Mindscan

"Hello, Jake," she said.

"You must know your skin has passed on — that came out during the trial, didn't it?

What are you doing here?"

"I came with Jake," said Karen. "He's … we're…"

"What?"

I glanced over my shoulder at Karen. She shrugged at the camera a little, and said, simply, "We're lovers."

The biological me looked stu

"You can't picture it, can you?" said Karen. "A version of you with an old woman.

You know, I remember when we met, at the sales pitch."

The other Jake seemed momentarily flustered, then: "Right. Of course you do."

"Age doesn't matter," said Karen. "Not for me. And not for Jake."

" I'm Jake," said the biological me.

"No, you're not. Not legally. Not any more than the woman who died here was me."

I could see Gabe and the others looking quite nervous, but nobody moved to stop Karen. And the other me actually looked pleased. "Let me get this straight: the two of you — Mindscan Karen and Mindscan Jake — are together, a couple?"

"That's right."

"So that means — that means, you, Jake, you aren't with Rebecca?"

I was surprised. "Rebecca? Rebecca Chong?"

"Do we know another Rebecca? Yes, of course, Rebecca Chong!"

"No, no. We, I — she … she didn't take well to my having uploaded. And, ah, neither did Clamhead — Rebecca is looking after her now."

An actual grin broke out on his face. "Excellent. Excellent." He looked at me, then at Karen, and practically laughed the words, "I hope the two of you will be very happy together."

"There's no need to mock us," said Karen sharply.

"Oh, I'm not, I'm not," said the original me, with glee. "I'm totally sincere." But then he sobered. "Still, I've been following your legal troubles, Karen. Maybe you'll both end up losing your rights of personhood."

"We're not going to lose," said Karen sharply. "My Jake hasn't just been a placeholder, looking after your life for you until you're ready to reclaim it. He's gone on, making his own life — with me. We're not going to backtrack."

The biological me seemed cowed by Karen's forcefulness. "I — um…"

"So, you see," snapped Karen, "it isn't just about you and what you want. My Jake has a life of his own now. New friends. New relationships."

"But I'm the real one."

"Bullshit," snapped Karen. "How would you ever back up that claim?"

"I'm the one with … the one who has—

"What? A soul? You think this is about souls? There's no such thing as souls. You live as long as I have and you know that. You see people slipping away, day by day, year by year, until there's nothing left. Souls! Cartesian nonsense. There's no magic, airy-fairy insubstantial part of you. Everything you are is a physical process — processes that can be, and have been, flawlessly reproduced. You've got nothing — nothing — that this Jake doesn't. Souls? Give me a break!"

"You know that she's right," I said, gently. "You never believed in souls before.

When Mom talked about Dad's soul still being in there, in that wrecked brain, you felt sorry for her not because of what had happened to Dad, but because she was deluded. That's the very word you thought; you know it and I know it. Deluded."

"Yes, but—"

"But what?" I said. "You going to try to tell me it's different now? That you've had some sort of epiphany?"

"You—"

"If anyone should be seeing things differently," I said, "it's me. In fact, I am — I can see all colors now. And I know nothing is missing in me. My mind is a perfect — perfect — copy of yours."

"You wouldn't know if something is missing," he said.

"Of course he would," snapped Karen. "When you get older, you're painfully aware of things that are slipping away. Senses that are dulling, memories that can no longer be easily called up. You absolutely know when something you had before is missing."

"She's right," I said. "I am totally complete. And just as much as you do, I want my life."

39

Two of me.

It was damned confusing, but I found myself thinking of him as Jacob, and me as Jake. It was one of those little mental tricks that we need more of as we get older.

He was Jacob, with the OB at the end standing for "original body." And I was Jake, with the final E for "electronic."

I found that I, Jake, couldn't take my eyes off the videophone screen, and its image of Jacob, my shed skin. Until a few weeks ago, we'd been the same person, and…

And prior to that, I hadn't existed at all. He, Jacob, was the one who'd really had all the experiences I only thought I'd had. He was the one with the scar on his right arm from falling out of a tree at twelve, the one with the damaged ligaments in his left ankle from tumbling down some stairs, the one who'd had the arteriovenous malformation, the one who'd watched my father collapse, the one who'd made love with Rebecca, the one who'd actually seen the world with the limited palette our shared memories were painted in.

"I'm going to come over there," I said to the videophone.

"Over where?" replied Jacob.

"To the moonbus. To see you."

"No," Jacob said. "Don't do that. Stay where you are."

"Why?" I replied. "Because it's easier to deny my personhood, and my rights, when I'm just a bunch of pixels on a tiny display screen?"

"I'm not an idiot," Jacob said, "so don't treat me like one. I've got the situation contained. You coming out here will destabilize it."

"I really don't think you have a choice," I said.

"Sure I do. I don't have to open the airlock."

"All right," I said, conceding the point, "you can keep me out. But, come on, if you're only going to talk to me by phone, I might as well have never left Earth."

There was a pause, then Jacob said: "All right. Cards on the table, broski. You're here because I want you to agree to stay here, in my place."

I was taken aback, but I'm sure nothing in my artificial physiology betrayed that. I said, as calmly as I could, "You know I can't do that."

"Hear me out," Jacob said, raising a hand. "I'm not asking for anything awful. Look, how long are you going to live?"

"I don't know," I said. "A long time."

"A very long time," he said. "Centuries, at least."

"Unless something bad happens, yes."

"And how long have I got left?"

"I don't know," I said.

"Sure you do," said Jacob. "I no longer suffer from Katerinsky's syndrome, so I've likely got as much time left as any male born in Canada in 2001 — another fifty years, if I'm lucky. That's everything I've got left — and it's nothing to you. You'll have ten times that amount, a hundred times, maybe more. All I'm asking is you let me live out those fifty years — or less, and it could be a lot less — down on Earth."

"And — and what about me?"

"You stay here, at this wonderful resort of High Eden." He looked at me, searching for my reaction. "Spend fifty years having a holiday — Christ, let's be honest, that's what we do most of the time anyway, right? It's like the Vegas strip here, like the best cruise ship ever." He paused. "Look, I saw some of the trial coverage. I know it's not going well. Do you want to spend the next x number of years down there fighting legal battles, or do you want to just relax up here, and let all that get sorted out? You know eventually uploads will have full rights of personhood — why not just take a vacation here until that's the case, then return to Earth triumphant?"

I stared at him, at my … my progenitor. "I don't want to be unfair to you," I said slowly, "but…"

"Please," said the other me, an imploring note in his voice. "It's not that much to ask, is it? You still get immortality, and I get the handful of decades that I was being cheated out of."