“There’s an understatement. Let me know if you need anything.” Bill gave me a nod and popped out.
Interesting times indeed.
6. The Search Expands
Bob
May 2333
Outskirts, Eta Leporos
I sat in my library, blearily gazing at the table in front of me. Will, Bill, and Garfield watched me silently, the occasional slow head shake the only commentary offered. Every once in a while, I took a halfhearted sip of my coffee.
Bill finally couldn't take it any longer. “You do understand you’re in virt, right? You can just dismiss the hangover.”
“Right,” I responded with a pasty half smile that was probably more terrifying than reassuring. “Yeah, and in the future I'll do just that. There's no metric in which this is enjoyable, but after finally reading your blog, well… original Bob was by no means an alcoholic, but he did occasionally, when it was called for, go on… uh…”
“A bender. Did you make that whole speech just to deliver that line?”
I chuckled, then groaned and held my head. “No, it was just a bonus. But god dammit Bill, we are diverging. Nothing bad yet, but I think you're right in expecting it. And we actually have a… Bobbi now?”
“That's just a rumor, I don't know of anyone who’s met her. But really that's inevitable too.”
I sighed and considered doing a reset and dismissing the hangover. It had served its purpose, whatever deep psychological need for self-flagellation was involved, but now my curiosity was up. “This feels pretty real. Verisimilitude in VR - er, ‘virt’ - has really been improving.”
“Part of that's the Mannys, of course,” Will said from across the room, where he was nursing a soft drink. “Once we started experiencing things in real again, we realized how granular and synthetic the virt experience actually was.”
It helped that humanity was back on its feet by then. We had actual experts to ask about some of the finer points.
Bill waived his cup and a vague out-there gesture. “Like Bridget, for instance. She's ferociously competent in the biological sciences and naturally highly motivated now, to help with the improvements. And with SUDDAR scans, we can accurately map how the human body and brain respond to various stimuli like taste and other senses.”
“And hangovers,” I grinned, then winced again. “She and Howard live almost full-time in real, right?”
“Yep, and raising kids as well. I’ve lost count of how many they've adopted over the years.”
“Well, here’s something to chew on,” Garfield said. He'd been silent up to this point, so we all turned to him. “It’s important if you want to maintain perspective on your place in the cosmos.” He paused for dramatic effect. “As replicants, we never get tired. We have near-perfect memory. We can process hundreds of times faster than humans. And we have instant access all the information available in our archives. But we aren't any smarter than original Bob was. And reading about something isn't the same as being trained in it. You can't become a doctor by reading Grey's Anatomy, for instance. Or watching it.”
I frowned. “Okay, I get that in principle but how is it important?”
“We can't do everything ourselves. For instance, without Bridget, the androids wouldn't be anywhere near as advanced as they are. We've improved our weapons by talking to military types…”
“Or stealing from them,” I interjected.
Garfield glared at me for the interruption. “We’ve become a sort of society unto ourselves, but for the most part we’re still doing the things original Bob was interested in. We’re a monoculture - specialists. And that's not healthy.”
“So you're saying…” Bill raised an eyebrow at him.
“That I'm not sure replicative drift is a bad thing. Necessarily.”
“Gah. I don't trust some of the new replicants,” Bill said.
“Nor should you. They’re different people. But the Bobiverse needs to be robust enough to handle a society where not everyone's priorities align. Sure, we need to be more worried about security and such. How is that different from locking your house or your car though?”
“That does it,” I said. “This conversation is incompatible with a hangover.” I did a reset and felt better immediately. “Does this mean we’d accept other humans as well?”
Bill shrugged. “We've always been willing to do that, but we’ve got no takers. At least none have decided to deal directly with us. Those that have chosen to go with replication signed with companies that offer shared processing in a large computer facility. The bigger the monthly fee, the more processing power and extras you get. There are options, like Manny connection ability, and even premium Manny models available only to the highest-paying clients. Most of them though are just spending thereafter lives engaged in full-time virt.”
“That doesn't make sense. This is… freedom. The best kind of freedom, where you can do what you want with no reliance on anyone else.”
“Not really, Bob. That sounds good to a loner like original Bob, but to a lot of people it would be the opposite of attractive. Among other things, self-reliance means having to be responsible for everything yourself. Much easier to just pay someone to take care of the details, if you have the money. And remember, this is immortality for a copy of you, at the expense of permanently destroying original you.” Bill paused, then shrugged in dismissal. “On the other hand, there has been a lot of interest in postmortem corpsicle storage in real, and in fact, companies have been springing up all over the colonies offering to warehouse people after death, just like with original Bob. Except now, they use stasis pods, so there's nothing irreversible about it. And they’re doing a booming business.”
“Because when you come back, it'll be original you.”
“Yeah much more attractive option.” Will sighed. “Except for people like Justin, who have a religious objection.”
We commiserated in silence for a mil. As the face of Bob, Will had been especially close with our relatives for decades. Julia's death, and her
