A Call to Arms

by Bradley Hutchinson

  “If the problem is the time it’ll take to re-life mum, Troy, it really shouldn’t come as much as a surprise to you. There’s been a backlog for years, and it isn’t going to go away any time soon.”

  Troy glanced at James vacantly, squinting as if just seeing his twin for the first time. Then he smiled mirthlessly, offering a slight shake of his head as his hair rippled in colours. It was then that James realized just how tired his brother looked – not from a lack of sleep, it seemed, but more, a lack of a will to live. It was a very sobering thought, and somewhat scary.

  Troy finally spoke as the elevator doors opened up slowly. “The problem isn’t with the timeline for a re-life, though you’re right in that it’d take years and years.” He sighed. “The fact is, James, there probably won’t be a re-life procedure for our mother. Ever.”

  James stared blankly at the back of his brother’s head, at a complete loss for words, as Troy led the way off the elevator, opening the door to their mother’s apartment as he did so. The corridor was empty, which was just as well, as James’ incredulous shout would have drawn attention.

  “What the hell is that supposed to mean, Troy?” He’d checked over his mother’s Will himself – she definitely had a re-life policy on file, and updated her neural profile at the relevant neural bank every month like everybody else.

  Troy refrained from speaking until after James had sealed the apartment door shut behind him, and even then, it wasn’t in answer to James’ blunt question. Instead, Troy elected to introduce the sole occupant of the apartment, a man dressed in military fatigues and wearing the rank of Commander. He was hunched over in the black leather couch that formed part of a square in front of the purely-cosmetic fireplace.

  “James, this is our would-be stepbrother, Emil Palhares. He’s in the Navy, too, if you haven’t already met.”

  James frowned, refraining from reminding his brother that there were literally millions of naval personnel, and that he couldn’t have met everyone. Ease up there, that isn’t what he meant.

  He stepped forward, around another plush couch, and extended a hand. He knew of Commander Palhares – the fighter pilot was, after all, a senior squadron commander in the fleet – but had never met him in person, only seeing him from a distance at briefings and such on the rare occasion they were at the same location.

  Emil Palhares was the youngest son of their mother’s fiancé, and looked like a typical fighter jockey – shorter than James, with closely cropped sandy hair (though James swore that came and went) and a much stockier build than James, who, despite having bulked up during the time of his service, still leaned towards the skinny side. He’s the quintessential look for a soldier.

  “Captain.”

  “Commander,” James said neutrally, unable to inject any sort of emotion into his voice. To do so would be to threaten his composure… or rather, what remained of it. “I’m sorry about your loss.” Sean Palhares had perished in the same accident that had killed his mother, and although there was no real love lost between the two men, James respected the fact that Sean made Rebecca happy.

  “Likewise.” Palhares matched James’ tone, his eyes sizing James – who was, like Palhares, dressed in his dress uniform for the sombre occasion – up. “I only met your mother once, a couple of years ago, when my father visited me on Elysium. She was a fine woman.”

  As platitudes went, it couldn’t have been more clichéd, though that didn’t mean James appreciated it any less. In situations like this, you had to take a lot of what people said at face value. You’d do your head in otherwise.

  James offered a wan smile in appreciation, then turned to his twin, unsure whether or not he was being appropriately contrite and respectful, and decided to plough on. “Where’s Jennifer?”

  “Still en route, I’m afraid, but her shuttle should be here any minute.”

  James arched an eyebrow – he had assumed that Jennifer would have come to Earth with Troy aboard his own yacht… yet that wasn’t the case. Why would they make separate trips? James wondered silently.

  “You were already here, on Earth?” he surmised.

  Troy shook his head. “Not quite. I was already headed here when I got word.”

  “Ah.” James said, his interest piqued. “Now, what complications were you yammering about a moment ago?”

  Troy blinked at the word yammering, but overlooked it, offering a sigh as he fell into a couch, planting his feet up on the coffee table in front of him as he interlinked his fingers in front of his face. “The bank where mother’s neural profile was stored had an… an… accident.” His eyes flashed – literally, his eyeballs flaring a brilliant crimson before settling back to their normal hues as he reigned in his emotions. “A couple of their techs got sloppy, data got corrupted… they’ve lost nearly four hundred profiles… including our mother’s.”

  James felt as if he’d been gut-punched, his stomach fall through the floor to an invisible sink-hole. “But only mum has a need of it right now.” James supressed a curse. “How bad?”

  “They’re calling the affected people in to recompile and update their profiles,” Palhares put in, rather unhelpfully – James didn’t care about that, he only cared about how this affected his family.

  “How bad?” James ground out, his fists shaking.

  Troy sized his brother up for a moment, then plunged in. “James, her entire profile is completely gone. There’s nothing left of it.”

  “But surely there are backups located somewhere else?”

  “You would think so, wouldn’t you? But no.” Troy shook his head as he barked a bitter laugh. “Mother changed all her policies about thirty years ago when she moved to Earth – her old policy holder has a secure back-up that was made just before she transferred… but the new company – Lincoln Memorial Mutual – hasn’t been able to find a more recent one in any of its databases. Either there was no secondary backup, or it, too, was corrupted.” James stared at Troy, the words almost incomprehensible to him. “Sufficed to say, we’re suing for obscene levels of incompetence.”

  Momentarily unable to comprehend what was being said, James just stared blankly at Troy, unsure if his brother was being serious or not. “That makes me feel so much better, Troy,” James managed to croak out, his already dark mood sinking even further to the point of nausea. It was like Troy was talking to him from a far-off place, the words in English and yet not. How could I have come so far, done so much… and still fail in my duty?

  All of a sudden, it was like James was missing Jennifer all over again, the raw feelings of pain and despair seeping into his very soul as his raw emotions threatened to overwhelm him. His legs threatened to buckle underneath him, and he found himself suddenly sitting on the edge of the arm of a couch, acutely aware of every sensation flooding his brain – sight, sound… smell. Instead of dying, it seemed he was becoming more alive.

  He glanced at Palhares, and wondered if his stepbrother had anything to add, but the fighter pilot simply stared back at him and shrugged helplessly, unable to offer up even a tripe or clichéd word of reassurance.

  “I presume they’re still looking for… whatever?” James asked, clinging to hope.

  “Officially, yes, but…” Troy trailed off, and James felt his lip quivering as his emotions threatened to overwhelm him. “Unofficially, I have it on good authority that the search will come up with nothing of value for us.”

  James was silent as he digested this unwelcome morsel. “So, let me get this right… Our mother is killed, and we can either accept the fact that she’s dead and is never coming back –” Troy winced at the thought, but remained silent, and James ploughed on – “Or we can arrange to have our mother cloned, and implanted with memories that will be, what… at least forty years old by the time she emerges from a cloning vat?”

  Troy nodded slowly. “Yes, and that’s assuming that we got approval to join the waiting-list tonight. With the way the back-log of people awaiting cloning is expanding, that could be o
verly optimistic.” Troy closed his eyes, as if steeling himself. “If mum got revived this side of 2450, I’d be truly shocked.”

  “Terrific,” James muttered, his fists clenching. He needed to punch something… or strangle someone. Or both. Anything to vent his… displeasure. “This is fucking bullshit.” James stepped towards the window, putting his back to them to shield them from the maelstrom building inside of him – his trembling knees were threatening to buckle from the overwhelming tempest.

  “James, I don’t think mum would want to be revived with a thirty-or-forty year gap in her life.”

  The sentence stung like a blow to the face, and James snorted derisively as he turned to glare daggers at his twin. “Oh, you don’t, do you?” Troy just stared at him impassively and James moved his attention over to Palhares, who looked like he was in the crosshairs of opposing forces. “Are you in the same boat?”

  “I’m sorry to say this, but no,” Palhares said, trying not to sound relieved. “While my father does have an account with the same company, his back-up wasn’t affected. I’m in the process of having it duplicated and stored with another company… just to be safe.”

  “I’m going to do the same thing with mine,” Troy offered helpfully, and James nodded resignedly in agreement, his VA already making a note to arrange a secondary back-up at a different facility and company. Obviously, having back-ups in the one company wasn’t safe enough anymore.

  James stared out at the bay, struggling to keep his rising ire under control – it wasn’t fair to Palhares, after all. It’s not like he asked for any of this to happen. The thought sobered James, but did nothing to alleviate his feelings of grief and guilt.

  Guilt? What do you have to be guilty of? James frowned internally… indeed, he was feeling guilty, but didn’t know why. He was dozens – if not hundreds – of light-years away when Rebecca and Sean had been killed. He had nothing to do with her death.

  Still, he was alive… and she wasn’t. A lot of people aren’t, you selfish prick. James mentally batted the voice away, but it was quickly replaced by more. You’re mad because you’re alive and they aren’t.

  Survivor’s guilt? If James had been alone, he would have snorted derisively at the ludicrous idea. Is it ludicrous, though?

  Of course it is, James argued back against himself. You’ve seen lots of people die before, you’ve never been this upset before.

  Then there was another voice in his head. That’s because you never knew if those deaths were permanent or not.

  That thought drew James up short. It was true, though: in this day and age, it was assumed that a everybody had a secure back-up stashed away somewhere, and that it would be a simple matter to clone the recently departed in the event of a death.

  But James had never heard of a company losing protected data like this. It simply didn’t happen – the safeguards and backups were supposed to be idiot-proof. A loss of this magnitude was worse than the stock market shredding its value like skin cells.

  “What do you think we should do?” James asked softly, looking at his brother imploringly. It was the first time in a long while – if ever – that James had ever turned to his twin brother for guidance.

  “I’ll leave you two alone,” Palhares said, offering a slight bow to each of them before departing, sealing the door behind him. Troy regarded James evenly for a long moment, shrugging as he turned towards the balcony.

  “I don’t know, James,” Troy admitted grudgingly, letting lose a sigh as he leaned forward against the railing that lined the balcony. James stood in the doorway where it was warmer, unwilling to brave the cold in his uniform – Troy, on the other hand, was dressed more warmly. “My only concern with… reviving… mum is that the woman we get won’t be anything like the woman we knew.”

  “I suppose,” James murmured. Unless a more recent back-up could be located or retrieved, then a resurrected Rebecca would be created with memories dating back from before James had met Jennifer, before she was a grandparent. As far as she would be concerned, she had only just finalised a divorce from Patrick Hunter – Sean Palhares wouldn’t even be a blip on the radar, a complete stranger. “Nothing we couldn’t overcome.”

  Even as he said it, he realized how totally selfish the idea was.

  “Together, maybe,” Troy said, finally turning around to face James. “But you’re off fighting in a war our mother wouldn’t know anything about… James, it would just be me, with a grandson she doesn’t know, and Jennifer, a daughter-in-law she’s never met… You get the picture.”

  James wanted to argue, but after a moments careful reflection, he decided Reluctantly, James nodded.

  “It would be different if we could con Elias into –”

  “Forget Elias,” James said, waving Troy off that line of thought. “Even if he had the resources to boot up his cloning facilities – which he doesn’t, thanks to dad’s squeezing of his budget – he’s in no mood to do anyone a favour these days… even for family.”

  Troy’s face fell, darkening as his mood soured. James couldn’t blame him – Elias had been rather snippy lately, and that was if you could get a hold of him. His complaints of being under-funded and under-staffed had reached deafening heights a couple of years earlier, after that kid from New Baltimore had been resurrected, and James had had to make additional donations to Sanctuary in order to stay on Elias’ good side.

  From the looks of it, Troy had had similar dealings with their elder half-brother.

  “So… what do you recommend?” James asked finally, breaking the silence.

  Troy didn’t answer immediately. “I don’t know, James.” He paused, frowning as the colour of his hair rippled, turning various shades of dark colours – red, green, brown – before settling down. “This is going to sound crass as fuck, Jim, but… she isn’t going anywhere. We can sit on this until… well, we’re in a better position to make a proper decision. We really have no other options.”

  James pondered this for a long time, crossing his arms in an effort to keep from feeling that cold that surrounded him, even as he resisted the urge to vomit. “You’re right, Troy.”

  “I am?” Troy asked, surprised and sounding somewhat pleased with himself – after all, he seldom ever got told he was right about anything.

  James nodded, frowning. “That is crass as fuck.” He sighed. “But, as you said, we really don’t have much else in the way of options.”

  “True,” Troy agreed. “We have ten years – or more – to change our minds… and who knows, maybe we’ll have a miracle in that time.”

  “I won’t hold my breath.”

  *

  “Don’t go too far, Sam.”

  Samantha Hunter waved her father’s concerns off as she skipped along the surf, making as big a splash as she could when the waves crested onto the sand. Just a few steps behind her was Amanda, delicately wading into – and back out of – the water.

  James had never been to a beach on Earth before, but their similarity to the beaches found on Bastion was almost startling – hardly surprising, considering how much Bastion resembled the human homeworld. The only tangible difference was that Earth’s oceans were affected by the tidal forces of its moon.

  And just like the beaches on Bastion, the beaches on Earth were packed during the summer months, and today was no exception. There was easily a few thousand enjoying the warm rays from the sun, almost all of them wearing various shades of fluorescent swimwear. Here and there a dog – or exotic, alien equivalent – could be found frolicking in the surf, tended to by doting owners.

  It was the most normal thing James had experienced in quite some years, and he was doing his best to preserve the moment.

  “Let ‘em go, James,” Jennifer chided from beside him, her hand squeezing his tightly. “I seldom take them to the beach back home. Too messy… and we don’t have much time these days, what with school and everything…”

  “Indeed,” James murmured, watching as Samantha frolicked about in the su
rf. She was getting deeper and deeper, the water now lapping up at her waist, Amanda just a few feet away from her. The two girls were splashing each other and screaming laughter. “Well, they seem to have no fear of the water.”

  “They love it. They play in our pool almost daily. Another reason why we don’t go to the beach.”

  James frowned. “The penthouse doesn’t have a pool… does it?”

  Jennifer smiled, her eyes twinkling mischievously. “The apartment below us went up for sale, so I bought it and converted it into a gymnasium and a spare guest bedroom.”

  James skidded to a halt – his wife had bought the studio apartment under his penthouse? Why didn’t’ I know about this? His concern wasn’t that she’d bought or a property without his permission, it was how much she’d forked out for it. Even the most undesirable apartment in Hyperion Towers was worth several million dollars a pop… and in this economy, James didn’t want Jennifer spending money unwisely.

  “I told you eight months ago about it, James, when the apartment went up for sale,” his wife told him, scowling at his disapproval, and suddenly his attention was drawn away from her ravishing body – decked out in a marginally appropriate red-and-gold bikini. “You gave your blessing, said it sounded like a good idea.”

  He frowned, the nagging feeling of doubt nibbling away at the back of his mind. Now that he thought of it, it did sound familiar – and a quick peruse through his VA to that point in time did, in fact, prove that she had briefed him about it.

  There’s even my affirmative response, he realized, perusing the contents of their messages. How could I have forgotten such a thing?

  “I’m sorry, I forgot,” he said sheepishly. “So those holograms of the girls in a pool…?”

  Jennifer smiled. “Yes, they came from our pool, you prat.” A sudden mood change seemed to overcome her, and she sighed theatrically. “The pool isn’t very big – after all, I only had so much room to play with, and I didn’t want to fight too much over the terms of the permit – but it’s… adequate.” She chuckled at her choice of words. “Tower managements reckons the penthouse value has now nearly doubled.”