Transhuman (36 page)

Piersen shook her head. "This isn't anything like that."

Naylor snorted. "What kind of a recruitment fee do you get—flat rate or a percentage?" Piersen started to answer, then checked herself and looked at him with her head tilted, as if something he had said gave her a new angle. "If we do nothing, the you that you're so concerned about preserving to the end is on strictly limited time . . ."

"But quality time."

"Please, let me finish. There is a way in which the you that you value so much can be given extended time—without the compromises that you object to. In fact, that would be the whole purpose. And from what I can make of it, you could be talking about an indefinite time." That got Naylor's attention. "What do you mean, indefinite time?" he asked guardedly.

"As things are, you have no life, or at best, a slim chance of ending your days like this." Piersen waved a hand vaguely to indicate the general surroundings. "What I'm talking about might be an offer of unlimited life—one of the objects is to find out. And it would be a very different life. Everything you are now . . . and possibly a lot more." She sat back and regarded him challengingly. Naylor interrogated her silently with his eyes. She met them impassively. If he wanted to hear more, her expression said, he was going to have to climb down and ask. And he was curious. He conceded with a nod and a brief upturn of his mouth. "Okay, let's hear it."

Piersen looked down at the folder again and selected some sheets of handwritten notes. She glanced over them as she answered, as if refreshing her memory. "I'm not a scientist, you understand. So this is just an outline that I've been able to put together. If it goes any further, you'll be able to talk to the people involved for any more detailed information that you might want. Okay?" She looked up. Naylor gestured with his hands for her to continue. Piersen sat back in her chair, pulling her notes toward her. The lamp above the table brought out the color in her eyes. They were pale gray and sent back icy highlights, like quartz crystals under an arctic sun.

"Computer scientists have been saying for a long time—apparently fifty or sixty years, at least—that before very much longer, we'll be seeing machines that are as smart as people," she said.

"So what's the big deal in that? Washing machines are smarter than most people. Half of them wouldn't know—" Naylor caught the look on Piersen's face that said if he couldn't get serious they might as well wrap this up right now. He held up his hands protectively in a way that promised: Not another word. She went on, "Once that happens, they'll get involved in designing even smarter machines, and the process will repeat, getting faster and faster. Eventually we—humans, that is—will be left behind. Nobody knows what might come out of it. None of the ways we have of guessing what happens next will mean anything anymore . . . And no, you can't stop it. It's not possible to police the whole world, and there will always be somebody, somewhere with enough motivation—commercial, military, whatever—who's going be pushing the envelope in order to get an edge. That will get things to the point where it all takes off, and after that it runs away."

It wasn't the kind of thing that Naylor found himself being invited to think about every day. So far there was nothing to suggest how his situation might enter into it. But the topic was sufficiently unusual to intrigue him and dampen his natural cynicism. He said nothing, letting the refrain from flippancy signal his desire to hear more.

Piersen made a tossing-away gesture. "But then, on the other hand, there are other people who tell us that humans are pretty much near the end of the line anyway. We're stuck with these bodies that get stressed from standing up on end, drain inside instead of out, get sick, slow down, and eventually fall apart. And then look at this brain of ours that we make such a big thing about. The chip in the phone that I'm carrying in my pocket works a million times faster. What's more, it can talk to anything, anywhere, instantly, and the things it talks to are even faster, smarter, and have access to all the information there is. But this . . . "Piersen tapped a finger against the side of her head. "It takes years to teach it how to learn anything. In a whole lifetime it can never hope to know more than a little fraction of what's out there. Most of what it does learn, it forgets. And at the end of it all, everything it did manage to hang onto goes with it, and the next generation has to start over again. Yet humans have produced civilizations, cities, airplanes, music, arts, science—all of history." She let him reflect for a moment. "Just think, what might we be capable of if all those limitations that I just listed didn't apply?" Naylor considered the proposition. It was in his nature to look for the flaws. "So what are you saying?

Machines are going to take over and do better?" he asked.

"Why not? They seem to be on their way to getting more of what it takes."

"I don't think I buy that. Okay, so they're fast and they don't forget things. But in my book that's not enough. Show me a machine I can talk to the way we're talking now."

"The people who are working with them say it's only a matter of time." Naylor shook his head. "It's still not the same. You're just talking about clever programming. People can do things they'll never match. Things that involve feelings, that take imagination . . ." He sought for examples. "Like inventing something that's completely new, or making something happen—like start a corporation, a country, a religion—because it matters to you. Being able to have dreams about things that never existed before. See what I mean? Without people, there wouldn't even be any machines."

"A lot of people would agree with you," Piersen said. "But why does it have to be a case of either one thing, or the other? Yes, we humans have some remarkable abilities, as you point out. And maybe they are unique. But machines have got some good things going for them too. So why can't you merge the two and have the best of both?" Naylor's face creased into a frown while he grappled with the notion, trying to make sense of it. Piersen waited a moment, then went on. "Think about it. Everything that lives either goes extinct or evolves into something else. But in the direction humans have been heading, where further is there to go? Nowhere. We're hitting the limits by every measure. That is, speaking purely biologically, anyway. But who says we have to remain limited forever to what biology can do? We're already creating technologies that excel at all the things biology isn't so good at—that are only just beginning where humans leave off."

Naylor brought his hands up to massage his brow with his fingertips. "I'm still not getting this. We are us. They are what they are. Totally different. How can you merge them? And what does any of it have to do with me?"

Piersen looked at him and toyed for a few seconds with a pen that she had set down by the folder but not used. "Me," she repeated. "So exactly what is this 'me' that you're referring to? Have you ever thought about it?"

"What kind of game are we playing now?" Naylor made a show of looking down at himself, checking first to one side then the other as if making sure he was still all there. "I see a body with arms and legs. I assume there's a head on top, talking, because I can hear it. What else do you expect me to say?"

"You think that's you? Flesh and bones and blood? But that's all made up of particles like atoms and molecules that are being replaced all the time. There isn't one of them that was the same even a month ago."

"So what? Don't I look the same to you as I did a month ago?" Naylor raised his hands and wiggled his fingers. "Mine. Not yours or anybody else's. The same as they've always been."

"So what remains constant, then, is the pattern that the particles form," Piersen suggested. Naylor shrugged. "If you like."

"So what about this person inside your head, who looks out at the world, who thinks, and who knows he's thinking? Ask a surgeon to show you a picture of it. All you'll get is goo. So where does this guy who calls himself Brom Naylor come from?"

"I don't know about anything like that. Why ask me?"

"It's another pattern," Piersen persisted. "One that's formed by the electrical and chemical activity taking place among the trillions of cells that make up your brain."

"Okay, okay. If you say so. Look, don't you think it's about time you got to the point of all this?" In reply, Piersen picked a sheet of text from her folder and held it up. "This page was written by a printer in my office. Before that it was displayed as dots on a screen, generated from electrical charges stored in my computer. It got there via satellite as a pattern impressed on radio waves. But you see my point? It's the same page. The form of the medium that carries it is irrelevant. Think of ripples in a stream flowing over some rocks. The particles of water that make it up are changing all the time, but the pattern is permanent. Likewise with the pattern of activity in your head that does the thinking that you perceive as you. And like the pattern that forms the message on this page, it can be transferred to different media . . . At least, that's what a lot of people who have been working on this for years believe. And they think they've figured out how it can be done. But there's only one way to—" Naylor almost choked. "Are you telling me they want—"

Piersen wasn't prepared to be interrupted now that she had gotten down to it, and cut him off with a wave. "The brain that you're occupying now is about to be dee-exed very shortly, anyway. But what they're offering is to reinstall the activity patterns that constitute you into a nonbiological research host that's thousands of times faster, equipped to connect directly to the net as an extension of itself, and won't get migrains. It could mean access to insights and perceptions unlike anything that anybody has experienced before. And it could conceivably be functioning long after a normal human life span." Even the thought was degrading. Naylor's indignation exploded. "What are we talking about—a bunch of chips in a box? You call that a life?"

"Not at all. It would have a specially developed humanoid biosynthetic body that has enhanced sensory capacity, mobility, durability, and strength. A genuine super-hero." That altered the perspective somewhat. Naylor took a few seconds to calm down and compose himself. But he still wasn't clear on exactly what she was saying. "So what about the pattern that's me right now?" he asked. "Is it like making a photocopy? Then you've got two patterns saying they're me. What do I care about this other guy who's appeared inside some Frankenstein freak in a lab somewhere? I'm still in this body. What happens to it?"

"That's not how I understand it to work," Piersen told him. "It's a one-way thing. The process disrupts and erases the original pattern."

"Now wait a minute. You're telling me that this person that I think is me stops walking around and turns off, and another one wakes up doing a good imitation. You and everyone else out there might think one is as good as another and not be too concerned about it. But it happens to make a big difference to me."

"That's the whole point. The new pattern in the synthetic is you now. Really, it's no different from the same pattern being passed on through different sets of atoms and molecules every month. All that's happened is that what happens naturally anyway has been speeded up a bit."

"You really expect me to buy that?"

"The people we've been talking to say it's so. They're supposed to have some of the best minds in the business."

"They don't know," Naylor protested. "How can they? Not one of them has been through it. They don't even know if this crazy idea will work at all. That's what they want to find out. And you're telling me there's no way back?"

Piersen closed her eyes for a moment and sighed tiredly. "That's the deal. And it's the only one you've got. Yes, I suppose there is a risk that you might get scrambled and not come out the other end. But a lot of money and talent has been expended over years to be as sure as is humanly possible that something like that won't happen. And if they're right, you'll not only have a life, but certainly a novel and interesting one. The other way means getting scrambled for sure, and with no life. It's up to you." Naylor didn't know what to think. But if nothing else, it was a chance to stall things for a while. From what he had seen of scientists and intellectuals, a few well-chosen questions and queries about ethical issues could keep them debating among themselves for months.

"Did you say something earlier about me being able to talk to the people involved in this?" he asked Piersen.

She nodded. "No one expects you to go into it without having a lot of questions answered. I told you, I'm no scientist."

"So you could hardly expect an answer from me at this stage either," Naylor said.

"That's right," Piersen agreed. "I just want to know if the proposal is still open, or rejected outright." Naylor needed to think about it for about a half second longer. "Rejected?" he echoed. "Who said anything about rejecting? I never reject anything out of hand until I understand it. Sure, I'll talk to them." In fact, Naylor thought to himself, when he compared the prospect with that of looking forward to nothing but more of the daily routine he was used to, he could quite enjoy it.

* * *

Dr. Robert Howell was a big man in his early fifties, with smooth silver hair; sharp, critical eyes that assessed the world through heavy, gold-rimmed glasses; and a tan that he refreshed regularly in officially sponsored visits to exotic places. He was not accustomed to other people giving orders in his laboratory, and it rankled him. Besides being a personall affront, it damaged the image of the firm, authoritative departmental head that he had cultivated at the Institute of Biorobotics, which was important to his plan for one day becoming director. And beyond that, having to deal with criminal justice departments and law enforcement people was distasteful in itself. Who knew what effect such associations might have on policy review committees and funding agencies? But there was no other way of getting past the early phases of the project.

Four armed police were stationed around the walls, with another and a rat-faced officer in plain clothes by the door. Howell had been obliged to let his staff go early, which was enough of a disruption on its own and meant losing time that he could ill afford. Only one senior technician, Hiro Katokawa, had remained, sitting at the panel of screens and life-support-monitoring instruments by the table where Adonis lay, clad in shorts as a concession to delicacy for the occasion, and covered to just short of his chest by a sheet.