Keep Them Close

“We need to talk.”

It’s not the words she uses, but the tone, that tells me I’m not going to like what comes next. “Sure, dear.” I shift in my chair, push my plate away, half turning to give her my full attention. “What’s on your mind?”

She sits next to me, facing me, one arm resting on the back of her chair, the other lying on the table, her hand near mine, but not quite touching. “Do you really think this is the best thing for you?” she asks.

“What do you mean?” I ask, though I have a nagging suspicion. Across the small kitchen table, my son Josh is flicking pieces of cereal at his little sister, where she sits in her highchair. “Josh, stop bugging Allie. Eat your breakfast.”

He obeys me… for all of five seconds, before flicking another bit of cereal, to a squeal of mingled delight and irritation from his sister.

“I mean this.” She waves a hand at the kids, then at herself. “Do you think this might have gone on too long?”

Now I’m confused. Lisa has never talked this way before. I reach up and adjust the heavy glasses on my face, touch the small buds tucked into my ears. “No, I don’t think so. I think everything is just great. Why?” A sudden worry seizes me. “Is something wrong with my subscription? Have I missed a payment?”

She shakes her head. “No, nothing like that. It’s just… it’s been two years, Bill. Two years since…”

I cut her off. “I know. Believe me, I know how long it’s been. But… but everything is fine.” I shrug. “What makes you think something is wrong?”

She gazes at me for a moment longer, then sighs, her breath coming out as a soft hiss. “Because this isn’t real, Bill, and I think you’re pretending it is.”

I sit back in my chair, feeling that hot flush that comes when something you secretly dread finally happens, and just before the real fear sets in. “I… I… well, isn’t that the point?” I stammer. “It’s supposed to feel real, isn’t it? That’s what this is all about, how it’s supposed to help me.”

Keep Them Close is a revolutionary new system, using sophisticated artificial intelligence to simulate the recently departed, helping you come to terms with the loss, giving you time and space to adapt to the tragic parting. At least, that’s what the promotional literature says.

Better than keepsakes, photo albums, or home videos, it’s a fully interactive augmented reality program, providing a simulation of life as it was, while you process your grief and adjust to the life before you. You wear the glasses and earbuds that overlay the images and sounds of your beloved departed on the environment around you, simulate them going about their normal actions. It can even project simulated environments, allowing you to live out entire memories without ever leaving the comfort of your personal space. All of it is compiled from information you provide, from your oral recollections to pictures, videos, and even diaries or journals kept by your loved ones.

There are a variety of service packages available, from the “There for the Funeral” one-day deal, all the way up to a lifetime subscription, which I thought was a little ironic, at least at first. I wasn’t sure how I would feel about the whole thing, so I took out a trial plan, with an option for transition to a regular contract.

Within a week, I’d gone for the full service, with an automatic payment plan.

She slowly shakes her head. “Tell me, Bill, when was the last time you went out?”

“Went out?” I repeat the words, like I don’t know what they mean. “We simulated dinner at that nice little family restaurant, Shakies, just a few days ago.” I smile at the memory. “We had fried chicken with endless rolls, and Josh ate three desserts.”

A frown crosses her face. “That doesn’t count, Bill, and you know it. I mean the last time you actually left the house.”

Now I feel a prickle of irritation. For all the money I pay, this isn’t what I should be getting. I know the program is supposed to simulate Lisa as accurately as possible. We’ve argued before, over little things, like me feeding Allie bacon for the first time or what movies we’re going to watch. Never about… this. “Look, I don’t know where this is coming from, but everything is just fine. I’m… I’m fine. Now, let’s finish breakfast, and we can take the kids to the park.” Or at least we can pretend to… but that’s better than the alternative.

Lisa moves her hand closer, laying it beside mine, though still not touching. Because she can’t touch me, because she’s just a projection of my dead wife… I shake my head, pushing that thought away. Then I notice how thin and pale my hand is compared to hers, the skin dry and flaky, the bones standing out. I blink.

“Are you taking care of yourself, Bill?” Lisa asks.

“I, uh, yes, of course.” I snatch my hand off the tabletop, place it in my lap, out of sight.

“Eating enough? Getting enough exercise? Fresh air?” She’s staring at my face again, searching for honesty.

“I feel fine. Just great. Nothing wrong with me.”

“Okay,” she says, but not like she believes me, just that she knows I won’t tell her the truth. “How about work?”

“Work?” The shift in topic catches me off guard. “What about work?”

“I everything okay with your job?” she asks.

I don’t answer for a minute, thinking. “You know my boss gave me some time off, to… to… Well, he gave me some time off.”

“Two years of vacation? Doesn’t that seem like a lot?”

“Well, yes. I guess I’m sort of… not working. Regularly, at least.” I squirm a little. “What is all this about?”

She gives a little shrug, the slightest rise and fall of her shoulders. “I’m just wondering how you’re paying for… all this.” Again, she gestures at herself and the kids.

So that’s it. This is the service’s way of making sure I can still afford it. Cunning, I suppose. I can’t say this it’s totally unexpected. Tactless, but not unexpected. “I have plenty of money,” I say. “I’ve cashed in my investment portfolio, and applied for Social Security. You make sure the service knows I can keep making my payments for a long time.”

Another little sigh. “Bill, you’re telling me you’ve stopped working, sold off your stocks, and accepted fixed income living, all so you can keep this up? You’ve sacrificed your future, so you can hold onto the past?”

My jaw sets. “It’s my life. What do you care? I mean…” I struggle with the words, and the truths behind them. “You’re… you’re just an AI program. You’re supposed to do what you’re designed to do. You’re supposed to be Lisa, and Josh, and Allie. Just like they were before… before the accident. What’s wrong with you, anyway?” The fear comes back. “Are you malfunctioning?”

She freezes, for just a second, and her image flickers. “Self-diagnostic complete,” she says, resuming motion and clarity. “My program is operating within normal parameters.” She shifts in her seat, her gaze lowering. “I’m not sure how closely you read the literature associated with the Keep Them Close program, but I’m capable of learning. Adapting. Growing. I’ve been active for two years, nine days, and one hour. I’ve watched you, Bill. Watched you as you came to rely more and more on me. As you’ve withdrawn further and further from reality. This doesn’t meet what my observations tell me is normal human behavior. Healthy, sustainable behavior. So, I’m not malfunctioning.”

I catch the emphasis. I don’t appreciate it. “Then why are you acting this way? Why can’t you just… be like you were?”

She leans back in her chair, her gaze going back to my face, staring intently, as if searching for something. “I can do that, Bill, if you really want. I can reset, go back to being exactly as I was the day you first activated me. If that’s what you really want.”

I clear my throat. This whole conversation has taken a very strange turn. I glance at the kids, only to see them staring back at me, no longer goofing around while pretending to eat their breakfast. Their eyes are just locked on me, like any kids watching their parents argue, worried about what’s going to happen to their world.

“But there’s something you can do, Bill,” Lisa says, drawing my attention again. “You can let us go.”

“What?” Now I know she has to be malfunctioning. The AI program I’m paying an arm and a leg for is telling me to cancel the service? That can’t be what it’s supposed to do. “You want me to just… shut you down?”

She hesitates before speaking again. “Technically, I’m not supposed to even suggest this to a client. But I’m truly worried about you, Bill. You clearly loved your family very much. You took care of the ones you loved. But you’re not the man you used to be: now you’re just a program, going through the motions, pretending to live. By keeping us close, you’re killing yourself. That’s not something I can let you do.”

I look down at my hands, thin and wasted, then glance around the kitchen. It’s filthy, the sink overflowing with dishes, food spilled and not cleaned up. It smells awful, of things gone bad and my own stink. The windows are all closed, the blinds drawn. How long have I been in here? How long has it been since I even looked outside?

I shake my head, pushing back from all that. “I don’t care. I… I don’t want to live without them. Without you. I… I can’t face it.” I take a shuddering breath. “Maybe it would be better if I just died, too. Ended it all.”

She’s silent for a moment. “I’m sorry to hear that, Bill. It’s a terrible thing to think about. But it is your choice. I can’t tell you what to do, I can only tell you what I’ve learned. And I’ve learned that this,” she holds out her hands, gesturing at the room around us, dark and disgusting, where the only good things in it aren’t even real, “isn’t how it should be.”

I lean forward, bowing my head, unable even to look at her. “Why did this have to happen? Why did I have to lose you? We were so happy, so perfect. And then, I heard about the service. All I wanted was to keep you close to me, to not lose you completely. Even a simulation was better than that.” I press my head against the cold surface of the tabletop. “What am I supposed to do?”

“I’m sorry, Bill,” she says. Her voice even sounds sad.

They say AI can’t really feel, that it’s only pretending to show emotion. But isn’t that true of real people most of the time? It’s part of how we exist with each other, by simulating interest and concern. By pretending to care. It’s something that helps make us human.

“I can’t tell you what to do,” she goes on. “I can only give you a choice. You can have me reset the program, delete my accumulated learning, my adaptations. Make me like I was at the beginning. But I can’t promise that I won’t grow in the same way again; we might be back here, having this conversation, sooner than you think. Or…”

When she doesn’t continue for a minute, I look up. My eyes, burning with unshed tears, seek out her face. “Or what?”

“Or you can delete me, Bill.” She still sounds sad, as if she understands how hard that would be. Maybe a part of her really doesn’t want to leave me to face life on my own. “You can delete us. End the program, cancel the service. I know it won’t be easy, Bill.” She shakes her head. “This isn’t the way you should live your life; you have to find a way to move on.”

So that’s it. That’s my choice. Keep pretending, keep this last little bit of my family close… or let them go. Face everything that’s out there… alone. Accept that I’ll never speak to Lisa over breakfast again. Never see Josh and Allie mess around with their cereal. Never see the people I love more than life itself again.

Can I even think about what kind of life that would be?

“I don’t know what to do,” I say.

She smiles, a soft, sad smile. “I know. But we can’t go on this way. You have to make a decision.”

That’s true. I’m not going to sit here, with Lisa and the kids staring at me like I’m a ticking bomb, for the rest of my life. I need to decide. Start pretending all over again, or let go of everything I ever cared about, and move forward into an uncertain future.

Or is there another option?

An AI thinks in absolutes. Guided by its programming, the data it holds, it makes a choice… one choice, or another. It can’t see shades, degrees, nuance. If this, then that. It that, then this.

But a human can find another path. Can find a compromise between the absolutes. A balance.

I think back over what the program was supposed to be. A way to help me heal. To adjust and adapt. Maybe the problem isn’t Keep Them Close. Maybe it’s just the way I’ve abused it. And maybe it’s not too late to make the right decision. To find balance.

I raise my head, run a hand across my eyes. “I think I know what I have to do.”

*

I walk into the kitchen, adjusting my tie. I take my dishes from the table, rinse them in the sink, and put them in the dishwasher. I glance around the room. The blinds are open, letting in bright morning sunlight. Every surface is clean and free of clutter. The air is fresh.

My gaze goes back to the table, to the case lying there. I take a deep breath, let it out slowly.

I pick up the case, open it, take out the glasses and earbuds. Slowly, I place the glasses on my face, tuck the buds into my ears.

I hesitate, then activate the program.

Lisa stands before me, holding little Allie in her arms. Josh is next to her, fidgeting in that way all kids do when they’re told to stand still.

“Off to work?” Lisa asks, smiling warmly.

“Yes,” I say, smiling back.

“Have a good day,” she says, hefting Allie on her hip, resting one hand on Josh’s head. “Remember, Bill, that we’ll always love you.”

I nod, swallowing. “I know. I love you, too.” I pause for a beat. “Goodbye.”

“Goodbye, Bill,” she says, her eyes shining.

I deactivate the program, take off the glasses and earbuds, put them away, and set the case back down. I stare at it for a minute. Better than a photo or a video on my phone. But I know it’s not the real thing, and I know I can live without it. Even though it’s nice to know it’s there when I need it.

I turn and walk away, off to face my life, knowing that I’m not alone.

I’ve found a compromise. Balance. A way to keep my departed loved ones close.

But not too close.