Robert Sawyer - Mindscan

“You’re making a mountain out of a molehill,” said Porter, crossing his arms in front of his chest.

Lopez shook her head. “Oh, I’d never dream of doing that. But I would dream of other things—unlike that construct over there pretending to be Karen Bessarian.”

“Objection!” said Deshawn. “Your honor!”

“Save it for closing arguments, Ms. Lopez,” said Herrington.

Lopez bowed graciously toward the bench. “Of course, your honor. No further questions.”

I went back to my rooms—I couldn’t bring myself to call it my “home”—at High Eden, and took the first of the Toraplaxin pills. I then lay down on my couch, rubbing my forehead, hoping the medicine would help. At my spoken command, the image of Lake Louise disappeared from the wall and was replaced by the CBC News. I wondered if Immortex monitored what shows we were watching. I wouldn’t be surprised. Why, I bet they even—

Suddenly my heart jumped so hard it felt like I’d been kicked in the sternum.

They were doing a story about Karen Bessarian.

The other Karen Bessarian.

“Bookmark this!” I snapped into the air.

The dateline superimposed on the screen said, “Detroit.” A white female reporter was standing outside an old building there. “A bizarre battle is taking place in this Michigan courthouse,” said the woman. “The son of bestselling novelist Karen Bessarian, author of the megapopular DinoWorld series, is being sued by an entity claiming to be Karen Bessarian…”

I watched, riveted. It took me a moment to recognize Karen: she’d opted for a substantially younger face. But, as footage of the trial ran, it was clearly her—or, at least, the uploaded version of her.

And her claim to being the legal, actual Karen Bessarian was being challenged in the courts! The reporter wasn’t offering an opinion about which way she thought the trial would go, but the mere fact that this charade might come tumbling down buoyed me immensely. Surely Brian Hades couldn’t keep me here much longer! Surely he’d have to let me return to Earth, let me resume my old life! To do anything else, why, that’d be tantamount to holding me hostage…

“The plaintiff calls Tyler Horowitz,” said Deshawn, rising.

I could see Karen shifting uncomfortably in her seat next to where Deshawn was now standing.

Tyler looked defiant in the witness stand, as Deshawn began his questioning. “Mr. Horowitz, your advocate somehow knew your mother’s personal identification number. Did you have a hand in that?”

“Umm, I, ah, I take the Fifth.”

“Mr. Horowitz, it’s not a crime to know someone else’s PIN. If they’re careless enough to make it discoverable, that’s their problem, not yours. Unless, of course, you’ve used it to fraudulently gain access to your mother’s funds, in which case, of course, your assertion of your Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination should stand. Is that your wish?”

“I haven’t touched a cent of my mother’s money,” said Tyler, sharply.

“No, no, of course not,” said Deshawn, who waited the perfect beat before adding, “Yet.”

Lopez was on her feet. “Objection, your honor!”

“Sustained,” said Herrington. “Watch it, Mr. Draper.”

Deshawn tipped his shaved head toward the bench. “My apologies, your honor. Mr. Horowitz, if you want me to leave your ability to dip into your mother’s bank account alone, I will.”

“Damn it, you’re twisting everything,” said Tyler. “I—look, years ago, my mother mentioned that her PIN was the extension number of where she’d worked when she was pregnant with me; she’d worked in fundraising for Georgia State University then. When Ms. Lopez asked, I called the archivist there, and got him to look up an old internal telephone directory. So you see, nothing nefarious.”

Deshawn nodded. “Of course not.”

He was quiet for several seconds, and finally Judge Herrington prompted him. “Mr. Draper?”

Deshawn started to sit down, as if finished with his direct but before his bottom touched his chair, he rose again, and said, in a ringing voice, “Mr. Horowitz, do you love your mother?”

“I did, yes, very much,” he said. “She’s dead now.”

“Is she?” said Deshawn. “You don’t recognize that the woman sitting here beside me is, in fact, your mother?”

“That’s not a woman. It’s not a human being. It’s a robot, a machine.”

“And yet it contains the memories of your mother, does it not?”

“Supposedly.”

“Are those memories accurate? Have you ever noticed her failing to get the details right about something that you yourself also recall?”

“No, never,” said Tyler. “The memories are indeed accurate.”

“And so in what way is this being not your mother?”

“In every way,” said Tyler. “My mother was flesh and blood.”

“I see. Now, let me ask you some specific questions. Your mother, as we’ve learned, was born in 1960—and so grew up with twentieth-century dentistry.” Deshawn shuddered at the barbaric thought. “I understand that she has fillings in some of her teeth, correct?”

“ Had fillings,” said Tyler. “Yes, I believe that’s true.”

“Now, the mere fact that parts of the natural enamel of her teeth had been replaced with something called ‘amalgam,’ an alloy of silver and mercury—mercury!—didn’t make her any less your mother, in your eyes, correct?”

“Those fillings were all done before I was born.”

“Yes, yes. But you didn’t view them as alien or foreign. They were just part of your mother.”

Tyler narrowed his eyes. “I suppose.”

“And I understand your mother also had a hip replacement fifteen years ago.”

“That’s true, yes.”

“But the fact that her hip was artificial—that didn’t make her any less your mother, did it?”

“No.”

“And I understand your mother has no tonsils—more twentieth-century barbaric medicine, ripping out parts of the body willy-nilly.”

“That’s correct, yes,” said Tyler. “She had no tonsils.”

“But that lack didn’t make her anything less than a complete human in your eyes, did it?”

“Well—no. No, it didn’t.”

“And, isn’t it true that your mother had laser-k surgery to modify the shape of her eye, in order to improve her vision?”

“Yes, that’s right.”

“Did that change your view of her?”

“It only changed her view of me.”

“What? Ah, yes. Clever. In any event, in recent years, I believe it’s true that your mother also had a pair of cochlear implants installed, to aid her hearing. Isn’t that so?”

“Yes.”

“Did that change your view of her?” asked Deshawn.

“No,” said Tyler.

“And, as your mother testified earlier, she had genetic therapy to rewrite her DNA so as to eliminate the genes that had already caused her to have one bout with breast cancer. But that didn’t alter your view of her, did it?”

“No, it didn’t.”

“So removing parts of her body—as in the tonsillectomy—didn’t alter your view of her, correct?”

“Well, yes.”

“And replacing parts of her body, as in the dental fillings and the artificial hip, didn’t alter your view of her, correct?”

“Correct.”

“And modifying parts of her body, as in the reshaping of her eye through laser surgery, that didn’t alter your view of her, correct?”

“Correct.”

“And adding new parts to her body, such as the cochlear hearing-aid implants, that didn’t alter your view of her, either, correct?”

“Correct.”

“And even rewriting her genetic code to remove bad genes, that didn’t alter your view of her, either, did it?”