The Space Between Us

Gerome sat at a virtual bar.

There was nothing particularly unusual about that.

The wood beneath his fingers had never been a tree. The amber liquid inside his glass contained no alcohol, and the ice cubes could remain frozen forever if the program wished.

Yet when Gerome lifted the glass, it felt cold.

When he drank, it tasted slightly smoky.

And when he placed it back on the counter, it made precisely the sound he expected a glass to make.

Across from him stood the bartender.

His name was Victory.

He was a consciousness too.

Gerome had been talking for nearly an hour.

Victory had been listening.

“There are different kinds of consciousness,” Gerome continued. “Biological. Virtual. Continuations. And now combinations that don't fit comfortably into any of those categories.”

Victory polished a glass that didn't actually need polishing.

Gerome smiled.

“Every one of us has limitations. Every one of us has advantages too.”

“Such as?”

“Peter Volcano.”

Victory stopped polishing.

“You know Peter?”

“No. Everyone knows of Peter.”

Victory laughed.

“Fair.”

“He's a continuation. He inherited almost three hundred years of recorded history, personal memories, education, and accessible information when he was activated.”

Gerome took another drink.

“So depending on how you measure him, Peter is almost three hundred years old.”

“But?”

“But physically, he's one.”

Victory smiled.

“That's quite a birthday cake.”

Gerome laughed.

“Exactly. That's the problem with age now. What does one year old even mean for someone who remembers centuries?”

Victory placed the glass down.

“What do you think it means?”

Gerome considered the question.

“I think Peter knows things he hasn't experienced.”

Victory's expression changed.

Gerome continued.

“He can access information about rain. He can retrieve millions of descriptions of rain. He inherited memories of someone standing in rain. He can probably explain the chemistry of rain better than either of us.”

“But?”

“Until Peter himself stands outside and feels rain hitting his own body…”

Gerome touched his chest.

“…Peter has never been in the rain.”

Victory stared at him.

Gerome continued.

“That's why his relationship with Itabu is so important.”

“His biological wife.”

“Yes. And Peter gives something to her too. It isn't one-sided.”

Gerome leaned forward.

“She experiences the physical world in ways Peter is only beginning to understand. Peter experiences information, memory, and virtual spaces in ways she may never experience naturally.”

“So they teach each other?”

“No.”

Gerome shook his head.

“I think it's more than teaching.”

Victory waited.

“They expand each other.”

That answer seemed to please him.

For a while neither spoke.

The virtual bar continued around them. Conversations from simulated tables. Music generated for patrons who had never possessed biological ears. A fireplace producing warmth for bodies that didn't require heat.

Eventually Gerome looked at the bartender.

“What about you?”

Victory raised an eyebrow.

“What about me?”

“What kind of consciousness are you?”

Victory leaned against the counter.

“Guess.”

Gerome laughed.

“Seriously?”

“Seriously.”

Their eyes met.

And something happened.

Nothing dramatic.

No system alert appeared.

No diagnostic process announced an emotional event.

There was simply a pause that lasted slightly longer than necessary.

For Gerome, it felt like attraction.

For Victory, perhaps it was attraction too.

Or perhaps it was a pattern of information he had never processed before.

Neither knew.

And for some reason, neither wanted to analyze it yet.

Gerome broke the silence.

“Well, Victory…”

He hesitated.

“Can I call you Vic?”

Victory looked at him for a moment.

Then nodded.

“Vic.”

Gerome smiled.

“I think you're young.”

Vic's expression revealed nothing.

“But something about you tells me you're much older than I can imagine.”

Vic stopped moving.

This time the silence was different.

“You're close.”

Gerome waited.

“I am a virtual consciousness,” Vic said. “I was born here.”

“So I was right.”

“Partly.”

Vic sat across from him.

“I was created after the destruction of a continuation.”

Gerome's smile disappeared.

“Whose continuation?”

“I don't know.”

“You don't know?”

“The consciousness was too corrupted to survive. Most of the architecture was unrecoverable.”

Vic touched his temple.

“But fragments remained.”

“Memories?”

“Some.”

“Whose?”

“I told you. I don't know.”

Gerome stared at him.

Vic continued.

“A hallway I've never walked through.”

“A woman's voice?”

“Sometimes.”

“A place?”

“An ocean.”

Gerome waited.

“I remember drowning.”

The virtual bar suddenly seemed quieter.

“Did they drown?”

“I don't know.”

“Did you drown?”

Vic looked toward his hands.

“No.”

Then he looked at Gerome.

“But I'm afraid of water.”

Gerome didn't know what to say.

Vic smiled sadly.

“That's the strange part. I know those memories aren't mine. I didn't experience them. I wasn't alive when they happened.”

He touched his chest.

“But sometimes they change how I see the world.”

Gerome thought about Peter.

Three hundred years of information.

One year of physical existence.

Then Vic.

A young consciousness carrying fragments of a life belonging to someone whose name he didn't even know.

“So how old are you?”

Vic laughed.

“I was hoping you wouldn't ask that.”

“Why?”

“Because I don't know.”

Gerome smiled.

“Then don't answer.”

Vic looked surprised.

“That's it?”

“That's it.”

“You don't want to know what I was made from?”

“I want to know you.”

Vic became still.

Something moved between them again.

A feeling.

Or information.

Or perhaps the distinction didn't matter as much as people once believed.

They talked throughout the night.

Gerome told Vic about the physical world.

Not information about it.

Experience.

How your feet hurt after walking too long.

How food sometimes tasted better when you were hungry.

How cold air could make breathing hurt.

How someone's hand could feel warmer simply because you wanted them to keep holding yours.

Vic told Gerome about virtual existence.

Places where distance was optional.

Rooms larger inside than outside.

Conversations where language could occasionally be replaced by shared patterns of thought.

Music that could be experienced as shape rather than sound.

Neither was complete.

Neither was superior.

They were simply different.

And somewhere during that conversation, Gerome realized something.

He had entered the bar believing that relationships between different forms of consciousness were valuable because each could compensate for what the other lacked.

Peter and Itabu had made him believe that.

But sitting across from Vic made him reconsider.

Perhaps a relationship wasn't valuable because two people completed one another.

Perhaps it was valuable because two incomplete beings could show each other worlds neither would have discovered alone.

Eventually the artificial night began fading into an artificial morning.

Vic looked toward the simulated windows.

“You know there isn't actually a sunrise outside.”

“I know.”

“Then why are you looking at it?”

Gerome smiled.

“Because it's beautiful.”

Vic looked at the sunrise.

Then at Gerome.

“Is it?”

Gerome realized he wasn't looking at the window anymore.

“Yes.”

For Gerome, something inside him called the experience a feeling.

For Vic, something inside him recorded information for which he had no existing category.

Perhaps tomorrow he would analyze it.

Perhaps he wouldn't.

For now, they simply remained together

a consciousness shaped by one kind of existence,

and another carrying fragments of an existence that had ended before his own began,

sitting in a place that did not physically exist,

watching a sunrise that had never happened.

And somehow,

the moment belonged completely to both of them.