To Be Immortal
By Duncan Long
"With the joy crimes and all, this has become a dangerous neighborhood," Jim Jackson told the youth sitting across the table from him. "Some of these guys don't care if they live or die. They're just interested in destruction." He slid the reproduction of the Glock pistol to the young man.
"What's this?" Frank asked, gesturing toward the gun.
"I spent a long time and risked a lot, duplicating this from some old photos I found. Not to mention the dangers of creating ammunition for it. Here're a couple of boxes of cartridges. Go ahead and take them."
"I don't want the gun or the ammunition," Frank replied. "Besides, if the mechanicals caught me with a firearm, they'd... You keep them."
"You won't take them just to humor your father?"
"My father?" the youth asked, his voice rising to a near-hysterical pitch. "Don't talk about my father. You're just a..."
"Immortal? Duplicate?" Jackson asked, raising an eyebrow. "Maybe. But I have his memories and--I wish you'd understand this--inside I still feel that I'm your father. I remember your birth--everything we did together--just like it happened to me. I'm everything he was--and more."
"I don't think he would have bothered to become an immortal. Why would he kill himself and then come back as--something like you? You're a mockery of what he was."
"Hardly anyone lives to their full life expectancy of 150 years," the immortal replied, rubbing his chin. "If they don't get killed by thugs or junkies, they usually kill themselves. I was no exception. You can't hold that against me, can you?"
"Don't give me that. When you... When he slashed his wrists and bled to death, that was the end of him. Just because a bunch of bots dissected his brain and stuck most of his memories into an abominable chunk of metal and plastic doesn't mean you're my father anymore than a 3D tape of him is."
"My memories aren't just copies. The machines transfer--"
"Dad went down a garbage chute somewhere--they never even let me see his body. They said you were my father," the youth paused and pushed at his eyes with his fists.
"It was a mistake for them to do it that way, I realize that. But I feel--responsible. For you. You're all I have."
"And his selfishness in giving his memories to an immortal meant I was never even able to have a funeral for him. He never even told me good-bye. He never said good-bye."
"I took my life after we'd lost your mother and-- I was so depressed that I couldn't even start to-- And that's what you've been holding against me? That I never told you good-bye?"
"I'm holding nothing against you. And even if I somehow could get close to you--you'd probably kill yourself again."
"That, I can promise, will never happen." The machines that rebuilt me saw to that, the immortal added to himself. Circuitry built into his skull would override his ability to kill himself Like it or not he was destined to live forever.
"Why don't you leave me alone, you pathetic machine?"
"Pathetic machine?" Jackson asked, shoving the chair behind him as he rose to his feet. "Perhaps I am. But I feel the same as I did before. I'm still the same man."
"You're only a pathetic machine, nothing more. And what's more pitiful than a mechanical that thinks it's a man? Steel and silicon covered with plastic that feels like flesh--all molded to look like a human being--and a dead one at that. If that's not a miserable joke I don't know what is. Stupid machines."
"Stupid machines run the federation now. And they run it better than any human government ever did. No one has to do anything anymore except have a good time."
"Right. Except for the fact that everyone is so bored they have to kill themselves or get addicted to drugs or diversion loops. The guy just two doors down from me was found starved to death yesterday. He was too lazy to leave the throws of his virtual realities long enough to eat."
"That's unfortunate."
"It's the kind of universe your artificial intelligence rulers have made for mankind. But at least my neighbor had the decency to just end it without tormenting his family by dumping his mind into a machine to keep reminding everyone of what had happened."
"I'd better leave."
"Please do. And take this these with you," Frank added, shoving the pistol and boxes of ammunition back across the table.
Jackson gathered the firearm and its ammunition into his hands without speaking, his face expressionless. He pocketed them in his loose robe and crossed to the entrance of the tiny apartment, then turned, pulling his hood over his head. "One thing I want you to know, Frank. Even if I'm not really your father, I carry all his dreams and all his memories in this plastic skull. And one thing I do know, even though he killed himself, he loved you very much. And now you're all that I have left--"
"Just get out, you bastard. I don't want to ever see you ever again. Never again. This is too painful to bear."
Jackson nodded. He turned and stepped through the doorway, latching it behind himself. Then he sighed and was glad his eyes were incapable of shedding tears...
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