Lyle-2 was not keen on having to wait for the first successful unfreezing before insurance companies and government subsidies supported his initiative. Or as he put it, “Cryonics will work in the next few years, and to limit its use to only those rich enough to pay for it out of their own pockets is nothing short of murder and a declaration of war by the GC Board on the most needy in society.” I suspected, possibly unfairly, that he only wanted government supplements for his commercial success. After all, he still demanded the power to deny anyone use of the cryonic techniques his company would create and rejected mandatory price breaks for people with lower incomes. As he put it, the idea sounded nice, but it would be debilitative to the growth of the new industry and misguided to sacrifice the free market principles of our land. A strange hypocrisy.
In the end, there was a compromise of sorts. He was promised some sort of subsidizing if he reached the stage where a chimpanzee who knew sign language could be frozen and revived while being able to demonstrate the same signing skills it had before the freezing, and the government demanded his company send an explanation regarding any refusal to cryonically freeze an individual. As it would be too late to freeze someone after the review was complete – the freezing process had to be done almost immediately after death – we demanded that all people who were in the process of applying for storage be frozen upon death. Only after their application rejection and confirmation by the independent review board could anyone be unfrozen and allowed to decay.
We also debated what should happen to murderers in this new age of longevity. Should prisoners have access to life-extending procedures? Would we lock up a twenty-year-old murderer for 120 years or more?
AIS had recently been opened to all incarcerated people not on death row, but these new technologies were going to raise the stakes dramatically. By the time most Americans living today reached 140, technology may allow them to live indefinitely longer – centuries if not countless millennia. Were we willing to incarcerate a person for eternity, or deny them immortality because of a murder they committed in their youth? On the other hand, was the principle really any different than the one behind our millennia-old death penalty? Was there a fundamental difference between taking away an eighty-year life and taking away a virtually immortal life, especially since that’s exactly what the murderer had taken from someone else?
As far as Jack was concerned, we were putting ourselves into a position far too close to God’s, choosing between eternal life and destruction. Would we, as a society, be a merciful God or a vindictive one? And as fallible humans, what if we made yet another mistake, sentencing yet another innocent person to death? To further complicate the issue, was a murder victim truly murdered if we could cryonically freeze them and possibly bring them back at some future date?
There were few issues that left the GC Board truly torn, but this was one of them. Most members felt strongly one way or the other, and some, like me, were deeply troubled by both alternatives. In the end we agreed that if a murder victim was in cryonic freeze and was later successfully rejuvenated, the murder conviction would be turned into a felony battery conviction with the revised sentence to be served after the victim’s rejuvenation. Regarding all future death sentences, they would need to be confirmed by two separate teams of investigators who must establish guilt not only beyond a reasonable doubt, but also beyond any logical doubt, before the person could be put to death. And a death sentence would preclude life-saving AIS and artificial bodies until further review. Those facing life sentences would have access to both technologies, and each life sentence would be equal to 99 years of incarceration.
It was a divided issue at the cabin as well.
“Lyle killed my mother,” I said. “If we’re successful, she could have ended up having a life of at least 140 years, if not centuries or longer. If Lyle was still alive, he shouldn’t be able to take that away from her and keep his life for centuries or longer.”
Jack bowed his head, staring into the flames of the cabin’s hearth. “My parents and fifty others lost their lives when the church was bombed. But it was done by a troubled, hateful, and confused man who, if he hadn’t died in the blast, may have been rehabilitated with education, counseling, and medical advances. He could have repented his crime and added good to society. Killing him eliminates that possibility. And the fifty he killed are still dead, either way.”
“And what about Lyle-2?” asked Cain, standing up at the side of his mother. “If Mom dies.”
“Cain,” I whispered, trying to reprimand, shocked he would say such a thing, searching Evelyn’s face for her reaction.
Cain froze, then turned to his mom. “I…”
Evelyn smiled gently and shook her head. “It’s okay. It’s a fair question.”
“We won’t let that happen,” I said.
Cain turned on me. “You’re behind on everything.”
“I don’t want to talk about that,” said Evelyn.
Cain knelt down beside his mother. “But what about Lyle?”
She leaned in closer to him. “Listen to me. I don’t want you going after anyone out of revenge.”
“But the government,” he said. “Shouldn’t they kill him?”
“We don’t even know for sure that Lyle did this,” Jack said.
Cain grew frustrated. “But if he did!”
Evelyn shook her head. “No,” she said. “If they have to put him to death to save others, but not just to avenge me.” She turned to me, knowing I didn’t agree with her. “He’s a hurt and lonely man who trusted his c-father too much. But there’s some good in him. As long as he lives, there’s a chance he’ll change.”
***
She didn’t tell us that she’d confronted him just weeks before at his office.
“Did you do this to me?”
Lyle glanced quickly at Evelyn, then turned his eyes back to the screen on his desk. “Do what?”
“You know.”
He hesitated, then pulled open a desk drawer and removed something flat covered in Christmas wrapping paper. He carefully folded back the paper so she could see the calendar she’d made for him.
“So you didn’t do it?”
He paused, then shook his head.
“If I die,” she asked, “will you bring me back?”
Lyle didn’t answer, keeping his eyes on his screen.
“Lyle?”
He finally met her gaze. “I’m sorry.”
Table of Contents
55
In March of 2074, a couple weeks before the GC Board was scheduled to submit our findings and recommendations to Congress, we prepared to meet at the Hay-Adams Hotel in Washington, D.C. to iron out the written material and decide who would do the speaking on each subject.
A few floors above the meeting room, a man named Larry Pritchett finished putting on a security uniform. He sat down in a hotel chair next to an end table where he had placed framed photos of Gabrielle Burns and Derrick Vaughn, the man who bombed our Unitarian church. In front of him was his holo-cam. He began recording.
“Dear Susan,” he began, reading from a piece of paper, only seldom looking up from it as he read on. “We never know where God’s work is going to lead us. As the New Testament shows, sometimes we have to go to prison. Sometimes we have to die. I don’t know when I’ll see you and little Lori again. It could be through the bars of prison, or at the gates of heaven. But I need to do this. For you and Lori and myself, and for everyone. A great ally in the fight against cloning has given me the sword of God. I must be prepared to wield it, as all true Christians and true followers of Gabrielle know God demands of us.” He raised up a hand-sized computer with a red button on it. “With this sword, I will right this wrong, or die trying. Which is what I think you’d want me to do. Please tell Lori I love her. And I love you, too.”
His jittery finger stopped the recorder about the same time we were beginning to arrive at the conference room. We weren’t going to be springing any surprises on Congr
ess, as we’d already privately and publicly disclosed most of our findings and suggestions. The only things left were the formalities.
At a little after ten o’clock in the morning, as the twelve of us worked sorting out the details over bagels and coffee, a man wearing a hotel security uniform walked into the room with a gun in one hand and a navy blue duffle bag in the other.
“Nobody move! Someone stand in front of the door,” he ordered. We were so startled and confused, we just sat there looking at him. “You!” he said to Shannon Smith who was already standing, passing out some papers. “You stand in front of the door, but don’t leave or I’ll kill everyone. I’m prepared to die.”
Shannon looked at Jack, he nodded, and she went to the door. The rest of us stayed as still as possible. The guy was sweating profusely and somehow seemed far more nervous than we were. We were still in shock. He set the duffel bag on the conference table next to the pink box of bagels and unzipped it, using his non-gun hand to remove a palm-sized electronic device.
“You see this?” he asked, holding it up. The power button was blinking red. “It’s a detonator. I press this button, and you all die.”
Jack sat at the head of the table. I sat to his right, opposite the intruder, looking at Jack in wonder. His face was unbelievably calm. The only tell to his nervousness was his thumb lightly but rapidly tapping the table.
“What do you want us to do, Mister…” he asked levelly, trying to ease the bomber down and collect some vital information.
“I want you to change that thing you’re doing – that report,” he said, pointing the detonator at the stacks of paper we had in front of us.
“We can do that,” Jack said. “What part, exactly?”
“All the parts! All that stuff about immortality. Don’t you see what that’ll do? You’ll keep us from joining God forever!”
Jack nodded. “It’s okay, sir. I’m on your side. My name’s Reverend Jack Lewis. I’m a minister, and I’m certainly not going to do anything that will keep me from being with God.”
“Good, then you do it.”
“What do you want me to say, exactly?”
“Just make it illegal!” he shouted.
Two possibilities occurred to me. One was that this guy happened to have the coolness and expertise to acquire a security uniform and make his own bomb, but lacked the mettle to hold himself together and sound halfway intelligent while making his demands. The other was that he was simply a Gabrielle Burns-like fanatic given a bomb and uniform by someone using him as a pawn. As Lyle had arranged the bombing of our church and murdered my mother. Would Lyle-2 use a similar ruse to kill the entire GC Board? If that were the case, then he wouldn’t leave control of the bomb in this man’s hands. Lyle-2 would detonate it himself, and we would all die – including his witless pawn.
Jack explained that he wanted to be sure there were no mistakes, and asked the bomber to make his desired changes with a pen. I scribbled a note on the back of a receipt under the table and slipped it to Jack, who discreetly read it then folded it away in his hand.
“Who gave you the bomb?” Jack asked.
The man kept flipping through the sheaf of papers. “God.”
“A man gave you that bomb, a false witness, and he’s going to detonate it remotely any second now, whether we do what you want or not,” Jack bluffed. I wasn’t as sure it was a bluff.
The revelation worried both the other board members and Larry Pritchett. He studied his detonator.
“That’s a lie,” he concluded.
“Put the bomb down now, and we’ll all leave the room together. You’ll still have your gun, and we’ll proceed with the good changes you’re making.”
The man seemed torn for a moment, and then gathered himself. “No way, they’ll shoot me if I do that.”
“No one’s going to…” Jack started, and then looked quickly to his left like something had happened. The board member standing on the far left dropped below the table. Larry hesitated at the sudden, confusing changes, finally aiming and firing a couple times into the wall near the movement. The whole distraction allowed enough time for board member George Gomez to dive at the bomber’s gun hand.
While they struggled, Jack ordered everyone else to run out the door. Three shots were fired, but they were all into the ceiling. By the time the third shot had gone off, most everyone else was out or nearing the exit. Jack and I went to George’s aid. Jack tore the gun away, but the bomber was able to hold the detonator out of reach.
“I’ll kill…” he began, but stopped. The detonator made some playful tones and the red light stopped blinking. Larry stared at it with a puzzled expression. Had he pressed the button accidentally, or had my theory been correct?
As I wondered about that, Jack was already pushing me under the conference table.
Table of Contents
56
“Hey there,” called a voice.
The light hurt my eyes. I squinted as my pupils adjusted. Above me was a face I recognized, but not whom I expected to see. It was Dr. Nikki Menae from Barebots. Her presence unnerved me.
“Nikki. Where…” but I stopped. I saw some familiar furnishings. We were in an operating room at Ingeneuity. Inner alarms rose louder. I gripped the edges of my hospital bed.
“We just transferred you to Ingeneuity. The hospital’s kept you in a coma for a couple weeks. You had some pretty serious head trauma, but you’re better now. The danger’s past.”
“Then what am I doing here? What are you doing here?”
She pulled one of my hands from the bed and held it in hers, staring at it for a while. “Adam, you’ve suffered a lot of injuries. The swelling on your brain is gone, and your kidneys and liver have been re-grown. We’ve repaired a lot of damage to your spinal column. But your legs were directly exposed to the explosion.”
My heart lurched and I looked down my prone body. I was covered in a sheet, but there was no outline of my legs. My head swam. I knew then it was a dream – another nightmare.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “The AIS and artificial blood are the only things that stopped you from bleeding to death.”
There was only one way to wake myself. I grabbed the sheet with my free hand and pulled it away. And there were my stumps. Both my legs cut off at the upper thigh. I reached down to prove it was a dream, but I could feel the smooth, hairless skin that was wrapped around the end of my severed limbs.
I shut my eyes and craned my neck back against the pillow, trying to get as far from my legs as possible. “Oh, God.”
“I know, Adam. We’re giving you new legs today,” Nikki said.
I didn’t respond.
“You know Bobby,” she said. “He’s going to head the operation.”
He had been the head robotic surgeon at Barebots for two years, affectionately known as Bobby the Barebot. An artificial person created specifically for delicate surgery.
“Hello, Adam,” I heard him say. They had constructed his voice box to sound like the killer computer HAL from 2001: A Space Odyssey. It wasn’t comforting.
“Hello, Bobby,” I answered, my eyes still shut tight. “How are you doing?”
“A hell of a lot better than you.”
I laughed. In my mind I could see Alan Alda standing next to Nikki. They had made Bobby look like the famous surgeon Hawkeye Pierce from the old television show M*A*S*H. Bobby had downloaded all the shows and tried to be as much a comedian as Hawkeye. “I see your bedside manner is improving.”
“You’ll be improving, too,” he said. “I’m going to give you a couple legs just like mine.”
I put my hand over my closed eyes, trying to remember what my real legs had looked like. I couldn’t remember.
“I’m kidding, Adam.” He must have thought I was upset about getting his legs. “We’ve finished molding some legs that resembled your previous ones. Though we’ve taken the liberty of adding a little more muscle tone.”
I just wanted the horror to go away. “O
kay. Hurry. Do it.”
***
They did look the same. They even felt similar to the touch. The artificial nerves were connected to my central nervous system, and I was able to bend my knees and move my feet with no noticeable difference. But the artificial nerves had their deficiencies. I could only sense the exact position of my legs by touch and sight. It almost felt like they were asleep, but without the tingling.
I was wobbly at first. Much of that was mental. In my mind, I was walking on stilts. But my mind soon became used to the new nerve impulses. Within three weeks I’d left the rehab at Ingeneuity and had graduated to using Evelyn or Cain as an occasional crutch.
“How do they feel?” Evelyn asked my first day home, placing her hand on one of my new legs.
“They’re starting to feel very natural,” I said.
She nodded, but frowned.
I rubbed her back. “And they never get sore or tired.”
She smiled. “You know, that’s some pick-up line.”
“So if you ever want to give ’em a ride…” I said hopefully.
She squeezed one of my new knees. “Let’s see what they’re made of.”
As she got up to close the door, I again examined my legs and where they met my upper thighs. You couldn’t see the border, but I knew where it was. My fingers traced the skin and hair on both my real and artificial body. If a clone is less than human, was I now even more inhuman? I felt so, until Evelyn returned.
She pushed me down so I was lying on the bed, plucked off my shoes and socks, and began to slide her tongue around my big toe.
“Feeling anything?”
I was indeed. I was feeling happy to be alive, and grateful to be with a woman who could so easily turn artificial legs and feet and toes into something to get excited about.
The next morning I began going through the e-mails and the few handwritten cards that had been sent. One of them didn’t have a return address on it, but the writing looked familiar. I opened it to find a card from Lily-3.