Mindscan

19

I was so pissed off now at being stuck on the moon, it was startling to meet another person my age who was thrilled to be here. But Dr. Pandit Chandragupta was precisely that.

“Thank you,” he kept saying over and over again, in Brian Hades’s office. “Thank you, thank you. I have always been wanting to go into space—such a thrill!”

I was sitting in a chair. Brian Hades was in his own, bigger chair on the other side of his kidney-shaped desk. For his part, Chandragupta was standing by the round window, looking out over the lunar landscape.

“I’m glad you were able to come, doctor,” I said.

He turned to face me. He had a lean, chiseled face, with dark skin, dark hair, dark eyes, and a dark beard. “Oh, so am I! So am I!”

“Yes,” I said, but of course stopped myself before I added, “I think we’ve established that.”

“And you must be glad, too!” said Chandragupta. “Your condition is quite rare, but I’ve performed this procedure twice now and it has been a complete success.”

“Is there anything special we should do for Mr. Sullivan afterwards?” asked Hades.

Send me home, I thought.

Chandragupta shook his head. “Not really. Of course, this is brain surgery, albeit without any cutting. One must take care; the brain is the most delicate of creations.”

“I understand,” said Hades.

Chandragupta looked out at the moon’s surface again. “What was it Aldrin said?” he asked—whoever Aldrin might be. “ ‘Magnificent desolation.’ ” He shook his head. “Exactly so. Exactly so.” He slowly turned away from the window, and his voice was sad. “But I suppose we must be getting to work, no? The cure will take many hours. Will you come with me to the operating theater?”

The cure. I felt my heart pounding.

Karen was down in her office answering her fan email—she got dozens of messages each day from people who loved her books, and although she had a little program that composed a rough answer to each message, she always went over the responses and often personally modified them.

I was in the living room, watching a baseball game on Karen’s wall screen—the Blue Jays at Yankee Stadium. But when the game ended—the Jays really have to do something about their relief pitching—I turned off the wall, and found myself just staring into space, and—

What do you mean I can’t go home?

The voice was soundless, but completely clear.

You said after some initial testing, I could go home.

“Jake?” I spoke my name aloud in a way I don’t think I ever had before.

Who’s that?

“Jake?” I said again.

Yes? Who is this?

The reply had been immediate; no time lag. Still: “Are you on the moon?”

The moon? No, of course not. That’s where the biological original is.

“Then where are you? Who are you?”

I’m—

But just then Karen entered the room, and the strange voice-that-was-not-a-voice was gone. “Oh, honey, you have to hear this one,” she said, holding an email printout. “It’s from an eight-year-old girl in Venezuela. She says…”

I awoke in the recovery room at High Eden, harsh fluorescent lights glaring into my eyes—but at least I wasn’t looking down on them from above…

My head hurt something fierce and I needed to pee, but I was definitely alive. I thought bitterly for a moment about the other me, down on Earth, in the real world—the one whose head probably never hurt, and who certainly never had to urinate.

I could see Dr. Chandragupta and a female doctor whose name was Ng across the room, talking. Chandragupta seemed to be telling a joke; I couldn’t quite make out the words, but Ng had the this-better-be-good look of someone who was enduring a long setup before the punch line. I supposed that was a positive sign: a surgeon who had just finished an unsuccessful operation wouldn’t be in a jocular mood. I waited until Chandragupta was finished. The payoff was apparently sufficient: Ng laughed out loud, swatted Chandragupta on the forearm, and declared, “That’s awful! ”

Chandragupta smiled broadly, apparently delighted at his own wit. I tried to speak, but my throat was too dry; nothing came out. I forced a sandpapery swallow and tried again. “I—”

Ng looked my way first, then Chandragupta did the same thing. They crossed the room, loomed over me.

“Well, hello,” said Chandragupta, smiling, his dark eyes crinkling as he did so. “How do you feel?”

“Thirsty.”

“Of course.” Chandragupta looked around for a faucet, but it was Ng’s hospital: she knew where it was. She quickly got me a plastic cup full of cold water. I forced my head up from the pillow—it didn’t weigh much, but jackhammers were pounding at my temples. I took a sip, then another. “Thank you,” I said to her, then looked at Chandragupta. “Well?”

“Yes. And you?”

“No, no. I mean, how did it go?”

“Very well, mostly. There was a bit of trouble—the nidus was most convoluted; isolating it, and only it, was tricky. But, in the end—success.”

I felt flush. “So I’m cured?”

“Oh, yes, indeed.”

“No chance of a cascade of ruptured blood vessels?”

He smiled. “No more than anyone else has—so, watch your cholesterol.”

I felt not just lunar-gravity light; I felt weightless. “I’ll do that,” I said.

“Good. Your doppel—”

He stopped himself. He’d been about to say that my doppelganger didn’t have to worry about any such things, but I did.

My doppelganger. That other me. Living my life. I’d have to—

“Code Blue! Emergency!” A female voice came blaring over the wall speaker.

“What the—?” I said. Ng was already racing away.

“Code Blue! Emergency!”

Dr. Chandragupta practically hit his head on the ceiling as he bounded out the door.

“Doc, what’s up?” I called after him. “What’s happening?”

“Code Blue! Emergency!”

“Doc!”

I’d expected a bestselling writer to spend all her day dictating to her computer.

Instead, it seemed Karen spent most of her time on the phone, talking to her literary agent in New York; her film agent in Hollywood; her American editor, also in New York; and her British editor in London.

There was a lot to talk about: Karen was bringing them all up to speed on her new status as a Mindscan. I couldn’t help overhearing some of it; I really wasn’t trying to eavesdrop, but these new ears were just so darned good. Everyone she spoke to seemed excited, not only because Karen was thinking about writing a new novel—she hadn’t felt so energetic in years, she said—but also because they all seemed to think there’d be enormous publicity if she did; Karen was the first-ever novelist to transfer her consciousness.

I wandered around Karen’s house; the thing was huge. She’d given me a quick tour the first day, but it had all been so much to absorb. Still, she’d told me to feel free to poke around, and so I did, looking at the paintings on the walls (all originals, of course), and the thousands of printed books, and her awards cases—yes, plural.

Trophies, certificates, medallions, some great phallic thing called a Hugo, something else called the Newbery, dozens more, and—

…not sure this is what…

I stopped dead in my tracks, strained to listen.

…could be a mistake…

There was a faint whir from the house’s air conditioning, and an even fainter whir from some mechanism or other inside my body, but, still, just at the threshold of perception, there were also words.

…if you see what I mean…

“Hello?” I said, feeling funny speaking aloud when there was no one around. “Hello?”

What the—? Who’s that?

“It’s me. It’s Jake Sullivan.”

I’m Jake Sullivan.

“Apparently. And you’re not the biological original, are you?”

What? No, no. He’s off on the moon.

“But there’s only supposed to be one of us—one upload.”

That’s right. So who the hell are you?

“Umm, I’m the legal copy.”

Yeah? How do you know I’m not?

“Well, where are you?”

Toronto—I think. At least, I don’t remember being taken anywhere.

“But where exactly are you?”

Well, I guess it’s the Immortex facility. But I’ve never seen this room before.

“What does it look like?”

Blue walls—hey, by the way, I’m no longer color-blind. What about you?

“Same thing.”

Amazing, isn’t it?

“What else is in the room?”

Table. A bed, like in a doctor’s office. A diagram of a brain on one wall.

“Any windows? Can you see outside?”

No. Just a door.

“Are you free to come and go as you please?”

I—I don’t know.

“Well, where did you spend last night?”

I don’t remember. Here, I suppose…

“How are you instantiated? In a synthetic body?”

Yes—precisely the one I ordered.

“So am I. Is there anyone else around? Any other Mindscans?”

Not that I can see. What about you? Where are you?

“In Detroit.”

What the hell are you doing there?

“Doesn’t matter.” Funny; I don’t know why I demurred—especially from myself. “But I’ve been to our house in Toronto.”

So you are the official, recognized instantiation, then?

“Yes.”

And I’m some—some bootleg copy…

“So it seems.”

But why?

“I have no idea. But it isn’t right. There’s only supposed to be one instantiation.”

What—what would you do with me, if you found me?

“Pardon?”

You want me shut off, don’t you? I’m an affront to your sense of self.

“Umm, well…”

I’m not sure I should help you. I mean, I don’t like being trapped here, but it beats the alternative you’d propose.

“Look, whatever Immortex is up to, it has to be stopped.”

I … perhaps … if you’ll…

“I’m losing you. You’re breaking up…”

Someone coming … I…

And he was gone. I just hoped he had the good sense not to tip his hand—electronic, battery-driven hand though it might be.

The death of Karen Bessarian came as a shock to all of us on the moon. I mean, I knew intellectually that all these other shed skins were going to die soon, but to have one of them actually expire sent a ripple though the entire community.

I’d liked Karen, and I’d liked her books. Most of us here on the moon had not really bonded yet—we hadn’t known each other long enough. But Karen had certainly had an impact on a lot of lives, although how many of the tears I saw were for her, and how many were more selfish, because she’d driven home the mortality of these people, I couldn’t say. I felt doubly discombobulated, because Karen’s death came immediately on the heels of my own cure. I’m not given to spiritual thoughts, but it was almost as if there’d been some sort of conservation of life force at work.

I was pleased to see that a service was held for Karen. I knew Immortex wouldn’t notify anyone back on Earth of her death, but the company still realized the necessity of laying things to rest, literally and figuratively.

There wasn’t a lot of religion here in the cat heaven of Heaviside. I suppose that wasn’t surprising: people who believed in an afterlife weren’t likely to transfer their consciousness. Still, a very nice, small man named Gabriel Smythe, who had platinum hair, a florid complexion, and a cultured British accent, conducted a lovely, mostly secular service. Most of the other elderly people attended, too; in all, there were about twenty of us. I sat next to Malcolm Draper.

The service was held in a small hall with a dozen or so round tables, each big enough to seat four. It was used for tabletop games, little lectures, and so forth. There was no coffin, but a succession of pictures of Karen, and her lopsided smile, were showing on the wall screens. There were lots of flowers at one end of the room, but I’d arrived early enough to see that only a few bunches were real, gathered, presumably, from the greenhouse; the rest—hundreds of blooms—were holograms that the technician hadn’t turned on until after I’d entered.

Smythe, dressed in a black turtleneck and dark gray jacket, stood at the front of the room. “Karen Bessarian lives on,” he said. He wore half-glasses. Looking over their rims, he said, “She lives on in the hearts and minds of the millions who enjoyed her books, or the movies or games based on them.”

Quietly, a couple of servers had been moving round, handing out ornate goblets of red wine, which surprised me. Karen had been Jewish, but I’d only ever seen liturgical wine at a Catholic service. I accepted the glass offered to me, even though I still had a headache—I wondered when it would go away.

“But, more than that,” said Smythe, “she lives on bodily, back on Earth. We should feel some sorrow over what happened here, but we should also feel joy: joy that Karen transferred in time, joy that she continues on.”

There were a few appreciative murmurs from the audience, but also a few muffled sobs.

And Smythe freely acknowledged those. “Yes,” he said, “it’s sad that we will no longer have Karen with us. We’ll all miss her wit and her courage, her strength and her Southern charm.” He paused while the servers distributed the last of the goblets. “Karen was not very religious, but she was fiercely proud of her Jewish heritage, and so I’d like to propose a toast from the Talmud. Ladies and gentlemen, the wine you have is Kosher, of course. If you’ll raise your glasses…”

We all did so.

Smythe turned to the wall next to him, showing Karen’s face, a calm half-smile on it. He gestured at the image with his goblet, proclaimed “L’chayim!", and then took a drink.

“L’chayim!” we all repeated, drinking as well.

L’chayim! To life!

We were in Karen’s living room in Detroit, watching the wall-screen TV. The ringer for the phone sounded. Karen looked down at the call display. “Hmmm,” was all she said before touching a control. The videophone signal was shunted onto the TV monitor—which blew the picture up more than its resolution really could accommodate; maybe with her old biological eyes, Karen hadn’t noticed that.

“Austin,” she said, acknowledging the hawk-faced man on the screen. “What’s up?”

“Hi, Karen. Um, who is that with you?”

“Austin Steiner, meet Jacob Sullivan.”

“Mr. Steiner,” I said.

“Austin is my lawyer,” said Karen. “Well, one of them, anyway. What’s up, Austin?”

“Umm, it’s a…”

“A private matter?” I said. I got up. “I’ll go—” I was about to say, “get a cup of coffee,” but that was ridiculous. “I’ll go somewhere else.”

Karen smiled. “Thanks, dear.”

I headed off, feeling Steiner’s eyes on me. I went into another room—a room devoted to Ryan’s hobby, the remains of things long dead. I was looking around, vaguely aware of soft voices from next door, when I heard Karen call my name.

“Jake!”

I hurried back to the living room.

“Jake,” repeated Karen, more softly. “I think you should hear this. Austin, tell Jake what you just told me.”

Steiner’s face pinched even further, as if he’d just tasted something unpleasant. “Very well. Ms. Bessarian’s son, Tyler Horowitz, has approached me to have Ms. Bessarian’s will probated.”

“Her will?” I said. “But Karen’s not dead.”

“Tyler seems to think the biological version of Karen has indeed passed on,” said Steiner.

I looked at Karen. These artificial faces didn’t always display emotion well; I wondered what she was thinking. After a moment, though, I turned back to Steiner.

“Even so,” I said, “Karen’s still alive—right here, in Detroit. And the biological Karen wanted this Karen to have her legal rights of personhood.”

Steiner had thin, dark eyebrows. He raised them. “Apparently Tyler wants the court to decide if such a transfer is valid.”

I shook my head. “But, even if Karen’s, um…”

“Skin,” said Steiner. “Isn’t that the term? Her shed skin?”

I nodded. “Even if her skin has passed on, how would Tyler find that out? Immortex doesn’t reveal that information.”

“A bribe, perhaps,” said Steiner. “How much could it possibly have taken to arrange for someone at High Eden to agree to tip him off when the skin expired? Given the amount of money that’s at stake…”

“Is it a lot?” I said. “I don’t mean the whole estate—I mean the portion you left specifically to Tyler.”

“Oh, yes,” said Karen. “Austin?”

“Although Karen has provided lavishly for a number of charities,” he said, “Tyler and his two daughters are the sole individual beneficiaries of Karen’s will. They stand to inherit something in excess of forty billion dollars.”

“Oh, Christ,” I said. I’m not sure what price I’d sell my own mother for, but we were getting near the ballpark…

“You don’t want this to go to court, Karen,” said Steiner. “It’s too risky.”

“So what should I do?” asked Karen.

“Buy him off. Offer him a cash payout of, say, twenty percent of the amount he’d inherit. He’ll be rich enough.”

“Settle?” said Karen. “We’ve been sued unfairly before, Austin.” She looked at me. “It happens to all successful authors. And my policy is never to settle just to make something go away.”

Steiner drew his eyebrows together. “It’s safer than taking this one to the courts. The whole legal basis of your transferred personhood is a house of cards; it’s a brand-new concept, and there’s no case law yet. If you lose…” Steiner’s eyes again fell on me “…everyone like you loses.” He shook his head. “Take my advice, Karen: nip this in the bud. Buy Tyler off.”

I looked at Karen. She was silent for a time, but then she shook her head. “No,” she said. “I am Karen Bessarian. And if I have to prove it, I will.”