Credit: Tristan Schane

The dog has fallen asleep. Tiny, arrhythmic jerks and twitches play up through my fingers. The motorised chair approaches. It emits a lullaby-like melody of subsonic harmonics. There is a woman in it.

"Shut the hell up!" says Bob. "No freaking way! You're one of those RIP guys? Man, I saw something about that on the web." He is flushed and wheezing now. "You … what's the word? Mingle? No. Tangle! You tangle with these robot things, things that, even though they're like a zillion times smarter than us, aren't conscious, have no clue that they even exist. And that's where you come in: you give them your awareness, right?"

Rolling on its single wheel, the chair pulls up beside us. Bob plops down on its arm. Internal gyros adjust for his additional weight. "You remember Carolyn don't you Joe?"

Reaching out, I squeeze the arm of the chair that Bob is not sitting on. It twitches like the sleeping dog, but its skin is soft and yielding. Porous titanium shielding coats her face and torso. Her limbs are wrapped in flexor bandaging and gnarled like the branches of a bonsai tree. It is not clear where Carolyn ends and the super-ergonomic chair begins. She blends in well. "Hello Carolyn," I say. "It's good to see you again."

"Bullshit." Hers is still the perfect voice of youth, but thrown, as though by a ventriloquist, so that it seems to emanate from somewhere inside my chest. "And just so you don't have to ask, Joe, I had an aneurism a few years ago. It destroyed most of my cerebral cortex. This wonderful device to which I am now assigned augments my cognitive functioning and sensory inputs, as well as my physical abilities, of course."

The dog whimpers its way through a dream. I stroke the arm of the chair.

The chair glides closer. "I guess you could say that we are similarly engaged now, you and I. You have a very nice touch by the way, Joe. It's a shame we never got together when we were young. I thought about you sometimes …"

A curious mixture of joy and regret washes over me.

Bob laughs. "Since the operation, Carolyn has become an insatiable flirt."

"I'm not teasing you know." The chair leans into me. "If you hadn't been such a shy boy, and Bob such a monopolising jock …"

Vibrations build in the pit of my stomach, like nervous butterflies. "I could sing for you, Joe. Would you like me to sing for you now?" Her voice is so low and so deep inside me that I wonder if Bob can even hear it. The vibrations build into a pleasurable ache that spreads up into my solar plexus and down into my prostate and testicles.

Squeezing the dog's neck and the arm of the chair, I shudder. The fingers of one hand burrow into old fur, and of the other into warm synthetic fabric — fabric that grows moist.

"I can tell you like my song, Joe. I only wish I could have sung it for you sooner."

Her buzzing moan stretches out along me. The dog whines in a dream in which it is surely being choked.

"You mustn't embarrass our guest," says Bob, removing a card-like remote from his pocket.

The song stops. I am deflated, empty.

"I'll behave, I'll behave," says Carolyn. "Just let me stay. So seldom do I have the opportunity to meet in the flesh one so like myself. Tell me about your work, Joe. Is it true what they say about your career: that it is a voyeur's dream? Is it true that microwaves have given way to atomic entanglement for long-range connections? That this is why they are called tangles? That it is … How do I put this? That it is often dangerous to disengage?"

"The term is psychoretractive disorder," I say. "Yes, some never recover. It is as though their consciousness just keeps right on regressing, right back to wherever it originates. But I have never had a problem with this kind of death."

"So it's true! Returning from a long tangle is like dying. But you never really die, do you Joe? You just return to who you were. Do you think that when I am disconnected from this chair, I will die?"

Bob shifts his bulk off Carolyn and stands. "Forget that, man. Do you think I could do what you do?" His hands are clasped as though in supplication. "I mean, how would I break into something like that?"

"Do you like virtual gaming?" I ask. "Because the fact is, most of us in the RIP trade have been gaming our entire wasted lives. It's not really a career you choose, but one that chooses you. Most talent is recruited from the major VMMPG servers."

Bob hangs his head as though being reprimanded. "Those virtual interfaces scare me. I don't like giving up control I guess. Plus, they make me dizzy, nauseated too."

Carolyn's laughter tickles. "Isn't it funny how the slothful are always drawn to the things at which they most suck? That is because it is so much easier to give your all when you have little to give. To explore talent — now that requires real work, takes real commitment. That is why you will never amount to much, Bob: you are lazy."

Bob gives the chair a shove, causing it to execute a graceful pirouette. "Maybe if you had given me a chance to find out what I was good at …"

Carolyn laughs harder. It is the feeling of being poked in the ribs with many stiff fingers. It hurts a little. "You marry well Bob. That is where you excel. But you are past your prime now."

Bob presses a button on the remote and Carolyn goes to sleep. The dog's eyelids flutter as it barks three soft yelps at something from the past. Its breath warms my groin.

"Do you think she dreams?" I ask.

"No, she only surfs," he answers. "In my opinion, she died years ago." He slaps the chair. "This thing was cooked up by the board of
directors to protect stock prices. But really it's just a memorial, a high-tech tombstone."