He held his hands out palms up and she placed hers in his. He could feel their softness as he pulled her into his arms. She felt warm in his embrace as their lips touched and he could feel her touching and squeezing his now rigid penis. It had been so long since he’d been with any woman that he had to struggle to keep from coming in response to her touch. When she finally guided him inside her, he was overwhelmed with the fidelity of the sensations he was feeling, which intensified as she responded to his thrusts. He closed his eyes, felt her contracting and he came. And then it was over.
He opened his eyes and she was gone. There was only the plain wall in front of him and streaks of semen on the floor. His breathing slowed to normal and he found himself struggling to hold back tears. He was grateful for the long overdue release, but now the loneliness enveloped him again like a dark fog that threatened to smother him.
The following afternoon, Marcus returned to the Endless Park and began his daily run. At the beginning of the seventh mile, he sensed a presence behind him and felt his pulse quicken a few beats beyond the usual effects of his exertion.
“So have you considered our offer, Mr. Takana?”
He stepped off the moving turf and turned to find his gaze once again captured by those exquisite green eyes. He’d found them almost hypnotizing on their first encounter and had to keep their effect upon him from influencing his decision. Terra was even more captivating than the woman he’d concocted from his imagination the night before. He’d spent most of the morning and afternoon considering the proposition before risking another meeting.
“I’m in.”
“Brilliant,” she responded. “So now you must have lots of questions.”
“I have no idea at all how this would work.”
Terra explained that he would first be injected with a fluid containing millions of nano scale transducers attached to molecules of delta PNA. This was an advanced version of a technology developed thirty years earlier in which synthetic nucleic acids were custom designed to bind to native RNA and DNA. This infusion contained PNA that specifically bound to neuronal DNA. The molecular vehicle would deliver transducers throughout the brain to create a detailed brain map. His benefactor, or more accurately buyer, would get a similar infusion, mapping his brain. The networks of transducers could communicate with one another and information could be exchanged. In this way, the buyer’s brain would be mapped precisely to his.
“As your counterpart approaches death, chemical signals will initiate the exchange of the maps. If death is too sudden to provide the automatic trigger, the exchange will be initiated by controllers at a central processing station that will continually monitor the biological processes of you both.”
“Exchange of the maps? That sounds like my mind will wind up in his body.”
“Yes, that’s exactly how it works. but by the time you get there, his brain will likely be sufficiently shut down that you’ll never be aware of dying.”
“Is there anything else I should know.”
“Yes, Mr. Takana, there are a lot of rules. The first and most important I told you yesterday: total secrecy. You must not ever tell anyone about this arrangement, not even your wife, should you ever marry, or your children. You will not be told the identity of your benefactor and he will not be aware of yours.”
“Buyers...property. I guess that’s me. It sounds pretty horrible when you put it that way.”
“It all depends on how you look at it. You will also be asked to take care of your body while it’s still yours. Our capacity to monitor your activities with the transducer system is extensive. We can tell if you use alcohol or other substances of abuse or if you engage in dangerous activities. We’ll be monitoring your location and can determine the speed and acceleration of your body in real time. We will ask that you use alcohol sparingly or not at all, avoid other toxic substances, and not engage in deliberately risky behavior.”
Marcus had already planned a series of extreme adventures with the first of the money he would get. He’d become accustomed to breaking up his boredom with the thrill of high risk sports. This requirement could be a deal-breaker.
“What about the bike?”
“That will definitely have to go, starting now. Look,” Terra said, “This is a lot to take in. I can understand your doubts, but the opportunity we’re talking about can bring monumental changes in your life. The things that will become important to you months from now are likely to be entirely different from the things that have been important to you so far within the limited scope of your experience.”
“Like what?”
“Like unprecedented knowledge and all the power that comes with it. And opportunities for real and enduring relationships.”
Marcus wondered whether Terra had any idea what he’d done the night before. She seemed to know so much about him. He felt the sadness that had overwhelmed him the night before closing back in on him, underscored by the proximity of the enticing woman bringing him this preposterous opportunity. He wanted more than anything not to be alone.
“So...still in?” she asked, the words almost floating on her breath.
“Yes.”
“Good. Then we can proceed.”
2
RAY METTLER SETTLED back in the soft leather recliner and watched the sparkling solution swirl in the bottle hanging above him. He felt a hint of warmth as the liquid flowed into his vein and found its way toward the right ventricle of his heart while the tiny particles it carried diffused into his blood and throughout his circulation. They would eventually find their way across the blood-brain barrier and bind to their targets in the neurons within his brain.
The plushness of the leather felt pleasantly odd. Ray’s home was spartanly furnished, covered only in materials that could easily be wiped clean. There was little fabric anywhere. Even his bed covering was a smooth sheet of insulating polymer. Microbes were his enemies. Frequent antiseptic washes and laminar flow circulation kept his home swept as free of them as possible. Anyone entering passed first through a decontamination chamber and observed a strict dress code in keeping with the sterile milieu.
Another unfamiliar sensation played across the small muscles of his lower jaw and the nasal folds above his mouth. It was a smile, his first in recent memory in a life beset by disappointment and failure and the ever present worry about when he would die, a worry that no longer needed to concern him. His imagination was now racing through a future that promised him immortality within a strong, eternally young body. He wondered what that body might look like, but especially what it would feel like to have physical prowess beyond anything he’d ever experienced even in his youth.
Whose body would he eventually occupy? How will they have lived their life between now and that uncertain day in the future when the exchange would take place? The unknown partner in this transaction would have the benefit of the Methuselarity Transformation as well as the use of the fifty million dollars that Ray had paid for the privilege of the exchange. Ray hoped that he would use his newfound wealth wisely to build a worthwhile life. Sudden wealth proves fleeting for so many. Ray didn’t want to begin his new life destitute.
So much had changed in the few days since the stunning redhead with the emerald eyes had first approached him. He’d been on a rare excursion beyond the safe confines of his home in order to conduct business that could only be done in person. She’d waited for such an opportunity so that their meeting could remain secret from Ray’s wife Lena. Absolute secrecy was an essential ingredient of the bargain that they were about to strike. She’d been watching the entrance to his home when he returned and had approached him quickly as he emerged from the car.
“Mr. Mettler,” Terra began, “I have a proposition for you that will change your life. I need about an hour of your time.”
“Not interested,” Ray replied, waving her away and charging for the door. “I don’t like solicitations.”
“This isn’t an ordinary offer, Mr. Mettler,” she persisted, kee
ping pace. “You’ve been carefully selected for this opportunity. I’m sure you’ll find it worth your while.”
“Then message me later when I’m back inside. I’ve spent too much time out here already.”
“Not possible. I can only discuss this offer face-to-face. It requires utmost confidentiality. Not even your wife can know about it. We can have the conversation now or I’ll move on to the next candidate. My car is waiting over there.” She laid one hand on his shoulder and pointed to a red hovercar parked fifty feet away.
Ray stopped short of the door and turned to face her. Whether it was her extraordinary beauty or her direct approach, she had his attention. His guard was for the moment down.
“Would you at least give me some idea what it’s about?”
“It’s about your life, Mr. Mettler. You’ve spent most of it doing everything you can to avoid dying.” She paused to let her words sink in. “We can change that.”
“You mean cure my fear? You provide some sort of treatment?”
“Better...much better.” She held out a hand. “Let’s go for a ride.”
Ray was hooked. The man who trusted nobody and made every decision in his life with meticulous caution was about to get into a car with a complete stranger without any idea what was going to happen next. For all he knew, he was about to be kidnapped or murdered. He took her hand and let her lead him to the car. She let him in on the passenger side, then took her seat behind the wheel. The car lifted off the ground and glided down the road.
“I represent a kind of think tank, Mr. Mettler,” Terra began once they were underway, “a secret organization that has been working on the problem of immortality.”
“You mean like the Methuselarity Transformation?”
“That’s part of it, but as you know the Transformation only works for the young. We are working on bringing immortality to everyone, even to the very old.”
“So you do medical research? You’re looking for test subjects?”
“Test subjects, yes,” Terra replied, “But it’s not exactly a medical problem. We work in the area of cognitive migration.”
“Moving mental contents?” Ray had heard about experiments designed to convert mental contents into digital form. The problem was that the hybrid that resulted between man and machine could evoke the intelligence of the person, but not manifest his consciousness. While the structure of artificial intelligence was coming close to emulating the architecture of the nervous system, identity seemed to reside in the unique network of interconnections within each person’s brain. Replicating the map in a non-living entity remained elusive.
“That’s correct,” Terra replied, “but to be more precise, we have found a way to exchange identities between people.”
“So what does that have to do with immortality?”
“It’s really very simple. You would get to be young again. Your mind would inhabit the body of a much younger man, a man who is young enough to have the Transformation, and you would live in that body indefinitely.”
“What happens to the other guy?”
“Well, I’m afraid his time would be up.”
Ray pondered the implications of what she was telling him. It sounded to him like murder.
“So I’d be stealing his body?”
“Not stealing exactly, more like buying. You are in a position to make it well worth his sacrifice. You have the power to lift a man from the oblivion of poverty and ignorance and provide him with a privileged life. And, of course, he would be given the Methuselarity Transformation that would ultimately confer upon you the immortality that you seek. He would get to be young as long as he keeps his body. Many would see that as a very good deal.”
“Sounds like a deal with the devil. And I’d be the devil.” Since the spectacular initial success of HibernaTurf, Ray had become accustomed to being able to buy whatever he wanted, sometimes at the expense of others, but this exceeded the limits even of his tattered sense of decency.
“It would be a contract between two informed adults. Once you think about it, it will all seem very reasonable.” Terra pulled the car to the side of the road so that they could have eye contact. Closing this deal would depend upon absolute trust.
“What’s in it for you and your think tank?”
“Proof of scalability,” replied Terra. “We’ve shown that the technology works in non-human primates and in a few pairs of human subjects. We’ve both exchanged consciousness in healthy volunteers and reversed the process without adverse effects. You and your young counterpart are one of twenty pairs of clients in the project’s first commercial phase. We take a small percentage of your cost as our fee. As we increase the number of clients we can manage, you can imagine how lucrative this could become.”
“And the risks?” asked Ray.
“The procedures to prepare you for the transfer involve tried and true technology. We use a nanoparticle infusion that’s very well-tolerated. A microprocessor behind your ear will integrate information from the nanoparticles to create a coherent map of your consciousness. The only risk is a very small possibility of the final step failing. That hasn’t happened yet with any of our test subjects. And worst case scenario, you’d be no worse off than you’d have been without our involvement.”
Terra elaborated on their system’s redundant fail-safe strategies, including a button built into the microprocessor that would enable Ray to trigger the exchange manually once death became imminent. The button would go live only when his biological status became incompatible with survival so that he wouldn’t be tempted to jump the gun.
Ray’s mind reeled. Until now, he’d lived his life avoiding as much risk as possible. Now he was being asked by a stranger to take a leap of faith and allow her to fill his bloodstream with millions of particles that would colonize his brain. The prize on the other side of the leap was a shot at immortality and eternal youth. But the technology might just as well be used to send his mental contents into the cloud and vaporize his consciousness. And if it worked, it would ultimately mean the end of another human being.
“Comfy, Mr. Mettler?” asked the attendant, examining the level of fluid remaining in the bottle.
“Very,” Ray replied.
“You’re almost done. There’s just one more step.” The attendant unwrapped a small brass cylinder attached to a medium gauge capillary tube. She held the end of the tube against the mastoid process just behind his right ear, pointed it toward his earlobe, and fired.
“Sssst.” The microprocessor entered just under the skin behind his ear and lodged in the indentation above the temporomandibular joint, producing a BB sized bump. This tiny device would integrate the data from the brain map and relay it to the cloud. Somewhere, a similar device was being implanted in the neck of a man whose fate was now inextricably intertwined with his.
3
MARCUS SPENT THE next few days following his second encounter with Terra indulging his appetite for risk and speed. He tore around cliffside highways on his bike and barreled down mile long ziplines across bottomless chasms. His crowning achievement was a nine-mile freefall from a balloon, deploying his parachute only 1200 feet above the ground. The jolt of the parachute breaking his fall at nearly 200 mph knocked the wind out of him and left him sore for days. While it was far from a record, it was his fastest solo transit ever with peak velocity topping 350 mph, a fitting and memorable conclusion to his daredevil life.
When Terra picked him up the next day to drive him to the infusion center, her voice was barbed with reproach. “I certainly hope you enjoyed your last fling, Mr. Takana. Any transgression from this point on violates your contract and forfeits your payment.”
“Understood.” Marcus grinned. The last fling was just another aspect of his brinkmanship, testing the limits of his new constraints. He’d gotten away with it this time. He didn’t plan to try it again. Returning to his old life was the one risk he was unwilling to take.
As the nanoparticle infusion flowed into his body s
uffusing his body with warmth, his mind wandered across the novel landscape he was about to traverse. He was on the brink of fabulous wealth, but wouldn’t be allowed to use his windfall to live out his usual fantasies. The blueprint of his new life would have to be rendered entirely from scratch.
Marcus knew that people could crash and burn under the weight of newfound fortunes. When he was eight, a couple in his family’s farming community became intoxicated with the wealth of a sudden windfall. They turned their backs on their neighbors at a time of need, embarking on a years-long spending spree. When they began running out of money and fell behind on their taxes, they wound up losing their home and farm. Despite his youth at the time, Marcus could still recall the expressions of contempt on his parents’ faces when these friends approached them for help. He never saw them again.
He would approach the use of his fortune rationally. It took little thought to conclude that his best single investment would be knowledge. Buying and implanting a MELD chip had been way beyond his capability until then, but now the half million dollar price tag was to him what in the days of currency used to be called “pocket change.” The chip would allow him to download packets of information that would once have taken years to learn. These varied in price from ten thousand dollars for the ability to speak another language to a half million for a complete understanding of the limits of theoretical physics.
When he later planned in earnest, he budgeted two million dollars for a selection of modules that gave him command of world literature, art, and music, the ability to speak Japanese, Arabic, Spanish, and three dialects of Chinese, and a detailed knowledge of the history and sociology of the twenty first century. He left a half million budgeted for whatever special area of expertise he might later decide would be most useful. He would have knowledge and power for the first time in his life.
The Methuselarity Transformation Page 2
