Stephen Donald Huff

Live-Jack Stephen Donald Huff

Dire questions inevitably linger when someone disappears from a troubled marriage... from a troubled life... from the entire world. When Efren Sinclair's wife takes a permanent vacation from their comfortable existence, all eyes turn to him, accusatory and condemning. Everyone is certain he murdered her. Nobody believes the 'woman' calling his children each night before bedtime is Leah Sinclair. Instead, his family and friends suspect her husband has alibied himself with an industrial grade Live-Jack, an artificially intelligent system capable of passing the forensic Turing Test for Sentience.

While they cannot charge him since they cannot produce a body, investigators will never believe Mrs. Sinclair is alive until she appears physically before the court, and this she has vowed never to do. Though she refuses to return home, the mysterious person communicating with her family via commlink appears, speaks and acts with exacting mimicry of Leah Sinclair, replete with all her quirks, memories and flaws. The performance is utterly convincing. After relentless proof-of-life interactions with his absent 'wife', even her husband begins to doubt his grasp on reality. More curiously still, his relationship with his beloved children eventually takes a disturbing turn for the fantastic. Perhaps we all should ask... Which is real? Which is Live-Jack?