Greg Egan: Zendegi

The Proxy snorted. ‘I’d be worried if the two of you weren’t doing some heavy-duty quality control before you unleashed me on my son.’

‘So far,’ Nasim assured it, ‘you’ve come across as remarkably stable. But how do you feel when I tell you I’m about to shut you down, leaving you with no memories of our conversation?’

‘You’ll remember what we’ve said,’ the Proxy replied. ‘That’s enough. And when I’m doing my job for real, Javeed will remember; that’s more than enough.’

Nasim halted it.

Looking back, her night’s labours seemed surreal. Even after hours of dialogue, she couldn’t decide if the Proxy was genuinely conscious – in spite of its deficits, in spite of its crippled sense of self – or if it was just an accomplished actor: a brilliant mimic who felt nothing at all, but knew Martin’s responses inside out.

She was certain of one thing, though. Even if Rollo was right and the Faribas were like battery hens in hell, this was one side-load who wasn’t facing a life of voiceless suffering. Either Virtual Martin felt nothing, or he felt exactly what he claimed to feel: love for his son, acceptance of his limitations, and contentment with the purpose for which he’d been brought into existence.

As to whether he could fulfil that purpose, it was up to Martin now to decide.

‘When are you coming hooooome?’ Javeed demanded, pulling free of Rana’s grip and walking over to the monitor beside Martin’s bed.

‘Don’t touch that,’ Martin warned him, ‘or the nurse will beat me up.’

‘When?’ Javeed repeated.

Martin said, ‘Tomorrow night I’m going to come and stay with you and Aunty Rana, then after a few nights I’ll come back to hospital for my new liver. Then after a few more nights we’ll both be back in our own home. How does that sound?’

Javeed ignored all the obfuscatory details and cut straight to the point. ‘Why don’t they give you your liver now?’

‘It’s not quite ready,’ Martin lied. ‘That’s why I’ve got the little one until then.’ He moved the sheet aside and showed Javeed the tiny, neat scar left by the keyhole surgery. ‘The one that the robot put inside me.’

Javeed still didn’t quite believe him about the robot, even though Martin had shown him images from the manufacturer’s glossy website.

Rana said, ‘It’s taking them a long time to grow your liver. A whole child can be born in nine months!’

‘An adult liver weighs as much as a new-born baby,’ Martin claimed, fairly sure that this was neither true nor relevant. All he needed now was for Dr Jobrani to walk in while his visitors debated the reasons for the organ’s tardy arrival. ‘Anyway, I’m lucky they can do it at all.’

‘Thanks to God,’ Rana agreed. ‘You’ll be out soon, as healthy as ever. Like Omar’s father with his artificial legs. You should see him, Martin: he’s like a young man again.’ This was clearly intended as a form of encouragement, but Rana seemed to mean it sincerely.

‘Yeah?’ Martin smiled. ‘Well, he waited more than forty years, so I don’t have anything to complain about.’

Rana glanced at the clock on the wall and addressed Javeed. ‘Say good-bye to your father. We’ll go home and have some dinner.’

Javeed approached the side of the bed and Martin kissed him. ‘Thanks for coming, pesaram. I’ll see you tomorrow.’ He turned to Rana. ‘Thanks for bringing him. I know he’s a handful.’

‘Khahesh mikonam.’

‘I’m not a handful!’ Javeed protested.

‘No, he’s been good,’ Rana said, almost convincingly. ‘It’s a pleasure to have him.’ She rose from her chair.

‘I’ll see you tomorrow,’ Martin said. ‘Khoda hafez.’

‘Khoda hafez.’

When they were gone, Martin took his notepad from the side of the bed and returned to the Zendegi website. He’d narrowed down his list to three scenarios, but he wanted to make a definite choice for the following day so he could fall asleep knowing there’d be one less thing to deal with in the morning.

In Zendegi, a great many people spent a great deal of time pretending to fight and kill each other, and Javeed had shown no signs that he would buck the trend. For all that Martin had tried to steer him away from battle scenes, the chances were that within a few years the attraction would prove irresistible. Martin had gone through that phase of his childhood fencing with sticks and shooting water pistols; there had been no technology around to make his opponents fountain blood and spill viscera. That magic had been confined to the movies, with the most graphic material out of his reach – though at twelve he’d managed to sneak into Jabberwocky and found himself in heaven.

He was hoping there’d be time for several different test runs before the transplant, but with Zendegi’s health looking as precarious as his own, he needed to be prepared to make a judgement as quickly as possible. So if he wanted to see the Proxy jump through hoops, there was no point starting with any but the highest, and no point sparing the flames.

Nasim collected Martin from the hospital and drove him across the city. She seemed nervous, but it was clear from her demeanour that the optimistic verdict she’d given him after her own tests had been genuine. The Proxy had not disappointed her; the only thing she feared was that Martin might not feel the same way.

It was half past seven when they arrived, but despite the chilly morning Shahidi’s supporters were out in force. Martin had only been following the politics sporadically, but he’d heard Zendegi’s side-loads being lumped together with a whole grab-bag of permissive and un-Islamic trends. The respectable conservative line went like this: Nobody wanted the corrupt mullahs back, lining their pockets and throwing their enemies into prison, but the pendulum had swung too far and a correction was desperately needed. A vote to rein in immodesty and blasphemy would be the antidote to extremism, dealing with popular discontent before it exploded into a violent backlash.

In the MRI room, Nasim fitted Martin’s skullcap. Bernard was having a day off; his trainee, Peyman, was operating the scanner. There was no need for contrast agents; they would not be collecting side-loading data today. The only reason Martin was here and not in a ghal’e was that controlling his icon mentally, via the scanner, would spare him from fatigue and allow him to fake a few futuristic tweaks to the system.

Nasim said, ‘Don’t get alarmed if the Proxy doesn’t show up for a few minutes; it’s hard to say in advance how long I’ll be talking to it.’

‘Okay.’

‘Feel free to kill the game any time you want to, or to keep running it for as long as you like. The scanner’s yours for three hours if you need it.’

‘Thank you.’

Nasim flipped down his goggles and fitted the cage over his head. Martin waited for the whirr of the motor that would carry him back into Zendegi.

The dying embers of a campfire lay in front of him; an orange light was breaking on the horizon. Martin stretched his arms out, feeling his way into his new body; the hands and forearms that came into view belonged to a giant, but the skin was as smooth and unlined as a child’s. Zal’s son Rostam had been preternaturally huge; only the Simorgh’s intervention – in which the bird had offered detailed advice on the herbal drugs to use for a Caesarean – had allowed Rudabeh to give birth to him and live. But Rostam’s son Sohrab was even more prodigious; the Shahnameh had him playing polo at three, shooting arrows and throwing javelins at five, and leading a conquering army at the age of ten.

Martin turned away from the dying fire. He was standing on a slight rise; below him, embroidered tents and horses draped in silk brocade carpeted the desert as far as he could see. Around the tents, soldiers were finishing their meals, completing their ablutions and tending to their mounts. He could remember when a crowd scene like this would have needed a Hollywood budget and an hour’s worth of computations to render each frame; now it was being done in real time for his eyes alone. Or his, and one other pair.