Existence

complicated ideograms that Professor Yang Shenxiu had provided, in a style from long ago. Dr. Nguyen’s consortium could not wait for their worldstone to learn modern Chinese. There wasn’t time. Not with the planet already in an uproar over mysterious sights and sounds that were being emitted by the so-called Havana Artifact-another alien emissary-stone that the American astronaut recently retrieved from high orbit. This stone in front of Bin offered a way to check-in secret-on tales being told by the other one in Washington.

So far, they knew one thing. Courier did not seem to approve of the Havana Artifact. Shown images of the more famous object, Courier reacted with crouches and slashing motions, so clear and easily understood they might be universal across the cosmos. Elaborating upon an earlier warning of danger, the entity in Bin’s worldstone added another that was easy to translate.

Liars!

TORALYZER

I should count my blessings.

Crisped-by-flame, aboard the Spirit of Chula Vista, I’d be dead in any previous era. I would be nonexistent, or else (slim agnostic chance) gone on to some posthumous reward.

But this is my era, and I’ve been offered options that would seem miraculous to any of my ancestors. Starting with a chance to keep on practicing my trade, while this tormented-barbecued body lies entombed within a canister of life-sustaining gel. Is that worth a (more than a little) bit of ongoing agony? Getting to travel the world as a ghost-journalist e-porter, chatting up celebrighties, tracking rumors, stirring up smart-mobs (!), keeping busy.

Some of you have asked about organ reconstruction. Skin grafts are an ongoing bone of contention between me and the docs-they hurt like hell. But with biojet printers to spray my very own restemmed cells onto layered scaffolds, all the simple, fibrous, and vasculated tissue can be grown-liver, spleen, and left lung-just like the vat- farmer raised that beeftish burger you had for lunch.

There’s even talk of arm and leg transplants, if a reclam donor with my rare antigen type can be found. But I sense doubtful tones under their hopeful words, what with all the nerve damage I suffered. For certain I’ll never again have real eyes and ears. (It’s a wonder my skull protected what it did.)

So what’s the point? Shall I regain mobility by want-controlling a robotic walker? One of those hissing, clanking things?

Some of you ask: What about uploading? Heck, I already exist mostly in cyberspace. Why not just abandon this ruined body and go the rest of the way-taking my whole consciousness into the Net? Become one with my online avatars! That notion has always been 99 percent fiction and 1 percent science… till Marguerita deSilva and her followers began claiming that soon anybody will be able to become just like her pet, the god-rat Porfirio, thriving in virtual worlds that are vaster than anything “real.”

And now there are the Artifact aliens, who seem to prove her right. If we choose to join their interstellar federation, will they show us how to upload ourselves into crystal worlds, as they did?

Is there any way to tell if it’s worthwhile?

Of course, there are other options for a person like me. Some of you say: “All problems will be solved in the due course of time.” So, might the world a century from now be able to fix me up? Repair my poor body to youthful vigor? And is that chance worth a risky journey through time?

It’s illegal in most places to freeze a living person. The cryonics companies have to wait, rushing in to freeze you the moment doctors declare you are legally dead. But I’ve had offers from rich fans (no, I won’t tell) who say they’ll pay my way to San Sebastian, or Pulupau, or Friedmania or Rand’s Freehold, where local law doesn’t quibble such details. Heck, I’m now a heroine and historical figure! Won’t folks want to thaw my frozen corpsicle and heal me, in some marvelous future?

Here’s a one-sentence sales pitch that one true believer sent me: “The cryonics long shot lets us see our pending brain death not as the solipsistic obliteration of our world but as a long sleep that precedes a very major surgery.”

Hm, to sleep. Ah, but perchance to dream? That’s one possible rub.

Worse, what if religious folk, like my parents, turn out to be right? That death is a spirit release. A door opening to something beyond? Might cryonic suspension simply quash and defer what would have been the soul’s reward? Replacing it with an icy nordic version of hell?

Don’t everybody sneer till you’ve been in my position. There aren’t many pure atheists in gel tanks.

35.

SENSING DESTINY’S CALL

The marchers were protesting something. That much Mei Ling could tell, even without virring. But what were they complaining about? Which issue concerned them, from a worldwide collection of grievances more numerous than stars?

Carrying no placards or signs, and dressed in a wild brew of styles, the mostly youthful throng milled forward, in the general direction of the Shanghai Universe of Disney and the Monkey King. Each individual pretended to be minding his or her own business, chattering with companions, window-shopping, or just wandering amid a seemingly random throng of visitor-tourists. Cameras were all over the place of course, atop every lamppost and street sign or pixel-painted on every window rim. Yet nothing was going on that should attract undue attention from monitors of state security, or the local proctors of decent order.

But there were coincidences too frequent to dismiss. For example, they all wore pixelated clothing that glittered and throbbed with ever-changing patterns. One girl had her tunic set to radiate a motif of waving pine trees. A boy’s abstract design featured undulating ocean waves. Only when, as Mei Ling watched, the two bumped briefly against each other, did the two image displays seem to merge and combine across their backs, lining up to convey what her eye-but possibly no ai-briefly recognized as a trio of symbols.

SEEK URBAN SERENITY.

The youths parted again, erasing that momentary coalescence of forest and sea. Perhaps the two of them had never met before that terse, choreographed rendezvous. They might not ever meet again. But soon, amid the throng, another seemingly chance encounter created a different, fleeting message that caught Mei Ling’s built-in, organic pattern recognition system, still more subtle than anything cybernetic, inherited from when her distant ancestors roamed the African tall grass, sifting for signs of prey. Or danger.

RESPONSIBLE LEADERSHIP IS APPRECIATED.

No doubt about it. That’s what the shimmer of fleeting characters said.

Passersby and shoppers were turning to notice, nudging their neighbors and waggling their hands to toss virt- alerts down the street. Crowds of onlookers formed in time to catch the next flicker-pronouncement, as a fat man sidled next to a broad-shouldered woman with orange-striped hair. Their combined pixel-garments proclaimed-

THE TANG EMPERORS ENCOURAGED CREATIVITY.

Watching from a niche between a hair salon and a stall offering pungent chicktish meat, Mei Ling reflexively rocked the baby in his sling carrier, while wondering. Why did these young people go to such lengths to stay disconnected from their messages, preserving their ability to deny responsibility, when the meanings seemed so innocent? So harmless?

Oh, she realized, the real essence must lie elsewhere. In vir- space.

Mei Ling pulled out the set of cheap augmented reality spectacles that she had purchased from a vendor, just a little while ago. It seemed a reasonable use of cash, in an era when so much of the world lay beyond sight of normal eyes. Especially with Xiang Bin gone on his strange adventure beyond the sea. So long as he had a job, helping make that strange, demon-infested stone perform tricks for the penguin creature, she had money. Enough