Mindscan

"Did that change your view of her?"

"It only changed her view of me."

"What? Ah, yes. Clever. In any event, in recent years, I believe it's true that your mother also had a pair of cochlear implants installed, to aid her hearing. Isn't that so?"

"Yes."

"Did that change your view of her?" asked Deshawn.

"No," said Tyler.

"And, as your mother testified earlier, she had genetic therapy to rewrite her DNA so as to eliminate the genes that had already caused her to have one bout with breast cancer. But that didn't alter your view of her, did it?"

"No, it didn't."

"So removing parts of her body — as in the tonsillectomy — didn't alter your view of her, correct?"

"Well, yes."

"And replacing parts of her body, as in the dental fillings and the artificial hip, didn't alter your view of her, correct?"

"Correct."

"And modifying parts of her body, as in the reshaping of her eye through laser surgery, that didn't alter your view of her, correct?"

"Correct."

"And adding new parts to her body, such as the cochlear hearing-aid implants, that didn't alter your view of her, either, correct?"

"Correct."

"And even rewriting her genetic code to remove bad genes, that didn't alter your view of her, either, did it?"

"No."

"Removing. Replacing. Modifying. Supplementing. Rewriting. You've just testified that none of those things made Karen Bessarian cease to be your mother in your view. Can you then articulate for us precisely what it is about the Karen Bessarian sitting in this courtroom today that makes her not your mother?"

"She just isn't," said Tyler, flatly.

"In what way?"

"In every way. She isn't."

"That's twice, Mr. Horowitz. Are you going to deny her a third time?"

Lopez rose again. "Your honor!"

"Withdrawn," said Deshawn. "Mr. Horowitz, how much do you personally stand to inherit should this court agree to allow you to put your mother's will through probate?"

"It's a lot," said Tyler.

"Come on, you must know the figure."

"No, I don't. I don't normally handle my mother's financial affairs."

"Would it be safe to say that it's in the tens of billions?" asked Deshawn.

"I suppose."

"Quite a bit more than thirty pieces of silver, then, isn't it?"

"Your honor, for Pete's sake!" said Lopez.

"Withdrawn, withdrawn," said Deshawn. "Your witness, Ms. Lopez."

After lunch, Maria Lopez stood up, walked across the well, and faced her client.

Tyler seemed both worn down and flus-tered. His dark olive suit was wrinkled, and his receding hair was disheveled. "Mr. Draper asked you to articulate what made the plaintiff in this case not your actual mother," said Lopez. "You've had time over the break to think about it."

I wanted to roll my eyes but didn't yet know how. What she really meant, of course, is that they'd had time to confer over lunch, and that she had now coached him in a better answer.

Lopez continued. "Would you care to try again to tell us why the entity calling itself Karen Bessarian is not in fact your late mother?"

Tyler nodded. "Because she's, at best, a copy of some aspects of my mother.

There is no continuity of personhood. My mother was born a flesh-and-blood human being. Granted, at some point, a scan of her brain was made, and this … this thing … was created from it. But my flesh-and-blood mother did not cease to exist the moment the scanning was done; it's not as if the copy picked up where the original left off. Rather, my flesh-and-blood mother flew on a space-plane to Low Earth Orbit, then took a spaceship to the moon, and settled in at a retirement colony on Lunar Farside. All of that happened to my mother after this copy was made, and this copy has no recollection of any of that. Even if we grant that the copy is identical in every material way with my mother — and I don't grant that, not for a second — they have had divergent experiences. This copy is no more my mother than my mother's identical twin sister, if she'd had one, would be my mother."

Tyler paused, then went on. "Frankly, I don't care — I really don't — about whether copied consciousnesses are, in fact, persons in their own right. That's not the issue.

The issue is whether they are the same person as the original. And, in my heart of hearts, in my intellect, in every fiber of my being, I know that they are not. My mother is dead and gone. I wish — God, how I wish! — that wasn't true. But it is." He closed his eyes. "It is."

"Thank you," said Lopez.

"Mr. Draper," said Judge Herrington, "you may call your next witness."

Deshawn rose. He looked at Tyler, at Herrington, then down at Karen seated next to him. And then, spreading his arms a bit, he said, "Your honor, the plaintiff rests."

27

Now that I was cured, I'd been getting some more vigorous exercise — I could take it now, and I didn't want to lose the strength in my legs; I'd need that when I got back to Earth. Each day at noon, Malcolm and I met at High Eden's basketball court.