Mindscan

The question I always hated. I didn't actually do anything — not for a living. "I'm into investments," I said. "You?"

"I'm a lawyer — do you call them solicitors up here?"

"Only in formal contexts. Lawyer, attorney."

"Well, that's what I am."

"What kind of law?" I asked.

"Civil liberties."

I gave the mental command that used to reconfigure my features into an impressed expression, but I really had no idea what it did to my face now. "How's business?"

"In the present political climate? Lots of cases, damn few victories. I can see the Statue of Liberty from my office window — but they should rename the old girl the Statue of Do Exactly What the Government Says You Should Do." He shook his head. "That's why I uploaded, see? Not too many of my generation left — people who actually remember what it was like to have civil liberties, before Homeland Security, before Littler v. Carvey, before every dollar bill and retail product had an RFID tracking chip in it. If we let the good old days pass from living memory, we'll never be able to get them back."

"So you're still going to practice law?" I asked.

"Yes, indeed — when interesting-enough cases come along, that is." He reached into a pocket. "Here, let me give you my card … just in case."

Weightlessness was wonderful!

Some of the old people were afraid of it, and stayed securely fastened in their ergo-chairs. But I undid my seat belt and floated around the cabin, gently pushing off walls, the floor, and the ceiling. We'd all had antinausea injections before takeoff, and, at least for me, the medicine was working perfectly. I found I could twirl along my head-to-toe axis at a great speed and not get dizzy. The flight attendant showed us some neat things, including water pulling itself into a floating ball. He also showed us how hard it was to throw something to another person: the brain refused to believe that throwing it in a straight line was the way to do it, and we all kept sending them up, as if in parabolic trajectories against gravity.

Karen Bessarian was enjoying weightlessness, too. The cabin walls were completely covered with little black foam pyramids, which I'd at first taken for acoustic insulation but now realized were really to prevent injuries when one went flying into them. Still, Karen was taking it fairly easy, not trying anything as athletic or adventurous as I was.

"If you look out the right-hand-side windows," said the flight attendant, "you can see the International Space Station." I happened to be upside down at that moment, so pushed off the wall and started drifting toward the left side. The flight attendant was deadpan. "The other right-hand-side, Mr. Sullivan."

I smiled sheepishly, and pushed off again with my palm. I found a spot by one of the windows and looked outside. The International Space Station — all cylinders and right angles — had been abandoned for decades. Too big to crash safely into the ocean, it was occasionally given a boost to keep it orbiting. The last astronaut to depart had left the two Canadian-built remote-manipulator arms shaking hands with each other.

"In about ten minutes," said the flight attendant, "we'll be docking with the moonship. You should be strapped in for docking — but, don't worry, you'll get three full days of weightlessness on your way to the moon."

On my way to the moon…

I shook my head.

On my way to the fucking moon.

10

It was well after midnight. Dr. Porter had long since gone home, but there were all sorts of Immortex staff still around to cater to our every need — not that we had many.

We didn't eat, so there was no point in putting out a fancy buffet for us. I should have thought that through, should have had a special last meal just before uploading.

Of course, Immortex hadn't suggested we do so, I guess because a final meal was what the condemned, not the liberated, were supposed to enjoy.

More: we didn't drink, so there was no point in having an open bar. Indeed, I realized with a pang of guilt that I couldn't remember the last time I'd had a Sullivan's Select … and now I never would again. My great grandfather — Old Sully himself — was probably spi

And, most astonishing of all, we didn't sleep. How often I'd said there were too few hours in a day! But now it seemed as though there were far too many.

We, this little band of new uploads, were to spend the night together in this party room; the first night was apparently very difficult for a lot of people. Two Immortex therapists milled about, as did someone who seemed to be the landlocked equivalent of a cruise director, coming up with activities to keep people occupied. Being up constantly, not getting tired, not needing to sleep, not wanting to sleep: it was going to be quite an adjustment, even for those who, in their old age, had slept lightly and had needed only five or six hours a night.

Two of the recently uploaded women were chatting away about things that didn't interest me. The third woman and Draper were playing a trivia game that the cruise director had brought up on a wall monitor, but the questions were geared toward their youth, and I knew none of the answers.

And so I ended up spending more time with Karen. Part of it was kindness on her part, I'm sure; she seemed to recognize that I was a fish out of water. Indeed, I felt compelled to comment on that as we went outside, exiting onto the treed Immortex grounds, a gibbous moon overhead. "Thanks," I said to Karen as we walked along, "for spending so much time with me."

Karen smiled her new-and-improved perfectly symmetrical smile. "Don't be silly," she said. "Who else would I talk to about physics or philosophy? In fact, I've got another joke for you. Rene Descartes goes into a bar and orders a drink. The bartender serves it up. Old Rene, he nurses it for a while, but at last it's gone. And so the barkeep says to him, 'Hey, Rene, care for another?' To which Descartes replies, 'I think not' — and disappears."

I laughed, and even though my new laugh sounded strange to me, it made me feel good. August nights were filled with mosquitoes, but I quickly recognized another advantage to an artificial body: the bugs left us alone. "But, y'know," I said, as we walked along, "I'm actually surprised that we don't need to sleep. I thought it was necessary for the consolidation of memory."

"A popular misconception," said Karen, and, with her lovely Georgia accent, the words didn't sound condescending. "But it's just not true. It takes time to consolidate memories, and normal humans can't go for any length without sleeping — but the sleeping has nothing to do with the consolidation."

"Really?"

"Oh, yes. We're going to be fine."

"Good."

We walked for a while in companionable silence, then Karen said, "Anyway, I should be the one thanking you for spending time with me."

"Why's that?"

"Well, half the reason I uploaded was to get away from old people. Can you imagine me in an old-folks' home?"

I laughed. "No, I guess not."

"The other people here who are my age," she said, shaking her head. "Their goal in life was to become rich. There's something ruthless about that, and something shallow, too. I never intended to be rich — it just happened, and no one was more surprised by it than me. And you didn't intend to be rich, either."

"But if it weren't for money," I said, "we'd both be dead or worse soon."

"Oh, I know! I know! But that's bound to change. Immortality is expensive right now, but it's got to come down in price; technology always does. Can you imagine a world in which the only thing that mattered was how rich you are?"