Story code: ST-000120
Part 2: Eulogy for the Living
“Sir, I need you to step back and lower your hands,” the security guard commanded, his voice echoing off the acoustic tiles. His right hand hovered aggressively over the heavy pepper spray canister holstered on his utility belt.
I pointed a shaky finger down the hallway, staring at the empty space where Brody and Dr. Aris had just disappeared around the corner. “That’s my business partner. We served together. He just shoved me.”
“I saw you aggressively intercept Dr. Aris and his guest,” the guard countered, his stance widening to block the entire corridor. “Now, you’re going to pick up your paperwork, and you’re going to exit the facility. If I have to ask you again, I’m calling federal police.”
Dozens of eyes burned into the back of my neck. Older veterans in wheelchairs, tired nurses holding clipboards, receptionists peering over their plexiglass barriers-they were all watching me like I was exactly what Brody had just called me: a disturbed transient having a public meltdown. My face burned with hot, prickling humiliation. My jaw locked tight. I bent down, my bad knee popping loudly in the quiet room, and snatched the crumpled disability denial letter off the floor. I didn’t say another word. I turned and walked toward the sliding glass exit doors, my heart hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird.
The oppressive afternoon heat hit me the second the doors parted. The glaring sun bounced off the rows of parked cars, temporarily blinding me. I walked blindly toward my battered Tacoma, my mind sprinting through a thousand chaotic scenarios. Was Brody compromised? Was he being blackmailed? Why was he with the regional director of the VA network that kept denying my severe nerve damage claims?
I reached my truck, leaning heavily against the driver’s side door, gasping for breath as panic began to tighten my throat. I pulled my phone out of my jacket pocket. I needed to see the Forward March livestream again. I needed to see if there was a sign, a distress signal, anything hidden in the broadcast.
I launched the app. The broadcast was still live.
Brody’s face filled my screen. He was leaning into the studio microphone, his expensive ring light perfectly reflecting in his eyes. He was reading a comment directly from the live chat feed scrolling on the side of the screen.
“Yeah, user ‘DesertRat99’, I totally agree with you,” the digital Brody said smoothly, taking a sip from his branded coffee mug. “Discipline equals freedom. It’s about outworking your excuses.”
I froze. A fresh wave of nausea hit me so hard my knees buckled, and I slid down the side of my truck until I hit the searing hot asphalt.
I was watching Brody interact with a live chat in real-time. But I had just looked the man in the eyes inside a clinic ten miles away from our studio.
My head whipped around, scanning the sprawling VA parking lot. About fifty yards away, near the VIP medical staff parking spots, a sleek, black Chevrolet Suburban was idling. Standing by the open passenger door was Brody. The physical, real Brody. He was still wearing the signature black quarter-zip and the tactical watch. He was laughing, shaking Dr. Aris’s hand, completely detached from the microphone, the soundproof studio, and the digital avatar currently speaking on my phone screen.
The cognitive dissonance felt like a physical blow to the skull. It wasn’t a pre-recorded video playing on the app; the digital Brody was actively answering questions timestamped to this exact second. Was it an AI deepfake? How could our tiny, veteran-run podcast afford military-grade emulation technology? And why use it to lock me out of my own life?
My hands shook violently as I switched apps, opening our joint business banking portal. I needed to secure our funds before this imposter-whichever one was the imposter-drained everything we had built in my garage.
The biometric login scanned my face. A red error banner dropped down: *User Profile Unrecognized. Account Locked.*
I swallowed the bile rising in my throat. I opened my text messages, frantically searching for Brody’s contact to find the thousands of messages we had exchanged over the last ten years. As I watched, the message thread suddenly grayed out. The text bubbles vanished one by one, deleting themselves from the server in real time. My phone buzzed, displaying a stark, unclosable system notification: *Device administrative wipe initiated.*
“No, no, no,” I muttered, aggressively trying to force-close the settings, but the screen became unresponsive. They weren’t just locking me out of the podcast. They were digitally erasing my existence from it.
I scrambled up from the pavement, ripping the door handle of my truck open. The black Suburban had just shifted into gear, rolling slowly toward the parking lot exit. I threw my keys into the ignition, my eyes darting between the fleeing vehicle and the frozen, bricking screen of my phone.
Right before the device completely powered down to execute the factory reset, the livestream app overrode the screen lock one last time. The digital Brody on the broadcast abruptly dropped his polished smile. He looked down, his expression shifting into a mask of profound, manufactured grief.
“Listen, guys,” the digital Brody said, his voice cracking with artificial emotion. “I need to pause the Q&A. I just received some devastating news about my co-founder, Jax. Unfortunately, earlier today, Jax finally succumbed to the demons he brought back from his deployments. He’s gone.”
The phone screen went entirely black. I sat in the suffocating heat of my truck, staring at my own dark reflection, officially pronounced dead while the man who had just killed me pulled out onto the highway.