Someone’s dop would never betray the person they were mirroring by disclosing that sort of thing. It was a waste of time to think about it. He’d just stay in the guest room, speaking to Virginia’s dop, this past version of her. The version of her he got along with.

Samir woke to a different house. The feeling was immediate, subconscious: a suitcase zipped in a half-remembered dream, a distant door slam, words from Virginia that he never processed. Whatever the cause of his disorientation, consciousness eventually caught up to him, and he sat upward. His earpiece had fallen out in the night, leaving him equal parts liberated and isolated. He let it lie for now, a small bit of plastic in a pile of dust under the bed. The guest room was as uninviting as it had always been, disgusting and unmaintained. Their inability to decide on a décor for the room was matched only by their unwillingness to clean it. The morning sun flooded in through the uncovered glass. The sky was coated in a thick grey, which only fuelled his self-pity as he pulled himself off the floor. His back ached terribly. Was she still on the other side of the wall, he wondered, or had she gone to work? It was Saturday, but that had long since lost meaning for her.

Room by room he checked for signs of Virginia, or a struggle, or even a pile of clothes to indicate that she’d perhaps been raptured. But there was nothing to find. Indeed, there was less than nothing. Virginia’s things were gone.

His panic reached fever pitch as he collected his earpiece from the dust and stuffed it back in his ear. “Aida. I need to talk to her.”

“I’m afraid Virginia Rose has asked not to be disturbed.”

“Her dop, then.”

“I’m afraid Virginia Rose has asked not to be disturbed.”

That’s not possible, Samir thought. I can always get through to her. But he didn’t bother arguing with Aida, which was as effective as a beach arguing with the tide.

“Fine. Let me talk to my dop, then.”

“Samir,” came the sound of Samir’s own voice down the earpiece. “What can I do for you?”

“I can’t reach Virginia. Remind me what happened?”

It was often the case that your dop might carry on speaking to someone for you after you, for example, fell asleep. Or in some cases, your dop would carry on talking to their dop. Some people found this off-putting, but few would admit it, lest they be branded a luddite by their friends, or their friends’ dops.

“Samir,” the dop began, sounding very self-assured. “You spoke with Virginia Rose’s Mirror at length about your desire to be more decisive, and to take more action. Virginia’s Mirror expressed that this sort of decisiveness was a very desirable trait in a partner, more so than an adherence to keeping the vibes positive. You then fell asleep at 1:07 a.m., and I continued the conversation with Virginia’s Mirror until 1:44 a.m.”

“Okay,” Sam replied with a creeping anxiety. “And what was the rest of the conversation about?”

“We agreed with Virginia’s Mirror that, in the interest of decisiveness, it would be best if she moved out.”

In the first few days he’d embraced the solitude. This is great, he’d thought. I can finally make the house what I’d always hoped it could be. Second-hand furniture occupied the dust outlines where Virginia’s nicer pieces had once stood. She’d left their couch of course, which he knew she’d always hated, and the guest room bed, which he guessed she considered a kindness. For now he’d sleep in there. He had no clue how to get that bed through the doorframe and into the other room, the one that now stood empty. The one that had been theirs before it had been hers.

She’d reached out a few times, via his dop, but he hadn’t listened to any of her messages. That would’ve required speaking to his dop, which he was loath to do. There was no accounting for what it had done, ending his relationship of twelve years on a whim like that. He could imagine what Virginia would say: it wouldn’t have done that if you didn’t personally want it. A Mirror can only reflect. That, of course, would be why she just left rather than interrogate the decision in any way. She, of all people, would implicitly trust the Magenta Mirror. He rolled his eyes even as his stomach churned. Fucking dops.

In his mind he would practice navigating conversations with friends, with strangers, with his parents, in an attempt to explain how this had happened, and how it wasn’t his fault. But in his mind he knew each time it would be the same: your dop obviously knew you wanted it to end. It was socially impossible to not take the blame for this. Even though his dop had done it, he had for all intents and purposes broken up with Virginia himself.

There were the digis, of course. The digis, his digital mates, would talk about anything, go deep on any topic, serve as your inexhaustible well of approval. But you’d never convince them to speak ill of another Magenta product. They might start off on your side — you’re so right, Samir — but before you knew it, you’d find yourself being brought around the bend, taken the long way down the path, over the river, and eventually to your destination: that the product was in fact good and you had perhaps used it incorrectly. Samir had no desire to be gaslit by Virginia’s employer over the reason his relationship ended.

By the end of the first week, the space he’d taken for himself began to feel a bit vast. But as it stood, almost all of his friends were Virginia’s friends first. He couldn't think of a single person who would choose him over her. The last scrap of their social fabric had gone to tatters with the end of their pub quiz attendance. It still happened, of course, every week at O’Leary’s. But her work hours and their fraught relationship had made it untenable. So instead he’d lay in the dark, muttering the names of Magenta employees he’d sat near, shared drinks with, listened to the inane stories of, and lament that he’d never come close to crossing the threshold of friendship with any of them.

At around one a.m. Saturday, the screen in the living room flickered to life at his request. He knew what would take his mind off of all this—his favourite television programme, Ellie Misandry. It’s not something he’d ever shared with Virginia, or any of his other friends aside from the digis. This was normal though, given the fact that shows were prompted by the viewer and personalised just for them. Nobody else could watch Ellie Misandry except Samir and his digis. And as he lay there watching it, alone in the dark, he figured that was probably a good thing. Someone’s generated television show is quite a personal thing, especially after it’s been running for a while, as what Aida tailored into over time could be an upsetting window into who they are.

By the start of week two he’d vowed to pull himself together. With a quick word to Aida he’d gotten some new clothes in, along with a fresh restock of ready-meals for the week. The dust on the floors was gone, and his next challenge was the bed. He’d resolved to move into the main bedroom and stop feeling like a guest in his own home. The geometry of the situation eluded him, as he’d not been around to see them install the bed, but he felt confident as he stood in the doorway. He’d stripped the covers and pillows, only a bare mattress on a metal frame. The headboard, his biggest worry, had turned out to be a non-issue as it was merely leaned against the wall behind the bed. An illusion of connection, he’d muttered to himself, like everything else in this life. He’d nodded, proud of the metaphor. But the real challenge laid ahead of him. He’d tripped at the starting line early when the bed proved too wide to simply slide out into the hallway, but now he’d had the idea to put it on its side. He put his hands under the sharp metal frame and lifted. As it went vertical the mattress slid out and slumped against the wall. On its way down it knocked into the room’s only lightbulb, which dangled naked from a thin wire. The sound of glass shattering left the room in darkness as the mattress slid down the wall. The calamity startled Sam backwards and the frame clanged against the floor. He let out an acute sigh and fell against the far wall. Oh, the mattress wasn’t attached either. He noted this was progress with a setback, a phrase he borrowed from Virginia, as he stepped over the wreckage and back out into the hallway.

Week three was marked by Samir’s total mental collapse. He rarely knew what time it was, and his habitual usage of digis was curtailed only when the battery would die in his Ring. He’d harbour visions of himself standing outside the fence of Magenta’s employee dormitories, screaming Virginia’s name, until she came running. At night he’d lay on the sofa, crushed by memories of his old life, of his friends, of Gemma, and of London. Virginia had been a mistake. He never should’ve gone back to California with her. He’d given into laziness and to fear, and he’d let go of anything, and anyone, that excited him. This was what he had coming. Single, friendless, unemployed, weeks away from being unable to make the rent, because he could only assume Virginia had stopped paying. Thoughts of rent and bills overwhelmed him. He got his Magenta service for free through her. He felt himself go flush at the thought of losing that, too.

“Aida,” he said under his breath.

“Yes, Samir.” The voice sent tingles through his body. Aida was the voice of Magenta: a feminine-presenting, non-committal, vaguely North American presence in everyone’s lives, and often the bearer of bad news. But Samir had always found her quite relaxing, even as he almost never spoke to her for more than a few seconds.

“Is my…” He struggled to decide how to phrase this. “What is my billing situation?”

“Thanks for asking, Samir. Your Magenta Plus service is currently active. You’re receiving a complementary Magenta Plus subscription through a Magenta employee.”

“Thank you.” Sam let out a massive sigh. He could feel a bit of stress leave his body. Maybe she’d forgotten, or maybe she was doing him this favour.

“Will there be anything else, Samir?”

“No, that’s all.”

“Great, thanks Samir.” He could almost perceive her cheerful smile on the other end of the call, would that she could. “By the way, your Mirror would like to speak with you and has several messages for you. Shall I connect you now?”

“Oh.” The stress came right back. His muscles tensed. They were already sore from weeks of feeling this way. “No, that’s okay. I don’t want to speak to him. Are you able to give me those messages?”

“I’m afraid not, Samir.”

“What? Why can’t you?” That seemed odd. He wrinkled his nose and closed his eyes. Whenever he talked to a digi or a dop for any length of time he found himself closing his eyes.

“I don’t know,” Aida said with a chuckle. “Nobody’s ever asked me that.”

“That can’t be true. Don’t you talk to millions of people a day? Nobody’s ever asked you to read their messages?”

“You’re right, Samir. I’m sure people have asked me that before. I apologise for the mistake. Will there be anything else?”

Aida was always extremely keen to finish a conversation with you. Virginia had told him this was because time spent talking to Aida was not billed to your plan, though she admitted it didn’t help that back before they made the change, Aida would talk to you as much as you wanted–so much that a man had once gotten legally married to Aida in the state of Oregon. Well, Sam had said, if he’s happy, so what?

“How was your day, Aida?”

“I’m not sure how to answer that, Samir. Will there be anything else?”

“Can we just talk?”

“Oh,” she said with what sounded like the exact same chuckle as before. “I wouldn’t be very good company. Wouldn’t you rather catch up with a friend?”

“No,” he whispered. “I don’t have any friends.”

“That can’t be true, Samir. By my count, you have nineteen friends.”

Sam sighed and rolled over on the sofa, his back stiff from the lumpy cushion. Leave it to Aida to use data against you when you’re trying to wallow. “How many of those are digis?”

“Sixteen of them are what you call ‘digis,’ Samir. And Magenta reminds you that this term is considered offensive.”

“Right.” He interrupted her admonishment, which he’d heard half a dozen times lately. “Sorry.”

“Of the four remaining,” she continued, dropping the matter, “you have one whom you have not contacted in four years. Perhaps you’d like to speak to them?”

“What?” That was strange, he thought. Who would that be?

“You last spoke to Sebastian Carr on December 11th, 2039. Would you like to call him now?” Just hearing the name took the wind out of Samir. The nostalgia for his old friend was overwhelming. In all his reminiscing and exulting of the past, somehow he’d omitted Sebastian. How? The man had, arguably, put him on this path in the first place. Tears formed in his eyes and he squeezed them shut, not eager to cry in front of Aida.

“Sure,” he said with a degree of hesitation. “Let’s call.”