For quite some time it's been well known that human life spans are so much shorter than havenworlder's, save for those factions that have found other means, electronic or body-swapping, to extend it. But one scientist has been working with a family for a very long time on changing that at the genetic level. Now, with his research in hand, he does a presentation to a scientific panel about his research with the family, how it could benefit humans and extend their life spans, and how it could be applied in the future. And, waiting not far was his constant companion who'd become more than just a friend. She was strong and healthy and well at over 150 years of age, still quite spry. She smiled with love in her eyes for the one standing there giving his presentation. Her name was Pam, and not long after they'd met, they'd fallen in love. And now, he was giving others hope as well. She was so proud.
This is based off of the prompt from 7 months ago in Steemit called "Concerning Countdown". But it keeps listing the link I add as SPAM. I'm sorry. -- Anon Guest
[AN: That would be this one as Anons can't post links in my forum for some weird reason. I've tried and failed to unriddle it. If you don't want to join, that's fine. One of my members is very diligent at digging up the links.]
Nobody lives forever. Technically, the B'Nari can, it's just that they don't want to. The oldest known B'Nari "hung around" for an extra century "just to prove they could". According to their own journals, it was the dullest one hundred years of their life.
No intelligent life was ever made to be immortal. I kept telling my Lox that. He was four hundred and mumblety-something. I was Twenty-five and fresh to the family job. It didn't matter then. It still doesn't matter now.
He never groomed me. We just... talked science. Telomeres and life-extension and the thin line between potentially infinite rejuvenation and cancer. He once spent an entire decade -on and off- trying to convince me that printing myself a new, younger body to inhabit wasn't stealing a life. I even saw a documentary on the entire process. New bodies aren't cloned and grown - they're printed. like you'd print any piece of furniture. The last step is stimulating the heart and lungs before the old mind-pattern moves in.
It's only a few seconds, he had said. I remember that argument well. But in those few seconds, in the space between the stimulation and quality reassurance to make sure the autonomic functions are operating to specifications... did the uninhabited brain spark? Was it thinking?
Only technically, he had said. The new body had no learning to process the world and sensations. It was receiving only, like a baby.
Then, I reasoned, for the few seconds in testing mode, that body is a baby. It's all right for new ones, because the rest is kind of accelerated learning. Information and how to process it without all the messiness of childhood... but moving into a body like that? That's barging into an occupied cradle with a newborn and not caring that the infant gets crushed out of a chance to live. No. Just no.
I have the same problem with robot bodies, to be honest. In order to host a cogniscent mind, it has to have the structure of a cogniscent mind already there. Regardless of the support system, it's still the same basic premise. Taking the potential of a life away. I couldn't do it. Lox, Powers bless his name, understood. He didn't try to press it.
He just kept working. He's been working on us for centuries. He thinks it's tremendously unfair that he gets six hundred years and we "only" get a hundred and change. I always thought that attitude was adorable. Even when I was just hearing about him from Gramps.
I think I realised I was in love when he said, "Humans like you were my inspiration in the first place." He might have taken a handful of years longer, when he was infodumping about virally-tailored telomere clauses, and noticed me watching him.
He said, "Oh. Oh flakk." Which is, understandably, a pretty sane reaction when you're a cogniscent with a six-century lifespan and you've just realised you're in love with someone who's got maybe a century more, tops. Most of that as an increasingly frail being with decreasing ability to do anything.
As my Lox would say... that is not fair, and that is not right. Ultimately, that's what lead to his breakthrough. He went from thinking he had two hundred years to work on it to less than fifty. Extra lifespan means a relaxed attitude to long-term projects. Once he was motivated... Well.
Pam looked over the railing to where the love of her extended life was signing books for a long queue of people. That's my grand-nibling down there, being his bodyguard. I'm one hundred and fifty come tomorrow and I gather he's planning an entire day around his big success story. Around his beloved spouse.
Of course, there's some who won't take the treatment. He can't do anything about them, either. It's the robot-printed-body debate all over again. Still. For everyone who doesn't want it, there's someone who needs that hope.
We get to spend the rest of our lives together. That's good enough for the both of us.
[Image (c) Can Stock Photo / ramonakaulitzki]
If you like my stories, please Check out my blog and Follow me. Or share them with your friends!
Send me a prompt [89 remaining prompts!]
