Mindscan (16 page)

"Ms. Bessarian was a widow," Lopez said. "Tyler and his minor children — Ms. Bessarian's grandchildren — are the only heirs named in her will; they are her sole heirs at law, and the normal objects of her bounty. Further, Tyler is named as personal representative in Ms. Bessarian's will. Tyler has filed a petition on behalf of himself and his children as sole deposees of the will. He wants to get on with the business of wrapping up her estate, and seeks the court's approval to do so." She sat down.

"Sounds like a very straightforward matter to me," said Judge Herrington, who had a face even longer than mine with a chin that splayed out like a shoehorn. He turned toward us. "But I see we have an unusual group with us this morning. Which one is the attorney?"

"Your honor," said Deshawn, standing, "I'm Deshawn Draper of Draper and Draper; we're based in Manhattan, but licensed to practice here in Michigan."

Herrington had a small mouth, which frowned as a perfect semicircle. He indicated the three of us, all seated at the table, with a little wave of his hand. "And these are?"

"My partner, Malcolm Draper. Karen Bessarian. And Jacob Sullivan, a friend of Ms. Bessarian."

"I meant," said Herrington, "what
are
these?"

Deshawn's voice was totally steady, totally unfazed. "They are Mindscans, your honor — uploaded consciousnesses. The originals of these three people underwent the Mindscan process offered by Immortex Incorporated, transferred their rights of personhood to these new bodies, and have retired to the far side of the moon."

Herrington now composed his features into a quizzical look, with brown eyes wide beneath a single face-spanning black eyebrow. "Of course, I know your firm's reputation, Mr. Draper, but…" He frowned, and chewed his small lower lip for a few moments. "The times, they are a-changin'," he said.

"That they are, your honor," said Deshawn, warmly. "That they are."

"Very well," said Herrington. "I suspect you take issue with Mr. Horowitz's petition?"

"Absolutely, your honor," said Deshawn. "Our position is simple. First, and foremost
this
is Karen Bessarian." Karen, who was seated between Malcolm and me, was dressed in a very prim and attractive dark-blue woman's business suit. Karen nodded.

Herrington looked down at a datapad. "It says here that Ms. Bessarian was born in 1960. This — this construct…"

"I've chosen a more youthful version of my own face," said Karen. "I'm not vain, but…"

Herrington nodded at her. "Obviously, whether this is really Karen Bessarian is an issue that I want to reserve judgment on — although if you are, well, it's a pleasure to meet you; I've very much enjoyed Karen Bessarian's novels." He looked back at Deshawn. "Do you have anything else, Mr. Draper?"

"It's not what I have, your honor. It's what Ms. Lopez
doesn't
have." Deshawn was clearly trying to not sound smug, but he was only partially succeeding. "You have before you a woman who says she is Karen Bessarian, alive and well. And surely in the absence of a death certificate, the court has to assume she's telling the truth."

Judge Herrington made that quizzical face again: eyes widening, eyebrow lifting. "I don't understand," he said.

Deshawn made his own version of a puzzled face. "Before probate begins," he said, "either the physician in charge or the county medical examiner would normally issue a death certificate
if in fact anyone had died
. But since no death certificate has been issued, clearly—"

"Mr. Draper," said Judge Herrington, "you seem to be confused."

"I—" began Deshawn, but he got no farther before Maria Lopez stood up.

"Indeed he is, your honor," she said, with great satisfaction. "We have a death certificate for Karen Bessarian right here."

"That damned death certificate changes everything," said Malcolm Draper, pacing back and forth — even uploads liked to pace when they were thinking. We had retreated back to the boardroom at Karen's house. "It puts a huge burden on us to prove that Karen isn't dead."

Karen had taken off the jacket of her suit — not that she could possibly be warm; I guess that, too, was another habit that survived uploading. She was sitting on my right, and Deshawn was on my left. She nodded grimly.

"But at least Judge Herrington agreed to a jury trial," said Malcolm, "and I think we'll do better with a jury than without one." He paused as he came to the end of his pacing path, and turned around.

"What do we know about the other attorney?" I asked. "This Lopez?"

Deshawn had a datapad in front of him, but he didn't consult it. "Maria Theresa Lopez," he said. "She's young, but very good. Probate is her specialty, so she may be out of her depth with some of the issues here, but I doubt it. She finished third in her class at Harvard, was on
Law Review
, and clerked for the Michigan Attorney General."

Malcolm nodded. "I've always made it a policy never to underestimate the other side."

"This is all going to take a lot of time," I said, "and the judge did issue a temporary freeze on Karen's assets." Actually, Herrington had frozen all but five hundred thousand dollars; he'd left her access to enough to meet basic household expenses and legal disbursements.

"And I
will
need more funds than what the judge left free, won't I?" said Karen. She pursed her plastic lips, then: "Well, let's see what I can do about that." She tilted her head up, spoke into the air. "Phone, call Erica." Then, in an aside to us, "Erica Cole is my literary agent."

"Erica Cole Associates," said the male receptionist, whose face now filled one wall, but before Karen could speak, he went on. "Oh, it's you, Karen. I'll put you straight through."

An idling pattern appeared on the screen for all of three seconds, then the face of a white woman of about fifty appeared. She was a study in circles: round head with ringlets of hair, round eyes behind round glasses. "Hello, Karen," she said. "What's up?"

"Erica, this is my friend Jake Sullivan, and these two gentlemen are my lawyers, Malcolm and Deshawn Draper."

"Malcolm Draper?" said Erica. "
The
Malcolm Draper?"

Malcolm nodded.

"Wow, we should talk," said Erica. "Are you represented?"

"For books? No."

"We should most definitely talk," Erica said, nodding decisively.

Karen made a mechanical coughing sound, and Erica's eyes swung back to face her.

"Sorry."

"You know I've been toying with writing another book." Karen said.

Erica nodded expectantly.

"Well, I'm ready — if the offer is good enough."

"What did you have in mind? Another
DinoWorld
book?"

"Yes," said Karen.

"Urn," said Malcolm, "ah, forgive me for interrupting, but…"

We all looked at him.

He lifted his shoulders apologetically. "Until all this is resolved," he said, "you should stay away of any properties you might not have clear ownership of."

For the first time ever, I saw rage on Karen's face. "What?
DinoWorld
is my property!"

"What's going on?" asked Erica.

Deshawn and Malcolm spent a couple of minutes filling Erica in about Tyler's action, while I watched Karen fume. I didn't think this was the time to tell Karen that, even if we lost our case, all she had to do was wait seventy years until
DinoWorld
was in the public domain; then she could write all the sequels she wanted, and no one could stop her.

"All right," said Karen finally, arms crossed in front of her chest "It won't be a

DinoWorld
book. But it
will
be the first new novel by me in fifteen years."

"Do you have an outline?" asked Erica. "Sample chapters?"

The thing about being the eight-hundred-pound gorilla is that you rarely had to remind people of that fact. "I don't need them," said Karen flatly.

I swung my eyes back to the wall screen in time to see Erica nodding. "You're right," she said. "You don't."

"What's the biggest advance ever paid for a novel?" asked Karen.

"One hundred million dollars," Erica said at once. "For the latest Lien book by Barbara Geiger."

Karen nodded. "St. Martin's still has the option on my next novel, right?"

"Right," said Erica.

"Okay," said Karen. "Call up Hiroshi there. Give him seventy-two hours to make a preemptive bid that exceeds a hundred million, or you'll go to auction. Tell him I need fifty percent on signing, and I need it within a week of closing the deal. Once you get the check, I'll have you disburse funds from it on my behalf
as
needed — but for starters, I should have some walking-around money, so get me a hundred thousand of it in cash."

"How soon can you deliver the manuscript?" asked Erica.

Karen thought for a minute. "I don't get tired anymore, and I don't waste time on sleep. Tell him I'll deliver it in six months; he'll be able to have it in stores for Christmas 2046."

"Do you have a working title?"

Karen didn't miss a beat. "Yes. Tell him it's called
Nothing's Going to Stop Me Now
."

The one disadvantage of having Deshawn, rather than Malcolm, as Karen's lead lawyer was that he did need to sleep. Karen had six guest bedrooms in this mansion of hers, and Deshawn was off in one of them, sawing wood. Malcolm, meanwhile, was using the wall screen in the boardroom to read up on legal precedents, and Karen — being true to her word — was in her office, making notes toward her new novel.

And that left me in her living room. I was trying out her leather-covered La-z-boy recliner. I'd never liked leather upholstery when I was biological, because it always made me sweat, but that wasn't a problem now. As I leaned back, I stared at the gray blankness of a wall screen that was turned off.

"Jake? I said softly.

Nothing. I tried again. "Jake?"

What the—?

"It's me. The other Jake Sullivan. On the outside."

What are you talking about?

"Don't you remember?"

Remember what? How can I hear you?

"Do you remember me? We talked a while ago."

What do you mean — 'talked'?

"Well, all right, it wasn't with words. But we communicated. Our minds touched."

This is nuts.

"That's what you said before. Look at your left elbow. Are there three small X's scratched just below it, on the outside of your arm?"

Whaddaya know … look at that. How did they get there?

"You put them there. Don't you remember?"

No.

"And you don't remember communicating with me before?"

No.

"What
do
you remember?"

All kinds of stuff.

"What do you remember recently? What happened yesterday, for instance?"

I don't know. Nothing special.

"All right. All right. Umm … let's see … Okay. Okay. Last Christmas. Tell me about last Christmas."

We actually had snow — there hadn't been a white Christmas in Toronto for years,
b
ut I remember we actually had some snow on Christmas Eve, and it stayed
t
hrough Boxing Day. I got Mom a set of silver serving plates.

I was flabbergasted. "Go on."

Well, and she got me a beautiful chess set with onyx pieces. Uncle Blair came over
f
or Christmas dinner, and—

"Jake."

Yes?

"Jake, what year is it?"

Twenty Thirty-Four. Of course, we're talking about Christmas, so that was last
y
ear: Twenty Thirty-Three.

"Jake, it's 2045."

Bull.

"It is. In fact, it's September 2045. Uncle Blair died five years ago. I remember the Christmas you're talking about; I remember the snow. But that was over a decade ago."

Bullshit. What is this?

"That's what I'd like to know." I paused, my mind racing, trying to sort it all out.

"Jake, if it's only 2034, as you claim, then how did you come to be in an artificial body?"

I don't know. I've been wondering about that.

"There was no uploading procedure that long ago."

Uploading?

"Immortex. The Mindscan process."

Nothing, then:
Well, I can't argue with the fact that I am here, in some sort of a
s
ynthetic body. But — but you said it's September.

"That's right."

It isn't. It's late November.

"If that's true, the leaves should all be off the trees — assuming you're still in or near Toronto. Have you seen outside today?"

Not today, no. But yesterday, and—

"What you think of as yesterday doesn't count."

There are no windows in this room.

"Blue, right? The color of the room."

Yes.

"There's a poster of the brain's structure on one wall, isn't there? I asked you to make a rip in it ten centimeters up from the lower-left corner."

No, you didn't.

"Yes, I did. Last time we communicated. Go look: you'll see it. A one-centimeter rip."

It's there, yes, but that just means you've been in this room before.

"No, it doesn't. But it, plus those three X's on your forearm, do mean that you are the same instantiation I've contacted before."

This is the first time we've ever communicated.

"It isn't — although I understand you think it is."

I'd remember if we 'd spoken before.

"So you'd think. But, gee, well, I don't know — it's as though your ability to form new long-term memories is gone. You can't remember anything new."

And I've been like this for eleven years now?

"No. That's the strange thing. The biological Jacob Sullivan only underwent the Mindscan process last month. You couldn't have been created any earlier than that."

I'm still not sure I buy all this bull — but, for the sake of argument, say it's true. I
c
ould see something going wrong with the — the "uploading," as you call
i
t — preventing me from forming new long-term memories. But why would I lose a
d
ecade worth of old memories?

"I have no idea."

It really is 2045?

"Yes."

A long pause.
How are the Blue Jays doing?

"They're in the toilet."

Well, at least I haven't missed much…

St. Martin's Press came through, offering an advance against royalties of $110 million for the next Karen Bessarian book. Meanwhile, Immortex agreed to pay for half the litigation costs, and to provide whatever other support they could.

Karen spent $600,000 to buy the earliest possible trial slot at auction. The whole thing struck me as obscene, but I guess that was just my Canadian perspective. In the States, you could jump the queue for health care if you had enough money; why shouldn't you be able to do that for justice, too? Anyway, as Deshawn explained, because Karen bought the trial slot, the case was framed as her suing Tyler.

Deshawn Draper and Maria Lopez spent a couple of days picking jurors. Of course, Deshawn wanted fans of Karen's work — either the original books, or the movies based on them. And he wanted to stack the jury with blacks, Hispanics, and gays, whom he — and the consultant we'd hired — felt might be more predisposed to a broader definition of personhood.

Deshawn also wanted rich jurors — the hardest kind to get, because the rich tended to find excuses to shirk their civic responsibility. "Death and taxes are supposed to be unavoidable," Deshawn had said to us. "But the poor know that the rich have ways to avoid paying their fair share to the IRS. Still, they get some comfort from the fact that death is the great leveler — or it was, until Immortex. They're going to resent Karen finding a way around that. Meanwhile, the rich are always paranoid about greedy relatives; wealthy people are going to despise Tyler."

I watched, fascinated — and slightly appalled — during
voir dire
, but soon enough the seven-person jury was impaneled: six active jurors plus one alternate. What Deshawn and Lopez each wanted mostly canceled out, and we ended up with four straight women, two of whom were black and two of whom were white; one gay black man; one straight white man; and one straight Hispanic man. All were under sixty; Lopez had managed to banish anyone who might possibly be too preoccupied with questions of their own mortality. None were rich, although two — apparently a high number for a jury trial — were certainly upper middle class. And only one, the Hispanic man, had ever read one of Karen's books — ironically,
Return to DinoWorld
, which was a sequel — and he claimed to be indifferent to it.

Finally, we were ready to go. The courtroom was simple and modern, with red-stained wooden paneling on the walls. At the bailiff's command, we did that all-rise thing you see on TV. As it turned out, the judge assigned to this case was the same Sebastian Herrington who had heard the initial motions. He entered and took a seat behind the long bench, its wood stained the same red as the walls. Behind the bench and to one side was the Michigan flag, and the American flag was on the other. Next to the bench was the witness stand.

Deshawn and Karen sat at the plaintiff's table, which was near the jury box. Tyler and Ms. Lopez were at an identical table, further along. In front of these two tables was a wide, open area covered with yellow tiles; this area, Malcolm told me, was referred to as the well.

I had no special status in this matter, so my seat was in the spectator's gallery, which, unlike most courtrooms I'd seen on TV, was off to one side, letting us see the faces of the plaintiff and the defendant, as well as those of the judge and witness.

Malcolm Draper sat next to me. Also in the gallery were Tyler's two daughters, ages twelve and eight, accompanied by Tyler's rather prim wife. The children looked totally adorable; their presence was clearly designed to make the jury think us heartless at depriving them of their rightful inheritance.