Immortal Life

A Soon To Be True Story

Stanley Bing

• Editore: Simon & Schuster
• Anno: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781501119859
• Argomento: Literatur
• Categoria: Literatur Allgemein

An ancient mogul has bought the power to live forever, but the strong young body he plans to inhabit has other ideas. The battle for immortal life begins in Stanley Bing's "stimulating, satirical and perhaps even visionary novel" ( Wall Street Journal ). Immortal life. A fantasy, an impossible dream—or is it? The moguls of Big Tech are pouring their mountain of wealth into finding a cure for death and they are determined to succeed.None of these titans is richer than Arthur Vogel. The inventor, tech tycoon, and all-round monster has amassed trillions of dollars and rules over a corporate empire stretching all the way to Mars. The newest—and most expensive—life extension technology has allowed him to live to 127 years, but time is running out. His last hope to escape the inevitable lies with Gene, a human specifically created for the purpose of housing Arthur's consciousness. The plan is to discard his aged body and come to a second life in a young, strong host. But there's a problem: Gene. He may be artificial, but he is a person—and he has other ideas.As Arthur sets off to achieve his goal of world domination, Gene hatches a risky plan of his own. The forces against him are rich, determined, and used to getting what they pay for. The battle between creator and creation is heightened as the two minds wrestle for control of one body.Mixing brisk action, humor, and wicked social commentary, author Stanley Bing has crafted "an engaging and cautionary tale about the direction in which spaceship Earth is hurtling" ( USA Today ). Welcome to a brave new world that is too familiar for comfort—and watch the struggle for humanity play out to the bitter end.

– THREE –

20

Arcadia

It didn’t take Gene’s little party long to get where they were going. The two Steves were in the front seat of the 2017 Chevy Suburban, a true monster from the great old reign of the gas guzzlers, totally illegal in this day and age due to its lack of self-driving features but exquisitely maintained and equipped with a phalanx of performance chips and air intake mods feeding into a high-torque supercharged solar-powered electric motor. The thing could do 180 on an open road and easily blow by the most advanced self-driving police vehicles, which were aggressively amped up to reach an impressive if slightly unsafe top speed of 45, but only for limited duration. In the back were Bob, asleep against Bronwyn, and Liv, with her arm around Gene, who was solidly drunk as a skunk. If the consciousness of Arthur was still extant in any way, it was certainly far under.

The roads were clear heading north, and the darkness of night was absolute, inviolate. Apparently no alarm had been issued, at least not yet, and their forward momentum was unimpeded all the way to Eureka. There they got off the highway and pointed east for what was obviously a predestined pit stop on their way to their ultimate destination, where Master Tim awaited their arrival in the bucolic Green Zone.

“Where we goin’?” asked Gene as they plunged ever deeper into the darkness of the California night.

“A safe place,” said Liv. “Where we gotta take care of something.”

“Is it nice?”

“Don’t worry about it,” said Bob, who was not asleep after all. Then he was again.

They rode in silence for a while. “I missed you,” said Gene.

“Yeah,” said Liv. “Well, fortunately, you had plenty of action with that steaming-hot wife of yours to keep you occupied during your mental incarceration.”

“That wasn’t me, Liv.”

“Uh-huh.”

“It was like being locked in a nightmare and not being able to wake up.”

“Gee, that must have been horrible,” said Liv sarcastically. Then she carefully licked her finger and stuck it in Gene’s ear.

“. . . okay,” he said.

The road was getting bumpier by the minute. “If we’re gonna face any resistance, it’ll be in about half a mile, when we go through the gates,” said the gender-neutral Skell, who for purposes of brand distinction from the other one went by the name of Stevie. He or she took out an old-fashioned Glock semiautomatic, checked it for action, and rested it on the dashboard.

“Who are you fucking guys?” asked Gene. “Some kind of nutty hippy brigade or something?” He didn’t care for either of them. Whatever his drill was going to be, he wasn’t sure he wanted these shaggy weirdos around to help him with it.

“We’re the vanguard of the revolution,” said the hulking one, Steve, who was driving. There was a blob of silence again. “And we just rescued your ass back there, so have a little respect,” he added after a while.

“I take your point,” conceded Gene. “Sorry.”

“Here we are,” said Stevie. “Duck down, chickens.” He or she picked up the weapon but kept it out of sight.

But nothing transpired. The Chevy slowly rolled through an enormous wooden archway festooned with giant lettering that read, “Arcadia.” Steve turned off the vehicle, and the only sound was the click-click-click of the engine cooling off. Nothing more. “Okay,” said Stevie. “We can get out now. Grab your stuff. We walk from here.”

The only ones who had anything at all to carry were big Steve, who appeared to have a host of weaponry in a large khaki duffel, and Bob, who lugged several bags of personal effluvia, including an old-fashioned leather doctor’s satchel. Bronwyn took the heavy stuff, while Bob contented himself with the carrying case in black lizard skin that was the emblem of his profession back when doctors made house calls.

They stood in the silence of an endless redwood forest. In the distance, an owl announced itself. A coyote howled and was answered by another. “Where are we?” asked Gene.

“We’re here,” said Bob. Then he headed up a steep path that hadn’t been tended for quite some time. The group followed, with Stevie in the rear, alert to any life form that might require the attention of his or her Glock.

They continued up the hill, which grew steeper. On the way, they passed the remains of what were once small encampments with scattered firepits and the occasional cabin here and there. Not a hare rustled in any of them. “This place was once owned by the Corporation,” said Bob. “Not really active now. Once a year, a couple of guys from senior management get together here, but only for a week or so, to smoke cigars and drink themselves sick. The rest of the time, it’s like this.”

“Creepy,” said Liv.

“Relic of the dying male hegemony that will soon be extinct,” Bronwyn replied, poking Bob in the ribs as she did so.

“God,” he said. “I hope not. I have a ton of important hegemony stuff to do first.”

They walked a bit more, leaning into the hill.

“Are we there yet?” Gene whined after an interminable amount of time and effort brought them only another hundred yards or so.

“Yes, in fact, we are,” said Stevie. “Steve, drop your gear and help me open up the place.”

They were standing in front of a pleasant entryway, graced by the statue of a naked female angel with truly magnificent wings reaching for the sky, both arms outstretched to show her sacred figure to best effect. “Valhalla,” said a rustic wooden sign beside a staircase. The two Skells preceded them up the stairs. Last in line was Livia, who pushed a wheezing Gene up the remaining steps and into the camp.

Valhalla turned out to be a compact enclave with a good-sized deck surrounded by a number of cabins. On this deck were a bunch of comfortable chairs of varying weight and size, now a bit moldy, some tables, and a large and still impressively well-stocked bar in the corner. In the far end of the area were the showers, toilets, and communal sinks. Numerous black-and-white photos covered the walls, most of long-dead men in the funny suits, hats, and moustaches they must have thought, at the time, made them look distinguished, when being distinguished was more important than being cool.

“Hey!” said Gene. “This is nice!” He fell into a chair and was asleep immediately, hugging to his breast the precious bottle that now safeguarded his identity.

“Let him sleep,” said Bob. “We’ll do the procedure in the morning and then get out of here.”

“Like hell,” said Liv. “We’ve been apart forever. I thought I’d lost him entirely. He’s not going to spend the night in a chair. Come on, Bee. Help me out.”

Bob gave her a sudden grin, reached out, and mussed up her hair. “Okay, Livvy,” he said. And so together the two women, assisted by their rumpled friend, hoisted the shit-faced young hero to a standing position and drunk-walked him to the first cabin off the deck. “Thank you and good night,” said Liv to the group. There were the sounds of a deadweight falling into a cot and the cabin’s screen door clapping shut.

“What they got to eat here?” asked Steve, going behind the bar to see if there were any provisions. “Nuts,” he said, extracting a few bags of pistachios.

“Look in the kitchen,” said Stevie, and they both went into the desolate, inactive space that lay beyond the bar.

“Come here, baby,” said Bob to Bronwyn. She went to him.

“This is going surprisingly well,” she said, and put her arms around his neck.

“We’ll see how he does. He’s different than I expected.”

“Well, he’s plastered. We don’t know what he’d be like if he didn’t have to be hammered all the time just to be himself.” She stared into Bob’s face for a minute. “We also don’t know how much of that old imperialist scumbag rubbed off on him.”

“There’s a possible solution to that problem, but I’m afraid it might be worse than the problem itself.”

“What would that be?” Bronwyn asked. She took him by the hand and went in the direction of the vacant cabins.

“One thing at a time,” said Bob. “Let’s get his head right first.”

“Here we go,” she said, opening the door to an empty cottage. “I hope there are no bats in here,” she murmured, peering carefully inside the dark and dusty enclosure.

“Bee, honey,” said Bob, pausing with her on the doorstep. “I’m really tired. I hope you’re not expecting miracles.”

“You’re the miracle worker,” said Bronwyn. She patted him sweetly on the butt. “But I bet I can work some of my own if I really put my mind to it.”

“Well,” said Bob hopefully, “I won’t object too strenuously if you’d like to try.”

They went into the cabin. The giant trees loomed above them, bathed in fog and the light of the moon. The Skells came out of the kitchen, each with a box of Froot Loops cereal. “I wonder how old these fucking things are,” said Steve.

“They never go bad, because they’re not actually food,” said Stevie, collapsing onto an aged leather couch.

“I’ll take the first shift.” Steve sat on an available table and began to examine the Froot Loops in earnest.

Four hours later, the sun rose. Somewhere in the world beyond the forest, a rooster greeted the new day.

“Here you go, Ginerino,” said Bob, staring down at Liv and Gene as they lay entwined in the tiny camp bed. “Drink this before you turn into Chairman Hyde again.”

“Man,” said Gene, taking in about an eighth of the bottle of sixty-year-old Glenlivet scotch Bob had offered him. “What I wouldn’t give to be sober for just an hour or two.”

Liv sat up, her hair forming an impressive nimbus around her elfin head. “I’ll get us together, and we’ll meet you on the deck in five minutes.”

“Five minutes,” said Bob. “I want to get this over with.”

They emerged on schedule. The Skells were now draped in a couple of large, comfy armchairs, each with family-sized boxes of Cap’n Crunch. “You hungry?” asked Steve. “They got good stuff in the kitchen. Kind of chewy. But tasty!”

“Yeah,” said Liv. “I guess so. I don’t think I can watch this anyhow.” She went to the door of the kitchen. “I hope there are no mice in here,” she said. She grabbed a broom that was leaning against the wall and tiptoed in.

“Sit here, Gene,” said Bob, who had pulled out a straight-backed chair next to a table and was arranging a variety of implements on it. Bronwyn assisted. “Good morning, Gene,” she said, smiling.

“What up?” said Gene. He sat.

“Put your head back,” instructed Bob, all business. He was in a lab coat, a rather shabby one, Gene thought. He appeared to be readying some kind of long, thin apparatus.

“Hey, wait a minute!” Gene squeaked.

Without any indication that he was about to do so, Bob plunged the probe with one swift, smooth thrust straight into the side of Gene’s implant directly above and behind his right ear. An enormous chasm of blackness opened to the left, right, above, and below him and invaded all available space inside his head. He screamed. Then he was falling, falling. After a while, he dozed. “Now let the motherfuckers try to track us” was the last thing he heard before he fell away.

He awoke to find a hot toddy in his hand. Around him were his friends, who looked at him with great concern.

“I’m okay,” said Gene.

“Now you are,” said Bob.

“Drink, Gene,” said Liv. Then she added, “Drink it all, babe.”

“I have just disabled your implant mechanism,” explained Bob. “As of right now, your global positioning can’t be followed. Your life functions are offline and unknown to the Corporation. You are on your own, bud. On your own. Disconnected from the Cloud and from every other implant. Congratulations, and welcome to the way things used to be.”

Bronwyn added with piety, “And the way they may yet be again, God willing.”

“Amen,” said Livia, placing her hand on Gene’s shoulder. There was a moment of reverential silence. Bob rose to his feet and paced a bit more. He seemed agitated.

“I created you, Gene,” he suddenly blurted. “So you know, in a way, I’m your dad.” Gene tried to not laugh but failed. “No, but seriously,” said Bob, a bit wounded. “I want you to understand.” He leaned over Gene and stared down at him with tremendous intensity and a slobby sort of affection. “I didn’t realize that when I made you, son, I was creating a genuine life. I don’t know why I didn’t. But I didn’t.”

“Well, Bob,” said Gene, annoyed. “What did you think you were doing?”

“Filling a market niche. Listen. Please.”

“Sure! Why not?” Gene took a sip of the whiskey. His head was clearing. Bob was being quite entertaining. The woods smelled like heaven. Life was good.

“You know how many superold, rich-as-fuck guys are reaching the end of what we can do for them?!” Bob perambulated around the deck, driven by the force of his emotion. “Look at the board of directors! There’s nothing more we can do with the bodies they got. They hit a wall when they reach a hundred twenty years of age, tops. You can add another ten or fifteen years of decay and pathetic senescence to that if you want to. But ugh. I’ve seen it. Horrible. Repulsive morphies indistinguishable from one another. Grotesques. The stuff of nightmare. And still, they live, looking for a way to put themselves into a whole new infrastructure—one that’s better than the one they got. That is a significant market. Small, but able to pay incalculable fortunes for the product, right?” Bob snared the last dregs of Steve’s old box of Froot Loops from the nearby table and took a mouthful. “Blaugh!” He spat out the stale cereal in nobody’s direction and then pressed on.

“The breakthrough was when we figured out how to take an individual’s entire personality and migrate it into the Cloud. Digital immortality! And guess what? Now we have a whole bunch of fully functioning virtual people up there in the mainframe! More than two hundred fifty! The very richest of the superrich! And a couple of decent guys, too, pro bono, for the good of the world. The Dalai Lama, for instance, and his friend dhe wanted along to keep him company, that actor, what’s ...