James Halperin - The First Immortal

“Good idea. Let me call her. Also, I was wondering whether you think I should revive everyone, or space them out.”

“You mean all eight of your children and grandkids?”

“Seven. All except Katie. Since she’ll need to have new organs grown.”

“We can have the ones she’s missing ready by August.”

“August?” Ben felt his head spinning. That soon? More time—yet it moved faster. “Last time we talked about it, you told me fourteen months.”

“As the AIs get more powerful, they keep finding more efficient regimens.”

“Great! If we revive everyone at around the same time, they might help Alice—and each other—adjust. Oh, and I want to reanimate Toby Fiske, too.”

“Sponsor ten revivs at once? Sure you can afford it? At least let me take care of my grandmother.”

“No, Trip. Rebecca’s my daughter. Besides, your time’s a helluva lot more valuable to the world than mine is. Don’t worry; royalties from my hypertext essays are pretty good. Been saving my money. No bad habits yet, and I’ve never been a big spender anyway.”

“But ten revivs, Ben? In one year?”

“I admit it’ll be tight, especially since I’ll have to cut back on counseling hours to look after them all. But I can pull it off. And I want to be there for them, since I was the one who grabbed the airplane’s oxygen mask.”

“Huh?”

“Nothing. Just an old analogy I once used to justify being frozen in the first place.” Ben studied my smiling image. Even though it was a metaphor from artifacts predating my world, he imagined I might understand. (As, eventually, I did.) “Anyway, what do you think?”

“I’d do it gradually if I were you,” I advised. “Maybe one or two revivs a month, in case there are complications. But if you want to do all ten this year, I don’t see any insurmountable problems. We could set up a tentative schedule when we revivify your mother. How’s a week from today?”

April 22, 2081

—The World Tribunal authorizes restoration of ACIP inventor Randall Petersen Armstrong’s photographic memory, which it had ordered weakened in 2052 as punishment for his infamous crimes. Now Armstrong will be allowed to take Mnemex, the memory drug approved six years ago by the WDA. Chief Justice Oliver Horovitz explains, “With so many different types of Truth Machines now in use, there’s no longer any danger of Mr. Armstrong suddenly figuring out how to override every one of them simultaneously, even with his memory rebuilt.”—A comprehensive study of Martian fossils conducted by Amgen’s extraterrestrial research installation on Aries One bolsters the General Life Theorem. Amgen Chairman Kevin Lipton Jr. states, “Based on extensive tests, it now appears virtually certain that the initial conditions for carbon-based life-forms have always been the same throughout the solar system, and by implication, the universe.”

“The news, er, isn’t good, Ben,” I stumbled, while Virginia remained in the adjoining laboratory, reporting to me minute by minute. “I was afraid to say it before I was sure. Fact is, I, uh, suspected as much, soon as I found out it was 99 degrees in that dormantory…”

“What is it, Trip? Just tell me, for chrissake.”

“Your mother’s memories were randomized.”

Ben felt his stomach rise into his chest. “Randomized? What exactly do you mean by that? Bottom line.”

“Uh, it means we have to replace what’s left of her memories with generic knowledge. Otherwise she won’t be able to speak or walk or feed herself, or even see.”

“Generic knowledge?”

“Yeah. We’ve disassembled and reassembled enough human brains to know the molecular structure of all the standard skills. Language, motor coordination, sensory discernment; everything a normal brain does. We can even add knowledge about history, science, sociology, whatever. But we can only do that to a clean slate. Other than what we give her, all she’ll have left will be the genetic traits in her DNA. In other words, well…”

“Well, what ?”

“Ben, after we fix everything, she won’t remember you at all; or anyone else. Won’t even know her own name.”

Ben simply could not get himself onto the outside of such a reality. He felt, but did not hear, his own voice. “Trip, will it still be her?”

“I’d better let Gin answer that question. I’m not qualified. Maybe no one is. But at least Virginia’s a real neuroscientist; I’m just an amateur.” That, I admit, was a borderline lie.

But Ben had the decency not to look for the yellow light he knew would be emanating from the device on his own finger.

We waited nine more minutes before Virginia entered the room and embraced Ben, which comforted him in spite of his realization that condolence was a bad sign.

“I’m so sorry,” she said.

“Don’t be. Just tell me what I can do for her.”

“You can help me design her knowledge base. Those microwave devices the terrorists used moved too many of her molecules around. Otherwise, I’d recommend refreezing her until the AIs learn how to implant new knowledge without erasing memories. But there’s no point refreezing Alice; the damage is too extensive, and I’ve recorded the position of each brain molecule just in case I’m wrong. But for now, we have to put in new data; there’s no other reasonable choice.”

“Okay. I understand.”

“So I’ll ask you a series of questions, and the D/As can implant an appropriate, generic set of language skills, academic knowledge, motor skills, and various athletic, sensory, and mental capabilities. But no firsthand memories. And we can’t insert character, either. That has to come from her genetics and whatever learned patterns of behavior and thought haven’t been erased. If there are any.”

“Will she still be Alice Smith?”

“No one can be sure. Identity is so… ethereal. Completely her? No, never. But to what degree, it’s simply unknowable. If we’re lucky, some of her learned personality traits were so deeply ingrained they’ll survive in some proportion. But she won’t remember anything about her previous life.”

“Nothing?”

“Nothing at the conscious level, and nothing that can ever find its way there. Ben, I’m sorry.”

“Damn!” Ben took a long, slow breath. “Well, let’s get to work.”

For the next twenty minutes Virginia asked him questions, and fed each answer into the central AI supervising Alice’s brain reconstruction:

Q. What languages did she speak?

A. English, Italian, a little German.

Q. I see her parents were from Rome. I assume that’s the dialect of Italian she knew.

A. Yes.

Q. And she was born in Wakefield, Massachusetts. Did she ever live anywhere else?

A. Not till she moved to Brookline in 1961, the year after my father died.

Q. Education?

A. Graduated from Wakefield High School, first in her class. Never went to college. Got married instead. But she read constantly: newspapers, books, even the dictionary and encyclopedia. Loved to think and learn; she was always using her mind.

Q. What were her other interests?

A. She’d wanted to teach, but the only time she ever got to was when I served in the Navy during the Second World War. That was January 1942 to June 1944. She taught eleventh grade. English literature and history.

Q. Can you remember the names of any newspapers and magazines she used to read?…

They were forging her, Ben thought. Counterfeiting his mother. And a good forgery needed lots of detail work. In all, Ben answered 159 questions.

It was a good thing we had Mnemex by then: He knew—and therefore remembered—all the answers.

Alice Smith opened her eyes and sat bolt upright. She saw three young adults forcing smiles; two men and one woman, all strangers to her. The room was pleasant enough; modern, bright, cheerful. Classical music surrounded her; she recognized it as “Winter,” from Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons. The air smelled fresh and sweet, like ripe strawberries, and she felt relaxed and rested; and robust! The absence of all physical pain and discomfort was the first thing she noticed, even though she had no conscious memory of any previous pain.