Robert Sawyer - Mindscan

She barked her agreement, and I headed for the door.

Immortex’s facility was in Markham, a high-tech haven in the northern part of Toronto. I drove out to my appointment, heading east along the 407—somewhat irritated that I had to do the driving. Where the hell was the self-driving car? I understood that flying cars would likely never exist—too much potential for major damage when one came crashing out of the sky. But when I’d been a boy, they’d promised there would be self-driving cars soon. Alas, so many of the things that had been predicted had been based on the school of thought known as strong AI—the notion that artificial intelligence as powerful, intuitive, and effective as human intelligence would soon be developed. The complete failure of strong AI had taken a lot of people by surprise.

Immortex’s technique detoured around that roadblock. Instead of replicating consciousness—which would require understanding exactly how it worked—the Immortex scientists simply copied consciousness. The copy was as intelligent, and as aware, as the original. But a de novo AI, programmed from the ground up, such as Hal 9000—the computer from that tedious movie whose title was the year I had been born—was still an unfulfilled fantasy.

Immortex’s facility wasn’t large—but, then, they weren’t a high-volume business. Not yet. I noted that the entire first row of parking spaces was designated for handicapped visitors—far more than Ontario law required, but, then again, Immortex catered to an unusual demographic. I parked in the second row and got out.

The wall of heat hit me like a physical blow. Southern Ontario in August had supposedly been hot and muggy even a century ago. Little incremental increases, year by year, had all but banished snow from Toronto’s winters and had made high summer almost unbearable. Still, I couldn’t complain too much; those in the southern U.S. had it far, far worse—doubtless that was one of the reasons that Karen had moved from the South to Detroit.

I got my overnight bag, with the things I’d need for my stay here at Immortex, out of the back seat. I then walked quickly to the front door, but found myself perspiring as I did so. That would be another advantage of an artificial body, no doubt: no more sweating like the proverbial pig. Still, I might have been sweating anyway today, even if it hadn’t been so bloody hot; I was certainly nervous. I went through the revolving glass door, and took a nice, deep breath of the cool air inside. I then presented myself to the receptionist, who was seated behind a long granite counter. “Hi,” I said, surprised at how dry my mouth was. “I’m Jacob Sullivan.”

The receptionist was a young, pretty, white woman. I was just as used to seeing men holding that job, but the clients of Immortex had grown up in the last century—they expected eye candy at the front desk. She consulted an air screen, holographic data floating in front of her. “Ah, yes. You’re a bit early, I’m afraid; they’re still calibrating the Mindscan equipment.” She looked at my overnight bag, then said, “Do you also have your luggage for the moon?”

Words I’d never thought I’d hear in my life. “In the trunk of my car,” I said.

“You understand the mass-allowance limits? Of course, you can take more, but we’ll have to charge you for it, and it might not go on today’s flight.”

“No, that’s fine. I ended up not bringing very much. Just a few changes of clothes.”

“You won’t miss your old stuff,” said the woman. “High Eden is fabulous, and they have everything you could possibly want.”

“Have you been there?”

“Me? No, not yet. But, you know, in a few decades…”

“Really? You’re planning to upload?”

“Oh, sure. Immortex has a great employee plan for that. It helps you save for the Mindscan process, and the expenses of keeping your original alive on the moon.”

“Well … um, see you in…”

The woman laughed. “I’m twenty-two, Mr. Sullivan. Don’t take this personally, but I’ll be disappointed if I see you again in anything less than sixty years.”

I smiled. “It’s a date.”

She indicated a luxuriously appointed waiting area. “Won’t you have a seat? We’ll get your luggage later. The airport van doesn’t show up until mid-afternoon.”

I smiled again and walked over.

“Well, look who’s here!” said a voice with a Southern accent.

“Karen!” I said, looking at the old, gray-haired woman. “How are you?”

“Soon to be beside myself, I hope.”

I laughed. I’d had butterflies in my stomach, but felt them being dispelled.

“So, what are you doing here?” asked Karen.

I sat down opposite her. “I’m—oh. I never told you, did I? I have a condition—they call it an arteriovenous malformation: bad blood vessels in my brain. I—that night, I was checking out the procedure for myself.”

“I kind of thought so,” said Karen. “And you’ve obviously decided to undergo it.” I nodded. “Well, good—”

“Excuse me,” said the receptionist, who had walked over to join us. “Mr. Sullivan, would you like something to drink?”

“Um, sure. Coffee? Double-double.”

“We can only give you decaf before the scanning. Is that okay?”

“Sure.”

“And Ms. Bessarian,” asked the receptionist, “would you like anything else?”

“I’m fine, thanks.”

The receptionist moved away.

“Bessarian?” I repeated, my heart pounding. “ Karen Bessarian?”

Karen smiled her lopsided smile. “That’s me.”

“You wrote DinoWorld ?”

“Yes.”

“ DinoWorld. Return to DinoWorld. DinoWorld Reborn. You wrote all of those?”

“Yes, I did.”

“Wow.” I paused, trying to think of something better to say, but couldn’t. “Wow.”

“Thank you.”

“I loved those books.”

“Thank you.”

“I mean, I really loved them. But I guess you hear that a lot.”

Her wrinkled face creased even more as she smiled again. “I never quite get tired of it.”

“No, no. Of course not. I actually own hardcopies of those books—that’s how much I like them. Did you ever think they were going to be so successful?”

“I never even thought they were going to be published . I was as surprised as anyone when they became as big as they did.”

“What do you think made them such huge hits?”

She lifted her bony shoulders. “That’s not for me to say.”

“I think it’s that kids could enjoy them and adults could, too,” I said. “Like the Harry Potter stuff.”

“Well, there’s no doubt that I owe a lot of my success to J. K. Rowling.”

“Not that your books are anything like hers, but they’ve got that same broad appeal.”

“ ‘ Finding Nemo meets Harry Potter by way of Jurassic Park ’—that’s what the New York Times said back when my first book was published. Anthropomorphic animals: my intelligent dinosaurs seemed to appeal to people the same way those talking fish did.”

“What did you think of the movies they made of your books?”

“Oh, I loved them,” said Karen. “They were fabulous. Fortunately, they made my movies after the Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings films. It used to be that studios acquired novels just so they could butcher them; the end product was nothing like the original book. But after Harry Potter and the Tolkien films, they realized that there was an even bigger market for faithful adaptations. In fact, audiences got angry when a favorite scene was missing, or a memorable line of dialog was changed.”