The First Immortal

by James L. Halperin

  Still, Ben knew that even in today’s world, the fascinating, intelligent, dark-eyed woman with whom he was presently engaged in lively discourse was off limits, a prohibition having little to do with the fact that she was gay. If two people with incompatible sexual orientations did fall in love, or were just sufficiently attracted to each other’s personalities, gays could easily become bisexual or straight, or vice versa, simply by undergoing a painless neuronal restructuring regimen. A far more daunting, indeed impassable, roadblock to such an encounter was that Virginia Gonzalez was married to his great-granddaughter.

  The occasion was Ben’s 150th birthday, which Epstein, who’d recently embarked on a career as Assistant Professor of Philosophy at City College of New York, had arranged at the St. Regis Hotel. During the previous week, in keeping with the St. Regis’s annual custom, self-replicating mini-assemblers had rebuilt the hotel from the ground up, and down. These ultra-cheap fabricators connected units approximately one-tenth of a cubic micron each; microscopic, but still a million times cruder than the individual molecules arranged by nanomachines.

  The festivities took place in a medium-sized suite on the 317th floor, sixty-seven stories above street level. Suites on the underground floors were cheaper to rent, and indistinguishable from those aboveground—each cubic meter was climate-controlled based on guest preference, and real-time 3-D screens and artificial sunlight created the illusion of picture windows—but Epstein had good reason to pay extra. Over every fireplace on floors 300 through 349, including the one in this suite, hung an identical copy, perfectly reproduced by microassemblers—that is, about a thousand molecules at a time-of Gary Franklin Smith’s Boston Common.

  Each room had been decorated by a new AI system programmed to complement the sensibility of the human eye. The acoustics worked flawlessly alongside Ben’s inner ear sound-filtering system, the latter a luxury Ben could appreciate while everyone under the age of fifty took it for granted. The crowd was animated and amiable, many having had their moods lifted by drozac-laced social interaction enhancement tonics. And the hors d’oeuvres, which had been prepared in a nanoassembler unit (borrowed from yours truly), were so delicious that certain otherwise restrained guests appeared to have metamorphosed into gluttons.

  Ben realized, to his amazement, that he was having a wonderful time.

  Not eighteen months earlier, upon moving into his own dwelling, Ben had plunged into chronic melancholy. At the time, he could neither understand his gloom nor share it, so he’d simply pretended to others that he was fine.

  Marge’s absence remained his fiercest ache. But after a year of soul-searching, he’d come to realize that a primary motivation for having been frozen in the first place was his need to reconcile with Gary, who was not only still in biostasis, but likely brain-impaired. Ben decided he needed to make himself independent; earn enough money to revive his family, as well as Toby, and to take care of his son. His estranged son: a once-renowned artist, who might remember nothing about that former life. Or his father.

  Ben wondered how he could achieve the requisite financial wherewithal for revivs and care of his loved ones. He possessed no skills to contribute to society. His medical experience was worthless. Human medical technicians and counselors were in demand, but that vocation required reeducation, and his antiquated knowledge would actually place him at a disadvantage: He would have to unlearn much of what he’d been taught in medical school.

  Of course, he’d always possessed business acumen, people did like him, and he knew he was capable of working tirelessly; all still remunerative qualities even in the 2070s. Nonetheless, he believed he could never compete against those conceived in the crucible of eugenic selection and raised under conditions far more similar to present society. Sort of like the difference, he decided, between a well-maintained late model automobile versus an ancient one that had been overhauled. Which would most people prefer to own?

  “What aspect of modern life did you find the most surprising?” Virginia was now asking him. Ben got that one a lot, but hadn’t tired of it. He regarded it as a natural question, since he was now one of the planet’s hundred oldest conscious mammals.

  “The fact that there are no human doctors was disconcerting,” Ben answered, “and the effects of eugenics, DNA repair, and genetic reengineering: everyone being so smart and youthful, tall and good-looking; I must say, I found that rather intimidating. Still do. Then to see so many talented and intelligent people squandering their lives in designer drugs and VR pods. But I guess it would have to be the amount of information at our fingertips, and that even in the midst of data bases a billion times more comprehensive than anything we had during the twentieth century, there’s still so much we don’t know.”

  “Such as?”

  “Well, all the really big stuff. For example, they can’t tell us if there are other universes beyond the fifteen-billion-year-old one we inhabit. We don’t have a credible unified theory of physics yet. I doubt the living will ever prove or disprove the existence and nature of God. Hell, we don’t even know yet where other intelligent life exists in our galaxy, or if any exists at all. Furthermore,” he added, “even with all our advances in human psychology, we still can’t predict human behavior with much accuracy, so I have no idea when you and Alica are going to produce another great-great-grandchild for me!”

  Virginia chuckled. “I suppose we’d better ask our husband what he thinks.”

  “Ah, polygamy. Yet another candidate for the most surprising aspect of modern life.”

  “‘Till death do us part’ takes on a more daunting significance when death no longer parts us.”

  Not for him, he thought. If only Marge were alive, he would happily remain steadfast and monogamous in their marriage—forever. He knew better than to make such a statement aloud, though. Who in this modern world would ever believe that?

  The party broke up shortly before midnight. Ben rode the subway home. The trip from midtown New York to Boston required just eight minutes, and the walk to his quarters another five. He used that time to replay the evening through his mind, and to savor what he’d found, even as he felt the sting of what was absent.

  His first thoughts were of Tobias Fiske, but not the old man lying in soft-nite. Rather, Ben thought of young Toby, the unmotivated teenager whom he’d mentored and galvanized, whose potential he’d helped unleash.

  Then his mind flowed, as if following an ingrained path, to his other friends and family members; to the ways his life and words and thoughts had so often interwoven with theirs. The echoes of that evening’s many conversations coalesced during those thirteen minutes of solitude and residual cheer, granting Benjamin Smith the inspiration for his second career.

  April 15, 2081

  —Genesis II, the experimental Martian Atmospheric Protocol Program (MAPP) is activated on a limited basis. Within four hours, Arian air composition increases from .0017% oxygen to .144%. While the red planet’s size will never permit a completely stable atmosphere, it is hoped that within six to eight months, Earthlike air can be temporarily replicated, with periodic use of MAPP assuring indefinitely maintained terrestrial conditions.—Nanoguard Technologies announces an enhanced version of Smartfog, their popular personal safety shield designed to cushion against most forms of ballistic attacks or accidents. The new product consists of nearly 100 trillion computerized nanomachines that coordinate instant response to block any perceived danger against their owners. Smartfog could prevent approximately 57% of all deaths, according to latest World Safety Board estimates. The only detriment is a slight clouding of vision, easily overcome by AI-digitized contact lens screens.

  “Sometimes I wish they’d never grow up; just stay babies, you know? That’s when they really need you,” the woman’s image sitting across from Ben in his VR pod was saying. He sneaked a glance at the summary display.

  London. Oh. On occasion, he neglected to notice where his clients actually lived.

  He also noted that according to
her timescreen, she’d spent less than ten hours outside her pod all week.

  Ben gazed into Lara Wilson’s face. The woman was seventy-seven and looked twenty-two. She would probably live another thousand years.

  People’s minds couldn’t get on the outside of it yet, he decided. So much time! They used to plan twenty years into the future, now two hundred years was barely enough. No wonder so many lost themselves.

  “Lara, you are needed, you know.”

  “But I don’t feel that way. I feel like anything I start will be over too quickly. So what’s the point? Makes me want to stay in this pod and just do whatever matters to me. Only I know I’ll end up feeling empty.”

  Tell me about it, Ben thought. “I know exactly what you’re feeling. Been there myself.”

  “You?”

  “Sure. I imagine everyone feels it. I really did right after my reviv. Felt as though I had nothing to offer the world anymore. I was a doctor before my suspension, you know. Believe it or not, that was an important job back then. You could make quite a difference in people’s lives, or even in their deaths. But after they revived me, I figured: What use is that to a world where people never get sick?”

  “So what did you do about it?” Her expression seemed to take on a new interest, looking out instead of in.

  “Did some traveling, some thinking. Talked to friends, in the flesh. Saw myself, and you, everywhere.”

  “What does that mean? I ‘saw myself and you’?”

  Ben smiled and swept the air with his arm. “It’s much the same wherever you go, Lara. People with time, the most valuable possession of all, and now that the scope of it’s become so huge, they’ve allowed its value to diminish.”

  “But hasn’t it diminished? Hasn’t the value of time done just that?” Her face now seemed more alive, animated.

  “No, just redefined.”

  Lara Wilson’s eyes pleaded for advice.

  “Travel,” he said. “See what’s out there. Do it for real. Feel it, touch it, taste it, smell it; learn what moves you. Maybe you’ll want to raise child after child after child. Maybe you’ll want to help others. Each time you do, there’ll be more of you, and more to you; a greater dimensionality to offer. Maybe you’ll find something totally new, something that never occurred to you before. The point is: It’s time to get started…”

  As Ben continued to talk, an announcement banner streamed across his field of vision: APRIL 15, 2081, 11:35 A.M.—DEATH CLOCK DEFEATED.

  He understood immediately.

  Years earlier, he’d programmed his NetMind service to alert him the moment the breakthrough occurred, and now he was seeing the newsflash on his contact lens screen.

  He did not permit the slightest hesitation to interrupt his voice. A crucial aspect of his effectiveness as a counselor was that his clients saw that he genuinely cared about their well-being. While at their service, he focused on them. Indeed, it was this very quality of human empathy that made him effective. Machines could address the objectively quantifiable. They could even ask, “How are you today?” But they couldn’t actually give a damn.

  Still, Ben knew that everything about his personal life had just changed, and for just a brief moment, he allowed himself to think: I’m coming for you, Mom.

  The moment Lara Wilson’s session ended, Ben read about the cure for cellular death on his desktop screen, then instructed his personal AI to reach a certain Dr. Trip Crane.

  Nearly an hour elapsed before I returned Ben’s call; the longest I’d ever taken. When my face appeared on his wallscreen, he noticed my combined fatigue and exhilaration, hardly surprising considering the day’s newsflash. As usual Ben heard Wendy-girl in the background, although the cacophony seemed louder to him.

  Almost sounds like two dogs, he told himself.

  “Let me guess, Ben,” I said. “You saw the news and decided it’s time to revive your mother.”

  He nodded. “You must be busy as hell right now.”

  “Shrewd assumption. Actually, I figure the next two weeks’ll be the most active reviv period in human history. And Alice Smith’s case is a tricky one. I understand her suspension was violated for a while by those terrorists.”

  “Only about twenty minutes.”

  “It isn’t always the amount of time that matters,” I explained. “The conditions themselves might be more critical than the number of minutes. I’ve seen two-hour partial thaws recover ninety percent, and ten-minute interruptions that were total losses. I think we should see if Virginia’s available to consult on this one.”

  “Good idea. Let me call her. Also, I was wondering whether you think I should revive everyone, or space them out.”

  “You mean all eight of your children and grandkids?”

  “Seven. All except Katie. Since she’ll need to have new organs grown.”

  “We can have the ones she’s missing ready by August.”

  “August?” Ben felt his head spinning. That soon? More time—yet it moved faster. “Last time we talked about it, you told me fourteen months.”

  “As the AIs get more powerful, they keep finding more efficient regimens.”

  “Great! If we revive everyone at around the same time, they might help Alice—and each other—adjust. Oh, and I want to reanimate Toby Fiske, too.”

  “Sponsor ten revivs at once? Sure you can afford it? At least let me take care of my grandmother.”

  “No, Trip. Rebecca’s my daughter. Besides, your time’s a helluva lot more valuable to the world than mine is. Don’t worry; royalties from my hypertext essays are pretty good. Been saving my money. No bad habits yet, and I’ve never been a big spender anyway.”

  “But ten revivs, Ben? In one year?”

  “I admit it’ll be tight, especially since I’ll have to cut back on counseling hours to look after them all. But I can pull it off. And I want to be there for them, since I was the one who grabbed the airplane’s oxygen mask.”

  “Huh?”

  “Nothing. Just an old analogy I once used to justify being frozen in the first place.” Ben studied my smiling image. Even though it was a metaphor from artifacts predating my world, he imagined I might understand. (As, eventually, I did.) “Anyway, what do you think?”

  “I’d do it gradually if I were you,” I advised. “Maybe one or two revivs a month, in case there are complications. But if you want to do all ten this year, I don’t see any insurmountable problems. We could set up a tentative schedule when we revivify your mother. How’s a week from today?”

  April 22, 2081

  —The World Tribunal authorizes restoration of ACIP inventor Randall Petersen Armstrong’s photographic memory, which it had ordered weakened in 2052 as punishment for his infamous crimes. Now Armstrong will be allowed to take Mnemex, the memory drug approved six years ago by the WDA. Chief Justice Oliver Horovitz explains, “With so many different types of Truth Machines now in use, there’s no longer any danger of Mr. Armstrong suddenly figuring out how to override every one of them simultaneously, even with his memory rebuilt.”—A comprehensive study of Martian fossils conducted by Amgen’s extraterrestrial research installation on Aries One bolsters the General Life Theorem. Amgen Chairman Kevin Lipton Jr. states, “Based on extensive tests, it now appears virtually certain that the initial conditions for carbon-based life-forms have always been the same throughout the solar system, and by implication, the universe.”

  “The news, er, isn’t good, Ben,” I stumbled, while Virginia remained in the adjoining laboratory, reporting to me minute by minute. “I was afraid to say it before I was sure. Fact is, I, uh, suspected as much, soon as I found out it was 99 degrees in that dormantory…”

  “What is it, Trip? Just tell me, for chrissake.”

  “Your mother’s memories were randomized.”

  Ben felt his stomach rise into his chest. “Randomized? What exactly do you mean by that? Bottom line.”

  “Uh, it means we have to replace what’s left of her memories with generic knowled
ge. Otherwise she won’t be able to speak or walk or feed herself, or even see.”

  “Generic knowledge?”

  “Yeah. We’ve disassembled and reassembled enough human brains to know the molecular structure of all the standard skills. Language, motor coordination, sensory discernment; everything a normal brain does. We can even add knowledge about history, science, sociology, whatever. But we can only do that to a clean slate. Other than what we give her, all she’ll have left will be the genetic traits in her DNA. In other words, well…”

  “Well, what?”

  “Ben, after we fix everything, she won’t remember you at all; or anyone else. Won’t even know her own name.”

  Ben simply could not get himself onto the outside of such a reality. He felt, but did not hear, his own voice. “Trip, will it still be her?”

  “I’d better let Gin answer that question. I’m not qualified. Maybe no one is. But at least Virginia’s a real neuroscientist; I’m just an amateur.” That, I admit, was a borderline lie.

  But Ben had the decency not to look for the yellow light he knew would be emanating from the device on his own finger.

  We waited nine more minutes before Virginia entered the room and embraced Ben, which comforted him in spite of his realization that condolence was a bad sign.

  “I’m so sorry,” she said.

  “Don’t be. Just tell me what I can do for her.”

  “You can help me design her knowledge base. Those microwave devices the terrorists used moved too many of her molecules around. Otherwise, I’d recommend refreezing her until the AIs learn how to implant new knowledge without erasing memories. But there’s no point refreezing Alice; the damage is too extensive, and I’ve recorded the position of each brain molecule just in case I’m wrong. But for now, we have to put in new data; there’s no other reasonable choice.”

  “Okay. I understand.”