“Hey what’s up. Why’d you call me?” Byron said offhandedly as he walked into Simon’s store. He saw Simon seated near the clerk’s counter. As his eyes moved across the room he noticed Simon’s grandfather seated on his LChair at the corner.

“Hey, Mr. Rockwell!” He greeted him.

Seeing that there was no response he turned to Simon and mouthed, “Is he sleeping?” in a low whisper.

Simon looked up at Byron and said nonchalantly, “No, he’s dead.”

Byron did a double-take, “Excuse me?”

“He’s dead.”

“What the fuck?!” Byron screamed. “Did you call his healthcare provider? Where are Karina, Nathan and Horace?”

Simon nodded and replied, “Yes I called them and told them to come in tomorrow. And those three will be back soon.”

Byron slowly made his way opposite Simon and dragged over a seat, “You’re oddly calm about this.” He asked suspiciously.

Simon shrugged in response. Byron looked back at the old man in the corner and asked Simon, “So why’d you call me over exactly?”

“I need your help with something.”

Byron’s eyebrows raised in surprise. “You need MY help? Getting rid of a body?” Byron chuckled, but then he slapped his mouth lightly and apologised.

Simon ignored Byron as he continued. “We’ve been working together for quite some time now haven’t we? Over the many years we’ve worked, I don’t think you didn’t notice any peculiarities in my behaviour.”

Byron nodded and commented, “Well yea. So?”

Simon prodded further. “Well?”

Byron immediately responded. “Well? I mean sure I noticed that you had difficulty empathising in certain situations. But not like that’s a big deal or anything.”

Simon nodded in satisfaction, “And so, I need… guidance regarding a choice I have before me.”

Simon sighed and started explaining, “Hypothetically. If you learned something that completely flipped over the preconceived beliefs you had about yourself and your family, what would you do?”

Byron’s eyebrows furrowed. “The question’s pretty open-ended. Can you make it more specific?”

Simon nodded and continued. “Do you think it’s right, to tell the truth to your family if knowing it would make them realise that their entire life was built on lies?”

Byron’s head bobbed in accordance. As he started to contemplate his response he hunched over in his seat.

“That reminds me of a really old movie I saw way back. I forgot the name, but I remember the story. So basically, it went like this. Humankind has been enslaved by alien species and is plugged into a virtual world that they call the Matrix -” As if he struck an epiphany, Byron suddenly exclaimed, “Oh right! The movie was called the Matrix!”

“Anyways, the matrix is basically a kind of perfect, regular world if you will. The humans live in ignorance as they spend their lives within the simulation not knowing anything. But within the simulation, there exist a few enlightened individuals that know the truth. They recruit the protagonist and give him two choices in the form of two coloured pills. One choice is to enlighten himself and get unplugged from the simulation. The other is to forget everything and remain ignorant, and spend his life as he did before.”

Byron paused as he finished the summary. He then spoke to Simon, “The fact that the protagonist was living in a vivid and hyper-realistic simulation shattered his entire perception of self. But you see he had a choice. He could either choose to accept it or forget it. That’s what matters the most.”

In a serious tone, he asked Simon while nudging his head in the old man’s direction, “He told you about your past, didn’t he? You’re wondering if you should tell the other three?”

Simon hummed in response.

“Let me ask you this. Are they curious about their pasts?”

Simon shook his head.

“Then there’s no point in telling them. Sometimes, it’s better to live in ignorance than learn an unnecessary truth.”

Simon was surprised by Byron’s response. While he felt that the outcome was illogical, the thought process did seem to have some credibility. Still, Simon couldn’t help asking, “But that doesn’t make sense. To know the truth means that you are better prepared. I didn’t mind learning about the truth. It IS about ME.”

Byron bit his lips as he considered his answer. “Well. Let’s consider it from another perspective. To a large extent, human reaction to stimuli is similar to chemical reactions. All you need to do is to equate the magnitude and duration. Take, for example, getting a low score in an exam. If you reveal that fact to your guardian, you should expect a negative reaction. But how severe do you think it will be, and how long do you think this reaction will be dragged out for?”

“Now if we replace the stimulus with another example like accidentally burning down your house. That will definitely have a reaction of a greater magnitude and will last for quite a bit of time. So what you should try to do, is to gauge the expected magnitude and severity of the reaction of revealing the truth about your past to your siblings. Just remember that in a sense, the truth about their past might be a form of betrayal. And since the person responsible is well…” Byron nudged his head towards the old man’s corpse, “They have no way to seek catharsis.”

Simon pondered on that thought. He knew for a fact that all the information his grandfather revealed to him was of significant importance. And he also knew that knowing the truth would shake his siblings to their core.

“If you ask me, it’s a little unfair that he dropped a massive bomb on you and took off, pardon the phrasing,” Byron commented lightly.

Taking Byron’s advice, Simon started to mentally draw a diagram to evaluate the severity of the reaction if he chose to reveal the truth.

‘They’d definitely be devastated.’ He commented internally. But how devastated would they be?

‘It will be almost as if their entire life was a lie. They’d feel their life wouldn’t have any purpose. They would definitely be depressed. Would they contemplate suicide? It’s possible…’

Simon scratched his forehead as he started to work parts of his brain that he’d never touched before. He moved towards his computer and logged onto a search engine. His fingers tapped onto the keyboard and numerous windows opened up displaying a multitude of search results.

[Signs of “depression”]

[“consequences” of “lying” to your “younger siblings”]

[Betrayal + family members]

[How to give life purpose?]

[….]

Byron chuckled inwardly as he saw Simon’s search parameters. And after an excruciatingly long 15 minutes of searching the net, Simon reached a conclusion.

‘I can’t tell them the whole truth. No! If they realise what Grandpa did to them they’d fall into a bottomless hole. They need to know the truth, but also need a purpose to move forward so that they don’t regress into a depression spiral.’

While Simon was going through his options, the door to the shop slid open and three familiar faces streamed in one after another.

“Hey, Simon! Byron, what are you doing here?” Karina said as she stepped in first, with a magnificently beaming smile.

“Hey, Grandpa! Simon, what’s he doing sleeping out here? Do you need help moving him to the bed? Horace let’s go help!” She said dragging Horace towards the old man.

Nathan cast a glance towards the motionless old man and stood in place. His face, the smile on his usually statuesque face morphed into shock, then settled onto anguish as a shocking realisation hit him. With his observation skills, he immediately knew that his grandfather had passed away. The energy left his legs, and with an audible thump, he collapsed onto the floor.

The sight surprised Horace who came in behind him. He then followed Nathan’s gaze and saw his grandfather slumped in the corner. It took 5 seconds, but the same realisation dawned on him. He couldn’t contain his emotions and a primal scream escaped from him, “GRANDPA!”

He dropped his backpack and rushed towards the old man, with tears streaming down his face. In his rush, he nearly shoved Karina out of the way. Horace landed on his knees next to the old man and shoved his face onto the old man’s lap as he cried unabatedly.

The whole sight threw Karina for a loop. She had tripped on her own feet after Horace shoved her aside, but had lithely caught herself and landed onto a sofa nearby. She looked at Horace’s sorry figure and Nathan’s weak form, she then turned to look at Simon who remained unfazed. She finally looked at Byron who returned an empathetic nod.

“No way. No! He can’t have, right? Simon? Grandpa’s just asleep, right Simon?” She asked pleadingly. But her tone betrayed a sense of resignation. She slowly got up from her seat and crawled towards her grandfather’s corpse.

She nudged the old man and called his name slowly. Not seeing any response, she crumbled emotionally and collapsed onto her knees. She hugged the old man’s waist and cried.

The night, which was as bright as day on Eaton I, was dreary and long. Karina and Horace cried into their pillows as they eventually found sleep. Nathan crawled out of his bed in the middle of the night and edged into the corner of his bedroom in the fetal position, and muffled his cries with his knees. For the triplets, the loss of their grandfather was an immense blow. The existence of the old man was the only thing that separated them from the orphans on the 23rd floor. Although he wasn’t related to them by blood, the mere presence of a guardian figure was an emotional pillar for the three children. And unknowingly they had become dependent on him.

Simon, on the other hand, didn’t suffer like them. For better or worse his emotional detachment made it easier for him to digest the loss. To him, his grandfather’s passing was an eventuality that he was prepared for. However, he also suffered a sleepless night. That was because he was brainstorming what to say tomorrow.

Healthcare facilities had become revamped in the modern age, much like many government-subsidised services of the 21st century. To understand how the hospitals and clinics evolved to their current form, it is worth understanding the dynamics between insurance companies and healthcare facilities.

Before, it was common for an individual to subscribe to a healthcare insurance plan. Depending on the level of coverage required, the individual could opt for a plan with a pre-calculated premium that took into consideration the level of risk that the company can leverage upon offering the service. For instance, if the insurance plan covered pre-existing conditions, it would have a higher premium since there is a greater expected expenditure by the individual on healthcare facilities.

Over time, as more corporations started sprouting in human space, the first government-subsidised industry to succumb to the new trend were the healthcare facilities. The executives and the owners of these facilities found it tedious to form connections with insurance companies and to manage transactions thusly. Instead, they found it more efficient to simply absorb the insurance company itself and change their modus operandi to a subscription-based service. Essentially, an individual would subscribe to a healthcare plan with a local healthcare service provider, and service providers would take full responsibility for managing the individual’s health-related procedures such as regular check-ups, emergency procedures, surgeries, scans and so on. At the lowest levels, these services would only cover mundane procedures, but for those willing to subscribe to more extensive and expensive plans, it would cover more obscure procedures and even dental.

This one-to-one catering automatically alienated a large portion of the population that could not afford subscription fees. Additionally, what if someone without a subscription faced an emergency? Well, they can only resign to their fates. However, the actuaries working for these healthcare service providers concluded that in the end there was really not much of a difference if they compared the system in place now, versus that in the 21st century. At least now, the consumer had a greater guarantee with regards to their treatments. Back then people at the bottom rungs of society would clamour for access to health insurance, even in the most advanced of countries. But now, even those at the lowest class could afford basic healthcare.

Nowadays, like most corporations, healthcare service providers tended to expand vertically. It was not uncommon for a healthcare service provider to offer funeral services. These included burial, cremation, donation, taxidermy, disintegration by disposal into a sun, shredding, mulching, and many more.

Simon’s grandfather had subscribed to the middling service package offered by Red Healthcare and Funeral Services, one of the local companies operating in this sector. Multi-system healthcare service providers were uncommon since they became less profitable as the reach of the corporation expanded beyond planetary limits. Since the service couldn’t be decentralised, working at a planetary scale was by itself an arduous and costly task. This barrier also acted as a natural market regulator, ensuring that healthcare prices weren’t blown out of proportion.

It was a quarter to 8am Old Earth Time. 1 hour and 15 minutes left before Simon’s grandfather’s funeral.