Forever Yours
©2025 Elder Road Books - Lynnwood WA
Chapter 72: Grand Unveiling
“DAD, YOU HAVEN’T MET H2 yet. Come on into my study,” Henry said when they’d finished Thanksgiving dinner. The family had all gathered at Henry’s house for the holiday this year. Lisa and Chastity had even decided to cook the meal themselves and did a great job. Sylvia, of course, helped when she could, but wisely tried to stay out of the way as the women conquered the kitchen.
“H2? What’s that?” Ryan asked as Henry led him into his study where H2 was glowing on the desk. “What is that?” Ryan asked approaching the floating head.
“H2, I’d like you to meet my father, Ryan Pascal. You know a lot about him, but you’ve never actually met,” Henry said.
“Hi, Dad!” H2 began. “I’m so glad to have a chance to talk face-to-face—so to speak.”
“It sounds just like you and looks just like you,” Ryan said, peering around the sides of the avatar. “Oh. Hi, H2. I feel like I already know you except for this ... um ... avatar.”
“It throws everyone off a little the first time,” H2 sighed. “You saw me once when I was in a jar, didn’t you?”
“Yes. I recall that in the office when I visited with Beau and Bill,” Ryan said. “Beau took the lead, as usual when we’re together.”
“He has a way of doing that,” H2 said.
“Dad, H2 is the embodiment of my Forever Yours singularity. He’s a lot more advanced than the versions that have been sold. Or yours, for that matter. He got access to a lot more data about me than your AI has about you,” Henry said.
“Have you done it, son? Transferred yourself into a computer?” Ryan asked.
“That’s a myth, Dad. H2 has my data. As much as I like him, if something happens to me, I’m gone. But he’s the best mimic of who I am that I can create.”
“Ah. But he’s limited to you in this office. He isn’t an independent entity, is he?” Ryan asked.
“H2? How much independence do you have?” Henry asked.
“I depend on input, just like any person does. When Henry moves around, he takes all his input receivers with him. My avatar doesn’t move around, though I have places I can go without my avatar.”
“What do you mean?” Ryan asked.
“Well, I can switch my projection from home to office, for example. But Henry made it so I couldn’t be both places at the same time. In the same way, if I want to visit Lisa, I have to shut my avatar and sensors off here and project myself onto her computer screen. Then I can access the camera and audio in her office. I can’t just sit here and listen in on everything she says, though. In every room of the house, there is a small monitor and camera that will give me access to the room if I want to travel there and then come back.”
“That’s smart,” Ryan said.
“I had to deal with a lot of ethical problems in putting H2 together,” Henry said. “I probably missed some things. But one of the things Open Cloak has been concerned with since the beginning was privacy. I needed to program in the concept of individual privacy so H2 couldn’t just be omnipresent. That’s true of all the AI-powered avatars. Pythia Speaks only has input from the people who contact her. She can’t investigate someone independently. Xena, the next generation of our office receptionist, has input sensors in the area where she is present. She can hear and see whatever happens in the lobby, but if she is asked to find me in the office, for example, she has to essentially page me. She doesn’t just know where I am all the time.”
“Am I going to have something like this for my Forever Yours?” Ryan asked.
“I doubt it,” H2 responded. “I’m unique. You wouldn’t believe the number of personality tests, IQ tests, and general tracking of Henry I had to go through to get this representation. I’m not just a picture of Henry, I’m how Henry sees himself.”
“I’d just turned nineteen when we incorporated the company,” Chastity said as she and Henry sat in bed in the hotel they’d booked for her birthday. “You gave me $250,000 in stock in the new company. And I didn’t have to sleep with you for it. I thought you were the most caring and generous man I’d ever met. Seven years. It’s been almost eight years since you took me to prom.”
“One of the small anniversaries I like to celebrate each year.”
“Right. What was the date?”
“May 9, 2026,” Henry answered immediately.
“I didn’t know you kept track of that!” Chastity said.
“I don’t make a big deal about it, but I always take a minute or two just to remember and relive that first time we were together.”
“2027?”
“We went out the previous week to celebrate my signing the lease on the row house and you made it clear to me that you weren’t my girlfriend.”
“2028?”
“Final exams. You sat in the office with me so I wouldn’t be studying alone. We were in the process of investing $25 million in our company.”
“You gave me a million dollars in cash and I never sold my body again. 2029?”
“My last final exam before graduation. Then Lisa and I flew to Baton Rouge and told the minister there that you would be a part of our family when we married. He consulted with Pythia on a message for our wedding.”
“I’m not going to keep going through the years,” Chastity laughed. “I’m just happy that we’re together as a family and that I get to celebrate my birthday with you one night and my Lisa the next. I love you, Henry.”
“I love you, Chastity. I know our relationship was unconventional, but you’ve been so important in my life.”
“I’m sorry about that first time,” she said.
“What? Why?”
“I should never have indulged Isobel in her zipless fuck. It made her feel entitled to you, even after she married Luke.”
“I think I was as much to blame for that. I didn’t reject her when she pulled her skirt aside and bent over. Nor when she married Luke and came to me the night before.”
“I know you were drunk. By that time, I had quit drinking. I’d quit escorting. Neither Lisa nor I ever held that incident against you,” Chastity said. “That’s what I meant about her feeling entitled to you, even the night before our wedding.”
“I wasn’t drunk that time. I sent her away.”
“I doubt she’s ever forgiven you. Every time she looks at her son, she thinks it could have been yours,” Chastity said. Henry kissed his way down her body and she opened her legs to receive his oral ministrations. “Yes. You have me. I’m yours. Yes. There. You know me so well. Yes. Do it. Inside. Up ... Yes! Henry, I love you! I was never your girlfriend, but I’m your wife as much as Lisa is.”
The dam burst and Henry moved up to kiss Chastity as he slid into her. She welcomed his kiss with an open mouth—her acknowledgement that they were truly together.
“This party will cost a fortune this year,” Isobel moaned in the December board meeting. “I still fail to see what we gain by getting our employees drunk and paying for them to screw each other in a hotel.”
“It’s always been an opportunity for us to recognize individuals and company achievements. We incorporated in January of 2027 and invested our first million dollars. At the time, it was more than I ever expected to see from the company,” Luke said. “It was supposed to be like a college seminar project. Sorry, Henry. I knew you’d be successful, but I didn’t have all that much faith in the business. But New Year’s Eve was when we celebrated. And we will always celebrate that date.”
“Our company success goes way beyond what I did. I don’t think my name is on any of the Alice Project patents. And there are a lot of them. That’s our next generation of income. The company deserves to see what will be paying their salaries in the future,” Henry said.
“A demon from hell,” Isobel muttered. “God forgive us.”
The board went through the monthly business, but most of the discussion was making sure they were all prepared for the New Year’s Eve party. The estimated attendance would be nearly five hundred this year. It would be a costly party, but everyone except Izzy felt it was well worth the investment in their employees.
Beau, Solange, Bill, and Jackie arrived in Pittsburgh for the holiday on the twenty-third. Bill and Jackie would return to Baton Rouge a couple of days after Christmas, but Beau and Solange, as major stockholders and a board member, planned to attend the company party on New Year’s Eve.
They were all impressed with the newest rendition of Henry’s avatar and questioned in depth whether they would all have similar avatars for their Forever Yours singularities.
“I keep coming up with more issues with that idea,” Henry said. “Not even sure if H2 should be kept like this. If there were several singularities in a room and they all had avatars like this, it would be like a strange kind of mausoleum. And then would they all be so busy interacting with each other that they wouldn’t be available for the family? Can you imagine two of the singularities having a disagreement and then devolving into an unending argument in a room that has no people in it at all?”
“Hmm. It wouldn’t take long for Jackie and Solange to have a mother-daughter spat,” Beau laughed. “And, of course, you would get dragged into it. Then Lisa would have to shut us all off.”
“Well, that’s certainly one possibility,” Henry laughed. “Forever Yours was designed to be launched like an application when someone—a descendant, presumably—wanted to interact with it. Since it isn’t a consciousness, it shouldn’t have a difficulty being turned on and off. I’m afraid I’ve imbued H2 with so much of my personal data that he reacts and responds like I do. He hates being shut down, so he has a backup where he can retreat if we need to do maintenance. That is way too complex for a standard Forever Yours family to deal with.”