Robert Sawyer - Mindscan

“No.”

“Removing. Replacing. Modifying. Supplementing. Rewriting. You’ve just testified that none of those things made Karen Bessarian cease to be your mother in your view. Can you then articulate for us precisely what it is about the Karen Bessarian sitting in this courtroom today that makes her not your mother?”

“She just isn’t ,” said Tyler, flatly.

“In what way?”

“In every way. She isn’t.”

“That’s twice, Mr. Horowitz. Are you going to deny her a third time?”

Lopez rose again. “Your honor!”

“Withdrawn,” said Deshawn. “Mr. Horowitz, how much do you personally stand to inherit should this court agree to allow you to put your mother’s will through probate?”

“It’s a lot,” said Tyler.

“Come on, you must know the figure.”

“No, I don’t. I don’t normally handle my mother’s financial affairs.”

“Would it be safe to say that it’s in the tens of billions?” asked Deshawn.

“I suppose.”

“Quite a bit more than thirty pieces of silver, then, isn’t it?”

“Your honor, for Pete’s sake!” said Lopez.

“Withdrawn, withdrawn,” said Deshawn. “Your witness, Ms. Lopez.”

After lunch, Maria Lopez stood up, walked across the well, and faced her client. Tyler seemed both worn down and flustered. His dark olive suit was wrinkled, and his receding hair was disheveled. “Mr. Draper asked you to articulate what made the plaintiff in this case not your actual mother,” said Lopez. “You’ve had time over the break to think about it.”

I wanted to roll my eyes but didn’t yet know how. What she really meant, of course, is that they’d had time to confer over lunch, and that she had now coached him in a better answer.

Lopez continued. “Would you care to try again to tell us why the entity calling itself Karen Bessarian is not in fact your late mother?”

Tyler nodded. “Because she’s, at best, a copy of some aspects of my mother.

There is no continuity of personhood. My mother was born a flesh-and-blood human being. Granted, at some point, a scan of her brain was made, and this … this t hing … was created from it. But my flesh-and-blood mother did not cease to exist the moment the scanning was done; it’s not as if the copy picked up where the original left off. Rather, my flesh-and-blood mother flew on a space-plane to Low Earth Orbit, then took a spaceship to the moon, and settled in at a retirement colony on Lunar Farside. All of that happened to my mother after this copy was made, and this copy has no recollection of any of that. Even if we grant that the copy is identical in every material way with my mother—and I don’t grant that, not for a second—they have had divergent experiences. This copy is no more my mother than my mother’s identical twin sister, if she’d had one, would be my mother.”

Tyler paused, then went on. “Frankly, I don’t care—I really don’t—about whether copied consciousnesses are, in fact, persons in their own right. That’s not the issue.

The issue is whether they are the same person as the original. And, in my heart of hearts, in my intellect, in every fiber of my being, I know that they are not. My mother is dead and gone. I wish—God, how I wish!—that wasn’t true. But it is.” He closed his eyes. “It is.”

“Thank you,” said Lopez.

“Mr. Draper,” said Judge Herrington, “you may call your next witness.”

Deshawn rose. He looked at Tyler, at Herrington, then down at Karen seated next to him. And then, spreading his arms a bit, he said, “Your honor, the plaintiff rests.”

Now that I was cured, I’d been getting some more vigorous exercise—I could take it now, and I didn’t want to lose the strength in my legs; I’d need that when I got back to Earth. Each day at noon, Malcolm and I met at High Eden’s basketball court.

When I arrived today, he was already there, shooting baskets from a standing position. The hoops were hugely high up—a full ten meters—so it required a lot of eye-hand coordination to sink the ball, but he was managing pretty well.

“Hey, Malcolm,” I said, coming into the court. My voice echoed the way it did in such places.

“Jacob,” he said, looking over at me. He sounded a bit wary.

“What?” I said.

“Just hoping not to get my head torn off,” said Malcolm.

“Huh? Oh, yesterday. Look, sorry—I don’t know what came over me. But, listen, have you been watching the TV from Earth?”

Malcolm sent the ball flying up. It went through the hoop, and then made the long, long fall down in slow motion. “Some.”

“Seen any news?”

“No. And it’s been a pleasure not to.”

“Well,” I said, “your son is making headlines down there.’’

Malcolm caught the ball and turned to me. “Really?”

“Uh-huh. He’s representing Karen Bessarian—the uploaded Karen—in a case about her legal personhood being challenged by her son.”

Malcolm dribbled the ball a bit. “That’s my boy!”

“I hate to say this,” I said, “but I hope he loses. I hope the other Karen loses.” I held up my hands, and Malcolm tossed the ball to me.

“Why?”

“Well,” I said, “now that I’m cured, I want to go home. Brian Hades says I can’t because the other me is the legal person. But if that gets struck down…” I dribbled the ball as I moved around the court, then sprung up rising higher and higher and higher, well above Malcolm’s head, then tipped the ball into the basket.

As I was floating down to the ground, Malcolm said. “How far along is the trial?”

“They say it’s only going to last another couple of days.” I folded my legs a bit to absorb the shock of my landing, but there really wasn’t much.

“And you think there’ll be a decision soon that’ll change your circumstances?” asked Malcolm, who was bending over to collect the ball.

“Well, yes,” I said. “Sure. Why not?”

He turned around and gently bounced the ball a couple of times. “Because nothing happens fast in the law. Suppose Deshawn wins—and he’s a damn good lawyer; he probably will.” He took a bead on the net and threw the ball. It sailed up and up, and then, on its way down, went through the hoop. “But winning the first round doesn’t matter.” He ran over—great loping strides—and caught the ball before it hit the ground. “The other side will appeal, and they’ll have to go through the whole thing again.”

He threw the ball again, but this time I think he deliberately missed, as if he were illustrating his point. “And suppose Deshawn loses,” he said. “Well, then, his side will appeal.”

I went to fetch the ball. “Yes, but—”

“And then the appeal will be appealed, and, for a case like this, it’ll go all the way to the Supreme Court.”

I had the ball, but I just held it in my hands. “Oh, surely it’s not that big.”

“Are you kidding?” said Malcolm. “It’s huge!” He let the last word echo for a few second, then: “We’re talking about the end of inheritance taxes. Immortal beings never give up their estates, after all. If it hasn’t already, I’m sure the IRS will join the case. This will drag out for years … and, anyway, all of this is just in the United States. You’re a Canadian; U.S. law doesn’t apply to you.”

“Yes, but surely similar cases will be fought in Canada.”

“Look, if you’re not going to throw the damn ball—” I tossed it to him. “Thanks.”

He started to dribble it. “Immortex may be located in Canada, because of the liberal laws up there.” He paused, then looked at the floor. “I mean down there. But how many Canadians have uploaded so far? Most of Immortex’s clients are rich Americans or Europeans.” He leapt up, sailing higher and higher, and did a slam-dunk. As he drifted down, he said. “And you don’t have any children, do you?”