"Why-"

"Why you?!" Frederick cut him off, sounding irritated. "Why you, huh? Well let's go down the list. She was slash is your client. She escaped from your office. And you destroyed a very very expensive machine, enabling her escape. They have the footage. The have the data from both the automaton you destroyed and the version of her you left in local."

Lloyd looked at the gun, and looked at Frederick, who was sweating.
"This is insane, what if I-"

"Say no?" Frederick interjected, turning away from him to look through the peephole.

"What if you don't do it?" He continued, slowly turning around.
"Those automatons outside aren't for my protection. They're for Manifest Digital's protection. If you don't tie up loose ends, they will."

Lloyd backed up until he felt his couch behind him, then quickly slumped down.

"They really want me to kill Phoebe." Lloyd said quietly, almost to himself.

"Yeah," Frederick replied bluntly, getting on his knees to check out the black box and Lloyd's computer.

"Can't have her running around screaming about duplicates. People wouldn't understand."

"Oh and you do?" Lloyd snapped, nearly ready to chuck the gun at Frederick's head.

"As a matter of fact, yes. I had an impromptu meeting after today's accident. Against my will, I might add." Frederick glanced up from the computer to see Lloyd's face, but he still looked angry.

"The digital self and the living self are one and the same, until they branch off. And branching off means the digital self-experiencing things the living self can't, or usually wouldn't, due to the current state of the world. Do you have some water?"

Lloyd pointed to the kitchen and watched as he went to go get it. Then, when Frederick was out of sight, he ran to the peephole. The automatons hadn't moved a single inch. These weren't human operated; these were soulless killing machines.

"Anyways, as I was saying -" he stopped when he noticed Lloyd at the door.

"You won't be outrunning those." He said grimly. "They won't be as easy to destroy either." He sat back down and continued to check Lloyd's files.

"Why is Miguel active by himself?" He asked.

"I was giving him time to get over his panic attack, and then you showed up."

"Ah." Frederick noted. "Anyways, the cryogenics process isn't just to keep our bodies safe for the duration of the Earth purification project. It's to stop us from having overlapping memories at the same time. Think of it like this, if you go eat a pizza at 4, but digital you went to the movies at 4, that would create confusion in your brain. Now expand that to days, months and years. You could go insane. Government issued schizophrenia."

"So the upload is supposed to be our future or current memories while the body is in stasis? There isn't a way to stop them from overlapping?" Lloyd asked.

"There is a way, it's called not letting it happen in the first place, hence, the cryogenics." Frederick answered.

"But... That's just what I've been told. I've also been invited to a new years Eve party."

"What's special about that?" Lloyd replied.

"It's in person. For the managers of the satellite offices, like ours. I don't think I'm going."

"You gave that whole spiel and you don't trust them yourself?" Lloyd scoffed.

"Maybe I'd trust them if we knew this earlier, but now... It's too late. You have her data on here with Miguel's. You could either look up her address through your files, or if she isn't there, ask her yourself." He said, tapping the computer.

"What about work?" asked Lloyd.
Frederick got up off the ground, leaving his water bottle next to the laptop. He patted Lloyd on the shoulder, worried a hug might set him off.

"As far as they are concerned, you are no longer an employee. They want this done by the new year, so you have until Saturday, at midnight." He put on his mask and opened the door.
"Oh, and keep working on Miguel, we'll put him in the system after the new year.

**************************

Lloyd looked at his watch. It was 4:56pm, Thursday afternoon. He had two days to either convince her to be cryogenically frozen, or put her down like a common stray dog.  Feeling every ounce of the gun's weight in his hands he nonchalantly tossed it on the couch. He could feel his entire body getting hot.

I can't kill her. He thought. There's no way in hell. With the automatons, nobody is actually dying. And it actually felt good to take one down.

Sitting in front of his laptop, he looked into Phoebe Caulley's files. After sending himself her address, he queued up her exercise with the same simulation he made for her previously, which he also used for Miguel. Part of him hoped he could at least save her digital self, no matter what happens to the real her, or him. Finally, he stood up, turned off the lights in his living room with his phone, and entered Miguel's simulation. All of his surroundings blurred until a beachside bar came into focus. Miguel was sitting at the bar with his head down, a shot glass near his hand. The bartender, to Lloyd's own surprise, was Bethany. But from the stillness of her body, the blankness of her stare as she watched Miguel soullessly, he knew it wasn't the real her. She was wearing a red long sleeve shirt with a black vest and tie. Her hair was in a ponytail bun except for a few strands hanging on the right side of her face.

"Settled down, have you?" Lloyd spoke carefully.

"Go fuck yourself." Miguel snarled with his head down.

Shit. Not careful enough.  He thought as Bethany motioned for him to sit down pouring him a drink.

"What happened was out of our contro-"

"YOU LEFT ME HERE!!!" Miguel screamed, throwing his shot glass at Lloyd, who didn't blink as it soared through his head.

"I'm not actually here." said Lloyd calmly. "I wanted to give you a bit of time to cool off, but I was interrupted. I'm sorry."

"Rot in hell."  he grumbled.

"Look," Lloyd growled through gritted teeth. "This is partly your own damn fault."

Miguel lifted up his head to glare at Lloyd, not noticing Bethany pouring him another shot.

"Excuse me?"

"You heard me." Lloyd snapped, sounding almost as upset Miguel. "Attacking me, using me as a hostage to see some shit that I haven't even seen, that I didn't have access to. What was the plan, Scooby Doo? Majority of this country, no, this planet, already in the system. What impact did you think you were going to have?"

Miguel watched him quietly as he sat down beside him, grabbing the drink Bethany had poured for Miguel. Holding it a HUD appeared telling him its contents.

"Increase alcohol by volume by twenty percent." Lloyd announced aloud. The glass shimmered in his perspective, letting him know it had been done. He slid it back to Miguel, primarily using his eyes to control his movements.

"Drink up. Nothing can kill you now."

Miguel obliged, his face scrunched up because of the liquor.

"Damn. Neat trick. To answer your question...." he sighed and looked up at Bethany. "Does she have to be here?"

"Remove npc." Lloyd spoke in the same authoritative tone. Instead of blinking out of existence, she turned around and left through a door on the side of the bar.

"I wasn't aware she'd be here." Lloyd told him. "I guess they use Beth as a default model."

"Creeped me out. She just stood there while I screamed for someone to help, to appear." he looked down at his drink. "To save me."

"This is all we could do. I could ask my boss what happened to your body but-"

Miguel shook his head.

"I don't remember a pretty picture, so please, spare me the details. You asked why I went so far? I wanted to find out the truth and warn people, whoever was left. I wanted to actually help, unlike whatever you assholes think you're doing."

"Well now you're technically dead, and your existence is tied to a machine in my living room. If us saving you isn't a sign you can trust us, I don't know what is."

Miguel stood up and started walking towards the ocean. Lloyd worried he might've overstepped, but then the system responding to Miguel's thoughts and a light rain began to pour. He took off his socks and shoes, digging his toes into the sand until a gentle wave washed the sediment away.

"My sister would've loved this."

"Did she pass?"

Miguel nodded. "Years back. She was only nine. The pollution fucked up her lungs. About a year before those newfangled ventilator masks hit the market. Can I ask you a question... um-"

"Lloyd." he responded. "My name is Lloyd."

"Okay. Lloyd then." he turned to face him. "Why save me? Why give me any of this?"

"Because my boss asked me too. Because we both have a conscience, and our own reservations about the system and the domiciles. We want to help people too; we just need to learn how."

Miguel sat down in the sand and laughed, the cynical tone of it unnerving Lloyd. "You have one dead man in a box. Some help yall are."

"For your information, I saved a group of clients today from an automaton. Took it down with a couple shots, and this is after one of my clients escaped and smacked me with the same black box I'm using to talk to you."

Miguel's eyes widened. "Are you sure you're not dead too?"

Lloyd laughed, and he finally felt like he was breaking the ice with this guy. "For now, I'm fine. but I have two days to find and kill her or I'll presumably end up like you. Well, the physical you."

"That's... rough." Miguel began to drag his finger through the sand. "Being totally honest, I wasn't actually going to hurt you, you know."

"Tell that to the bruise on my neck." Lloyd cheekily replied, knowing it wouldn't have appeared in the sim.

"I managed to upload her to the system, but she woke up early. If i can calm down the digital her, you'll have a friend before we send you into the domiciles."

"Why would you do that?" he responded.

"We're going to help people," Lloyd replied, watching the rain dissipate and the clouds give way to a beautiful blue sky. "No matter what it takes."