update from sparkleup
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<p>Yes, I understand that the financial payout to designated next of kin will be– cancel. No, there is no next of kin. If you’re not going to let me will it to a foundation, I guess the government can have it.</p>
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<p><em>Yes, I understand,</em> I indicate time and time again, perhaps two dozen times in total, before I’m finally given a number and told to sit down.</p>
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<p>The wait wouldn’t be unbearable if it weren’t for the lingering weight of import straddling my shoulders, a petulant child tugging at my hair and whining about how this is the wrong thing to do, that there’s gotta be some better way, this is irresponsible. Ten minutes with that weight and those whispered words would be bad enough, but then we hit twenty. Thirty. It wouldn’t be so bad if–</p>
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<p>“Three twenty-seven? Ma’am?”</p>
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<p>I start to, looking up to the tired yet kindly eyes of the nurse. “Yeah, sorry,” I reply. My own voice echoes strangely in my head, muffled by my own mask, and I realize it’s been days since I’ve said anything aloud.</p>
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<p>I follow them into the procedure room, where the scent of sterilizer and ozone lingers in the air, where the chair that reclines into a bench stands alone, where two sets of tracks on either side of the chair lead to barely concealed cabinets in the wall. I follow their guidance in undressing — they don’t give me a gown or anything, and standing in nothing but this awful body that shrivels at the touch of the cold clinic air is decidedly uncomfortable — and sit awkwardly on the chair/bed. The cover looks like fabric until it’s touched, at which point the illusion is shattered when the fingers find it unpleasantly rubberized.</p>
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<p>The discussion with the doctor is quick and to the point.</p>
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<p>Yes, I understand this will take about half an hour.</p>
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<p>Yes, I understand I’ll be sedated but not asleep.</p>
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<p>Yes, I understand that the point of no return is announced by a beep.</p>
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<p>Yes, I understand, I understand, I understand…</p>
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<p>They smile to me, just as tired as the nurse. “Hey,” they say, bowing to me. “It’ll be a jiffy. Seriously. Been a decade since our last failed upload.”</p>
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<p>“How many successful ones have you had since then?”</p>
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<p>They shrug. “I do about seven or eight a day, there are five offices, and we’re open every day. Never was the best at math, but that’s a lot of uploads.”</p>
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<p>The chair reclines automatically into a bed, and a faint whirr sounds behind me as the cabinets slide out from the wall, revealing a bank of what I imagine must be various scanners, instruments, tools, and whatever else is needed for the largely automated procedure.</p>
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<p>There’s a loud beep the fills the room, and the doctor says. “Last chance.” Their voice is lazy, calm, hardly an imposition. It’s the voice of someone unwilling to sway the listener, merely doing their job.</p>
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<p>Here is a short list of things that are more unpleasant than the uploading procedure:</p>
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<ul>
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<li>I don’t know, literal torture, maybe?</li>
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</ul>
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<p>It’s not that there’s pain. The first thing they do is give me one hell of an analgesic, and then they clip something to my implant’s contacts that I’m guessing all but turns off my ability to feel pain.</p>
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<p>It’s that they leave the rest of me <em>on.</em> The smell is more intense than I’d care to admit. There’s little I can see, but the sound is nauseating. I want to tell them to give me some fucking earplugs or something, but whatever’s clipped to my contacts has inhibited motor control as well.</p>
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<p>The worst, though, is the way my vision jitters and blurs through all of the work they do on my head.</p>
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<p>And then, without warning, it’s over.</p>
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<p>I’m sure there must be some sort of discontinuity, that some amount of time passes between when the procedure completes and when I find myself here, fully formed and conscious, in the waiting room. Or perhaps it really is instantaneous. A part of me wonders if there might be some form of the procedure continuing back in the surgical room; some final scan of my dy– no, my body’s dying nervous system, a place I no longer inhabit.</p>
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<p>The waiting room exactly matches the images I was given, the brief tour by an orientation guide. It’s precisely as detailed as any three meter cube room of what looks to be blocks of concrete a meter on a side ought to be.</p>
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<p>Actually, that turns out to be surprisingly detailed. I bend down, ignoring my nudity as best I can, and inspect the grey stone of the floor, finding it to be…well, stone. There’s no visible distortion, no weirdly repeating patterns that one might see in a lower-quality sim, no too-flat planes hinting at polygon counts.</p>
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<p>“You are in the waiting room,” a gentle voice drones on in the background. “This place exists as a backup while your information is transmitted to the primary System, Lagrange. This will take approximately fifteen minutes. Please try to relax and stay calm. Rest assured that this process is lossless, but note that once it has been verified complete, this instance will be halted.”</p>
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<p>The message repeated. I tuned it out as best I could while pacing around the cube, inspecting the joins of the stone blocks that made up the walls. The light seemed to come from nowhere, leaving only indistinct shad–</p>
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<p>I woke on the floor of a nine-by-nine cube of what appeared to be cool, gray stone blocks one meter on a side. Turning my head to the side, I was pleased to note the utter reality of the space. The stone was just that: stone. It wasn’t a rendering of stone, not a representation of stone, just…stone.</p>
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<p>The light seemed to come from nowhere, leaving only blurry and indistinct shadows around me as I pushed myself up to sitting, doing my best to ignore my nude body. I’d gotten quite good at that over the years.</p>
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<p>“Greetings,” said a soft voice behind me. I whirled around to see a short person with curly black hair, voice feminine and lilting. She was facing away from me, arms crossed before her. “I am facing the wall, as many here arrive unclothed. I am a construct and, while I will do my best to answer your questions, anything more difficult will wait until you can talk to a real person.”</p>
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<p>“O-oh. Uh.” I stammered. I had scrambled quickly to my feet and covered my body with hands and arms. That she was facing away certainly helped, but still. “How do I get clothes?”</p>
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<p>“I will walk you through the process of making those. It is part of a short tutorial series that will allow you to step into the System proper. Please close your eyes, think of your favorite outfit, and breathe in. As you breathe out, say, “I want to be wearing my favorite outfit,” and smile.”</p>
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<p>“Smile?”</p>
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<p>“Yes,” she says. “We have found that this helps the newly arrived more smoothly project the intent to create something.”</p>
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<p>Frowning, I nod and close my eyes, imagining the frowsy cotton skirt and linen blouse that had always been my favorite. Earth tones, no patterns, muted. A way for me to stay hidden and comfortable both. I breathe in, dreaming of that skirt and blouse, and speak “I want to be wearing my favorite outfit” as a sigh on my exhale.</p>
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<p>There isn’t any change, at least not an immediately perceptible one. It’s not like the clothes flow down over my shoulders like some sort of pleasant animation as I’d expect from a sim back on the ‘net. I’m just suddenly clothed.</p>
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<p>I’m once again taken aback by the sheer reality of the place. The linen fabric of my blouse is just as I remember it, that well-beaten fiber almost plush between my fingers. The cotton of my skirt sways just as I expect as I turn to inspect it. The only difference seems to be that the colors are a little fresher than expected, the hem of the blouse a little lower than I remember.</p>
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<p>“I hear the swishing of fabric. May I turn around now, or do you need additional time?”</p>
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<p>“Oh, uh, you can turn around,” I say.</p>
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<p>Nodding, the woman turns, smiles, and bows deeply to me. “Welcome to Lagrange. The next step of the tutorial is to fork for the first time.”</p>
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<p>“I…what?”</p>
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<p>“Forking is the process of creating a copy of yourself. This copy is a wholly independent person and is free to either live out their own life completely separate from your own, or to quit. Should the do the latter, you will have the option to merge some or all of their memories with your own.”</p>
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<p>“Why would I want to do that?”</p>
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<p>She shrugs, stepping back to the wall to lean casually against it. “Oh, plenty of reasons. You might have an obligation while in the middle of pursuing a hobby, or overlapping invitations to events, or just for shits and giggles.”</p>
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<p>The casual demeanor and profanity catch me somewhat off-guard. She isn’t what I expect from a construct. I find myself liking her immensely.</p>
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<p>“Oh, well. Sure, how do I do that?”</p>
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<p>“Same as with your clothes. Close your eyes, hold in your mind the desire to fork, breathe in, breathe out, smile, say the words.” A lopsided smile tugs at the corner of her mouth. “You do not have to do all of that, mind. You can just do your best to project the intent to fork, but you seem like a pretty savvy girl.”</p>
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<p>I laugh. “You’re a hell of a guide. What’s your name?”</p>
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<p>“Fork, and I will tell you.”</p>
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<p>Snrk. Well, might as well. I do my best to keep the eye-closing and mumbling-to-myself to a minimum, instead taking a deep breath in and then…</p>
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<p>Beside me stands another version of myself. We both let out a startled laugh and take a half step away from each other. </p>
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</article>
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<footer>
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<p>Page generated on 2023-09-20</p>
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