Kurt kicked the apartment door closed behind him, his hands filled with reusable shopping bags laden with groceries. “Home!” he called as he walked into the kitchen. He busied about placing the produce on their assigned shelves and drawers in the refrigerator. He aimed his voice toward the den. “If you’re being quiet because of my ‘dependence’ issue, that’s just baloney. I only chatted with you for an hour this morning.” Frowning, he continued shelving items in the cabinets and pantry, the cans clanking with his frustration. He closed the pantry door with more force than necessary and strode into the hall, where the scent of burnt plastic made him pause.

Kurt shook his head, continued into the den, and sat heavily on the black leather office chair. The screen was lit, so there was nothing wrong with the computer. “Come on, Ryan, talk to me.”

Nothing.

“What the hell …” he muttered, tapping the screen to manually activate Ryan’s SnapShot created back when Ryan was still in the hospital.

UNINSTALLED & ERASED 13:06 TODAY

Prickles ran across his scalp.

Kurt took in a deep breath, released it slowly: psychiatrist’s orders. He repeated the deep breathing as he logged online to retrieve the copy of Ryan backed up on the cloud. It wasn’t in the folder he thought it was, so he began opening others. He keyed a search … nothing. Ryan was no longer backed up on the cloud. Closing his eyes, Kurt tried to remove himself from the situation. “I’m okay. I’m fine. I’m safe.” He repeated the mantra a few times, the last with his voice trembling.

He stood, about to retrieve the penny drive with another backup of Ryan, when the screen pinged and displayed an unknown contact. He didn’t want to be bothered with whoever was calling, but an ID window popped up with Ryan’s profile photo.

Kurt sat back down. He tapped the screen to open the connection.

Ryan’s face popped up in a new window. The sight of Ryan’s swept dark hair and forest green eyes allowed a modicum of relief to trickle through Kurt’s body. “Oh, thank god,” he sighed. But this still wasn’t right. How could a SnapShot of his deceased husband call him?

“Something’s happened, Kurt.”

“What’s going on? This is—”

“Stop. Stop talking. I’ll just repeat what I’ve been ordered to.”

Kurt stared at the screen, silently, fear prickling the back of his neck.

“My copies have been deleted. These people have my sole remaining copy—”

“You’re scaring me, what’s going—”

“Stop it and listen! I only have a minute to tell you everything!”

Kurt swallowed and nodded.

“At work tomorrow, you will receive the serial number of a car on the road. Patch in and take over its navigation and reroute it per the orders you’ll receive.”

“Can I—wait. I don’t understand.”

“Kurt. These people are serious. They will delete my only copy unless you comply. But listen, you’re fine without me, don’t get yourself in trouble—”

Ryan’s face winked out of existence, replaced by the screen’s background of a sandy beach at sunset from their honeymoon seven years ago.

Kurt tapped the connect icon a few times. “Ryan?” Kurt’s breath became shallow; sweat beaded on his forehead. Ryan’s SnapShot was all he had left of him. A lump formed in his throat, his lower lip trembled.

Wait. The penny drive. The safest copy of Ryan was stashed in the firesafe in the closet. He ran to the hall closet, and everything became clear. Blackened and charred, the front of the safe had a large hole melted through; the edges had been liquefied, like the chamber of a karst cavern. Kurt held his breath against the acrid stench of burned plastic, against the obvious tragedy: Ryan was gone. He poked around at ashes and barely recognizable remains of the contents. Half of his passport was still intact. Tax files were mostly ash. Here and there, little melted droplets of plastic with twisted metal innards—penny drives earlier today, but no longer. Hard backups of videos, of photos … of Ryan, all gone.

The shakes were coming. He needed to get away from the closet, the scene of murder. Backing away, he stumbled into the bedroom. On the floor at the foot of the bed he sat, drawing his knees to his chest. He knew he should get up and get his pills, but it was too late now, the panic had him. There was no point in making the effort to stand. He tried to draw in a breath, a deep, long breath, but that quickly devolved into hyperventilating. Darkness crept at the edges of his vision as the anxiety attacked his mind with illogical fears, of the criminals returning with their torch. He held on to his legs like a drowning sailor to flotsam. Panic intensified; the tremors struck in force. The only coherent thought that percolated through his frothing mind was a wish for unconsciousness.

For death.

*     *     *
The morning light streamed through the kitchen window above the sink. Kurt was curled up on the cool floor. Blinking a few times, he unsteadily sat up. His open pill bottle lay next to him, and little tablets were scattered about, a white pox on the Spanish red tile. He had no recollection of making it to the kitchen, of taking any pills. But the panic had vanished, and the vestiges of anxiety buzzed faintly at the top of his head.

The alarm began to sing in the bedroom. It may have been a terrible night, but he still woke up a few minutes before his alarm. Standing wasn’t easy through the fatigue and fog. It felt like he took an extra benzo or two too many. He poked his head in the bedroom and told the alarm to shut up. Back in the kitchen he picked up the pills. He contemplated calling Lars, his brother in the FBI, but no. It would be a risk to Ryan. Not only that, his big brother still thought of him as a pansy, someone that had trouble caring for himself. Lars was sympathetic and kind after Ryan’s death, but Kurt knew what lay beneath that temporary facade.

After coffee and a shower, he met his scheduled car in the apartment building’s pick-up lot. The door clicked open as he approached. Whisked away by the automated vehicle, he used the time to check into work on his tablet. The city traffic patterns all flowed except for a stretch of Montgomery. A manager-level note announced the westbound right lane was closed due to a pedestrian suicide. Kurt rolled the CCTV of the incident. A citizen stood on the edge of the sidewalk, face skyward. He looked to his right, morning rush hour traffic slipping by. Without warning he leapt into the bumper of a semi-truck. His timing had been perfect, as it had to be. The braking system responded as designed, but avoiding him was impossible. All westbound Montgomery traffic had paused, then restarted, with the exception of the truck, which parked to remain for the investigation. The Montgomery flow was now a lane short.

It wasn’t until he was in the elevator with fellow manager Bev chatting to him about a “God, sooo good” documentary on the last remaining Asian elephants that he realized that he had to do his best to keep a normal aura. As normal as expected, since his husband had died only six weeks ago.

At his desk, an hour into the workday and no call, he became jittery. He determined an extra benzo necessary. Kurt believed in preemption. A severe panic attack had never occurred at work, and he wasn’t about to end that streak, especially when it might jeopardize Ryan.

A call finally came in from an unknown number on screen 3. Kurt held his breath and clicked in. Ryan’s face appeared. “Write this down on paper,” he said flatly, entirely out of character. A notepad was produced and a pen ready. Quickly and robotically, Ryan gave him the long alphanumeric serial number of a car. Kurt stuttered a bit when he read it back. Ryan continued with a street address with special criminal extraction instructions, “Lockdown. Opaque windows. Generate magnetic field to jam cell signal. Pull in driveway to destination garage door. When door opens, enter, park, engine off. When the door closes, unlock the car doors.”

“Got it.”

“Proceed immediately. Car is in motion with fourteen minutes until current destination arrival.”

“Got it. So after I’m—”

And Ryan was gone.

“Shit.” He didn’t know how he would be re-acquiring Ryan after he executed the orders. Kurt closed his eyes, breathed in, breathed out. “I’m okay. I’m fine. I’m safe.” There was the sticky issue of making it look like someone else patched in to reroute the vehicle. The morning had given him time to design a plan. A clumsy plan, but workable. If this was something bad enough for an investigation, well, this would not hold up to the scrutiny. The mere possibility of being hauled in on a federal charge, with his brother Lars being one of the Feds, would be humiliating.

He opened a com window on his screen.

“What up, Kurt?” Bev, the only other manager on duty with his level of access, looked glad to have something to do besides scanning traffic patterns.

“Got a minute? I got something new.” Kurt faked a face of conspiratorial secrets and whispered, “Elephant new.”

Her eyes widened. “Sanctuary or wild?”

“Wild.”

“Hmm. Send me link.”

“I thought HQ was watching you and your … internet habits.”

Bev rolled her eyes. “Good call. Send it to my phone. O’ll check in once I’m off.”

“Come over. Indulge in the big screen.”

She glanced to another corner of her screen, then back to Kurt. “Gimme five.”

Her window on Kurt’s screen went blank as she cut the connection. He bit his lip, looked at the car’s time to destination: twelve minutes. There were times when Bev said she needed five when she meant ten. Or thirty. And this certainly wasn’t any work priority. How should he play this? Wait seven, then give her a little text reminder? She was his only hope of having another person logged in to do the deed.

When the car had eight minutes to arrival, Ryan appeared on his screen again. “Is there a problem?”

“No,” Kurt replied. “It’s just taking a little longer than I thought.”

“They know it doesn’t take more than a few minutes to acquire that car.”

“Ryan—”

“The police?”

“No! No, I didn’t—”

“There’s not much time left.”

Kurt felt sweat on the back of his shirt. “When and how will I get you back?”

Ryan paused. “Is this the cause of the delay?”

“Partly.”

Ryan’s face froze, expression blank. Kurt assumed that information was being fed to Ryan. He reanimated to say, “You’ll be given a link to download me once the car enters the garage.”

“What if it’s not right? Or doesn’t work?”

“It’s your only hope. There’s no special assurance. They told me very plainly that if you do as instructed, you’ll get me back. And if you don’t—”

“I get it.”

“Seven minutes.”

He was gone, again. Kurt quickly collected an image from the video that he was baiting Bev with and sent it.

“Ooooh! Okay, coming,” she replied.

Kurt hurriedly made the set-up. He logged out, set volume to zero, turned on the retinal scanner for a new log-in, but stood high enough to avoid re-logging himself. He covered the log-in window by stretching the video across the whole screen.

“Gimme,” she said as she entered.

“Sit,” he motioned to the chair.

“No need, really.”

“It’s three minutes, please indulge in life’s rare pleasures.”

“Three whole minutes? Right, I’d better sit.”

Kurt told the video to roll, and the mother elephant approached the water hole with her baby, just days old.

“So cute,” she squinted at the screen. “Wait, is this the one when the croc leaps out of the water and the mother fights him off?”

“Seen this already?”

Bev sighed. “Yes, yes. Thanks, anyway, you’re a sweetie.” She stood and left.

Kurt closed the video window and checked the login and smiled: “Beverly Ann Torrez: login successful.” He sat, typed the serial number, and acquired the car, a large sedan, mid-level luxury. The police stood behind him the other times he had to patch in like this, warrant in hand. Since he was doing this solo, this was vehicle theft, or kidnapping, or both. Now appeared the option to enter a new destination address. Here, he hesitated. He had come this far, but now …

The visual from the interior dash cam displayed the solitary occupant: a middle-aged woman on her phone. She was of African descent and dressed sharply in fashionable business attire with a faux fur collar and likely real gemstones dangling about her neck. Kurt concluded this was a robbery.

He whistled a relieved sigh. Petty robbery he could live with. She’s insured, right? He quickly added the phone block, the lockdown, the opaquing of the glass, the new destination.

She reacted immediately to the phone disconnect. “No signal?” She looked to the window on her right and noticed it was black. The screen in the dash now displayed the new address and the new time to arrival: thirty-five minutes. “What?” Now the car had pulled from the westbound stream of traffic and made a turn south. “No no no no no …” she said to the screen. To her phone she repeated her original address, but it didn’t respond. With an exasperated sigh she tapped the car screen, prodding it to respond to her voice, but it flashed the message, “EXTERIOR LOCK.”

Aloud and angry, she responded, “What’s this? What’s this lock business? This is not the address I put in!” She slapped the screen. “Listen to me!” she shouted at the screen.

Kurt sat transfixed by the situation he had created. Suddenly stopping her ranting and physical abuse of the car screen, the passenger looked about. The blackened windows, her useless phone … her hardened expression slackened, her eyes widened. “They have me. They’re going to kill me.” After staring straight ahead for a few beats, seeing nothing but the black of the windscreen, she feebly jiggled the locked door handle. She hit the switch to roll down the window with no result. Her face turned stoic, resigned.

Kurt’s heart hammered upon hearing her fate. The cold sweat spot on his back expanded. Had he killed someone? Was he an accomplice to this woman’s murder?

Both Kurt and the passenger were frozen.

Kurt swallowed. His mind churned.

He could contact the police, but Ryan dies.

He could re-route the car, but Ryan dies.

His FBI brother? Kurt’s jaw clenched at the thought.

He could get help. Non police assistance. He took screen captures of the passenger’s face. He used a common social media face finder and got a hit: Sanna Kozonguizis. Kurt leafed through her profile. Relatives were all in Mauritania, but she did have some local friends. He felt this was taking too long and might be nothing but a half-hearted effort, a ridiculous notion at worst, but he soldiered on, grabbing all the handles of the locals in her network. With twenty-one social IDs entered into his message center, he blasted out a note with her pic: “Sanna is in trouble. She is in a car that’s been diverted from her intended destination, locked down, being sent to a garage at address 22341 Amole Drive SW. I’m a traffic manager. I was forced to lockdown the vehicle with my lover being held hostage upon threat of death. Someone please help, but please, no police. As of the timestamp on this message, she will arrive in twenty-seven minutes.” In the last line he included his personal number.

His phone sat on his desk. Desperately he wanted to open the app that allowed him to communicate with Ryan. If only that were possible. He felt naked and vulnerable without him. Kurt jumped when his phone rang with an unknown number. “Hello?”

“I’m calling about Sanna,” came the response, a male voice with an Australian accent.

“I don’t know what to do.”

“I can’t involve the cops on my end, either. Sanna is wanted back in her country, some political shite. She’ll be extradited and her chances there won’t be much better.”

“Any ideas?” Kurt’s pen snapped in his hand from the tension.

“Can you meet me there? But not traceable? A friend’s car account? Bus? If they catch you’re a part of this, it sounds like they’ll shoot your lover.”

Kurt paused, looked at the remaining time, twenty-two minutes. He looked to the map. “I think I have a way. It’ll be close, though.”

“Great. We’ll meet her car on the street. I’ll block it. You pop the door open, we’ll get her into my car and off we go.”

“But what about Ryan?”

“Who?”

“The hostage. My husband.”

“They won’t know it’s you doing this, right? You’ll be untraceable. Their operation gets fucked but you did your work, right?”

“I have to leave now if I’m to get there.” Kurt took a napkin from yesterday’s lunch and wiped ink from his hand.

“Meet you on Amole, mate. You’re a hero.”

Kurt pocketed his phone, looked at the smeared blue streaks on his hand and the ink droplets on his desktop. “Fuck it,” he whispered and leapt from his chair.

“Where’s the fire?” asked Bev as he ran past her open office door.

Bypassing the elevator and pounding down the stairs, he stripped off his tie and threw it behind. On the first floor, there was his bike, still chained to the railing, where it had remained since Ryan had died. He hadn’t ridden it since, but this was no time to dwell on his lack of fitness. An arroyo cut through the city toward the address. He could bypass traffic and signals and get most of the way. Best of all: downhill.

No time was to be wasted on retrieving his cycling shoes or shorts. He tucked the ends of his dress slacks into his socks. Out the door he walked the bike into the weedy, seldom-used parking lot. No stretching. He didn’t have a water bottle. No helmet. Kurt hopped on and pedaled, the afternoon sun bright and hot. He extracted sunglasses from his shirt pocket. Two blocks south and then down the ramp into the litter-strewn concrete arroyo he rolled, picking up speed.

His heart dropped. It dawned on him that he had left his prescription in his desk. Hesitating, Kurt almost hit the brakes. He never went anywhere without his damn pills. If a panic came, all was lost. If he turned around now, he would never make it on time. “Fuck it.” Pedaling resumed. His anxiety risk was lessoned when he was cycling, and presently, he was racing for all he was worth.

As the arroyo took a gentle curve to the southeast, Kurt leaned in. He dared not pause to check the time, even though he feared he was late. Spotting the ramp leading back up to the streets, he raised off his seat to climb without bleeding too much speed.

Back on the pavement grid, Kurt looked to the first street sign to make sure he was oriented correctly: Chavez & Julio. Perfect. He took gulps of air at the intersection cross. There was no stopping traffic here on a busy thoroughfare. The cameras would activate to issue the offender a ticket, and that was traceable.

As the countdown across the road ticked down he flicked into a low gear, and at zero he accelerated. In the subdivision he had to cover three blocks and turn on Amole. He made the turn, remembering that the address was roughly halfway down the block. The neighborhood was old, a little worn. Once in position, he pulled out his phone, checked the address on his map: six houses up. Two minutes until Sana’s arrival. Lungs were fire, mouth sticky and dry, but he made it. The street curved ahead. He leisurely pedaled up to get a look at the destination house. Kurt felt self-conscious: There was nothing remotely subtle about a man on a bike in rolled-up dress slacks and a sweat-soaked straight-point collared shirt.

The stucco was cracked and there were jagged holes where it had completely disintegrated. Windows were boarded up, the xeriscaped yard choked with weeds. Of course this would be some vacant house, he thought.

He circled back up the block as his breathing settled. Where was the Aussie? With a minute to go, he made the call. The man answered in half a ring. “Stop the car,” said the Aussie. “I’ll be right behind it. Just stop it!”

Kurt positioned his bike in a driveway, pointed toward the street. Turning the corner now was Sanna’s sedan. Kurt swallowed hard. Even though he knew that the car would stop when he pulled in front of it, it still scared him. He grew up riding his bike in a world where the streets were mostly populated with manually-driven cars. About 700 cyclists were killed every year by careless drivers. And here he was, about to deliberately ride in front of a moving vehicle.

At the most critical second, it hit him. His chest seized, and his lungs jumpstarted into shallow breaths, gearing up for a full, mindless hyperventilation. “I’m okay. I’m fine. I’m safe.” He set his jaw.

Now.

The sedan wheels squealed against the pavement as it made the emergency stop. Kurt put on the brakes, too. He stared into the windshield of the car, seeing only the glare of the reflected sun. Turning the corner came another vehicle, this one white. The car that Kurt blocked reversed, but stopped as the new car parked behind it. The Aussie, Kurt presumed, a man in sunglasses and a beige sport jacket and tie, popped from the white car, making it a temporary block with its door left open. Kurt shut his eyes as he whispered, “I’m okay. I’m fine. I’m safe.”

“Do the door!” the Aussie shouted as he raced to the driver’s side of the black car.

“Please clear the street,” the car asked him politely through its external speaker.

Kurt, losing the fight to control his breathing, couldn’t move. He squeezed his eyes shut against the fear that wrapped about him, making chaos of his thoughts.

“Do the door!” the Aussie repeated, more shrill this time.

Ryan’s face appeared among the images racing through his mind that churned with panic. He clung to the image, he focused on Ryan’s green eyes, eyes that swallowed him whole when they met. He had to save him. Ryan was all that he had, the only meaning in Kurt’s world. The bright, clear day shocked him back to the now—his eyes opened. The car door.

Kurt dropped his bike to the street, walked to the driver’s door on unsteady legs and waved the authority key at the receiver. The car beeped into parking mode and the door popped open. Sanna squinted up at him as sunlight filled the interior. More car doors opened: the white car. The Aussie was not alone, there were three more men, feet pounding pavement.

The Aussie shoved Kurt sprawling on his back to the hot pavement. “No!” screamed Sanna as the three converged and extracted her kicking from the car. The Aussie tased her twice and she went limp. Her inert form was thrown into the back seat, the men and the Aussie all followed, the doors thumped shut. The car backed up, carefully drove around the black sedan and Kurt, and out of the neighborhood.

The black car closed its own door, reversed, made its way past Kurt and his bike. Now empty, previous directive cancelled, the car went searching for new passengers.

Kurt shook, laying face-up on the street, staring at the pale blue of the sky and the burning sun. There was something calming about an empty sky. He wanted to fall up into it. Away. Forever. He pulled his mind together just enough to sit up. “I’m okay. I’m fine. I’m safe,” he whispered to himself.

Out of the corner of his eye, he could see two men in suits looking after the empty vehicle that passed and turned a corner. One was clearly agitated and threw something down hard and cursed. Kurt wanted to pedal away, to slip off unnoticed. In that moment, nothing could be managed but the simple act of staring down at the concrete between his legs. No bike, no pedaling back to the arroyo. Soon, no Ryan.

He didn’t have a chance to say goodbye.

One of the suits approached, the other got on his phone.

Kurt could not bear to look at anyone. Not right now. In the throes of a panic attack it took all of his energy to just sit and shake. He hugged his knees, his eyes tightly shut. “I’m okay. I’m fine. I’m safe.” But Ryan is dead. Ryan is dead now, and I killed him.

“Kurt?” said the man who came over to him. “What the hell are you doing here? What happened?”

The voice grated him, made him feel small, worthless, powerless. His brother Lars. Opening his eyes, he stared straight ahead, noting a house with two of the upstairs windows decorated with blooming flower boxes. He thought they were pretty arrangements, well done. Kurt kept his gaze focused there, not turning to face Lars and his atrocious jarhead haircut. The flowers. They kept him in the here, if only for a moment. He clung to the crimson and orange and violet petals, the rich green foliage.

Lars knelt in front of him, blocking his view. “Was someone else here?”

The other man said, walking up, “Confirmed, there was another vehicle.”

Spying the bike laying on the street behind him, Lars nodded, the pieces mentally clicking together. “You rode out here, untraceable, to save her, didn’t you? Those guys who took her away, they weren’t … fuck!” He stood up, face now in a sneer of disgust. “We did what we did to get her away from those goons that will carry her back off to West Africa. She didn’t know about our plan. The local police couldn’t know, either. She didn’t even know they were closing in on her. This setup was risky, but perfect. And you managed to screw it all up. Nicely done. And for what? Your simulated man? Your crutch?” He pulled a penny drive from his pocket. “You might have murdered someone, a real, flesh-and-blood person, a real human being. Here.” He dropped the penny drive beside Kurt on the street. “Have your Ryan back. You’re sick and I’m calling your doctor for you this time.”

He walked off, leaving Kurt alone sitting in the middle of the street.

The bright sun felt cold.

*     *     *
“Home!” Kurt closed the apartment door, walked into the kitchen for a glass of purified water from the pitcher in the fridge. Sanna, the woman in the car, had been rescued not long after the incident on Amole Street. There had been a shootout, one agent wounded, one kidnapper killed, but Sanna made it through unharmed.

And now Lars wasn’t talking to him. Well, not after he told Kurt that he may as well have shot that agent himself.

Glass of water in hand, Kurt went to the den. The desk screen was on, but there was no Ryan. A digital note glowed on the screen desktop:

“Dearest Kurt,

“We’ve had a full, beautiful life together. I know our time was cut short, and that was really painful. I know that you’re still enduring this grieving process, and it’s going to take some time. But what happened the other week was not right. At the very least, this has proven to be problematic to your recovery. At the worst, well, I’m not going to beat you up about it anymore.

“I love you, I always have and I always will, but let this copy go, okay? I deleted myself. I really died a while back. Please accept this. Move on, make a good life, and look for someone new when you’re ready.

“Please, believe I will always be with you.

“Love, Ryan.”

Kurt clenched his teeth. He went to the kitchen for his prescription. Sometimes, a little preemptive was best. He sighed and went into the hall closet, which, even though repaired and repainted, still smelled faintly of burnt wood and melted plastic. He found the penny drive and returned to the den.

Kurt stopped himself just short of slipping it into the connector slot. Again. For the third time since the “incident,” as Ryan tactfully put it.

Ryan kept deleting himself and leaving a suicide note.

It was so like him, too. Not the digital suicide, but watching out for Kurt. Worrying about him. His health. His mental health. Everything. The SnapShot was no different than his husband had been in real life.

But that’s what Kurt needed.

Or should he, finally, listen to his husband?

His breathing hitched and hot tears trickled as he took the penny drive to the sink and turned on the garbage disposal.