*******★★*******episode 1************
It was the 28th century. People around the
world screamed, some in joy and some in
anger, as the news spread that the ‘Global
Transhuman Initiative’ had been approved.
Protesters poured into the streets chanting for
the sanctity of the human body, cutting
themselves, letting their pure blood soak the
streets. Riots broke out and fires were ignited,
but it made no difference. Humanity had
voted. It had decided it was ready to take the
next step: Technology-guided evolution.
Directed by humans for humans to give each
individual a say of what he wanted to become.
Athletes would get better or artificial muscles,
thinkers would get never-tiring brains, and for
the truly adventurous their minds would be
transferred into artificial, near-indestructible
bodies.
The centers for transhumanization were
inaugurated in all the major cities and
thousands of people lined up for the
procedure, and every day the government-
provided specialists would be working,
transforming humanity, until everyone had felt
the future in their veins.
Amongst these men and women was Paul
Meridian, standing patiently in line, waiting for
his turn.
“What are you getting?” The young woman in
front of him turned to ask.
“Oh well… I’ve been hearing that the only
option for us old folk are the synthetics. If I
had a choice I think I would have gotten the
organic, but the synthetic will do.”
“I didn’t know that, well I’m getting the
organic. It’d be just too weird to be running
around in a metal body.”
“Yeah, I bet it’s worse than walking around
with a cane and a limp.” Paul laughed at his
own joke and the girl smiled at him.
“I’m up next. Wish me luck!”
“You’ll be just fine.”
Paul watched her walk into the white shed
and disappear behind white plastic curtains.
Behind him a thousand people stood in
silence, waiting for their turn with the doctors,
waiting to be poked and connected to the
machine, waiting to have their bodies made
perfect. Some looked happy, some looked
tired, some looked sad. Paul felt tired. He had
been there for hours, and for each minute that
passed his feet throbbed a hundred times. He
saw himself walking out the white plastic
curtains with his black metal body, or would
he choose silver? No muscles would exist to
ache, no bones would be left to break, only he
would remain: A new Paul filled with the
power of the future. He could see himself
sprinting full speed past the people waiting
behind him, screaming in joy at the freedom
he would have regained.
What would he do? If he didn’t have to eat
and he didn’t have to breathe? If he never felt
ill and never felt tired? If he didn’t have to
sleep? If he didn’t have to die?
First he would go back to his home town and
visit his old house, maybe he’d buy it back
and start a new simple life there in the
country. A life in which he could relax and
watch the sun set and rise in the horizon. He
could watch the sun rise each morning for
billions of years until it burned out. He could
walk through the wheat fields and the orange
orchards, walk on the soft grounds around
town and watch the sun go down. He could
watch the sun set every evening for billions of
years, sitting on his chair, and there he would
await his death. He would watch the sun grow
in the sky until the world went up in flames.
No. Simple lives are for old people and he
would soon be anything but old.
He would forget about the world, he would go
live on Mars and start truly a new life. A life
in the red world. Building tunnels and cities,
climbing the forgotten mountains and walking
through the sandstorms. He would meet
another love beneath the small white sun and
they would run off together into the black
night. Underneath the darkness of the distant
sky he would wait each night for her, and
each night they would hold each other in their
arms, and each night they would plan a new
day; And when the time came for the sun to
expand and destroy the life of its planets he
would leave it behind. He would venture to
another star and together with his love he
would populate its worlds.
“You’re next!” The girl walked out from behind
the curtains, smiling.
“You’re done? You look the same.” He said.
“Yeah I know. They said the changes are
gonna start happening during the next two or
three weeks. Good luck, old guy!”
Paul stared at his thin wrinkled hands. Odd
colored spots covered them and thick snake-
like veins ran below them with old blood.
Those scarred useless hands, the ones that
helped him through his life. They did their
best. They worked until they broke and then
they healed themselves to work again. The
hands that carried his sons into the world, the
hands that carried his sons into their graves,
the hands that carried his cane and pushed
him up.
Paul listened to the dull sound of his cane as
he stepped forward. The cane that helped his
legs and failing knees. The cane with the head
of the Buddha. The one that took him where
he wanted to go in his last helpless years, the
one that was taking him to his rebirth.
“Come on buddy you’re holding up the line.
Are you going in or not?”
“Yes, yes. Sorry. Yes.” Paul apologized.
He walked up the three remaining steps trying
to keep his mind silent. He walked through the
white plastic curtains trying to stay calm –
breathe in, breathe out– for what a shame it
would be if, in a moment of panic, his heart
stopped and his body dropped lifeless two
steps away from the people who would grant
him immortality.
“Are you ready, sir?” A man in a white coat
asked.
“Umm… Yes. I was wondering if I could still
choose to be upgraded organically. You know
with the…”
“No, sir. In your condition the only option is
synthetic.”
“Oh okay. Umm… What colors are there?”
“We ran out of sable a while ago. There’s
silver and bronze.”
Paul paused a moment to think. He thought
back to the movies he watched as a child.
Silver robots and blue ones and grey robots
and black. They all looked the same.
“Bronze. I think I’ll take the bronze one.”
“Bronze it is. Tom, load a bronze model on
the tray. Alright, this is what’s gonna happen.
You are going to lay down here, and were
going to put this helmet on you.” The man
pointed to a white helmet with four wires
coming out from the back. “It’s going to
transfer your consciousness into the synthetic,
it only takes about thirty seconds. A simple,
painless procedure. You will feel a little
strange as the transfer happens. You might
experience duality. Some people do, some
people don’t. This means that you may at
some point see double, feel four hands or legs,
things like that. If you do, stay calm,
nothing’s wrong. Like I said, it only takes
about thirty seconds. Any questions?”
“I’m not going to die… am I?”
“Of course not. You’re here to receive a new
life. You’ll walk out of here feeling better than
you ever did, trust me. If you’re ready, let’s get
you on this bed.”
“I guess I’m ready. Help me up, please.”
The man in the white coat took Paul from
under his armpits and for a second he felt
himself float through the white chamber. He
let go of his cane. His most used possession
of the last eight years. He had bought it in a
street market. They said it was six hundred
years old. It reached the ground and a simple
knock echoed around him.
“There you go. Don’t worry about that.” The
man took the helmet with the four cables and
placed it on Paul’s head.
Another man came in through the back with a
gurney carrying the heavy body of a bronze
synthetic. Its surface reflected the ceiling
lights and, as it was placed next to Paul, he
watched his droopy face reflected on the side
of the impeccable surface of the synthetic’s
head. He could feel the pulsing of his heart in
his eyes, in his head and in his chest. That
would be the last time he did. From that
moment on he would never feel a chest pain
or a shortness of breath again. He would be
free.
“Ok sir, please, look straight up at the ceiling.
This’ll be over before you know it.”
Paul stared up at the ceiling, following the
sole instruction as best as he could, and
waited for the moment of transfer.
“Aaaand, here we go.”
A click of a button. A moment of quiet.
Nothing appeared to change. The ceiling
stayed white and the silence remained intact.
“Did it start?” Paul asked, but he wasn’t
expecting to hear what he did. The sound of
an old man’s voice talking in unison with the
powerful voice of a synthetic. He turned to see
the bronze body on his left, but he did not
expect to see himself, an old man,
superimposed on the image of his metallic
self.
Duality. The feeling of having four eyes, four
legs, four arms and two voices. The pairing of
the old with the new. The dying seeing the
newborn. The newborn seeing his decadent
past.
“Sir, please continue looking at ceiling.”
But he could not. The sound of the man’s
voice passed through his old set of ears and
through the new ones. He listened to the
individual waves of sound in the air
separating it into its components, savoring the
intonation of the man who had spoken. So
clear, so crisp.
“Wow.” He whispered, and he saw his old self
whispering. The sight of the bronze synthetic
began to fade and the feeling of a beating
heart began to disappear. The eyes on the old
body rolled back into its head and a stream of
saliva drooped from its wrinkled mouth into
the white sheets below it, and by the time the
breathing had stopped Paul could no longer
feel his tired feet. He felt nothing, he stared
only at the motionless body of a tattered old
man.
“That’s it! How do you feel?”
Paul lifted his hands and stared at the shiny
metal surface. If he had said the truth Paul
would have said “I don’t know”. He didn’t
know. He wasn’t sure he felt anything at all.
There was a sense of rigidity in his innards
and a sense of weightlessness in his head.
Instead he said, “I feel good.”
“Good, good. Then you’re all set. Take this
manual. It’ll teach you everything you need to
know about your new body. Congratulations
sir, you look great. There’s a mirror to your
left. Check yourself out!”
Paul obeyed once more. He got up from the
gurney and stared at his reflection. A bronze
almost gold-colored synthetic stood inside it.
Blue glowing eyes looked back at him,
wondering if they were his own. He touched
his featureless face. His mouth and nose were
gone. In their place an angled chin and
smooth straight cheeks shined. Stylistic dents
took the place of his eyebrows and a perfectly
round half-sphere stood in the place of his
skull. He touched his face with his new hands,
he felt the separation of the atoms in its
surface with his fingertips and he knew the
temperature of his new skin as if by telepathy.
21.23º celsius.
“Where’s my face?”
“This is your new face, sir. It will take some
getting used to, and if you want to change it
for a more personalized one you can order it
custom-made from various suppliers, it’s all in
the manual.”
“Okay. Thank you.”
“Please tell the next person in line to come
in.”
Was that it? Did his ninety year old body have
so little significance? Would it not be buried?
He guessed not, it was not the loss of a
person after all, only a body. A body without
a soul. A body with no purpose. He glanced at
it again.
“Goodbye, old friend.” He said before stepping
outside, and at the sound of his voice the old
pale body lifted its right arm and reached for
him, opening its mouth as if wanting to tell
him one last word.
“What! What’s that?” Paul yelled.
“Oh don’t worry. It’s just the remaining
electrical impulses in the body. Please sir, let
the next person in.” The man in the white coat
asked him again, firmly, as the assistant
covered the old body with a white tarp and
took it away through the back.
Confused, Paul walked outside and stood
silent before the other thousand people
waiting for their turn. The sick and the elderly.
The hopeless, the desperate and futureless.
But what had just happened? Did he see
something he was not supposed to? Was his
old body still alive? Was he Paul or not? And
if the real Paul was still inside, was his new
body the soulless one? The one that needn’t
be buried in its time of demise?
What was worse was that he didn’t want to
find out. Old Paul had had his life. It was
time to start anew. A new life for a new Paul.
TO BE CONTINUED.
