January 2024

  The usual view from User 346’s bedroom window was simple. A shoddily paved road, a few classic cars and some Bigleaf Maples trees that were in desperate need of some tender loving care. Overall, it wasn’t the most idyllic neighborhood in the world. Still, most people would call his street quaint, even rustic at the right time of year.

  Now though, as he sat on his king-sized bed alone, the view offered by that bedroom window seemed little more than a blighted, post Americana nightmare.

  Not that anything had substantially changed about the panorama since he last saw it. No, the view had remained primarily the same as always. What was different was the context.

  A context that had shifted away from tranquil and soothing to become the byproduct of his hopeless life and all that entailed.

  “Can’t wait around forever.” He eventually said with as much conviction his current state of mind would allow him to muster. “The truth isn’t going jump up and bite you.”

  Decision made, User 346 opened a secret folder on his phone, pressed a hidden icon and waited the obligatory twenty seconds to elapse for a banned program to finish loading. When it did, the blank icon was replaced by a simple text box. Below the text box, in letters of bright red, were the words:

  Please enter a Phone Number, Social Security Number, or Legal Name.

  For a second, User 346 hesitated.

  After all, it’s one thing to suspect your spouse is cheating on you. It’s another thing entirely to know they are cheating on you. But that was the rub, wasn’t it? Ignorance is bliss. But only when it’s someone else’s ignorance on the other end of the equation. Not you. And especially not when it is someone you desperately love.

  Still, four years of unverified suspicions and the constant stress of not knowing had caused that equation to become lopsided in the extreme. Plus, add in the fact that the answers to those questions were just a few computational cycles away. And how could he not make this simple decision?

  The answer: he couldn’t.

  So, with only the slightest amount of trepidation, user 346 entered a number he knew all too well and pressed enter. Instantly, a cloned version of his wife’s phone overlayed onto his own display. The time it took the program to work startled him. So much so that he was initially thrown off guard by the ease in which his clandestine spying had born fruit.

  “Ok,” he told himself as the usual icons filled his screen. They included apps like photos, calls, Facebook, and Instagram. There was even a picture of himself, holding a large teddy bear staring back at him from his wife’s background wallpaper.

  For a second, seeing that image almost made him want to stop.

  Almost.

  Because near the bottom of these mundane programs, on a part of the display normally left blank by the phone’s developer, an icon named Last Ditch Security appeared.

  Funny, he thought to himself. Last Ditch Security sold itself to the masses as the only security program left on the planet that could still encrypt data. And for the uninformed, that incomplete statement was kind of true. But those were the same people that bought things like miracle stain remover late at night off the shopping channel.

  They knew the product probably didn’t work. But you still wanted to try something to fix the problem. And like those products, Last Ditch security was useless against the power of the all-knowing algorithm. Not that the program didn’t try to protect its user’s secrets. On the contrary, Last Ditch Security was designed to house either information or programs and keep them secure from the most invasive prying eyes.

  It accomplished this feat or tried to accomplish this feat by setting up a ghost encryption field that mimicked the base code of the algorithm. In theory, this encryption field (or code box) would keep out even the most virulent of decryption programs by making it seem like the program had already been hacked. Therefore, “nothing to see here.”

  Though, this approach wasn’t a new security concept to be sure. Security companies like Last Ditch had employed similar methods for years. And before the algorithm’s release, this type of security program worked just fine if you updated it regularly.

  Of course, that was before the day everything changed. EF DAY.

  Still, if for some reason this digital camouflage failed to dissuade any would be attackers. Last Ditch security protocols were designed to instantly purge anything the program held secret, effectively erasing the data forever. However, like best laid plans often do, the algorithm had no problem making them go awry by use of a long-embedded back door.

  One that had been placed there many years ago by a smart-ass AI who will remain thankfully nameless.

  Hence, the program would never know anything was wrong because the original code was already corrupted at the source. The algorithm would merely stay hidden in the program until a signal was given by a reciprocal program. And once that was done, all the doors were thrown open on the information placed inside.

  Such a signal had just been sent by User 346.

  Still, never having used this type of program before, it took him a few moments of scrolling to acclimatize himself to the Last Ditch’s operating system.

  But soon enough, he found the command functions he was looking for near the middle of the page. The button simply read: MESSAGES.

  In a daze of hope and doom, User 346 pressed on the folder and started to review the many names listed inside her contacts directory. Most were the usual smattering of innocuous coworkers, business partners, and food delivery drivers. Then there were her family members, even the ones she constantly referred to as ‘assholes’.

  All normal and expected. In fact, the list was quite numerous and overwhelming if he was being honest with himself. But it was at that moment he saw a spy glass at the top of the list. Sweating, he pressed the search button. When a new filter box appeared, User 346 typed in the name of the man he suspected his wife was cheating on him with.

  Micheal.

  In a flash, a contact card appeared on the screen along with this scumbag’s personal information and a very long list of current conversations between the two of them. Scrolling along aimlessly, he almost threw up in his mouth when he saw she’d listed him under the nickname of Mike My Love.

  Mike My Love, just the way the nickname rolled off his tongue almost made him go early with the last part of his plan. Fortunately, User 346 had prepared himself beforehand just in case he found things that might… make him angry. And right now, all he could feel was a sense of betrayal and gnawing anger.

  “Focus,” he told himself as he sat in their darkened bedroom surround by all this new illumination. “Just look at it, pussy.”

  And he did. But not from the last set of texts between his wife and the scumbag known as Mikey. No, User 346 started at the first inklings of his wife’s illicit affair. Back to the awkward messages that amounted to little more than idle chat. From there, he continued through the more overt and adventurous words that came across as tame innuendos.

  Soon though. The mild flirtations blossomed into thoughts of a more graphic and intimate nature. Ones which culminated in a text exchange that pierced his heart. The destruction of his supposed love went something like this...

  Wife: How come you have to go out of town?

  Mikey: You know why. Hotel rooms don’t pay for themselves

  Wife: LOL. Especially after we get done with them.

  Mikey: If you miss me that much, you could always take another business trip. I would definitely make it worth your while.

  Wife: I’ve already taken too many this year. My husband’s stupid. But he’s not that stupid.

  Mikey: Fine. I’ll just have to keep myself busy without you.

  Wife: Really? Well, maybe these will keep you busy until you get back.

  What followed was a series of NSFW pictures that user 346 found both horrifying and arousing at the same time. He looked at his wife’s naked body and wondered why she had never sent him pictures like these. He also wondered why she often went to bed before him every night. And he wondered why he’d never questioned her indifference until now.

  “No,” he stopped himself before he could once again take the blame for her lying and cheating. “Even if she didn’t love me anymore. The least she could do was be honest with me and end it.”

  But honesty often doesn’t walk hand in hand with a cheater. Still, he scrolled down the long list of nauseating texts until he finally reached the last set of messages still residing on the app. The date of these words was only two days ago. And while the conversation wasn’t very long, the meaning behind the four lines of text was anything but ambiguous.

  Mikey: are you sure you won’t change your mind?

  Wife: give me one good reason.

  Mikey: Please, baby. I need you.

  Wife: Fuck it. I’m on my way!

  Two days ago? User 346 racked his brain to make sense of the date and what could have been happening around that time. At first, the timeline confused his already muddled brain to the point he started to get a migraine. But then, just before his head began to pound with pain, the date made sense.

  That was around the time his wife had called him from work in a panic. She was overly distraught at the fact that her boss had scheduled a last second business conference just outside of Spokane, WA. He remembered her sounding so sincere every time she apologized for having to leave him at the house all alone. She even cried that not going might cost her job.

  He could still hear the desperation in her voice as all she wanted from him was a word of approval. An approval that he gave willingly and without reservation. After all, he loved his wife more than anything in this world. And she did sound so desperate over the phone that day.

  Now though, things were different. Thanks to the algorithm, he knew her words weren’t said in frantic desperation of losing her job. No, those words were born from a lustful wanting. Not for him, but for another man. A man who had been sleeping with his wife for over six months now.

  “What is truth?” The question tumbled out of his trembling mouth in a hushed whisper. Silently, User 346 stared out of his bedroom window and onto the dimly lit street in front of their newly renovated Craftsman house. “Truth is nothing but a lie you can’t escape from?”

  This self-pity routine continued for another 15 minutes or so as the rest of the world went on like his marital problems were inconsequential. Which to his neighbors walking past in the early morning, crisp autumn air, they absolutely were inconsequential.

  Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.

  Still, even though his mental fog, User 346 could see the odd taxi speed by. And every time one did, he couldn’t help but wonder if that was her.

  Finally, after wandering around his bedroom like a dog waiting for its master to return home, User 346 had an idea. Chiding himself for not using the algorithm’s full power, he opened his wife’s Uber app and looked up recent orders. And there, at the top, was an Uber X request made from the airport to their happy home.

  A quick check of her phone’s location data told him that she would be arriving on their doorstep in approximately 6 minutes. So, for those 6 minutes, he waited just out of view of the street below and watched patiently for his wife to arrive. Which she did after about 5 minutes and 38 seconds later.

  For a second, he wondered if Mikey was with her. After all, he was supposed to be at the office for another three hours. More than enough time for one more wild romp in the hay before going back to her usual life of secrets and lies. Weirdly, he didn’t want the man named Mikey to be in that early model Jeep Grand Cherokee though.

  Not that he wouldn’t have minded adding him to his pathetically petty plan. Kill two birds with one stone sort of speak. But such a confrontation would be needlessly messy and fraught with unknown outcomes. No, he thought to himself as she slid gracefully out of the vehicle’s back seat, keep it simple stupid.

  So, he waited for his thankfully solitary passenger to offer a tiny tip to the underpaid driver along with a quick goodbye. Then, with bated breath, he watched Wife 238 grab her day bag from the trunk and start up the driveway. And from the rate she was walking, he had very little time to prepare.

  Taking a minute to once again go over his plan, User 346 retrieved his .38 revolver from his nightstand. Perfectly maintained, the weapon hung loosely in his hand as he mentally went over what would happen after she entered this room. Shaking, he repeated the finer points of his overreaction to himself.

  “First she sees, then she flees.” His voice was subdued with the finality of his unorthodox revenge. “Then, these lies will be over.”

  Doubt once again mostly pushed out of his mind, User 346 took a seat in the old rocking chair they kept by the window. Nervously, he checked the weapon to make sure all six bullets were neatly placed in the gun’s cylinder. Not that he needed more than one for this show. And by the time he finished, Wife 238 had already taken off her coat and had stashed her bag in the downstairs closet.

  “Not too soon, Chuck.” For the first time in a while, Chuck Anderson used his real name in conjunction with his plan and not the anonymous user number of the program. “Wait.”

  Sweat rolling down his forehead, Chuck waited in his bedroom as the sounds of his cheating wife echoed up from the ground floor to where he lay in wait. He could hear the grating sounds of his wife rummaging around in the kitchen. He could hear her open the refrigerator door and shove some of the items around.

  After a few seconds, he could hear her throwing those ingredients into a blender. And for a very long and grating minute, he listened to her mix up a green, healthy puree of blandness. Throwing up a little in his mouth, Chuck fought back the memories of how bad those things tasted. But hey, at least they kept her nice and slim for her lover.

  Right?

  Then, he heard the sink’s faucet turn on followed by the swishing sound of the glass being rinsed clean. She always did like a clean house. Although looking back on her habits now, he couldn’t help but wonder if that need to be clean was just a way of politely covering her tracks.

  Digesting that little tidbit of realization, Chuck finally heard his wife’s light footsteps on the stairs. Holding his breath, he listened intently as the sound of tiny feet on hardwood planks grew louder in his ears. She was close now. Too close to do anything but push forward.

  Anxiously, he gripped the pistol in his hand. Two more seconds, he thought. Two more seconds and everything would finally be laid bare between them.

  It was then that he heard his wife saying something quietly behind the door, almost as if she had whispered the words. “I’m home, Baby. Safe and sound.”

  For the briefest of moments, Chuck thought that maybe she was talking to him. Maybe she somehow knew that he was at home. Maybe she’d seen his car parked on the street opposite theirs. Maybe that ‘woman’s intuition’ his dad spoke about when talking about mom. But after the next words escaped her lying lips, he knew that neither applied.

  “I know, Baby. Soon. I promise.”

  And it wasn’t just the words that tipped him off to her being on the phone with her lover. No, it was the tone of her voice. It was the sound of desperate longing that made him realize that she never really loved him. Not in the ways that really mattered between lovers. And with that knowledge, whatever small doubt remained vanished.

  He didn’t even need to hear the words “I love you” said to another man.

  A second later, her hand grasped the bedroom door handle, and she stepped quickly inside their marital sanctum. Only this room wasn’t empty like she expected.

  “I hope you had fun with Mikey, honey.” Chuck said in a low, monotone voice. “At least, it sounded like you did.”

  “Chuck,” complete caught off guard by her husband sitting alone in a darkened room, wife 238’s first instinct was to smile in that placating way that usually shut him up. Only this time, her smile never formed as she saw the gun resting purposefully on his leg. “What are you talking about? Who’s Mikey?”

  “Please,” Chuck saw the fear spread across her face and smiled. He hadn’t planned on any of this happening when he downloaded that app months ago. He just wanted the truth about his wife. Well, now he knew the truth, and those answers only brought him to a place he never wanted be. “I think it’s a little too late for denials.”

  “I don’t understand.” Her words became more frantic as he fidgeted with the gun. She stared back at him with wide eyes that hid the slightest bit of horrific understanding. And sadly, even that small measure of emotional response made him happy. “You’re not making any sense, Chuck.”

  “No, honey.” He said in a calm voice which twisted her own panicked one. “I’m making perfect sense. Knowing the truth will help with that.”

  “What truth?” Her question fell upon deaf ears by the look on his face. So, resigned to the fact that her secret life was over, she changed tactics. “What are you going to do with that gun?”

  “This gun?” He raised the weapon to the side of his head in a contemplative manner. “Well, I’m going to show you the consequences of lying to someone who loves you. I’m going to show you how your actions matter.”

  “Chuck,” she began to plead as tears formed in the corners of her brown eyes. “Please. Please don’t hurt me.”

  “Hurt you? I’m not going to hurt you. I love you.” He regarded her with sad, resolute eyes. She would understand soon. “And that love won’t let me go on after knowing how little I mean to you.”

  “Chuck?” Her fear subsided slightly as she began to understand the gun was meant for her. It was meant for him. Stunned by the finality of her husband’s plan, a small spark of human decency peeked through. “Don’t do what I think you’re going to do.”

  “I wish I could stop. But it’s already too late.”

  Instinctively, he watched from his seat as she backed up toward the door. Out of instinct and years of supposed blissful marriage, she raised her left hand in a placating manner. A gesture used many times over the course of their relationship to de-escalate a tense situation. And under normal circumstances, the gesture might have worked.

  But these were far from normal circumstances.

  So, when he saw her hand extend toward him, sans wedding ring, the calmness of his plan blew away like dust in the wind. And for the first time since his suspicions took shape, rage permeated his entire being.

  “No more secrets.” Chuck said in a far more cold and angry tone. “Not anymore.”

  With those final words, the first shot rang out into the early morning air. A shot that was quickly followed up by wife 238 screaming out in bloody murder. Then, almost right on top of her screams, one more gunshot exploded throughout the large house and into the normal idyllic neighborhood.

  In response, his neighbors barely looked up from their iPads and smart phones when they heard the foreign sounds. Too caught up in their own lives and relationships, the people who saw and waved to the couple at 238 Twin Sycamore Lane barely registered the horrific scene taking place only 100 feet away from their apathetic bubbles.

  Were they too busy to care? Maybe. More than likely, they just had their own problems to deal with.

  Four hours later, the Seattle Crime Scene Unit was just finishing up their final set of photos. Having been alerted to the scene by a worried boyfriend, the hard-working members of the police department had arrived at a gruesome yet all too familiar scene. And now, in the aftermath of their discovery, the mop up continued.

  “Explain this to me again.” The photo tech knelt on the plastic sheeting being used as walkway and snapped a couple of pictures of blood splattering against the bedroom wall. “Why did he shoot her in the foot?

  “Beats the shit out of me.” The lead tech declared as he checked a couple of empty boxes on his inventory procedure sheet. Just a few more shots, he thought. And then they would be done here. “But I know why he shot himself. She was having an affair.

  “An affair?” The photo tech stood back up and surveyed the various scenes of human misery and pain which they’d spent the last half hour meticulously documenting. “Isn’t that what a lawyer’s for?

  “Usually.” Too old for this much bullshit so late in the day, the gray-haired lead tech checked another empty box and grimaced. “But given the amount of information the husband had about the affair. I’m surprised there isn’t more of a mess.”

  “You’re shitting me.” The younger tech’s demeanor shifted in an instant from boredom to disgust. “Another one?”

  “What can I say.” His grimace became a solemn smile. One whose years of hard-earned experience belied a horrible yet seemingly apparent truth. “No more secrets.”

  “They don’t call it that anymore, Bob.”

  “Really?” Bob turned around to the lone chair in the bedroom and made a disgusting, guttural sound in response to the organic mess which stained the entire thing. “Then what do they call it these days?”

  “Fuck me if I know.” The photo tech began to scroll through some of the pictures he had taken and found himself on the verge of throwing up. Which was weird since the sight of actual, real-life gore bothered him very little. “Besides, I thought that app was banned.”

  “How can you ban something that can crack any kind of encryption?”

  “I don’t know. But they probably should try.”

  “They did try.” Bob began to recheck the procedure list for anything they may have missed. Thankfully, everything seemed to have been completed. “Problem is, how to catch someone using the app when it deletes automatically if the phone’s user isn’t the one to activate the damn thing?”

  “It still does that?”

  “From what I’ve heard it does.” Bob shoved his hand in his pocket and shifted his mostly useless android phone around absent mindedly. “But even that’s just rumors and bullshit.”

  “Have you ever used it?” The photo tech asked the question like he knew the real answer but expected a totally bullshit one instead.

  Smiling at the bit of workplace subterfuge, Bob winked at his junior and pocketed his trusted blue ink pen. “No, I have not.”

  “Subtle, Bob. Real subtle.”

  “Oh, well. Nothing left do to here.” Bob went over to the one clear space in the room and began to pack up his equipment. Once all that stuff was put away in a small canvas duffle bag, he turned to his colleague with a bit of an inquisitive look. “By the way, did the poor bastard have a DNR on file?”

  “Yeah.” The photo tech put away his camera and sighed. “But he was dead when we arrived on the scene.”

  “He wasn’t that dead, Ted.”

  “Not that dead?” The younger tech named Ted tried to picture how the deceased looked when they arrived. He remembered the look in the man’s one remaining eye and shuddered. “Just how dead do you have to be?”

  “Pretty dead.” Bob thought back to when he first arrived on the scene. Images of gray matter blasted all over the bedroom’s beige wall made him visibly shake. “But the cost to put him back together would have been enormous.”

  “Fucking healing machines.” Ted started to back out of the room, being very careful not to disturb anything that was still squishy. “What’s the use in having a magic box, if only the super-rich can use them?”

  “You can still use them, Ted. Doesn’t matter if you’re rich or poor.” Smiling, he guided his young friend out of the room and onto the stairs beyond. “There’s just limits to what the damn thing can do.”

  “Limits?” Ted stopped in the middle of the stairs and looked back at his overworked and underpaid boss. “I didn’t think those machines had limits.”

  “Of course they have limits.” Bob grabbed him by the shoulder and once again gently pushed him toward the ground floor. “Nothing’s perfect.”

  “Really,” the sarcasm was practically dripping from Bob’s lips when they reached the front door of the house and stepped out into the fading sunlight. For a second, they both looked out onto the people who’d gathered around to see what had happened to the oh so quiet and friendly neighbors. “So, what exactly are those limits?”

  “Well, for one thing,” Bob remembered the ghastly scene upstairs and the limitations of the magical healing machines became crystal clear. “They won’t regrow half your damn brain. Although, that’s probably why he shot himself in the temple.”

  “What do you mean by that?

  “I mean.” Bob stopped three steps from the bottom landing and waited for his young employee to turn around. “Checking out isn’t so easy to do any more. Not with your magic boxes all around.”

  “Shit,” Ted thought back to the first picture he had taken of the man’s lopsided head and all the gray matter dangling free from a cavernous hole near his right ear. “Is that why we’ve seen a rash of gunshot suicides lately?”

  “Could be.” Bob reached into his pocket and pulled out the van key. Not a key fob. After all, key fobs meant computers. And computers, any kind of computers could be hacked. Or in the case of a vehicle, stolen. “Though I do know one thing for sure. If you’re going to check out, best not leave any room for some ER doctor to bring you back.”

  “Why?” Ted returned to their exodus and stepped outside onto the pristine cobblestone drive. “Because of the whole afterlife thing?”

  “No,” Bob laughed for the first time this afternoon. “Not because of the whole afterlife thing, kid. It’s because of the whole gigantic medical bill thing. Those machines aren’t fucking cheap.”

  “They should be.”

  “Tell me you’re not that na?ve, Ted.” He opened the back of the van up and threw his stuff into the barren cargo area. Silently, Bob waited for Ted to do the same before closing the doors and hopping into the driver’s seat. “What? Did you think a magical healing machine was going to make healthcare suddenly cheaper?”

  “It should. You know. Given the whole magical aspect.”

  “Why? Because you think it’s magic?” With a flick of his wrist, the early model Chevy van roared to life. Laughing a little too loudly, he said. “I’m sure penicillin seemed like magic to the first poor son of a bitch who took it.”

  “Yeah, I guess.”

  “No guesses about it. Science is just shit that normal people don’t understand. Same goes for medicine. Pills might as well be magic when you don’t understand how they work. And that magic will cost you an arm and a leg these days.”

  “That’s a pretty cynical way of looking at things, Bob.”

  “No,” he threw the van into drive and maneuvered past all the gawking neighbors and wannabe journalists which littered the once quiet suburban street. “That’s a realistic way of looking at things. And given the state of our crumbling world, one to which I’m more than happy enough to stick by.”

  “So what? We just give up. Accept it?”

  “No,” Bob responded as he wished more than anything else that he could still access his Google Maps app. Hell, he wished he could access any kind of app without having to wonder if someone had done something to either play with it or make it extremely dangerous to use. “You don’t give up. You just find a way to survive until life becomes better.”

  “And when will that be?”

  “Who the hell knows.” Bob retrieved an actual paper road map from beneath his sun visor and unfolded it quickly. It took him a minute. But after a few seconds of cursing, he was finally able to locate their current location between the creases of thick paper and bent yellow and black lines. Damn, he hated using these antiquated things.

  “But’s it not today, Ted. So, you better fucking get used to it.”