5
February 4, 2028
9:03 p.m.
Detroit, MI
“Would you do it?”
“Do what?”
Anthony lifted a finger, pointing at the billboard on the roof of the apartment building. It stood shining against the hazy night sky, lit from underneath by four bright halogen lights. On the left side of the advertisement, a man shivered in the cold, surrounded by a blizzard of snow, icicles dripping from his nostrils. On the right, the same man relaxed on a sunny tropical beach, lying between two palm trees with a drink in his hand, the hot sun beating down on him. Above the images, a slogan jumped out in big block letters: “FROM THIS TO THAT IN SECONDS FLAT.”
“What, you think I can afford that?” Mike chuckled. “No way, I don’t think so.”
“I mean, if you could afford it,” Anthony continued. “I don’t know if I would do it.”
Mike furrowed his brow. “You don’t know if you would do it? Man, if I could afford it, I would be on the first trip out of here. Somewhere nice and warm.” He closed his eyes, imagining himself on that tropical beach.
Anthony shook his head. “I don’t know if I trust it. I don’t want my whole body to be converted to data.”
“I’m sure it’s completely safe,” Mike brushed him off. “Let me look it up.”
He pulled out his phone and typed in a quick search, his fingers freezing in the midwinter chill. As he scrolled through the results, a look of surprised concern snuck onto his face.
Anthony glanced over Mike’s shoulder at the glowing screen. “What is it? Not quite as safe as you thought?”
“Yeah, maybe not,” Mike mumbled. “I guess two of the scientists who developed the technology are dead, and one is in prison for killing one of the other ones...”
Anthony nodded. “Oh yeah, I think I listened to a podcast about this. That whole story is nuts.”
“Alison Emery is the one in prison,” Mike gleaned from one of the articles. “It sounds like she shot the other scientist because she wanted the technology to be used for public good or something.”
“Yeah, but doesn’t she claim something else?” Anthony asked. “I think she says it was actually Preston Jorgensen who shot the guy.”
Mike kept scrolling. “Oh, yeah, here we go. Apparently she claims that the transfer process actually removes something from the subject, and she was trying to stop Jorgensen from launching the service when he shot and killed Sam Wilkins...”
Anthony exhaled a humorless chuckle. “That’s dark. What did she say was removed?”
“Hmm... it looks like she says it was something immeasurable. So, she might just be crazy.”
“I don’t know. I wouldn’t want to go through.”
“Hmm...” Mike continued to tap through articles, eventually coming across one that made him catch his breath. He read through the first few lines, his eyes growing wide. “Oh man, I guess they actually used the digital transfer system to transport her to prison. So if she was right about the process removing something...”
Anthony shook his head. “That’s dark.”
“Oh, and check this out... she’s actually written about her experience from prison. I gotta read this to you.”
Mike held up his phone and recited Emery’s words aloud, his voice trembling as he imagined her state of mind:
“My body, my nerves, my brain, my neurons, my memories, my mind... the mechanisms of life continue to function, but there is no actual experience... the machine marches on with no beholder, with no true perception... a book written in an unintelligible language, a movie playing in an empty theater... life is awareness... I fear I am nothing but a shell... I live without life...”
Anthony took a deep breath. “That’s really dark. Still think you would go to Jamaica through that thing?”
Mike shook his head. “I guess not. Doesn’t matter, I can’t afford it anyway.”
The two men laughed, changing the subject to their own poor financial planning as they let the dark metaphysical quandaries slip out of their minds. Seven hundred miles away, Alison Emery sat in her cell, thinking without hearing her thoughts, cycling electricity through her neural network on autopilot; an empty shell of human life.
The machine marched on.