That's the Question

[Tachyon 0]

“That is the Question”

February 27, 2156

Lieutenant Dave Grey

------------------------------------

 

“Dave. Dave, I know you can hear me. You know you can hear me. So pay attention. You're running out of time, Dave. Even with the coma the clock is still ticking. How much longer? A year? Two, at the most. You can't put off the decision forever. And then it will be too late.”

 

Harriet's voice had become his conscience; it had become his constant companion. They say that stress can do weird things to the human body. Make you feel sensations, experience entire trains of thoughts, that you might otherwise never notice. Right now Grey felt like he was outside of his body . . . as if he were a stranger, watching as someone else manipulated his zombie body into doing its daily tasks.

 

He sat back and let this stranger take him for a ride. Sometimes it was nice to just give up control. Not that Harriet had that option.

 

She was trapped. Too sick to get better, too well to slip from this world and into the next. She had no more options; she had no more hope. Grey's reservoir was quickly running dry. And just when he thought he would drown in the desert, someone tossed him a life preserver, and his mixed metaphor existence disappeared.

 

Nothing comes without a price though. This life preserver, which was more like a weight around his neck, came with a rather large price. Sure, it could save her life—but at what cost to him? To her? Could she live knowing that her life had been purchased at such expense? For Grey, that was the question to which he sought an answer.

 

Grey somehow knew that the more he thought about it, the worse he'd get. But when he did finally arrive at an answer, when he finally made a decision, he knew it would be the right one. He knew that whatever conclusion he came to, Harriet would have agreed.

 

Would have. Should have. Could have.

 

Didn't.