I had a mission for myself. Just one goal: bring her back.
Not the flicker but her, alive in some way again. It was the only thing that still made sense. The only thread I hadn't let go of. Everything that followed was just steps on the way.
The neon spilled over everything. I could see it bleeding off the chrome towers, smeared in the rain like the city couldn't hold its shape anymore. This was New Vegas. No dusk, no dawn. Just light, noise and memory looping endlessly. Even the wind tasted synthetic, recycled through filters too old to do more than hum.
I stood on the edge of the old skybridge. My coat was soaked through, clinging to me like a second skin. My left arm dripped blood in steady rhythm. It tapped like a clock against my boot. Behind me, shadows moved in the stairwell. Sirens weren't random, they were for me. For what I did getting here. The static-laced hum of pursuit. Closer. Angrier. I could almost hear their breaths, imagine the shine of scopes drawing lines on my back.
I didn't turn. I just looked out at the skyline and reached into my coat. Something about the way the lights moved felt like déjà vu but I wasn't dreaming.
She flickered into being across from me, an apparition on the holoscreen, pale and blue. She lived on a chip I carried, something I'd built myself from voice clips and fragments. A shape for my grief. Her presence shimmered, breaking at the edges, her voice glitching just under the static.
"I see you," she whispered.
"You see me," I echoed, with a smile that didn't reach my eyes.
We stood together... One real, one remembered. It still felt real enough. Real enough to hurt.
"How pleasant," she said, her artificial irises pulsing with a calming hue. It wasn't a question. It was awe. And maybe I needed to hear it.
I reloaded my handgun with one slow, practiced motion, the sound muted by the rain and the city noise. I stepped closer, My chrome fingers reaching toward the projected image, unable to touch but desperate to feel. "This feeling," I murmured, "is more than I remembered and more painful."
Time slowed. The rain clicked softly against steel.
"I missed you," she breathed.
"I'm sorry," I said. "There was so much I never said. I couldn't let go of you. So I didn't."
She nodded, her image glitching slightly. Neon signs blinked. Ash drifted from a vent nearby.
"The ashes fall slowly," she said, catching one in her holographic palm before it vanished through her.
"But your voice," I added, voice rough with emotion, "consoles me. Even if it's only my own reflection."
And it did. Even now. I knew she wasn't real. But the ache she answered was. The chip wasn't enough. The simulations weren't enough. Her voice deserved more than pre-recorded loops and glitchy fragments. She had to feel again.
That meant diving into black-market neuralware, data farms burned into the underside of the city. I didn't care what it took. I'd find the missing pieces. I'd recreate her, If there was still any part of me worth offering, it was this. Just to see her smile one more time, and know it wasn't borrowed light.
I built her from scraps of her voice. From old footage, filtered memories, surveillance echoes. I fed it all into the chip and pressed it to my chest every night. She flickered on the holoscreen again, just like always, perfect.
"As the hours pass," she said softly. "I will let you know that I need to ask... before I fade again."
I tilted my head. I was tired, but not the kind that rest could fix. My heart looped like her fading code.
"How it feels to rest on your patient lips," she continued, "to eternal bliss."
I said nothing, just raised my hand toward her flickering light. I could feel the hum of the chip in my coat, warm, like she was alive. Like she chose to be here.
"I'm so glad to know," she whispered. "It means everything, being here with you."
Far below, in the veins of the city, bass from underground clubs rattled glass and grid lines. Above us, static danced between clouds as we began to sway—not in body, but in the rhythms I'd programmed to match our memory.
"We're swaying," I said, voice low, barely holding steady.
"To data streams," she smiled. "I'm feeling... the echoes... controlling... the urge to say it."
Without breaking rhythm, I ejected the empty clip from my sidearm and slid in a fresh one. I touched my lips with trembling fingers. "You don't have to. You never really did."
"The question," she whispered, "I won't ask. But I think you've always known it."
"Something's slipping," she said.
"You're still here," I replied, the words catching in my throat.
"You're clearer now."
"I'm holding on. But I don't know how much longer."
The city roared behind her glow. I knew what was coming. I could hear it in the sirens, in the drones, in the way my name cracked through the megaphones like a final sentence.
But I didn't move. I let her finish. She leaned toward me like she wanted to be real. I let her.
"The night will hold us close," she whispered.
"And the lights will guide me home," I said. Static scratched my vision or maybe it was just tears.
She looked at me. "There's something I was going to ask," she said. "But it's slipping..."
I placed a hand over my chest, over the chip, over her.
Her voice dimmed to silence. The last thing I heard was a whisper, a flicker, and then only: "...glad to know...glad to know..."
That last line stayed. What it felt like to rest on patient lips. To step into a moment that never asked for anything more than to be there. I stood on the skybridge. Rain tapped metal, wind curled at my coat. Below, engines growled. Doors slammed. Orders barked through broken speakers.
"Arthur Bale," came the voice. "Drop the weapon. Raise your hands. This is your final warning."
A pause. Like they knew me. Like the name meant something. I didn't move at first.
My gun was still in one hand, cold and slick. The other hung low, steady. No sudden moves. I let the handgun slide from my grip. It clattered on wet steel. With my other hand, I reached inside my coat and pulled the grenade. Thumb on the pin.
Flash.
Gunshot.
Pain punched my shoulder. My body twisted. The edge vanished. Gravity took over.
I dropped down into the water that hit like a wall. Cold swallowed me.
Then—nothing.