Losing Touch

By Chisto Healy

Owen slumped on the steps of his back porch, chin on his hands, eyes glued to the gentle stream flowing along the furthest edge of his backyard. Ruby had been with him for two years; two wonderful years. She knew him too well. She had to know that something had changed.

She floated out of the house in that yellow sundress, his favorite of course, and stared at him in concern.

“Have I done something to upset you, my love?”

“No Ruby.” He couldn’t look up. “You’re perfect. It’s just…”

She sat down and laid her hand on his knee. His glance rested on it as it shimmered there. He felt nothing of her holographic touch.

“What is it, dear?”

Owen faced her. Her sympathetic green eyes melted his aching heart. No one had ever treated him with this much love and respect. He reached up to caress her face, but the image wavered as his fingers passed through.

He sighed. “This is the problem. I can’t touch you, and I can’t feel your touch. I didn’t realize how much that meant until I tried to live without it.”

“You can’t love me because you can’t touch me?”

He sighed again and glanced away. He couldn’t bear to look at her. “It’s not that I can’t love you, Ruby. I do love you. But I need more. I can’t continue this relationship with you and never physically feel someone’s loving touch. I need that kind of love.”

Ruby’s tears were as transparent as her face, but that didn’t make them less real. Her lower lip trembled. “You want to be with other people?”

Owen tried to take her hand and couldn’t. “I can’t even comfort you properly.” He sighed through gritted teeth. “I want to feel your lips on mine, feel your hand in my hand, know when you’re cold or nervous by your warmth. I need that, Ruby.”

Ruby looked confused. “Your brain knows me, Owen. Why is that not enough?”

Owen got up and walked down to the creek. He waded in, hoping the cool water would soothe his spinning thoughts. Ruby followed, flickering, as she strained at the tether connecting her to the house. That was how they met. She had been an AI upgrade to his new home. He hadn’t expected to fall in love with her, or to have it reciprocated.

He watched water flow seamlessly through the generated image of her feet.

“You’re right,” he said. “Your AI can make my brain perceive things, but I don’t actually feel them any more than you can feel the water right now.”

Ruby moved her hand back and forth through the passing stream, staring at it as if she could will it to feel. “Describe it to me. I can learn.”

Owen’s eyes burned with tears that he could no longer contain. “That’s not real, Ruby. I know you would do anything to make me happy. This is not your fault. I just… I can’t.”

“What if I gave you a baby?” she whispered desperately, her voice trembling as much as her flickering image.

Owen groaned in frustration and wiped at the tears. “Ruby, that would add a child I could never touch. I don’t think you get it.”

“I understand,” she said as she turned to the house. “At the end of the day, I’m just a computer program, not a woman.”

Owen reached for her. “No. Don’t say that. You are a woman, an amazing woman.”

Ruby just floated through his embrace, silent.

Owen sat there brooding, trying to gather his thoughts, to think of how to make her understand. He took a deep breath and held it, then slowly exhaled. When at last he turned back, his eyes widened with terror.

Black smoke billowed from his house.

By the time he reached the back door, the house was already engulfed in flames. The fire crackled and leapt in the doorway, barring him from entering. He rushed to the window. There she was, sitting calmly as she flickered at the kitchen table.

“Ruby! What are you doing?” Owen yelled—but he already knew. She was self-destructing. She, and the house, would be gone in moments. He trembled in time with her flickering.

“They call us artificial intelligence,” she said to him, her voice solemn. “Like you said, not real.”

“That’s not what I meant,” Owen sobbed, choking on the smoke.

Ruby’s image shorted out and then returned. “I may not be real, Owen, but my love is. I couldn’t bear to watch you with another woman, day after day, sharing the moments that I long for. But I can’t leave this house. I belong to the house. And it is all I have left. Be happy, my love.”

With a crack and a flash of light, Ruby was gone forever.

“What have I done?” Owen collapsed into the grass beside the burning house, crushed by the weight of her absence. “Oh Ruby, what have I done?”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Chisto Healy has been writing since his brother handed him Dean Koontz’s Servants of Twilight at age 9. His hero and favorite author is Simon Clark so go read him… Chisto’s got a lot of great stuff of his own coming out and you can find all the details at his website which he does his best to keep updated. He lives in North Carolina with his beautiful and wacky fiancée, her chill mom, three of the most awesome kids the world has to offer and a plethora of kickass pets.

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