Asimov's SF, Sep 2005

by Dell Magazine Authors

  "Not tonight,” I told her.

  I said, “Another time, perhaps."

  Then I climbed out of her old pink Cheetah, smiling with all the warmth I could manage, asking, “Do you believe in Fate, Bonnie?"

  * * * *

  We taste food. Our bodies feel heat and fatigue. Urges older than our species still rule us, and every finished person is grateful for that continuity. Yet even the intelligent unfinished person, informed and utterly modern, has to be reminded of essentials that everyone should know: We are not machines, and we are not dead. Today, for the first time in human history, there happens to be a third state of existence: Alive, dead, and finished. And, like the living, we have the capacity to learn and gradually improve our nature, and then, should circumstances shift, we possess a substantial, almost human capacity for change.

  Another evening found us enjoying an intimate embrace. Bonnie's salty sweat mingled with my sweet, lightly scented sweat, and her nervousness collapsed into a girlish joy. What we had just done was wicked, and fun. What we would do next was something she never imagined possible. “Not in my life,” she admitted. And then in the next instant, with a laughing apology, she exclaimed, “That was a sloppy choice of words. Sorry."

  But I laughed too. Louder than her, in fact.

  After the next pause, she asked, “Is it the same?"

  "Is what the same?"

  "The feel of it,” she said. Her pretty face floated above me, hands digging beneath the moistened sheets. “When you climax—"

  "Better."

  "Really?"

  "But that's because of you,” I told her. “Otherwise, no. It's pretty much the same old bliss."

  She was suspicious, but what soul wouldn't wish such a compliment? Against her better instincts, Bonnie smiled, and then, after some more digging beneath the sheets, she remarked, “You don't act like a middle-aged man."

  "Hydraulics are an old science,” I replied.

  She considered my body and my face. I have a handsome face, I'd like to believe. Not old but proud of its maturity, enough gray in the illusionary hair to let the casual eye pin down my finishing age. With her free hand, she swept the hair out of my eyes, and then, in a quiet, almost embarrassed tone, she asked, “Is it like they say?"

  "Is what like what?"

  But she realized that she was mangling the question. “People claim it feels like living the same day, without end. If you're finished. You don't have the same sense of time—"

  "In one sense,” I agreed.

  But after my next mock-breath, I explained, “Time announces itself in many ways. I have biorhythms. My mind still demands sleep on a regular schedule. And I can still read a clock. For instance, I know it's half past midnight, which means that according to an utterly arbitrary system, a new day has begun. Dawn would be the more natural beginning point, I've always thought. But I'm not going to be the one to tear down everybody else's conventions."

  She nodded. Sighed.

  I pulled her up on top of me, hips rubbing. “Something else,” I said. “Ask."

  "Why?” she whispered.

  "Why did I allow myself to be finished?"

  "Were you—?"

  "Sick? No."

  Another nod was followed by a deeper, almost tattered sigh.

  "I was almost fifty years old,” I explained. “Which is a good age to be a man, I think. Experience. A measure of wisdom. But the body has already failed noticeably, and the sharpest mind at sixty—if you are a man—is never as keen as it was ten years before."

  She said nothing, moving her body, trying to match my rhythm.

  "Women are different,” I allowed. “They seem to have two popular ages for finishing. Older, post-menopausal women can enjoy it greatly. And vibrant youngsters still in their twenties or thirties. But there aren't many in their forties. Studies show. Even if the woman picks a good day to be finished ... a moment when her mood is even, her hormones in check ... well, not as many of you seem to love that age, I've noticed...."

  She nodded, seemingly agreeing with me. Then she shuddered, sobbing and pressing her body flush against my mine. And with a low, throaty voice, she asked, “Were you talking? I wasn't listening."

  I gave a low grunt.

  "Sorry,” she muttered.

  Then she touched my face, and, with a genuinely mystified voice, asked, “Why are you crying...?"

  * * * *

  Bonnie's closest friend was the same age but less pretty—a proper woman, well-dressed and infinitely suspicious. The three of us shared an uncomfortable dinner in Bonnie's little apartment, and then some mysterious errand sent my girlfriend out the door. The two women had come up with this glaringly obvious plan. Suddenly alone with me, the friend used a cutting stare, announcing, “My father is finished."

  I nodded, trying to appear attentive.

  "In fact, he was one of the first. Four years before you did it, about."

  "Interesting,” I offered.

  She shrugged, unimpressed by interest. Her expression hardened to just short of a glare. “Dad was dying. Pancreatic cancer."

  "Awful stuff,” I said.

  "I got out of school for the day. I went with him and Mom to the clinic.” Suspicious eyes looked past me. “He was weak and dying, and I was thankful this new technology could save him ... and I was very hopeful...."

  I gave a nod. Nothing more.

  "The machines rolled him away,” she reported. Then, with a barely contained anger, she asked, “How long does the process take?"

  "Minutes,” I offered.

  "Boiling him down to nothing."

  To be replicated, the brain had to be dismantled. A sophisticated holo of the original was implanted inside a nearly indestructible crystal. Experience and new technologies have accelerated the process somewhat, but there is no means, proven or theoretical, that allows a person to be finished without the total eradication of the original body and its resident mind.

  "He was a sick old man,” she reported. “Then he was this crystal lump as big as a walnut, and then he had this entirely different body. It was supposed to look like him, and feel pretty much the same ... but they still haven't learned how to make a realistic chassis...."

  "It's a nagging problem,” I agreed. “Unless you embrace your new existence, of course. Then it isn't a problem, but a kind of blessing. An emblem, and a treasured part of your finished identity—"

  "It costs,” she complained.

  There were some stiff maintenance fees, true.

  "Between the finishing and all the troubles with his new body—"

  "Death would have been cheaper,” I interrupted. “That's what you realized, isn't it?"

  The woman shuddered, a cold and familiar pain working its way down her back. But as awful as that sounded, she couldn't argue with me. “It ate up most of their savings,” she complained.

  What could I say?

  "Of course, Dad eventually wanted my mother to get finished, too."

  "I see."

  "But their finances were a mess."

  "Loans are available,” I mentioned. “Because the finished person can live for another thousand years, or longer, the clinics offer some very charitable terms."

  "Except Mom didn't want any part of that.” She was her mother's child, and she still agreed with the scared old woman. “If you're finished, you're finished. You stop learning."

  "Not true."

  "Yes it is!"

  "No,” I snapped back. “The new mind's design doesn't let fresh synapses form. But that's why it's so durable. Instead, you use subsidiary memory sinks and plenty of them, and as you learn all of the tricks—"

  "He stopped changing."

  I fell silent.

  "My father went into the clinic as a sick man,” she reported. “And the machine that came out ... it was a sick machine, exhausted and feeling all these phantom pains running through it...."

  "The doctors take precautions now,” I told her. “They can limit certain sensations
beforehand—"

  "He's always going to be dying ... forever...."

  The apartment door began to open.

  "I don't approve of you,” the friend blurted. “I just wanted to tell you, and tell you why not."

  I nodded as if I had learned something. As if I respected her honesty. Then as Bonnie stepped into the room—a wary attitude on her face and in her body—I said to no one in particular, “That's why if you're going to be finished, it's best to do it before you get sick. On a good day, if you can manage it."

  I sighed.

  To the floor, I said, “On your very best day, hopefully."

  * * * *

  My best day was a sunny, gloriously warm Thursday. High-pressure centers have this way of causing rushes at the clinics, but I'd set up my appointment well in advance. The weather was nothing but good fortune. Arriving fifteen minutes early, I wore casual clothes and an easy smile. I was rested and well fed, and since I had sworn off sex for the last few days, I felt pleasantly horny—a good quality to lock into your soul. If any doubt had whispered to me, I would have postponed the event until the doubt died. If a cloud had drifted across the sun, I would have waited in the parking lot for the shadow to pass. But the sky was a steely blue, glorious and eternal, and my only little doubt was in entering the clinic alone.

  "But alone is best,” somebody had warned me. “Anyone else would be a distraction for you. An imposition. Trust me about this."

  I did trust her, and, of course, she was entirely correct.

  "Justin Gable,” I told the man at the counter. “I'm at—"

  "Two fifteen. Yes, sir. Right this way, Mr. Gable."

  An honored guest, I felt like. I felt as if I was walking toward an elaborate celebration, or, at the very least, a tidy but significant ceremony. Every stereotypic image of looming gallows or tunnels leading to bright lights was left at the front door. I felt thrilled, even giddy. For the first time in years, I whistled as I walked. Without a gram of shame, I flirted with my female nurse, and then my female doctor—finished souls, both of them. With a haste born of practice and experience, they quickly placed me inside a warm bath of benign fluids, and, before my mood could dip, even slightly, they slipped a cocktail of neurotoxins into my happy red blood.

  During the next furious minutes, microchines invaded and mapped my brain, consuming my neurons as they moved.

  Inside a second room, a standard crystal was configured along lines defined by my delicate wiring, and, inside a third room, entirely different machines fashioned a body worthy of any paying customer. Then I found myself sitting on a soft couch, inside a fourth room, wearing my original clothes and with barely fifty minutes lost. And exactly as they had promised, I needed just another few moments to adapt to my very new circumstances.

  The smiling staff congratulated me.

  Alone, I walked outside. A little patch of clouds had covered the sun, but it didn't matter. In some deep way, I could still feel the sun's bright glare, just as I feel it today, warming me to my ceramic bones.

  She was waiting where I had left her, sitting inside my car.

  I drove us to my house—a smaller, more modest abode in those days—and she made a convincing show of treating me exactly as she had before. Not once did she ask if I felt different. Never did she comment on my new body. Our sex was scrupulously ordinary, pleasant but nothing more. Then I woke that next morning, and because I couldn't help myself, I said, “I know the time. And I can see that it's raining. But you know, I feel pretty much the same as I did yesterday afternoon."

  Pretty much isn't the same as perfect. Even a mind composed of hard frozen synapses contains a certain play of mood, of emotions and alertness. The soul remains flexible enough that when your lover smiles in a grim fashion, you worry. When she says, “I'm leaving you, Justin,” it hurts. It hurts badly, and even after the surprise fades, you continue to ache. For months, and for years, even. Forever, if you would allow it.

  But I won't allow it.

  "What about all your promises?” I blurted.

  "Oh, those were lies,” she admitted calmly.

  "And what about helping with my medical bills?"

  "I'm not giving you any money, darling."

  "But I can't afford this body,” I complained, “and I still owe hundreds of thousands for this brain. And you told me ... you claimed you'd help me—"

  "And I will help,” she said, glancing down at her twice-eaten eggs. “But you're a bright enough man, and if you think about this problem, just for a moment or two, you'll see for yourself what I was going to suggest."

  * * * *

  "Do you remember?” Bonnie would ask. “What happened ten weeks ago? Ten days ago? Or how about ten minutes ago? I'm just curious, Justin. What do you remember?"

  At first, she was simply curious. The questions were offered in passing, and I was entirely responsible for my answers. But as her interest sharpened, her ear became more critical, and she tested me, pressing for salient details. Mentioning a specific date, she asked, “What was I wearing? Where did we eat? And what did the man in the green suit say to me?"

  "You were wearing a wonderful little holo-dress, flowers changing to seeds and then back to flowers again.” I dipped into an assortment of memory sinks, my eyes staring off into the foggy distance. “We ate in that Sudanese restaurant, and you had the eland, and you had shoes. Yes. Black leather with brass buckles."

  "Go on."

  "But the man wasn't wearing green,” I reported. “It was more gold, his suit was. I don't remember his shoes, sorry. But he had this square face and a gold ring through his cheek, and he stared at you. I remember that very well. We walked into the place, and he watched you constantly. I made a joke, or you did—"

  "Playing with himself—"

  "Under the table, yes. I said, ‘You're making that poor gentleman crazy, darling.’ And then all at once he stood up and came over to us ... in his gold-green suit ... and he told you, ‘When you get tired of that dildo, why don't you try a real man?’”

  "You remember,” she said happily.

  "And I remember what you asked him. ‘Why? Do you know a real man?’”

  She was embarrassed, and pleased, laughing at the shared memory.

  Like anyone in her position, Bonnie wanted to know what I could do, and what I could not do. Yes, I explained, I had limits in personal growth. For better or worse, my nature was essentially changeless. In another hundred years, if someone gave me a personality inventory, I would test out as a man still just shy of fifty: A middle-aged outlook; neatness at home; a mature man's patience, and, hopefully, a measure of wisdom. Plus my present level of smoldering passion, freed from the vagaries of hormones, would hold rock solid.

  "I'll be better in bed than most hundred and fifty year-old men,” I joked.

  A smile widened, but there was no laughter. Then, with a serious voice—a thoughtful and worried but distinctly determined voice—Bonnie announced, “I want to have children."

  "I've got half a dozen vials filled up with my frozen sperm,” I promised. “For when the time comes."

  But she hadn't mentioned my participation, and she didn't mention it now. Instead, she took a deep breath before saying, “They can harvest a woman's eggs too. After the brain's gone, I mean."

  "And they're making spectacular progress with artificial wombs,” I added. “In a year or two, or ten at the most—"

  "What about work?” she interrupted. “Learning new jobs and the like ... you didn't know much about cybernetics before this, but now you're some kind of consultant—"

  "I lobby for the rights of the finished,” I said, not for the first time. “My work earns me a small stipend."

  True enough.

  "If we're going to live for another century,” she said, “and for a thousand centuries after that ... can these little memory sinks keep adapting us to all the coming changes...?"

  With an open, patient face, I reminded her, “Technologies only grow stronger."

&n
bsp; "Yet if we want ... draining whatever's inside those sinks ... we can forget what we want to forget, too. Right?"

  "Which is a great gift, if you think about it."

  She heard something ominous in the words. But she was a brave soul looking hard at things she wouldn't have considered just a few months ago. “Well, even if I was thinking about it,” she finally admitted. “I can barely pay my rent, much less make the down payment."

  We were spending the night at my substantial house—a telling detail. Bonnie was sitting in my bed, her young body illuminated by a waning moon. Not quite looking at me, she said, “I don't know what I'm thinking. Because I could never afford it."

  I waited, letting the silence frighten her.

  And then with a calm, warm tone, I asked, “But imagine, darling. What if some good heart was able to help you?"

  * * * *

  More weeks passed, but I remember little about them. Bonnie had a spectacular fight with her best friend, centering on issues she wouldn't discuss with me, and two attempts at reconciliation went for naught. Which left me as her closest friend as well as her lover, and, with that new power, I did very little. Just the occasional word of advice; a slight coaxing masked as praise. In glowing terms, I spoke about her body and beauty, and when we were in public, I practically reveled at the lustful stares of strangers. But the telling event was elsewhere, and inevitable. Bonnie was twenty-nine years and eleven months old, and with that birthday looming, she said, “Okay, my mind's made up."

  I smiled, just enough.

  Then I set out to prepare her, legally and emotionally.

  My attorney was only too happy to help. A jolly fat man in life, he remained that way today—a comfortable bulk wrapped around an immortal smile. “You've picked a great moment,” he promised. A wide hand offered itself to my lover. “This is the new-generation skin. Study it. Isn't it natural? Touch it now. Prick it. If you want, lick it. No? Well, believe me. You're going to look like an angel beside this clunky old automaton."