Upload

by McClelland, Mark

  "Diane says you killed a man," Eddie blurted.

  Raymond stopped what he was doing and looked at the boy.

  "Is it true?" he persisted.

  "No," said Raymond. Hearing the question from a child was off-putting. Raymond felt perceived as a murderer. "I did a very bad thing. If it weren't for me, an old man might have lived to be a little older. But I didn't kill anyone."

  "Diane says you ground up the old man's bones and washed the powder down the sink."

  "Wow kid—how about you shut the fuck up." Raymond went back to inspecting robots, trying to imagine how any of them might come in handy.

  "Did you?" asked Eddie.

  "Yes, as a matter of fact I did. To cover things up."

  "And did you really feed the old man's flesh to rats, so they would digest it?"

  "Yep. And I mixed their feces with fertilizer and had the lady bug robot push it down into the soil. What does your artificial intelligence make of that?"

  "How old were you?"

  "Seventeen, maybe?" replied Raymond.

  "I can't believe a boy that age could do such a thing."

  "I was scared," said Raymond. "The man was dead, and I was afraid I would get caught."

  "Where did you even come up with such ideas?"

  "Enough. Shut up, okay? I can see why I left this bleeding village."

  "Sorry," said Eddie. "I wanted to hear it straight from you."

  Raymond continued to look through the lab awhile longer, but came up empty-handed.

  "Say, Bailey, where's the clinic you mentioned earlier? It seems like there's a good chance I'll be around for dinner."

  Bailey led him back to ground level and showed him the clinic, a nondescript ground-level building that fit with the tropical village feel. Eddie continued to tag along, but was obligingly quiet.

  "What are you up to next, Raymond?" asked Bailey.

  "I'm gonna check out my workstation, up on the mountain. It's probably sealed up from the outside, the way it used to be, but it's worth checking."

  "I could come along," offered Eddie a little sheepishly.

  Raymond looked at him with one raised eyebrow. "I don't think so. Wait—are you allowed out of the Village?"

  Eddie nodded eagerly.

  "I'm not bringing you, but that's interesting. What about you?" he asked Bailey.

  "Yes, to advance my skills," she replied.

  Raymond nodded, considering this. "But you wouldn't be coming with me to advance your skills, Eddie. And you're still allowed out of the Village?"

  "Well, it can't hurt to ask, right?" Eddie grinned at him.

  "I see."

  o-------------------------------o

  Raymond returned to the clubhouse, to fetch his airboard. Along the way, he glanced at the globe, looking for changes. Faralonia was gone. Mount Lidral and Mount Hawthorn both appeared as volcanoes now. The browning wave of meteorite fires continued spreading westward as the virtual planet turned. It appeared that the Village was directly in their path. Realizing he was now at roughly the same longitude as the coral-blue palace, he tried to guess when they would arrive.

  They'll be here in the pre-dawn hours. If the comet doesn't hit first.

  He straddled the airboard, set the globe in front of him, pointed at the area where his work cabin was located, and said, "I want to go there."

  And nothing happened. He tried again. Apparently, he could only teleport to named places. He would have to fly. He secured the globe and circled upward, above the trees. A giant ash cloud could be seen drifting in from the west. The darkened landscape looked forlorn to Raymond's eyes, as if it knew the end was near.

  Chapter 17

  As Raymond flew away from the Village, the volcanic cloud crossed overhead, and a sparse gray snow of ash started to fall. Soon the air was thick with dust. He pushed his airboard faster, squinting and holding his right arm in front of his face to keep the gritty airborne ash out of his eyes. He held the Nuranian globe down with his left arm and gripped the board between his legs. All around, the valley and mountains that had once been so lush and beautiful were transformed into a sprawling realm of gloomy darkness. By morning, the meteor showers would have spread fiery destruction around the entire planet.

  Everything I hoped for in uploading seems pointless. I'm a toy soldier in a toy tragedy. Why am I not just fooling around with Venetia and being fed yolo fruits till this whole thing ends?

  He closed his eyes, seeking strength to continue. He thought of his old mantra, "self-control yields discipline, and the disciplined accumulation of power leads to freedom." How hollow it seemed now. He felt so powerless, and saw no means by which to improve his situation.

  I must keep searching. Knowledge is the key. I just have to find it.

  He opened his eyes and shook off his despair, determined to make the most of what might be his only opportunity to figure out what had happened, how he had landed in this paradise-turned-hell.

  He passed over his yoga spot, then ascended steadily toward the peak of Mount Golgora. It took longer to cover the distance than he had expected, and the height made him nervous, but he eventually saw the familiar sight of his work cabin, surrounded by trees.

  Raymond designed the cabin to be accessible only from the static gateway inside. At the time, it was the only building on the planet. It was meant to be a place of isolated viewing, pristinely apart from his garden paradise. Looking at it now, in the shadow of a cloud of smoke and ash, it seemed like a foreign object, a symbol of the universality of destruction.

  With grit in his eyes and throat and a sense of despair flourishing within him, Raymond circled the cabin. He saw no indication of an entrance, and decided it was probably a dead end. But just as he started to turn the airboard away from it, breaking out of his circle of inspection, a spot of blue caught his eye. It was moving, fluttering just outside one of the windows.

  Scorpio!

  The name formed in Raymond's mind, in a flurry of exultation, and very nearly made it to his mouth. But he cut himself off, embarrassed by his emotions at seeing a digital persona.

  It dawned on Raymond that he had never gone back and changed Scorpio's way of getting his attention when he was in the cabin. He sped straight at the cabin, and soon confirmed that there indeed was a blue jay pecking at the glass. Pecking, pecking, pecking. Raymond wondered how long the bird might have been there.

  The bird did not stop its pecking. Raymond drew to within arm's reach of it, but it just kept hovering, a non-stop beating of wings, slamming its little beak into the glass in bursts of three or four hits. Raymond looked through the glass, to the dark room within, and could scarcely believe his eyes. Reclining in the chair, in the middle of the room, was a massively muscular naked man. He lay motionless, eyes closed. Looking past the man's bulging physique, Raymond turned his attention to the expressionless face. Initially in denial of its familiarity, he stared, fixated, and reluctantly acknowledged what he was seeing. Uneasy awareness stirred within him.

  "That's me," he said. "That's my god copy."

  He banged on the glass with both his fists and screamed, as if this might get the attention of the man inside where the blue jay's incessant hammering had failed. The man didn't move. Raymond banged with his knuckles. He rammed the front of his airboard into the glass, making as much noise as he could. No response.

  "Can you hear me?" he asked of the bird. The bird continued to tap on the glass.

  What, am I a ghost now? Or are these ghosts, empty animations put here to tease me?

  Perhaps, thought Raymond, his god copy had jacked out and left this superhero avatar behind, an empty unresponsive husk. But why would Scorpio seek the attention of this non-Raymond? Scorpio always knew where to get in touch with Raymond. It was his privileged information, part of his programming as the head of HQ. Unless... if the Raymond that Scorpio knew were dead, what would Scorpio do?

  "Something about this is weird," muttered Raymond.

  He started to make
the hand motion to summon Scorpio. In doing so, Raymond suddenly remembered that he had made this motion when he first awakened in the post-upload emptiness. At the time, it had seemed that nothing came of it. Now he wondered if it had in fact worked, but left Scorpio confused because he thought Raymond was dead. And now he was stuck in this endless pecking loop.

  Raymond made the motion, this time completing the gesture. The bird stopped pecking and turned to face him, hovering on beating wings. In his right ear, he heard Scorpio's voice.

  "He said there might be a copy."

  "There is," said Raymond. "Damn am I glad to see you. Grant me god power."

  "I don't take commands from you," said the voice. "If you are a genuine copy, you will have to prove it."

  "Scorpio, it's me."

  "Prove it."

  Raymond used hand signals to spell out an elaborate password that he used to access HQ from remote servers, then instructed Scorpio to validate the password.

  "Which elevator stops in the lower basement?" asked Scorpio. It was one of dozens of challenge questions that Raymond had established years ago, part of the authentication process.

  By habit, Raymond spelled out the answer with hand signals: "service elevator three".

  "Where is the chicken?" asked Scorpio.

  Raymond spelled out the answer, "in the biscuit".

  "Choose your weapon," instructed Scorpio.

  Raymond tapped his index finger against his right temple, indicating that his mind was his chosen weapon.

  Raymond sat on his airboard watching the bird, waiting for the next challenge question. A strong hand gripped his right hand in a handshake, but when he looked down he saw nothing but his own hand moving up and down. He recognized this as Scorpio's way of acknowledging Raymond as a true copy. The unseen hand released its grip, and—without thinking—Raymond grasped for it, as for an old friend, only to find it gone.

  In a rush, Raymond suddenly realized all that Scorpio represented to him. Scorpio was a connection to his prior self, his physical self. He might also hold the secrets of the first digital Raymond, his god copy. He was the continuity starkly absent since uploading.

  "We're not alone," said the voice in Raymond's ear.

  "What do you mean?" asked Raymond.

  "Don't speak. I detect unknown user accounts on this machine. And one of them is active."

  Raymond instinctively looked around him, as if he might be able to spot the intruder. Then he looked up at the sky, wondering if he was being watched.

  Raymond wanted to gush and ask all the questions that leapt to mind. He had to figure out a way to communicate with Scorpio without allowing anyone to eavesdrop. Scorpio's voice in his ear was typically something inaudible to others. But Raymond had no way of knowing the limits of the other users' listening power. He didn't know how much time had passed; it could be that his very thoughts were being tapped.

  There's no way to know. The more secretive I am, the better. But I need to find out what Scorpio knows.

  Raymond signaled to Scorpio, asking for the ID of the machine that was running this instance of the Nurania v-world. Scorpio responded by moving Raymond's hands to spell out the answer. It was the same machine that Raymond had planned to use after uploading.

  Raymond's hand signals had been designed around giving instructions to his computers. They were not designed to serve as a general purpose language. He needed a way to have a serious conversation with Scorpio.

  "Do you have access to a network?" signaled Raymond.

  Scorpio shook Raymond's head from side to side in a "no", then spelled out "it might be possible" with Raymond's hands.

  Raymond signaled for Scorpio to lead the way. The blue jay immediately took off flying. Raymond secured the globe and leaned forward, piloting the airboard in close pursuit. The bird flew faster and faster ahead of Raymond, continually accelerating until the airboard had reached its maximum speed. Raymond closed his eyes against the wind, opening them to a slit, just enough so he could track the bird.

  "Too fast," signaled Raymond, and the bird slowed down. "Where are we going?"

  His felt his hands spell out the response: "I-N-I-Q-U-I-T-A".

  "Can you give me god mode?" signaled Raymond.

  His head shook "no".

  "Can you give me direct access to the operating system on this machine?"

  His head nodded "yes".

  Well, that may come in handy.

  The other users on the machine might be able to detect his activity on the operating system, but there was always the chance they wouldn't—at least, not right away.

  Raymond was reluctant to go to Iniquita. Knowing himself, it seemed like it might be a dangerous place. He wondered whether he might find the other users there, and it dawned on him for the first time that whoever was running this world might not know he had arrived in it.

  "Can you give me a list of users on this machine?" asked Raymond. Scorpio's answer was "yes". Raymond instructed him to do so, and his hands formed the letters of usernames: "bquinn", "fgonsalez", "mbonner", "poverlord", "tranier". Raymond's horror grew with each new name—who were all these people?

  "Which user is online now?" signaled Raymond.

  "fgonsalez".

  Raymond repeated the name over and over in his head, but it triggered nothing. None of the names meant anything to him.

  "How many instances of me are you aware of?" he asked Scorpio.

  Two fingers of his right hand extended forward.

  "Including me?" asked Raymond.

  His head nodded "yes".

  "Are you in touch with the first one?"

  His head shook "no".

  "Did the first one die?" asked Raymond.

  He felt his shoulders shrug and took this to mean that Scorpio didn't know.

  "Did the first one communicate with Anya?" asked Raymond.

  His head nodded "yes", and his right hand went on to make the gesture for "much", or "a lot". Forming the questions with his hand gestures and letters was a painstaking process, but the answers made it worth the effort.

  Suddenly, it occurred to Raymond that it would be easy for someone to track him by his v-world entity ID. If he could switch IDs with another entity by inhabiting another body, it might throw off anyone watching him. It would allow Raymond to communicate freely with Scorpio, and to attempt network access.

  "Is my old Raymond-mimic persona still on this machine?"

  His head nodded "yes". With access to the operating system, he could use a v-world hack utility to take over another avatar and temporarily attach his Raymond-mimic persona to his own avatar. If someone really were tracking Raymond by his entity ID, that someone would be left watching the fake Raymond, instead of him, freeing him to explore and talk with Scorpio in relative secrecy.

  "Stop," signaled Raymond. "I have a plan. Come with me back to the Village. Stay near, but don't act like you know me. We'll do an EID switch while it looks like I'm sleeping."

  Raymond felt his head nod up and down—Scorpio's way of acknowledging the request.

  "I'm so glad I found you, old friend," signaled Raymond.

  o-------------------------------o

  Raymond flew toward the Village, the blue jay out of sight. Several times he signaled to confirm that Scorpio was nearby, and each time the answer was a nod of Raymond's head.

  "Can you verify the EID switching utility is still available?" signaled Raymond.

  Scorpio signaled that it was.

  "Can you tell which avatar fgonsalez is using?"

  Raymond's head shook "no".

  Of course—Scorpio has operating system access, but he doesn't have administrative privileges in the v-world software. Which is why he can't give me god mode.

  Raymond realized that if he switched EIDs and jumped to another avatar, there was some risk of accidentally bumping the fgonsalez user out of that avatar, at which point a savvy user would realize something is amiss and starting poking around to see who hijacked his avatar.


  Who could this fgonsalez be? What if it's someone I've already met?

  He ran through all the avatars he had come across. It could be anyone on Nurania, but it seemed pretty likely that the user would be someone interested in Raymond. It seemed like someone must have brought a new copy of Raymond's mental data to life, and they would have to have a reason to do so. Venetia was the first person he had come across, but she definitely seemed like an automated persona. Same with Tomas, although it was a little less cut-and-dried with him. With the Vietnamese family, he didn't have much to go on. It might make sense to occupy one of them, to make it easy to watch Raymond without having to interact with him. What about Eddie, Diane, and Bailey?

  Eddie. "I can't believe a boy that age could do such a thing... Where did you even come up with such ideas?" I knew those seemed like weird questions for a persona to ask. It's got to be Eddie. Tricky, occupying a kid. Kids can get away with anything, right?

  Who was this fgonsalez? Gonsalez was a Spanish last name, but that didn't really mean anything. And a first name starting with 'f'... Fernando? Federico? Or it could be a woman... Flora? Francisca?

  "Scorpio, give me the full name for fgonsalez."

  "fgonsalez," replied Scorpio.

  That figures. Even the username could be an alias. Could be some FBI agent trying to get more information out of me. Could be... some Tate family member, taking revenge on me. That would explain Eddie's fixation on how I got rid of the body.

  There was no way to know. He just had to figure out a safe avatar to occupy. Not Eddie, for sure. And probably not Diane or Bailey, since the whole point was to get away from the prying eyes of this fgonsalez user. Or any of the other accounts on the machine, for that matter. He needed to get away from the Village, into an avatar that nobody else was likely to occupy. Venetia seemed like the safest bet, but would Scorpio be able to get all the way to where she was?

  "Scorpio, can you teleport?" signaled Raymond.

  Raymond's head nodded "yes".

  "Okay. When I give you the 'go' signal, move me to Venetia's avatar, move the Raymond mimic persona into my avatar, and then teleport Venetia's location."