Robert Sawyer - Mindscan

“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.”

The telescoping Jetway leading to the moonbus was more solid than the ones that connect to airplanes—it had to be air-tight, after all—but the overall appearance was similar. Once I’d reached its end, I was faced with a problem, though. The outer airlock door on the moonbus, set into the moonbus’s silvery white hull, had a window in it, and that was uncovered. But the inner door, on the far side of the little chamber, had its own window, and that one was covered. I wasn’t quite sure how to let the other me know that I’d arrived.

After standing there for half a minute, with what was doubtless a stupid expression on my face, I decided to simply knock on the outer airlock door, hoping the sound would be conducted within.

At last, the covering on the inner window was removed for a moment, and I saw the white-bearded, round face that I’d learned belonged to Brian Hades, the top Immortex official on the moon. I couldn’t hear him, but he spoke to someone—presumably the other me—off to his left, and, a moment later, the outer airlock door clanged open. I stepped in, the outer door closed behind me, and a few seconds later the inner door opened, revealing the flesh-and-blood Jacob Sullivan, with a strange squat gun aimed squarely at where my heart would have been if I’d had one.

“I suppose that’s one solution,” I said, nodding at the gun. “If you get rid of me, there’s no longer an issue about which of us is the real person, is there?”

He hadn’t said anything yet, but the gun wavered a bit in his hand. The two hostages—Brian and a white woman—looked on.

“Still,” I said, “you attended the Immortex sales conference. You must know that anything fired into my chest wouldn’t likely do damage that Dr. Porter and his team couldn’t set right. And my skull is titanium reinforced with a carbon-nanotube mesh. It’s supposed to survive a fall out of an airplane even if the parachute doesn’t open. I’d be mindful of the ricochet if you decide to shoot me in the head.”

Jacob continued to look at me, and then, at last, he relaxed his grip on the gun.

“Have a seat,” he said.

“Actually,” I said, “there’s no need for me to sit anymore, since I don’t get tired. So I’d prefer to stand.”

“Well, I’m going to sit down,” he said. He walked down the aisle and took the first of the passenger seats, the one just to the rear of the bulkhead that blocked off the cockpit. He then swiveled the chair around to face me, the gun still in his hand. Brian Hades, who had been looking on anxiously, was sitting in the second-last row, and the female hostage was sitting in another chair, eyes open so wide she looked like an anime character.

“So,” I said, “how are we going to resolve this?”

Jacob replied, “You know me as well as I do. I’m not going to give up.”

I shrugged a little. “I’m just as determined. And I’m in the right; after all, I’m not taking hostages. What you’re doing is wrong . You know that.” I paused. “We can all walk away from this. All you have to do is put down the gun.”