An Extract from This Month's Release: Upload
Upload
Written on July 10, 2016, for the March 30 entry of 366 Days of Flash Fiction, this piece was inspired by the scene in the Barbie movie where surfer-girl Barbie dives into a vortex to find a dream fish, coupled with the idea of freedom beyond wheelchairs, the discovery of a common bacteria in the Northern Territory that gets into your brain and spinal cord, and, maybe, a little too much William Gibson, and Anne McCaffrey, amongst others.
When Elena lost the use of her legs, they thought she’d fallen, twisted, or done something to jag her spine. It didn’t take them long to find out just how wrong they were.
“She has a virus,” the doctors said.
“Nope, a bacteria.”
“Nope.”
“Well, whatever it is, it’s eating its way up her spine. Heaven knows what it’ll do when it gets to her brain.”
“You’re kidding me, right?”
Grave eyes turned towards the bed, and Elena glared at them.
“I don’t sleep all the time, you know. Tell me.”
“Um…”
“We don’t…”
“That is, we’re not sure….”
Elena huffed out a sigh.
“Here, let me make it easy for you. I’ve got something—and you don’t know what it is—but, whatever it is, it’s chowing its way up through my spine, and you don’t know what it’ll do when it hits my brain, but you think it’s gonna kill me. And…” she continued, raising her voice to cut short what at least one of them was going to say. “And, apart from never being able to walk again, or surf…”
Elena swallowed, and blinked back tears at the thought.
“Apart from all that, you don’t think you can save me, and you don’t want to suggest upload, just in case you’ve made a mistake, or missed something.” She looked at them expectantly. “Am I right?”
“Well, it’s not how I would have put it, but, yes, you are right,” a new voice interrupted.
Elena watched as the gathered doctors turned towards the door. She’d have liked to do the same, but she couldn’t. The paralysis had robbed her of that ability in the last few hours, when she’d been sleeping. She didn’t need to, though; she knew that voice.
“Doctor Kalami,” she said. “I can’t move my head. You need to do something, soon.”
To give the doctor credit, she moved into view, immediately.
“I’m sorry to hear that, Elena.”
“Upload me.”
The doctor’s mouth firmed into a thin line. She didn’t like what Elena was asking, didn’t like that it was the only choice she had. Elena watched as Kalami swallowed down her first response, and waited.
“When?” Kalami asked.
“This thing’s moving fast,” Elena said. “How long do you need to prepare me?”
“Not long,” the doctor said. “I’ll let your parents know.”
“No,” Eleni said, the abruptness of her response making the doctors flinch. “No. I’m over twenty-one. Do the transfer. I’ll greet them from the screen.”
Again, the doctor hesitated, swallowing down a reply.
“If it’s what you want,” she said, and Eleni looked at her.
“It’s what I need to do to survive,” she replied, “and I’ve met a couple of human AIs. I can still have a life.”
“But you won’t be able to surf.”
“Doctor. Everyone talks about the data stream, and torrenting. I’m sure I’ll find a way.”
“Very well,” the doctor said. “Just close your eyes.”
And Elena closed her eyes, waiting for the doctors to hook up the machines, request the right accesses, and bring in the drugs they needed. She barely felt the point her consciousness left the shell that had been her body for twenty-two years, drifting lazily through the transfer to the convalescents’ mainframe.
When she woke, she found herself adrift in data, the phantom imprints of a body still in all the spaces they used to be. She wiggled her fingers, and watched noughts and ones spill through them, discovered a lot of what she needed to know had already been downloaded into her memories. With the echo of sadness beating through her, she reached out to find a window, and turned it on.
Her parents were in a small cubicle. They startled when the screen they were facing came alive.
“I’m sorry I didn’t ask,” Elena said, wincing at the strange tones coming out of the speaker.
“We’d never have allowed it,” her mother said.
“I know, and I didn’t want to die.”
“But, what sort of a life can you have as a machine?”
“That’s what the next step is for,” Elena told them, one part of her looking out at them, and another dancing in the data that flowed around her.
She was almost ready, when they stood up, her mother reaching out to touch what was, no doubt, Elena’s image on the screen. Her father looked at her, and gave a slow nod of acknowledgment, although seemingly robbed of words.
“Goodbye, Elena,” he said, and ushered her mother out the door.
It was months before she saw them again, but the hospital sent them updates, and slowly they reached a point where they allowed Elena to email them directly. In the meantime, Elena found her way around the inter-webs, learning to glide through the data, learning that she didn’t have to be confined to a database, that deep-space was an option, and that she could don a starship in the same way she used to carry a board. The bigger the ship, the farther she could travel…explore… It wasn’t long before Elena was learning how to surf the stars.
Cover art is by Jake at JCaleb Design, and links to 366 Days of Flash Fiction can be found on Books2 Read at: https://books2read.com/u/b6MrN0
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