Upload

by McClelland, Mark

  He chuckled and smiled.

  "It turned out to be way harder than the replica of myself; Tate had like eighty years of life behind him. And he talked more. I tried new approaches, and I went deeper into the psychology than ever before. In the process, I discovered my Tate replica had learned Tate's bank access codes. I was tempted to drain off some funds for myself, but it seemed like a stupid risk. I mean, look at what I already had.

  "A long time went by, and things were pretty good. Then, one morning, I got a medical alert on my wrist relay. I had never hooked Tate's v-chamber back up to the emergency medical network. I was afraid to—if there ever was an emergency, they might come to the house, and they would see I had hacked his v-chamber. I guess I figured someday I would finish the Tate replica, and then I'd remove my hack and make things right again."

  Raymond crossed his arms over his chest and sat back. It felt weird to lay out his whole story to Anya, but he wanted to give the police everything they needed to close the case and be done with it.

  "So I got this medical alert, and I didn't know what to do. What if he were to die? What would happen to me? Where would I go? Or could I not mention it, and just go on taking care of his house as if nothing had happened? It's not like anyone ever came to visit him in person, and his v-world relationships were mostly with people he paid for pleasure, or with gamers, and they wouldn't much care if he disappeared. In the few v-worlds where Tate did have real friends, my replica could just pick up where he left off, and nobody would know the difference. I could go on living on Tate's money... what was the harm?

  "Of course, I wasn't sure he was really dying. What if it was just a minor heart attack? I went downstairs, scared as hell, and I opened his v-chamber. I didn't know what I'd do if he did need help, but... well, that turned out not to be an issue."

  Raymond looked down, losing his train of thought as he remembered the old man, dead on the floor of the big v-chamber. He leaned forward and folded his hands.

  "And that was it, Anya. All of a sudden, I was in the midst of serious crime. It wasn't murder, exactly, but the old man was dead. Negligent homicide, I guess. And then I made it look like he was still alive. I fed my Tate replica a story to cover for his brief absence, I taught it to make jokes about going senile whenever it was asked a question it didn't know the answer to, I gave it access to the v-worlds where Tate had friends, and I let it loose.

  "That was August of '63," lied Raymond, careful to adhere to his false timeline. "I watched Tate's replica in action. Over time, I started to worry that it wasn't believable enough. The senile jokes came too often, and people seemed a little suspicious. I tweaked the replica to be more surly, to piss people off and make it seem like Tate was losing it. To drive people away. I gradually backed out of all remaining relationships. By the summer of '64, the replica was only online a couple times a week. I started to cash out his accounts, and I finally had the replica inform Tate's few living relatives that he had decided to run off with a woman and might never return.

  "From that point on, my entire life was based on fraud."

  Raymond stopped for a moment, looking himself in the eye.

  "My entire life—fraud on top of fraud."

  He shifted, collected himself.

  "So, I had command of this fortune, but it was money I couldn't spend, or I might give myself away. I decided to lie low for a few years. I enrolled here at Michigan, with the goal of joining a research team where I could satisfy my love of personas and v-worlds. Then I heard about the upload project, and my dream of escape took form. Not escape from my crimes. I mean escape from a world that seemed like it had no place for me. Until I met you.

  "Just when life started looking up, I learned Tate's nephews had hired a private investigator to look into the old man's disappearance. In fact, it was on the Friday we first made plans to do yoga together that I found out the missing person case had been reopened. I kept tabs on the investigation. For a while, it seemed like they had nothing new on me. Then the missing person case started to look like a homicide case, and I knew I had to move fast. If I'm caught, my prison sentence could be ten years. Probably way longer, with all the hacking and fraud. And who knows what they might do to my brain, in the name of behavioral reform."

  Raymond paused and took a deep breath. He was through with the spin and the lies. He was just talking to Anya now.

  "I probably shouldn't have let our relationship go as far as it did. As soon as I found out the case had been reopened, I should have ended it. But I couldn't help myself, Anya—I'm in love. I know you could probably never love me, after all this. I can't blame you. I mean, look at who I really am. You're probably kicking yourself for ever even liking me. But I... I want you to know that I love you, as much as someone like me can, I guess. Being with you, I've seen what it feels like to be close to someone. I feel like you made me a real person, for the first time in my life. If my past were different, maybe... maybe things would have worked out between you and me. I don't know. Maybe, years from now, we would have uploaded together. I wanted it to work. It just... couldn't. And now you know why."

  Raymond moved to stand up, then realized he had forgotten the original impetus for making this recording. There was one more lie to be told.

  "Oh—hey. What's left of Tate's money is in an offshore account. If you get this message, then I won't be needing it. Please forward this message to the Ann Arbor police, and make sure it makes it to Arnold Murray. He has a reward coming."

  In actuality, most of Tate's money lay in the accounts of Ivar Svensson. What he had doled out for Tate's nephews was a fraction of the original fortune. Raymond rattled off all the information for the account, so that Tate's relatives would be able to access it. He only hoped it was enough to satisfy their greed, to bring Murray's investigation to a close.

  "Well, that's it. I'm glad I got a chance to tell you all this. If I'm lucky, you'll never even see this. But, you know, it felt good just to spill it all. It's been locked up inside me, all this time, and now it's free. If I'd never met you, it would have remained locked up forever. I hope everything that sucks about me makes sense now. It doesn't make me any less fucked up, but at least now you know."

  A surge of sentimental intensity welled up within him. His eyes started to water. He opened them wide, swallowed hard, and looked off to the side, trying to shake it off.

  "I guess that's it. Goodbye Anya."

  He stood up.

  "Stop recording."

  o-------------------------------o

  He configured the message to be delivered in three days, then stood awhile, taking in the gravity of the moment. His outpouring left him feeling wrung out. It would be nice to rest a bit in Anya's apartment. He checked his wrist relay and saw he still had plenty of time before she was due back. He stepped out of the v-chamber. Cautiously, he shuffled through the dark living room to the sofa, touched the cushion to make sure there was nothing on it, and sat down. He took his shoes off, folded his legs beneath him. Drawing in long breaths, he concentrated on calming his mind, absorbing the slow easy groove of the ambient music that still played in the apartment above. The darkness of the room felt warm and fluid. He drank it in. The world felt close around him, and he welcomed its contact. He imagined Anya curled up next to him, her head in his lap, awake but silent.

  Tonight—tonight I upload. I'll never be in this apartment again. I'll never see Anya again.

  He looked around the room. Everything seemed so placid. He turned the surveillance ring on his finger, around and around. He focused on the feeling of the smooth metal gliding over his sweaty skin as he slid the ring down over his knuckle and back.

  I wonder if I'll sweat when I'm uploaded.

  A peaceful acceptance of his imminent departure swept through him. He was ready to leave. He imagined the calm within him as sand settling out of water, turbulent water allowed to swirl itself to stillness. He sat back and closed his eyes, just for a moment.

  o------------------------
-------o

  Raymond was jarred out of sleep by the sound of keys in the front door. He sat up with a jerk, seized for a second by panic. It was too late—if he ran out now, Anya might be weirded out and call the police. He slipped his shoes on, then attempted to settle back down, but tension lingered in his shoulders and neck. He would just tell her he came over to talk.

  He heard an unexpected voice, a woman's voice. The door opened.

  "I don't know, Anya." Raymond recognized it as Suma's voice. "I'd rather see you with someone more—"

  The light turned on, and Suma was cut short by the sight of Raymond. Anya started, letting out a small gasp.

  "Raymond!" scolded Anya. "You surprised me!"

  Raymond stirred, sat up. "I'm sorry."

  "Wait a minute. How the hell did you get in here?"

  Raymond shrugged his shoulders playfully. "It's not tough."

  "Maybe I should go?" offered Suma.

  "You broke into my apartment?" shouted Anya, ignoring Suma.

  Raymond shrugged again, this time as if about to explain something away. But he didn't know what to say. He was stuck at the disconnect between the clean getaway he had planned and the excruciating situation he had gotten himself into.

  "Raymond, you can't just break into my apartment! Jesus Christ! If I wanted you to come and go as you pleased, I'd give you some bleeding keys!"

  "I said I'm sorry," said Raymond miserably. He stood up. "I'll go, okay?"

  "No, that's not okay!" yelled Anya. "Every time there's the slightest hint of conflict, you decide it's time to leave! I'm tired of it! How about you grow a pair of balls and actually talk to me for once!"

  I just did.

  Raymond melted into utter despair, staring at the wall.

  "Listen," said Suma, trying to make her exit.

  "Raymond," said Anya, her voice softening somewhat, "what were you thinking?"

  "I..." He trailed off. He wanted to tell her it would all make sense in a few days, but he knew that such mystery would just make things worse.

  Suma started to leave, but Anya stopped her. "Wait, Suma. Let me give you the book." Anya crossed the living room and selected a book from one of her bookshelves. Raymond looked to Suma, embarrassed. He sought some sort of consolation, but she simply looked away.

  Raymond wanted to get away. This was the last time he would ever see Anya, and all he wanted to do was leave. He felt like he was drowning in his own dysfunction. He sizzled with angry disappointment, and was completely at a loss for how to express it. As Anya walked back and handed Suma the book, he realized that Suma would leave in a few seconds, and he would be alone with Anya. He saw no good outcome in staying. And Suma's words echoed in his head: "I'd rather see you with someone more..."

  He grabbed his jacket from the sofa and headed for the door.

  "No you don't!" admonished Anya.

  Raymond continued to the door, then turned.

  "I wish things could have been different, Anya." He stepped outside and slammed the door behind him. He walked down the porch stairs, pulling his jacket on as he walked, then started around to the back of the house to get his bike. He heard the front door open. "Raymond!" called Anya, her tone loaded with a frustrated plea.

  Raymond turned around. It wasn't Anya's voice that stopped him. He had seen something. A car, parked just down the street, with two dark figures inside. As he watched, the doors of the car opened.

  "Raymond, what's wrong?" asked Anya from the porch. "What are you looking at?"

  That's it. They're onto me.

  Raymond hesitated no longer. It was the FBI, or Murray—he didn't care which. As he took off around back, a light shone on him from behind. He broke into a sprint. Around the corner of the house. His bike still rested against the building. He grabbed the handlebars, swung onto the bike, and pedaled hard. He started to go around the house the other way, but heard footsteps—they had split up, coming around either side of the house.

  Raymond heard Anya yelling his name. She sounded scared.

  "He's on this side," said one of the men. "Sounds like he's on a bike."

  The man's voice was close. Raymond made a split-second judgement—he was trapped. If the man had a gun, he would have plenty of time to make a clean shot.

  Raymond tweaked a burst of the bike's motors and raced forward, straight for the corner of the house. The man came into view, weapon raised.

  "Freeze!"

  In one perfectly timed motion, Raymond lifted his weight onto the handlebars and nailed the bike's front brakes. He shot head-first through the air and smashed into the man, landing his elbow in the man's face and his knee in the man's stomach. An instant after the impact, a shot was fired. Raymond heard Anya scream in terror.

  When Raymond hit the ground, his knee ended up in the man's chest, and he felt ribs crack. Raymond's momentum carried him sliding forward, past the man, and his bike landed in the grass next to him. The man rolled onto his side, groaning in pain, and reached around to fire on Raymond again. But Raymond was too fast. He spun around on all fours, out of the line of fire, and pulled the blade from his jacket. He leapt on the man like a cat and brought the point of the blade down on the man's gun arm. The fine alloy blade slid through muscle and into the soil. Raymond grabbed the gun from the man's hand, stuffed it under the waistline of his pants, and scrambled for his bike.

  From the corner of his eye, Raymond saw the second man come tearing back around the front of the house, gun in hand. Raymond ducked his head down and ran his bike back along the side of the house. Anya screamed "Raymond" over and over. A shot was fired, and Raymond felt a streak of burning pain across his right shoulder.

  Behind Anya's house was a low concrete wall, on the far side of which was a parking lot for a small apartment complex. Raymond sped toward this low wall and dexterously swung his bike over it. He pedaled between two parked cars, turned, and engaged the motors. The bike surged forward. He braked hard, turned down the alley that led to Liberty Street, and revved the motors again.

  Liberty was a robot-only street, clearly marked by a strip of blue lights down the center of each lane. A light traffic of unmanned delivery vehicles, big and small, flowed ceaselessly in both directions, wirelessly communicating their locations and intentions to one another. Typically, any non-robotic vehicle would cause traffic to stop, as a safety precaution—a problem Raymond had solved long ago.

  "Robot mode," he said into his jacket. His jacket communicated with his bike, which silently joined into the radio chatter of the robots. He slipped into traffic, fell in behind a large truck, and issued another command into his jacket collar: "Robot shadow". The bike locked in on the closest vehicle—the truck—and used its navigational communications to shadow it, allowing Raymond to safely tail the truck as long as he wanted. He reached back and felt his shoulder, assessing the wound. It stung like hell, and his hand came back bloody, but he still had full strength and range of motion.

  The men who were after him were almost certainly FBI. And if the FBI were onto him, they would probably disable his access to the lab. They might even have agents at the lab before he could get there. But his only chance of escape was uploading. He had narrowed his own options to one, and it was now or never.

  He suddenly remembered the surveillance ring. He glanced at his hand, on the handlebars: the ring was gone.

  The ring. Shit—they weren't onto me. My ring must have come off. I must have been playing with it while I was sleeping, and it came off, and they were sent to find me.

  He screamed "fuck" at the top of his lungs and revved the bike. He pulled into the middle of the street and pushed the bike as fast as it would go, zipping between robot vehicles inches away on either side.

  Maybe there's still a chance. Maybe they won't expect me to head to the lab.

  Suma's words came back to him. "I'd rather see you with someone more..." More what? More open? More giving? More mature? More healthy? More balanced? More socially acceptable? Suma could see he wasn'
t right for Anya. He'd always been a misfit. Soon, he'd either be dead or living in a world where he didn't have to fit in—where he could make the world fit him.

  One problem, two possible solutions—each as elegant as the other.

  He streaked across town, reaching speeds that exceeded his capacity to control the bike. He was aware of occasional glider traffic overhead, but not once did he see a search light. He heard sirens in the distance, but they didn't seem to be following him. And he was moving too fast to allow him to check behind him. Traffic on the road to North Campus was light, allowing him to cut across lanes as he pursued the optimal line through the sweeping curves. He was relentless in his pursuit of speed, exhilarated by his utter fearlessness.

  The lab came into view. There were no sirens, no hovering police gliders, no agents at the door. He jumped the curb and skidded along the sidewalk to the entrance. The door opened at his approach. He glanced behind him and saw nothing.

  He ran down the hall, ducked under investigation tape, and proceeded straight to the scanning room. The doors recognized him and opened. He cast his bike aside and walked directly to his post at the scanner controls. His heart raced, his body ached, his face tingled with windburn.

  "What the hell," he said aloud. "They really weren't onto me after all." He pulled out the stolen gun and set it down, logged into the controller, and started the scanner warm-up process.

  "Commencing warm-up," announced the female computer voice.

  He started to strip his clothes off. He would have to apply some of the derms now and just hope he could work through the haze of anesthetics. He stepped into the animal prep room and started going through cabinets. "Derms, derms, derms," he said, digging through labeled boxes. He found the stack he was looking for, grabbed an armload of boxes, and took them back into the scanning room.

  As he started to apply derms to his calves, he checked to make sure the nightly source-code backup was still scheduled for 3 AM, as this was his ticket past the FBI lock-down. He noted that most scheduled processes had been disabled, probably to make the investigators' lives easier. But they hadn't touched the source backup, because it included the result logs of ongoing tests. He configured the scanner to send a copy of his scan data to the test results datastore, without logging the copy action. He then rewrote from memory a simple cleanup script, to cover his tracks.