James Lamont

The room is an exact square, with just enough room for the deceased, the copy, the doctor and two nurses to be able to move comfortably except without ease or calm. The deceased lies on a gurney, strapped down at the waist, wrists and ankles, her copy gently stroking her intentionally-messy fringe. Her brown eyes stare down at her past self, as the deceased’s head collapses onto one side and life leaves her with the removal of the unassuming needle.

The doctor has not ended her life, he has prolonged it. Another twenty years of immortality. Barring obvious, but by no means inevitable outcomes, (a knife in the abdomen, the wrath of an angry martyr, cancer of the brain) this woman will never have to suffer death. She is free from that most human of conditions, time. The doctor (we shall call him Doctor E) is a kindly, slicked man with a potato-face and an oppressively-clean coat that betrays much about his personal life. He places the needle in a sterilised box and drops it in the bin. A life in a box in a box, now in a box he thinks. For when the sterile needle went in the deceased was very much alive; when he removed it she was not. And yet, here she was standing over herself, stroking her elegant, forced fringe, hairs locked in place like her choices in life. The technology to replicate one’s memories – surely the making of a person – in others meant the triumph of life and science. Without death, the people began to drift away from the bigger questions and continue consuming. Religion remains popular only with the lower sorts, those too wretched to buy personal copies and transfer their memories onto themselves.

Of course there had been objections. Many claimed immortality was an abomination, it was not meant to be, it would be bad for the economy. And of course they came in their droves. When the time comes, the will to life overcomes anything. And of course society had changed fundamentally. Without death, the tyranny of time had collapsed. Spaceships left for distant stars on thousand-year voyages, cargo holds stocked to the brim with flaccid copies ready for activation. News reports spoke of a man who was half-way through constructing a life-size replica of the HMS Ark Royal out of wood from his own forest. When he ran out of wood, he waited for more to grow. When asked about his project, he replied “Why not?” And no-one could think of a satisfactory answer.

Doctor E reaches over to a white drawer and pulls out a yellow paper folder. Leafing through the contents, he hands the copy No, Ms.Grange he corrects himself.

“Congratulations on your seventh successful copy, Ms. Grange. The process was a complete success. If you would just sign here. Do you have any special requests for the deceased?”

“No, thank you. Please dispose of it.”

Ms. Grange looks down on her fifty-year old self and spits on its face. To be young again: my eighth twentieth birthday she thinks. Happy birthday to me.

Doctor E and the nurse remove the body of Ms Grange and wheel it away to the disposal room, where it will be broken down into useful parts for dormant copies and for transplant surgery. Whatever remains will be burnt in one of the city’s many power stations.

“I shall see you in thirty years, Ms. Grange” says Doctor E. Ms Grange is not the most dedicated of immortals. Her awareness of the death required in immortality causes her to recoil from the copying procedure. Doctor E has twelve years left on his body. He is twenty-eight.