Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom

by Cory Doctorow

that she was _really good_ at coding sims. Her GreatMovie Ride rehab at MGM was breathtaking -- the Star Wars sequence hadalready inspired a hundred fan-sites that fielded millions of hits.

  She'd leveraged her success into a deal with the Adventureland ad-hocsto rehab the Pirates of the Caribbean, and their backstage areas werepiled high with reference: treasure chests and cutlasses and bowsprits.It was terrifying to walk through; the Pirates was the last ride Waltpersonally supervised, and we'd thought it was sacrosanct. But Debra hadbuilt a Pirates sim in Beijing, based on Chend I Sao, the XIXth centuryChinese pirate queen, which was credited with rescuing the Park fromobscurity and ruin. The Florida iteration would incorporate the bestaspects of its Chinese cousin -- the AI-driven sims that communicatedwith each other and with the guests, greeting them by name each timethey rode and spinning age-appropriate tales of piracy on the high seas;the spectacular fly-through of the aquatic necropolis of rotting junkson the sea-floor; the thrilling pitch and yaw of the sim as it weathereda violent, breath-taking storm -- but with Western themes: wafts ofJamaican pepper sauce crackling through the air; liquid Afro-Caribbeanaccents; and swordfights conducted in the manner of the pirates whoplied the blue waters of the New World. Identical sims would stack likecordwood in the space currently occupied by the bulky ride-apparatus anddioramas, quintupling capacity and halving load-time.

  "So, what's she up to?"

  Lil extracted herself from the Rail-Splitter's mechanical guts and madea comical moue of worry. "She's rehabbing the Pirates -- and doing anincredible job. They're ahead of schedule, they've got good net-buzz,the focus groups are cumming themselves." The comedy went out of herexpression, baring genuine worry.

  She turned away and closed up Honest Abe, then fired her finger at him.Smoothly, he began to run through his spiel, silent but for the soft humand whine of his servos. Lil mimed twiddling a knob and his audiotrackkicked in low: "All the armies of Europe, Asia, and Africa _combined_could not, by force, make a track on the Blue Ridge, nor take a drinkfrom the Ohio. If destruction be our lot, then we ourselves must be itsauthor -- and its finisher." She mimed turning down the gain and he fellsilent again.

  "You said it, Mr. President," she said, and fired her finger at himagain, powering him down. She bent and adjusted his hand-sewn periodtopcoat, then carefully wound and set the turnip-watch in his vest-pocket.

  I put my arm around her shoulders. "You're doing all you can -- and it'sgood work," I said. I'd fallen into the easy castmember mode ofspeaking, voicing bland affirmations. Hearing the words, I felt a flushof embarrassment. I pulled her into a long, hard hug and fumbled forbetter reassurance. Finding no words that would do, I gave her a finalsqueeze and let her go.

  She looked at me sidelong and nodded her head. "It'll be fine, ofcourse," she said. "I mean, the worst possible scenario is that Debrawill do her job very, very well, and make things even better than theyare now. That's not so bad."

  This was a 180-degree reversal of her position on the subject the lasttime we'd talked, but you don't live more than a century withoutlearning when to point out that sort of thing and when not to.

  My cochlea struck twelve noon and a HUD appeared with my weekly backupreminder. Lil was maneuvering Ben Franklin II out of his niche. I wavedgood-bye at her back and walked away, to an uplink terminal. Once I wasclose enough for secure broadband communications, I got ready to backup. My cochlea chimed again and I answered it.

  "Yes," I subvocalized, impatiently. I hated getting distracted from abackup -- one of my enduring fears was that I'd forget the backupaltogether and leave myself vulnerable for an entire week until the nextreminder. I'd lost the knack of getting into habits in my adolescence,giving in completely to machine-generated reminders over consciouschoice.

  "It's Dan." I heard the sound of the Park in full swing behind him --children's laughter; bright, recorded animatronic spiels; the tromp ofthousands of feet. "Can you meet me at the Tiki Room? It's prettyimportant."

  "Can it wait for fifteen?" I asked.

  "Sure -- see you in fifteen."

  I rung off and initiated the backup. A status-bar zipped across a HUD,dumping the parts of my memory that were purely digital; then itfinished and started in on organic memory. My eyes rolled back in myhead and my life flashed before my eyes.

  ========= CHAPTER 3 =========

  The Bitchun Society has had much experience with restores from backup --in the era of the cure for death, people live pretty recklessly. Somepeople get refreshed a couple dozen times a year.

  Not me. I hate the process. Not so much that I won't participate in it.Everyone who had serious philosophical conundra on that subject just,you know, _died_, a generation before. The Bitchun Society didn't needto convert its detractors, just outlive them.

  The first time I died, it was not long after my sixtieth birthday. I wasSCUBA diving at Playa Coral, near Veradero, Cuba. Of course, I don'tremember the incident, but knowing my habits at that particular dive-site and having read the dive-logs of my SCUBA-buddies, I'vereconstructed the events.

  I was eeling my way through the lobster-caves, with a borrowed bottleand mask. I'd also borrowed a wetsuit, but I wasn't wearing it -- theblood-temp salt water was balm, and I hated erecting barriers between itand my skin. The caves were made of coral and rocks, and they coiled andtwisted like intestines. Through each hole and around each corner, therewas a hollow, rough sphere of surpassing, alien beauty. Giant lobstersskittered over the walls and through the holes. Schools of fish asbright as jewels darted and executed breath-taking precision maneuversas I disturbed their busy days. I do some of my best thinking underwater, and I'm often slipping off into dangerous reverie at depth.Normally, my diving buddies ensure that I don't hurt myself, but thistime I got away from them, spidering forward into a tiny hole.

  Where I got stuck.

  My diving buddies were behind me, and I rapped on my bottle with thehilt of my knife until one of them put a hand on my shoulder. My buddiessaw what was up, and attempted to pull me loose, but my bottle andbuoyancy-control vest were firmly wedged. The others exchanged handsignals, silently debating the best way to get me loose. Suddenly, I wasthrashing and kicking, and then I disappeared into the cave, minus myvest and bottle. I'd apparently attempted to cut through my vest'sstraps and managed to sever the tube of my regulator. After inhaling ajolt of sea water, I'd thrashed free into the cave, rolling into amonstrous patch of spindly fire-coral. I'd inhaled another lungful ofwater and kicked madly for a tiny hole in the cave's ceiling, whence mybuddies retrieved me shortly thereafter, drowned-blue except for thepatchy red welts from the stinging coral.

  In those days, making a backup was a lot more complicated; the proceduretook most of a day, and had to be undertaken at a special clinic.Luckily, I'd had one made just before I left for Cuba, a few weeksearlier. My next-most-recent backup was three years old, dating from thecompletion of my second symphony.

  They recovered me from backup and into a force-grown clone at TorontoGeneral. As far as I knew, I'd laid down in the backup clinic one momentand arisen the next. It took most of a year to get over the feeling thatthe whole world was putting a monstrous joke over on me, that thedrowned corpse I'd seen was indeed my own. In my mind, the rebirth wasfigurative as well as literal -- the missing time was enough that Ifound myself hard-pressed to socialize with my pre-death friends.

  I told Dan the story during our first friendship, and he immediatelypounced on the fact that I'd gone to Disney World to spend a weeksorting out my feelings, reinventing myself, moving to space, marrying acrazy lady. He found it very curious that I always rebooted myself atDisney World. When I told him that I was going to live there someday, heasked me if that would mean that I was done reinventing myself.Sometimes, as I ran my fingers through Lil's sweet red curls, I thoughtof that remark and sighed great gusts of contentment and marveled thatmy friend Dan had been so prescient.

  The next time I died, they'd improved the technology somewhat. I'd had amassive stroke in my seventy-third year,
collapsing on the ice in themiddle of a house-league hockey game. By the time they cut my helmetaway, the hematomae had crushed my brain into a pulpy, blood-sottedmess. I'd been lax in backing up, and I lost most of a year. But theywoke me gently, with a computer-generated precis of the events of themissing interval, and a counselor contacted me daily for a year until Ifelt at home again in my skin. Again, my life rebooted, and I foundmyself in Disney World, methodically flensing away the relationships I'dbuilt and starting afresh in Boston, living on the ocean floor andworking the heavy-metal harvesters, a project that led, eventually, tomy Chem thesis at U of T.

  After I was shot dead at the Tiki Room, I had the opportunity toappreciate the great leaps that restores had made in the intervening