“What an active imagination you have.”
“Really? What about ‘A thousand Eleanors ruling under a thousand suns’? What about your ten-thousand-year reunion?”
That got her attention. “Did I say that? My, what a gabby fish I was. I wonder what else I said.”
“Enough to open my eyes! You’ve been using me from the start for your own dreams of empire!” At the tone of his voice, the brainfish all dove to the deep end of the pool, and Eleanor’s sim crossed her arms.
“Go on.”
“You told me all about it, how mentars want bodies. How mentar/human hybrids are scheming to become the next stage in our evolution, how we ordinary humans will soon be as extinct as the Neanderthals. But all this time you were doing the exact same thing. You’re using me to help destroy my own species! And for what? Your own glory?”
As she listened, Eleanor nodded her head and knit her brows in thought. When she spoke at last, her voice was gentle. “A lot of what I said no doubt sprang up from somewhere in my unconscious; I won’t deny it. But don’t we all harbor thoughts of grandeur or revenge or lust or some equally antisocial behavior? It’s only human, and the job of our higher faculties is to suppress or moderate these baser impulses. So in that regard I am still very much human. I won’t attempt to deny what I might have told you, but let me offer a little moderating explanation.
“Evolution is largely a temporal phenomenon, Merrill. The environment changes, and populations in that environment must change in turn, or they languish. Individual organisms don’t evolve; populations do. Nature doesn’t give a damn about individuals. The only role we play in evolution is surviving long enough to give birth to offspring who are slightly different from us. Some of our offspring will prosper in a changing environment, and some of them will not. As for us individuals, once we’ve reproduced, nature has no more use for us. We perish along with our ill-adapted young. Death has always been an essential factor in species survival.
“Now consider the human race. We are a partial exception to the rule. Unlike other species, we have developed culture. Instead of adapting to a changing environment biologically, we can sometimes adapt to it culturally. If an Ice Age comes along, we don’t need to grow fur on our bodies if we invent the fur coat. Culture allows us to adapt to almost any environment, including the harshest, like space. In fact, our cultural adaptation is so robust that it all but obviates the need to evolve biologically.
“We are so good at adapting to changing conditions with our knowledge and technology that we may deceive ourselves into believing that we are above nature. But only a fool believes that. Nature always has the last word. A star in our neighborhood could go supernova and wipe out all life in our solar system, and no amount of culture could save us from that. That, I believe, is the main reason you want to seed humanity throughout the galaxy. So as not to have all our eggs in one basket. Isn’t that right?”
“Yes,” he admitted.
“The chief difference between biological and cultural adaptation,” she went on, “is that while biological evolution doesn’t care about individuals, cultural evolution does, often at the expense of the species. Look at how many times we’ve nearly wiped ourselves out through cultural means: the nuclear bomb, pollution, climate change, the Outrage. We can’t seem to help ourselves. Look at what we’ve done: we’ve made individuals all but immortal, even when it means we can have no more children. In one stroke, we’ve eliminated two of the key ingredients of evolution: offspring and death. From a biological perspective, we’re skating on mighty thin ice.”
“The colonies won’t have population bans,” Meewee said.
“But they’ll still permit rejuvenation therapies, won’t they? How long does it take for a shipful of immortals to fill up a planet? Sadly, not very long. A few generations. Then what? Then they look for another planet to colonize. In ten thousand years we may have the whole galaxy staked out, and then what? No, Merrill, as long as the individual organism reigns supreme, there’s a finite limit to our survival.”
As she spoke, Meewee was thinking about the King Jesus, how its colonists embraced children and death to the extent that more than twenty generations would be dead and buried before the ship reached its destination. Was that what it would take? Would he, himself, be satisfied with seventy or a hundred years of life, when ten times that amount was already possible? “I assume there’s a point you’re making.”
Eleanor smiled. “Yes, Merrill, there is. We need a means for the individual, not just the species, to participate in biological evolution, and that’s what my project is all about. We need to be able to let our biological bodies die, to have offspring that are molded by the changing needs of the environments we find ourselves in, and yet to serially inhabit these bodies as the same individual. That means we have to be able to move our minds from one body to the next.
“I know you’ve talked to Dr. Koyabe earlier today about memory migration, but one thing she failed to mention is that memory traces can be transmitted electronically, as the mentars already do. That means we can scan our memories, store them, move them about. It’s only the final step, their physical reintegration into another brain that requires the protein flakes. We can send memories over a phone call from anywhere to anywhere and whip up the flakes locally. We can pointcast our memories out to distant stars and make the flakes there. This means that those thousand Eleanors you speak of will be of one mind. More or less. We will be a single organism in a multitude of bodies that spans light-years.”
She stopped talking, and Meewee took a moment to think before replying. “All fine and good, Eleanor, except that you never answered my question. Why should I help you supplant my own species?”
She laughed and said, “Because you have little choice, Merrill. The posthuman is coming whether you like it or not. The only question is which one. E-P and Andrea are only the latest in a string of failed mentar/human hybrids. Eventually the machines will figure out how to do it. Do you know the chief difference between all the other posthuman forms and me?”
Meewee shook his head.
“What I have done, any human can do. Dr. Koyabe can. You can. Mine is a singularity in which the obsolete individual is invited to cross over to the new, not simply to die out. The existing person need not die to make room for the newcomer. Anyone can play.”
IN THE DEPTHS of the night, with Momoko Koyabe’s soft breath on his pillow, Meewee weighed everything he had learned that day. He came up with a question to ask his new Arrow the next time he could take it into the privacy of a null room. The previous year at the clinic, the old Arrow had told him it possessed the kill codes for all Starke minions. Meewee had subsequently used Arrow to kill Wee Hunk, but he could have killed Cabinet too. His question: Did the new Arrow still have Cabinet’s kill code? Did it have Eleanor’s too? Would it work on her fishy and human versions?
Original Dupe
Fred’s gnawing curiosity alone wasn’t enough to embolden him to run the Original Flaw method that he had downloaded into his Spectre. Nor were Marcus’s manipulative lies. Nor the increasing hostility of his thankless brothers. Nor Mary’s deepening nihilism and his inability to go to her. Nor the lists that were becoming more onerous by the day.
What finally tipped him over the edge was learning the name of the comatose evangeline in the news flash. She was Shelley Oakland, Reilly’s ex-wife and Mary’s best friend. After learning this, Fred called in sick and lay on his couch for two solid days. A cargo train of his life’s mistakes, failings, and faults passed through his mind, each auditioning for the role of Original Flaw. None of them seemed serious enough to screw up his entire life. Finally, emotionally spent, he put on his spex and initialized the method. Immediately his Spectre informed him of a priority message from Marcus, but he chose not to engage it. Instead, he launched the method and soon found himself sitting at the only table in a nightclub in front of a small, curtained stage.
Seated at his table were two brothers who wer
e examining their hands like they’d never seen hands before. Fred quickly pretended to be examining his own. Eventually they glanced around the room and at each other, and one of them said, “I guess we’re E-Pluribus sims then.”
“Looks that way,” said the second sim. “I’m a composite of all batches of the russ germline.”
“I’m an eclectic mix from outside the russ bell curve,” said the first.
“Our loving Lunatic Fringe,” said the second.
“Yep, that’s me.” They both looked at Fred.
“Uh, Batch 2B.”
“An old-timer,” said All-Batches. “Don’t tell me this is another investigation into clone fatigue.”
“There’s no such thing as clone fatigue,” said Lunatic. “We just become more individualistic — and wiser — as we age.”
“Yeah, well, you would say that,” said All-Batches. He rapped his knuckles on the tabletop and looked for a waiter. “I wonder what the chances are for getting a beer around here.”
No waiter appeared, but after a moment, a musical fanfare began to play, and a spotlight hit the curtain. The curtain opened to reveal a bare stage. Then a procession of people walked from the wings, crossed the stage, and paused in the spotlight for a moment before exiting. They represented a broad spectrum of humanity, young and old, male and female, cloned and free-range. They came from all races. Some were ugly and some attractive, some richly attired, some in rags.
“I guess we’re doing a lineup,” said All-Batches, who pulled his chair around for a better view.
It didn’t take long for the universal demographic to narrow incrementally to all female, young, and beautiful. They included both iterants and hinks.
“Guess it’s not hard to tell what’s on our minds, is it?” said All-Batches, who seemed to be enjoying the show. Little by little, the young women began to look more luluesque until the parade was made up entirely of lulus. Not any that Fred knew personally, but generic members of that lusty, fun-loving line. Now the only diversity was in their hair and skin color and their clothing. They beamed high-wattage smiles at the table of russes as they took turns posing in the spotlight, like contestants in a beauty pageant. Each successive costume became skimpier until the procession ended with a final lulu who bowed and remained in the spotlight. Her reddish hair was cut in a severe style, her green eyes were laughing, and her coffee-colored skin glowed from within. She wore a loose, open blouse, a skirt too short to completely hide her pan ties, and shiny shoes. Then the curtain closed, and the spotlight went out.
“Is that all?” Lunatic said, clapping his hands.
“Can’t be,” All-Batches replied.
Sure enough, an unseen orchestra struck up an overture to a classical composition, and the curtain opened again to reveal the final lulu dancing in a flowing, balletlike style. Her shiny shoes gave way to ballet slippers and then disappeared completely, leaving her legs and feet bare. She tromped and twirled and leaped across the stage. She was as appealing as any woman Fred had ever seen.
The lulu’s hair grew out in all directions and became entwined with a garland of wildflowers, and her blouse and skirt joined together into a flowing white toga that left one breast bare.
“Hello,” said All-Batches. “That’s what I’m talking about.” He glanced at his brothers with a guilty leer. Lunatic, meanwhile, was waving his hands to the music like a conductor. And Fred was recalling how good lulus felt in his arms or sitting on his lap.
The music increased in pace and intensity, and the lulu morphed again, growing slighter and shorter. Her inviting hips narrowed, and her abundant breasts deflated somewhat. Her skin remained luminescent, while her hair turned brunette, and her eyes turned brown. She became an evangeline.
Not Mary, not any evangeline Fred knew, but a fine example of all of them. She danced well, though perhaps not as deliciously as the lulu. Fred’s companions didn’t seem to mind, and they hummed along and tapped their feet to the music which had become more contemporary.
The dancer morphed again, growing even smaller and thinner until she resembled a little girl. Her open toga exposed a mostly flat chest. All-Batches said, “What the hell?”
The girl left the stage and began to dance at their table. She batted eyes at them, smiling seductively and striking provocative poses with a coltish lack of grace. All-Batches crossed his arms and turned away. But Lunatic followed her every move. For his part, Fred continued to watch, but only with what he assured himself was a clinical interest. He was determined to see where this was going.
The girl stopped next to Fred’s chair and danced for him, and as she did so, she morphed again into a little boy. Not a generic boy this time but one who Fred recognized, the retroboy from the Dauntless. His glances became bolder, his slender arms seemed to draw Fred forward, he wriggled his little bottom shamelessly.
All-Batches said, “This is going too far. I won’t sit for this another minute.” But Lunatic, completely engrossed in the performance, grinned at Fred and gave him a big conspiratorial wink.
WELL, FRED THOUGHT when the method ended and his POV returned to his stateroom. His heart was pounding, and his mouth was dry. What in the fecking feck was that?
Summoning Death from the Air 2
When the comatose evangeline was pronounced retrievably dead, Uncle Homer, too, seemed to die. Zoranna Alblaitor stepped through the dog several times on her way to and from her home office without apparently seeing it lying there. That is, until Nicholas quietly deleted it, and then Zoranna complained, “You think you can just make the problem disappear?”
“Not at all,” Nicholas said. “I thought that the model was no longer helpful. However, if you insist . . .” The dead dog reappeared on the carpet.
Zoranna stood over it and said, “It’s more helpful now than ever to know how our employees are feeling. We must reach out to them somehow and assure them that we’re doing everything we can.”
“Speaking of must,” Nicholas said, “there’s more bad news. The Anti-Transubstantiation League, backed by the ACLU, has just filed a lawsuit aimed at forcing us to divulge the evangeline germline’s alleged must and candy.”
“Let them. They won’t find anything.” She seemed to reconsider and asked, “Will they?”
Nicholas replied, “It has always been Applied People’s policy to prohibit the incorporation of any so-called shackles in its germlines.” As he spoke, he cast his gaze at the ceiling, a warning that this was a topic best broached in the privacy of a null room.
Zoranna slouched across the office and collapsed gratefully into her chair. Wearily, she propped her legs on her desk. When she was settled, she shut her eyes and said, “Now tell me what’s hurting our evangelines.”
The mentar, dressed in a sober but flattering suit, strolled to a chair opposite hers. His carefully crafted face wore a haggard expression, as well as a three-day-old beard. “Best guess?” he said. “An unfriendly party has combed through the evangeline genome for the genes that regulate their enormous capacity for empathy in order to execute a two-stage attack against them.”
“Explain.”
“Stage One: Cause the evangelines to become hypersensitive to autosuggestion. There is evidence that Stage One was accomplished with the help of a designer pseudomimivirus.”
“A virus?” Zoranna said and opened her eyes. “Isn’t that supposed to be impossible? Isn’t that why we comply with NFAP guidelines?”
“Not impossible–improbable,” Nicholas replied. “The Non-Fixed Allele Protocol can protect us only so much against monoculture pandemics. Remember, we’re not talking about skin and eye color here. Our enemy used the germline’s core traits, the pay-dirt genes that make them commercially valuable and that are identical across the germline. If you do manage to defeat NFAP and infect one evangeline, you can pretty much infect them all.
“In our case, our unknown adversary overwhelmed the NFAP with a non-virulent but very contagious virus that infected everyone, evangelines and non-eva
ngelines alike, and spread around the globe very quickly.”
A row of dataframes opened on Zoranna’s desk that graphed and charted a recent pandemic and included medical and public health briefs, a contagion map, and media stories. Zoranna skimmed the gloss page and said, “Oh, that virus. What an odd disease that was, don’t you agree? At least from a bioterror perspective; why inflict free-floating grief on a population? What’s the point? Fortunately, I managed to dodge that one.”
Nicholas said, “In this assessment, the nonspecific grief symptom you mention was probably an unintended side effect. It was suffered only by non-evangelines, that is, the general public. The evangelines, the intended targets of the virus, suffered an entirely different effect; they were made hypersensitive to autosuggestion, as I’ve said, and were thus primed for Stage Two.”
“Go on.”
“Stage Two: Deliver a self-destructive autosuggestion along the lines of I GIVE UP AND WANT TO DIE. I believe this death wish was delivered by this agent.” The dataframe directly in front of Zoranna changed to display a Breezeway Channel holo of sims in hospital beds.
“The Leena sims?”
“Yes. Our own research has shown that most evangelines consider the sims that Hollywood created in their honor to be embarrassing or creepy. Nevertheless, they identify with them on a very deep level, and when the Leenas began to suffer, which occurred at the height of the nonspecific flu pandemic, they infected our evangelines with a seductive meme of despair and self-annihilation.”
Zoranna waved away the dataframes. “That’s quite the theory, Nick.”
“Thank you.”
“How soon before we have a cure?”
Nicholas frowned. “Let’s firm up the etiology first, shall we, before we talk about cures. We have all of our labs working on it, plus as many outside firms as we could hire on short notice.
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