9
Identity: Jimmy Scadden
“I’m sorry, Jimmy, but that Patricia Killiam. Where does she get off talking about the nature of happiness? I’m really concerned about her.”
“No need to apologize, Dr. Granger,” I replied. “I’m worried about her, too. She hasn’t been herself lately.”
We were taking an aimless wander through a few floors of the hydroponic farms on our way back from Kesselring’s office after the board meeting. Kesselring kept his offices perched at the very apex of the connecting structures on the top floors of the vertical farming complex. Even the master of synthetic reality liked to keep his specific reality above the riff-raff.
Over a hundred floors up, I enjoyed the views down on Atopia from here—green forests edged by crescents of white beaches and the frothy breakwaters beyond. Through the phase-shifted glass walls, the sea glittered under a cloudless blue sky. The humid and organic, if not earthy, smell of the grow-farms reminded me of the days I used to spend as a child out on the kelp forests with my dad.
“I’m getting tired of her routine as the famous mother of synthetic reality,” continued Dr. Granger. “Sure, fluidic and crystallized intelligence are essential, but isn’t synthetic emotional and social intelligence even more important?”
We’d all heard this speech before, repeated endlessly on his EmoShow, and now that I was on the Council, I had the treat of hearing it in person as well. Dr. Granger’s claim to fame was as the creator of the technology that could pick apart and decipher emotions, and you could be sure he wouldn’t ever let you forget it.
I tried not to roll my eyes.
“What’s more important to understand?” he asked angrily as we walked through the hydroponics. “What someone said, or the reason they said it? Who knows more about happiness than I do?”
“I’d say they’re both equally important,” I replied. Dr. Granger had used his growing fame to secure the position as head psychologist on Atopia, and no matter what one thought of him, it was best to tread a careful line.
He stopped walking and turned to look at me. “Exactly.”
One of the grow-farm staff walked by and gave Dr. Granger a curt, respectful nod. Dr. Granger’s office was a few floors down from here, far away from the other senior staff, which was unusual. Observing him on our walk, I think I knew why.
As we walked, he had been watching the blank faces of the psombie inmates, and each of the staff had almost stood at attention while we passed. It was a structured and controlled environment, one that made him feel both powerful and safe—and important.
Most of the psombies here were people incarcerated for crimes, their minds and proxxi disconnected from their bodies as they waited out their sentences in multiverse prisonworlds. Even in paradise, we needed correctional services. Their bodies were consigned to community work around Atopia in the interim, safely guided by automated psombie-minders.
While most of the psombies here were inmates, an increasing number were people who donated their bodies for community work while they flitted off and amused themselves in the multiverse. These people judged their bodies to be without enough value to even warrant leaving their proxxi to inhabit them. They’d effectively given up their physical selves.
“We’d better start a new special file on Patricia,” he said after a pause.
It wasn’t my place to argue. We continued walking.
“Shimmer!” he called out to his proxxi, who materialized pacing beside us.
Shimmer was a perfectly androgynous creature. As a synthetic being, sex was superfluous in the biological sense but still critical in others. It was Shimmer’s ability to understand aspects of both genders and fluidly understand their emotional dynamics that had made Dr. Granger famous. It was his lifetime’s work, although most people whispered that it was based on taking credit for his graduate students’ efforts over the years.
“Yes, Dr. Granger?” Shimmer replied. “A new log entry on Dr. Killiam? It’s already done, sir.”
“Thank you, Shimmer,” replied Dr. Granger, smiling at his proxxi. “Now please, I need to speak with this young gentleman privately.”
“Yes, Dr. Granger.” Shimmer faded away.
Dr. Granger looked sideways at me while clasping his hands behind his back as we continued to walk.
“Do you really think it’s possible?” he asked, returning to our discussion. “I mean, with the technology we have now?”
“I do. The project has been going on for some time, as you well know, using some of your own work. Conscious transference—a lot of people have been working on it. But the trick, of course, is to get it right, for you to stay you in the process.”
“And if I agree to support you, to support this, you’ll make sure I’m the first?”
As good as medical technology was, there was always the risk of the unexpected, of some accident sending you, suddenly and irretrievably, into the forever of oblivion. Dr. Granger wasn’t as concerned about his actual life, however, as much as he was about the immortality of his fame.
“Yes,” I replied simply. “It will take some time, though certainly not before the commercial launch of pssi.”
“Good, good,” he said, apparently satisfied. He smiled at the mindless faces of a group of psombies that we passed. “You know, Jimmy, you’re always working, you should find yourself a nice girl, find some emotional balance.” He’d started into his EmoShow routine now, his face serious and concerned. “I’m sure a good-looking young man in your position must have girls throwing themselves at your feet. But you should find someone special.”
Saying nothing, I nodded and we continued on our walk down to his offices.
I’d already found someone special, but I wasn’t going to share that with him.
For a long time, I’d had my eye on Susie. She was a special soul, her emotions and sensations finely attuned, and I’d always felt like we shared a special bond. I’d known her as a fellow pssi-kid, but she’d come to my attention—and become a celebrity—as a teen when she’d turned herself into a living piece of installation artwork by mapping the emotional and physical state of each of the world’s ten billion souls into her pain system. She literally felt the world’s pain; a bloated stomach when the Weather Wars flared up in India, a burning calf for food riots in Rio, a painful pinprick when terrorists blew up a monorail transport in California.
Susie bravely bore the pain of the world like a Gandhi of the multiverse, imploring people to change their ways. Her impassioned pleas, featuring her painfully writhing nubile body, had been happily broadcast on obliging, bemused world news networks as the latest and greatest from the magical world of Atopia.
Her star had risen and, in turn, made her an object of both ridicule and inspiration. After a short while, though, the world had gotten bored and gone back to its media mainstay of killing and maiming.
For Susie, however, the project hadn’t been a fad, but her calling in life. Even when the world had turned off, she’d kept going. In the process, she’d gained a small but die-hard following of hippie flitterati that protected her from the harsh mockery of the world she reflected, forming an almost impenetrable sphere of free-floating flower children that inhabited the metaworlds around her, like petals on a suffering daisy.
I’d been trying to reach Susie for some time, but it was difficult to get through her protective entourage. I needed a way in. My security systems had recently flagged some unusual and illegal splintering activity from an old friend.
It seemed I had found a way.