The Goya work was even more beautiful in person.

Bobby stood alone in the principal gallery of the Museo del Prado. He had occupied the empty, cavernous room for a good half hour now, staring at Goya’s masterpiece, as if his character could only be saturated from his prolonged exposure to the painting. The gallery, of course, was empty of both people and other art pieces by Bobby’s request; he had upgraded to the premium ticket to have all of those things removed. The last thing he would have wanted was some mohawked orc or Da Vinci-clone wannabe drawing his gaze away from the piece.

Saturn Eating His Son is what Goya had called it. A monstrous piece. Goya had painted the Titan with broad brush strokes. Blood poured from the appendages of the child the god devoured; Neptune, or Pluto? Bobby’s art education was expansive, but clearly not expansive enough. He wished he had known which future Olympian he was. He could ask Lorenzo, his old tutor at Sapienza; he would certainly know.

With great care, Bobby approached the painting, the gentle pats of his Italian leather loafers the only sound echoing through the room. He was face to face with Saturn, bloodthirsty mad with greed and paranoia, ripping his progeny to shreds. Beautiful. Bobby lifted his fine fingers up to the painting and gently grazed them along the brushstrokes that comprised Saturn’s savage eyes. Goya’s brushstrokes. To enjoy art was not just to see it. Artists like Goya put all of their souls into these pieces, leaving no sensory experience behind. Yes, seeing was critical, but to feel the painting is to feel it as Goya did.

He knew he wanted more of such a sensory experience than he could get. The workers at the Prado had not yet tracked and digitized the flavor profile of their paintings yet, so Bobby had to stop just short of licking the painting to get its taste. A damn shame.

Adjusting the lapels of his violet silk-blend suit, Bobby moved away from Saturn’s rage and stretched, feeling his lower back pop. He was not a young man anymore, and his back had taken the brunt of his aging. He reasoned it was time for a break from standing; he hankered for a real Turkish coffee. After all, Bobby had just downloaded the Istanbul package, and it had not disappointed. Perhaps a friend would be around to share some with him.

Who to call? He looked at his watch and scrolled through the contacts list. Bokko-Chan? She was probably out at a Tokyo club, flirting with her many suitors. But coffee was probably not a good idea with her. He didn’t want to spend most of their date waiting for her to come back from the bathroom; drinks usually went right through her.

Perhaps Zima was around? Likely not. He was out on a far galaxy, painting one of his masterpieces, and Bobby didn’t want to distract him from his work. He made a mental note to invite him over for a glass of wine in Venice when he reasoned Zima had finished the piece.

Ah, Lorenzo? Of course. A coffee would be the perfect moment to discuss Goya with him.

Still standing in the gallery, Bobby’s finger hovered over Lorenzo’s contact on his watch when suddenly his stomach lurched as the Prado gallery suddenly became a blurry, distorted mess. A feeling of vertigo washed over him. A millisecond later, there was a flash of blinding light.

Then blackness.

And for the first time he could remember, Bobby entered the other world.

With no power to his skin-tight haptic body suit, it shrank to its normal size. Bobby’s silk threads had turned suddenly into tight mesh that now squeezed against his body, pushing the air out of his chest. But he faced a worse problem. His haptic mask, which extended deep into his mouth and nose for full flavor and nasal effect, now suffocated him as it suddenly stopped feeding air into lungs. Bobby, trying hard not to panic, tried to pull his hand in to remove the mask, but it was stuck in the now-crystallized web of wires that suspended him in the V-Are.

Bobby tried to scream, but no words came out.

He would die if he didn’t extract himself from the V-Are immediately.

He tugged at his hand, now immobilized both within the suit and paralyzed by the mesh of wires that had suspended him for so long. He pulled and pulled and pulled, and finally, a few wires snapped with a twang, like guitar strings. Hope filled his body, but he still struggled for air. How long had it been since the power had gone out? A minute, maybe more?

With a burst of energy, he freed his hand from the wires, and lifted his haptic mask from his face, gasping for air as he pulled the mouth extension from his nose and throat.

For the first time in as long as he could remember, he took a look at his studio apartment. Pale pinkish light flowed in through the shutters of the one window in the apartment, filling the sole room with a dusty glow. Dusty, in fact, would be an understatement. The few items still left in the room were covered with a thick layer of dust, the accumulation of years of neglect. It was a drab, grey place, whose sole functioning object was the V-Are in which Bobby now floated in stasis.

It was a massive machine, a great big orb of metal and mesh and wires, filling the room to its ceiling. The suit in which Bobby was now trapped was usually able to move with complete freedom, allowing him to simulate being in any environment, in any place. The haptics on the suit applied pressure to the soles of his feet when he walked on a surface, allowed him to feel as though we were grasping objects, and provided the exact tastes and smells of whatever he consumed. The wires connected to the suit suspended him like a marionette, allowing no limits for his movement.

For as long as he had owned the V-Are, there had never been any need for him to remove himself from the suit. When he purchased the machine with the remainder of his savings, he had opted for the deluxe model that featured a feeding valve to his stomach, through which rich nutrients would be distributed whenever he ate in his virtual world. Further attachments flushed out his waste without him noticing. The suit even cleaned itself through a complex system of hydraulics that removed sweat and odor.

But now, it was a prison, a useless piece of junk keeping him suspended and immobilized.

With his mask removed, Bobby was able to breathe a bit, but the suit still pressed against his lungs, suffocating him. With great effort, he slowly started to move each of his appendages, trying to force some pliability into the crystalized wires. They had been so delicate and fine, able to work with his suit to create every sensory experience imagineable for Bobby over the last how-many-years, but he ruined them as he cracked and snapped their now crystalized fibers.

At last, Bobby tumbled out of the machine, falling onto the polyester carpet with a sad poof of dust. Dressed only in his secondskin now, he turned on his side and looked back at the V-Are. The towering, vaguely orb-like structure now sputtered and hissed, a useless mess. When he had purchased it, however many years ago, the V-Are techs who installed it had ensured Bobby that these machines were guaranteed failsafe.

“Trust us. We’re putting in like three of these a day. Been doing so since the virus got real bad,” one of them had told Bobby, taking a break to wipe a bead of sweat from his forehead. “Ain’t nobody had any issue with one of these things, ever. The V-Are HQ always got somebody monitoring each and every machine from remote. Not gonna be a problem.”

Bobby had been standing in the corner, drinking a freshly-delivered cappuccino from his favorite place on the corner. He thought he would miss that quaint little coffee shop, which used to bustle with throngs of people before the governor imposed the first stay-at-home orders.

By that time, it had been nearly a year since those first orders, and the virus still rampaged through the streets. San Francisco had quickly become the epicenter of the virus on the West Coast, but it wasn’t difficult for the national guard to close off the city; all they had to do was shut down the two bridges leading into the city and set up a seven-mile patrol along the north end of Daly City, and the city was completely locked down.

It was fortunate that San Francisco had already been so well-equipped for a life of isolation. Videoconferencing companies had a field day selling their services to each and every citizen, at a premium of course. The self-driving cars had their moment as they transported basic supplies around the city. For the tasks that required human attention, the tech companies in the city simply recruited undocumented migrants, recently laid off from work at restaurants and hotels throughout the city. Facing the threat of deportation, these migrants had no choice but to sign exploitative labor contracts with these companies. The services companies hardly needed to pay them anyway; they just set up barracks on Treasure Island and let them do the work.

But for people like Bobby, the isolation took its toll with time. When the virus first hit, Bobby lived alone; he and his last boyfriend had split up only two weeks before the first stay-at-home orders. Initially, quarantine had been fun; as a writer for a fine arts magazine, staying at home essentially constituted a free vacation. He worked minimally, ordered in his favorite pizza, and chatted with his friends online.

But that had only been for a moment. Weeks turned into months; months turned into more months. And Bobby felt his grip on reality slipping away into boredom and stir-craze. Every movie to stream online, he had streamed; every book to read, he had read. His magazine had shut down, so he lived off his family’s trust and the minimal unemployment check he received from the government each month.

Those who would have died for fresh air decided to do so. Bobby watched from his window as those who had given up stepped out into the open air. He could hear their grunts and cries of pain as the airborne pathogen filled and eviscerated their lungs. He watched as they laid down and died in the streets, at least until the gangs arrived and stripped them of whatever valuables they still had left on their bodies.

Bobby heard screams coming from other rooms in his apartment at night. He heard crashes and banging and yelling and yelling back. He worried of robbery. He ordered copious amounts of frozen and canned food and blocked the door to his apartment with his remaining furniture. Anything he could do to escape this hell.

But as it tends to happen, the elite had just found an escape. Before the pandemic, a young upstart company out of Germany called V-Are was experimenting with fully immersive virtual reality via haptics and orbital suspension. The company claimed that this was not an experience, but a new way of life; one could fully immerse themselves within the machine as a new permanent existence. The machine could provide nearly any imaginable experience for the user by activating every one of their senses, and all other bodily functions would be taken care of by the machine as well.

After the virus started and worsened, desperate San Francisco venture capitalists channeled billions into the start-up. And the little company came through. V-Are machines, supported by its teams of migrant technicians, gradually flooded the city. The rich, of course, got theirs only a month or two after the pandemic started; soon, everyone else scrambled for one. Bobby got on the waitlist as soon as he could, but it still took seven months for the two gas-masked technicians to show up at the door on what would become his last full day in this world.

Now, sitting alone in the neglected room, Bobby couldn’t remember how long ago that day was.

After the confusion subsided, the anger set in. His body still raging with adrenaline after his escape, Bobby quickly jumped to his feet and slammed his hand against the machine.

“Fucking—” His insult to the vacant machine was cut off by a nasty cough. He leaned over and coughed some more, hands on his knees, the dust around him caught up in his retching. He needed some water.

Still gasping, Bobby crept over to his old sink, cranking up the tap. Nothing. Of course.

He started to panic again. Where could he get some water? He remembered; he could open up the food and water pipes that led into the machine. Bobby hauled himself over to the box sitting in the corner of his room, which he thought was the one the techs said would hold the sustenance.

It was locked tight. Of course.

At this moment, Bobby noticed something dripping down his hip. He looked down as a reddish-green mucus oozed out of a hole in his stomach.

How could he have forgotten the feeding tube? It hadn’t occurred to him that extracting himself from this machine would leave a gaping wound.

Stunned, he looked for something to cover the hole. Looking around the apartment, he found nothing. When he entered the machine all those years ago, he simply dumped everything he hadn’t wanted out of the window to make space.

Now Bobby was really panicking. He had no means of eating or drinking. He needed medical attention, and he needed it now. But with no power and his only means of communicating with the outside world now laying in a massive broken heap in the center of his studio, he would have to go outside. For the first time.

Bobby limped over to the window again, now emanating a pink light from the Pacific sunset. The rays of warm light coming through the window were made tangible by the dust that had been stirred up in his frenzy. He looked outside, hoping to find a sentry or patrol or anybody he could remember who would help him.

But he saw something else instead.

Instead, he saw clean, freshly-paved streets. He saw shops closing up for the night. He saw an older man pedaling a rickshaw through the bustling streets, looking for a fare. He saw a young couple, peeking out of an alley and sheepishly stealing a kiss. He saw bamboo baskets overflowing with empanadas, and a woman selling dragon sugar skulls. He saw young boys and girls kicking a soccer ball through the legs of passersby, dodging swats from aggravated shoppers.

It was not a surviving city, but a thriving one. A different one. This was not the San Francisco he remembered. But after a moment of shock, his heart filled with hope. The pandemic was gone! He could get help for his wound! And most importantly, somebody would be able to fix his V-Are!

In a new joy, he rushed to the apartment door and undid the four locks, swinging it open for the first time in what, decades? The scene in the hallway did not match the scene outside. A halogen light flickered pathetically in the dirty, drab grey hallway. Piles of trash and belongings laid outside each door, and Bobby gingerly stepped around each of them as he rushed downstairs. But why was the light in the hallway on? He assumed that all power to the building had gone out. Was it just his room?

He pushed the button for the elevator, and it lit up in a pale glow. He felt the rumble of the ancient elevator rise, but doubting its structural integrity, decided to take the stairs instead.

He scooted down the staircase as quickly as he could, the pink light flowing in through the windows glowing richer and brighter. At last, he arrived in the building’s dilapidated lobby. Feeling emboldened, he inhaled deeply, smiled, and opened the front door.

The light hit his face for the first time in ages as he stepped onto the concrete of the building’s front step. The real concrete. He had been back to his building many times in V-Are (solely for its nostalgic quality), but this time his real soles were touching the real concrete.

He was going to take a moment to let that sink in when suddenly, a woman screamed.

He turned his head and saw the screamer. She was screaming at him. In fright.

“What- what’s wrong?” Bobby asked dumbly with another cough, noticing that most people on the street had turned to catch a glimpse of him. In his peripherals, he saw their eyes widen too.

Of course he knew what was wrong. He had a hole in his stomach.

“Oh, I’m really— really— hurt,” Bobby said, between coughs. He approached the closest woman, who had not screamed, but she only gaped at him with wide eyes instead. She had a child with her. Maybe she could help him.

The woman said something Bobby didn’t understand.

“What? Could you repeat that?” He rasped.

She said something else, which was when Bobby realized she wasn’t speaking English. Bobby knew a few languages, but she was speaking something he had never heard before.

She grabbed her child by the wrist and pulled him back. The crowd now stood in a semi-circle around Bobby, staring, but not helping. He fell to his knees and began to beg their assistance.

“Please. Someone. Help me, please.” Bobby coughed some more. Deeper, dry coughs. It was becoming harder to breathe; perhaps his wound was worse than he thought.

“Anyone, please help me.”

But they just stared and moved back.

“Please, someone—“ he coughed harder “—help me.”

When he tried to speak again, only coughing came out. He sputtered blood on the concrete in front of his building. A few people gasped.

“I—“

That’s the last word Bobby ever said.

 

The report written later by the Re-zoning and Redevelopment Commission of the National City State of Latino-Asiatic America acknowledged that the error of the Bobby Maldonado incident on April 4, 2200 had been their own. While it was standard protocol for years to shut off power to the remaining San Franciscans housed in V-Are capsules at a rate of twenty-three a day, these shut offs were meant to occur only in the early hours of the morning. The reason for this is that shutting down these machines was an unpleasant task. Usually, when the Commission shut off power to these individuals, they did one of three things: they would 1) stay trapped in their machines until they suffocated or died of hunger or thirst, 2) leap to their deaths from their apartment windows or 3) venture outside, where the still-present airborne pathogen would kill them immediately. Nightly cleanup crews patrolled the streets picking up the dead San Franciscans. To save money and resources, their bodies were brought to an organic matter recycling plant, where they were transformed into nutrient-rich matter that was subsequently given to the remaining V-Are residents.

Bobby Maldonado’s power was meant to be shut off at 3 AM that morning. A mistake in his programming let him out at 5 PM that afternoon. The Commission regrets the error.

The ethicality of such a practice was widely-disputed in international courts, but the citizens of the new nation had little obligation to the San Franciscans. The San Franciscans, now uniformly isolated in their pods, had subjected their ancestors, the builders of this new nation, to death. The parents and grandparents and great-grandparents of those who had rejuvenated a dead city were the sacrificial lambs of the Great Pandemic, forced to put their own health in danger in order to serve the safer and more privileged. Most of them died. Some did not; they had, or developed, a natural immunity to the pathogen, allowing them to roam freely. So, with time, they leveraged their immunity to escape corporate rule and build a new society, organically. They lived and loved and played. They shared with one another and broke down walls of racial prejudice that had haunted them for generations before. Their immunity to the pathogen was a shared characteristic among them that became a badge of national pride, and a protection against foreigners who did not share their natural immunity.

But foreigners still remained within the city confines, incarcerated in their self-made prisons, stacked high in the otherwise abandoned sky rises throughout the recovering city. In 2180, the City Council decided that the expense of keeping this foreign population alive within their country was simply too much. The V-Are machines required substantial power, and jobs were wasted keeping the sustenance machines full. Some had advocated simply letting those in the V-Are to simply die naturally, but others were keener to accelerate the process. The city was expanding, and they needed these people gone to make way for new development.

Did it amount to execution? Yes. But all they were really doing was just cutting off the powe