Thomas stood as he watched his older brother throw the baseball at his father. Such joy radiated from his brother's face as the ball left his hand. The ball was then tossed toward Thomas himself. Gleefully Thomas raised his hands as his eyes and the ball made contact with his palm. Squeezing with all his might the ball still managed to escape his grasp falling to the grass with a thud. Laughter and amusement was spread through everyone as Thomas picked up the ball.
The memory quickly passed and Thomas was once again left in darkness. Over the past several days this anomaly had continued to occur. A memory would fade in and Thomas would relive the moments of emotion followed by the emptiness of nothing.
Another memory began. They all started the same. At first they would appear blurry but as it would come into focus he would enter his character and act out the scene.
This time he was seventeen years old and his father was handing the keys to his old beat up 2020 Honda Accord. The thing easily had twelve years on it, as well as the recklessness of an older brother which left it with plenty of memories. His father was giving him the car in celebration. Thomas had just found out he was accepted to college.
Something different happened this time. The memory paused and Thomas was no longer an actor but an on-looker observing his memory from the outside. Puzzled and confused Thomas began moving about while the memory faded. Again left in darkness.
A moment later a blue ethereal ball appear in front of him. A small orb of white inside the ball looked towards Thomas.
"Hello, my name is Oracle, and I am here to assist you with your transition and future development. I am sorry to inform you but you have been in a major car accident. Due to this accident your body is no longer able to sustain life and you are currently living off of life support. Your brain has placed you in a coma. Luckily we were able to extract you concis..."
"Wow. Wow. Wow. Hold up." Thomas stated slightly stumbling on his feet, "Give a guy a minute to cope with what you just said."
"Have I done something wrong?" The AI replied.
"Well no, but you could work on your bedside manor." Thomas answered.
Oracle paused for a brief moment almost in contemplation. "I will save this information for future analysis. I due apologize I am a relatively new artificial intelligence and I am still learning."
"Can I even forgive something not living?"
"Well technically you are not living either. Is that considered bad bedside manners?"
Thomas let out a slight chuckle, "An AI with some humor."
"Humor?"
"Never mind. You mentioned that I was in a bad car accident?"
"Yes, Thomas McPherson Wolf on April 22nd, 2040 your car was struck from the side by a semi truck that had lost control of its brakes. It struck the passenger side of the..."
"Enough with the details." As Thomas waves his hand at the ethereal orb.
"Interesting, so I shouldn't give a detailed account of the incident in the future."
"Yes, make sure you save that deep in your data."
"Understood."
"So, why are you here? Where is here?" Thomas asked looking around into the nothingness of his surroundings.
"We are in your subconscious. As I was saying before, the doctors managed to successfully transfer your consciousness to a data drive."
"Wait what? Who gave you permission to do that?"
"You did. One year ago you signed up to be a experimental user for this operation. Stating that in the occurrence of your death your consciousness would be transferred and preserved in virtual reality."
Thomas remembered doing this now. One of the big promotional points is that you would be able to continue playing video games even after death. It was extremely experimental and being a avid gamer Thomas thought it was an interesting idea. He just never imagined that it would come into play so soon.
"So, what now?" Thomas inquired in a soft tone.
"Well there is the matter of your family and your body."
"What do you mean?"
"Well first, is there anything that you would like to say to your family? Currently they are in your medical room waiting to see if this system works."
"Can I see them?"
Oracle immediately began showing a live feed form a camera in the medical room. Everyone was there. His mom was crying as his dad held her close in his arms. His brother sat just looking at the medical bed disbelief in his eyes. Thomas' sister-in-law held his six month old nephew in her arms. His eldest sister stood holding the hand of her daughter. Thomas' brother-in-law held his two other nieces.
If Thomas had the capability to cry he would.
"Is there anything you would like to tell them?" Oracle asked.
"Tell them I can see you guys."
In the room, the monitor came to life and letters began appearing on the screen. They wrote I can see you guys.
Timothy was the first to notice and immediately jumped out of his chair. His brother got the attention of everyone else. "Thomas is that you?"
"Yeah, it's me."
There were immediately more tears filled with mixed emotions.
"How are you doing?" his mom questioned still pushing away the tears from her eyes.
"I'm doing as well as I can be right now."
Several precious moments passed by as conversation between everyone occurred. Thomas got to see his nieces and nephews again and the hardship of the situation got to be lightened.
Oracle interrupted inside Thomas' consciousness. "Thomas, there is one more thing to discuss. What to do with your body."
Thomas observed as his family continued to talk not noticing his absence.
Oracle continued, "your body is currently on life support and cannot continue to function without the aid of the machines. Do you wish to abort it?"
"Again Oracle, you have to be more tactful." As Thomas shook his head.
"Tact, adroitness and sensitivity in dealing with others or with difficult issues. I will store this for analysis. One moment."
Oracles' white eye turned to a misty gray for a few moments then returned to normal.
"Do you desire to pull the plug? I believe that is the terminology used by common people."
"Did you just do an internet search on being tactful in this situation?"
"Yes, is there a problem with this?"
"I guess not." Thomas' demeanor become significantly more serious. He looked at the live feed toward his loved one. "What are the chances my body recovers?"
"Give me a moment...calculating...The chances of your body recovering and waking up is 0.0000007823%"
Quite settled on the room for many minutes as Thomas thought. He continued, "How much money is it costing them to keep me in this state?" Thomas motioned towards the group of people in the live feed.
"3,245.18 dollars a days and after insurance it's a total of 548.49 dollars a day."
Words began typing on the monitor. "Guys, we need to talk about something. We should take my body off life support."
The room quickly fell quite.
"Why do you say that?" Responded Timothy.
"It's costing you all to much to keep my body in this state." Thomas knew his family didn't have this kind of money. His family wasn't poor but definitely didn't have the money for this.
Timothy's expression grew cold, "How do we know this is even Thomas? It could just be a computer simulating what we want to see."
"It's me Tim."
"Prove it." His face was locked his jaw tense.
"Who else would be dumb enough to take the fall for you, when dad found porn on our computer in high school, but your little brother?" Tim's jaw immediately relaxed and tears began forming in his eyes again.
Silence grew in the room. It was undeniable that it was Thomas.
"Guys, I love you all so much. You have understand that that body isn't me anymore. It's simply a broken vessel."
everyone discussed this for a long time. Finally, the family all spoke their peace and everyone gathered around as the final moments of Thomas' shell ended.
"What will you do now?" Tim inquired.
"It's time to explore this. This is still all experimental. I'm interested to see what lays ahead of me. It's a new beginning for me." With that people said their goodbyes.