Rayalial escorted Nieniel through the entrance of the finger food restaurant where he decided to take his deceased girlfriend to. “…so it turns out Begalius had been trapped in a quanta-nanocode program of virtually an infinite loop. Begalius was still Begalius, but he couldn’t do anything but loop until the program was stopped. It had been very clever technology.”
Nieniel/Aquari already knew all this since Deliadre had told her, but she had been polite. “The old finger food restaurant. I have many memories of you and Nieniel coming here. I see why you want to relive the experience.”
Rayalial nodded in response to the image of Aquari that still displayed above Nieniel’s head in front of her horn, and then he smiled at her face. He held the chair while Nieniel sat. He had been a perfect gentleman all evening. Finger food had become one way Eigalli liked to enjoy the experience of eating. It definitely had been an alternative to washing dishes. Each table at a finger food restaurant would be equipped with indentations where the hands were placed. After placing the order the customer waited at the table with a hand on the plate mechanism. It didn’t take long and soon nourishment would be introduced into the blood stream. Not only that but chemicals were introduced that went directly to the taste buds, which stimulated different flavors. Some customers insist on a plate mechanism for each hand, and even liked to mix different orders between the hands. At any time the hand could be removed and a taste just enjoyed as chemical stimulated taste buds to make the flavor linger in the mouth. It had become a clever high nano-tech idea that had caught on with the food-loving Eigalli. The technology came from ancient times in the past when long space journeys were nourished this way to manage provisions. Customers were advised not to live strictly on a finger food only diet since it could result in atrophy of the digestive organs and vital digestive enzymes. The process did also stimulate the stomach, and would inflate the organ to create a sensation of fullness, but there would be no food in the stomach.
They each place an order on the menus that were received from a Golimechoid waiter. They told the waiter what they wanted as only a formality said to enhance the eating experience since they also pressed buttons on the menus to place the order that were finalized by a ‘place order’ button. Finger food restaurants were all about creating a totally convincing and nourishing eating experience that would be completely virtual except for the quanta-nourishing programs that inserted nourishment and hormone-like chemicals to produce the sensations associated with the eating experience.
“I’ll have the sneklee in the bopolomaiz sauce, with a side of ogna peal and a squilpom.” Rayalial leaned over toward Nieniel as he said ‘squilpom.’ His expression seemed to indicate that Nieniel should try it. “And I’ll wash that down with detentee.”
Aquari went with something familiar to Nieniel. “I’ll have the hesh steak with traldo on the side, and I guess I’ll try the squilpom.” She looked at Rayalial as she ordered it, and he smiled in approval. “I’ll also drink the detentee.”
Above their table were microscopic nano-cameras and data input devices that were monitoring the pre-orchestrated dinner date between Nieniel/Aquari and Rayalial. Others watched on the other side of one of the microscopic audio/video input devices that flew across the table between them. On the other side of the microscopic input device Deliadre’s lab existed where she and the Eigalli avatar of Goag Ralus both gazed at the dinner on a video screen.
Deliadre said, “Rayalial doesn’t have to be all obvious about the squilpom. The restaurant has instructions to feed her squilpom no matter what she orders. I think if it had come as a surprise it would increase the probability of triggering the hypno-stimulation of her ego synapses that exists in her lower-brain frontal lobe.”
Goag Ralus patted Deliadre on the shoulder. “Don’t worry. Rayalial is doing a fine job. Nieniel knew what she was doing when she set this up back when she still lived. She told me we only need Aquari to cooperate, which he has done so far.”
At the dinner they both sat smiling at each other in silence. Finger food dinners were usually enjoyed in silence since it made eating all the more an introspective experience. Hologram images of the ordered food were succulently displayed on the table to slowly disappear with each bite, and for olfactory stimulation aromas were also emanating from the table. A group of young Eigalli in a far away booth were being the exception to the silence rule. Others in the restaurant could be heard giggling and talking about each virtual bite of food. Another couple were there like Nieniel and Rayalial, only they obviously found the dinner to be a much more mutually sensual experience.
The hesh steak stimulated Nieniel’s gums with the sensation that she sank her teeth into a juicy side of perfectly marinated and cooked flesh of the hesh. She noticed she could move two fingers to the side and have a bite of traldo. Aquari mused this to be a pleasurable experience for himself while the Nieniel side of him began releasing old emotions from her times here with Rayalial. He wasn’t so bad after all, thought Aquari. At first Aquari feared this would be uncomfortable having dinner with a needy and clingy fellow desperate enough to date an old woman who had been dead for almost a third of a tek. Her eyes were fixed on Rayalial by an unseen impulse, as if unable to appreciate the delicious looking food holograms on the table. Rayalial smiled looking back at Nieniel while enjoying his own dinner. Old feelings in Nieniel seemed to come to life, setting off an old worry of Aquari’s. “I’m remembering something that Nieniel had hidden from me in this memory. What’s really going …”
Just then the taste of squilpom filled the mouth of Nieniel. She removed her hand but the lingering taste of squilpom made her face contort as if about to vomit. “Rayalial! You must have known about this hypnotic suggestion activating a neural circuit in this body’s deceased ego faculty.”
Rayalial no longer smiled. “I did know of this Aquari. It was Nieniel herself who put me up to it before she died.”
“All to settle an old argument we had way back then?!?” Aquari once again became reminded of the extremes that curious Eigalli will go to in order to obtain knowledge. It had been a reckless trait definitely inherited from Nephaprican ancestry. “I can’t turn this off! The activated neural circuitry is causing this brain to project a phantasm on our objective experience.”
Then the room became suddenly brighter with an extra illumination that both Rayalial and Aquari turned their heads toward at the same time. They both looked at the source of the new light that appeared in the room. The giggling from the far away table silenced into whispers as they also turned to see where that light came from. It started as what appeared to be luminous smoke that began to coagulate into the image of a much younger looking Nieniel. The ethereal see-through Nieniel spoke. “Hello Aquari. I’m sorry to have put you through all of this. Before you say anything I understand now how reckless this was.”
Deliadre’s eyes showed that she couldn’t believe what she saw even though she knew what would happen. “It is mother. I have to go there and speak to her.”
Goag Ralus began to stop her. “Your mother specified for you to observe this more objectively from here. Rayalial has a list of discussion points to record.”
“I … I have to speak to her again.” It became an emotional need beyond science that she herself didn’t even anticipate. Deliadre tried in vain to stop herself from this unscientific behavior.
Goag Ralus had an idea. “Can you telepathically contact her?” Deliadre immediately began to try, but only contacted the body of Nieniel inhabited by Aquari who told her, “I knew you were going to do something like this Deliadre. The ego phantasm projected by a single brain is not the same as what your mother has become.”
Deliadre continued the telepathic conversation. “So you concede that she has continued on after death after all.”
Aquari thought in reply, “I concede only the opposite. Your mother died a long time a
go and ceased to exist. What has continued always has continued, has never really lived, and shall never die.”
The image on the laboratory video screen of Nieniel’s ghost spoke up. “Are you in telepathic communication with my daughter Deliadre? Tell her hello for me Aquari.”
At that Deliadre ran out of the room to get to the nearby finger food restaurant. She just had to get there before her mother finally disappeared, this time forever. By the time she arrived her mother’s ghost still existed there in a brilliant display of light shaped just like her mother. The whole restaurant had taken an interest in this spectacle. Deliadre recognized her mother’s old familiar body language that most beings didn’t even realize they memorize. It was her mother. Aquari had Nieniel’s actual body in a skeptical pose with arms crossed and an expression of exasperated tolerance for the whole scene. The experiment had gone on since Deliadre ran out of the lab, and Rayalial had been questioning the apparition.
The apparition answered. “I have been expanding into the all since my death. I realize what Aquari means when he says that I am not that."
Aquari/Nieniel interjected. “The ALL however, is an illusion caused by the phenomenon of duality that you mistakenly remain attached to. The disembodied phantasm must dismiss the all, and become the nothing beyond.”
Deliadre approached the phantom Nieniel, “Mother? It’s me Deliadre.”
“Hello Deliadre. I’m glad you came here after all for a last goodbye.”
“What is it like for you mother? What is on the other side?”
“I’m afraid my answer is that I still do not know. It was wrong for me to do this because it has caused me to linger without really going beyond.”
Aquari interrupted. “Nieniel did go beyond a long time ago. You are a phantasm of my over excited brain.”
“I still gotta disagree Aquari.” It had been one of the many intense discussions Aquari used to travel impossible galactic distances in order to have with Nieniel, back when she still lived. Aquari caught himself enjoying the nostalgia.
The apparition eventually turned to say a final goodbye to her daughter. “Aquari makes a good point. I’m afraid we must agree even though it is conflicting, and even paradoxical perspectives that we both find ourselves defending. It’s like a two-sided coin where each side can’t endorse the existence of the other side because each lacks the ability to look in the direction of the other side.”
“But what are you now mother?”
“I’ve become a sort of photonic being like Aquari. At least that seems to point toward an accurate answer. Existing is dream-like experiences separated by swoons of timeless nothing. I’ve come to vibrate faster than this universe, but I have willingly lingered here, and re-animating my dead brain’s ego phantasm has slowed me down enough to appear before you from out of a swoon. When you’ve gathered all the data for this event I must request from you, my daughter who loved me, to please disintegrate my dead body. The phantom matter created by the body’s virtual particle field is holding me in place here, and I must go beyond.”
Deliadre then had a tearful goodbye with the apparition and promised she would disintegrate her corpse after all this. The apparition eventually could not stay, and explained that she had to return to her new vibration beyond the speed of light.