Mindscan

39

Two of me.

It was damned confusing, but I found myself thinking of him as Jacob, and me as Jake. It was one of those little mental tricks that we need more of as we get older.

He was Jacob, with the OB at the end standing for “original body.” And I was Jake, with the final E for “electronic.”

I found that I, Jake, couldn’t take my eyes off the videophone screen, and its image of Jacob, my shed skin. Until a few weeks ago, we’d been the same person, and…

And prior to that, I hadn’t existed at all. He, Jacob, was the one who’d really had all the experiences I only thought I’d had. He was the one with the scar on his right arm from falling out of a tree at twelve, the one with the damaged ligaments in his left ankle from tumbling down some stairs, the one who’d had the arteriovenous malformation, the one who’d watched my father collapse, the one who’d made love with Rebecca, the one who’d actually seen the world with the limited palette our shared memories were painted in.

“I’m going to come over there,” I said to the videophone.

“Over where?” replied Jacob.

“To the moonbus. To see you.”

“No,” Jacob said. “Don’t do that. Stay where you are.”

“Why?” I replied. “Because it’s easier to deny my personhood, and my rights, when I’m just a bunch of pixels on a tiny display screen?”

“I’m not an idiot,” Jacob said, “so don’t treat me like one. I’ve got the situation contained. You coming out here will destabilize it.”

“I really don’t think you have a choice,” I said.

“Sure I do. I don’t have to open the airlock.”

“All right,” I said, conceding the point, “you can keep me out. But, come on, if you’re only going to talk to me by phone, I might as well have never left Earth.”

There was a pause, then Jacob said: “All right. Cards on the table, broski. You’re here because I want you to agree to stay here, in my place.”

I was taken aback, but I’m sure nothing in my artificial physiology betrayed that. I said, as calmly as I could, “You know I can’t do that.”

“Hear me out,” Jacob said, raising a hand. “I’m not asking for anything awful. Look, how long are you going to live?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “A long time.”

“A very long time,” he said. “Centuries, at least.”

“Unless something bad happens, yes.”

“And how long have I got left?”

“I don’t know,” I said.

“Sure you do,” said Jacob. “I no longer suffer from Katerinsky’s syndrome, so I’ve likely got as much time left as any male born in Canada in 2001—another fifty years, if I’m lucky. That’s everything I’ve got left—and it’s nothing to you. You’ll have ten times that amount, a hundred times, maybe more. All I’m asking is you let me live out those fifty years—or less, and it could be a lot less—down on Earth.”

“And—and what about me?”

“You stay here, at this wonderful resort of High Eden.” He looked at me, searching for my reaction. “Spend fifty years having a holiday—Christ, let’s be honest, that’s what we do most of the time anyway, right? It’s like the Vegas strip here, like the best cruise ship ever.” He paused. “Look, I saw some of the trial coverage. I know it’s not going well. Do you want to spend the next x number of years down there fighting legal battles, or do you want to just relax up here, and let all that get sorted out? You know eventually uploads will have full rights of personhood—why not just take a vacation here until that’s the case, then return to Earth triumphant?”

I stared at him, at my … my progenitor. “I don’t want to be unfair to you,” I said slowly, “but…”

“Please,” said the other me, an imploring note in his voice. “It’s not that much to ask, is it? You still get immortality, and I get the handful of decades that I was being cheated out of.”

I looked at Karen. She looked at me. I doubted either of us could read the other’s expression. I turned back to the screen, thinking.

My mother would be happy; she’d never agree to upload herself, of course, not with her belief in souls, but this way she’d have her son back for the remainder of his life.

And my father—well, I wasn’t visiting him at all now. Jacob could go back to seeing him, dealing with all the mixed emotions, all the heartbreak, all the guilt. And by the time I returned to Earth, decades hence, my dad would be gone, too. Plus, if flesh-and-blood Jacob returned to Earth, Clamhead would be happy. Even, maybe, Rebecca would be happy.

I opened my artificial lips to reply, but, before I did so, Karen spoke up. “Absolutely not!” she said in that Southern-accented voice of hers. “I’ve got a life down on Earth, and there’s no me left to return to there from here. I’ve got books I want to write, intellectual property I’m going to have to fight to protect, and places I want to go—and I want Jake with me.”

She didn’t indicate me in any way, but the simple use of my name as if there was only one entity it could possibly refer to made the other me frown. I let Karen’s words hang in the air for a moment, then said into the camera, “You heard the lady. No deal.”

“You don’t want to push me,” said Jacob.

“No, I don’t. But I’m not going to keep talking like this, either. I’m coming over to the moonbus to see you. Face to face.” I paused, then, with a nod, added, “Man to man.”

“No,” said the other me. “I won’t let you in.”

“Yes, you will,” I said. “I know you.”