Lettie Prell: The Three Lives of Sonata James

Sonata halted the scenario and made her announcement. Her mother looked up, her face registering relief so briefly that Sonata might have missed it if she hadn’t run the simulation first. Everything played out similarly, in real time, ending with them hugging in the sunlit dining room.

“Be careful,” her mother whispered. “You never know what can happen out there on the streets. There are stories. Not everyone approves of newbodies.”

Her mother moved away and picked up the coat hanging on the spare chair where her purse and keys rested efficiently on the seat. “Your home is always here if you need it,” she said, pulling on the wrap. She picked up her purse and keys and left, at that point on a trajectory to be a mere fifteen minutes late for work. As the door closed, Sonata noted the efficiency with which her mother had handled the news. It was a final sign they had both been ready for this change.

Sonata waited till the sound of her mother’s car blended into the rest of the traffic. Then she stepped out of the house. She could no longer smell, but the very air seemed to carry the fresh scent of freedom.

She spent that first day of her true independence as an iteration celebrating with Miller, Satchya, and Kent, avoiding the crowds by diving to the floor of Lake Michigan where they watched the myriad forms of sea life and experimented with the new subvocal language the NBs were inventing that expressed in symbols, colors, and mathematics rather than words. They were like babies struggling to learn. Sonata caught glimpses of a deeper reality to explore. It was thrilling being at the beginning of a new development in the NB world.

An hour before dawn they all emerged from the lake by Grant Park. Miller and Satchya went their ways while Sonata and Kent visited the Cloud Gate. They lay side-by-side under the omphalos of the silvery sculpture, where they observed their forms repeated within it, as if time had ceased to exist and the myriad future iterations were laid out before them. Sonata activated the song of her body that her moving tattoos represented, and told Kent her plans of coming out publicly as a limited edition.

“The problem is, I didn’t have a chance to become known for this when I was a breather,” she said as regret passed fleetingly through her mind. “I’m in my second iteration already.”

“Really, dear,” Kent replied, “your vision was formed before you had all the data. No one will hold you to it.”

She frowned up at their distorted reflections in the sculpture. “But I want it. Kent, no one understands me. They think I’ll grow up and change my mind.” She thumped the concrete with a fist. “I hate when people say that.” She would’ve been crying by now if she could.

Kent sat up and looked down at her. “Go say your piece, then, if you want. But just be aware…” His gaze wandered over Millennium Park.

“What?”

“I’m sure you already know there are haters amongst the breathers.”

“Well, you know the cliché about haters.” She grabbed his arm playfully. “I prefer to say that lovers gonna love.”

Her Adonis lay back down beside her, and they accessed an intimacy protocol together, where their minds entwined in an ecstasy of togetherness she had never experienced during her sweaty biological grapplings with fellow breathers in her old life.

One of the breathers’ videocasts was enthusiastic about having her as a guest. A young man with long red hair and a spiral tattoo on his forehead listened raptly as she related her vision for her life and iterations. She found herself opening up in a way she hadn’t before, sharing her personal disappointment. “I was going to use this iteration as a means to further explore what I’d made of myself in my first life,” she admitted. “Now it’s like I need to discover who that young woman was who died. I need to invent her future.”

The man’s eyes gleamed. “Are you admitting the you that’s sitting here is not the same as the woman who lived?”

She smiled and shook her head. “Oh, no. I know there’s a fringe out there that disbelieves in the continuity of awareness from the life to the iteration.”

The interviewer stared at the camera. “Fringe?”

She nodded. “Most everyone knows that’s an incorrect belief born of suspicion and antitech sentiment. The continuity of consciousness within iterations is well documented in the research. And personally, I can vouch that I’m still me.” She refrained from saying she was actually better now.

The man chuckled. “Okay, but still, I can’t believe you’re going to give up living forever after going through the procedure for it. I’ve never heard an iteration say they wanted to die. I know you’ve told us why, from a philosophical perspective. But what about you, personally ? What’s going on inside that titanium casing of yours?”

He was mocking her. Sonata was starting to wish the show would end. “I’m committed to my vision,” she explained as patiently as she could. She was going to elaborate, but the man cut her off.

“And you no longer have the human will to live, now.”

“Well, I wouldn’t say—”

“But I’m saying. That’s the truth. There’s something missing in you, and that’s your human core.”

She had a curious desire to reach out and separate the man’s head from the rest of his body. She’d unwittingly become a tool in the hands of a hater. “I think this interview is over.”

As she rose to leave, she heard the man wrap up. “There you have it, everyone. What would it take for all the other iterations to want to shut themselves off? How do we make that happen? You’ve been listening to New Forum. And remember: actions speak louder than words.”

How unoriginal , she thought as she shut the door of the studio behind her. And what a liar that young man was. She could detect the hum of his bio-alert—in nonemergency mode of course—the entire time. When his breathing life ran out, he would become just like her, by choice.

A group of over thirty NBs sat along the stately gazing pool leading up to the steps of the Bahá’í temple. It was shortly after midnight in mid March, a week after that awful interview on the Forum. The sky was moonless and stars were everywhere, even seeming to be winking up from the spring-thawed water, emanations from some companion universe. Sonata sat between Kent and Satchya as the group conversed in the new language. There was a lot of discussion around the new concept of beyond centeredness, a simultaneous experience inward and outward or the micro/macro linkage of all things.

She gazed into the starry waters and remembered how as a breather she’d dedicated her limited, preaccident life to display the beautiful meaning that she thought at the time could only exist within the context of a finite existence. Now, after that awful interview with the hater, and amid the excitement of exploring new concepts in an invented language, her attitude had transformed. She replayed her mother’s signature line to herself: You’ll change your mind about that when you’re older . She smiled ruefully. Her mother had been right. Kent had been right, too, to point out she’d made that pact without fully knowing what it was like to be a non-breather. How NBs not only lived; they thrived .

She looked over at Kent, her Adonis. Yes, they were higher forms of being, just as Miller had said that day in the coffee shop after she’d told Dante her plans. A pang of old emotion stabbed her emotional center as she recalled the way Dante had looked at her, their clasped hands gripped tight on the tabletop. She averted her eyes from her perfect lover to the sky and waited for the feelings to slide away, as they always did.