by Lior Samson
“Maybe, if civilization survives with enough resources to spare. But why would medical science risk trying to attach a perfectly good body to an old thawed-out head when they have some young Cal Tech science whiz whose torso was just yesterday crushed in a lab mishap. Think about it. Reviving the dead makes no sense when we have an overabundant supply of the living.”
Her eyes narrowed. “In the case of Craig Freiburg, I understand his estate is charged with covering the cost. The longer it takes the science to catch up, the more his estate is worth.”
“No matter how much his estate is worth, it probably won’t matter in the end because dead is dead. They can’t freeze you instantly. The moment your heart stops, brain cells start dying. The hippocampus, critical to forming memories, is dead within minutes. The chemical infusions they use to protect cells from damaging ice crystals are kept out of the brain by the so-called blood-brain barrier. The best evidence is that there isn’t going to be much of anything left of the brain worth reanimating. It’s all just reassuring stories, like myths of Valhalla or pretty promises of Heaven.”
“So, you don’t care if you die?”
“Don’t be silly. Of course I care, but betting on medical science to bring you back someday is only marginally more stupid than betting on it to keep you alive. The young of the world—that’s you, love—are already starting to balk at the drain on resources of an aging population, especially in keeping the oldest oldsters still going. Ninety percent of lifetime medical costs are incurred in the last few years of life. For the most part, even the most extraordinary efforts are yielding only a few extra years, often miserable ones at that.”
“So I take it you are not into resveratrol and calorie cutting.”
He patted his rounded cheeks. “Does it look like I’m starving myself in a desperate bid to buy a few extra months? Now as to resveratrol, that’s different. I’m a big fan of red wines, big fan. I even own vineyards in Napa and the Columbia Valley. We’re bringing in the zin crush next month up in Napa. You oughta come by to check it out.”
“Not what I meant. But let’s go back to your buying a stake in Existendia. Isn’t that more of the same? Wildly expensive, largely unproven technology?”
“Not the same at all. Look, we really don’t need to spend our time on this. You can read the Existendia online prospectus. If you haven’t already. The article in New Scientist from last year was also pretty good. I don’t have any insider information to share. Besides, with their IPO on the horizon, I know better than to speak out of turn. I play hard, but I don’t play with insider trading.”
“I already read all that. I do my research. I didn’t stalk you all the way out here for a technology rehash. I want to know about you. What are you looking for? Why are you in it? And are you an Existendia client?”
Cole worked his mouth for several seconds and shifted his eyes to the side for inspiration. He looked back at the determined Ms. Carmody and pointed with both hands. “Who are you, anyway? Are you this, this body in front of me? Nice body—don’t get me wrong—even with its retro-renegade hairstyle and aggressively chewed fingernails. Are you your brain, the hundred million neurons balled up inside that half-shaved head of yours? Or are you your personality, whatever it is that makes you stand out and be something special, something different from your friends and fellow workers?”
“How about all of the above.”
“That’s the lazy answer.”
“Or the ambitious one.”
“Whatever. In any case, what makes me me is my personality, all the quirks and traits and distinctive ways I deal with myself and others, plus everything I know and remember.”
“Which is embodied in your brain,”—she pointed toward his head—“in your neurons and interconnections. And maybe even tied to the microbiome in your gut.”
“Maybe. But you said the operant word: embodied. Who says that who I am has to be embodied in wetware, in a biological substrate? I can still be me in silicon or in magnetic bubbles or in transient data in ‘the cloud’. Take all the stuff that defines who I am, the sum total of the signals and wiring in my head, and upload it to a computer—”
“A supercomputer.”
“Okay, a supercomputer, and …” He looked up. Barbra was standing in the doorway to the deck, shaking her head, turning her bobbed blonde hair into a gently waving flag. She had loosened the top buttons of her blouse, and the jacket of her power suit trailed from one hand. “Wow, honey,” he said. “Here you are, earlier than I expected.”
“And here you are, Todd, with … with who?”
Dana stood up and offered her hand to Barbra. “Whom. With whom. I’m Dana Carmody, and I hacked my way into an interview with your husband. Todd? I thought his name was …”
“Coleman Todd Drucker. C. T. Drucker. CT to his troops, Cole to his friends, Coleman to those who don’t know better. I call him Todd because no one else does.”
“It’s like her thumbprint on me.” He wrinkled his nose at his wife.
“I see.” Dana drew out the words as if she didn’t see.
“Yes, and I see.” Barbra surveyed the scene. “An interview. And a glass of wine. On the deck. You move pretty fast, Dana Carmody. And I can see how you manage that.” She smiled as she took in Dana’s physique. “Looks like you do more than interviews. You don’t stay in shape like that sitting at a desk all day.”
“Barbra, really …” Cole gave her a please-stop look.
Barbra stepped onto the deck as she kept talking. “You know, Todd here goes for the athletic types. Skiers, surfer girls, you know, like that. Equestrians.” She looked at Cole and narrowed her eyes. “Me, too.” She smiled at Dana and gave her another quick up-and-down before stepping past her and sitting in her husband’s lap. “Todd has a way of keeping things to himself. He can be a bit … self-centered at times.”
“Let me guess, darling” he said. “You put your Tensora on autopilot and drank your way home.”
“Just trying to keep up with you, darling.” She kissed his neck. “You know what we should do? We should invite Dana to stay for dinner and … and help us celebrate.”
Dana squirmed. “I, uh, really was just here for an interview with—”
“Interview away, I’ll get Tandi to organize something special for the three of us.” She rose out of Cole’s lap and brushed a finger across Dana’s bare shoulder as she passed.
Cole watched his wife enter the house. “Well, I guess we’ve been told. Now you get your interview. And wine. And dinner. And, well, whatever.”
— —
Dinner took hours and required Tandi’s robocart to deliver two more bottles of wine: a cabernet franc from Drucker Vineyards in Washington State and, for contrast, one from McLaren Vale in Australia. The well-lubricated celebration finally flowed from the dining room to the den and on to the bedroom.
The diamond stud on her cheek turned out not to be Dana’s only body-piercing. Both Cole and Barbra were surprised by the amount of hardware waiting to be uncovered. Neither of them complained, even though it soon became evident to Cole that Ms. Carmody, though versatile, seemed to prefer women to men.
The sun was already high when Barbra lifted Cole’s arm from across her breasts and slipped out of bed. Dana was gone, but her clothes were still in a heap on the chair by the window. Barbra slipped on a bathrobe and padded out into the kitchen. Dana was standing at the granite-topped center island, nude, typing away at a folding keyboard. Barbra came up behind her, ran a hand down the rainbow-hued boa constrictor tattooed on her back, and finished with a squeeze to the left buttock. “Good morning. You’re already back at work?”
Dana kept typing. As she moved to block Barbra’s view, she pressed her backside into Barbra, who responded by reaching around and cupping Dana’s breasts. “There. Done. For now,” Dana said. She folded the keyboard and turned to kiss Barbra. “Aren’t you a little overdressed?” She slipped a hand under Barbra’s robe and played with her left nipple.
&nb
sp; “My, you are a single-minded girl.”
“No, I’m of many minds, but right now my mind is on you.”
“Let’s at least get some breakfast first to fuel whatever comes second. And, speaking of fuel, that stuff last night—the Trip-Seven, you called it—was amazing. I don’t suppose you have any more tabs stashed in that purse of yours?”
“I do, but it’s not good to start flying jumbo jets on an empty stomach. And I guess we needn’t be in too much of a hurry. I don’t have to file my story until late tomorrow afternoon.”
Barbra pulled back. “Story? You’re still talking story? How much of … of all this is material for a story.”
“None of it, so relax. I was referring to my piece on men like your husband who keep chasing immortality.”
“Is that what he’s doing? I thought he was just chasing tail. No, I should say as he might, he is always, quote-unquote, investing in promising new developments.”
“You don’t have to go all defensive on me. I’m not writing a chop job on him, just painting a picture of the folly. He’s one of many, and he’s not even that old. You should hear some of the old guys who believe they are in a home-stretch sprint to stay alive until medical science catches up so they can live forever. Sad.”
“You keep talking about men. It’s not just men who want to live longer.”
“True, but for men—at least what I’m finding—it’s more desperate, more absolute. The women I’ve interviewed might talk about living to a hundred and fifty, but only if they still look good and still have a quick mind. The men? They want three hundred. Five hundred. Forever.”
“Really? What do you think it’s about? Maybe because they can’t make babies?”
“Could be. How the hell should I know. I’m still working on the story. Maybe it’s because men get to still look good when they’re older. Women shrivel and get ugly. Who wants to live to a hundred like that? Maybe there is something in what Existendia is developing. I mean, if you’re just a disembodied personality, the entire body thing is pretty irrelevant.”
“Ugh. I can’t think of myself apart from my body, which is maybe why some life-after-death notions never appealed to me. Bodies, now that appeals to me. And clearly to you, from the evidence I’ve seen so far. Are you just a freelancer or is there a steady somebody in your life?”
Dana hesitated, then plunged ahead. “Full disclosure time: I actually do have a boyfriend. Rolf is a dear about playing on the second string. He’s one of the top robotics consultants in the area. We met when I interviewed him for a piece on the Japanese robotics invasion, as they were calling it back then. He’s Hungarian, athletic in bed, and wicked smart.”
Barbra nodded. “That’s a good combination. I’ve always found intelligence to be very arousing. A brain can be one of the sexiest things about a man.”
“Or a woman.”
— 5 —
By the time Cole was screaming at Tandi to shut up and leave him alone, the sun was high, and Barbra was already on her way to the office, demonstrating both her greater discipline and deeper devotion to the firm. Mondays had never been Cole’s forte, and this Monday was what their preteen daughter would call a complete force. What had started Friday night as a bid for a quick roll in the hay had turned into a two-day orgy that left Cole trying to keep up with the women. Too much of a good thing, he was thinking, as he gave up battling morning traffic on the way to the headquarters campus and turned over control to the car. Note to self, he thought, look into economics and practicality of getting a chopper for commuting. Fractional ownership? Pay to play? Might be more fun to get a pilot’s license. How long does that take? How much does it cost? Who cares, kid, you’re worth a billion.
So much for taking his own advice to the troops on Friday. He had managed only half the mandate: recreation but no rest. Better not do that again. No worries, won’t be able to do that again. Becca will be back home from camp next week. Why did they ever agree to a half session? And then the nanny is back, too. Not exactly a nanny—household assistant is her title: maid, tutor, factotum. There was a mistake on two legs: Irish, flame-red hair, gray-green eyes, a walking wet-dream in a bikini—and out of reach. She already had a serious boyfriend and not the slightest interest in middle-aged men, even if they were filthy rich. Cole was willing to admit he was a tail-chasing sleaze, but he had never pressured anyone into sex. There was never any need. What is it that Kissinger said? Power is the ultimate aphrodisiac? Close, Henry, close but no Pulitzer. Power is good, but wealth is better, more universal. Not every female responds to the pull of power, he thought, but all the bitches go for the riches.
And then there was Dana. What was she about? She didn’t seem at all interested in his wealth or the trappings of it. Well, except for Barbra, the consummate trophy wife and the absolute antithesis of Mandi, the wife she had edged out. Night and day, they were, literally. Mandi, the olive-skinned Israeli with the brown-black ringlets and the small tits of her Sephardi mother, and Barbra, the pale buxom shiksa with corn-silk hair whose family tree was peppered with Brits and Swedes.
The Tensora pulled him out of his thoughts by chiming to remind him they were arriving at the Drucker Technologies campus. He made a note to inquire how quickly the transition team could get fresh signage up with the new logo and to find out how long they thought it would take to establish the new identity and propagate it through the business sphere. He knew his people were working on it, but he wanted to know the details, to see the flowchart. He was still the engineer at heart, he admitted to himself, whether he was engineering mergers and acquisitions or weekend threesomes. But of course, that last was really not his engineering. An opportunistic engineer, that’s what I am, he thought.
As he walked in through his private entrance, Kelsey greeted him in the hallway and handed him a portfolio. “Good morning, Mr. Drucker. The revised schedule for the week is in there along with hardcopy of the new Mission-and-Means statement. All uploaded to your devices, of course. And Ms. Carmody is waiting. I put her in Conference B and made no promises.”
“Well, persistent little … I’ll see her now. Tell the Transition Team I’ll be there in five.”
“I’ll tell them fifteen, just in case. Ms. Carmody does seem the persistent type.”
— —
Cole kicked the heavy door shut behind him. “What in hell are you doing here? If you think—”
“I think I didn’t get the chance last night to thank you for a wonderful weekend. That’s all. Mostly. My editor also wants some more background on the people I interviewed, sidebar stuff, how-I-built-this sort of thing.”
“You can get that from my corporate bio or off Wikipedia. Most of the stuff in there is more or less true. Look, it was fun, but I have a company to run, a big company.”
“I get it, and I’m not asking for a lot. Saturday you mentioned your father as your inspiration in business and in life. I just wanted to hear more of what that was about.”
“For your article.”
“Yeah. And for me.”
“For you, then. My father. He inspired me, all right, but not the way you think. I remember him in the hospital, a pale shell, like the discarded husk of a pistachio. He was dying, as much because of who he was as from any particular disease. We’re Ashkenazi Jews, and his early death had been written in his very cells before he was born. He was by then so weak the baby-blue hospital johnnie barely moved with his breathing. When he struggled to speak, his voice was like the whispering draft under a poorly fitted window. I remember he kept repeating my name, the one I never used and rarely heard. ‘Chaim. Chaim,’ he croaked. I was at a loss for what to do, what to say.
“I just stood there, stroking the back of his hand, telling him that I was there, that my mother was parking the car and would be there in a minute. I wanted to say more, to plead with him to wait for her, but I felt I had no right to ask anything of the dying. And I was angry, angry that he was dying so young, leaving me to struggle alone and grow up
faster than I was ready to. And I wanted him to stop repeating my name, my Hebrew name, the name I had long since disowned. Like his.
“My father, Mark Drucker, born Marek Druckerman, died before his wife of twenty-three years could reach his bedside. Within a few years, she would drink herself to her own early death and largely deplete the remnants of wealth that two generations of Druckermans had accumulated since immigrating from Lodz, Poland. What funds remained became seed money for my first company. I was a brilliant college dropout, determined not to die as my father had. I was on my way, using one new venture after another to propel me toward the one percent and then to the one percent of the one percent.
“And I’ll tell you something else, Dana. I don’t really belong here. I am not one of them. I am the revenge of the bottom half, risen from the immigrant sewers to take whatever I can as long as I can.”
At a loss for words and out of questions, she just looked at him.
“Now, as I said, I’ve a company to run in order to keep getting my revenge. And I’ll keep on getting it, because I am not going to go out like my father did. Kelsey will show you out.”
He stopped by Kelsey’s desk. “Give the determined Ms. Carmody a stack of the corporate history stuff and my bio and the press releases on the merger. Then show her the door and tell her goodbye and good luck from me. I’ll be with the team.” His hand was shaking as he walked away.
— 6 —
The grueling week had gone well—up to a point. By Friday, the veneer of communal spirit within the Transition Team had begun to wear thin and was completely scraped bare in spots. The ModulArch people were seeing more clearly where they fit in—or didn’t—within the new corporate structure. Cole expected to see a few letters of resignation arriving in the next weeks, and he was fairly sure about whose signatures would be on them. He hoped Tonika Warner would not tender hers, but he wouldn’t blame her. The racism from some of the old guard was going from latent to blatant. If it continued, he would have to conduct his own purge. The company could not afford to be on the receiving end of a discrimination suit, not at this juncture.
