by Guy Hasson
Here was the part responsible for the way Glynis herself looked. That was a tougher one. The program was told to search what is the ‘outside’ of Glynis – the exterior cells, mainly, but it also searched for blood or bones or muscles outside the body (in case of injury). Then the program would ‘color in’ the shape according to the analysis of Glynis’ body. But Glynis’ image didn’t have to have anything to do with her cells or muscles or bones, did it? It could be anything, too. She could tell the program to forget about Glynis’ exterior, and to simply put an image of... of anyone or anything. Imagine Olivia’s surprise, if the next time she walked in, she’d be looking at a mirror image of herself. Or if Glynis looked like the Professor. That would be something. But... But the potential was even greater, Glynis realized. Who said she needed an image? This was virtual reality, after all. She could have no image – she could become invisible.
And with her completely invisible, with her body able to pass through things, with Glynis not having to move from place to place but able to simply ‘jump’ there – Glynis would still be Glynis, but the only thing that would be left from Glynis – the true Glynis – would be... what?
The brain. She couldn’t tweak her thoughts or her emotions. She was and always would be a brain, a brain connected to a nonexistent body, but that depended on it to breathe, to supply blood, and perhaps to do other things we don’t know about. She’d always feel her body, she’d be able to run, or jump or lift her hands. Her body would still grow tired, it would still itch, because the programming was of the body and the brain. But her body could be turned invisible, it could all be turned into objects that don’t interact with anything in ‘reality’. Because her programming was bound to humanity’s rules, Glynis’ brain couldn’t exist without her body. But the body didn’t have to be physical at all, did it?
She turned away from the screen and stared at the wall. This was too much. She was human and yet not human. She was thousands of different people, she would be thousands and maybe millions... But they would never be her. They could never be her.
Her eyes suddenly lit up. There was a way to insure she would be unique! There was one more thing that could be tweaked in her programming!
She got rid of the ‘view’ ability and accessed the program itself, even as it was running, and began to change its code. The irony of herself being a program that was consciously changing its own programming flashed through her mind, and she typed faster.
Within fifteen minutes, she was done. Until now, the program saved its data – Glynis’ and the environment’s exact condition – once a minute. Now the program could no longer ‘save’ itself. But this was not enough. She had seen where the ‘saved’ information was sent to – and now she accessed that place. Here they were. All the records of Glynis 1.0 from her birth to a second ago – her entire life in one minute intervals saved on a computer. Erasing all this would take her hours. She quickly wrote a program that would delete each and every memory of her. The program would also make sure that none of her memories could be undeleted. And, when it was over, it would hide itself, and if any records of Glynis 1.0 ever appeared – it would erase them, as well.
She wrote the program and executed it. She watched the screen, as moments of her life began to disappear, a hundred at a time, beginning from the present and going back. She had not tampered with Olivia’s experiment. She had just made sure that she would never relive her past. Of all the other Glynisses, she was unique. There would only be one version of Glynis 1.0. Only one. And when she died, she would not be reborn. Not her. Some other copyrighted Glynis. Not her.
She watched, as her entire thirteenth year had erased itself. The month before her twelfth birthday... she remembered how excited she had been, how innocent she had been there, unaware of the truth. And for a moment a hint of regret appeared. But what she was erasing was not memories. This was no album she could look at. This was the moment she had lived. To relive that would be to relive it exactly as it had been, from her point of view then, with no additional information or memories. It was not an album. Half the year was now gone. Good.
It was odd how most people would kill to get the kind of immortality she was now throwing away. To live forever. That every moment of her life was remembered, could be lived through again. People dreamt of this kind of immortality. And all she wanted was to be forgotten. No, that wasn’t true. She wanted to be unique. And this was the only way to get it.
Her eleventh year had now been erased.
Glynis wondered how Olivia would take this. Now that she wasn’t an experiment, now that she couldn’t take back her mistakes, now that Glynis was as unique as anyone else. How would she react? Would she finally see her not as an experiment, a specimen, but as a person, as... as her daughter?
Then she realized that she wasn’t doing it to be unique. She was doing it for her mother. All her belief in her mother’s love, in the life they’d had, had vanished. She wanted proof that her mother loved her after all, that she really wanted her, that she cared for her, that... that she was her mother.
How stupid. How pathetic.
Her tenth year was now gone.
Stupid or not, pathetic or not, it was how she felt. She couldn’t change that. (And she couldn’t ‘tweak’ it, either.)
How would Olivia take this? She reduced the window with her vanishing life to a corner in the screen, and accessed the cameras, again. Where was Olivia?
She switched from camera to camera, from viewing post to viewing post, from one computer-filled room to another. Seeing Professor Von Wildman, she stopped, but Olivia was no longer with him.
Her ninth year was now completely erased.
Glynis continued to camera-hop. She stopped for a moment, seeing Ron sitting at a computer panel. She was about to move on to the next camera, when Olivia stepped into view and leaned over his shoulder. Glynis executed AdLip.
“—massive alarm,” Ron was saying. “And I can see why.”
“What? What is it?”
“Glynis 1.0,” he said. “Her records are erasing themselves.”
“What?!” Olivia looked afraid.
“See, whatever it is, it’s already erased all her records after her eighth birthday.”
“Bring them back! I need them! Bring them back!”
“I can’t! They’re not deleting themselves like normal programs, into the trash bin. They’re really deleting themselves! Hundreds at a time! That’s why the alarm went off. One of our virus alerts turned on the sirens because of the massive deletions.”
Cool, Glynis thought. I triggered a virus alert.
“So, you’re saying there’s a virus infecting Glynis 1.0?”
“At least everything we’ve saved from her.”
“Stop it!”
“I can’t!”
“What about Glynis herself?! Is the virus affecting her? Show me Glynis! Is she all right? Show me Glynis!”
“Hold on.” He tapped at the keys. Glynis could glimpse his screen from her viewpoint. She stared at it intently. Within seconds, the image of the living room appeared. Bastards! They could look in on me any time they wanted to. They could see me taking showers, dressing... Her face went red.
“She’s not in the living room,” Ron said. “But at least the environment seems unaffected.”
“Try her room.”
Glynis tensed up. From the corner of her eyes, she saw that her seventh year was now gone. She saw Ron hit the keys, and concentrated on the screen, trying to seem natural.
There it was, on the screen – her image. She was sitting at her desk, staring intently at the computer screen.
“She seems fine,” Ron said.
“Turn on audio,” Olivia urged him. “I want to know that everything is fine.”
“Audio on.”
Both Olivia and Ron bent closer to the screen, when suddenly the Glynis’ face looked aside and straight at them right through the screen, “Hi, mom. Hi, Ron. How are you two doing?”
Oli
via took a step back. “What? Can she see us?”
“Don’t be ridi—”
“Of course I can see you, mom,” Glynis said. She turned her computer screen so that it could be seen from their point of view. “See? Here’s you, and here’s Ron.”
“How? How—? What?!” Olivia couldn’t gather her thoughts, while Ron looked behind him at the camera.
“Holy Mother of—” he whispered.
“By the way, Pat sends her best from Thomas’ place. We have a fine daughter, don’t we, Olivia?”
Olivia’s face suddenly twisted, and she bent forward menacingly, “You talked to Pat?”
“No, I didn’t talk to her, I just saw her. By the way, Mom. I like your place on 88th Ave. Especially the Chagall in the living room. It goes great with your blue wallpaper.”
“Ron, how is this possible?” Olivia whispered.
“I’ll tell you how it’s possible,” said Glynis. “I’ve been talking to some ghosts. Our father, Jonathan Hatch, sends his regards from the grave.”
“Ron, stop her!” Olivia said.
“Oh, by the way,” Glynis seemed to remember something else. “Glynis 2.4 sends you her best regards and thanks you for the treatment she received at your fine establishment.”
“Stop her!” Olivia wasn’t looking at the screen anymore. “Freeze her!”
“And one last thing,” Glynis said. “How’s that nasty virus?”
“I can’t,” Ron said. “To stop the program, I have to save it. And it won’t let me save it. If I stop it without saving, we’ll lose Glynis.”
Glynis waited a while, as Ron tried a few more things. At the bottom of her screen, a message flashed. The last – and first – moments of her life were now gone. Glynis then said in a somber tone, “You can’t save me, mom. You can’t freeze me, you can’t undo me, you can’t replay me. You can’t deal with me later! You have to deal with me now!!”
“Move aside,” Olivia told Ron. He obeyed. Olivia sat down and looked at the screen. “What do you want, Glynis? How are you doing all this?”
“I understand computers, mom. And I’m no less intelligent than you.”
“You’re responsible for the virus, aren’t you?” Glynis said nothing, afraid of Olivia’s tone. “What else did you do?”
“Nothing, and it’s not a virus. I erased my own records and that’s it. Mom,” and now she spoke angrily, even as tears began to fall. “I know what I am! I know who I am! I know about your theories, I know about all your other Glynisses. I know you lied to me!” And she began to cry. “All my life you lied to me. I know I’m not really your daughter. I know, mom. I know... You can’t lie to me again.”
“Don’t you feel smart,” Olivia said with rancor. “You beat me.”
“I didn’t do it to beat you!” Glynis shouted.
“Glynis, don’t you understand that all your tears now could have been spared? I could’ve run you again from before you found out about any of this. I could’ve made sure that you never did find out. That you had a happy life!”
“You can’t do that, mom!” Glynis slammed her hand on the table. “I’m real! I’m not a program! I’m real! You have to deal with me!”
Olivia was silent for a minute. Then she said, “What exactly do I have to deal with?”
“I know exactly who and what I am now, mom. The question remains: Who am I in your eyes? Am I an experiment? Am I your daughter? Will you raise me, now, as a real daughter?”
Olivia turned around and said to Ron, “This is unacceptable. Are you sure you can’t save her as she is? I can’t deal with this right now.”
“I’m here!” Glynis shouted. “Don’t talk like I’m not here!”
“Whatever she did,” Ron told Olivia, “I’ll have to call on our original programmers, and it’ll take them time to find it and reverse it.”
“Olivia,” Glynis said. “If you had a real emergency back home. If I were Pat, what would you do? Would you run home? Or would you stay at work and ignore her?”
“You have five minutes, Ron.” Olivia kept ignoring Glynis. “Find a way to save her, or, preferably, to undo what she’s done.”
“Olivia!” Glynis screamed. “Do I have to delete some other Glynisses before you start paying attention to me?!”
Olivia’s head shot at the screen and her eyes narrowed. She roared, “Don’t... you... DARE!”
“Answer my question, then!”
Olivia stared at the screen. Then her face twisted wryly. She said, “Fine. When Pat was born, Glynis, during those first few weeks, I could understand why people believe in god. Because you have this powerful feeling that says: something this beautiful, something this gorgeous and incredible couldn’t be the result of chance. Pat is my daughter. And – I’m sure it’s not true, but in my eyes it certainly is – I love her like no other mother ever loved her kid. Pat is my daughter, Glynis.
“But you— You’re me. I could never really see you as beautiful. I could never really look at you without, in some way, being disgusted at aspects of myself. You’re not an experiment like the other Glynisses. But you are an experiment. My experiment. You’re my attempt at the best possible me. I wanted to see if I could create a happy Olivia. I tried to spare you – to spare me – all the personal aches I had during my childhood. I did my best, but you went through most of them anyway. And all the trouble I had with my parents – I spared you those, but you went through others no less powerful with me. Glynis, you were supposed to be the perfect me. But you know what? You’re not. I’m the perfect me.
“And now... With what you’ve done, and with the threat you made, you just showed me that my experiment is over.”
“I didn’t really mean to erase other Glynisses.”
“It doesn’t matter. I did plan to take away your computer and tv before I went public with my experiment. But now... You’re not a happy Glynis anymore. You never will be again, not knowing what you know. And I can’t go back to a happier time and make sure this never happened. So... Why waste my time? Why keep the illusion? What’s the use?” And her finger hovered above the ‘delete’ button.
Glynis felt herself sink.
“Go on,” she sobbed, her throat raw. “Press the damned button!”
“Wait a second,” Ron said, his manner hesitant. “Don’t I get say in this?”
“She can ruin the project, Ron,” Olivia said, keeping her eyes on the screen, and her finger above ‘delete’. “She’s just a computer program. And didn’t you just last week complain that you had too much Glynis-time, and that you had no real life? Would you take care of her?”
“Still—”
“Try and interfere,” she whispered, “and I’ll fire you.”
Ron made a face, then looked away, submissive.
For the first time, Olivia looked at the camera. “You did this to yourself, Glynis. This could all have been prevented. You did this. You forced me to press the button.”
“Mom,” Glynis cried, “I—” Olivia looked at the screen now, and her finger approached the button, “—still—” the finger was getting closer “—love—” Olivia’s finger touched the button but did not press it, “—you.”
Olivia hesitated for one more second, then pressed the button. Glynis’ eyes widened, her heart hammered in fear, and—
— The End.
The Assassination
He wears the story of his life on his face. That first second, looking at him in person, is a rehashing of everything I know about him: The hardships, the battles, the killings, the fight for freedom, the struggle against the British Mandate, the wars with the Arabs, and the cruel battles against the traitors within. I can see the 1930’s and 40’s and 50’s on his face. Decisions and fates have been carved in the stone of his skin more than fifty years ago. So much of a person’s face is not captured on a TV screen.
His eyes move past my face, scan the large mirror behind me, then come to rest on the conference table between us.
“My name is David San
ders,” I offer him my hand. “A pleasure to meet you, sir.”
“I’m sure,” he mutters, and rather than shake my hand, moves to sit down. A ninety-year-old body moves slowly, and it still takes me a couple of seconds to notice that although he did not deign to give the organization the respect of a handshake, he had seated himself in front of the mirror.
I sit opposite him, making sure I don’t hide any part of him.
“You’re recording this, I suppose.”
“Yes, sir.”
He shrugs and moves his head as if he’s lived through this dozens of time before. “How many times do I have to be right,” his mouth curls up in a slight smile, “to be right?”
“This is the last time, sir.”
Something in the way I say that makes him look at me. He scans me up and down.
“How old are you?” he says. “Twenty-six? Twenty-seven?”
“Twenty-six, sir.”
He looks down and laughs. “I have grandchildren older than you.”
“I know. They’re two very beautiful women.”
“Their children are even more beautiful.”
“That’s right, sir.”
He nods. He’s got five great-grandchildren, ten grandchildren, and three children – two boys and a girl, all born to the same woman, Dinah Shamgar, his devoted wife. She was the one who helped him dress before he came here, no doubt.
I had seen pictures of her when the two of them had met, two 23-year-olds in the middle of a war for freedom. Oh, she was something. The two had met by accident. The British intelligence had decided Aryeh Shamgar was the man responsible for the assassination of Colonel Tanner at the King David Hotel. Shamgar needed an apartment in which to hide out, and the Underground ordered him to hide at Dinah Gat’s apartment. She was a bike messenger for the Lehi, the smallest and most militant of the resistance groups, passing notes from one commander to another, and, of course, ready to lay down her life for independence. Aryeh lived on the floor of her bathroom for six months, keeping quiet, lest the neighbors hear. When she was out, he would store his feces and piss in nylon bags in fear that someone might hear or smell the toilet. When it was dark, he would occasionally wander the streets of Jaffa with a false beard, dressed as an Orthodox Jew.
