Living History, Ben Essex [my miracle luna book free read TXT] 📗

a moment.

Yes.

I could.

Stage Two.

‘What are you doing, young man?’

I was pottering around Virtual Ben Franklin’s virtual office, poking things. Occasionally, I’d stick my hand through a wall and come out with a string of numbers.

‘Oh, don’t mind me,’ I told him. ‘I’m just re-writing your program code.’

The virtual copy of Benjamin Franklin blinked, confused. ‘I see.’

‘I don’t actually need to be in here to do it,’ I added, knowing he wouldn’t understand me. ‘I just thought we could chat while I worked.’

A string of ones took flight with a string of zeroes, bouncing around the room and out the window.

‘I see,’ Franklin repeated carefully. ‘What about?’

I considered. ‘What’s the first thought that comes into your head?’

‘I was born on the date-‘

‘No, no, no,’ I cut him off. ‘Not part of your biography. That’s the problem I’m trying to fix-we’re going to see if we can’t get a new first thought in your head.’

‘I see.’

‘So, Mr. Franklin.’ The trick was getting exactly the right balance. I had to make the Franklin Program seem intelligent without actually being intelligent. I didn’t want him able to outsmart me, but people would have to believe that he might. ‘Why don’t you tell me how you feel about… creativity in invention?’

‘I think it should be celebrated. I think it should be embraced. I think invention should be the prerogative of all men and in priority or not. And…’

‘Go on.’

‘I think I like to invent things. I think it is… an enjoyable activity.’

Excellent, I grinned. A small demonstration of personhood. He had passed the first test.

There was a long road ahead, but still.

This was going to work.

That’s what I told my bosses.

And that’s what I told my colleagues.

And that’s what I told myself.

Turned out, I wasn’t completely wrong.

Unfortunately, at the time I was so sure of myself that I even self-imposed a deadline. To the Fat Man himself.

‘You’re sure you can be ready so quickly?’ Peter Greuze asked, from behind his gigantic desk.

‘Oh yes, sir. I can have your first model ready to go in two weeks. An actual, factual, walking-talking Ben Franklin.’

‘I see.’ The Fat Man wrinkled his brow. ‘And why would I want one of those?’

I was thrown by the question. ‘But-you assigned me-‘

‘I asked you to resurrect the Presidents. Ben Franklin was never President.’

‘Yes, he was!’

The Fat Man glared at me.

‘Trust me, Mr. White. I know my history.’

‘But… my sources…’

‘Let me guess. You were studying from one of those Download Degrees you get online? They’re always riddled with error. No, Mr. White. Ben Franklin was never, in my opinion, Presidential Material.’

I felt vaguely insulted. Of course that man was Presidential material. This feeling was quickly drowned out by the depression sinking through my stomach. Damn you, Derry…

‘However,’ Greuze abruptly added, ‘we were eventually planning to merchandise other historical figures anyway. So I suppose your mistake is not completely without virtue. Tell you what, White. You get us a working Franklin in two weeks, and we’ll pretend everything is happening exactly as it should. Deal?’

Oh, thank God. ‘Deal.’

‘But two weeks, White. One day more, and your head is on the line. Understand?’

Gulp.

‘Yes, sir.’

Did I mention that Applied has a very high staff turnover? That’s because the best and the brightest work best under pressure. Lots of pressure.

When Greuze says something like: “Your head is on the line,” he really means it. There’s a lot of room for demotion in my department. Some people have been demoted all the way down to Organ Donor.

You get one mistake.

This was my first.

Twelve days later, I made my second.

And once again Derry found me thumping on her door at a stupid hour of the morning.

She started to yell, then saw my expression.

‘Jasie. What’s wrong?’

I began to shake my head and gibber. This went on for some time. In the end, Derry pulled me inside and administered some coherence via an industrial strength cup of coffee.

‘Calm down, J, calm down. Talk straight.’

‘I can’t do it,’ I blurted. ‘It can’t be done. I lost everything. Oh God, get me a drink with some alcohol in it…’

‘What do you mean, you lost everything?’ Derry demanded. ‘And there’s bourbon in the coffee.’

‘I suppose I haven’t technically lost it yet,’ I babbled. ‘But give them a couple of days and oh yes, they’ll take it away from me. Starting with my legs, for tradition. Then probably my liver, or whatever else is valuable, working their way up-‘

‘J, it’s late, I’m tired, and you’re talking nonsense. Will you please just calm down and explain things to me properly, before I crack your head open and scoop out the information for myself?’

‘All right. All right.’

I took a couple of deep breaths.

‘I don’t know what happened, exactly.’ I said. ‘I was programming. I was programming just like normal-everything was going fine… everything was going great, actually. I was ahead of schedule, Derry. Way ahead. And then…’

‘And then what?’

‘I don’t know! It all crashed! All my data, all my backups. There was some kind of massive system failure. I must’ve… I don’t know what I must’ve done. I lost everything.’ My teeth chattered. ‘I lost everything.’

‘Can’t you redo it? Retrace your work?’

‘Not all of it! Not in two days!’

‘Surely you can get an extension.’ Derry bit her bottom lip. ‘I mean, your boss was pretty harsh to give you a two week deadline…’

‘I asked for it.’

‘You asked for a two week deadline?’

‘Forgive me for having a healthy ego,’ I snapped. ‘It seemed like it was going to turn into a pretty easy project.

‘Okay.’ Derry began pacing. She was starting to get just as freaked out as me. ‘Okay, let’s be sensible. We’re smart. We can fix this.’

‘How?’

‘You’re not helping.’

‘This is all your fault, you know. Your idea.’

‘Fine then, I’m the smart one.’

‘It was going to be so simple,’ I twitched, digging my fingers into the sofa. ‘I’d have it all done by tomorrow. I’d upload the Ben Sim into his body a day earlier, spend the afternoon playing chess. You know he was the first chess player in America? Oh, God…’

Derry’s head snapped up. ‘Upload him into his body? What body?’

‘We’ve got a cloned shell waiting in the lab,’ I waved my hands. ‘Engineered to look as much like Ben Franklin as possible. Pointless now.’

Derry was twirling her moustache. She had a particular kind of look on her face, a Stage Two kind of look.

She was always better at ideas than me. I’m an execution man. If she didn’t like her restaurant so much, the woman’d be high-up in Applied by now.

‘This body,’ Derry said. ‘Can you show me?’

I took her across town, to see the lab. Why not?

The Salmon Corporation is a building, tall and plain as any other-a skyscraper with glass skirt-tails. Three miles below, there is a basement.

The basement is a square kilometre in size, and that’s the lab.

It’s all carved from chrome and polished glass; Perspex cages lining the walls, plastic screens and chemical cabinets everywhere. Room after antiseptic room, each one devoted to a more baffling design. Half-built robots and mysterious machines stand by lumps of bubbling flesh and vats of half-green liquid. All sorts of things for all sorts of reasons; details on a need to know basis. The whole place smells of carpet cleaner, despite the lack of carpet.

Getting Derry in was easy. My security clearance was only moderate, but a couple of well placed bribes served to jack it up a notch or two.

We walked together through the subterranean corridors.

‘So,’ Derry said, unimpressed. ‘This is where you work.’

‘Yeah.’

‘Funny. I always pictured something less… shiny.’

I wasn’t really in the mood for conversation.

Eventually, we reached my workden-my “office,” I suppose. As one of the larger Sub-Labs, it was positively cavernous. So big that it was always cold; every breath turned to fog, drifting off in little clouds.

Great tubes hung down from the ceiling, each one filled with liquid. A few also contained half-grown organs, suspended in goo. Spinal cords, skeletons and the occasional beating heart.

In the middle of it all was my baby. Shining in the stark light, covered by cables-a naked body, rather plump, instantly recognisable. The Flesh Sculptors weren’t perfect, of course-they hadn’t got the nose quite right, and there was no hair (for some reason, cloning decent hair is difficult). But other than that, the illusion was unimpeachable. Benjamin Franklin was in the room with us.

‘Not bad,’ Derry said, circling the Clone Tank. ‘Not bad at all.’

‘Useless now,’ I muttered.

‘Not… not necessarily,’ Derry said. ‘What are you using for a brain?’

‘Complex Computer Processor. Bio-augmented tech.’

‘Generation?’

‘Third and Seventh.’

Derry stood for a second. Then said; ‘Yeah. I can make that work.’

I stared blankly.

‘Third and Seventh series aren’t perfect,’ she continued, prodding the tank, ‘but they’ll just about hold a human mind. It’s been done before.’

There was a short pause.

‘Derry,’ I said. ‘You’ve got to be kidding.’

‘You have two days to get this thing working like a person, right?’ Derry asked. ‘Well, I can get it working like a person.’

‘What you’re suggesting… it’s very, very, very illegal.’

‘Since when does your Company care?’

‘This is one of those crimes they actually give a damn about,’ I hissed. ‘For religious reasons.’

‘Pfft, religion…’

‘Derry,’ I shook my head. I shook my whole body. ‘I don’t even know where to start.’

‘Trust me, it’s easy,’ Derry said. ‘I’ve done it before. It’s just data transfer and storage-that’s all brains do, that’s all computers do, and bridging the gap is child’s play. I can put your mind in that body and have it back out again whenever need be. No sweat.’

‘Why does it have to be my mind?’

‘Because this is your responsibility.’

‘But they don’t just want a body!’ I insisted. ‘They don’t want a lookalike! They want the real thing!’

‘Why isn’t a lookalike good enough for them?’

‘Oh gee, I don’t know Derry. Maybe because they’re perfectionists or just fucking insane!? Why don’t we go ask them!?’

‘Calm down,’ Derry hissed. ‘I know they want more than a lookalike, and that’s the other reason it has to be you. You have to convince them, Jasie.’

‘Convince them,’ I echoed.

‘You have to make them think that your experiment worked. You have to make them think that you’re really Ben Franklin brought to life. That’s the only way to keep you from being punished.’

‘But if they catch me…’

‘But if they don’t.’ Derry grabbed my arms, looking into my eyes with her big, beautiful blues. ‘I’ll go over your data, find out what you did wrong. I’ll get a working Franklin Sim up and running in a couple of weeks, I promise. But until then, you’ll have to carry the con.’

‘No. This is insane.’ I stepped back. ‘It’ll never work, it’s too… I’ll just confess. I’ll go and I’ll confess. I’ll tell them I screwed up. And…’

‘And even if they don’t do something horrible to you, you’ll be fired,’ Derry said coldly. ‘Best case scenario.’

‘What about … me?’ At that moment, a tiny switch in the back of my head went click, and I knew two things. One-I would have to do it. And two-the personal pronoun problems were going to get serious. ‘My body, I mean, this body. What happens to