Here was the scene he had come to know so well, the scene of the murder. Virtually like a wave it came, with digitized droplets washing down over him, settling into place amidst the blue walls of the garage, with the jagged rock formation in the center of it all, framed by papery waves.
The mist cleared, only to reveal the familiar characters waiting there, each in its own position, in suspended animation.
“Delete Gull,” he commanded. “Delete Fish.”
Gull took a sharp turn and soared over the reddened clouds. Its shadow fluttered a moment longer on the garage floor, where the ripples around the eye of Fish closed in, erasing it.
“Delete First Diver. Delete Second Diver.”
The two wire figures clambering up to reach the restaurant gate exchanged blank looks. In a blink, their snorkeled faces crumbled away, and so did their limbs. The traces of their fins remained there for a little while, glistening in the moonlit sand.
“Delete Boy. Delete Brother.”
Boy flashed a smile. With a sharp metallic clink, Brother kicked him and hopped back, narrowly escaping a kick in return. Then both of them melted away.
“Delete Freckles.”
The dimpled smile separated from her face and flew away along with a swarm of freckles, until vanishing into the simulated wind. Only her wire basket remained behind.
“Delete Mr. Strong.”
Mr. Strong pleated his papery forehead, and at the end of a full second of contemplation, stepped off the boat and sank by her side, never to climb back on deck again.
The sails wiggled for a while, then settled into a steady blur, as the sailboat started gliding away across the blue surface.
“Delete Fool.”
His papery beard aflutter, Fool flew off the bluff. His fall, down to the rocks below, had no impact. He simply evaporated into thin air.
Michael reached for his wooden stake, reveling in its ripped fibers. Their touch was familiar. It might have been delivered to him by his virtual reality glove, or else by the muscle memory of his hand, from the time he had destroyed Bull by destroying his art. Either way, it was his stake now, virtually so, just as if it were handed down from the old man to him.
Finally, without waiting for an explicit command, Mysterious collapsed onto the dark rock. The stump of its neck became one with the jagged outline.
At long last, the virtual landscape looked serene—no wire figures to disrupt its beauty. No one left, not a soul but Lace.
And that, in a perfect world, that was the way it should have been.
Balancing herself on the tips of her toes, all alone on the hillside, the dancer flew over the trail, with the veil of evening shadow lingering behind her. Through her fingers, a glitter of some kind spread in the wind, swirling down the rib of the rocks and over the sea.
Michael was sleepy, but could not let his eyes fall shut. If he would do it—even for a heartbeat—the nightmare might start all over again. Ribbons of silvery water would start wrinkling slowly over her temple and down into the crown of algae. A drip would start trickling through the braid, right down to the blood at its tip.
He bowed his head, praying that now, with the mystery solved at last, the fate of the dancer would stop haunting him and at the same time, stop reminding Ash of the incident. The rape. That, he thought, was the one topic that from now on, should never again come up between them. It should be forgotten. Buried.
For his sweetheart, would the past continue to be present? Would she ever be free of it?
It was time to turn off the simulation, but Michael waited a moment longer. He wondered, how would the scene look from a boat sailing off toward the fleeing horizon, one day when he and Ash are headed for a new voyage, a new adventure?
The white tail of Pacific Coast Highway would shrink into the distance. So would the cliffs, kneeling to kiss the silvery surf. And deep underwater, from the disappearing shore, would it still come—rippling faster and faster toward them—that whispering silence of Lace?
Haunted by discovering the body of a beautiful dancer, Michael re-constructs her murder in a virtual reality. Can he bring the mystery to life? Can he solve it in time, before the killer turns on the woman he loves, Ash?
