Upload

by McClelland, Mark

  "Right," said Raymond. "Lying low, as planned. It's so nice to have a conversation with you in person."

  "I'm just glad it's working. Well, then Jacob Falls was discovered—your satellite clean-up friend at the FBI."

  "Jacob Falls? You said that earlier, didn't you. Okay—I never knew his name."

  Anya cocked her head off to one side, puzzled. "R1 said the same thing. I wonder if it's some kind of localized amnesia, something that was lost during the scan."

  "I don't think so. I mean, I don't feel like I've forgotten anything."

  "You could easily not know that you ever knew. Besides, he had your IID, and there are records of your written communication with him."

  "Well then they were faked. I communicated with Manolo, not the cleanup guy. Unless... maybe Manolo and Jacob Falls are the same person."

  "Were," corrected Anya. "Jacob Falls turned up dead in an FBI bathroom the day he was found out. Suicide."

  "That doesn't sound like Manolo. Wait, how do you know all this?"

  "From working with your attorneys. I managed most of your court case. I mean, R-sub-0's court case."

  "You did? You did that for me?" Raymond experienced a rare and precious moment of humble, joyous gratitude.

  "Well, Bob's credibility was compromised, and he had his own trial to worry about."

  "What!"

  "Turned out, when the Jacob Falls thing was blown open and they figured out where you were, he and Agent Michaels worked out a deal to seize all the hardware from the Svensson property and cover the whole thing up. And turn you into a government proof-of-concept project for big-wigs in the intelligence community who want to upload."

  "Like Henry?" asked Raymond.

  "I guess. But then Brody had a feeling Michaels was up to something when he came around asking for police reports, months after you had apparently died. She had her own connection in the FBI, and she contacted him to blow the whistle. Michaels was already under observation, so they put an internal watchdog team on him and caught him red-handed, right at the Svensson property."

  "Wow. I'm guessing Bob got off pretty easy, given all he's done for the feds?"

  "Easier than R-sub-0 did, that's for sure. Bob was fined, the university fired him, and he fell off the map. But I've since heard he's heading up some Army project now."

  "And R-sub-0?" asked Raymond.

  "Over a hundred years in prison, for negligent homicide, two counts of identity theft—"

  "Only two?"

  "I don't want to hear it," responded Anya. "Seven or eight counts of theft, and more counts of fraud than I can remember. And this is going to sound bizarre, but I count that court case a real victory."

  "I thought you said you were on my side of the case!"

  "I was. Getting your case into court at all was huge. It set the precedent for the rights of an uploaded human. It was a landmark case, really."

  "This Jacob Falls guy... was there any connection between him and Henry?"

  "Possibly," said Anya. "I'll mention it to Brody. I should actually get in touch with her right away."

  "Wait," interrupted Raymond. "Is Molly okay?"

  "She is. She was held for a month while they sorted through all the hardware at the Svensson property, but she was eventually returned to the university. She's with Bento now."

  "And Suma?"

  "Actually, she and Alfonso are on the team looking after Molly and Bento."

  Raymond found that this gave him considerable peace-of-mind.

  "And how did you end up working with Henry?" asked Raymond.

  "Oh, right. Part way through the legal case, he contacted me with an offer. He said that with my help he could give you the chance for a new life."

  "Who is he? Aside from the FBI connection, what do you know about him?"

  "I had no idea about the FBI connection at the time. All I knew was that he's a wealthy American ex-patriot. Majorly connected. So, he sent me this confidential offer to be the head scientist on a continuation of the upload project. I told him I was interested, and it turned out he had managed to buy a bunch of our old hardware from the government, once the case was over, with the stipulation that the continued research be pursued quietly, in another country—with no further scans of humans."

  "What aren't you telling me, Anya?"

  "What do you mean?" she asked somewhat sheepishly.

  "You don't buy hardware seized by the FBI and used in a landmark case. And you haven't told me how you were able to get a copy of my mental data."

  "Oh, it was still on one of your backup storage devices."

  "Again. What aren't you telling me?"

  There was a long pause.

  "It does seem kinda... too good to be true, doesn't it?" She winced, embarrassed by her own naiveté.

  "The original backup of my mental data was heavily encrypted," said Raymond. "There's no way the FBI would have sold that hardware, there's no way they would have left data on it if they did sell it, and it wouldn't be easy to crack that data without my giving you access."

  "I guess I've been trying to ignore the shady side of all this," admitted Anya. "But you did give me access. 'There are men too gentle to live among wolves', with eights between the words, then the same thing backwards with the first eight abbreviations from the periodic table between the words. Sound familiar?"

  The sound of someone saying these words sent a shock of vulnerability through him. That was the keyphrase that unlocked the store of his most private data encryption keys. It was a very personal and very sacred symbol of his secrecy.

  "I told you that?"

  "R0 told me that. When... well, I'm not sure how much I should tell you."

  "The scientists who brought me to life here don't exactly know what they're doing, do they?" asked Raymond.

  "Yes and no. They—"

  "Anya," interrupted Raymond, "I could die anytime. I'm guessing that the mad scientists club got as far as they did by trial and error. By your nomenclature, I might be R-sub-20. I don't think there's any point in hiding anything from me."

  "Okay. R-sub-0 wasn't exactly sent to prison. It was more like solitary confinement. He sat in a white room, by himself."

  "Was? Wait—the original me is dead?"

  "He... he was only allowed personal visits, and—aside from Brody—I'm the only one who ever visited him. When I visited him to tell him we'd found a copy of his mental data, he told me he'd written me a letter, in his head. He'd been in his cell for two months. Alone." Anya's voice caught. "He proceeded to recite the letter to me, word for word, looking me straight in the eye with this... spooky, hollow determination." She paused, crying. Raymond reached out and held her hand. "It was an apology letter, but it was so... bleak, so hopeless. And how could it not be?" She paused, collecting herself. "When he was done, he asked me if there was any way he could kill himself. I told him there was. He told me that if I could bring him a letter from R1, saying how happy he was to be in the lab, under my care, he would want to die, knowing that R1 had a better life. And then he told me that passphrase."

  "Anya, you've done so much for me."

  She looked at him through tear-filled eyes, then looked down and gripped his hands.

  "A month ago, I visited R0 again. I memorized the response letter from R1, because I wasn't allowed to bring anything with me, and I recited it for him. He smiled and nodded the whole way through the letter. When I was done, he told me I was the most beautiful person in the world. And he told me I should never come back. I got word the next day."

  Anya broke down, weeping uncontrollably. Raymond held her, and she talked into his chest, between sobs.

  "When I first realized," she continued, "that the cleaner bot wasn't R-sub-1, I thought it might be him. I thought somehow he had figured out how to make another copy of himself and get out of prison, and just make it look like he died. God, this is getting to be too much."

  "Wait a minute," said Raymond. "How could you not know about Manolo? Are you sure R0
never mentioned him?"

  "Yes."

  "The hacker's mutual protection code is pretty sacred, but it seems a little weird that he wouldn't have mentioned Manolo at all. Manolo is a high-stakes hacker with a reputation for befriending anyone who's against the FBI."

  "He used inside connections to interfere with investigations?"

  "Yep. And he must have had deep connections. He might even be an ex-agent. Or a current agent, for that matter. What was Henry's official motive for funding your project?"

  "Pursuit of politically disfavored science, for the advancement of mankind. He rattled off a long list of projects where he's an anonymous donor."

  "Gotta love anonymity. He probably just wants to upload himself, and his cronies. He's just one of those government big-wigs you mentioned, who just want to upload themselves. How old is he?"

  "I don't know. Late sixties, maybe early seventies."

  "You've met in person?"

  "Sure. He likes to visit the lab."

  "Mosby," whispered Scorpio, "poverlord just logged in."

  "Shit, I have to go!" said Raymond to Anya.

  "Okay, I'll let Brody know how little time you have left. She's trying to get Interpol into the lab, to seize hardware before Henry knows he's been fingered."

  Raymond jacked out and signaled to Scorpio to get him back into his real avatar, fast. The transition was instantaneous; he lay on his side, his eyes closed. The only sound was the soft hum of medical equipment.

  Chapter 21

  Raymond heard the soft shoosh of a door opening, the tok-tok of high heels on tile, the quiet fff-thunk of the door sliding back into place.

  "Hello, Raymond," came a woman's voice, abrupt—not at all quiet or gentle.

  Raymond opened his eyes. Salya looked down at him from beside the table.

  "I'm surprised to find you sleeping."

  The hum of the machines stopped. Raymond glanced at the clock on the wall. It was 8:53:49... and it wasn't changing.

  "Sleeping away your final hours before the comet hits? Did it break your spirit to see what you did to me?"

  This is it—he's stopped time.

  "To see the scars?" she continued.

  Raymond moved to grab the flashlight, reaching by force of habit to where he expected a pocket to be—and remembered he was naked under the moist translucent blanket. His clothes were bunched up in the chair.

  "You created me as a proxy for the woman you loved, didn't you?" asked Salya.

  "Yes," said Raymond, feeling like his lack of interaction might be suspicious.

  "And yet you had this done to me. Curious to see how far it goes?"

  Salya reached her fingers into one of the rips in her nightgown and tore it further, revealing a gruesome hatchwork or scars over her pelvis and down her thigh. Fresh scabs stood atop the scars, red parallel lines as from razor-sharp claws. Raymond reflexively turned away, sickened by the sight.

  "I'm sorry, Salya," he said.

  He gestured to Scorpio under the covers, instructing him to teleport in, grab the flashlight, and teleport out as fast as possible.

  "I see your hands moving under the blanket, Raymond. Who do you think you're talking to? There's nobody here but me."

  "Just a habit," said Raymond. "It's how I talk to myself."

  "Mosby," whispered Scorpio. "I can't get in. Time freeze. Only real logins can move within your region."

  "I could give you what you wanted," said Salya. "I could give you back your life, with all its isolation. The freedom to create your own perfect world and live in it with your made-up friends."

  Maybe Fidel sees what's happening, and he's turned the recording back on without me. But he's not logged in. And without the recording, he probably can't monitor what's going on—that's why he gave me the flashlight.

  "The chance to make everything just the way you want it," continued Salya. "But you had that, didn't you? You've seen it—you've seen what you created. And it doesn't look so good, does it?"

  Salya turned in place, modeling her wreckage for him.

  "No, it doesn't." He swung his legs over the side of the table opposite Salya and sat up, pulling the blanket along with him. "Something must have been wrong."

  "I don't think so," said Salya. "That's what everyone said—'something must have gone wrong with his NBC.' But I've spent a lot of money to satisfy myself on that point, and I find no support for that argument."

  Raymond scooted forward and extended his feet to the ground. He tested putting his weight on his legs and had the sense it would be very painful if it weren't for the medication. He wrapped the blanket around his waist and crossed to the chair. He saw the end of the flashlight, protruding from the pants pocket atop the heap of clothes.

  "Where are you going? You can't put your clothing on—I've stopped time, and you can't interact with the objects in this region. Except for the burn blanket, apparently."

  And the flashlight, apparently, since I just flipped its switch.

  Raymond turned around. Salya was staring at the blanket wrapped around him. "It must get special treatment, as clothing worn on your person."

  "Stopped time?" asked Raymond. He staggered back to the table and leaned against it.

  "Yes, I'm putting things on pause. It has the side effect of shutting down surveillance temporarily, and I'd like to have an off-the-record conversation."

  "Why do you want to talk to a loony like me?"

  "They say something went wrong with your NBC, but that really doesn't seem to be the case. Everything tests out okay. R1 has been running for months now, on hardware that's essentially identical, and he seems to be doing fine. Considering what he had to start with, of course."

  "R1?" asked Raymond, pretending ignorance.

  "He—he's your other self, shall we way. Another test instance. Some people say that it wasn't the hardware, it was you—that you're a special case. Unloved child. You were nuts from the get-go, and it's only natural that a madman would create a mad world. Granted, you did have... difficult circumstances, but all things considered, I'd say you came through okay. You're smart, you're tough, you're self-critical, you've got determination—hell, you've got more spirit than just about anyone I know. And you've got one hell of a woman who loves you. You know that? Anya would do just about anything for you."

  "Anya?" asked Raymond. "What do you know about Anya?"

  "Oh, everybody knows about Anya. She's the brilliant scientist who threw all rational consideration aside to fight for the rights of her digital man. Blinded by love, she couldn't see that you were nothing but a simulation. A crazy one, at that—a machine gone wrong. You're the subject of much confusion."

  "So you've turned me into an experiment, to get to the bottom of it? You treat me like I'm disposable."

  "Just this copy of you. And so far, I'm not buying that shit about you being a loony. The more I get to know you, the more I think—"

  "This is your idea of getting to know me?"

  "The way I see it, you just went into the whole upload thing all wrong, with the wrong ideals. You set out to create your own isolated utopia, but that's just not something that can be done. We're social animals, Raymond. We define ourselves in relation to others. We get our footing by leaning on some people and pushing away from others, and eventually we find people to hold onto. Without that, we flail, we lose ourselves completely."

  "But I did have others," said Raymond. "Eddie and Diane, Bailey—"

  "Not others that mattered," interrupted Salya. "There was nobody you were afraid to let down. No one you really wanted to impress. Even in the real world, we don't really care about most people. To some extent we do—I mean, you don't want to make an ass of yourself. But it's when you have someone you really care about that life takes on meaning, becomes electric. It's hard for you to form that kind of bond, isn't it?"

  "Yeah," said Raymond. He couldn't help but find himself a little touched. "Yeah, it is."

  "Someone who needs you and whom you need. Someon
e you want to impress. And you found that in Anya, didn't you?"

  "Yeah, sure. Okay. What about you?"

  "You see, that's where I'm better off," said Salya. She had started to pace, and was gesturing with her arms. "You were trying to hide from people, but I'm good with people. You were on the run from the law, from society. Whereas me, I'm just trying to escape my body."

  "You want to upload, don't you? But you want to make sure it works first."

  "I'm an old man, Raymond. An old man with a diseased body, and the doctors all tell me I've got very little time left. You know where I am now? Headed to London, to see another doctor. I've gone to the best—the very best—and all they can do is apologize. If I upload, I can give this lemon of a body the slip. And I'm not going into hiding. Quite the opposite. I'll be more connected than ever. If I upload. I didn't foresee not being able to get hold of the scanner, and I never thought it would take this long to make a new one. They say I could die any day. I could last a year, I could core-dump right now. All that stands between me and uploading is some nanoware. And while I'm waiting, I might as well have you do me the favor of participating in a few experiments, to make sure the kinks are all worked out. It's the least you could do for me, really. If it weren't for me, you'd be nothing but data, a brain on ice in some FBI archive. When I made time to see you in Delta Nuevo, didn't you think it was odd?"

  "No way. You aren't just... associated with Manolo. You are Manolo."

  "Yes, and so much more. You have no idea. And who the hell were you to warrant an audience with a man like me? Of course, you had no idea who you were dealing with, but still... Didn't it seem odd? But I'm smart." Salya slammed her fist down on the table. "I learned a long time ago not to underestimate people. I said, 'who is this kid to think he deserves my time?' So I did a little research. And it turned out you were on this upload project I'd never heard of, and I thought, 'I wonder how far off they are from uploading?' When I saw how close you were, and I figured out what you were up to, I thought you were nuts. But I figured, if this shit works, I can flip the Grim Reaper the bird. And you know, if I live long enough to pull this thing off, I'm not going to upload to some godforsaken v-space fantasy land. I know how to make people do things. I know how to make myself important, how to be that person others want to impress—how to wield power. You were running from the law. I toy with the law!"