Identity Theft

Raoul spread his arms. “Hey, man, you don't tamper with perfection.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Sure. Still, how much could you change things? I mean, say you're a midget; could you choose to have a normal-sized body?”

“Sure, of course.”

I frowned. “But wouldn't the copied mind have trouble with your new size?”

“Nah,” said Raoul. The waitress returned. She bent over far enough while placing Raoul's drink on the table that her breast touched his bare forearm; she gave me a look that said, “See what you're missing, tiger?” When she was gone, Raoul continued. “See, when we first started copying consciousness, we let the old software from the old mind actually try to directly control the new body. It took months to learn how to walk again, and so on.”

“Yeah, I read something about that, years ago,” I said.

Raoul nodded. “Right. But now we don't let the copied mind do anything but give orders. The thoughts are intercepted by the new body's main computer. That unit runs the body. All the transferred mind has to do is think that it wants to pick up this glass, say.” He acted out his example, and took a sip, then winced in response to the booze's kick. “The computer takes care of working out which pulleys to contract, how far to reach, and so on.”

“So you could indeed order up a body radically different from your original?” I said.

“Absolutely,” said Raoul. He looked at me through hooded eyes. “Which, in your case, is probably the route to go.”

“Damn,” I said.

“Hey, don't take it seriously,” he said, taking another sip, and allowing himself another pleased wince.

“Just a joke.”

“I know,” I said. “It's just that I was hoping it wasn't that way. See, this case I'm on: the guy I'm supposed to find owns the NewYou franchise here.”

“Yeah?” said Raoul.

“Yeah, and I think he deliberately transferred his scanned mind into some body other than the one that he'd ordered up for himself.”

“Why would he do that?”

“He faked the death of the body that looked like him — and, I think he'd planned to do that all along, because he never bothered to order up any improvements to his face. I think he wanted to get away, but make it look like he was dead, so no one would be looking for him anymore.”

“And why would he do that?”

I frowned, then drank some more. “I'm not sure.”

“Maybe he wanted to escape his spouse.”

“Maybe — but she's a hot little number.”

“Hmm,” said Raoul. “Whose body do you think he took?”

“I don't know that, either. I was hoping the new body would have to be at least roughly similar to his old one; that would cut down on the possible suspects. But I guess that's not the case.”

“It isn't, no.”

I nodded, and looked down at my drink. The dry-ice cubes were sublimating into white vapor that filled the top part of the glass.

“Something else is bothering you,” said Raoul. I lifted my head, and saw him taking a swig of his drink. A little bit of amber liquid spilled out of his mouth and formed a shiny bead on his recessed chin. “What is it?”

I shifted a bit. “I visited NewYou yesterday. You know what happens to your original body after they move your mind?”

“Sure,” said Raoul. “Like I said, there's no such thing as moving software. You copy it, then delete the original. They euthanize the biological version, once the transfer is made, by frying the original brain.”

I nodded. “And if the guy I'm looking for put his mind into the body intended for somebody else's mind, and that person's mind wasn't copied anywhere, then…” I took another swig of my drink. “Then it's murder, isn't it? Souls or no souls — it doesn't matter. If you shut down the one and only copy of someone's mind, you've murdered that person, right?”

“Oh, yes,” said Raoul. “Deader than Mars itself is now.”

I glanced down at the swirling fog in my glass. “So I'm not just looking for a husband who's skipped out on his wife,” I said. “I'm looking for a cold-blooded killer.”

* * *

I went by NewYou again. Cassandra wasn't in — but that didn't surprise me; she was a grieving widow now. But Horatio Fernandez — he of the massive arms — was on duty.

“I'd like a list of all the people who were transferred the same day as Joshua Wilkins,” I said.

He frowned. “That's confidential information.”

There were several potential customers milling about. I raised my voice so they could hear. “Interesting suicide note, wasn't it?”

Fernandez grabbed my arm and led me quickly to the side of the room. “What the hell are you doing?” he whispered angrily.

“Just sharing the news,” I said, still speaking loudly, although not quite loud enough now, I thought, for the customers to hear. “People thinking of uploading should know that it's not the same — at least, that's what Joshua Wilkins said in that note.”

Fernandez knew when he was beaten. The claim in the putative suicide note was exactly the opposite of NewYou's corporate position: transferring was supposed to be flawless, conferring nothing but benefits.

“All right, all right,” he hissed. “I'll pull the list for you.”