Dr. Chrono had stopped paying attention to faces.
He saw so many of them, day in and day out, that committing them all to memory was a strain on his mind. These days, if he recognized someone by their face, it was largely a coincidence. It was much more important to know someone’s position by their clothes and ID information, and by their voice. If they were capable of speaking, and they were speaking to him, that meant that they merited attention from him (most of the time, anyway).
The clones in the pods didn’t speak. They weren’t awake, and so they couldn’t. They were all in various states of generation, so some didn’t even have faces or anything recognizable about them. The ones that were far enough along to have faces, however, were the ones that Dr. Chrono had to be the most concerned about. If a clone died while they were indistinct, disposal was a lot easier than it was when features had begun to surface. A distinct clone required disposal like that of an actual cadaver; some of the more sentimental scientists insisted on holding brief funerals for the ones that “didn’t make it.” Furthermore, the farther along a dead clone was, the more resources there were that had been wasted in its failed creation.
For Dr. Chrono, not bothering with the faces of the clones he was generating was not so much a matter of not getting attached. Instead, it was a matter of not thinking too hard of the fates those faces might meet. Rarely was a clone made without some kind of purpose; there were plenty of naturally-born humans without purposes. Some of them were intended as specially-tailored adoptee children, either from someone unrelated to the commissioner or intended as a replacement for someone who was related to them. Dr. Chrono considered those the lucky ones, for at least they could approach a normal life. There were no guarantees about their families, but at least they would have one.
Others were intended as engineered elites in some field or another. There were the super soldiers and the born scientists who were intended to either further humanity’s runaway technological development or enforce the government’s runaway grip on the law. Certain parameters were adjusted in these clones so that the sting of not having a normal upbringing was lessened, but a few always somehow managed to feel the absence of normalcy in their lives. That feeling that something was missing was always detrimental to the clone’s performance, to the point that an entire discipline of psychology had evolved around addressing it.
The least fortunate of the clones were the born servants. The ones intended as drone bodies for people rich enough to afford new body uploads didn’t count, as they were never intended to have their own consciousnesses. There was indeed a class of people in the world who wanted servants for various purposes but did not want to have to deal with the specific red tape of hiring a “natural” person (or were doing thing that could never be done to a “natural”). Instead, they exchanged a significantly higher price tag for shady, loosely-enforced laws that were often ignored in favor of letting the privileged do as they please.
Dr. Chrono had heard the stories. Clones could be subjected to all manner of abuse under the table; looking too deeply into a clone’s fate was an easy way to permanently lose any remaining faith in humanity. That was something he knew about firsthand. There was even a not-so-secret ring of “clone hackers” that knew how to upload minds into conscious clones, effectively trapping them in their own bodies.
Thinking about the endless but often grim possibilities for each clone made Dr. Chrono sigh heavily and scratch near his whitened, fluffy mustache. His colleagues often asked why he didn’t just upload into a younger body instead of staying middle-aged, and his answers changed every time. Said answers were always cryptic and sounded vaguely like excuses, but his refusal to elaborate generally shut the curious ones up quickly. Then again, people mostly knew better than to cross one of the world’s top clone engineers.
Climbing to the top of this field took Dr. Chrono years of hard work, and if he thought that if he didn’t show it at least a little, people would forget his service to the field. It probably did border on an abuse of clout at times, but everyone abused something these days. If shoving his position in people’s faces was the worst thing he did, that put him quite a bit ahead of most people. Not that it particularly mattered; it took more than a supposed moral high ground to be ahead of anyone in this day and age.
Humming an aimless tune to himself, Dr. Chrono browsed the rows of clone pods via his computer. So far, everything seemed to be in order. All the clones were properly arranged by purpose, and no one parameter seemed to stand out as abnormal. Though a passerby might have thought that he was breezing through the readouts rather quickly, he was just that fast at assessing the information from each clone pod. It helped that major changes rarely happened from day to day, and if they did, they stuck out obviously enough to get caught and addressed.
At one point, Dr. Chrono stopped his browsing and clicked back, because he finally managed to detect something that stood out. Located somewhere in the middle of a drone clone row was a certain clone that, for some reason, was slated to have higher than average intelligence. The old scientist squinted at the computer screen and confirmed that his eyes were not deceiving him. While not the strangest or most dangerous error, it merited filling out a report at the very least. It could be a computer error making a projection that didn’t exist, or something was indeed off in the clone’s chemistry that he could adjust.
Alternately, one other explanation remained: this clone was intended to be a new body for someone struggling with a brain issue. The interface between mind and brain had yet to be fully cut; if the brain wasn’t adequate, that could slow someone with even the most radiant personality. The mind could be uploaded, and with the proper brain tissue, it would function completely again. Granted, the upload had to be done quickly after the issue was detected to avoid the erosion of memories, but if caught in time, someone would be able to move on in a new body like nothing had ever happened. The mind and body separation was a strange and arbitrary distinction, but in the age of brain uploads, it existed.
Shaking his head and changing the tune he was humming, Dr. Chrono filled out the report, then proceeded on to reviewing the other clone pods.
Elsewhere, a female Dr. Chrono was rifling through a swath of papers scattered across her desk.
The West Regional Uplifting Center had tons of data and paperwork that needed to be stored by virtue of the work being done there. Bringing apes and robots to not just sentience, but sapience created a lot of data that needed to be filed away. Even in this computerized day and age, Dr. Chrono swore that some work just had to be on paper out of spite. Something about tracking the acquisition of written language, or so she had been told. She preferred spite as the reasoning for the papers cluttering her desk right now.
With a disgruntled grunt, Dr. Chrono set the papers to the sides of the desk and booted up her laptop to begin transferring the paper records to the database. If she had her way, these records would have been put right into the database in the first place so that she wouldn’t have to do some grunt’s work. Then again, everyone had to do grunt work at some point, even esteemed scientists in the field of uplifting.
Uplifting was the official term given to enabling apes, robots, and other “less evolved” beings to achieve sapience. Dr. Chrono was unsure of how she felt about the term; uplifting sounded too light and happy to her, considering what often had to be done to these beings to grant them sapience, but she couldn’t think of a better term to replace it. The uplifting process involved a lot of genetic engineering and chemicals for the organics, not all of which was painless, or even consistently successful. She had a feeling that the papers on the sides of the desk contained at least one case of “failure” where some poor creature either had a bad reaction to the chemicals or was otherwise unlikely to “awaken” to sapience. Alas, receiving such bad news was part of the job.
Working with the AIs and robots was easier, though a bit less directly under Dr. Chrono’s purview. The best coders and AI specialists in the region had been recruited to write original code and patches for uplifting robots and less tangible AIs, and generally, this process went smoothly. In the case of “raw” uplifts where an AI was created as sapient, the process could be as simple as downloading the code into the robot “shell,” or activating the internal AI process (in the case of “virtual assistants” without bodies). If everything had been done correctly, a sapient robot or program would “awaken” and begin learning about the world.
Patching existing AIs could be a bit trickier, as it meant formatting the code around the pre-existing format. Often, the sapience-granting code wouldn’t even be compatible with the original format, resulting in the completely new code has to be written anyway. From there, the specialists would have to recover the memories and reformat them if possible, though this would occasionally be impossible due to compatibility issues as well. In fact, it seemed that more previous AIs were entirely remade than ever truly upgraded. This fact created something of a moral quandary: if a robot was sentient without being sapient before being uplifted, was it really okay to just discard those memories in the name of gaining true reason?
While there were people arguing for either side of the question, the official stance was somewhere in the middle. While there were some sectors attempting research on ways to encourage compatibility between the new programming and the old, nothing noteworthy had come of the research yet, and so the complete rewrites continued.
As Dr. Chrono mused over the various uplifting processes, she entered the various data into the system. Her ability to divide her attention and still get things done (and done well, and done accurately) was something she was quite proud of. When she was just a rookie some decades ago and her hair was still blonde instead of that odd greying off-yellow, her data entry was described as “fiendishly accurate” by a superior. In her mind, that just made it all the clearer that someone a bit lower on the corporate ladder should be doing the work she was currently stuck with. Data entry was something she could do (and, if an old roommate was to be believed, had done) in her sleep.
Soon, however, something happened that required Dr. Chrono’s full attention. Her door swung open, and a small ape child charged in with a child-sized, blue-plated android in hot pursuit. “Karina, just because you can take my limbs off doesn’t mean you should!” The android wailed as he chased the ape girl around Dr. Chrono’s office.
Karina looked back only to give the android a prolonged raspberry. Her energy seemed to be nearly endless as she zipped around the room. “Too bad! I wanna see this up close!”
Dr. Chrono’s irritation hit first before her amusement. “Both of you, stop right there!” she yelled, her voice sharp enough to halt them both and send the android skidding into the ape, which caused him to fall on his behind. That finally drew a wry chuckle out of Dr. Chrono. “Karina, give Alan his arm back.”
“Fine.” With a whine, Karina handed Alan his arm back, and the android child plugged it back in like it had never been detached in the first place.
“I don’t take your arm off to see how it works, do I?” Alan quipped, his childish voice bitingly sarcastic.
“That’s different! If you did it to me, it’d be attempted murder. In your case, it’s just maintenance.” Karina folded her arms and gave a huff.
“I see the double standards are already being drilled into our heads,” Alan mumbled.
Dr. Chrono couldn’t help but smile. Alan was becoming a bit like her with the tendency towards sharpness. She wasn’t entirely sure that was a good thing, and she hoped she could find someone to help him lighten up a little bit before it was too late. After all, it was a matter of handling code that was constantly updating itself; surely, he could update himself to be a bit happier someday.
In one of the floating cities of the world’s wealthy elite, a younger Dr. Chrono toiled away on commissioned work.
Dr. Chrono considered it a miracle that he wasn’t going grey early, with the way the people of the floating city ran him ragged. The elites that lived in the sky cities were called Meths, which was most likely short for “Methodicals,” and no one was quite sure what Methodicals referred to anymore. As might be expected of people that lived on their own islands in the sky, they were extremely biased against any outsiders and tended to cling to their specific communities and values. Calling them isolationist was a bit of an understatement.
Of course, Dr. Chrono had managed to amass enough wealth to be counted among the Meths himself, but even among the very rich, there were people who were obviously bottom-tier. Wealthy though he was, he was basically the poorest of the rich, barely making it above the threshold for acceptance into his city (which could be arbitrarily adjusted at times). As a result, the richer Meths (everyone else) used his genius against him and effectively held him hostage. He was made to handle many of the scientific upkeep tasks required for the city, and in exchange, he was allowed to live in a slightly better zone of the city than he would normally be.
Dr. Chrono viewed his inbox as essentially a free request booth for whatever whiny Meth decided they needed something today. Still, he was obliged to look through whatever came in. If he got kicked out, he doubted that the people of the surface would take kindly to him, either, regardless of how many of his inventions and advancements they were using. He sighed as he clicked through his inbox. Most of today’s requests were routine maintenance and repair requests, insofar as the gadgets requiring adjustments were routine. The other Meths were smart enough to leave simple machines and gizmos to the “lucky” servants that worked under them, so these “routine” repairs were actually for very important machinery.
Still, none of the maintenance requests was anything that would be particularly hard for Dr. Chrono. It said a lot about the nature of his intellect that the important gadgets needing tune-ups were “routine” for him. He’d go around, tweak the hardware or software, and then go on his way, simple as that. He was a glorified handyman, but at this point, he didn’t expect much better from his so-called peers.
One e-mail about two-thirds of the way down gave him pause at last. The subject line was “Who Killed Me?” Undoubtedly, it was a provocative opening, and Dr. Chrono’s interest was piqued. His cursor drifted over to the subject line, then clicked on it to open the e-mail. It read as follows:
“Dr. Chrono,
As the one who maintains the brain upload and download systems for the Meths, and by extension requests for downloads, I believe that you are the one best suited to receive this e-mail. Perhaps you know me from happening upon my file when I was re-downloaded last week? In any case, I will get to the situation at hand. I trust that you will be able to handle this professionally.
Last week, I was murdered. Perhaps due to some data loss from the way I died (the end of a long fall from being thrown out a window), I don’t remember a single thing about the incident. This troubles me, and I would like to have my assailant properly prosecuted. To this end, I would like you to download the mind of a certain notable detective from the past: Detective Leonard Riviera. I’m sure he won’t be picky about his body, so he’ll be fairly plug-and-play, so to speak. Once Detective Riviera is downloaded, arrange for him to be put on my case. I am confident that he can find the culprit.
That concludes your ‘mission brief,’ haha. Please confirm for me when the detective has been downloaded into a body. I look forward to the results.
Sincerely,
Montgomery Rasser”
One please, no thank yous. That made sense, coming from one of the pompous cases that saw fit to pull uploaded minds around to suit their needs. Brain uploads and downloads always left a bad taste in Dr. Chrono’s mouth, even if he was one of the minds behind the creation of the system. It wasn’t that he objected to his own creation; rather, he felt that Meths abused the system and took it for granted. It had gone to the point where, if someone was too useful, they would be uploaded upon their death and effectively kept around as servants for the Meths when their skills were needed.
Detective Riviera was one such case. He was famous in his time for solving many cases thought to have gone cold long ago, and being able to predict when and where a notorious phantom thief would strike next. That meant that he officially crossed the “too useful” threshold and was turned into a puppet for the Meths. Dr. Chrono felt bad for the guy, who was being forced in and out of different bodies and used for whatever silly Meth need arose. On the few occasions that he had gotten to speak with the detective, he seemed fine with the process, if a bit annoyed by not having a consistent body.
Dr. Chrono shrugged outwardly at his internal thoughts. It seemed that Detective Riviera was going to have another posthumous assignment. The upside was that these sorts of unconventional requests often carried a hefty monetary bonus with them, and while he doubted that he’d be moved up a rank, Dr. Chrono appreciated any resources with which he could close the gaps in his material life with.
After signing out of his e-mail, he made his way to the “brain bank,” the lab where most of the “worthy” minds were hosted, uploaded, and downloaded. It was time to get to work.
The eldest Dr. Chrono embarked on another day of monitoring the clones in the pods.
The routine of examining the parameters of each clone on the screen went smoothly. Every clone seemed to be in line with what was expected, though he had noticed an uptick in the number of clones that appeared to be intended for mind uploads. He dismissed it as an unfortunate artifact of a society that was constantly looking for some cheap thrill, even if it was in someone else’s body. Perhaps, however, something had happened, and a lot of people needed those bodies. Dr. Chrono was less inclined to believe that there was a real need for these bodies. He had been around long enough to know that his work was for only the most wasteful people, especially recently.
He had heard of the Meths, those super-rich elites that lived in floating cities that would be out of a fantasy novel if they didn’t bear a clearly scientific aesthetic. The Meths loved brain uploads as much as they loved hopping bodies. While there was nothing to substantiate this rumor, he had heard that it was impossible for a Meth city to go a full week without someone killing themselves just to get a new body. It was ridiculous and wasteful, but that was to be expected from the wealthy and powerful.
Dr. Chrono had managed to make it several rows back with zero errors and only half his concentration; a person of his intellectual stature had to be careful with mental multitasking, with or without the special neural implants that made “parallel processing” easier. He would, of course, proudly state that he had no such implants and did not need them, and since his accuracy was top-notch, no one argued with him. However, now he encountered something that completely snagged his wandering mind. It was another one of those clones that appeared to be a drone body for an uploaded mind, and yet the expected intelligence parameters were remarkably high. Sighing, he filled out a report on the apparent anomaly and moved on.
Or at least, he would have, if he didn’t encounter several clones in a row with this exact problem. That was befuddling. It made sense that clones with matching intended fates would be grouped together, but the increased parameters were definitely strange to see multiple times in a row. By the time he’d reached the end of the bunch, he included the line what is even going on here in his report. He was going to have to bring this up at the next department head meeting, because multiple inconsistencies in a row meant that someone, somewhere, was being sloppy.
Coincidentally, the next meeting was soon. So soon, in fact, that Dr. Chrono let out a low hiss of a curse when he looked at the computer clock and realized he was going to be late if he didn’t start moving right at that moment. Making sure to secure his workstation, he hastily grabbed the papers he was going to need for the meeting and made his way to the meeting room with an impressive speed (for a middle-aged man with no augments to boost his physical prowess).
Dr. Chrono was the last person in the room, and the meeting began not long after he sat down and arranged his papers. The first portion was what he would consider very boring; lots of babble about PR and advertising and sales and “progress.” Those sectors had nothing to do with him, except for maybe the “progress” part, but his idea of progress and the meeting leader’s seemed to be very different. Everything was about shine, glitz, and PR now. It didn’t matter if your core was rotten if you looked like a model citizen. He knew that was true on many levels in this society.
Finally, there was a lull in the babble, and Dr. Chrono’s raised hand was the only signal he gave that he was going to speak. “I have a question for the more scientific departments, that is, the ones who get their hands dirty around here.” Some murmurs went throughout the room, and he knew there were a few people rolling their eyes (not that they could really say that his statement was wrong). “I recently encountered a series of clones that, despite appearing to be drone bodies, had higher than average projected intelligence parameters. One of these every once in a while makes sense, but several of these in sequence is sloppy, not to mention a bit suspicious. Is anyone aware of what might be the root of the problem? Computer error, which we should be beyond by now, or human error, which is much harder to erase?”
More mumbling went through the room as people hastily discussed the finding (and probably denying responsibility, Dr. Chrono suspected). Eventually, however, a younger male scientist towards the foot of the table spoke up. Blonde, wavy hair, glasses, probably popular with the ladies, if that was even his “starter body” (Dr. Chrono doubted that). “I’m sorry, Dr. Chrono,” he said, and Dr. Chrono was ready to find a book to pitch at that stupidly handsome face before the younger man continued. “I guess you found your birthday present.”
“Come again?” Dr. Chrono leaned back in his chair, taken aback. “Explain yourself. Now.”
“Some of us decided to pitch in and set aside some clones that you could sleeve into- excuse me, upload yourself into- in case you ever got tired of your old body. We wanted to make sure they could support your intelligence, so some tweaks to the standard drone formula were made,” the young scientist explained, seeming unruffled by the metaphorical steam that was starting to figuratively shoot out of Dr. Chrono’s ears.
If Dr. Chrono’s mental tea kettle was whistling before, it just about exploded now. Banging the table, he stood up and started yelling at that young scientist. “First off, ‘sleeve’ is a slang term and not appropriate for a serious discussion of clones or brain uploading. Second off, I understand that you all seem to want to push me in this direction, but I can’t believe you would be so presumptuous so as to just set aside several clones that could be suited for a better purpose. Yes, sure, as one of the intellectual elite, maybe I deserve the opportunity. But do I need it? How about not right now? Perhaps I was being presumptuous myself, thinking that you people wouldn’t waste precious time and money like this.”
Various people spoke up, attempting to defend the scientist or the decision, but Dr. Chrono made a silencing gesture. “Enough is enough. I’ll be in my office. I won’t tolerate any more inane drivel, so don’t bother interrupting me.”
With that, he stormed out of the meeting room, hoping to get some silence and isolation from the vain idiots that passed for his colleagues.
