The Immortality Game

“Don’t tell anyone where you’re going. I have a safe house there. You’ll be fine, you’ll see. Tomorrow, around ten, okay?” He pulled out the cable and leaned in to kiss her cheek again. “I owe you big time.”

“Georgy,” she moaned, but he had already turned away, walking swiftly toward the morgue exit. It’s what they always do, isn’t it? If there was one thing Zoya had learned in life, it was that men always walked away from their responsibilities.

She sagged against the edge of the table and looked down at the small package. Fear made it difficult to swallow. Fear for Georgy and for herself, though it was tinged with anger that he had forced this upon her. She closed her grip around the package, and her hand brushed the clammy skin of the corpse. An image filled her mind of Georgy laid out on the slab while she rouged his cold cheeks. She shuddered and tucked the package into a pocket of her lab coat.

Phoenix, Arizona

Saturday, June 7, 2138

10:15 p.m. MDT

Marcus sat up in the recliner and rubbed his eyes. “How long was I out?”

The husky voice that sounded almost but not quite like his dead father’s responded from the nearest wall speaker: “Twelve minutes, forty-two seconds. You passed.”

“I did?” Relief coursed through Marcus as he exhaled. Six years of hard studying and now he finally had his degree. He reached back and unplugged the cable from the slot behind his left ear, let it slide back into the wall socket. “You sure, Papa? We’re not supposed to know until tomorrow.”

“You know me,” said the voice that was a bit too monotone to mimic Javier Saenz’s true voice. “A system has to be top-notch to keep me out. I knew you’d pass anyway. I know your mind.”

Marcus pushed the recliner back into place, stood, and stretched his arms with a yawn. His shoulders popped.

“You should take a walk,” said his father. “You could use some exercise.”

“I’m hungry.” He glanced down at his expansive belly and scowled. “And it’s too late for a walk anyway.”

“You just don’t like to go outside,” Javier grumbled. “Fine, eat. Now that you’re through with school, we need to talk.”

Marcus strolled to the tiny kitchenette and sat on the stool. “My usual,” he said to the wall speaker.

“Medium pizza, pepperoni and black olives, ten minutes,” said the soothing female voice of the apartment.

“At least add a salad and an apple or something,” Javier said. “You’ll need the energy.”

“What’s that mean? You have some big plan to celebrate my doctorate?”

“I need you to do something for me. Take a trip.”

“A trip? To where?” Marcus stood and walked to the single window on the far wall. Years ago Phoenix would have been a sea of shining lights this time of night; now the darkness was broken only by the streetlights and a scattering of lit windows. The sky should have blazed with tens of thousands of air cars. Instead he could see only a few dozen. On Bell Road, six stories below, not a soul could be seen.

“Moscow.”

Marcus jerked his hands up from the window ledge. “What the hell? What’s going on?” Sedona was the farthest Marcus had ever gone from Phoenix, and he had rarely even left his apartment in the eight years since finishing high school.

“I found something. Something I’ve been searching for ever since I died.”

Was it Marcus’s imagination or did his father’s flat voice actually have a hint of excitement in it? “Go on.”

“Someone plugged a data card into the Web from an address in Moscow. It’s clearly something that was never meant to touch the Web. Research that must have been going on for decades, at least.”

Marcus smirked and walked back to the stool at the small table. “The cloning thing again?”

The wall speaker emitted a sigh. “You know better than that. Everyone does cloning. This is the digital copying of a full human mind. Like I did, only much different. Better.”

“So? You already exist digitally. How does this change anything?”

“I want…‌no, I need to be real again. A few years work, with me to help them…”

Marcus shook his head. “You won’t convince me. I call you ‘Papa’ because it makes things easier and because you know enough to fake it really well, but you’re just a great simulation, a bunch of computer code.”

“Give me a chance. Please. The worst that can happen is you end up being right and they can’t do it.”

“Moscow’s a scary place. Heck, everywhere’s pretty scary these days. Are we even allowed to travel there?”

“Not normally. I’ve hacked into our Foreign Affairs net and arranged a passport for you on the next suborbital out of Salt Lake City. You’ll be a diplomat.”

“You crazy? You’re gonna get me thrown in prison!”

“The credentials are genuine. No one can touch you.”

“I’m no diplomat. What job am I supposed to be doing there?”

“It’s a special position. No one will question you. I’ll fill you in with everything you need to know.”

A ping from the wall speaker told Marcus his late supper would arrive in a minute.