Upload

by McClelland, Mark

  "Is it something about this restaurant?"

  "Partially. I don't know. I... I think it's just..."

  "Just... what?"

  "I don't know," he shot back at her. He felt an awkwardness bordering on nausea; he hated the people around him, so beautifully comfortable; and all this ugly turmoil filled him with self-disgust. "I shouldn't be here. I don't know what I was thinking. You're a part of all this, and I'm just not."

  He burned with an intensity he didn't understand, surprised that he had been able to speak. She seemed to study him, her eyes softly penetrating, and he held her gaze defiantly.

  "I'm sorry," she said. "I had no idea." She stood up and held out her hands to him.

  He looked up at her. "What?"

  "Come with me." She shook her hands at him insistently. "Come on. I'm taking you out of here."

  "But, the—"

  "Don't worry about it. Just come with me."

  He hesitantly gave her his hands and allowed her to pull him up. She led him out of the restaurant.

  "Anya, what's the matter?" asked the man who had greeted her at the door.

  "I'm sorry, we have to leave, Lucas. Tell Carlos I'll catch up with him for the sangrias."

  "Is everything okay?" called out the man, but Anya had whisked Raymond past the man and up the stairs.

  Outside, on the sidewalk, she didn't stop. She tightly held Raymond's hand, leading him at a run down the street. After a block or so, she slowed to a brisk walk. Raymond didn't know what was happening, but his mood had vanished; he was ready to throw himself at the feet of this woman's electrifying intensity. She led him on for several blocks, away from downtown and into a sleepy neighborhood. She turned onto a side street and continued to pull him along until they reached a small stone church. They walked along the low stone wall that ran along in front of the church until reaching a break in the wall. Anya led him through the opening, into a dark secluded statue garden.

  "What are we doing here?" asked Raymond, voice lowered.

  "I walk by this garden all the time," said Anya. "I thought it would be a nice place to get away."

  "I'm sorry if I—"

  She cut him off with a sharp "ssh". She led him deeper into the garden, around a small concrete fountain that had been drained for winter, to an arbor at the back. She released his hand and took a step away.

  Raymond looked around nervously. It was only 7:30 or so, but it had been dark for hours. He felt as though they were intruding in the garden. His heart was racing with curious anticipation.

  "Raymond," she said in a soft, caring voice, "what you said, about my being a part of all this but your not being a part of all this—it's not true. Things may feel foreign—"

  "Anya, you don't—"

  Again she cut him off, this time lifting a finger to his lips.

  "Do you find me attractive?" she asked. She lowered her finger.

  "Yes," he replied, without hesitation.

  "You know how you were telling me to be in the moment earlier, when we were doing yoga?"

  "Sure."

  "I want you to be in the moment right now."

  She moved toward him, to kiss him. He recoiled slightly, taking a half-step backward to keep his balance. He felt her cool fingers wrap around the back of his neck, he felt her soft lips on his. She kissed him, softly at first, then harder. He was rigid and unresponsive, taken off guard.

  She leaned past him, her voice near his ear. "Have you ever been kissed like that?" She hugged him.

  He stared blankly past her, dazed but enthralled. He shook his head. "I've never been kissed at all—not by a real woman."

  She kissed him again, this time more gently, giving him a chance to respond. He felt the tension release from his shoulders. He tentatively reached up and ran his fingers over her hair. She held him more tightly, and he felt the passion of their kiss grow.

  Anya gave him a last kiss and withdrew, smiling at him. He stood stunned. She took his hands in hers.

  "I'd like to make you dinner some time, Raymond. And get to know you. Just let me know when you're ready." She kissed his cheek, released his hands, and walked quickly off.

  Raymond watched her. He thought about going after her, but she had ended the moment perfectly. He sank onto a nearby bench and sat for a good long while, reliving her kisses and sorting through her words.

  Chapter 4

  Thursday, October 17, 2069

  Raymond sat cross-legged in the grass, bathed in warm sunlight, taking an early lunch hour in the mini v-chamber in his office. He was flicking acorns off the base of the sugar maple about six feet in front of him. Buster, a gray squirrel uploaded at the lab earlier that year, clung head-downward to the trunk of the tree, looking distrustfully from acorn to Raymond to acorn, agitatedly jerking his bushy tail. Raymond noted the clicking sensation on his thumbnail as he flicked another acorn. It felt like it should, light and crisp. The level of detail achieved by his new v-chamber amazed him—he could see why the Nanograph physics engine was winning so many awards. As a test, he pushed his right thumbnail in with his left. The depressed area of his avatar's thumbnail turned white under the pressure, just as his own would.

  "That is so cool," he said to himself.

  He lay back in the soft, insect-free grass and closed his eyes, thinking that—if he lay still awhile—Buster might come down for more acorns. With his right hand, he made a gesture that indicated to the v-chamber's computer that he was about to give one of his private hand instructions. He then made the sign for the letter "A". His v-chamber recognized the command and responded by presenting an image via his retinal implants. He saw Anya in her office, from the security camera mounted above her door. She was reading from a tablet, her feet up on her footstool. He massaged his stomach muscles, sore from doing crunches, as he watched her.

  In the week-and-a-half since their kiss, their time together had been disappointingly professional. They had eaten lunch together three times, each time by her invitation, but always with others. He sought her out in the break room once, but—alone with her—he found himself struck silent; his ignorance of what to say or how to behave filled him with aimless resentment. Her smiles and searching glances confirmed their nascent intimacy, but their conversations never strayed from the safety of work topics. Each time they parted, he was left wondering whether he could ever break through with her again, and how he could possibly express his desire to accept her offer of dinner.

  He looked down at her now, at her long black hair hanging over the back of her chair, and imagined what it would feel like to sit next to her in her bed as she slept. He would feel so privileged to see this woman, so vital and engaged by day, in the vulnerable torpor of sleep.

  A woman's voice startled Raymond: "Attention Uploaders." It was the voice of Janet, the lab's digital information assistant, speaking from the sky above the park. He opened his eyes, subconsciously seeking the source of the voice.

  It was unusual for a Janet announcement to interrupt a personal v-chamber session. Raymond closed his eyes again, just long enough to see that Anya had looked up from her tablet, an expectant look on her face; she clearly had heard the announcement, too.

  "I have an urgent announcement," came Janet's voice again, sounding large and distant, like a goddess speaking from the simulated heavens of Buster's park. "The Ethics of Science Worldcourt today issued its position statement on the uploading of a human consciousness into a computer, declaring that destructive upload of a human is fundamentally unethical and could constitute homicide."

  Raymond sat up, sending Buster racing up the tree.

  "Buster, this is not good," said Raymond, more to himself than to the squirrel.

  Through the course of the past ten years, the ESW had gained a great deal of respect worldwide. The Naturalist movement, formed in the wake of the back-to-back technological disasters of 2059—the Manchester meltdown and the backfired attempt at rehabilitating the atmosphere over Antarctica—gained adherents with each new tec
hnological scare. The ESW was popularly viewed as a balanced and authoritative voice, as much in line with mainstream thinking as possible amidst such contentious issues. The position statement, indication of an increasingly Naturalist leaning in the court, was sure to have a deep impact on the largely corporate-funded budget of the Human Mind Upload Project.

  Raymond jacked out, knowing his avatar's automation would kick in and keep feeding the squirrel for two more minutes then exit the park, lending a realistic sense of continuity to the squirrel's world. As he stepped into his office from his v-chamber, he continued to hear the news story, now from speakers around his office. He donned his favorite terminal, the gray lightweight helmet. His hands fell naturally into the manuhaptic gloves that hung like holsters at his side. He opened secret channels into the private informational world of Bob Wells, head of the Upload project, confident that his alterations to the lab's operating systems would allow him to monitor Bob's actions undetected.

  Raymond checked Bob's private messaging inbox. Confidential communications from corporate backers followed close on the heels of the news from the ESW. Raymond skimmed them as they came in. All indicated that year-2070 grant money tagged for the Human Mind Upload Project—work for which Bob Wells' name was known throughout the science and technology communities—would have to be pulled. The power of automated public-image management was at play. Across the board, corporate risk analysis software responded negatively to the ESW's decision. Bob would instruct his digital information assistants to appeal for reconsideration, of course, but there could be little doubt that the project's trajectory had just taken a sharp turn dirtward.

  Raymond wondered how Bob would react to this turn of events. The man had over thirty years of research under his belt, much of which had pushed the boundaries of contemporary ethics. He was probably pretty used to this sort of thing. His work on the selective replacement of brain tissue with artificial lobes outfitted with radio transceivers raised all sorts of ethical concerns regarding privacy, human identity, and the possibility of brainwashing. His work on embedding encryption/decryption chips in the brain, enabling governments and corporations to "turn off" knowledge of sensitive information held by employees, had made his name anathema among privacy rights advocates. He had encountered such ethical roadblocks before, and it soon became apparent that he had anticipated this one; within an hour of the position statement's release, Bob had scrapped his "Plan A" budget and was bringing "Plan B" up to date, to account for the funding withdrawals. He could continue limited work on the project, probably hoping that the Naturalists on the ESW would be displaced in the years to come. He might even be able to obtain new anonymous funding, from individuals and corporations keenly interested in the outcome of his research.

  Of course, their current work would not be called into question. So far, the team had successfully scanned and uploaded the minds of fruit flies, mice, rats, squirrels, dogs, and pigs. The ESW ruling said nothing about the destructive uploading of non-human primates. But the real money lay in human upload. The corporations funding their animal research were investing in the long-term payoff of human upload. At full funding, it might be years before Bob felt prepared for the first human upload. With budget cuts and the possibility of massive legal battles, testing was likely to grind to a halt, regardless how small the theoretical gap between chimp upload and human upload. Raymond felt a sudden pang of despair.

  This whole thing could unravel.

  It occurred to Raymond that Bob might even see a bright side to this turn of events. Competing projects worldwide would face similar budget cuts, bringing the field to a pause. This pause would give Bob some much-needed time to publish findings and to catch up with his other project, complementary research on the computer-controlled sustenance of a human brain—research deemed ethically acceptable—noble, even—by moderate Naturalists.

  The one serious repercussion of the ruling for Bob, by Raymond's estimation, was that he would have to cut staff. Even though most team members were not particularly well paid, payroll and workstation leases were the most marginal areas of Bob's budget. He couldn't afford to sell off any of the team's expensive research equipment—he needed everything the team owned in order to continue working, and there was no way to safely cut corners on the maintenance of such mission-critical equipment. The first place to make cuts would have to be in staffing.

  Bob had proclaimed many times how very proud he was of the team he had put together. Raymond watched now as Bob tweaked Plan B's personnel allocation. It came as no surprise to see that Anya's name was gone from the list. The past few days, she and Raymond had been discussing the project and its future, in light of Bento's worsening illness; Anya knew she frustrated Bob. He criticized her for being too eager, too emotional about her science. She was also inclined to think Bob viewed her as something of a threat, as if she might steal his thunder, using her father's science journalism connections to leak findings into publication before Bob was ready to publish his own papers.

  Raymond wasn't surprised to see that Kim and Jake were amid the Plan B cuts, either; of the team's technicians, Darryl was the real expert, and Bob could bring in free student help if he had to. Of the programmers, Raymond was the obvious cut. He was the last brought onto the team, not even two years ago, and he didn't have a degree. Although his talent was obvious and his custom tools had measurably accelerated the team's progress, his lack of credentials would make keeping him unsupportable, especially since the other developers had all done cross-over work on Bob's brain sustenance project.

  Even after dropping Anya, Kim, Jake, and Raymond, Bob's Plan B bottom line was still red. A text alert popped into Raymond's field of view, informing him that Bob was establishing a voice-visual connection with his digital assistant, to whom Bob had trustingly assigned one of Raymond's custom personas—that of a bustling, warm-hearted, middle-aged woman named Tina. Raymond tuned in, seeing and hearing roughly the same thing that Bob saw and heard through his pricey comm implants. Bob instructed Tina to gather his notes on the possible scientific benefits of the uploading of chimp minds and present them to various university administrators in hopes of garnering additional funding. "And Tina, we need to change the project name," he said. "Drop 'Human'. Present it as the Mind Upload Project."

  "You got it, boss," replied Tina.

  Raymond, listening from his office, was aware of Bob's every computer action. His software agents, enjoying the lax security of the university lab, monitored activity throughout the network. The moment Bob instructed his project management application to make the necessary adjustments for Raymond's year-end termination, one of Raymond's planted agents recognized this as an alarm-worthy event. As Raymond thoughtfully watched Bob's edits, he heard Scorpio's voice whispering in his right ear.

  "Mosby," whispered Scorpio. "You may want to take a look at Bob's project schedule. You want it?"

  His hands still in the manuhaptic gloves, Raymond signed to Scorpio that he was already on it.

  "You'll notice," said Scorpio, "that you're off the project as of December 19, just before break."

  Raymond nodded. "Budget cuts," he muttered.

  I need to figure out if I really can upload. I need to see Anya.

  "Scorpio, have Puck compose a message to Anya. Something... clever. I want to take her up on her offer of dinner. Tonight, if possible."

  "Mosby, you should tell her yourself. You do know that, right?"

  Raymond was taken aback—Scorpio rarely offered advice. Even Scorpio recognized the cowardly avoidance in having a persona do his talking for him.

  "I can't," said Raymond. "I've tried. I don't know how."

  o-------------------------------o

  Raymond sat at his desk, massaging his temples, dwelling on the consequences of losing his spot on the team. Uploading was more than a dream for him now. It was his escape plan. He had originally joined the team to be among pioneers, taking part in research that really meant something to him. Intellectually, he s
aw uploading as a chance for the sick to escape their failing bodies, a chance for scientists to gain a deeper understanding of the mysteries of the human mind, a chance for humans to reduce their impact on the environment. It would facilitate space travel, allowing humans to beam their minds across the solar system in digital form. On a more personal level, it represented a means of entering a world wherein his imagination could define every aspect of his own reality. It would give him the opportunity to escape society, or create his own if he wanted one.

  Now, uploading had a rather more urgent meaning. It was the beautiful way out of the fraud he had perpetuated since he was seventeen.

  He stood up from his chair and started to pace. Adrenaline surged through his body. His hands formed fists. He eyed the kick-practice bag in the corner but consciously diverted his energy to scheming. He could not afford to lose his access to the scanning and uploading equipment. He suddenly had less than two months left on the project. Maybe he could wait, go into hiding, and come back when the upload research was further along—just break into the lab. But the longer he stayed away, the more the project would move beyond him, increasing the likelihood of a mistake. By the time he came back, he might not even know how to operate the scanner.

  Bob might be willing to keep me on unpaid. I could monitor the Tate investigation. Who knows—maybe it'll blow over. Maybe they'll never come up with enough to arrest me. But what if I missed something, and the cops show up one day to take me away? Maybe this is just the motivation I needed to make my getaway now, while I have time.

  The barriers to human upload had been discussed at length in team meetings. To Anya, the gap between chimp and human seemed trivial. The scanning hardware and raw computer hardware on hand were theoretically adequate. The greatest issues lay in the interrelation of scanned mind and simulated body. The approach to scanning they had taken thus far was first to monitor all major systems in the live source animal, then destructively scan the entire body cell by cell, with nanobots. Every cell in the nervous system was mapped into a highly specialized computer wherein the self-configuring hardware mimicked the behavior of the brain and all nervous pathways into and out of it. This computer then interfaced with a simulation running on another computer, a simulation of every other system of the body—muscular, skeletal, digestive, etc. This "body" simulation also provided the sensations of the virtual world in which the uploaded animal perceived itself as existing. All of the scientists on the team were pretty confident in the accuracy of the nervous system scan, but many unknown complexities lay in the neurohormonal effects of the body on the mind and vice versa. Bob Wells, himself a leading neurohormonologist, believed that their current simulation of neurohormones was a gross oversimplification. In their tests on small mammals, it had been difficult to judge whether the personality of the scanned animal matched that of its source.