As Tom emerged unsteadily from the pod, Harry's enthusiasm felt like sandpaper on his raw nerves.
Harry jittered with excitement beside the hologram of Tom's unconscious digital twin. “It works! I told you it would. Look at this sleeping beauty.” Against his will, Tom stood in front of his digital reflection. Oblivious, Harry prattled on, “A flawless copy unbound from your biology. Did it feel like you?” Tom nodded. “It did to me. He…you…passed all tests.”
“Harry. Stop talking.” Tom held his throbbing shoulder and focused on steadying his breathing, but acid still singed his throat.
“Creepy-crawly squeal: check! Judgmental vegan scowl: check! Nonexistent self-preservation instinct: check! Refusal to use violence when it’s justified, even against a faceless creature: check!” Then Harry’s tone changed, becoming somber and concerned. “Possible death wish: Tom, we need to talk about this…”
“Stop. Just stop. Nincompoop. Nincompoop!”
Harry's giddiness vaporized. “I'm sorry,” he mumbled, fidgeting with his non-existent glasses. “But we confirmed the technology works.”
Worked? As if this were just another experiment, not the replication of human consciousness. Tom studied his shoulder, blooming blue and black. “Seems your safeguards failed.”
“I didn't anticipate actual pain during syncing.” Harry paled, avoiding Tom's glare. “Sibyl, we need to adjust the sync-back settings. The painful memories are causing a physical reaction in the body. Wow, we just proved the power of mind over body.”
Sure, Harry, said Sibyl’s disembodied voice.
Harry looked into Tom's eyes, his own filled with a mixture of concern and bewilderment. “You okay, bud?”
Tom glanced at the holographic projection. A red patch expanded on the right side of the digital body. He pressed his lips together, words dying in his throat. “Is he okay? Is his unconscious body bleeding to death as you play God with his life?”
Harry's face blanched. “Crap, I didn't think of that. Sibyl, are we endangering his digital twin?”
Harry, I will take good care of the Underling.
“He’s me.”
Sure, Tom. Technically, he has both God and Underling status.
“What the hell does that mean?” Tom threw his hands up in the air. “No. Don’t tell me. I can’t deal with it right now.”
Sure, Tom.
“I didn’t think you’d experience real pain down there,” Harry murmured.
Tom's fraying patience finally snapped. “You…don’t get it, do you? You really don’t get it…” Tom rubbed his face. He’d let it happen. He was responsible for the Underlings’ pain, death, and terror. Exhaling sharply, he then spoke quietly without ever looking at Harry. “Did you get what you needed? Can we get back to work now?”
Harry froze, mouth half-open, finally registering the rage simmering beneath Tom's icy tone. “Of...of course. Yeah. Yes. I got it. There was a peculiar background dataflow between you and your twin that—”
Tom massaged his mottled shoulder. “What do you mean?”
“Sometimes it spikes before there’s an external action leading to a reaction from you. It’s like, hmm, an echo before the sound.?”
“A what? Like a gut feeling? An instinct?”
Harry shook his head. “Nothing coherent. More like digital static. I’ll monitor it. There is no reason or need for comms between twins when you’re Down Below. And gut feelings aren’t real. No scientific basis for them.”
“Who was the woman?” Tom hadn’t recognized her. There was nothing familiar about her or her hate toward him.
“I don’t know. I asked Sibyl to test your lack of self-preservation. I wasn’t expecting her to go that far…”
“How...kind of you.” This time, the acid rose to Tom’s mouth. “But who was she? A prediction?”
Harry shrugged. “Unlikely. Who would want to hurt the most beloved human in the world? It’s annoying they like you more than me.”
Tom’s waving hand dismissed Harry’s attempt to smooth things over.
“So, all I was feeling, while I was down there, it was truly the digital me, feeling those feelings and making those decisions.”
“Yeah. I ran a bunch of other tests in the background.”
Tom sank into the couch, scrunching his hair. “You just proved there’s nothing extra about consciousness. There’s no connectedness, no…magic. Who wants to live in a world without magic?”
“Buddy, quite the contrary, I just showed that story is the magical ingredient. That the stuff you love—the gift you shared with Sibyl—is, in fact, what makes us human.”
“Duh! Of course it is.”
“And can be explained and reproduced by science and tech, objectively.”
“I hate you. I do.” He stared at his bleeding twin.
Harry smiled with his eyes. “You wouldn’t know how to do it even if you tried.” Then Harry’s fleeting empathy turned into a cocky grin. “Congratulations, you’re one step closer to immortality.” Before Tom could stop him, Harry continued waxing poetic about the possibilities.
The darkness swelled inside Tom. “I don’t want to live forever.”
“Clearly,” Harry snapped sharply…sadly. “But this is not just about you. Is it?” He walked over and placed his hand over Tom’s hand, both on top of his aching shoulder.
Hot and cold, hot and cold, half-human, half something else. That bloody machine interface of his! Tom stood up and walked away, turning his back to his friend. “Harry, mimicking nature and Up Above’s life and death is what makes Down Below effective. Death is what makes us human. Humans, Underlings and…digital people need to die definitively, like the rest of us. You can’t change that. Ever.”
“Most of us actually want immortality, Tom. People will care about this.”
“Humans need high stakes to care, and caring is what makes us human. You know this! ” Tom bit his lip as he tried to figure out a way to reason quickly with his friend and refocus his attention on the Underlings. This is about the people he loves.
“Calm down, bud.”
Tom took a deep breath and turned around. “Look, sync while the real body is alive. Then, when the traveler dies, one of us—‘Gods’—may decide to wake up the digital twin, once, in exceptional circumstances, but Down Below’s rules apply.” He was giving Harry a way to resurrect his family. “I’m not agreeing to mass resurrections. For now, I’m supporting you and your need to keep your loved ones safe. Do you understand?” Harry nodded. “Digital life, aging, and death must continue to copy nature for everyone Down Below. The digital life, once gone, should be deleted forever apart from the fragments in other people’s memories. No resurrections.” He waited for Harry to process his words and their true bargaining power.
“But life is much more dangerous there. Health and mental issues, crime, environmental disasters…”
Tom released a loud, exasperated sigh. “I’m glad you remembered.” He’d just given Harry extra motivation to change life conditions Down Below. “Can we get back to work?”
“I’ll act on your suggestion for now. While you and I test it for the next few months. But you don’t have the right to make such a crucial decision for the rest of humanity.”
“No, I don’t, and yes, we need to test thoroughly and confer with people, once all tests pass. Until then, digital humans will age and die as Underlings do. No programmatic mass resurrections! No programmatic second…multiple resurrections of the same traveler. No changes to this directive unless we both approve.” Both he and Harry could still intervene in any life Down Below, after all, they were Gods, but he was trying to prevent the codification of platform-wide rules that would effectively change the benefits of the platform. He needed to buy some time.
Harry hesitated, which inflamed Tom’s simmering anger. Then Harry simply nodded. “I give you my word. Sibyl?”
Sure, Harry. All done.
Tom exhaled, the knot in his stomach loosening slightly. They had never broken their vows to each other. It was that trust that kept their partnership going during many stressful moments. They would disagree and get into intense debates, but once they’d reach a decision, they would commit to that course of action.
“Good.”
“Plus, I’ve hit a bit of a bump in the road. It won’t scale for the masses; we don’t have enough energy, computational power, and we’ll run out of storage space. We haven’t been backing up non-essentials for months.”
Before Tom could probe further, footsteps echoed down the hall, rapid and urgent. June burst into the room, face creased with worry. “The news—you need to see.”
Harry pulled up the stream.
“...a horrific scene today in Portland...” The anchor's usual polished charm was replaced by barely concealed panic.
“At this moment, we don’t know if this is an isolated incident. Mrs. Johnson returned to her home in Portland’s Pearl District to find the dead bodies of her youngest daughter, Lilly, and her husband, Ron.” This was probably the first act of violence the middle-aged anchor had had to report in the last five years.
A family photo materialized—a big man clutching a little girl's hand. His red eye as cold and shameless as before.
The air vanished from Tom's lungs. His knees buckled. “Ron Johnson?”
“You okay, Tom?” June gripped his shoulders, steadying him.
The newsreader continued. “Rosa, Mrs. Johnson’s oldest daughter, is in the hospital in critical condition.”
Guilt clawed up Tom's throat. “This is my fault.” He had to make this right somehow.
Harry gaped at the broadcast, then Tom, eyes wide with dawning comprehension. “What did you do?”
Tom staggered toward the door.
June blocked his path, hands raised pleadingly. “Tom, you can't leave.”
Every second he delayed, the weight of blame grew heavier. He shoved past June, lurching into the hall.
Harry seized his arm in a vice-like grip. “There's nothing you can do.”
Tom wrenched himself free. “I need to face them. I did this.” He continued on, Harry's protests fading behind him. He was going to stand in front of that family, acknowledge his guilt, and support them in any way he could.
Harry grasped Tom's shoulders, looking him square in the eyes. “Stay. We'll find a solution, I promise. I need you here to put an end to this nightmare once and for all. June will coordinate our resources to support the Johnson family.” Harry glanced at June, who nodded vigorously.
“You mean that?” Tom vacillated. “You’ll drop everything else?” Harry nodded.
“Stay,” June insisted. “I’m more qualified to go to Portland and help them.”
Tom took a deep breath. “Fine. Harry, no more delays.”
Tom felt his legs give way, his vision narrowing to a pinprick as a dark void surged toward him. He collapsed, his body hitting the cold, unforgiving stone floor with a thud. Everything was hurting. Everything was breaking. He needed to fix things, but he couldn’t do it alone, and Harry could only help with part of the problem—Down Below. Tom had to deal with another issue—his mental health. His mind, drowning in guilt, was barely holding on to reality, and his body exuded a severe allergic reaction to life. Still, he had to hold on to the painful thing at all costs. He had to stop their pain, the ones who suffered because of him.
Nathan, where are you? I need you.