Beyond Flesh

by Gardner Dozois

  He puts his hands over his ears. The older man is still talking and Bobby is saying something and the younger man and the woman come over to try to do something about him. Refreshments are falling off the tray. He struggles out of the lounger and makes for the door.

  “Hey, my boy,” Bobby calls after him. “Gimme a minute here, gimme what the problem is.”

  He doesn’t answer. What can you tell someone made of pure information anyway?

  ###

  There’s a new guy on the front door, bigger and meaner than His Mohawkness, but he’s only there to keep people out, not to keep anyone in. You want to jump ship, go to, you poor un-hip asshole. Even if you are a Pretty Boy. He reads it in the guy’s face as he passes from noise into the three a.m. quiet of the street.

  They let him go. He doesn’t fool himself about that part. They let him out of the room because they know all about him. They know he lives like Bobby lived, they know he loves what Bobby loved—the clubs, the admiration, the lust of strangers for his personal, magic. He can’t say he doesn’t love that, because he does. He isn’t even sure if he loves it more than he ever loved Bobby, or if he loves it more than being alive. Than being live.

  And here it is, three a.m., clubbing prime time, and he is moving toward home. Maybe he is a poor un-hip asshole after all, no matter what he loves. Too stupid even to stay in the club, let alone grab a ride to heaven. Still he keeps moving, unbothered by the chill but feeling it. Bobby doesn’t have to go home in the cold anymore, he thinks. Bobby doesn’t even have to get through the hours between club-times if he doesn’t want to. All times are now prime time for Bobby. Even if he gets unplugged, he’ll never know the difference. Poof, it’s a day later, poof, it’s a year later, poof, you’re out for good. Painlessly.

  Maybe Bobby has the right idea, he thinks, moving along the empty sidewalk. If he goes over tomorrow, who will notice? Like when he left the dance floor—people will come and fill up the space. Ultimately, it wouldn’t make any difference to anyone.

  He smiles suddenly. Except them. As long as they don’t have him, he makes a difference. As long as he has flesh to shake and flaunt and feel with, he makes a pretty goddamn big difference to them. Even after they don’t want him anymore, he will still be the one they didn’t get. He rubs his hands together against the chill, feeling the skin rubbing skin, really feeling it for the first time in a long time, and he thinks about sixteen million things all at once, maybe one thing for every brain cell he’s using, or maybe one thing for every brain cell yet to come.

  He keeps moving, holding to the big thought, making a difference, and all the little things they won’t be making a program out of. He’s lightheaded with joy—he doesn’t know what’s going to happen.

  Neither do they.

  ANCIENT ENGINES

  Michael Swanwick

  One of the most potent lures to convince people to abandon the human form and go beyond flesh is the promise of “immortality”—and yet, to date, machines don’t even last as long as most people do (how many toasters do most people have in a lifetime, or cars, or computers?). Here’s a hard-edged and hard-headed look at what you’d really need to live forever, even once you’ve left the dross of perishable human flesh behind. (Our advice? Start planning now.)

  Michael Swanwick made his debut in 1980, and in the twenty-one years that have followed has established himself as one of SF’s most prolific and consistently excellent writers at short lengths, as well as one of the premier novelists of his generation. He has several times been a finalist for the Nebula Award, as well as for the World Fantasy Award and for the John W. Campbell Award, and has won the Theodore Sturgeon Award and the Asimov’s Readers Award poll. In 1991, his novel Stations of the Tide won him a Nebula Award as well, and in 1995 he won the World Fantasy Award for his story “Radio Waves.” In the last two years, he’s won back-to-back Hugo Awards—he won the Hugo in 1999 for his story “The Very Pulse of the Machine,” and followed it up in 2000 with another Hugo Award for his story “Scherzo with Tyrannosaur.” His other books include his first novel, In The Drift, which was published in 1985; a novella-length book, Griffin’s Egg; 1987’s popular novel Vacuum Flowers; the critically acclaimed fantasy novel The Iron Dragon’s Daughter, which was a finalist for the World Fantasy Award and the Arthur C. Clark Award (a rare distinction!); and Jack Faust, a sly reworking of the Faust legend that explores the unexpected impact of technology on society. His short fiction has been assembled in Gravity’s Angels, A Geography of Unknown Lands, Slow Dancing Through Time (a collection of his collaborative short works with other writers), Moon Dogs, Puck Aleshire’s Abecedary, and Tales of Old Earth. He’s also published a collection of critical articles, The Postmodern Archipelago, and a book-length interview, Being Gardner Dozois. His most recent book is a major new novel, Bones of the Earth. Swanwick lives in Philadelphia with his wife, Marianne Porter, and their son, Sean. He has a website at www.michaelswanwick.com.

  ###

  “Planning to live forever, Tiktok?”

  The words cut through the bar’s chatter and gab and silenced them.

  The silence reached out to touch infinity, and then, “I believe you’re talking to me?” a mech said.

  The drunk laughed. “Ain’t nobody else here sticking needles in his face, is there?”

  The old man saw it all. He lightly touched the hand of the young woman sitting with him and said, “Watch.”

  Carefully, the mech set down his syringe alongside a bottle of liquid collagen on a square of velvet cloth. He disconnected himself from the recharger, laying the jack beside the syringe. When he looked up again, his face was still and hard. He looked like a young lion.

  The drunk grinned sneeringly.

  The bar was located just around the corner from the local stepping stage. It was a quiet retreat from the aggravations of the street, all brass and mirrors and wood paneling, as cozy and snug as the inside of a walnut. Light shifted lazily about the room, creating a varying emphasis, like clouds drifting overhead on a summer day, but far dimmer. The bar, the bottles behind the bar, and the shelves beneath the bottles behind the bar were all aggressively real. If there was anything virtual, it was set up high or far back, where it couldn’t be touched. There was not a smart surface in the place.

  “If that was a challenge,” the mech said, “I’d be more than happy to meet you outside.”

  “Oh, noooooo,” the drunk said, his expression putting the lie to his words. “I just saw you shooting up that goop into your face, oh so dainty, like an old lady pumping herself full of antioxidants. So I figured . . .” He weaved and put a hand down on a table to steady himself. “ . . . figured you was hoping to live forever.”

  The girl looked questioningly at the old man. He held a finger to his lips.

  “Well, you’re right. You’re—what? Fifty years old? Just beginning to grow old and decay. Pretty soon your teeth will rot and fall out and your hair will melt away and your face will fold up in a million wrinkles. Your hearing and your eyesight will go and you won’t be able to remember the last time you got it up. You’ll be lucky if you don’t need diapers before the end. But me—” he drew a dram of fluid into his syringe and tapped the barrel to draw the bubbles to the top—“anything that fails, I’ll simply have it replaced. So, yes, I’m planning to live forever. While you, well, I suppose you’re planning to die. Soon, I hope.”

  The drunk’s face twisted, and with an incoherent roar of rage, he attacked the mech.

  In a motion too fast to be seen, the mech stood, seized the drunk, whirled him around, and lifted him above his head. One hand was closed around the man’s throat so he couldn’t speak. The other held both wrists tight behind the knees so that, struggle as he might, the drunk was helpless.

  “I could snap your spine like that,” he said coldly. “If I exerted myself, I could rupture every internal organ you’ve got. I’m two-point-eight times stronger than a flesh man, and three-point-five times faster. My reflexes are o
nly slightly slower than the speed of light, and I’ve just had a tune-up. You could hardly have chosen a worse person to pick a fight with.”

  Then the drunk was flipped around and set back on his feet. He gasped for air.

  “But since I’m also a merciful man, I’ll simply ask you nicely if you wouldn’t rather leave.” The mech spun the drunk around and gave him a gentle shove toward the door.

  The man left at a stumbling run.

  Everyone in the place—there were not many—had been watching. Now they remembered their drinks, and talk rose up to fill the room again. The bartender put something back under the bar and turned away.

  Leaving his recharge incomplete, the mech folded up his lubrication kit and slipped it into a pocket. He swiped his hand over the credit swatch and stood.

  But as he was leaving, the old man swiveled around and said, “I heard you say you hope to live forever. Is that true?”

  “Who doesn’t?” the mech said curtly.

  “Then sit down. Spend a few minutes out of the infinite swarm of centuries you’ve got ahead of you to humor an old man. What’s so urgent that you can’t spare the time?”

  The mech hesitated. Then, as the young woman smiled at him, he sat.

  “Thank you. My name is—”

  “I know who you are, Mr. Brandt. There’s nothing wrong with my eidetics.”

  Brandt smiled. “That’s why I like you guys. I don’t have to be all the time reminding you of things.” He gestured to the woman sitting opposite him. “My granddaughter.” The light intensified where she sat, making her red hair blaze. She dimpled prettily.

  “Jack.” The young man drew up a chair. “Chimaera Navigator-Fuego, model number—”

  “Please. I founded Chimaera. Do you think I wouldn’t recognize one of my own children?”

  Jack flushed. “What is it you want to talk about, Mr. Brandt?” His voice was audibly less hostile now, as synthetic counterhormones damped down his emotions.

  “Immortality. I found your ambition most intriguing.”

  “What’s to say? I take care of myself, I invest carefully, I buy all the upgrades. I see no reason why I shouldn’t live forever.” Defiantly. “I hope that doesn’t offend you.”

  “No, no, of course not. Why should it? Some men hope to achieve immortality through their works and others through their children. What could give me more joy than to do both? But tell me—do you really expect to live forever?”

  The mech said nothing.

  “I remember an incident that happened to my late father-in-law, William Porter. He was a fine fellow, Bill was, and who remembers him anymore? Only me.” The old man sighed. “He was a bit of a railroad buff, and one day he took a tour through a science museum that included a magnificent old steam locomotive. This was in the latter years of the last century. Well, he was listening admiringly to the guide extolling the virtues of this ancient engine when she mentioned its date of manufacture, and he realized that he was older than it was.” Brandt leaned forward. “This is the point where old Bill would laugh. But it’s not really funny, is it?”

  “No.”

  The granddaughter sat listening quietly, intently, eating little pretzels one by one from a bowl.

  “How old are you, Jack?”

  “Seven years.”

  “I’m eighty-three. How many machines do you know of that are as old as me? Eighty-three years old and still functioning?”

  “I saw an automobile the other day,” his granddaughter said. “A Dusenberg. It was red.”

  “How delightful. But it’s not used for transportation anymore, is it? We have the stepping stages for that. I won an award once that had mounted on it a vacuum tube from Univac. That was the first real computer. Yet all its fame and historical importance couldn’t keep it from the scrap heap.”

  “Univac,” said the young man, “couldn’t act on its own behalf. If it could, perhaps it would be alive today.”

  “Parts wear out.”

  “New ones can be bought.”

  “Yes, as long as there’s the market. But there are only so many machine people of your make and model. A lot of you have risky occupations. There are accidents, and with every accident, the consumer market dwindles.”

  “You can buy antique parts. You can have them made.”

  “Yes, if you can afford them. And if not—?”

  The young man fell silent.

  “Son, you’re not going to live forever. We’ve just established that. So now that you’ve admitted that you’ve got to die someday, you might as well admit that it’s going to be sooner rather than later. Mechanical people are in their infancy. And nobody can upgrade a Model T into a stepping stage. Agreed?”

  Jack dipped his head. “Yes.”

  “You knew it all along.”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s why you behaved so badly toward that lush.”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m going to be brutal here, Jack—you probably won’t live to be eighty-three. You don’t have my advantages.”

  “Which are?”

  “Good genes. I chose my ancestors well.”

  “Good genes,” Jack said bitterly. “You received good genes, and what did I get in their place? What the hell did I get?”

  “Molybdenum joints where stainless steel would do. Ruby chips instead of zirconium. A number seventeen plastic seating for—hell, we did all right by you boys!”

  “But it’s not enough.”

  “No. It’s not. It was only the best we could do.”

  “What’s the solution, then?” the granddaughter asked, smiling.

  “I’d advise taking the long view. That’s what I’ve done.”

  “Poppycock,” the mech said. “You were an extensionist when you were young. I input your autobiography. It seems to me you wanted immortality as much as I do.”

  “Oh, yes, I was a charter member of the life-extension movement. You can’t imagine the crap we put into our bodies! But eventually I wised up. The problem is, information degrades each time a human cell replenishes itself. Death is inherent in flesh people. It seems to be written into the basic program—a way, perhaps, of keeping the universe from filling up with old people.”

  “And old ideas,” his granddaughter said maliciously.

  “Touché. I saw that life-extension was a failure. So I decided that my children would succeed where I failed. That you would succeed. And—”

  “You failed.”

  “But I haven’t stopped trying!” The old man thumped the table in unison with his last three words. “You’ve obviously given this some thought. Let’s discuss what I should have done. What would it take to make a true immortal? What instructions should I have given your design team? Let’s design a mechanical man who’s got a shot at living forever.”

  Carefully, the mech said, “Well, the obvious to begin with. He ought to be able to buy new parts and upgrades as they become available. There should be ports and connectors that would make it easy to adjust to shifts in technology. He should be capable of surviving extremes of heat, cold, and moisture. And”—he waved a hand at his own face—“he shouldn’t look so goddamned pretty.”

  “I think you look nice,” the granddaughter said.

  “Yes, but I’d like to be able to pass for flesh.”

  “So our hypothetical immortal should be one, infinitely ungradable; two, adaptable across a broad spectrum of conditions; and three, discreet. Anything else?”

  “I think she should be charming,” the granddaughter said.

  “She?” the mech asked.

  “Why not?”

  “That’s actually not a bad point,” the old man said. “The organism that survives evolutionary forces is the one that’s best adapted to its environmental niche. The environmental niche people live in is man-made. The single most useful trait a survivor can have is probably the ability to get along easily with other men. Or, if you’d rather, women.”

  “Oh,” said the granddaughter,
“he doesn’t like women. I can tell by his body language.”

  The young man flushed.

  “Don’t be offended,” said the old man. “You should never be offended by the truth. As for you—” he turned to face his granddaughter—“if you don’t learn to treat people better, I won’t take you places anymore.”

  She dipped her head. “Sorry.”

  “Apology accepted. Let’s get back to task, shall we? Our hypothetical immortal would be a lot like flesh women, in many ways. Self-regenerating. Able to grow her own replacement parts. She could take in pretty much anything as fuel. A little carbon, a little water . . .”

  “Alcohol would be an excellent fuel,” his granddaughter said.

  “She’d have the ability to mimic the superficial effects of aging,” the mech said. “Also, biological life evolves incrementally across generations. I’d want her to be able to evolve across upgrades.”

  “Fair enough. Only I’d do away with upgrades entirely, and give her total conscious control over her body. So she could change and evolve at will. She’ll need that ability, if she’s going to survive the collapse of civilization.”

  “The collapse of civilization? Do you think it likely?”

  “In the long run? Of course. When you take the long view, it seems inevitable. Everything seems inevitable. Forever is a long time, remember. Time enough for absolutely everything to happen!”

  For a moment, nobody spoke.

  Then the old man slapped his hands together. “Well, we’ve created our New Eve. Now let’s wind her up and let her go. She can expect to live—how long?”