Upload

by McClelland, Mark

  Raymond found himself wanting to be with her, to interact with her. He had often wanted to touch her during her time at the lab, but was not permitted to. Now there was nothing to stop him: he stood in his v-chamber, closed the door, and was transported into Molly's v-world.

  To enhance the experiential coherency of the v-world, he had given it a static gateway. Like most lobbies, this one was a small, unadorned room with a single doorway. A faint yellow light emanated from overhead, and the door glowed a rich shade of green. He touched the door, and it slid open. He stepped through. The humid, tropical air felt like silk against his skin. The ground was soft beneath his feet. The forest around him was dense with narrow sleek-barked tree trunks. Birds squawked and sang somewhere above him, obscured from view by the thick foliage. Raymond knew the floor of the v-world to be precisely one acre in size. It was mostly tropical forest, with a stream that flowed through one corner, coming out beneath one eighty-foot-high bamboo wall and disappearing beneath another. Were Molly ever to plunge into the water in hopes of swimming beneath the wall and away, she would find a mesh of reeds barring escape, a seemingly natural barrier in a profoundly unnatural environment.

  Raymond walked along a path to the center of the space, where he found Molly sitting on the ground. The shaved spots were gone, her hair coat fully intact. He approached her slowly, holding out open hands to her. She gazed complacently at him, her head slightly lowered. She made no motion to flee. He wondered what her life must have been like that she would not be struck with fear at the sight of an unknown human. Or perhaps this was some side-effect of her upload?

  He moved in closer, and she held her hands out to him, much as he held his out to her. He took this as a sign that she wanted to be picked up. He squatted down, let her wrap her hairy arms around his neck, and stood up. He found her to be far lighter than expected—his avatar apparently had super-human strength, a convenience for the researchers. She wrapped her arms and legs around him and leaned her head against his cheek.

  Her peaceful, complacent nature disturbed him. She seemed downright depressed. He wondered whether it was possible that some basic spark of vitality had been lost during the upload. Or perhaps she had simply been in a funk because of her illness, and she had not yet had time or opportunity to discover that her body was a healthy one now. He would have to read more of her background notes. Maybe she needed a playmate or a favorite toy, or maybe it was just a matter of time.

  "Computer, is there any mention of a favorite food in Molly's records?"

  "Oil palm nuts," whispered a female voice in his ear.

  "I want a pile of oil palm nuts on the ground in front of me."

  A pile of small nuts appeared in front of him. He gently lifted Molly away from him. She clung to his neck, her grip very strong.

  "Okay," said Raymond.

  He crossed his feet and carefully lowered himself into a cross-legged seated position. He then scooched around and showed Molly the nuts.

  "See? Look at those yummy nuts."

  Her head turned slightly, but she showed no real interest in the nuts. He shifted so that his right hand was free, resting her weight in his lap but keeping his left hand on her back, to comfort her. He reached out and picked up a nut, then lifted it up and placed it next to her nose. She pulled away slightly. He lowered his hand, not wanting to annoy her.

  "What's wrong, girl?"

  Something was odd, and he realized he had expected her to be a little smelly. She wasn't—in fact, he detected no scent at all. Raymond wondered whether this was a failing of the v-world or a shortcoming of his v-chamber. He had been careful to use the most advanced v-world engine they had. Perhaps it was just a matter of the default settings being off.

  "Computer, I'm not registering any smells. Run the basic smell diagnostics and calibration suite."

  "Running. Complete."

  Raymond got a sudden whiff of chimp odor. It reminded him of the animal holding area in the lab, only not as pungent. He held the nut up in front of Molly's nose again. This time, she released her grip enough to free one arm, and she took the nut in hand. She then started to look around at the ground. She looked to one side, then shifted so she could look to the other side. Whatever it was that she was looking for, she apparently didn't find it, as she dropped the nut and went back to leaning her head against his.

  Raymond wondered whether he had missed some other calibration process. He was surprised that they were not run automatically, only now realizing how much tweaking Anya and the other scientists must do after first instantiating a new v-world.

  "Computer, Molly was looking for something on the ground when I gave her the nut. Do you know what she would have been looking for?"

  "There is mention of hammer and anvil stones near occurrences of the phrase 'palm oil nut'."

  "Of course—nutcrackers. Tools. You're a smart girl, aren't you Molly?"

  Raymond picked up another nut, then stood up from his cross-legged position and walked Molly to the stream. The stream bed was lined with stones, and there were more scattered along the bank. He held the nut up for Molly, and she took it in her left hand. She then looked down at the stream bank, and swung down from Raymond's neck, apparently having found a stone she thought would work. She selected a broad, flat stone, picked it up in her right hand, and set it a short distance from the stream. Still holding the nut in her left hand, she made her way up and down the stream bank, examining stones. Eventually, she found one that was large and oval-shaped, and she carried it over to the first one. She placed the nut on the flat anvil stone and gave it a whack with the hammer stone. Her technique was good; the shell of the nut split away, and the meat inside was exposed, only slightly mashed. She dropped her hammer stone, picked up the nut, dug out the meat, and placed it in her mouth. She then showed Raymond a big toothy grin and started to make her way back to the pile of nuts.

  Raymond took the opportunity to wander around a bit. The space seemed a little small. It had been designed to make it easy for the researchers to observe and interact with Bento when he was uploaded. Raymond decided he would enlarge it if he had time. For now, to give Molly something more to look at, he would create a window onto Nurania.

  "Computer, open a gateway-window to Nurania. Within this habitat, place the window in the center of the east wall. Unbreakable, completely transparent, ten feet wide and six feet tall."

  He walked to the center of the east wall and saw a window. The other side was pitch black—he needed to define the other end of the gateway.

  "Computer, jack out, avatar exits via gateway immediately."

  The jungle scene disappeared, and Raymond found himself in his v-chamber, in the pale amber glow of its default lighting.

  "Nurania, god mode. The tree home in Nalixia Rainforest."

  The scene changed immediately to a tree house. The floors and walls were of masterfully lashed wooden poles. Overhead, a roof of huge overlapping leaves lay over a teepee-like arrangement of gracefully curved beams. There were shuttered windows on all four sides, and a trap door in the floor.

  "Flight control," said Raymond. A small controller appeared in his right hand. He pushed forward and flew through the wall of the tree house. He hung in mid-air amid dense foliage. He lowered the controller and flew down through the foliage without disturbing it, dropping slowly below the forest canopy. He nudged the thumb-joystick further forward, and for a moment the forest was a blur.

  Raymond looked down past his feet to the forest floor, some 80 feet below. He knew that a community of gibbon-like creatures lay to the east. He had created the a-life species when he was about sixteen, but had planted them in Nurania just a few years ago. Directly below him was an area of forest that lay at the edge of their territory. He decided it would be a good place to drop Molly's one-acre habitat. There was plenty of room to grow into someday, the climate and flora were similar to that of the habitat, and Molly might enjoy watching the creatures of this region.

  "Clear a one-acre squ
are centered below me, ceiling level with my feet, floor level with the current forest floor." The trees around him vanished. The forest floor was replaced with a matte white surface with a grid of thick orange lines. "Gateway-fill this space with Molly's habitat." At his feet appeared a one-acre slab of black; the upper exterior surface of Molly's habitat had never been defined. He pressed a button on the flight controller and his weight came to rest on the black surface. "Place a drainage grid on this surface." He was elevated six inches, and the surface beneath him turned into a grid of mesh-covered gutters that ran to the edges of the acre. "Atop the drainage grid place ten inches of substrate, contained by bamboo support walls at the edges of the acre." He was elevated again. Now he stood atop dark soil. "Seed the soil with tropical mix three." The surface of the soil was covered with a randomly distributed assortment of seeds. He considered placing a protective covering over the seeds, to prevent birds from eating them, but decided to let the simulation take its course. He had never created an artificial mesa like this, and he wasn't sure what would come of it.

  With a push of the controller button, gravity vanished again. Raymond flew to the center of the east edge of the new bamboo-walled mesa, then dropped straight down its sheer face. Below him he could see ant-eaters feasting on the insects that had been pushed out of the acre that was previously there; Raymond had his v-world set to a preservationist mode that prevented his construction from killing any of the animal life. When he reached the forest floor, he hovered a few inches above the insects and looked in through the window. The ant-eaters ignored Raymond while he was in god mode, voraciously inhaling the bugs as they attempted to crawl or burrow to safety. Through the window, Raymond saw Molly on the other side, curiously smacking the simulated glass. From outside, there was no sound. Raymond saw that she could see him; she grew agitated at the sight of him. She opened her mouth and leaned against the glass, then started hitting the glass forcefully. It broke his heart to see her there, encaged, wanting to get at him.

  "You're going to have to hang on, Molly. I can't let you into Nurania yet. I don't know what might happen."

  He wondered whether the window was a good idea. It seemed cruel to inform her that there was a world outside her habitat.

  "Fill the window with opaque bamboo wall, the same material used for the rest of the wall."

  The window vanished, replaced with bamboo wall that blended flawlessly into the whole of the mesa wall.

  "Insert Hank the Handler into Molly's habitat. Jack out."

  Raymond found himself in the amber glow of the v-chamber again. He took a deep breath, trying to shake off the image of Molly banging on the window.

  "Sleep. I need sleep."

  He stripped and crawled into bed, turning off the lights with a voice command. He felt hot and cold at the same time. He balled himself up in the fetal position, trying to fight off the shivers of exhaustion.

  Chapter 12

  After about half an hour of tossing and turning, his mind racing with thoughts of how to get rid of the motor home, Raymond heard Scorpio announce an urgent message from an FBI agent named Berman.

  "Play it."

  A man with a droning nasal voice informed him that his presence was required at the lab, no later than 3:00 PM. Raymond looked and saw that it was 12:15 PM now.

  There would be no time for sleep.

  "You also have a message from Anya."

  "Play it."

  Anya's voice came over the speakers, asking where he was and whether he was okay. She had tried to contact him at the lab, but he wasn't there.

  "Tell her I'm sleeping. I'll see her at 3:00, at the lab."

  He spent the next couple of hours making arrangements to dispose of the motor home. He found a black-market buyer who specialized in such business. "Buyer" was an ironic term, as Raymond would have to give up the motor home and pay a handsome fee on top of that. But the deal was quick and relatively painless. In a few days, the motor home would deliver itself to its new owner. It was to be delivered to a repair shop in nearby Ypsilanti, called Jim's Garage. Officially, an insurance company would pay for the vehicle, as if totaled in an accident. It would be stripped of all personal belongings, painstakingly cleaned, and either scrapped or put into service doing who knows what. Raymond decided he would worry about selling the land itself after he uploaded, if at all.

  Then there was the matter of getting the second NBC to the bunker. Raymond called his delivery robot to the motor home, loaded the cardboard box into its cargo bay, and scheduled a second nighttime delivery to Property Disposition. If all went well, the NBC would arrive at the bunker early the following morning.

  "Mosby." It was Scorpio's voice, coming from Raymond's wrist relay. "You're expected at the lab in fifteen minutes."

  Raymond stood in his bedroom, staring at his v-chamber. He was struck by how odd it was to hear his wrist relay while in his motor home. Typically, he would have been contacted via the motor home's comm system, but cleanup routines were rapidly depersonalizing the entire motor home. His v-chamber would soon know nothing of Nurania, nothing of his underworld dealings. The shake machine would have no record of his preferences. The climate control system would be restored to factory defaults. From the kitchen came sounds of robot components twitching, humming, clicking through the self-tests that followed deprogramming.

  It occurred to Raymond that Scorpio had contacted him by his secret name, without first confirming that it was safe to communicate openly.

  "Scorpio, this location is no longer safe. The lab isn't safe." Raymond paused. The digital heart of his home was being dismantled. "Nowhere is safe."

  "Acknowledged. Records updated accordingly."

  Raymond suddenly craved a favorite song, an old song sung by a woman, in a language he believed to be Bulgarian. He didn't have many artistic associations, but this song had a strong connection for him. It represented the sad isolation he now felt—the hollow, ringing, cutting comprehension of how far apart he was from the rest of the world. He wanted to hear it, to have it reflect and amplify his state of being, but even his music collection was gone from here now, wiped out by the cleanup routines.

  "Ten minutes," said Scorpio.

  "Okay," said Raymond. "No time for self-indulgence."

  He looked around at his depersonalized home and felt like a ghost, already departed. For a moment he didn't like the feeling, but he quickly turned it inside out. He was going to a better place. Separation from this place gave him a sense of power.

  "It's like flying," he said to himself. "This is me getting off the ground."

  He grabbed his coat and left.

  o-------------------------------o

  As Raymond approached the lab, he saw that there was a crowd outside the front doors. Students mostly, but there was a media truck in the parking lot, and several police cars. He thought about trying the service entrance, but it would surely be closed. He rode onto the sidewalk and started to dismount while coasting in, standing on his left pedal. He wondered again how much information the FBI had on him. And the police. And Murray. Were they all cooperating? Might they arrest him on the basis of his sketchy past? They couldn't, legally, but was that enough to stop them?

  What did it matter? He was in too deep to run.

  Murray—shit, I never went back to my apartment.

  As he walked his bike through the heart of the crowd, escorted by FBI agents, all eyes were on him. Media bots swarmed mid-air in front of him, bumping and edging contentiously for the most effective angle. An angry-looking man in his 30s glowered at Raymond and called him an ape killer. Others repeated the epithet. The slur meant nothing in particular to him, but he was unprepared for the emotional impact of a mob. One particularly tough-looking undergrad girl, dressed in black and green, her eyes filled with youthful rage, spat out a single word as he passed: "cannibal". He recognized her intent, and unthinkingly shot her a dirty look. It was a reference to an underground animation about a villainous man with a destructive-uplo
ad device, shaped like a 20th-century canister vacuum with a piranha-head attachment. The man goes about sucking people up with his scanner, uploading them into little edible storage devices, then eating the wafers, believing he will somehow gain "massive karma" by doing so. Raymond wished he could stop and debunk all the deliberately twisted imagery used to portray uploading in underground art.

  People from the media shouted questions at him, which he ignored completely. He wondered whether such questions ever provoked response. He stared straight ahead and proceeded down the lane opened for him by FBI agents. As he reached the edge of the crowd closest to the lab, a face caught his eye. It was Murray.

  "You weren't home," he said, raising his voice only slightly, to be heard over the noise of the crowd. And Raymond couldn't help but hear. "You weren't home," repeated Murray, "and you weren't at your girlfriend's. Do you know who was at your girlfriend's?"

  Raymond looked at the door of the lab, determined to show no further response. He had always wondered why such mobs even tried to get a reaction, when it seemed so easy to ignore them. He understood now how difficult it is not to take the bait when the mob really knows their quarry.

  o-------------------------------o

  Inside the lobby, one of the agents took Raymond's bike, assuring him it would be well looked-after, and directed him to the conference room. Raymond struggled out of his jacket as he walked through the halls. The conference room was as full as Raymond had ever seen it. Everyone on the team was present, as were several more FBI agents. It was standing-room only. Bob stood at the far end of the room, next to a young man in a white shirt, Agent Michaels. Several others stood around, leaning against the walls. There were scattered conversations, but voices were lower than usual.

  Raymond spotted Anya, standing at the end opposite Bob, and headed toward her. She turned, and her face melted into a look at once worried and accusing, her eyes appealing but her head-tilt one of worried aggravation.