Mindscan

The hand of the biological Karen would have-been liver-spotted, with translucent, loose skin, and swollen, arthritic joints.

But this hand…

This hand was youthful, with clean unblemished skin, and silvery white nails. I noticed she wasn't wearing a wedding ring; she'd still been wearing one at the Immortex sales pitch. I guess maybe she'd let the biological original take it to the moon.

Still, that hand…

I shook my head slightly, trying to dispel the picture of her old biological appendage that my mind kept superimposing on the new, sleek, synthetic one.

I remembered taking a psychology course, years ago, in which the prof talked about intentionality — the ability of the mind to affect external reality. "I don't think about moving my arm," she said. "I don't work out the steps involved in contracting the muscles. I just move my arm!" And yet I realized what I did next would have enormous consequences, would define a road, a path, a future. I found myself hesitating, and—

There, my arm moved. I saw it twitch slightly. But I must have aborted the move, overriding my initial impulse, exercising that conscious veto Porter had spoken about, for my arm was almost immediately still again.

Just move my arm!

And, at last, I did, swiveling it at the shoulder, hinging it at the elbow, rotating it at the wrist, gently curving the fingers, placing my hand over hers.

I could feel warmth in my palm, and—

Electricity? Isn't that what it's called? The tingle, the response to the touch of — yes, damn it, yes — another human being.

Karen looked at me, her cameras — her eyes, her beautiful green eyes — locking on mine.

"Thank you," she said.

I could see myself reflected in her lenses. My eyebrows went up, catching, as always, a bit as they did so. "For what?"

"For seeing the real me."

I smiled, but then she looked away.

"What?"

She was silent for several seconds. "I … I haven't been a widow that long — only two years — but Ryan … Ryan had Alzheimer's. He couldn't…" She paused. "It's been a long time."

"It's like riding a bicycle, I suspect."

"You think?"

I closed my eyes and listened to Karen's voice, which, I had to admit, did sound warm and alive and human. "That's okay," she said, snuggling her body against mine. "We've got all the time in the world."

I smiled. "Sure."

And Karen smiled her perfectly symmetrical smile back at me. She had a luxurious two-room suite. We repaired — fu

And I found nothing sexy about it, dammitall. I wanted it to be sexy, but it was just plastic and Teflon rubbing together, silicon chips and synthetic lubricants.

On the other hand, Karen seemed to be enjoying it. I knew the old joke about having a cherry sundae every day for years, and then suddenly not being able to have one anymore; you'd really want another cherry sundae. Well, after several years, I guess any cherry sundae tasted good…

Eventually, Karen came — if the term had any etymological validity in this context.

She closed her plastiskin lids over her glass eyes and made a series of increasingly sharp, and increasingly guttural, sounds as her whole mechanical body went even more rigid than it normally was.

I felt kind of sort of a bit close to coming myself while Karen was; I'd always felt more aroused, more sexy and sexual, when someone was orgasming thanks to me.

But it didn't crest, didn't peak, didn't last. I pulled out, my prosthetic member still rigid.

"Hi, stranger," said Karen, gently, looking into my eyes.

"Hi," I replied. And I smiled, doubting it was easy to tell a forced smile from a real one with these artificial faces.

"That was…" she said, trailing off, seeking a word. "That was fine."

"Really?"

She nodded. "I never used to come during intercourse. It took … um, you know."

She made a contented sound. "There must be some women working on Immortex's body-design team."

I was happy for her. But I also knew that the old saying was true. Sex didn't happen between the legs; it happened between the ears.

"What about you?" asked Karen. "How are you doing?"

"It's just…" I trailed off. "It's, ah, it's going to take some getting used to."

15

Karen and I talked for hours. She listened with such attention and compassion that I found myself sharing things with her I'd shared with no one else. I even told her about the big fight I'd had with my father, and how he'd collapsed right in front of my eyes.

But you can only talk for so long before ru

Karen probably had had a different reaction, early in her career, staring at a sheet of paper in her writetyper, or whatever those things were called. I suspect empty whiteness was daunting for an author whose job it was to fill it, but for me the featureless expanse of the ceiling — here in the bedroom not even broken by a lighting fixture, since all the illumination came from floor or table lamps — was soothing, free of distractions. It was perfect, as the saying goes, for hearing myself think.

Can't remember…

Huh?

Can't remember that either. Are you sure?

What couldn't I remember? Well, of course, if I could remember it — whatever it was — then I wouldn't be worried about my inability to remember it…

No. No, I have no recollection of…

Of what? What don't I have any recollection of?

Well, if you say so. But this is very strange…

I shook my head, trying to clear the thoughts. Although a cliche, that usually worked for me — but this time the thoughts didn't go away.

I'm sure I'd remember something like that…

It wasn't like I was hearing a voice; there was no sound, no timbre, no cadence. Just words, tickling at the periphery of my perception — articulated but unspoken words, identical to everything else I'd ever thought.

Except—

No, I have an excellent memory. Trivia, facts, figures…

Except these didn't seem to be my thoughts.

Who did you say you are, again?

I shook my head more violently, my vision whipping from the mirrored closet doors on my left to a more ghostly reflection of myself hi the window on my right.

Good, okay. And my name is Jake Sullivan…

Strange. Very strange.

Karen looked over at me. "Is something wrong, dear?"

"No," I said automatically. "No, I'm fine."

Heaviside Crater was located at 10.4 degrees south latitude, and 167.1 degrees east longitude — pretty close to the center of the moon's backside. That meant that Earth was straight down — separated from us by 3,500 kilometers of rock, plus almost a hundred times that much empty space.

Heaviside measured 165 kilometers across. The High Eden habitat was only five hundred meters across, so there was plenty of room to grow. Immortex projected there would be one million people a year uploading by 2060, and all the shed skins would have to be housed somewhere. Of course, it wasn't expected that skins would stay in High Eden very long: just a year or two, before they died. Despite Immortex's claims that their Mindscan process copied structures with total fidelity, the technology was always getting better, and nobody wanted to transfer any earlier than they had to.

High Eden consisted of a large assisted-living retirement home, a terminal-care hospital, and a collection of luxury apartments for the handful of us who had checked in here but didn't require 'round-the-clock aid. No — not checked in. Moved in. And there was no moving out.