by Neil Clarke
She smiled and shook her head. “Oh, no. I know there’s a fringe out there that disbelieves in the continuity of awareness from the life to the iteration.”
The interviewer stared at the camera. “Fringe?”
She nodded. “Most everyone knows that’s an incorrect belief born of suspicion and antitech sentiment. The continuity of consciousness within iterations is well documented in the research. And personally, I can vouch that I’m still me.” She refrained from saying she was actually better now.
The man chuckled. “Okay, but still, I can’t believe you’re going to give up living forever after going through the procedure for it. I’ve never heard an iteration say they wanted to die. I know you’ve told us why, from a philosophical perspective. But what about you, personally? What’s going on inside that titanium casing of yours?”
He was mocking her. Sonata was starting to wish the show would end. “I’m committed to my vision,” she explained as patiently as she could. She was going to elaborate, but the man cut her off.
“And you no longer have the human will to live, now.”
“Well, I wouldn’t say—”
“But I’m saying. That’s the truth. There’s something missing in you, and that’s your human core.”
She had a curious desire to reach out and separate the man’s head from the rest of his body. She’d unwittingly become a tool in the hands of a hater. “I think this interview is over.”
As she rose to leave, she heard the man wrap up. “There you have it, everyone. What would it take for all the other iterations to want to shut themselves off? How do we make that happen? You’ve been listening to New Forum. And remember: actions speak louder than words.”
How unoriginal, she thought as she shut the door of the studio behind her. And what a liar that young man was. She could detect the hum of his bio-alert—in nonemergency mode of course—the entire time. When his breathing life ran out, he would become just like her, by choice.
A group of over thirty NBs sat along the stately gazing pool leading up to the steps of the Bahá’í temple. It was shortly after midnight in mid March, a week after that awful interview on the Forum. The sky was moonless and stars were everywhere, even seeming to be winking up from the spring-thawed water, emanations from some companion universe. Sonata sat between Kent and Satchya as the group conversed in the new language. There was a lot of discussion around the new concept of beyond centeredness, a simultaneous experience inward and outward or the micro/macro linkage of all things.
She gazed into the starry waters and remembered how as a breather she’d dedicated her limited, preaccident life to display the beautiful meaning that she thought at the time could only exist within the context of a finite existence. Now, after that awful interview with the hater, and amid the excitement of exploring new concepts in an invented language, her attitude had transformed. She replayed her mother’s signature line to herself: You’ll change your mind about that when you’re older. She smiled ruefully. Her mother had been right. Kent had been right, too, to point out she’d made that pact without fully knowing what it was like to be a non-breather. How NBs not only lived; they thrived.
She looked over at Kent, her Adonis. Yes, they were higher forms of being, just as Miller had said that day in the coffee shop after she’d told Dante her plans. A pang of old emotion stabbed her emotional center as she recalled the way Dante had looked at her, their clasped hands gripped tight on the table-top. She averted her eyes from her perfect lover to the sky and waited for the feelings to slide away, as they always did.
A black bird glided across the stars within the deep. No, not a bird. Sonata tracked the drone across her line of vision and watched it bank and turn.
“Hey,” she said. “Someone’s shooting video of us.”
Satchya followed her gaze, and then leapt to her feet, emitting a siren blast.
Everywhere, iterations leapt upright. Sonata’s newbody responded automatically as well. Kent touched her lightly on the shoulder and indicated a direction. “Run.” His touch transmitted his plan to her.
There was a flash of light, and Kent’s arm went flying. Sonata saw another drone scoop low, tracking after a small group fleeing for the parking lot. Everyone was scattering. Kent followed her as she ran toward Sheridan Road. Satchya caught up with them and passed them just as they ran across the road, heading for a stand of trees. Her blue-skinned friend’s body was in an erratic hyperdrive. Smoke curled from the side of Satchya’s neck, then her form suddenly jerked and crumpled at the base of a trunk.
Sonata felt fear in her mind, but she moved with efficient confidence. With Kent on her heels she headed under the cover of the trees, and they made their way through to the far edge of the tree line, where they saw their goal within reach. They paused to locate the drone’s position and calculate when they could make their final move with the least amount of risk. Then on Kent’s subvocalized signal they burst through into the open again on the other side of the grove, sped across a short span of lawn, leapt a hedge, and landed on the sand leading to the safety of the lake.
As they entered the water and submerged, Sonata subvocalized to Kent. What was that?
Attack of the idiots, he replied. Anti-NB sentiment has bloomed into terrorism, my dear.
Everything suddenly fell into place. From her mother’s voiced worries the day Sonata had left her home, to the distasteful moues on the street, to the Forum interview, and up to this moment, she’d been so into herself she’d been oblivious to what was going on in the world. That damned interview had played into the anti-NB sentiment.
Satchya. The subvocal protocol couldn’t convey the grief she felt, nor the sense she’d contributed to her friend’s destruction.
Kent reached out with his one arm and touched her shoulder with tenderness. I’ll restore her from backup when things calm down. They can’t annihilate us. We’re their future.
Yet Sonata recalled how she’d felt the day she’d pushed impatiently through the crowds. When any species is confined to an overcrowded space, the stress can cause them to attack one another. The haters were acting on emotions she’d once experienced herself. The interviewer who had mocked her knew he would eventually become an iteration. Every day, 150,000 breathers died, and over 25 percent now went into iterations. The birth rate was starting to decline, but not quickly enough. At some future point there would be no more breathers—or at least so few their breeding would not matter—and population would stabilize. There was a long time till then, however. What would happen in the meantime? She refused to run those scenarios.
A long, hot summer night was succumbing to a predawn rain bringing cooling northern winds when Sonata burst in the door of her mother’s house, slammed it behind her, and drew the dead bolt into place. She’d shut off her tattoos so she could blend into the shadows unseen. Looking around the living room for something to use as a weapon, she noticed the old couch had been replaced with matching loveseats facing each other across a sleek glass cocktail table. A chilling thought crossed her mind. Maybe her mother had moved. Maybe Sonata was standing in someone else’s house now. She felt a wave of deep regret wash through her mind, but her body remained calm and functional, so she let the feeling pass.
She heard a movement, and then a light went on, illuminating her mother standing at the top of the stairs. Her hand lingered on the switch, then fell away. Slowly, using the railing as support, the older woman made her way down the stairs and stopped, staring at Sonata.
Sonata remembered her tattoos were off, and turned them on again so her mother would recognize her.
“It’s you.”
“Yes.” They stood there, neither one moving. “The iteration hospital is gone, mother.”
“Gone? Tonight?”
“Burned.” In her mind, she felt deep grief. “I have friends who are no more. They got the backups.”
“Oh, baby.” Her mother approached, and they hugged. “I’m so sorry.”
With effort, S
onata pushed her mother away. “I could be endangering you, coming here.”
“Don’t talk nonsense.” Her mother suddenly seemed energetic, in charge. This was her mother’s working self. She motioned for Sonata to follow her up the stairs, which she scaled herself at a quick trot. “We’ll put you in your old room till this settles,” she said, heading down the hall. “There are good people left who won’t let this go away. I know who to talk to. People have rights, and that includes iterations.”
The door to Sonata’s room stood open. Her mother threw on a light and crossed to the window where she drew the drapes. The room had been converted into a media center, with a large flat-screen facing a couch. Sonata stayed in that room for a full week, convinced any glimpse of her through a window would jeopardize her mother’s safety. Finally, she realized her mother could take care of herself, and allowed herself freedom to roam the rest of the house, though she avoided standing at the windows. Her mother worked longer hours now and was meeting with the alderman of the ward and other officials after work, pushing for a solution.
During her seclusion, Sonata was in touch with her own kind over their secure network. Driven into hiding, they communicated exclusively in the new language of symbols and mathematics. Sonata discovered some of her friends, including Miller, had fled into the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Others had spread out to midsized urban centers relatively untouched by the unrest. When she learned at last that Kent and Satchya were gone forever, their bodies destroyed and their backups burned in the fire, she mourned for them terribly until the emotion slid away.
There were hundreds of attempts to bring down the NB network, or to infect it—and the NBs—with one virus or another. But the NBs had superior technology, and the system stood. With the new language, they could conceive of technological developments much more rapidly than ever before. Planning went forward at a new supercomputing pace.
The breathers were busy as well. There were citywide protests, arrests, negotiations, and, finally, a formal agreement that became a model for the nation. When Sonata left her mother’s house at last, it was to go live in a special area set aside for NBs, where they were guaranteed to live free of harassment, and where they would be allowed to build their technological Eden. It wasn’t far from where the Cabrini-Green projects had once stood, and where a mixed income neighborhood had struggled to become viable but had failed just as miserably. And now? The non-breathers called it the tech ghetto.
Not trusting the truce, they erected a virtual security fence guarded by the most sophisticated anti-intruder system yet devised. The bodies of the elderly and near dead were delivered to the perimeter to receive newbodies, but the rate of new NBs had slowed markedly. The unrest had left people wary, and the prospect of leaving their communities for an unknown, isolated existence was a profound deterrent. The NBs turned their attentions to perfecting the longevity of their forms.
It was during this time that Sonata was called to her mother’s deathbed. She received an emergency pass to make the trip beyond the tech ghetto to a hospice center off the Eisenhower Expressway. It was eerie: leaving the NB environment, seeing cars again, hearing spoken English.
“Mom,” she said, holding the dying woman’s hand and feeling a wave of loss course through her mind. “Why aren’t you going to join me? Why did you cancel your iteration?”
“Oh . . . child.” She struggled to form words. “That nonsense. Not for me.” She relaxed back in the bed, smiling. “I saved you, though. You made it.”
Sonata didn’t leave her mother’s side until the old woman breathed her last breath. As she held the husk of her mother’s hand, Sonata relived the memory of her own death, long ago. She wished she could cry for her, and for Kent and Satchya, but she was beyond that now. She focused on the calm of her body, and let the emotions of her mind slip away.
Sonata lived three hundred more years. After her mother’s death, she threw her energies into work for her community, just as her mother had worked for hers. It turned out her multimillion-dollar newbody was well equipped to last. She saw the breather population decline due to a combination of war, infertility, and devastating new strains of MRSA and flu. With overcrowding no longer an issue, the aging virtual security fence was disabled and NBs were once again welcomed to mingle with breathers. Walking the old streets of Hyde Park, Sonata saw the breathers were enjoying a boom of abundance after their trials. There were no homeless, no beggars. Strollers of babies were numerous, and older children huddled in groups, sharing texts and laughing, looking up to watch her with curious eyes.
Sonata traveled to many cities, giving lectures to mixed crowds of breathers and NBs. They listened with interest as she let her body play the music of her soul. The composition had grown richer over time, and multilayered. After the concert she spoke about philosophy, about her intention to have one more iteration after her current one ended.
Eventually her newbody began to wear down and malfunction. She had to stop traveling. Occasionally she would be invited to appear on a podcast, but as she continued to display erratic functioning, the invitations ceased. To the dismay of her technician, Randall, she refused another iteration.
“There’s no such thing as an old folks’ home for NBs,” he said. “I can’t continue to fix you.”
She tried to reach out and touch his hand but hers flopped ineffectually. She could no longer subvocalize. Yet the young woman of ancient times would’ve been proud of her. Didn’t Socrates himself declare that philosophy is the preparation for death? “It’s time,” she agreed. “Keep my backup, but not for another iteration.”
He cocked his head at her. “Then what are we to do with your stored data?”
“Wait till there’s something new. A breakthrough of some kind. You’ll know when.”
Word spread that Sonata James was coming to the end of her second movement. A documentary crew of NBs arrived.
She lay on a table for the shutdown procedure that would capture her data for storage. One of the NBs on the documentary crew leaned close over her. She squinted up into a set of violet eyes that whirled in spiral patterns. The eyes were set in a bronze face whose features were only vaguely human. It was more like the face of a bird. Was there an Egyptian god that looked like this?
“I don’t know why I stayed away all these years,” the stranger said. She felt the NB attempt to subvocalize to her, in vain. He went on speaking. “I think it was because you had a century’s head start. You were well established in your new life.”
“Who . . . do I know you?”
There was a hint of sadness in the stranger’s smile. “Likely not now. We knew each other a lifetime ago, but not for very long.”
Sonata wanted to talk to the stranger some more, but the proceedings were underway. With a pang of regret, she relaxed back into the shutdown sequence.
Recapitulation: Presto
Sonata was pulled to her feet by many hands. “You nearly got yourself killed,” a bystander chided. She looked across the street and saw a boy, his mouth agape at the close call. A gust of wind whipped up, pulling orange and red leaves from the trees and sending them on a final journey, dancing across the face of the midday sun high overhead.
Then Dante was suddenly there, hood thrown back, his face twisted with concern. “I was just leaving the coffee shop when I heard the commotion.” She was suddenly engulfed in his embrace. Her hands touched the hardness of his computer backpack, but it was the warmth of his flesh that gave her joy. She burrowed her face in his neck.
“I love you, Dante,” she said, realizing the truth of her words as they cascaded unbidden from her lips.
“Easy there,” he said. But when he nudged his face around to meet her gaze, she saw the delight in his eyes. “I’m just glad you’re okay. How about you come over to my place? Rest up a bit from your near miss.”
“I should tell my mom …” She trailed off, suddenly disoriented. She looked around at the street, at the throngs of people that had gathered on th
e sidewalks and were even now moving on. There were fewer people around than she expected to see, and not one of them was a newbie.
She drew in a deep breath, and let it out. Tears sprang to her eyes. She was crying, weeping tears of relief but also mourning what was lost, which she was incapable of putting into words.
“Hey now,” Dante cooed, and took her chin in his fingers. “Can’t have that. Come to my place and rest awhile.”
She nodded. Dante slung a reassuring arm around her shoulders as they walked eastward, toward the lake. The scenery was simpler in a way that could only be explained by way of virtual reality. Bits of memory brushed her hair like blowing leaves and moved on, borne on a biting autumn wind that brought fresh smells. Somewhere inside her core she knew there would be no mother here, but that the friend walking at her side was really Dante. The fleeting image of an Egyptian god with whirling eyes passed through her mind, but finding no purchase, no reality within her current frame of reference, it moved on to whatever land the leaves were going to. She tried to track it in her mind, but couldn’t. She’d lost some of her memory in her fall, then. The phantoms that were even now quickly dissipating . . . Were they shreds from her past? Or were they the mind’s attempt to fill in what was lost with a backstory that was false? She was certain there had been a conversation about Nietzsche, but all that came to mind was her favorite quote of his. “This ring in which you are but a grain will glitter afresh forever. And in every one of these cycles of human life there will be one hour where, for the first time one man, and then many, will perceive the mighty thought of the eternal recurrence of all things: and for mankind this is always the hour of Noon.”
She touched her brow, aware she had paused on the sidewalk. She felt emotionally raw from the near accident. She could’ve died. She pressed against Dante’s side, and he tightened his grip on her shoulder and bent to kiss the top of her head. As they walked on, she pledged to make something of her life.