Karen was evidently looking in the same direction, since she commented on the view through the window we were passing. “Looks like rain,” she said. “I wonder if we’ll rust?”
At another time, I might have laughed at the joke, but I was too ashamed, and too pissed off at both myself and Immortex. Still, some response seemed to be in order. “Let’s just hope it’s not an electrical storm,” I said. “I’m not wearing my surge protector.”
Karen laughed more than my comment deserved. We continued on. “Say, I wonder if we can swim,” she said.
“Why not?” I replied. “I’m sure we aren’t really prone to rust.”
“Oh, I know that,” she said. “I’m talking about buoyancy. Humans swim so well because we float. But these new bodies might sink.”
I looked over at her, impressed. “I hadn’t thought about that.”
“It’s going to be an adventure,” she said, “finding out what our new capabilities and limitations are.”
I did somehow manage a grunt now; it was an odd mechanical sound.
“Don’t you like adventures?” asked Karen.
We continued moving down the corridor. “I … I don’t think I’ve ever had once.”
“Of course you have,” Karen said. “Life is an adventure.”
I thought about all the things I’d done in my youth—all the drugs I’d tried, the women I’d slept with, the one man I’d slept with, the wise investments and the foolish ones, the broken limbs and broken hearts. “I suppose,” I said.
The corridor widened out now into a lounge, with soft-drink, coffee, and snack vending machines. It must have been intended for staff, not uploads, but Karen indicated that we should go in. Maybe she was tired—
But no. Of course she wasn’t. Still, by the time I’d realized that, we’d already veered into the rest area. There were several vinyl-covered padded chairs, and a few small tables. Karen took one of the chairs, carefully smoothing her floralprint sun dress beneath her legs as she did so. She then motioned for me to take another chair. I used my cane to steady myself as I lowered my body, then held the cane in front of me once I’d sat down.
“So,” I said, feeling a need to fill the void, “what adventures have you had?”
She was silent for a moment, and I felt bad. I hadn’t meant to challenge her earlier remark, but I suppose there had indeed been a “put up or shut up” edge to my words.
“Sorry,” I said.
“Oh, no,” Karen replied. “Not at all. It’s just that there are so many. I’ve been to Antarctica, and the Serengeti—back when it still had big game—and the Valley of the Kings.”
“Really?” I said.
“Certainly. I love to travel. Don’t you?”
“Well, yes, I guess, bust …”
“What?”
“I’ve never been out of North America. See, I can’t—I couldn’t—fly. The pressure changes in an aircraft: they were afraid they’d set off my Katerinsky’s syndrome. It was only a small likelihood, but my doctor said I shouldn’t risk it unless the trip was absolutely necessary.” I thought briefly of the other me, on the way to the moon; he’d almost certainly survive the trip, of course. Spaceplanes were completely self-contained habitats; their internal pressure didn’t vary.
“That’s sad,” said Karen. But then she brightened. “But now you can travel anywhere!”
I laughed bitterly. “Travel! Christ, I can barely walk …”
Karen’s mechanical arm touched mine briefly. “Oh, you will. You will! People can do anything. I remember meeting Christopher Reeve, and—”
“Who’s he?”
“He played Superman in four movies. God, he was handsome ! I had posters of him up on my bedroom walls when I was a teenager. Years later, he was thrown off a horse and injured his spinal cord. They said he’d never breathe on his own again, but he did.”
“And you met him?”
“Yes, indeed. He wrote a book about what happened to him; we’d shared a publisher back then, and we had dinner together at BookExpo America. What an inspiration he was.”
“Wow,” I said. “I suppose being a famous writer, you meet lots of interesting people.”
“Well, I didn’t bring up Christopher Reeve to name-drop.”
“I know, I know. But who else have you met?”
“Let’s see … what names would mean something to someone your age … ? Well, I met King Charles before he died. The current Pope, and the one before him. Tamora Ng. Charlize Theron. Stephen Hawking. Moshe—”
“You met Hawking?”
“Yes. When I was giving a reading at Cambridge.”
“Wow,” I said again. “What was he like?”
“Very ironic. Very witty. Of course, communicating was an ordeal for him, but—”
“But what a mind!” I said. “Absolute genius.”
“He was that,” Karen said. “You like physics?”
“I love big ideas—physics, philosophy, whatever.”
Karen smiled. “Really? Okay, I’ve got a joke for you. Do you know the one about Werner Heisenberg being pulled over by a traffic cop?”
I shook my head.
“Well,” said Karen, “the cop says, ‘Do you know how fast you were going?’ And, without missing a beat, Heisenberg replies, ‘No, but I know where I am!’”
I burst out laughing. “That’s terrific! Wait, wait—I’ve got one. Do you know the one about Einstein on the train?”
It was Karen’s turn to shake her head.
“A passenger goes up to him and says, ‘Excuse me, Dr. Einstein, but does New York stop at this train?’”
Karen laughed out loud. “You and I are going to get along just fine,” she said. “Are you a professional physicist?”
“Nah. I was never good enough at math to make it. I did a couple of years at the University of Toronto, though.”
“And?”
I lifted my shoulders a bit. “Have you been to Canada often?”
“Over the years, from time to time.”
“And do you drink beer?”
“When I was younger,” said Karen. “I can’t anymore. I mean, I couldn’t, even in my old body … not for a decade or more.”
“Have you heard of Sullivan’s Select? Or Old Sully’s Premium Dark?”
“Sure. They—oh! Oh, my! Your name is Jacob Sullivan, right? Is that your family?”
I nodded.
“Well, well, well,” said Karen. “So I’m not the only one with a secret identity.”
I smiled wanly. “Karen Bessarian earned her fortune. I just inherited mine.”
“Still,” said Karen, “it must have been nice. When I was young, I was always worrying about money. Even had to go to the food bank now and then. It must have been relaxing knowing you’d never have problems in that area.”
I shrugged a bit. “It was a double-edged sword. On the one hand, when I went to university, I could study whatever I wanted, without worrying about whether it was going to lead to a job. I was probably the only guy on campus who took Quantum Physics, History of Drama, and Intro to the Pre-Socratics.”
Karen laughed politely.
“Yeah,” I said. “It was fun—a little of this, a little of that. But the downside of having all that money was that I just wasn’t inclined to be treated like garbage. U of T’s got a great graduate reputation, but it’s an absolute factory at the undergrad level. Put it this way: if you walk every day by the Sullivan Library and your last name is Sullivan, you’re not inclined to be pushed around.”
“I suppose,” said Karen. “I never like to use the word ‘rich’ in relation to myself; it sounds like bragging. But, well, all of Immortex’s clients are rich, so I guess it doesn’t matter. But, of course, I never thought I was going to be wealthy. I mean, most writers aren’t; it’s a very tough life, and I’ve been very, very lucky.” She paused, and there was that twinkle in her artificial eye again. “In fact, you know what the difference is between a large pepperoni pizza and most f
ull-time writers?”
“What?”
“A large pepperoni pizza can feed a family of four.”
I laughed, and so did she. “Anyway,” she said, “I didn’t begin to get rich until I was in my late forties. That’s when my books started to take off.”
I shrugged a little. “If I’d had to wait until my late forties to be rich, I wouldn’t be here. I’m only forty-four now.” Only Christ, I’d never thought of it as only before.
“I—please don’t take this the wrong way—but in retrospect, I’m glad I started poor,” said Karen.
“I suppose it builds character,” I said. “But I didn’t ask to be rich. In fact, there were times I hated it, and everything my family stood for. Beer! Christ, where’s the social conscience in making beer?”
“But your family donated that library to the university, you said.”
“Sure. Buying immortality. It’s—”
I paused, and Karen looked at me expectantly.
After a moment, I shrugged again. “It’s exactly what I’ve just done, isn’t it?” I shook my head. “Ah, well. Anyway, it goes to your head sometimes, having all that money when you’re young. I, um, I was not the best person early on.”
“Paris the Heiress,” said Karen.
“Who?”
“Paris Hilton, granddaughter of the hotel magnate. You would have been just a toddler when she was briefly famous. She—well, I guess she was like you: inherited a fortune, had billions in her twenties. She lived what we writers call a dissipated life.”
“‘Paris the heiress,”’ I repeated. “Cute.”
“And you were Jake the Rake.”
I laughed. “Yeah, I suppose I was. Lots of parties, lots of girls. But …”
“What?”
“Well, it’s pretty hard to know if a girl really likes you for you, when you’re rich.”
“Tell me about it. My third husband was like that.”
“Really?”
“Absolutely. Thank God for pre-nups.” Her tone was light. If she’d been bitter once, enough time had apparently passed to let her now joke about it. “You’ll have to only date women who are rich in their own right.”
“I suppose. But, you know, even—” Damn it, I hadn’t meant to say that aloud.
“What?»
“Well, you never know about people—know what they’re really thinking. Even before I was rich, I—there was this girl named Trista, and I thought she … I thought we …”
Karen raised her artificial eyebrows, but said nothing. It was clear I could go on, or not, as I wished.
And, to my great surprise, I did wish. “She seemed to really like me. And I was totally in love with her. This was, like, when I was sixteen. But when I asked her out, she laughed. She actually laughed in my face.”
Karen’s hand briefly touched my forearm. “You poor thing,” she said. “Are you married now?”
“No.
“Ever been?”
“No.”
“Never found the right person?”
“It’s, um, not exactly like that.”
“Oh?”
Again, to my surprise, I went on. “I mean, there was—there is—this woman. Rebecca Chong. But, you know, with my condition, I …”
Karen nodded sympathetically. But then I guess she decided to lighten the tone. “Still,” she said, “you don’t necessarily have to wait for the right person to come along. If I’d done that I’d have missed out on my first three husbands.”
I wasn’t sure if my artificial eyebrows rose spontaneously in surprise; certainly, if I’d still been in my old body, my natural ones would have. “How many times have you been married?”
“Four. My last husband, Ryan, passed away two years ago.”
“I’m sorry.”
Her voice was full of sadness. “Me, too.”
“Do you have any kids?”
“Um—” She paused. “Just one.” Another pause. “Just one who lived.”
“I’m so sorry,” I said.
She nodded, accepting that. “I take it you don’t have any children?”
I shook my head and indicated my artificial body. “No, and I guess I never will.”
Karen smiled. “I’m sure you would have made a good father.”
“We’ll never—” Damn these new bodies! I’d thought the obvious, self-pitying thought, but had never intended to actually say it aloud. As before, I didn’t manage to kill it until a couple of words were already spoken. “‘Thanks,” I said. “Thank you.”
A pair of Immortex employees entered the lounge—a white woman and an Asian man. They looked surprised to see us there.
“Don’t let us disturb you,” Karen said to them as she stood up. “We were just leaving.” She held out a hand to help me get up. I took it without thinking, and was on my feet in a matter of seconds, Karen effortlessly pulling me up. “It’s been a long day,” Karen said to me. “I’m sure you want to go back to your room.” She paused, as if realizing that, of course, I couldn’t possibly be tired, then added, “You know, so you can change out of that robe, and so on.”
There it was—a perfect out; the escape that I’d been looking for earlier, the polite way to beg off that my lack of the need for sleep or food had denied me. But I didn’t want it anymore. “Actually,” I said, looking at her, “I’d like to do some more walking practice, if, ah, you’re willing to help me.”
Karen smiled so broadly it surely would have hurt had her face been flesh. “I’d love to,” she said.
“Great,” I replied, as we headed out of the lounge. “It’ll give us a chance to talk some more.”
CHAPTER 9
The spaceplane was still climbing. I’d thought the constant acceleration would be uncomfortable, but it wasn’t. Out the window, I could see sunlight glinting off the Atlantic ocean far below. I turned my head to face inside, and the presumably redheaded man sitting next to me seized his chance. “So,” he said, “what’s your job?”
I looked at him. I didn’t really have a job, but I did have a true-enough answer. “I’m in wealth management.”
But that caused his freckled forehead to crease. “Immortex wants wealth managers on the moon?”
I realized the source of his confusion. “I’m not an Immortex employee,” I said. “I’m a customer.”
His light-colored eyes went wide. “Oh. Sorry.”
“Nothing to be sorry about,” I said.
“It’s just that you’re the youngest customer I’ve ever seen.”
I smiled a smile that hopefully wasn’t an invitation to more questions. “I’ve always been an early adopter.”
“Ah,” said the man. He stuck out a hand that was as freckled as his face. “Quentin Ashburn,” he said.
I shook his hand. “Jake Sullivan.” I didn’t really want to continue talking about me, so I added, “What do you do, Quentin?”
“Moonbus maintenance.”
“Moonbus?”
“It’s a long-distance surface vehicle,” Quentin said. “Well, actually, it flies just above the surface. Best way to cover a lot of lunar territory fast. You’ll be riding in one when we get to the moon; the ship from Earth will only take us to Nearside.”
“Right,” I said. “I read about that.”
“Oh, moonbuses are fascinating,” said Quentin.
“I’m sure they are,” I said.
“See, you can’t use airplanes on the moon, because—”
“Because there’s no air,” I said.
Quentin looked a bit miffed at having his thunder stolen, but he went on. “So you need a different kind of vehicle to get from point A to point B.”
“So I’d imagine,” I said.
“Right. Now, the moonbus—it’s rocket-propelled, see? Funny thing, of course is that instead of polluting the atmosphere, we’re giving the moon an atmosphere—an infinitesimal one, to be sure—and all of it is rocket exhaust. Now, for the Moonbus, we use monohydrazine …”
I coul
d see that it was going to be a very long trip.
I was slowly getting the hang of walking with my new legs, thanks to Karen Bessarian’s help. I’d always been impatient; I suppose thinking you didn’t have much time left was part of the cause. Of course, Karen—in her eighties—must have similarly felt that her days had been numbered. But she’d apparently adapted immediately to the notion of being more or less immortal, whereas I was still stuck in the time-is-running-out mindset.
Ah, well. I’m sure I’d make the transition. After all, it’s supposed to be old people who are set in their ways, not guys like me. But no—that was unfair. They say you’re as young as you feel, and Karen certainly didn’t feel old now; maybe she never had.
Four others besides Karen and me had received new bodies today. I’m sure they’d all been at the same sales pitch I’d attended, but I hadn’t talked to anyone except Karen there, and these people now had faces so much younger than what I’d presumably seen then that I didn’t recognize any of them. We were all to spend the next three days here, undergoing physical and psychological testing (“hardware and software diagnostics,” I’d overheard one of the Immortex employees say to Dr. Porter, who had given the younger man a very stem look).
I was pleased to see that I wasn’t the only one who’d been having trouble walking. A girl—yes, damn it, she looked like a girl, all of sixteen—was using a wheelchair. Immortex clients could choose just about any age to look like, of course. This reconstruction must have been based on 2D photos—if this girl were Karen, she’d have been sixteen in the mid-nineteen seventies—where, I think, hairstyles had been all fluffy, and blue eye shadow had been in vogue. But whoever this was wasn’t trying to regress: her hair was short and tightly curled, in today’s fashion, and she had a band of bright pink from temple to temple, across the bridge of her nose, the kind of makeup kids today liked.
Two of the others were also female, and three of them were white. Like Karen, they had opted to look about thirty—meaning, ironically, that all these minds that were much older than mine were housed in bodies that appeared substantially younger than even my new one did. The other upload was a black male. He’d adopted a serene face of perhaps fifty. Actually, now that I thought about it, he looked a lot like Will Smith; I wondered if that’s what his original had looked like, or if he’d opted for a new face.