Seated on the bed, Stephanie kicked her chair. It shot across the room and struck the back of Jani’s knees, making her sit down hard. The hospital fell dead silent. All movement stopped. A slow hissing grew louder and louder until it broke into a loud crack.
Then Jani was sitting on the chair facing Stephanie. A strip of red cloth wound around the resident’s mouth. The back of her white coat was now the color and texture of the plastic chair. In fact, her back had fused with the chair.
“So either your drugs are giving me a grade-A acid trip,” Stephanie said while rolling the woman over to the desktop, “or my body is dying somewhere, and we’re in a neuroprocessor. I’m betting on door number two because working on this computer I hacked not only the neo-toys but every object in this room. So how about it? We in a virtual hospital?”
Jani was glaring at her.
That was enough of an admission for Stephanie. She hobbled over to her bed and sat. “And I’m guessing the new nanomed treatment didn’t go so well for my brain. Somebody—most likely my mom—got me uploaded into the one of California’s concinnity processors. Still on track?”
Jani had closed her eyes and lowered her chin.
“You won’t be able to logout,” Stephanie said and the resident’s eyes snapped open. “That program you’re sitting on prohibits exiting the hospital environment.”
The woman’s eyes narrowed.
Stephanie tried to look as stern as possible. “I’ll peel you off when I get answers. I remember my father explaining why doctors would want to upload people. He said you’d be able to put a guy’s mind into a neuroprocessor while the nanomed pulled a clot out of his brain. Or save an old woman’s neural patterns so you could restore them after Alzheimer’s screwed them up. Of course none of this is on the hospital’s encyclopedia.”
She nodded to the desktop. “You’ve cut off access to that, huh?”
Jani stared at her for a while and then nodded.
Stephanie sniffed. “Well you didn’t do as good a job as you thought. The encyclopedia has all sorts of info about the people who think that uploading minds is immoral or ungodly or some crap. The encyclopedia told me they pushed for something called the Anti-Singularity Act. But—surprise, surprise—the article on the AS Act is blocked. And that’s where you come in.
You’re going to tell me what the AS Act is.”
Jani pointed to her gag.
“Use the keyboard,” Stephanie said with an annoyed sigh. “That’s why I pushed you to the computer.”
Tentatively, the woman reached out and typed:
> lullab
But when she hit the Y key, the whole word disappeared.
“I’ve hacked the computer interface,” Stephanie said with a note pride.
“You won’t be able to write that word. Which is convenient for me since somebody programmed into my head an instinct that resets my memory whenever I see or hear it. Now—” she gestured to the keyboard, “—the Anti-Singularity Act.”
Jani frowned under her gag and wrote:
> You must know as little about your situation as possible.
“Why? Because something bad will happen if I find out what’s really going on?”
Jani nodded.
“Then something bad has already happened. I already know that I’m out of my head.” She laughed nervously at her unintended pun.
> I can reset you.
the doctor typed and looked at Stephanie earnestly.
> Most of the memories will be gone. Trust me, you want it this way.
“Jesus, no, I don’t!” Stephanie nearly shouted while pulling her hands across her bald head. “You’re never going to reset me again! I’d rather die.
How many times have you reset me anyway?”
Jani looked away.
“That many, huh? Well then, tell me about the Anti-Singularity Act.”
Jani typed:
> Telling you would mean killing you.
“For all I know, I’m already dead,” Stephanie snapped.
Jani closed her eyes.
Stephanie felt as if her chest were filled with lead. “I am dead, aren’t I?
Or my body is. That’s why you look that way.”
The doctor didn’t move.
“Jesus! How long ago?”
Slowly Jani opened her eyes and typed:
> ~50 yrs.
“Jesus,” Stephanie whispered. “Why so long? What are you waiting for?”
Jani was looking at her sympathetically.
> You’re an unusual case. You were uploaded before the laws took place.
But, Stephanie, you don’t want to know any of this.
“Yes, I do,” she said, folding her arms. “I’m not letting you logout until you tell me. So get it over with.”
Jani shook her head.
“Fine,” Stephanie said in exasperation, “I’ll guess what the Anti-Singularity Act is and you can tell me where I go wrong.”
The doctor looked at her pleadingly but Stephanie blustered on, “When they figured out how to upload people, the technophobes flipped about where someone’s soul went when you uploaded them. But they had to deal with the fact the new tech could end Alzheimer’s and help kids with glio-effing-blastoma. So they were screwed—didn’t want to oppose tech that could save lives, but didn’t want anything that’s not in a body being consciousness. How’s that sound?”
Jani typed:
> There was more worry about the dangers of conscious supercomputers.
Stephanie thought about this for a moment. “They’re afraid some computer god-mind might take over the world?”
> In a way.
Jani replied on the keyboard.
> Society depends on neuroprocessors now. If they rebelled, everything would come to a screeching halt. But what carried the Anti-Singularity Act was a fear that conscious neuroprocessors would accelerate technology so quickly that normal humans wouldn’t be to keep up. That event, when humanity’s creations outstrip their creators, is called the technology singularity. Hence the Anti-Singularity Act, which set down laws to stop the creation of any non-human self-aware consciousnesses. They don’t want anything to evolve that might be post-human.
Stephanie licked her lips. “They’re afraid uploaded patients might start thinking of themselves as post-human?”
Jani nodded.
> The specialty of virtual medicine, VM, was created to stop that. That’s what I do, keep uploaded patients from knowing they’re not in their bodies.
“But why not just save us to disk or something?”
Jani shook her head.
> You can’t save consciousness in a neuroprocessor. The connections decay unless they’re active.
“What about you?” she pointed at the doctor. “You’re in this virtual place.”
Jani shook her head.
> I’ve a special neurointerface to login to this world. But all my thoughts are still happening in my head.
Stephanie rubbed her mouth. “And mine are happening in some neuroprocessor. So, what do you do to patients who realize they’re out of their bodies?”
Jani looked at her with sad eyes.
> Very few ever reach that state. We managed to keep you from it for fifty years. But those that do...well, the senior attending physician analyzes them to see if they’re human or post-human. If they’re still human, every effort is made to get them back into a body. If they’re not...they’re terminated.
Stephanie felt her legs tremble. “Are you going to tell your virtual shrink to delete me?”
The woman’s eyes were round with sorrow. Slowly she typed:
> I have to, soon as I leave this room.
Stephanie tried to stand, but her parakeet legs folded and she fell onto her butt. Jani scooted over and awkwardly helped her stand enough to sit on the bed.
Stephanie’s hands were shaking, but somewhere in her heart she felt the warmth of relief. At last she knew the truth.
“How did my body die?”
Jani scooted back to the computer.
> The treatment you underwent was experimental. Your parents got you into the trial. But...the protocol still needed adjustment.
Stephanie punched her mattress. “Jesus, Mom, you got me into a trial so some crappy nanomed could turn my brain into yoghurt?”
Jani wrote:
> She was doing her best.
Stephanie tried to swallow away the tightness in her throat. “Thanks. Big consolation.”
Jani didn't respond.
“So why keep my mind alive when my body’s gone?” Stephanie asked while thumbing moisture from her eyes. “Don’t you erase people who don’t have bodies to go back to?”
> Normally, yes. But you were the first one ever stranded. It was a huge media case. Everyone knew your name. And by then, Concinnity Corp was so big your mother made Bill Gates look like a toddler in terms of clout. So when the Anti-Singularity movement gathered steam, she went before congress and spearheaded the compromise that allowed virtual medicine to survive the AS Act. By law, those newly stranded in a neuroprocessor had to be terminated. But you were grandfathered in. Your mother insisted we keep your mind viable for as long as possible.
“But why? It’s not like I have anywhere to go.”
Jani shrugged and wrote:
> They have your genome on file.
Stephanie snorted. “Like the technophobes would ever let some scientist clone a new body for me. No, Mom must have had something else in mind.”
She paused to think. “You ever heard Carsonella ruddii?”
The doctor’s eyebrows sank.
> Not since evo bio in college. Something about horizontal evolution.
“My mother never mentioned it when she went before congress?”
Jani shrugged.
Feeling stronger now, Stephanie stood and tore the ID bracelet from her wrist. With a satisfying flick, she sent it—and the data file it represented—into the garbage.
“Mom, you’re killing me,” she grumbled before walking over to Jani and pulling her chair away from the desk. “I’ll program the chair to let you logout in twenty hours. If I’m going to hack out of this hospital, it’ll happen before then.”