"Julian and Tiani did, but I ran out of time with Kiera."
"So?" Seemed all he could manage.
"I…" I studied my feet, trying to come to a decision.
"Wait any longer and you won't have a choice." Jack's face took on a solemn expression.
"Upload her."
"That would have been my choice."
I stood, rooted to the spot, watching him. Light fingers flew over the screen, and after a few minutes he turned and said, "Well that's it, I've isolated them from the rest, and I'm ready to proceed with the termination."
"We both know it has to be done." I put my hand on his shoulder. He turned back to the screen and pressed enter.
"Thanks, Luke." He took a deep breath. I watched in awe as the placid mask re-established itself on his pale face.
"Right, let's get on with the uploading, there's not much juice left in the backup battery. I hope it will be enough."
"Is there anything I can do?" I relaxed my hands and tried to mirror Jack.
"No… Well, you could try praying." He turned back to the screen, and after making a few adjustments, sat down at the console.
"I'm going to be busy inside, but there is one question I need to know the answer to."
"Yes?" I think I knew what was coming.
"What order do you want me to upload them in?" As I was standing behind him, I couldn't see his face, and his headband array had already engaged.
"Does it matter, Jack?"
"It might," he said, without a hint of emotion.
That meant…Great Zarking Universe. I couldn't choose. My stomach clenched, and my shoulders ached with tension. I don't think I could ever remember being in such mental agony.
"You choose, Jack." I slunk off to the sanctuary of the bathroom. I shut the door, pulled out the seat, and sat down. Would Kiera think I'd been a coward? What would she have done? I wanted to blank it all out. I stood up, poured myself a cup of water from the sink, and sat down again. I forced myself to drink it slowly. I concentrated on the sensation of the liquid in my mouth, and on the feel of it sliding down my throat, in an attempt to drown my thoughts. It worked to some extent.
Time passed. Minutes dragged like hours, and my breathing seemed to come in slow motion. I couldn't stand it any longer. I stood up and went to see if I could determine how far Jack had got in the upload process. Perhaps I could link and go inside and watch. No, not a good idea. I might distract him at some vital point.
When I reached his chair, I went to stand by his side. His blank, white face glistened with sweat. I rushed back to the bathroom and poured a cup of water. I grabbed some paper towels and dashed back out in time to see his headband disengaging. When I reached him, he struggled to push himself out of the chair. I took his arm to help him up, but his legs buckled. Being in Kiera's body, I didn't have enough strength to hold him, so he slid to the deck and ended up leaning against the side of the chair. His whole body was shaking.
"Jack, Jack. What's happened?" A wave of nausea washed over me. As his eyes met mine, tears spilled over and trickled down his face. I knelt down in front of him, and waited, terrified, as I watched him struggling to speak.
"There was only enough power left to save two of them, Luke."
My world splintered. "Which two?"
He sat staring blankly. I raised my voice. "Which two, Jack, which two?"
"Oh God, Luke, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry."
He said it over and over, until finally, in desperation, I slapped his face and repeated my question, "Which two?" A cold sweat started trickling down the back of my neck. This time he answered.
"Julian and Tiani. I couldn't save Kiera, Luke. I tried, I tried so bloody hard, but I couldn't save her. The power…the power…was just too low." His eyes were full of anguish. As a shroud of silence enveloped us, he reached out with both arms. I wrapped him in mine, and we held one another and cried and cried.
Chapter 29
"Luke," Jack said, "how are we going to handle you being in Kiera's body, with your kids?"
I'd kept pushing the thought away. I didn't want to have to deal with it, but I'd have to at some stage.
Eight hours had passed since Jack had completed the uploading. After crying ourselves into exhaustion, we'd managed around six hours sleep. We'd used the pull-out bunks housed in the small living quarter module adjacent to the bathroom. After waking, we'd made a meal using the food synthesiser. I don't think either of us had tasted any of it, but it lifted our mood and energy levels. Although still numb with grief, we were spurred on by the urgency of transferring my children's consciousnesses before the ship's computer activated its anti-virus program and eliminated them.
I brushed hair out of my eyes and cleared my throat. "What would you suggest?"
"I don't know. I'm having trouble dealing with the fact that Kiera is right in front of me, even though I know she's dead." He stared back at me. A sudden, overwhelming guilt forced me to look away.
After a moment, I steeled myself and met his eyes. "I've thought about getting you to upload me into the computer as well. Kiera and I had numerous heated discussions about uploading. You were there for some of them, do you remember?"
Jack nodded.
"We agreed we'd both do it at the same time. I might as well become a sapioid now she's gone." I picked up my cup and drained the remains of cold coffee.
"Wrong time for you to be making that decision, Luke. Once you become a machine, it's forever." He got up and tipped the remains of his coffee into the sink housed in one corner of the kitchen alcove.
"With Kiera gone, I don't care. She was everything that gave my life meaning." I focused on my hands; my human hands.
"Your kids will care. Don't you think they've got enough to deal with already?" he said in an angry tone.
He had a point. I'd allowed grief to cloud my judgement.
"You'll feel differently later when the grief wears off. At least you have a biological body, even if it's not yours. Remember, we've all got spare embryonic clones in storage. You'll be able to transfer back into your own body when we get to our destination, once the ship wakes up."
"I'll give it more thought on the way down. I'd better get into that suit." I scrambled up and tossed my empty cup into the recycler.
"Are you sure you're up to this?" Jack’s face was full of concern. "I can go if you want."
"No, I'll do it. You are much better at giving directions than I am, and you're faster in Virtual, if I need it."
I went out the door and down the deck, to the bulkhead adjacent to the airlock. Eight suits hung on the wall like corpses. I unhooked the nearest one. "I think I'm going to need some help to get into this," I yelled.
Jack stuck his head round the door. "It's self-fastening. Don't you remember?"
I had forgotten. He strode over to me and quickly showed me the process. Once I'd put the suit on, it was a simple matter of putting the seals in contact with one another. They immediately self-adhered, making the suit airtight. Within half a minute, I was ready to go apart from the helmet. I held it in my hand, reluctant to put it on until necessary. I hated suits. Although, flexible and light, the bulk and weight of the air tanks made them cumbersome. I still found them claustrophobic in spite of their efficient ventilation systems.
Currently, only our section had been pressurised prior to Jack and I waking up. As an added safety precaution, each deck section remained sealed for the duration of the voyage. They would only be unsealed and joined once we reached our destination. I had to go through to the next section to access the lift, and I would travel down from there.
"Time to put your helmet on," Jack said, standing by the airlock door. "Good luck and be careful. Okay?"
"Don't worry, I'll be careful." I reached out and patted his shoulder reassuringly. "We'd better do a sound check once I've got my helmet on."
I slipped the helmet over my head and the seal connected with a hiss. The air stirred, and a cool breeze began wafting around my face.
Jack had already gone to the nearest terminal. He turned and gave me the thumbs up signal prior to sitting down. I watched as he went through the link process. I jumped when his voice spoke, seemingly, from inside my head.
"How's the sound level, Luke?"
"Loud and clear."
"Okay, off you go."
I pressed the button, and the door slid open in silence. The two airlocks in our section had pressurised the moment our awakening had been initiated. I hesitated, and turned around for one last look, before I stepped inside. I closed the door and pressed the button to start depressurisation.
When the air had been vented, the far side door opened. Light from the airlock spilled out into a cave of darkness. I activated my headlamp and stepped out onto the deck. The lift lay outside another airlock at the far end, and to reach it I had to walk past unlit modules filled with sleeping humans. Shadows leapt out at me, as I moved in an eerie silence. I walked through the unpressurised airlock into the lift-well. When I pressed the call button, my face was instantly bathed in the soft glow of a wall screen. The display indicated the lift had to travel down from deck five. Time until arrival counted down in front of me. Around ten minutes––time to think.
I thought about Jack, Kiera and myself. We'd been together for so long and had become inseparable. We called ourselves 'The Three Sapes', and we did everything––well almost everything—together.
I recalled my first lifetime. After the trial had ended, we'd received a substantial reward and had decided to use it to set up our own company in Canada. The authorities had been concerned about our safety because of Logan Williamson's powerful connections in Australia—even though he had been jailed for ten years.
We had been able to duplicate Williamson's upload program using alternative algorithms, so there had been no infringement of his intellectual property rights. Due to our strict ethical and moral codes, unlike Williamson, it had taken three years to develop and test a foolproof upload program. We'd called our company Sapioid Inc., and androids with humans uploaded into them were known as sapioids. This distinguished them from sentioids––self-aware, intelligent, autonomous robots who had been granted the same rights as humans.
Some twenty years later, nano-gen technology had been perfected. We had all chosen to have the infusions.
By 2088 human cloning had been legalised, the result of the discovery that the nano-gen process could only be used once and so could only extend lives by around thirty years.
Subsequent rapid advances in cloning technology had led to the development of un-imprinted clones. We, at Sapioid Inc., had been directly responsible for developing the programs and technology involved in the uploading of the human consciousness to these clones.
In 2098 we'd all had our consciousness uploaded to our own un-imprinted clones. These clones, known as gen zero, had many of the major genetic faults either eliminated or repaired. I'd chosen to damp the genes responsible for my anxious personality just a little; too much would have altered my creativity. I didn't regret it.
The three of us––Jack, Kiera and myself, had been uploaded to our gen two clones immediately before the voyage. We'd been granted an extra gen for participating in the voyage, as well as a spare set of embryos in storage. The law dictated that all final clones had to be sterile. Somewhere down the track, we would have to make the choice to either die or be uploaded into a machine.
My thoughts swung back to Kiera. What the hell were we going to do about me being in Kiera's body? Perhaps the best way forward would be for me to remain out of sight until Jack had explained the situation to Julian and Tiani. They were in for a terrible shock, but it would at least give them time to process the information. Julian would probably be staunch, but I knew Tiani would dissolve into an emotional mess. Jack would have to try and pick up the pieces. I couldn't avoid confronting them forever. It had to be done, sooner or later.
On the other hand, perhaps it would be better if they didn't see me. If Jack didn't tell them anything. That might work. In fact, why bother switching them on at all? I sighed. No, not practical; we needed to check that the uploads had been successful and were functioning properly. We had to turn them on.
The best thing would be if Jack told them about Kiera's death and not give them the gory details. I could simply be… Missing or back in hiber-sleep.
I jumped as the fire doors slid slowly open in front of me—revealing the lift doors. When they parted, the interior lit up with a soft, warm light. I stepped inside and found myself wishing I could take my helmet off.
"Any chance of pressurising this thing?" I inspected the control panel in front of me.
"Sorry, no can do." Good old Jack, always brief and to the point.
"You're not going stir crazy already are you?"
"No, I'm okay." I flicked off my headlamp and pressed the button for deck forty-six where the spare, blank androids were stored. There were two-hundred spares for use in emergencies. The ship had the facility to manufacture them, but that would only be activated when we reached the Kalgarin system.
My thoughts circled around and around, as I argued with myself about the situation. I watched seconds tick away on the screen in front of me. Jack's voice startled me back into awareness. "Any more thoughts on how we deal with Julian and Tiani, Luke?"
"Try one thousand and one." I let out a sigh.
"They will be foggy when they wake up so it may not register, but we need to leave them turned on until they stabilise. That takes a couple of hours. I think we've got two options. My option one; just leave them in the dark and you pretend you're Kiera. I could tell them I've already put you back to sleep. That would explain your absence," Jack paused.
"No. That's not fair; I wouldn't want you to lie for me. What's option two?"
"Well…" I heard the hesitancy in his voice, "we could tell them we don't know where Kiera is. Which wouldn't quite be a lie, she could be anywhere in spirit couldn't she?" His voice held a slight catch.
"I suppose, but if we create hope the truth will be even more traumatic, and what about me?"
"We tell them. Then you can at least come out and give them a hug to reassure them. Once you've done that, we'll put them back to sleep."
Jack had always preferred 'back to sleep' to 'switching off '.
"Okay, that sounds reasonable." I glanced at the screen, two minutes to go. Another minute passed, and I found myself being flooded with images of Kiera. Kiera laughing, Kiera with that particular mischievous expression she was famous for, Kiera looking up at me, her eyes glistening with tears, holding Tiani just after she had been born, saying, 'She is so beautiful, Luke'.
I wanted to just let go––to bawl like a baby. I repeated over and over––take it easy, Luke. I can't cry in a helmet. Take it easy––just breathe. In through the nose, and out through the mouth. I began to relax.
The lift bumped to a halt, and the door slid open. I had never got used to the shock and awe of this deck. On this occasion, its vast cavern, filled with machines and stackers—row after row of stackers—glowed with the illumination of hundreds of brilliant white lights. Jack had switched on the entire deck for me.
Jack's voice crackled to life in my ear. "Okay. Step out of the lift and turn right. The stacker with the blank androids is immediately in front of you."
"I see them." Sensible, to put them right next to a lift. Each of ten levels held ten inanimate androids. They were all dressed in the designated yellow jumpsuits of the basic model.
"Touch the screen, Luke; it will give you a selection. Each level has five identical males and females. There's not much variation, but at least you can pick one with the same hair colour and sex as your kids."
"What a relief." I touched the screen. "I think one male in a female body is enough don't you?"
"Definitely."
"Okay, I'm scrolling through now. This one looks alright." I pressed enter to choose an auburn female android with a slim build, similar to Tiani, from level one. Only in the last l
evel did I find a male that bore any resemblance to Julian. He had his blonde hair but a chunkier build. I pressed enter followed by the load button. A message scrolled onto the screen in front of me.
––Move back and stand behind the yellow line––Stacker is unloading––Please wait.
I looked around, the line lay behind me, and so I did as instructed. The stacker began to move. A platform holding the male android slid out from the top of the stacker. It moved sideways to the end of the row and into the lift which lowered it to ground level. As soon as it had reached the ground, a second platform slid out from the first level and repeated the manoeuvre.
Just as I was about to step out beyond the yellow line, a new message popped on to the screen.
––Danger––Keep back––Initialising trolley loading––Please wait for process to complete.
I stood, impatient now, as a trolley slid out from beneath the stacker, and the two androids were manoeuvred onto it. The empty platforms elevated one at a time and returned to their original positions.
––Process complete––You may approach and remove the trolley.
The screen became lifeless.
"Okay, Jack, what do I do now?" I stepped forward and inspected the two motionless forms.
"There's a small screen on the handle, just tap it."
I did. A small display lit. "What now?" I gazed down.
"There's an icon showing a man walking. Tap that, and the trolley will automatically follow you, Luke."
"Oh, right. Ah, here we go." I turned to the lift. I suddenly realised why the doors were so big. Initially, when I had got out, the opening had been small, but now a wide gap between the two doors would easily allow the passage of the trolley into the lift. I stepped inside, and after the trolley followed me in, the doors closed.
"Jack."
"Yes, Luke." He sounded tired.
"I've had second thoughts. I think your option one is the way to go." I sighed.
"Okay. You had better start practising Kiera. You need to try and speak the way she did, even think like she did."
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