New York Dreams - [Virex 03]

by Eric Brown

  ‘But you’re not so sure?’

  ‘What would the recording be, Halliday? It wouldn’t be me, would it? It would be a copy, a lifeless copy. The real me would be dead and gone...’ He smiled. ‘No, Halliday. I know when to give in and call it a day.’

  Halliday looked into the face of the dying executive and saw not the slightest trace of sadness or self-pity. He wanted to say something, to communicate to Wellman that he was sorry...but how could he possibly do that when the man himself would admit to no such emotion on his own behalf?

  Jeff Simmons moved past them, walking into the grounds of the house and then coming to a halt. He spoke into his microphone. ‘Check. I’m sending someone in.’

  He turned and gestured. ‘Get Michaels in there now!’ he called.

  Seconds later a police paramedic raced past Halliday. He was met outside the house by an armed marksman who escorted him in through the front entrance.

  Despite himself, Halliday felt his stomach turn.

  Jeff approached Halliday and Wellman. ‘They’ve found someone down there.’

  Wellman said, ‘Injured?’

  ‘In need of medical assistance,’ Jeff said.

  ‘Male or female?’ Halliday asked.

  Jeff shook his head. ‘That’s as much as I know.’

  Barney and Kat joined them. ‘What’s happening in-there?’ Barney asked.

  Halliday reported the situation. He was aware of a tension building within him. He told himself that he was a fool to hope that there was anything else in the house besides a holographic simulation of a woman who wished to say goodbye.

  Jeff moved away, touching his ear-phone and listening intently. He spoke into his mic, then turned to the others.

  ‘That’s it. The place is clear. We can go in.’

  He led the way up the drive towards the open front door. Halliday followed, a knot of apprehension in his stomach. He was hardly aware of the others behind him. He watched Jeff’s broad back and wondered what the hell they might find in the basement chamber.

  Armed guards stood outside every doorway in the house, their faces expressionless yet watchful. Halliday followed Jeff along a corridor. His first impression, a week ago, that this had been some kind of clinic or nursing home, seemed pretty much borne out by the rooms he glimpsed through open doors: drab institutional paintwork, serviceable linoleum floors, armchairs and settees solid and functional rather than comfortable.

  A short staircase led down to what seemed to be a cellar. When Halliday reached the bottom he found himself in a dank, whitewashed space perhaps the size of a small washroom. Before him, however, the entire facing wall was missing. In its place, a colossal vault-like door stood ajar. The adenoid-pinching reek of explosives filled the air.

  He passed though the opening, into the bright chamber beyond, then stopped and stared about him.

  Twenty jellytanks were spaced across the white-tiled floor, and banks of computers lined the walls. Positioned before monitors and screens, a dozen empty swivel chairs gave the impression of recent abandonment.

  Kat edged past him, whistling to herself. She moved from the nearest tank to the bank of controls, her eyes wide like a kid in a toy store on Christmas Eve.

  ‘Some place,’ she said. ‘Would you look at those tanks, Hal! A few million dollars’ worth of com-systems, here.’

  A knot of armed cops stood at the far end of the room, surrounding the medic. He was attending to the figure of a man lying prone on a black-padded couch.

  Halliday made his way down the aisle between the jellytanks. The figure on the couch was unmoving, as if dead, but his eyes were open and staring blindly at the ceiling.

  It was the silver-haired man they had known as Charles. A mass of electrodes snaked from his head, giving him the aspect of some cyber-age Medusa.

  ‘He’s technically brain dead,’ the medic reported to Jeff. ‘There’s no cortical or sub-cortical activity. He’s being kept alive by the functioning of his autonomic nervous system, no more. I’d have to examine him more thoroughly, but he seems to be in the initial stages of a persistent vegetative coma.’

  ‘What happened to him?’ Jeff asked.

  The medic shook his head. ‘That’s impossible to say as yet, sir.’

  Halliday asked, ‘Is he wearing a chu?’

  The medic shook his head. ‘No, sir.’

  Halliday nodded. Had Charles known that he would soon die like this, and so had dismissed the need of a disguise?

  He stared at the comatose figure on the couch. He was reminded of Anastasia Dah. Charles looked as lifeless as had Dah, immediately before he had put the gun to her forehead and pulled the trigger.

  So what the hell, he asked himself, was going on?

  He stared around the room, overcome with a subtle sense of disappointment. What had he hoped for, a miraculously resurrected Kim, even a copy of her, restored not to any old body as Barney had been, but to her own slim, child-like form?

  He felt a soft touch on his upper arm. It was Barney. He was pointing across the room, towards a bank of com-screens.

  One of the screens was lit, and with a heart-wrenching shock of recognition Halliday made out the head-and-shoulders image of Kim Long.

  He stood immobile for long seconds, unable to bring himself to move. His mouth ran dry and he felt a painful constriction in his throat.

  So this was it, then: the final farewell. A taped goodbye from the woman he thought he had once loved.

  Slowly, he approached the screen. He paused, his fingers resting on the back of a swivel chair, and stared at the image of the beautiful woman before him.

  He had assumed that the image was a still, so little movement was there on the screen as he approached, but now he saw that the picture was moving; that Kim was staring out at him, blinking, a slight smile playing on her lips.

  He stared at the wide-apart eyes, the snub nose, the high fringe of jet-black hair ... and the sight of her was almost too much. He slumped into the swivel chair and stared up at the iconic image of Kim Long.

  ‘Hal,’ she said, her voice a soft breath as he always recalled it. ‘It’s good to see you, Hal.’

  He wanted to shout that she was lying on two counts. Neither could she see him, nor would she be pleased to do so ... She had walked out on him eighteen months ago, had never sought him out after that; it had always been he who had attempted reconciliation.

  ‘What’s going on, Kim?’ he asked wearily, sick with himself for playing the game with this empty, meaningless computer-generated image.

  ‘First of all I want to apologise, Hal. When Charles threatened you ... I want to say that many of us were opposed to the threats. We doubted that your investigations would harm the Project. But Charles argued that the threat was merely that, just a threat that would persuade you to drop the case.’

  ‘And I suppose that you’ll apologise for what Tallak tried to do to me? He tried to carry out Charles’ threat and kill me, Kim.’

  ‘We were appalled. You can’t imagine my horror. Tallak ... Stevens - he deserved to die for what he tried to do.’

  Halliday gestured, as if to wipe away what had happened on that day. He looked at Kim, and saw again the dead woman in the shallow grave.

  ‘Just over a week ago,’ he began, his voice almost breaking, ‘I found you buried ... buried in the forest. And now this ...’

  ‘I’m so sorry, Hal. I want to explain.’

  ‘If you could, that’d be great. I’d really appreciate that. But I don’t want an explanation from some recorded construct—’

  ‘I’m not a construct, Hal.’

  He stared at her, and thought he understood, then. Before her death, before Charles had assassinated her as he had so callously killed Dah before her, she had had her personality copied, recorded, in the mistaken belief that it would grant her an immortal e-existence. Was that what the Methuselah Project was all about?

  Was Kim an e-identity now, living a virtual life in the cyberverse?

&n
bsp; ‘I know what you are, Kim—’ he said, and wished that he could stop calling this thing before him by the name of the once living woman. ‘I know what you are, and no explanation will be good enough.’

  ‘Hal, please listen,’ she said, leaning forward and looking down on him from the screen. ‘I am not dead.’

  He laughed, almost losing it. He wanted to stand and throw the chair at the screen, to shatter the mocking image of the woman he had once held in his arms.

  ‘I found your body in the woods!’ he said. ‘Don’t tell me you’re not dead, for Chrissake!’

  ‘Hal,’ she went on, looking pained, ‘I’m not dead, and I’m not a construct, and I’m not merely an e-copy, a recording of my identity and memories and personality. I’m more than that.’

  He shook his head, not wanting to listen to this zombie’s futile rationalisations, the words it used to try to convince itself of its own humanity.

  ‘Of course you would say that,’ he said. ‘You seem alive and human to yourself. You think you’re Kim Long. What else could you think? You have her memories and thoughts, her encoded personality. But all you are is a clever copy.’

  She was silent, staring at him, and the sudden pause in the dialogue brought Halliday up short. He was reminded of the few occasions on which they had argued, how there always came a point when she would realise the futility of words. Then she would either throw something at him, attack him with her child’s balled fists, or point out with sweet and simple logic that he was wrong.

  ‘Hal, you saw Charles shoot Anastasia,’ she began.

  ‘I don’t see—’

  ‘Three days earlier he shot me, and then Suzie Charlesworth.’

  ‘I don’t want to hear this.’

  ‘Hal, we were all part of the Methuselah Project, we three and Charles and perhaps a hundred other citizens. I was Charles’ lover. I’m sorry to hurt you like this, Hal, but I knew when I met him that I had found someone I’d always been looking for. A soul-mate—’

  He turned away, sickened.

  ‘Anastasia was his former lover. Charles was a scientist specialising in neuro-science. His dream was to map the human brain, to be able to record the mind, to eventually make a copy of an individual’s very personality.’

  ‘And he succeeded, and copied you, and then killed you ... What happened?’ he said, flinging a gesture back towards the comatose figure of Charles. ‘Did the process go wrong when he used it on himself?’ He was aware that he was not alone; Barney stood behind him, and Kat, and next to her was Wellman. They were staring at the image of Kim Long on the screen, as if mesmerised.

  She ignored his outburst. ‘He realised, of course, that to copy the contents of the brain was one thing, but actually to succeed in capturing the subject’s very self, the essence that made one human, was quite another. So he funded the Methuselah Project, and recruited Suzie Charlesworth and two or three other leading scientists. A month ago their work came to fruition. The team led by Suzie succeeded in copying not only the seat of human consciousness, the brain, but along with it the essence of our very humanity, the soul.’

  He stared at her. He opened his mouth to object, but no words came.

  Wellman stepped forward, a hand on Halliday’s shoulder. ‘You’ve succeeded in uploading the human soul?’

  ‘What do you think has happened to Charles, Hal?’ Kim said. ‘And you saw Anastasia - and the same happened to myself and all the other members of the Project. We had our identities copied and uploaded, but when, for want of a better word, our “souls” were recorded and uploaded, the essence of our selves, what made us human, departed from our bodies and left what you can see across the room. Charles, like the rest of us, is no longer alive in the accepted sense. He is here, with us.’

  At last Halliday found his voice. ‘Where is “here”?’ he asked.

  She smiled. ‘Last night we moved to a secure site in Japan, preparatory to the launch of the Mercury Probe. At midday we leave for Mercury, Hal. There we will set up a beachhead, and von Neumann machines will manufacture other ships, and in time - how long we do not know, but we have all the time in the universe - in time we will head for the stars.’

  Wellman stepped forward and said, ‘You will leave ... taking with you the secret of immortality?’

  Kim laughed, a pretty laugh Halliday knew so well. ‘How in all conscience could we do that?’ she said. ‘Why do you think I am talking to you now? As well as saying farewell to you, Hal, I also want to give you the results of Suzie Charlesworth’s research. You can do with them as you will, give them away, sell them to the highest bidder. I will relay them to your com before the launch. It is my gift to you, Hal ... and what greater gift can anyone give to a person they once loved?’

  The screen blanked suddenly, and Halliday was staring up in disbelief at his own reflection.

  He turned, and on the face of Wellman he saw the look of a man within reach of salvation.

  Halliday reached out and took Barney’s arm.

  ‘Told you,’ Barney said, quietly, his stranger’s face staring down at him. ‘I told you there was something missing.’

  Halliday left the chamber. Slowly he climbed from the basement and stepped from the house. He stood and stared through the dead woods towards the smogged blur of Manhattan on the horizon.

  He heard Kim’s words again, and tried to consider the implications of what she had told him.

  He knew only that the world had changed immeasurably, now, and he was gripped by a terrible fear, and at the same time a strange and undeniable exultation.

  * * * *

  Twenty-Six

  He heard the hiss of an aerosol spray, followed by a relieved inhalation.

  Kat leaned between the front seats. ‘Hey, Halliday, Barney - guess what?’

  Halliday glanced at her. ‘Go on.’

  ‘There’s this place in Saskatchewan, small town middle of bug-fuck-nowhere.’

  Barney smiled. ‘What about it, Kat?’

  When she spoke, her voice held a note of awe. ‘It’s declared itself VR-free, is what. Can you imagine that? A whole town without a single fucking VR Bar or jellytank?’

  ‘Bizarre,’ Halliday said.

  ‘And guess what?’ Kat went on. ‘I’m gonna pack up and head off there, just as soon as I can. I’m outta here, man. Won’t see me for dust...’

  Halliday hesitated, then said, ‘You should’ve taken the money Wellman offered you, Kat.’

  She snorted. ‘What? Take money from the enemy? Fuck that, Halliday.’

  He pulled into the kerb on the corner of Canal Street and Bowery.

  ‘Call by before you head off, okay?’ he told her.

  ‘I’ll do that, Halliday. See you around, Barney.’

  She jumped from the car and strode along the busy sidewalk with the jerky, uncoordinated strides of a manic marionette.

  Halliday drove around the block and headed uptown.

  ‘Drop me off at Olga’s, Hal,’ Barney said.

  ‘A Ukrainian and a ham on rye?’ Halliday asked.

  ‘Sounds good to me. You coming in?’

  He thought about it, finally shook his head. ‘I should’ve seen Casey last night. I’ll call around now, apologise.’

  ‘Hey ...’ Barney looked at him. ‘You two . . . ?’

  Halliday concentrated on the empty road. He shrugged. ‘I dunno ... I mean, she’s a great kid. We get on fine. I get the impression she wants to, but...’

  Barney shook his head. ‘Then what the hell’s stopping you, Hal? Go for it. Listen, you need someone. You know how you were before Kim came along - she saved you, Hal. Way you’re looking now, you need saving again.’

  Halliday gripped the apex of the wheel, shrugged again. He drove in silence, contemplating Barney’s words.

  Five minutes later they drew up outside Olga’s bar. He turned to Barney. ‘What you said back there, in the chamber...’

  Barney looked at him. The stranger’s eyes were becoming familiar ... if not ex
actly the windows to his soul, then the windows to whatever made this new Barney what he was. ‘I meant what I said, Hal. I’ve always felt there was something missing. What Kim said back there explains it all.’

  ‘You know what the Barney I knew would’ve said about the soul?’

  Barney smiled. ‘Go on.’

  ‘He’d’ve said that it doesn’t matter what we call it. What matters are our memories, our identities. Listen ... how the hell do Kim and Charlesworth and all the others know that they’ve succeeded in recording the soul? Perhaps they’ve just come up with a better way of recording the personality, so that it leaves the original completely wiped?’