James Halperin - The First Immortal

It was early evening. Father and daughter sat alone in a booth at Marci’s, a quiet restaurant on the 312th floor of their residential building. The room was empty of other patrons, but Ben activated their soundshield just in case.

“Jan, I know this conversation won’t be easy. There are things I simply have to know.”

“About the court case, right?”

“Yes, honey. About the court case.”

“I was afraid of that.”

“Don’t be. I’m just trying to figure out something important.”

“What, Dad?”

“Whether I owe my life to your friend, Brandon Butters. How well do you remember your conversations with him?”

“Too well. Nearly verbatim, in fact. Sometimes Mnemex can be a curse, you know. I’m not proud of those conversations at all.”

“Jan, you’re my daughter. I don’t condone or condemn you for any of it. It’s a thing apart from blood. I’ll always love you no matter what. You do know that, don’t you?”

Jan noted the solid green Truth Machine light on her contact lens before she answered. She felt contrite for that, too, but had to be sure he really meant it before she could tell him what she’d done. “Yes. I do.” Now , she did.

“Honey, did you ever suggest to Brandon that Toby Fiske might have murdered me just to get the money I left him?”

“Yes,” she whispered.

“Did you really believe that? About Toby?”

“Dad, I don’t know. Probably not. But Noah seemed so sure of it, and I wanted to believe it.” She began to weep. Ben forced himself to sit still. “We thought we needed the money, and Noah told me that once they autopsied your body, it’d be much easier to challenge the Trust. You were dead. We were positive cryonics was a crock. But we were wrong. So wrong. Oh my God, we almost made them thaw you, kill you, over money.”

“But they didn’t, sweetheart.”

“Only because Brandon didn’t believe Toby had really murdered you. If he had, they would’ve performed that autopsy. And you’d be gone forever, because of me. And maybe I’d be gone forever, too.”

“Weren’t you surprised he never filed the first degree murder accusation?”

“Shocked.”

“Why?”

Jan said nothing.

“Please tell me,” Ben said evenly. “I have to know. It’s important.”

She began to tremble. “Because I knew Brandon was still in love with me. He never said it, but I always knew. So I tried to manipulate him. I was using his feelings for me as a way to get at that money. Your money. I knew exactly what I was doing. But he was too principled to fall for it.”

Ben looked into his daughter’s eyes and thought about how he’d survived in the freezer for nearly ninety years. Ninety years! He marveled that he was still alive and safe. An absolute miracle. The science had been the easy part. Of course it would be! It should have been obvious all along that they’d eventually learn how to reconstruct human cells. Only a matter of time. The hard part had been…

He pictured his frozen body, easy prey for predators like Noah Banks, or the three terrorists who’d destroyed the Phoenix suspendees. Those bastards had killed 508 people. Only luck and the family name had spared him. Luck and the family name. It didn’t seem like much, arrayed against the forces of greed and ignorance. He shook his head, flooded with gratitude and something very much like wonder.

Then he stood and reached over to hug the child who had almost destroyed him.

In July 2029 Brandon Butters had taken early retirement from government service at age seventy-five. Within a few years after the Truth Machine’s introduction in 2024, there’d been precious little for prosecutors to do anyway. But at least he’d retired with a clear conscience; he’d always done his best, clinging to his own idea of justice, no matter the temptation.

His one regret was that he’d never had children. He rued this lack from multiple perspectives: the love and meaning children would have brought to his life, the satisfaction of leaving a genetic legacy, the fulfillment of a biological imperative. And certainly not least: that only one’s family would likely have reason to revive a person from biostasis.

But he’d never even been married. He’d been involved with different women, and had tried to make things work with each of them. Yet he just couldn’t. After all those years, he was still in love with his high school sweetheart, his marred high school sweetheart, whom he knew he could never have. He realized the obsession was foolish, and maybe even a little sick, but if this was illness, the primary symptom was poignancy. And in poignant memory lived everlasting romance.

A hopeless romantic, he thought. That’s what I am.

When he retired, his medical AI had assured him of at least another twenty years of decent health. But he had no family, few friends, no career, very little money, nothing much left to live for. He’d disdained the notion of continuing his present lonely existence imprisoned in a rapidly decaying body. So he’d had himself frozen that same year.

He didn’t believe in suicide, nor had he particularly wished to die, yet his rational side realized that without family to revive him, biostasis might well amount to the same thing.

Therefore Brandon was surprised when he regained consciousness, and shocked to see a familiar face staring back at him. He couldn’t place who that young man was, but realized he knew him from somewhere.

The young man spoke: “I’m Benjamin Smith, Jan’s father. I’m also your sponsor. Welcome back, son.”

Brandon stared at Ben. “Jan’s father?”

“Everyone’s just a wee bit more youthful these days. Including you.”

Brandon realized that he did feel vibrant and healthy; better than he ever had, even back in law school. “What year is this?”

“It’s 2083.”

Amazing. He didn’t even feel stiff—after fifty-four years! “Why would you reanimate me? I’m the guy who tried to have you thawed for autopsy.”

“Because you also saved my life.”

“Huh?”

“By refusing to accuse Toby Fiske of first degree murder. Because most prosecutors in your position would’ve filed that charge just to try to work out a plea bargain. Because even though the twentieth century legal system was based mostly on leverage, you never ran your cases that way.”

“I couldn’t,” Brandon said. “No justice in it that way.”

“Same reason I decided to sponsor your reviv, Brandon. Because I, too, believe in justice.”

June 1, 2083

—Canadian sport-fisher Frank Trilby announces the capture of a 186-pound lobster, exceeding by 11 pounds the specimen washed ashore off Bar Harbor, Maine, six years ago. In the four decades since commercial fishing was replaced by cell culturing (then micro and nano food assemblers), many marine creatures have been found to grow to heretofore unknown size. Upon returning the lobster to the Atlantic Ocean, Trilby quips to news cameras: “‘Eah, in a few years I expect t’catch me a hot-danged ichthyosaur, eh?”—In an action termed by several newscasters as “curiously anachronistic,” the World Tribunal declares all substance abuse laws in violation of the World Constitution. The Tribunal’s declaration concludes: “The concept of substance abuse has no meaning in light of pharmacological advances over the past half century, and involves no appreciable physiological or ethical distinction from VR overuse, which is rampant and completely legal.” There hasn’t been a single conviction over violations of the laws since the founding of World Government in 2045, and the only two arrests occurred prior to 2050.

Brandon chose a seat at the breakfast table, across from Jan. Again. He’d lived with them for twelve weeks now, and had never sat down beside her at a meal.