Immortal Life

by Stanley Bing

  “Cool beans,” said Tim. He motioned to two wooden kitchen chairs with cane seating that flanked the deathbed. They sat. “Ahh,” said Tim. He seemed very comfortable. “So listen,” he said, “I don’t have a lot of time. And you don’t, either.”

  He raised himself up a bit and then fell back. “Help me sit up,” he said. Liv and Gene moved to him then and gently raised his body. Liv propped a pillow behind him. They sat again, and attended.

  “So how are the Jets doing?” said Tim pleasantly. “They make it to the postseason yet?” He then broke into a fit of cackling and wheezing that, for a moment or two, threatened to terminate the discussion. “No, but seriously,” he said, regaining his composure. “When I was only a hundred or so, I used to fantasize about my last days and what I would want to wrap things up in a pleasurable fashion. And there were only two things in my mind, after a half century of healthful, organic living in harmony with the universe and all that kinda stuff: a pack of Lucky Strikes and a Double-Double from In-N-Out Burger.”

  Solemnly, and without comment, Liv extracted a crushed package of filterless smokes from the depth of her jeans pocket. She handed them over to Tim, who looked at the pack with unvarnished nostalgia and affection.

  “Mother of God,” he said. “Thanks.” He took the pack as if receiving a votive relic and stared at it, a flood of memories of the times, places, and circumstances associated with the various occasions during which he had been sucking on one of its contents. “This is an oxygen-rich environment,” he said. “I suppose if I lit one, we would all explode, and that would be a shame with so much left undone.” He took a smoke out of the pack. It was limp and twisted and appeared a bit soggy. “It’s a shame,” he said, “how much pleasure we get in this life from the things that are bad for us, and how rare are the similar delights one derives from the things that are good for us.” He tucked the cigarette in the corner of his mouth.

  The room was quiet for a little while. Tim closed his eyes and appeared to be snoozing. Very slowly, as if reaching into a barbecue to extract one glowing charcoal, Liv extended her hand and placed it on the one resting on the coverlet. “Master?” she said.

  “Tim, please.” His eyes fluttered open and rested on her. “I’m awake, although it seems that unless I tether it to my sad little body down here my spirit rises up through the roof, beyond the treetops, and circles somewhere in the night sky high above us. I suppose that’s what happens. You fly. You circle higher and higher. And then, finally, you don’t return, you don’t settle back down in this shell we call home, you simply fly off into whatever comes next, even if that turns out to be nothing at all.”

  “I don’t believe it’s nothing at all,” said Liv.

  “Well, to tell you the truth,” said Tim, “neither do I.”

  They all breathed together for a short time. “Okay,” said the old man, and it was a different creature entirely that fixed them with a lancet of concentration. “Listen.” He sat up straight now and took the gnarled cigarette from his mouth, handing it back to Liv with a steady hand. She brought it to her lips for a moment, and then placed it back into its pack, and the pack back into her pocket.

  “I’ve been the leader of this little community for longer than either of you have been on Spaceship Earth,” said Tim. “And up until recently, I believed it would be possible to live our lives away from the digital sphere in peace and simplicity. I no longer believe that. Reluctantly, I have come to the conclusion, based on the evidence available to me, that the entire human race is threatened with a future that is not human, that is degrading to the essence of what it means to be human, and that the extinction of all we hold to be human, and perhaps of the human race itself, will occur if the Singularity occurs and the machines win. This tragic conclusion to the great pageant of human history is inevitable unless steps are taken to upset an unnatural progression into a future in which the few hold the chains of many, and life will regress into a state of mindless enslavement to the artificial intelligences that have seized control of the means of production and the markets that drive them.”

  “Well,” said Gene, “that would be a bummer.”

  “The kids in my class,” said Liv, “when they’re offline, they . . . deactivate. And their heads are shaped funny. Sort of pointy in the back. A few seem to be developing bald spots. They’re nine years old. There are a couple who have never been outside more than a couple of minutes at a time.”

  “When I was a boy, we went outside to play,” said Tim nostalgically. “My parents used to say, ‘I don’t want to see you around here until it’s time for dinner.’ ”

  “Foreheads getting tinier, too,” said Liv.

  “New brain,” said Gene. “All about communications. Like ants. The real intelligence no longer located in each individual mind but off-loaded into the Cloud. The Cloud does all the thinking.”

  “And how did you come by this arcane knowledge, my boy?” Tim asked mildly. He already knew the answer.

  “Because he knows it.” Arthur had studied the issue and immediately come to the conclusion that the evolution to posthuman life was going to be great for marketing.

  “We’ve gotta get moving,” said Liv. “Stevie heard a drone before.” She stood and walked to the door of the house and peered into the night. Then she took out the holy smoke she had traded with Tim and lit it. Took a massive drag. Exhaled through her nose. Seemed to relax a bit.

  “I didn’t know you smoke,” said Gene, joining her by the door.

  “I don’t.” She kept smoking. “Something’s coming,” she said.

  With a struggle, Tim raised himself onto one elbow. “What’s Arthur thinking about, Gene?” he inquired in a very small voice that seemed to come from nowhere at all. “It’s important that we know.”

  Gene turned abruptly. “It’s none of your fucking business, you dried-up old husk,” he replied in an ugly growl. He made a move toward the bed.

  “No!” Tim roared in a surprisingly robust voice, at the same time recoiling and making the sign of the cross.

  1“Really?” said Arthur, who backed up in the face of the gesture, laughing.

  As he did, what was left of Gene forced the bottle up to his mouth and took a massive draught and then another. It was almost empty now.

  “Fuck!” said Arthur. There was a moment of silence as the proper owner fought and won control of Gene’s body.

  “Sorry,” said Gene. Then he looked sheepishly around the room. “Nobody is more embarrassed about this kind of thing than I am. I’m open to suggestions.”

  “Bob!” Liv yelled out the door. “Arthur was here. He looks stronger. Could you go down to the car and get more provisions?”

  “What’ll you have, Gene?” Bob called from the edge of the porch.

  “Rye,” said Gene. Then he added, by way of explanation, “It has a nice, smoky flavor and a full body, and it’s much easier on the head than scotch after seven or eight drinks.”

  “I was always a Boone’s Farm man myself,” said Tim.

  Gene approached the bed and took Tim by the hand, looking down at him with reverence. “You know, Tim, you’ve got a guy here named Bob who understands a way to upload you into the big brain,” he said very gently. “You would live. But you’re going to die instead, and you’re not doing anything, are you, to stay on after your body goes?”

  “Nah,” said Tim. “All that shit is pretty fucked up, don’t you think?”

  “Yeah, Tim, I do. But I’m not facing an actual decision point on the thing.”

  “Tell me what the plan is.”

  Gene dropped Tim’s hand and sat again. “Arthur is going to launch a full-scale military assault on all the places where the Cloud has been rejected or has yet to reach,” he said. “He’s going to make sure that everybody gets their cranial hardware installed, and those who have it already will be upgraded. It’ll start here in North America, in the core market, and when that’s done, he’ll move on to the rest of the world. First Russia.
Then China. Within twenty-five years, the entire planet will be one global market supplied by the Corporation with every necessity of life. Those who don’t get with the program will either be terminated or off-loaded.”

  “Off-loaded? To where?”

  “The Musk Colony,” said Gene without a smile.

  “Mars,” said Tim.

  “Mars. Yeah.”

  “Tell Stevie to come in, please, if you would, Liv?”

  “Hey, short stuff,” said Liv into the darkness.

  Stevie came into the light, where moths orbited the incandescent bulbs that shone weakly from the roof of the veranda.

  “I’m as tall as you are, squirt,” said Stevie, who came into the room laden down with a large backpack in one hand and a small leather fanny pack in another. The screen door slammed. Somewhere in the night outside, high above the sleeping camp, a drone buzzed its creepy and metallic whine.

  25

  The Two Devices

  “Master.” Stevie stood in the center of the room, at ease, awaiting further instructions. His or her outfit—solid black jeans and T-shirt augmented with a khaki cargo vest—was impeccably neat, and an aged blue New York Yankees baseball cap was pulled down low over his or her forehead.

  “Hello, dear,” said Tim. “Please tell our colleagues what you’ve got there.”

  “Two devices,” said Stevie, hauling the backpack off his or her shoulder. “The first is in here.” He or she handed the pack over to Gene, who hefted it.

  “Heavy.” He opened the backpack and looked inside. “It looks like a huge cigar.”

  “It’s a twelfth-generation nonnuclear electromagnetic pulse device,” said Stevie. “We’ll have to walk it in to get close enough to detonate it effectively.”

  “No kidding,” said Gene. “So, we’re gonna, like, blow up the Cloud?”

  “What’s amazing is how doable it is,” said Tim. “Their arrogance has made them weak.” Bob and Bronwyn had come in from the porch. They stood in the doorway, their arms draped around each other. For the first time since they met, Gene thought, Bob seemed moderately at peace, as if he had finally come home and would now be permitted to rest for a little while. The mantle of science had been removed from his shoulders. He was in the land of true belief now.

  “Tell them how it works, Stevie,” said Tim, who then appeared to lapse into either a heavy doze or a light coma.

  “It’s an EMP,” said Stevie proudly, as if he or she were talking about a new motorcycle or something equally awesome. “It emits short, high-energy pulses reaching a hundred ten gigawatts, enough to destroy any complex electronic system that’s not in a protective Faraday cage. It can knock out any kind of electronics, and it can fry any uncaged mainframe within a mile of where it’s detonated.”

  “You made this thing?” Gene tried not to sound too surprised. He didn’t want to be insulting to Stevie, who was obviously a little more complex than he had guessed.

  “The fucking Cloud provided the informational needs for its own destruction,” said Stevie. “It’s no big deal. This kind of tech was old hat almost a hundred years ago. It’s essentially a mechanical problem, nothing excessively fancy or hard to source. And while all the cool security guys are interested in the cutting-edge four-dimensional quantum nonsensical shit, nobody spends any time thinking about this kind of old-school gear, let alone anything that’s actually being walked in and deployed on-site. By the way, we have no idea whether anybody in the vicinity at that time will melt down too.”

  “Ouch,” said Gene.

  “We’re hopeful, of course. You may survive.” The two exchanged cordial grins.

  Steve appeared in the doorway, a mask of fear on his chubby, hairy face. “Drone,” he said. “You hear it? It’s up there.”

  “You know what to do, Steve,” said Stevie patiently.

  “Dude, the thing is too fucking high.”

  “Do your best.”

  “Yeah, okay,” said Steve. But he didn’t sound convinced.

  “Skells ready?”

  “Yeah, Stevie. Everybody is deployed. But we got no protection against an airborne missile.”

  “And the families?”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Steve said irritably. “All in the barn. All tucked away like little mice.”

  “I’m going out there,” said Bronwyn suddenly. “I’m not doing anybody any good in here.” She kissed Bob lightly on the cheek and darted out of the room.

  Bob looked after her. “Remarkable woman,” he said in a faraway, dreamy tone. “I’d be a soulless piece of shit without her, instead of the person I am today.”

  “Don’t flatter yourself, Bob,” said Gene.

  “Okay, son,” said Bob, giving Gene a little smile. “Got me there.”

  Steve regarded Gene with undisguised hostility. “You better get this fucking right, man,” he blurted. “Everything is riding on you, and who the fuck are you?” Then, improbably, he burst into a torrent of sobs and stood there in front of them all, a large, shapeless blob of a guy with a shaggy face and a ponytail, crying his heart out.

  “You guys are quite a bunch of crybabies,” said Gene, but not in a mean way.

  “Nobody’s really ready for this kind of thing,” said Stevie. He or she turned to Steve. “Go, man,” he or she said tenderly. “Do whatever you can. The thing is in motion, and we all have to go with it.” Steve wiped his eyes, rubbed his runny nose with the sleeve of his hoodie, and looked at the group with no discernible expression.

  “Okay, Stevie,” he said. “I love you, dude.” And he left.

  “He’s overwrought,” said Stevie to nobody in particular.

  Liv, who had been at the door of the house looking up at the sky, came back into the room and approached Tim’s bedside, staring down at him with concern. He really did look terrible. What if he dies? she thought. What would we do then?

  “Can I get you anything, Tim?”

  “No, dear,” said Tim. “I feel a little better than I look. And there’s no way I can check out during this phase of the project.” He reached out his hand. She took it and sat down as Gene followed, putting one hand on Livia’s shoulder. His other still held on to the precious bottle of medicine. They looked at Tim together. “I’m going with you, Gene,” she said, her eyes still fastened on the shimmering entity in the bed.

  “No, baby,” said Gene. Liv did not reply, but her backbone stiffened.

  Stevie was now holding the contents of the fanny pack in one open palm. It was a round, spiky thing about the size of a very small pineapple. “The big device will take out all the defenses that surround the Faraday cage that guards the central core, but the true target is inside the grid,” he explained, “and you gotta get in there and set this little guy off. And to do either one of these things, obviously, you have to get inside the facility itself.”

  “Yeah, but how?” asked Gene. “They’re not going to be nice enough to invite us in.”

  Bob was a little disappointed in the boy. After all, Gene had Bob’s own mind as a substrate. Shouldn’t he be a bit smarter? “Gene,” he said tenderly, as one might tell a child that his puppy had just been run over by a truck. “Look in the mirror. For all intents and purposes, you’re Arthur, man.”

  “Oh. Right.” Gene felt as if he had just been instructed on how to use his dick to open a combination lock.

  Stevie hefted the small device, regarding it with wonder. “This little dude uses a single-use, high-power microwave generation device to set off a superpowerful radio frequency pulse, and it incorporates both high-power microwave and ultrawide-band tech. Nothing electronic will live when it blows.”

  “How does it work?” asked Gene.

  “It’s amazing!” Stevie exclaimed. “It’s a low-inductance capacitor bank discharged into a single-loop antenna, a microwave generator, and an explosively pumped flux compression generator, all bundled into a tiny package. To achieve the frequency characteristics of the pulse needed for optimal coupling into the target, wave-shap
ing circuits are added between the pulse source and the antenna, piggybacked onto a first-class vircator suitable for microwave conversion of high-energy waves.” He paused to catch his breath and then continued: “By adding the external magnetic field to the induced field, the total magnetic flux through the ring has been conserved, and a current has been created in the conductive ring that radiates outward.”

  “No,” said Gene. “I mean—”

  “The gamma rays flow downward and are absorbed by the ground,” Stevie went on, as if describing the recipe for a tasty soup. “This prevents charge separation from occurring and creates a very strong vertical electric current that generates intense electromagnetic emissions over a wide frequency range up to a thousand megahertz that emanates mostly horizontally. At the same time, the earth acts as a conductor, allowing the electrons to flow back toward the burst point. The charge separation persists for only a few tens of microseconds, making the emission power at this point of its development some one thousand gigawatts. This should do the job very nicely without melting you or the building.”

  “No,” Gene repeated. “I mean, what button do I press?”

  Everybody looked at Gene as if he were a banana slug that somehow crawled indoors from the garden.

  “Here,” said Stevie, showing him the detonator.

  “Thanks. And that’s it? Worldwide? No Cloud? From just one little bomb?”

  “No. But again, the Cloud is there to cut its own throat. For fifty years, every nation has been hacking away to make sure that a request-for-service virus that could be activated in the event of a war has been embedded in every utility, every piece of infrastructure, every smart appliance in every other power on the globe. Before it explodes, our device will initiate a code through the Cloud itself to every object in the world that’s been infected with that request-for-service virus. Light bulbs. Washing machines. Doorbells. Security cameras. Every infected client in the world will then respond with a request for service. And the Cloud will choke on all of those requests. And die.”