Mindscan

Funny way of phrasing it: the other one was the biological version, not this one. But "shutting it off" — it, now! — had been the way the thought had come to me. After all, this whole rigmarole with a retirement community on Lunar Farside would be unnecessary if the original could be discarded now that it was no longer needed.

But the law would never stand for that — not even here in Canada, let alone south of the border. Ah, well, I'd never see the other me again, so what did it matter? I — this me, the new-improved, in-living-color Jacob Paul Sullivan — was the one and only real me from now on, until the end of time.

Finally, Porter returned. "Here's someone who might be able to help you," he said.

"We've got technicians, of course, who could work with you on your walking, Jake, but it occurred to me that she might be better able to give you a hand. I think you already know each other."

From my position in the wheelchair I looked at the woman who had just entered the room, but I couldn't place the face. She was plain, perhaps thirty, with dark hair sensibly short, and—

And she was artificial. I hadn't realized it until she moved her head just so, and the light caught her in a certain way.

"Hello, Jake," she said, with a lovely Georgia drawl. Her voice was stronger than before, with no quavering. She was wearing a beautiful sun dress with a floral print; I was still sulking in my terry-cloth robe.

"Karen?" I said. "My goodness, look at you!"

She spun around — apparently she was having no difficulty controlling her new body. "You like?" she said.

I smiled. "You look fabulous."

She laughed; it sounded a bit forced, but that was surely because it was generated by a voice chip, rather than that the mirth was insincere. "Oh, I've never looked fabulous. This" — she spread her arms — "is what I looked like in 1990. I'd thought about going younger, but that would have been silly."

"Nineteen-ninety," I repeated. "So you would have been—"

"Thirty," Karen said, without hesitation. But I was surprised at myself; I knew better than to ask a woman her age; I'd intended to keep my little bit of mental math private.

She went on: "It seemed a sensible compromise between youth and maturity. I doubt I could fake how vacuous I was at twenty."

"You look great," I said again.

"Thanks," she said. "So do you."

I doubted my synthetic flesh was capable of blushing, but that's what I felt like doing. "Just a few touch-ups here and there."

Dr. Porter said, "I asked Ms. Bessarian if she would work with you for a bit. See, she's been through this in a way even our technicians haven't."

"Through what?" I asked.

"Learning to walk again as an adult," said Karen.

I looked at her, not getting it.

"After my stroke," Karen supplied, smiling.

"Ah, right," I said. Her smile was no longer lopsided; the stroke damage would have been faithfully copied in the nanogel of her new brain, I supposed, but maybe they had some electronic trick that simply made the left half of her mouth execute a mirror image of whatever the right half was doing.

"I'll leave you to it, then," said Porter. He made a show of rubbing his belly. "Maybe I'll grab a late lunch — you folks are lucky enough not to need to eat anymore, but I'm getting hungry."

"And besides," said Karen, and I swear there was a twinkle in one of her synthetic green eyes, "letting one Mindscan help another is probably good for both of them, right? Lets them both know that there are others like them, and gets them away from the alienating feeling of being poked and prodded by scientists."

Porter made an impressed face. "I could have sworn you didn't opt for the x-ray vision option," he said, "but you see right through me, Ms. Bessarian. You're a psychologist at heart."

"I'm a novelist," Karen said. "Same thing."

Porter smiled. "Now, if you'll excuse me…"

He left the room, and Karen appraised me, hands on hips. "So," she said, "you're having trouble walking."

She was reasonably small, but I still had to look up at her from the wheelchair.

"Yeah," I said, the syllable mixing embarrassment and frustration.

"Don't worry about it," she said. "You'll be fine. You can teach your mind to make your body obey it. Believe me, I know — not only did I have to deal with a stroke, but when I was a girl down in Atlanta, I used to dance ballet — you learn a lot about how to control your body doing that. So, shall we get started?"

My whole life, I'd been terrible at asking for help; I somehow thought it was a sign of weakness. But here I wasn't asking for it; it was being freely offered. And, I had to admit, I did need it.

"Um, sure," I said.

Karen brought her hands together in front of her chest in a clap. I remembered how swollen her joints had been before, how translucent her skin. But now her hands were supple, youthful. "Wonderful!" she exclaimed. "We'll have you back to normal in no time." She held out her right hand, I took it, and she hoisted me to my feet.