Gone Before Goodbye

by Reese Witherspoon

To the many military doctors and nurses who have placed themselves in peril to help save every soul they could. Thank you for your courage and compassion.

You wonder what makes a hero? There’s altruism, sure. But there’s also ego and recklessness and thrill-seeking. We don’t fear danger. We fear normalcy.

you learn in the hardest of ways that fate is fickle, that life is chaos and no one gets out unscathed, that you can have everything one moment and have it all snatched away so easily…

the debates lasting into the wee hours of the morning in the days when disagreeing was considered a good thing, when differing viewpoints were welcomed because they challenged and honed your thinking rather than producing anger and scorn.

What do you call a longing for critical thinking and common sense and decency?

Dad loved to quote Flaubert on the subject: “Be regular and orderly in your life, so you may be violent and original in your work.”

“Be regular and orderly in your life, so you may be violent and original in your work.”

Tad’s father was a powerful federal judge, and if you think our legal system is about truth or fairness or equality, you’re either not paying attention or delusional.

if you think our legal system is about truth or fairness or equality, you’re either not paying attention or delusional.

Scratch the surface of a person doing good works, and you’ll find someone who fears the mundane and conventional.

Trace clutched the green emerald in his hand for the entire ceremony. Maggie never forgot that image—Trace, sitting in the front pew by himself, opening and closing his fist, staring at his mother’s glistening square-cut emerald, as though the gemstone had some magical power that could bring his mother back to life.

She strips out of the oversize T-shirt she slept in last night. The T-shirt is from the Vipers gift shop. Porkchop had given it to her. Across the chest, it reads: I DON’T SNORE. I DREAM I’M A MOTORCYCLE.

“Enjoy the smaller moments,” her father had often told her. “That’s where life is lived.”

“What kind of job?” “A high-paying one.” “Well, I knew that already.” “I’ll be gone for a week, maybe two.” “Doing what, Mags?” “Don’t worry, okay?” “Good thing you said, ‘Don’t worry,’ because no one ever worries after someone says that.”

“Call your financial advisor before we get to the airport,” Ivan says. “He may have to report such a large deposit.” “She.” “What?” “She may have to report, not he,” Maggie says. “My financial advisor is a woman. I would have thought your research would have told you that.” “The first name Leslie threw me off,” Ivan says. Man, they really do know everything.

Ivan Brovski is still smiling. “Your father-in-law has a flair for the dramatic.” You don’t know the half of it, she thinks, but maybe he does. Still, it is comforting to know Porkchop is on this. On the plane, Maggie takes a seat in an oversize leather-stitched recliner with a built-in massage function. She has learned something very fast and obvious in the past twenty-four hours: It’s good to be rich.

The copter starts to descend about a hundred yards from the front door. The lawn isn’t just green—it’s perfect green, flawless, seemingly painted green. Maggie wonders whether it’s real grass or something artificial.

The palace gleams—actually gleams—in the sunlight. She wonders whether the entire edifice is marble, though that seems unlikely. The architecture is overwhelming and heady, much too much, a garish and almost grotesque blend of Italian Renaissance, French Rococo, and mostly Russian Baroque. The windows are tall and thin. There are reliefs and carvings on the walls. Overly ornamental domes and gold-trimmed cupolas line the roof.

This palace feels more like what it is—a reproduction, a showpiece, unblemished in every way.

The palace—she will just keep calling it that for now—has four soaring floors. Everything here is big and obvious and unsubtle—not so much an attempt to classily suggest opulence and power as to batter you with it.

Maggie hurries her step. He whisks her inside and closes the door. Despite the massive entrance hallway—soaring ceilings four stories high, a grand marble staircase in the center that branches to both sides, a crystal chandelier the size of that helicopter—the warmth from the heating system is immediate.

In Ragoravich’s case, there are a few old grainy black-and-white photographs. His age is listed as “between 61 and 64 years old.” Birthplace: Unknown but perhaps Tbilisi. As with many of his fellow Russian billionaires, the story of how he amassed his fortune is murky—something to do with the “chaotic privatization” of state-owned assets when the Soviet empire crumbled, along with currying favor with current government leadership. Ragoravich’s “source of wealth” is listed as “metals.”

“You know about my husband.” Of course he does. They investigated her financial situation, her sister’s, her malpractice suit. They’d know everything about her. Ivan nods. “Doctor Marc Adams, renowned cardiothoracic surgeon.” “And you know,” Maggie continues, trying very hard not to let her voice crack, “about his death.” Ivan nods again, more solemnly this time. “He was on a humanitarian mission in Ghadames when a militia group raided a refugee camp. Your husband stayed behind to help a patient. It cost him his life.”

Ivan lifts the phone. “But I just saw your husband on your phone.” “No.” “No?” “You saw,” Maggie says, “a griefbot.”

“When a loved one dies, and when someone misses that loved one, misses them so much that…” Maggie shakes it off, channels her sister, and tries a more analytical approach. “A griefbot is an artificial intelligence app that mimics a dead person via their digital footprint—for example, their social media content, emails, maybe videos online or photographs on their phone, whatever. The software then creates a lifelike avatar of the deceased, and a mourner can”—she hesitates—“a mourner can actually converse with it.”

“Yes. When done well, the humanoid AI can replicate the dead person’s speech patterns, personality, temperament, mannerisms, intelligence, tics, gestures—everything that made the deceased unique. It can generate full conversations and even comfort the grieving.”

“It’s a beta version. It doesn’t have the last few months of his life on it. But it’s still her most advanced.” “So you’re, what, testing it for her?” “Exactly.”

“Do you find it comforting?” She settles for the truth, because why not? “I don’t know,” she says. “It’s weird. I feel embarrassed every time I talk to it.” Ivan gives her a half smile. “And yet here you are—telling your AI husband about your visit here.” “Like I said—to help my sister.”

The truth is, Sharon’s griefbot would probably be less painful if it wasn’t so damn close to reality.

The only man she’d ever loved was dead and gone forever. Forever. She would never see him again. She would never touch him, never hold his hand, never feel safe and small in his arms, never pull him close when she couldn’t sleep, never help him go back to sleep when he had a nightmare, never know the peace and solace of just being with her soulmate—the real definition of love—or see his goofy smile across the breakfast table or roll her eyes at his intentionally corny jokes or… Never.

She looks at the chart, considers the procedure, visualizes herself doing it. Her pulse picks up pace. She can’t help feeling excited at the prospect. “Not really, no.” “It’s why we picked you.” “Pardon?” He settles back. “We didn’t think it would be an issue for you.” “Who is ‘we’?” “Doctor Barlow, mostly. He says you’re a bit of a risk-taker.” Ivan quickly waves both hands in front of his face as though clearing away his own words. “No, no, not like that. He meant like a maverick. You understand the best way to improve medical care is to push boundaries, no?”

The truth is, Dr. Barlow was correct. Maggie had read tons over the years on building and creating custom implants via AI and 3D printing—Marc and Trace had been working on something similar with the THUMPR7—but the technology still felt like years in the future. A nose scaffold is not a heart or a liver—but it’s a pretty exciting step. You have to walk before you can run.

“Except,” Maggie says, studying the images, “it will more radically change the way Oleg’s nose appears.” “Yes.” “Most people want a smaller nose.” “Oleg Ragoravich does not.

This is fairly obvious. Some want to look like a favorite celebrity, but between this new nose, the chin implant, and the eye work via the blepharoplasty, Oleg Ragoravich clearly did not want that. He wants to look like someone else. Or at least, not like himself.

Silicone was back in—saline was out. In the nineties, there were headlines about silicone leaks causing cancer and lupus, but after extensive studies, they found no link between silicone breast implants and an increased risk of breast cancer.

The first thing he’d done when they arrived was open her walk-in closet with, she estimated, somewhere between thirty and forty outfits. “All in your size and style,” Ivan informed her, “including…” He gestured to the three formal gowns suitable for, well, a ball.

But yes, artificial intelligence made the selections—a new software program that scours the internet for all your photos and videos, sees what you wear to various events, and creates a wardrobe based on what it believes is your taste.” “Terrific.” But there is no way they could have done all this in, what, twelve hours? Someone has been watching her. For how long?

Greed is not ‘I need more’—it’s the fear of losing what you already have. Of going back. So you hold on tighter and keep trying to climb up. Because that’s the only way you can go. Life won’t let you stand still. You are either on your way up or you’re on your way down. And you’ll do anything not to go down.”

Right now, she wants to find Brovski and get her phone back. She wants to bring up the griefbot. She wants AI Marc to explain to her how the hell the twenty-four-year-old mistress of an oligarch has the exact same one-of-a-kind Serpent and Saint tattoo that he had.

Brovski says, “The helicopter will be here in five minutes. Please hurry.” “Right, got it.” She drops her phone hand to her side and wonders what to do next. That’s when she hears Marc’s tinny voice coming from the phone: “Maggie, why are you with Ivan Brovski?” Maggie’s blood goes cold. She raises the phone back to her face, so she can see Griefbot Marc’s face again. “You know Ivan Brovski?” “Yes.” “How?” “Where are you, Maggie?” “At an oligarch’s house somewhere in Russia.” “Oleg Ragoravich.” “Yes.” “What are you doing there?” “Barlow got me a high-paying concierge gig.” “To do what?” “The breast augmentation I just told you about?” “That’s it?” “No, I also did three facial surgeries on Ragoravich.”

Did I hear Brovski say something about a helicopter?” “I’ve finished the surgeries,” Maggie explains. “They’re flying me home.” “On the copter?” “Yes.”

Marc is scared. “Whatever you do,” he says to her, “don’t get on that helicopter.” The cold rips through her. “Why not?” “There is an abandoned iron ore mine two miles away. No one knows how deep the hole is. Five, six thousand feet at least.” “So?” “So if you get on that helicopter, they will throw you into it.”

“You performed facial surgery to change Ragoravich’s looks, Maggie. They can’t let you live. Do you understand what I’m telling you?”

“Let’s go, Doctor McCabe,” Brovski says. “I’m losing my patience.” “Maggie,” AI Marc says, “you have to run.”

The power of this particular griefbot is both enticing and destructive, but when you think about it, when you really think about it, that’s true of every invention that makes an impact. There is no such thing as a consequence-free discovery. It is what man chooses to do with it.

Maggie feels her body lift and rocket forward through what remains of the front windshield. Shards of glass slice her skin before she smacks into something hard. Her body goes slack. Everything leaves her. Everything turns cold, so cold, a deep, hard, bone-crushing cold she’s never experienced before. And then, mercifully, everything turns black and there is nothing.

“They call me Porkchop,” he says. “Nice to meet you, Mr. Porkchop,” Mrs. Tansmore says. “I bet Doc Barlow never told you he used to be in a motorcycle gang.” “No, he never did.” “We used to say Barlow set the Bar Low, if you catch my drift.” She doesn’t.

‘Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket.’”

The Dubai heat starts in your lungs. The sun is relentless, merciless. It finds you. It beats down upon you. It’s just you and the sun. You have a personal, one-on-one relationship with the sun. There is no middleman, no filter, no cloud cover, no escape. You get the purest hit of the sun. The sun love-bombs you. It’s dry and heavy and clingy. It swarms with an all-consuming furnace-like heat. It suffocates you from within and from without. It saps your energy first, then your spirit.

The bed, of course, faces the floor-to-ceiling windows. Night has fallen. The city is still a mirage, but now it’s one of glitz and shadows. The Burj Khalifa, the famed tower, pierces the night like a silent sentinel. The Dubai Fountain shimmers and glistens. Dubai feels remote and endless from up this high. It sparkles like polished diamonds against a jeweler’s black velvet. It dazzles and explodes. It beckons and holds you at bay with a firm hand.