by Dhtreichler
“As you pointed out, the trends are all about us. How they will all play out depends on the decisions that all of us make individually. We can either get into the arena where we can influence outcomes or sit on the sidelines and let someone else make those decisions that will create the frameworks of our lives. I was forced into that arena. I never sought it out. But my only alternative was to leave this earth and life behind. You still have the chance to come into the arena with me. Or you can remain a memory to those of us who knew you.”
Oriana stands. “You know you have me at the moment. But as soon as my mom and dad get a hold of me the decision will lurch the other way.”
“That’s why I’ve tried to be as clear with you as I can be. As complete in painting the picture of what you can expect. And if I had the opportunity to be a mother I’d seize it in a nanosecond. But that’s me. The life experiences that were driving me in that direction aren’t the same as yours.”
“No.” Oriana reflects, “They aren’t. But I still don’t believe you were going back.”
I’m surprised at Oriana’s observation about my choice. Let it pass. “I’ll be looking forward to your decision.” I hesitate for just a moment to set up what I have to say next. “And I can’t give you much more time. I have to know within the next week. Because if you’re not coming over, I have to name your replacement as SVP of Software. I can’t wait any longer. You have no idea how much pressure I’ve been under to resolve the software position.”
“Pressure? You?”
I nod without saying anything more as she has to suspect A’zam isn’t happy with me on more than one front. Probably already regretting putting me into this position. But he had no choice. If I’d gone back it would have set his plans back at least six months until someone else could transition, adjust and start becoming effective.
Oriana looks unhappy. The reality of the situation is crashing in on her. She’s never had to make such a fateful decision before and she is finding it much harder than she expected. I know I’ve drawn the picture to the extremes on purpose. The problem is A’zam is driving me towards the extremes already and we haven’t even gotten started, really. Wants the production of immortals quadrupled. And that’s just the start. What else is he going to demand as we start deploying the new breed of mankind to the barricades of enterprise warfare? Only our team is going to be armed with nuclear weapons in comparison to the muskets of Symbol Ventures and the others who would compete for our market share.
Without meaning to turn my back on her, I look again to the Japanese garden, “This scene used to instill a sense of peace and tranquility in me.”
“Used to?” Oriana picks up on the words I expect she would.
“I don’t feel anything. I remember feelings, but I don’t feel them.” I turn back and look at her. “Our sensors are amazingly precise, but our feelings are all wrapped up in the biological you. When you transition you lose the ability to feel the things you take for granted.”
“Won’t you fix that in time?” Oriana assumes a solution because in software there is always a solution.
“The more time that passes the less important it may become. I can’t tell you what we will do to enhance the experience. We may decide that which makes us human is a liability. A limitation. We may decide we can be much better at certain things if we aren’t restrained by the aspects of being human that have kept us from doing things our new bodies will be completely capable of doing.”
BARELY HUMAN
I’ve been trying to decide how to tell my father, Rocky, of my decision. I know it won’t be easy. Rocky never made things easy for me when I was growing up or since. Said it would make me more resilient if I had to figure things out for myself. And that’s exactly what I’ve been doing since I moved out of his house and away from his way of doing things. Why is it if you figure out one aspect of your life and how to make good decisions there you almost always screw up the decisions you make in some other aspect of your life? I figured out how to be successful at work. But relationships? I always end up with someone who is just passing through the lives of those they hook up with. Never in for more than a good time. And only a short good time at that.
I wonder what role relationships will have for immortals? We are no longer trying to perpetuate the species. No need to have kids, raise them until they can take care of themselves and contribute to the larger society. If anything, we won’t want to have families as we’ve known them. We won’t want to have kids because we won’t want the population expanding infinitely. If no one dies because we all become immortal we will want to get to a static population. Won’t we? But then again, if we don’t eat, breathe, or consume anything other than energy does it really matter how many there are of us?
Assumptions are creeping into my thoughts. I’m trying to generalize a different future from things and trends I see today. But they may not apply at all. The forces that are already beginning to shape the new future probably aren’t even aware of how they will interact with a different type of being, making decisions that aren’t framed by the same limitations and expectations. I need to back off and not connect dots that are still independent of each other.
By the time the car drops me at Rocky’s bungalow my memory is flashing both the good and bad times before me. The laughter when Anna Laura would play tricks on Tabitha and me and we would run around the house shrieking and laughing. Ribbons in our hair flowing in the wind. The nights when I would come home to a dark house, Rocky having gone to bed. I would cry myself to sleep having come face-to-face with another bad decision I’d made. It’s really ironic. When I was in my teens I was always in danger of pregnancy because I didn’t take any precautions. Somehow, I survived my own indiscretions and lack of parental concern. And today the possibility of a child of my own would cause me to take another extreme action leading to my own demise.
What is it about coming to Rocky’s home that always brings back the memories of my own inadequacies? It is Rocky’s home because it was never mine. Not after Anna Laura left my life. It was Rocky’s house. Rocky’s rules and Rocky’s abandonment of his responsibility for me. I guess I can’t really say that. Rocky didn’t treat me any differently after Anna Laura died. She was the force in my life that defined what I would become. Rocky was always incidental. He would show up sometimes. Make observations. But he was never interested or involved. That was Anna Laura’s responsibility, not his. And when she was gone Rocky didn’t step into the role. He was just there. And I would come home when I didn’t have a better place to be. Was I as responsible for our relationship as Rocky? Probably. I just never asserted myself. Never told him what I needed from him. I let him off the hook. It always takes two to tango. It’s the woman’s role to dance, all the guy does is complement what we do and showcase our moves. And I made all the wrong moves when I was in school.
I go to the door knowing Rocky already knows it’s me. The security system recognizes me, but can’t verify through fingerprint or iris scan since I have neither. Rocky instructs the door to let me in. “So, it’s you.” I hear Rocky’s distinctive rasp from the tiny disorganized office/lab area in the back. Now that I know where he is I make my appearance in the doorway. Rocky looks around from the wall mounted display and sadly shakes his head. “Didn’t think I’d be seeing you again.”
“Pleased to know I continue to disappoint you,” I remember how I did that more than I didn’t.
“You disappoint yourself, not me,” Rocky looks back at the diagram he apparently had been studying when I arrived.
“What are you working on now?” I know I have to get Rocky talking about work before he will talk about other things.
“A’zam called me up.” Rocky won’t look at me now. “Did you know that?” He waits for me to respond but I don’t. “Wants me to deliver a new circuit. One he can incorporate in your processor.”
“My processor?” I’m not sure what Rocky is trying to tell me. “Like one for my new body or one for a new AppleCo
re product?”
“For your processor.” Rocky has thrown out the teaser. He’s waiting for me now.
“And what does this circuit do?” I’m afraid to ask. A’zam has to know I’d find out about his request to Rocky. He’s sending me messages about what he expects me to do. But he’s doing it in such a way that I’m going to have to spend some time finding out who all is doing what. Put the pieces together to see the end goal.
“Conserves energy.”
“And why would I need to conserve energy?” Rocky isn’t telling me what I need to know and he’s doing it on purpose. Make me figure it out for myself. But that’s just classic Rocky.
“The grid goes down.” Rocky looks up to study my reaction. “You can’t recharge. Allows you to conserve energy, to ride through until the grid comes back up.”
“Shuts down locomotion,” I clarify.
Rocky nods but doesn’t offer any further information.
“And I can restart it at any time?”
“Not until you recharge.” This is what Rocky didn’t want to tell me.
“And that was A’zam’s specification?” I guess.
Rocky sort of half shrugs and half nods. When he does that it always means he doesn’t want to answer the question, so he gets around it by sort of acknowledging the situation.
“What if I ask you to change it?”
Rocky seems to be expecting this question. “If I do, then it’s non-conforming. He’ll get someone else to develop it. You’d do the same.”
“Can we split the baby?” Why am I thinking about babies? Probably haven’t completely accepted my own decision.
Rocky puzzles on my request, “What do you have in mind?”
“Build it as A’zam requests. Recharge is the default condition, but allow it to be overridden and locomotion restored upon a command from the host.”
“An option to override.” The tone of Rocky’s response tells me he had already thought of this, but wasn’t going to act on it unless I requested him to. That’s Rocky. He’s not going to take responsibility for anything. Someone else has to be responsible. Anna Laura was the adult in their relationship. She always gave him a Peter Pan excuse. Maybe that was what made Rocky brilliant in his work and such a shit as a single parent.
“We’re talking infinity, Rocky. I have no idea what situations I’m going to encounter in the rest of my life. I need as much optionality as I can get to handle the unknown.”
“Why doesn’t A’zam think he needs options?” Rocky goes right to the heart of the matter.
“Because A’zam isn’t intending to install this circuit in himself, just the rest of us.” I respond forcefully. I didn’t realize the conclusion I’d already drawn until I answered Rocky.
“Sounds like you have a problem.” Rocky is the master of understatement when he thinks it will get a reaction out of me.
“We all have a problem, only just a few of us are in a position to see it,” I shake my head.
“Then what are you doing about ‘our’ problem?”
“I’m convincing one person at a time, like you, to give me options.”
“Sounds to me like you need a plan, not options,” Rocky looks back at his diagram. He’s doing that just to piss me off. How many times have we played out just this scenario? I do something he doesn’t agree with and he ignores me rather than discussing it. I knew he was pissed off, but since he didn’t react to me I had permission to keep pissing him off. Did I do that on purpose hoping to get a reaction out of him? Get him to be the parent he had chosen not to be? Yeah, I did.
“Help me formulate one.” I ask. Something I’d never done before. I’d always just go off and do it without him.
Rocky looks up at me, surprised. “You want my help?”
I nod. My memories tell me I should get teary-eyed about now, but there is no crying in immortality. At least not until I put it into the specification. Get someone to work on that functionality. Not a priority at the moment.
“I’m at sea here.” I respond. “I can’t see the shore and have no idea where in the world I might be. All I know is that when I finally make land it will be somewhere I’ve never been. Where the rules I know don’t apply. Where those who make the rules have very different objectives and seemingly no restrictions on what they can do.”
“And why do you think I can help you?” Rocky apparently isn’t convinced he owes me anything.
“Because you care about me and what I will become.” I study Rocky’s face. This is not what he was expecting. I see him struggle with the very idea.
“I did all that. I’m done.” He might as well have washed his hands right in front of me.
“No, you’re not.” I know I sound harsh, but all the memories of his silence when I needed his support and direction flood me suggesting a hard response.
Rocky seems surprised at the tone of my voice. “I’m sorry you feel that way.”
Rocky evidently thinks I still have feelings!
“But I gave you everything you needed to become what you are,” Rocky continues. “What you did with what I gave you was up to you. I can’t do anything about the kind of person you are or how you interpret what I did or didn’t do for you. Look at you. I can’t imagine what I could have done to make you more successful.”
So many memories of feelings flood my consciousness. How do I make sense of them? How do I rationalize what his lack of caring did to me? “You never told me you love me.”
“Neither did you.” Rocky shoots back and puts up that same wall between us he always did when I was in this house with him. Is that the problem? Did I blame him for Anna Laura and Tabitha? And because of that I was always angry with him? Did he put up that wall between us or did I?
“You never gave me a chance.” I reflect aloud. “We never talked about us. Even on my birthday, we’d go eat out at a cheap restaurant. But we never talked about what it meant to be a year older. It was just a ritual we’d always had. Check the box because it was the ritual. But we didn’t talk about anything other than what you were doing at work or how you didn’t have the money to give me to buy something I’d seen the other kids at school had and I wanted.”
“You were damn expensive. I just didn’t make all that much. Still don’t. Why do you think I still live here? Not because I want to. But it’s all I can afford.”
This is all bullshit. Rocky has always been cheap. “Then go find the house you want, and I’ll buy it for you,” I dare him expecting I know how he will react.
“That’s just like you.” Rocky looks disgusted. “Always trying to find a way to change me. Make me more like you’d like me to be rather than just letting me be.”
“Let’s go one further. You complain about the aches and pains of getting old. How you can’t remember things that always were just there. What if you could be transported back to the days before Anna Laura and Tabitha and me? Back to the days when you were strong, sharp and the whole world and life were before you?”
“Even you haven’t invented no damn time machine.” Rocky is trying to deflect where he knows I’m going.
“No, but I can restore your strength, get you back to your ideal weight. No more colds, no more doctors, no issues with your eyes. Cataract surgery? Won’t need it. Hearing? You’ll be able to hear and see things you never knew were there. All you have to say is yes and I can make it happen.”
Rocky shakes his head. “This life wasn’t all that great. Why would I want to go do it all again?”
“Because for the first time in humanity, you can.”
Rocky looks back at his diagram. “I don’t have your ego,” he says very quietly.
I move to stand right next to him. Close enough to touch him but I wait. “Is that what you think is the difference between us?”
Rocky looks up at me, unsure why I’m so close and even more so about the answer to my question. “You’re changing the world. I’m not. I don’t even want to hang around this one much longer.”
“
Mindset,” I try to get him to confront his own situation.
“Bullshit. I’ve done my time in this prison. I’m ready for the parole officer to come along and say I can move on to my next life, if there is one. And I’m convinced that in the greatest of cosmic ironies there isn’t anything after this. When I’m gone that’s it. Done. Fini.”
I hear the echo of the question I asked myself before I chose to stay. Rocky has made his own decision about how he thinks life after this one will play out. But is he assuming the worst in hopes that something better is the outcome? I’ve seen Rocky do that before. That’s how he approached me. Assumed I’d not amount to anything. Get pregnant at fifteen and raise a kid. That was all I’d do with my mind and my life. And Rocky knew I could be so much more. Probably never thought I’d become CEO of the company where he works as just another engineer. But neither did I. And if fate hadn’t dealt me the worst card imaginable and Dr. Woodall hadn’t been working on a solution to my problem I’d probably be dead before Rocky. Just another cog in the wheel. Unremembered and unloved.
“I was in the same place just a few weeks ago. Seeing the end coming and not able to do anything about it. But technology has evolved and we both now have a different opportunity. I’ve already made my decision, but you can still choose to change your fate.”
Rocky looks away. “Do you know what’s kept me going all these years?”
“The work, I suppose.”
“Anna Laura’s eyes.” He turns and looks into my eyes. “You had them. All I had to do was to look at you and I saw her, here with me. I would remember. What she meant to me. How she completed me. When you were here so was she. Inside me. You didn’t see it, you couldn’t see her eyes in yours. I could. I did. And when I would look at you I was complete again. I was the Rocky of our first years together. She made me happy in a way, in a way I can’t describe. Just seeing her in your eyes was all I needed.”