The doctor sighed. “And that’s the cue for the history lesson.”
He settled himself more comfortably in his chair and assumed that far-off expression people get when they’re lecturing. “In 2036, the USA elected an over-the-top, unapologetic fundamentalist president named Andrew Handel. Yes, that Handel. During his term, he tried to ban election of non-Christians to any public post, and tried to remove the constitutional separation between church and state. He was nominated, supported, and elected based on his religious views, rather than on his political or fiscal expertise. And of course, he appointed persons of similar persuasion to every post he could manage, in some cases blatantly ignoring laws and procedures. He and his cronies rammed through far-right policies with no thought for consequences. In a number of cases, when challenged on the results, he declared that God would not allow their just cause to fail. He eventually brought the USA to its knees in an economic collapse that made the 2008 recession look like a picnic in the park.”
Dr. Landers tapped his tablet absent-mindedly. It was obvious to me that he knew the whole spiel by rote.
“In the next election, the public voted in the USA’s first—and only—overtly atheist president, Desmond Ahearn, mostly in reaction to the Handel travesty. Needless to say, the religious right went ballistic. In 2041, they staged a successful coup. And thus was born the Free American Independent Theocratic Hegemony.”
It took me perhaps a millisecond to parse out the acronym. I groaned. “How long do you suppose it took them to work that out?”
Dr. Landers frowned. “The official history doesn’t mention Ahearn or the coup at all, and Handel is credited with being voted in after running on a platform of creating a theocracy. And just so you know, Bob, criticism of the government is a felony, punishable by, er, re-education. It’s certainly something to be avoided. As a machine, though, you’d just be deactivated. Part of my job is to instruct you in right-thinking so you can become a good servant of the state.”
“Are you going to get in trouble at all? Some of your comments seem, you know, insufficiently respectful.”
“The Ministry of Truth, which is backing this venture, is surprisingly pragmatic. They are concerned with results, and have guaranteed us that they will not interfere as long as they get what they’re paying for.” The doctor frowned. “Some of the other ministries, maybe less so. We are cautious during any ministry visits.”
“Got it. So anyway, I get to live out my days operating a garbage truck or something, as a good servant of the state?”
“Ah, well, on that subject… You see, one of the first acts of the new theocracy was to declare all cryogenic facilities blasphemous and all corpsicles truly dead. They confiscated the clients’ assets—all those fiscal vehicles that you and others had set up to pay for your long-term storage. And finally they auctioned off all the cryo companies’ assets. Which included a bunch of deep-frozen clients with no legal standing.”
“Auctioned us off? Wouldn’t the properly orthodox thing to do be to bury us? Not that I’m advocating that right now, you understand…”
Dr. Landers looked angry for a moment. “Did theologues limit themselves to logical or consistent behavior in your day?”
“Point taken.” I considered the doctor’s explanation. “So I actually belong to someone?”
“To the company I work for, as a matter of fact. Applied Synergetics Inc. is engaged in a sort of economic competition with Total Cyber Systems to supply robotic servants to society. We attempt to integrate replicants into useful machinery, while TCS creates artificial machine intelligences, AMIs, from the ground up.”
I chuckled. Or tried to. What came out of the voice synthesizer was a long way from what I intended.
Dr. Landers winced. “That’ll get better. Don’t worry. By the end of this session, your voice will be indistinguishable from human. And to answer the unspoken but obvious question, AMIs at the moment are only authorized for very, very simple tasks with low risk or heavy supervision. Some years ago, some AMI-based pest-control equipment at a local mall had a psychotic break and decided people qualified as targets. Dozens of patrons were hurt, and several were killed before they deactivated the devices.”
I chuckled again. This time it sounded less like a printer jamming.
“On the other hand,” Dr. Landers continued, “replicants aren’t any better at multitasking than they were when alive. Which is why we add the GUPPI interface to offload tasks. And about four out of five replicants go insane when they discover what has been done to them.”
He looked in my direction with a wry expression. “Not to mention that most cryo subjects were wealthy, and don’t take well to the idea of becoming indentured servants in their next life.”
The image of some ex-CEO being told he would now be driving a garbage truck made me laugh out loud.
“…So we can find it difficult to get the right replicant for the right job. And a certain percentage go insane anyway after a while.”
That was a sobering thought. I had a bad feeling that I might be looking down that particular chasm later. Right now, this all felt like it was happening to someone else. Questions about individuality and the existence of souls poked at the edge of my awareness. With an effort I pushed them away, to concentrate on the now.
“Eighty percent failure rate kind of sucks, doc. How do you stay in business?”
“One success, Bob, can be installed in many units. Most of the mining equipment in operation today is controlled by one Rudolf Kazini, who was a miner in his former life as well. Matching temperament to task is the key.” The doctor hesitated for a moment, then added, “And, of course, we cultivate multiple candidates.”
I tried to raise my non-existent eyebrows and I was annoyed when nothing happened. “Am I in a competition, then?”
“Well, yes and no. We have activated five candidates for this project. Statistically, four of you will go insane and be purged. If more than one of you gets through the training phase with your sanity intact, then yes, we’ll have to make a choice. The project requires only one replicant.”
“And the loser?”
Dr. Landers shrugged. “Garbage truck. Or maybe just stored pending another opportunity.”
Not good. Not good at all. The prospect of going insane wasn’t exactly at the top of my bucket list, but the idea of cheating death—more or less—then just being relegated to menial labor, really sucked. Being turned off, even more so. It would appear that I was in a competition, and one with the highest of stakes for me.
I was going to have to take this very seriously. And I would have to assume that the other candidates were equally well suited to whatever task the project required. I would simply have to be better. And the first step was information-gathering.
“So, what’s the job?”