The pastor says there’s an angel in his head, but everyone knows it’s just a ghost. Regardless, it has driven him mad, mad as those priests of ancient times. It has also turned him into a tourist attraction, making this church hard to reserve. Still, I paid a fortune to book this place, because few other churches would welcome us. Soon the mad pastor will lead us in exchanging vows, and after that, in the eyes of twenty billion people, we’ll be madder than he is.
Twenty billion. Ten billion on Earth, six billion on the Moon, Mars, and space stations, and four billion are the ghosts on the Net. The Cutter hasn’t reached its first anniversary, yet four billion people, whether enjoying their youth or lying on their deathbeds, have already used this technology to sever their souls from their bodies. Now it’s even harder to tell who is behind each ID — a human, an AI, or a ghost. Four billion: it’s only an approximation. Few ghosts are still willing to talk to people and who knows what exists in that electronic Limbo? Is it happiness or pain, proliferation or annihilation, or merging into one, becoming the One and the omnipotent? It’s beyond my imagination. And I might have joined them as well, had I not met you.
The guests are all here: your friends, my friends, the rich, the famous, and a swarm of flying cameras. The land of the living is no longer what it was. Beautiful people flaunt the results of aggressive plastic surgeries and cutting-edge biomimetics — or, if I can’t even recognize them, they’ve slipped into the most naturally perfect bodies money can buy. And as I lay eyes on the friends of my early years, I find more and more metallic parts on them. Some barely retain their human shape. It’s been years since I last saw Monkey, but perhaps I should call him Fridge now, as we barely understand each other’s words.
There are empty seats prepared for someone watching from Limbo. There are brains inhabited by more than one soul — a family member once on the brink of death, a friend who suffered through a wretched life, or, if the host is poor or lonely, a total stranger. These souls become spirits lurking behind the eyes, commentary tracks playing in the mind. I wonder how many of the hosts will regret their choices.
Everyone here bathes in light. The church is made of glass, each piece sparkling with a gem-like hue, and you like it. The sun shines over the sea and through the glass, sprinkling colorful light on everyone. Light is god. Nowadays people do not worship any specific god, for idolization is a sin, as is adoring a particular deity. God should remain a concept. But when I saw you, I saw a specific one. Your obsidian-black eyes pierced me. Before that, I didn’t know that the color black could be crystal-clear.
The best men and bridesmaids enter one by one, followed by a flower boy. What a lovely kid! I wish him a happy life. The guests begin whispering when the bridegroom doesn’t show, and when I unexpectedly appear behind the door with the bride, they fall silent or gasp in shock.
People are familiar with my looks from the news, but seeing me in person is another matter. I smile and welcome the heat of their gazes. As my secretary complains, “The boss of the world’s largest cyborg tech doesn’t bother putting on human skin!” Indeed, from head to toe, inside out, I have replaced every part of my body with cybernetic components. Initially I covered them with artificial skin, but later, I stopped bothering. What’s the point? My body serves as a living ad for the greatest products of my company. For today’s occasion, I have meticulously maintained, adjusted, and polished them to showcase the sophisticated components, intricate tubing, and glowing metals.
My eyes meet yours, and you give me a mischievous smile. I know you always see beyond my shell.
And you — your beauty is your armor. It pains me every time I see it. You are not wearing a veil; instead, you hold your head high like a swan, letting the fervent gazes flow from your face to the scars stretching all over your body. Emerald, rose, and sapphire lights fall onto your dress, a dress too plain for a wedding witnessed by the world. But you like it. Bathed in light, you look even more ethereal than you do on stage. But I notice your hands, trembling as they grip the bouquet. I know that for you, every time you step onto a stage — any stage — it feels like stepping towards a thousand needles. No more, my love. It will be no more.
Your song begins to play. No one but me has heard this new single before, as it was written for me, and I want to hear you sing it for a lifetime. We approach each other and take each other’s hand. A careful audience would notice the difference here — without the approval of fathers, we give ourselves to each other. Hand in hand, we walk down the aisle.
You walked up to me that night we met. It was a party atop the city’s pinnacle, and the first time I shed my artificial skin. I strutted through the crowd, flaunting the shining metals beneath my suit, relishing the disgusted looks and suppressed shrieks. But they couldn’t kick me out — they couldn’t afford to. Behold! This was the monster you all had created. To climb out of the mud pit where I was born, I sold every part of my body, replacing them with alloys. To earn a place here I sold every piece of my soul, becoming as hypocritical and cold-blooded as any of you, wrapping my titanium tail around your necks. I swallowed the cocktail down my artificial throat, savoring the burning taste of revenge.
But you came to me, to this corner no one else dared to approach. By then you were already a rising star in showbiz, but in the eyes of the party host, you were no better than a biomimetic nightingale. Looking back, some say you were a gold-digging bitch, while others say I was a savage bully. Only you and I know the truth.
“A smoke?” you asked, as if I were just any ordinary human being.
We went to the balcony, discussing random topics. Snowflakes swirled down and melted on your skin, but kept their perfect hexagonal shapes as they fell on me. You watched the smoke rise from my silicon nostrils and smiled languidly, your eyes more radiant than the cigarette’s light. I saw myself in your eyes and saw that we were the same. If I had climbed out of a pit, then you had escaped from hell and made it all the way here, leaving scars all over your body. They marketed your pretty face, your mysterious past, and your scars, as if they were proof of your “authenticity” and “uniqueness,” the touches of Midas. I reached out a metallic finger to a scar on your hand and you shuddered under your fur coat. In that moment I realized these scars were not gold leaves on a Buddha. They were festering under your skin.
Incurable as we were, we became the cure for each other.
At the end of the aisle stands an arch, adorned with flowers and tulle, hiding the tricks behind it, leaving the audience to wonder. The pastor stands before the arch and begins to speak. His voice is so vibrant and commanding; his words on faith, courage, and sacrifice are breathtaking, touching the audience as though conducting an orchestra. Yet he is often interrupted by an inaudible voice; he pauses, then stamps with fury, nods in agreement, or kneels to pray to something unseen. The audience is captivated by this show, but my mind keeps wandering. The pastor claims that you and I are bound by God’s will; no, it was you and I who made us.
The moment we fell in love, I became a brand new being. Before that, I didn’t know love required two. It was as if I entered a new world or gained an extra pair of eyes, seeing another part of the city. Little by little, a shattered soul was pieced together. A machine gained flesh and blood, starting to pound. I felt happy looking at you, and even more so when you were happy because of my joy. In an embrace, the world became momentarily perfect.
I love you, therefore I am. You love me, therefore miracles exist.
You raise an eyebrow and I know I’m crying like an idiot. How sensitive these cybernetic eyes are — no wonder they are our best-sellers.
Who could imagine that I’d nearly lost you? Not to fate, but to human nature. Before you, I didn’t know that love came with a price that wasn’t money. We abandoned our mansions and moved into a small apartment. I was obsessive about order, while you believed chaos bred a free spirit; we fought over where to put the toothbrushes. We exchanged awkward gifts and even more awkward smiles. We crossed our lines for the other, while desperately trying to change each other. It turned out that you weren’t the person I thought you were, and vice versa. Myths disappeared, revealing the humans underneath.
But we chose to keep this love, at the cost of hating each other and ourselves, because we didn’t have anyone else. (Before we met, I had only my business, and you, only a blind cat named Verona.) Like everyone else, we sought comfort in hurling sharp words at our beloved.
“You monster,” you said. “I can’t believe you did that — no. I can. I just don’t want to believe it. They were right about you. You don’t bother to wear human skin because you really are a Frankenstein’s monster.”
I examined my robotic knuckles, admiring their silent movements. “I thought you liked it,” I replied. “They also said that I sold my soul to higher-dimensional devils, that I put my enemies’ hearts on a skewer and roast them. Afraid now?”
You wore an expression that I couldn’t read. “What… what about your heart?” you asked. “How much humanity is left there?”
My artificial throat malfunctioned. My chest felt empty — how long had it been since I last checked for a heart? Even if I dug it out, I couldn’t answer your question; it was just a pile of aerospace-grade, ultra-precise components. I gave you a wry smile.
“And you’re one hundred percent human,” I snapped. “No matter how you hate your scars, you won’t remove them. Didn’t you just terminate your contract with that remorseless company? Why not schedule a half-day surgery to change into some beautiful artificial skin? My company proudly offers 1,294 types. But you won’t, because you’re a superstar, and these scars are your trademark. Without them, you wouldn’t know who you are. You think you’re your music? No! It’s your looks that define you!”
This was how I nearly lost you. You stepped back, grabbed a handful of pills from your pillbox, swallowed them, and staggered away. That night you didn’t leave your room. That week we didn’t talk. Silence was too thick to fit in this small apartment. I escaped to my manor, but it was too large. Darkness closed in, pressed down, and almost choked me.
I ruined two artificial livers with alcohol. I threw up green foam in the shower, watching it swirl down the drain, and decided the world was too good for me. I lay on the sofa, opened my chest, and removed my cybernetic heart. A failsafe would keep my body running for three minutes without it. I admired the heart — a mechanical work of art, its alloys gleaming, transparent tubes pumping artificial blood. On one of the components, I found carvings. Of your name. Which I’d etched with my metallic claws on the day I fell in love with you.
I put the heart back, jumped into an aerocar, and flew to you.
There was no one in the vast garden. I jumped from midair and landed on the glass ceiling of the villa — thank goodness I’m still on your whitelist. Below lay a sea of broken glassware and porcelain, a vortex of pills, and you lying naked in the center. Suddenly, I realized that there was a chasm between you and me.
A transparent chasm, just like the thick glass before my eyes. I had thought I knew you, believed I knew you too well. Yet even when we were face to face, we remained separated by the windows to the soul. I had never seen you. I would never understand you or share your pain, because you were yourself, and I was myself.
I called an ambulance and threw myself against the glass ceiling. Glass shards rained down with a loud crash — after all, this body of steel had its deeds. The cat howled as I ran through the shards, into the vortex, to you. You were unconscious. I knelt, reaching out with cold hands to brush the pills off your body, and saw new scars.
Your blood was warm. It dawned on me that, despite my disdain for flesh, I had always envied your imperfect body. Look, how ridiculous I was.
You opened one eyelid, and I realized I was nothing to speak of.
My artificial throat made a strange sound. Behind it, in that fleshy brain, a wild idea was rising.
“Do you dare?” I asked.
“Of course I do.” You gave me a faint smile.
In that moment, silence was broad and bright. In that miraculous moment, we saw each other.
“I take you to be my wife, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, until death do us part.”
“I take you to be my husband, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, until death do us part.”
There is no exchange of rings, for rings are meaningless; we will be bound by something far stronger. We share one final kiss in this world. I feel your melting touch against my synthetic lips, and time dissolves. Let them watch: it’s time for the world to envy us.
My artificial cochlea hears distant bells. My steel body is showered with confetti. Hand in hand, we march on. There is a lift behind the arch, and the world will watch us descend into a black hole, never to return. Instead, an angel will rise.
Radiant and gorgeous, genderless and mortal, it’s a bionic masterpiece crafted by my company. Behind its closed eyes, you and I will reside — no, the newborn “us” will. Two souls, one brain; but there will be no host or guest, no primary or secondary in this mind, so we will never be mad. Instead we will become the yin and yang. I will walk into your river, and you will walk into mine, and death will not part us thereafter.
Walk into that darkness. Shed our clothes, cast off our bodies, and bare our souls. In an embrace, we will become a complete human as in Plato’s fable. We will spend a lifetime searching for a pronoun for it. And beyond this lifetime there will be the brilliant unknown, a great next adventure.
Your heartbeat is steady and strong. Holding your hand, I step into the arch, into the new life awaiting us.
FIN
