The group walked past a row of u-shaped desks where several people were hard at work managing the spaceport’s affairs. None looked away from their holodisplays as Evan and Chen walked past them. The administrator's office was in the corner of the building and looked out over the concourse below.
The office was a simple affair with a desk, a small table with four chairs and a sofa. There was a holodisplay above the sofa showing scenes from various locales on Earth, none of which Evan recognized. A few reminded him of India but nothing stood out as any place he had been. There was another holodisplay above the administrator's desk that rotated through several dozen pictures of an adult woman and two young children. A few photos looked like they were taken inside of Klaproth terminal.
“Your family?” Evan asked.
“Mmm, yes. My wife Pavati, daughter Lakshmi and son Harinath—we call him Hari. Do you have children, Doctor Richardson?”
Evan wasn't sure how to respond and glanced over at Doctor Hao, who just stared back at him.
“Umm, yes. A daughter. She's grown though, and I have a granddaughter.”
“Oh, very exciting. These are my first children. I look forward to having grandchildren one day.” He walked over to the table and pulled out a chair for Evan. “Please have a seat.”
Evan sat in the offered chair and Chen sat in the one next to him. The administrator sat across the table from them both.
“So, what exactly is the nature of the trouble you two have gotten into?”
Chen sighed. “As I said, Administrator, we have no knowledge of what you are talking about.”
“Well, it must be something significant. GFN Secretary General Dianne Merkel called me herself a few hours ago to request my help. Of course, I had to refer her to President Duchon on the question of your extradition back to Earth. My instructions are to hold you here until we get a decision, which shouldn't be too much longer.”
“Who is…”—Chen cut Evan off and finished his question for him—“…making the final decision, the President herself?”
Evan took the hint and decided it was safer to let Chen do the talking.
Administrator Nayak smiled. “No. President Duchon called the board members to an emergency session two hours ago to discuss your situation.”
Chen continued, “And did the Secretary General say why she wanted us so badly?”
“No, she did not give me any specifics except to say that you were fugitives from justice and that they needed you back on Earth for trial. I assume that she provided more details to the board.”
Chen nodded. “I see.”
“She did mention that they had one of your colleagues in custody though. I believe she used the name Aubrey Harris, does that name mean anything to you?”
Evan did his best to hide his emotions but the thought of Aubrey sitting in jail somewhere overwhelmed him. “What? They have Aubrey?”
Chen reached under the table and patted Evan's knee as a queue to calm down.
“That's what the Secretary General said. I take it you know her then?”
Chen answered first. “Of course, we know her. As I am sure you are aware, Administrator, she is the president of Telogene—she is our boss.”
“Well, then. If it is true that you do not know why you are in trouble then I would suggest that perhaps your boss is to blame. Very unfortunate.”
The three sat in silence for several minutes before the administrator spoke.
“Let me check on your meal and see if we've heard from the board yet. Please wait here. There are guards in the hall and there is nowhere to go.”
“Of course,” Chen replied.
Evan waited until the administrator left the room before leaning over to whisper in Chen's ear.
“What is going on, I thought you said Aubrey would meet us?”
Chen whispered back. “That was the plan, Evan. Obviously, something went wrong.”
“I have to turn myself in. We can't let this happen to her. I just got her back and I can't lose her again.”
“I'm sorry, Evan but that won't work. Bringing you back was a crime, a very serious crime and they aren't just going to let her go because you turn yourself in. If you want to help her, stay on mission and do your job. The only way any of us get out of this is if we can solve…well, let's just call it our little problem. Short of that, all I can say is that I hope you like the idea of spending the rest of your days hollowing out some asteroid.”
“We have to do something. We can't just let her rot in jail while we are traipsing around the solar system!”
Evan's voice was a little louder than he'd planned and a guard poked his head into the room to see what was going on.
“We're fine.” Chen waived him off.
The guard stared at them for a moment before returning to the hallway.
“Please keep your voice down. I am sure there are recording devices in this room and they are listening to everything we say. I am also sure that Aubrey is in good hands. She's probably got every one of Telogene's three thousand lawyers working on this and it's only a matter of time before they get her out on bail or released on some technicality—they are very good at that sort of thing.”
Evan leaned back in his chair. His face looked like he was trying to recall something important but couldn't quite remember what it was.
“What's wrong?” Chen asked.
Evan leaned forward and put his lips next to Chen's ear. “I just remembered someone. I can see his face clearly but can't remember his name. He was very important to me. He was the last person I remember seeing before I died but I can't remember his name for some reason.”
“Do you remember anything about him?”
“No but talking about lawyers made me think of him. I wonder if that's who he was?”
“It's possible. Does the name Bruce Wagner mean anything to you?”
Evan reached into the recesses of his memory for that name but it wasn't there. “I don't know. It sounds familiar but I just can't remember.”
“Bruce was your personal attorney. Lily hired him as Chief Legal Officer after you died.”
Evan's eyes lit up as the pieces came together. “Yes, that’s him. I remember seeing a picture of him when I was reading about the crash. He was on the plane with her. I didn't remember that he was my personal attorney though.”
“Lily told me about the night you died and how Bruce was there to help her through everything. Bruce was a great friend to you and Lily. He played a big role in saving the company after the famine scandal and some would say that Lily could have never accomplished what she did without him. He was a great man and losing them both was a horrific tragedy.”
“Were they…romantic?”
“No, I don't think so. They treated each other like family. She and Dylan were married until the end and Bruce was married at least twice that I know of—maybe three times, I'm not sure.”
“Whatever happened to Dylan anyway? I can't believe I never thought to ask about him. He and I didn't always get along the best but he was my Son-in-Law.”
“Nobody knows. There were rumors that he committed suicide after Lily died but later some thought he might have bought an island off the coast of Nova Scotia somewhere. All I know is that he said goodbye to Aubrey at Lily's funeral and she never heard from him again. She searched for a couple of months but gave up once she realized that, wherever he was, he didn't want to be found.”
“Did he have any children?”
“Dylan?”
“No, Bruce.”
“Oh, I was worried there for a second. Yes, a son, Geoff. And you won't believe this but Geoff is Telogene's current Chief Legal Officer, he joined the company at Aubrey's request a short time after Lily died.”
“You're kidding, I can't believe it! What are the odds?”
“I don't know but I do know that Geoff is every bit the lawyer his father was and I am confident that he is doing everything he can for Aubrey. As I said, she is in very good hands, Evan.”
Evan searched his mind for everything he could remember about Bruce Wagner. He mentally compared the picture he saw in the news story about the plane crash with the face he remembered being with him at his deathbed but he wasn't sure. They looked similar, but it was as if all of his memories about Bruce were erased or buried some place deep in his brain beyond his reach. He just couldn't remember, and it concerned him.
“Have I forgotten a lot?” he finally asked Chen.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, I am having a hard time remembering Bruce and it occurs to me that if I can't remember such a good friend, then there are probably lots of other things I can't remember.”
Evan could tell that Chen was choosing his words carefully. “Look, Evan, memory restoration is an imperfect science. There is still a lot about the human brain we don't understand and restoring memory is a traumatic process. It is perfectly normal for you to not remember everything right away but there is a high probability that your memory will improve over time. You just have to be patient.”
“I hope you're right. It's hard enough being in this body but to think that I don't even have my own brain or memories is a little tough to swallow. Am I even me? Or just a flawed copy?”
“You are not a flawed copy. Those are your memories, your feelings and your personality inside that brain. Everything that Evan Feldman was is in there…you are still the person you were. You have to give it more time.”
“If you say so.” Evan lowered his voice to a faint whisper before asking his next question. “Who is this 'Doctor Richardson' whose body I seem to be inhabiting?”
“That’s...complicated.”
“Well can you at least tell me if he is still alive?”
“What I can tell you is that there is not another copy of you walking around somewhere. The body you inhabit is yours alone but according to GFN citizenship and employment records you are an Earth-born Telogene researcher assigned to our facilities on Mars.”
“How do you create records for someone who doesn’t exist?”
“But you do exist.”
“Yes but only since yesterday.”
“Like I said, it’s complicated. But trust me when I tell you that you have been around much longer than just since yesterday, at least officially.”
“What kind of world is this? Planting people's memories in other people's bodies? Manufacturing fake identities for clones? That is far from what I ever imagined when I founded Telogene. My goal was to make people's lives better and help them live longer…not for people to live forever by hopping from one body to the next! Hell, it's not even people that are living forever, it's just their memories!”
Doctor Hao sat back in his chair and folded his arms across his chest. “Do you believe in the soul, Evan?”
“What?”
“The soul…that part of you that makes you unique. A part of us that lives on after death?”
“I haven't thought about it.”
“Sure, you have. When you were laying in that hospital bed all those years ago, you didn't think about what comes next?”
“I guess so. I remember not wanting to die and wondering if my life to that point was all that there was.”
Chen grinned. “Well, my grandfather was a Daoist from Fuzhou and he taught me that every person has a soul with two parts—the hun and the po. The hun is your spiritual soul—the part that leaves your body after death. The po is your corporeal soul—the part that remains with your corpse after you die. He believed Tian, the divine spirit, could punish bad people by taking away their po—depriving them of their memories and mental ability. This is how people went crazy, they lost their po. If you lost your hun you would die. Together they form the hunpo, or the complete soul, and we require both for life.
“He also believed you could restore the dead to life by returning their hunpo to their body. Ancient Daoist priests had a magical pill that would cure disease and illness and cause the hunpo to re-enter a dead person's body and restore them to life. This was possible because the hun and po are an intrinsic part of who we are and if our body is alive, then they must reside within it. Likewise, without our hunpo we cannot live.”
“That's all very interesting, Chen but what does that have to do with me?”
“Don't you see, Evan? My grandfather and his Daoist traditions were right! As a scientist, I have struggled with this for a long time but I know in my heart there is more to us than just our physical form. Our memories, our personalities, those are the essence of who we are. If I were to chop off your arms and legs you would still be you, right?”
“Yes, of course.”
“And what if I gave you new arms and legs grown from someone else's DNA, would you still be you then?”
“Yes…I think so.”
“What if removed your heart, your lungs, your liver and all your other organs and replaced them with those from another person—would you still be you then?”
“Of course, I would still have my brain and that's what makes me unique,” Evan answered.
“But your brain is just another organ, a mass of tissue that stores information. Is it the mass of tissue or the information it contains that makes you unique?”
“It's both I would say. Every brain is unique because of the neural pathways that form over our lifetimes.”
“Yes and those pathways form to store information. If I create an exact copy of your brain, even if from someone else’s DNA, haven't I recreated the unique storehouse of information that makes you who you are?”
“I see where you are going but I am just not sure, Chen. I just can't get past the fact that this brain inside my head is just a copy of the one I carried around for the first fifty-nine years of my life. It's not mine, it’s just a facsimile.”
“You're wrong, Evan. We gave you that magic pill, and the minute we restored your consciousness, your hunpo found its way back into your body. You are the person who your mother gave birth to and everything you became thereafter. You are you! You just happened to have had a full body transplant along the way but, just like the amputee who gets a new arm, you are still the same person.”
“Did you really give me a pill?”
“No, I am just extending the metaphor.”
“Oh, just curious. So, what you're saying is that memory, personality and spirit are all the same thing, and together they add up to the soul?”
“Not quite. We are born with a soul, and our personalities and a lifetime of memories are forever bound to it…and our soul forever bound to them. What I am saying is that we are beings of energy that take physical form for a time. Our physical form can change but the energy imparted to us at the moment of our creation defines who we are forever.”
Chen leaned forward again to whisper in Evan's ear. “What I am saying is that you didn't really die, Evan. Your energy left your old body but our technology—the technology you helped to create—allowed us to capture and store that energy until we could return it to a new body. I'm saying that our technology gave you a second chance, and you must never doubt yourself again. There is a reason you're here, Evan, embrace it.”
“Having a lively conversation, I see?” Administrator Nayak said as he walked into the room carrying a dome-shaped plastic container.
Chen and Evan sat back in their chairs and stared at the administrator, wondering how much he had heard.
“Don't worry, we aren’t listening. That may be commonplace on Earth these days but we still respect the right to privacy here.”
The administrator sat the container in the middle of the table. “Here is your meal. Hamburgers with French fries and…”—he removed the lid from the container—“chocolate shakes.”
The contents of the tray looked nothing like hamburgers and French fries as Evan remembered them. On one side were two multi-layered cubes about four inches square. Next to the cubes were two piles of orange strips that resembled sweet potato fries. Next to those were two boxes that looked like the beverage conta
iners on the spaceship.
“Thank you,” Evan said as he reached for a cube.
His cube had white, brown and green layers that, when viewed from the side, kind of resembled the bread, meat and lettuce of a hamburger. He turned it over in his hands several times and sniffed it before taking a timid bite.
“Is anything wrong, can I get you something else?”
The bite dissolved in Evan’s mouth and he was pleasantly surprised at the taste of bread, beef, lettuce, tomatoes, ketchup and mustard—it tasted like a hamburger! And not a bad one at that.
“No, this is great. Thank you.”
“Wonderful.”
The administrator turned toward Chen, “Can I get you anything else?”
“No, thank you.”
“Then I will let you two get back to your conversation. I haven't heard from the council yet so we are still waiting. Do you expect Yin to be here soon?”
“It depends on if our contact is here.”
“Well, if you will give me his name, I can find him for you. Keeping track of people at this facility is part of my job.”
“Ummm,” Chen hesitated, “his name is Adee…Adekunle Gbadamosi.”
“Ahh yes, I am quite familiar with Admiral Gbadamosi. I wasn't aware that Endeavor was on its way back. Last I knew it was cruising the Inner Belt and wasn't due back here for at least another two weeks. I will check into it for you and see if I can't have the Admiral come pay us a visit, if he's here. We'll find Yin and bring her here as well.”
“I would appreciate that,” Chen said as he took a bite of his burger.
Evan shoveled a handful of fries into his mouth as the administrator left the room again. Like the burger, they tasted surprisingly good, although they had a slight flavor that Evan didn't normally associate with French fries—the first thing that came to mind was parsnips.
Opening the boxed beverage revealed a cold but not frozen liquid that tasted as good as any chocolate shake Evan could remember. Within minutes Evan had gulped his food down and was staring at Chen's fries.
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