Almost forever

"Will it hurt?"

"What?"

"Will it hurt?"

"Lawrence, you own the biggest analgesia producer in the world, among your many, many startups and acquisitions. Does anything ever need to hurt for you?"

"Yeah, I know, but..."

This step had been a long time in the planning. This final, irreversible, no-going-back-to-where-he-was, kinda step. A vast team of project professionals had spent the best part of two years working on the complex plan and risk assessment. Step by step, each hurdle had been overcome. Each risk profile considered, debated at length in the project’s dedicated boardroom, sometimes long into the night.

One by one, the precautions and mitigations had been put in place, the risks and objections overcome. The project, it had been calculated, would now be far safer than the Orion Mars program had proved to be over its first ten years. And Lawrence hadn't been in the least bit nervous about surviving the Orion One mission, despite the catastrophic failure of both previous attempts. In both cases the failure on the part of the two rival Mars programs, and responsibility for the nine crew deaths, could be put down to lack of effective critical programme planning and risk mitigation. Unlike the Orion program, and now this project, codename: Lazarus.

"So, when will it all be ready?"

"Any time you like, buddy. Just say the word and we will put everything in motion. From that point on, it will be a further 10 weeks until the go-no-go point is reached. Until then, you can still back out if you want to."

"Why would I want to back out? I'll be dead within three to four years in any case."

"Hell, Lawrence you still have every hope for a cure. We have laboratories working on it night and day. They believe they will find a way in time, before..."

"Before I die, Carl?"

"Yes, Lawrence, before you die."

"And what if the end comes sooner?"

"For Chrissakes, Lawrence, you have read all of the reports, you know full well what would happen. If your condition deteriorates to the point where the risk of early death is raised, all we do is put you on ice and continue the program. Plan B is the cryo-program, as you know, and I have reminded you, countless times."

"Sorry, Carl, I guess I am just getting a little jittery as the date looms."

"I get that, Lawrence, I understand. Just stop worrying. If all else fails you still have me watching your back."

"Ha! And that's supposed to cheer me up?"

Lawrence Durante, one of the least-known billionaires in the western world, had been on a mission for his entire adult life. That mission was to find a cure for death itself. Prolonging life indefinitely, such that a person's life could, if they wanted it to, last forever. Or at least so long that there would be no practical, fixed, limit to their lifespan. People should, so Durante thought, live for as long as they chose to live. That is, assuming they could afford it.

At first, he had been a lone, post-grad clinical and pharmaceutical 'blue-sky' researcher. Pain relief, longevity, cancer cures, he even worked on a cure for the common cold. As a consequence of his work, he drew billions of dollars worth of funding for pharmaceutical development operations, specialist hospitals and research centers. All of the best experts around the world would fight for the chance to work at one of the Durante facilities.

Durante still dedicated himself to the advanced research work, leaving the business affairs to his long-time friend and business manager Carl Winfield

Most of the Durante facilities and projects were established as charitable trusts but the programs with the most commercial potential were set up as hugely profitable corporations. Durante, or rather the numerous trusts and corporations he either controlled or owned, had found cures for countless forms of liver diseases, blood disorders, genetic disorders. His world had discovered ground-breaking anti-viral treatments and numerous innovative cancer treatment programs that had proved to be as much as 99% effective against many forms of cancer. He considered it a perfect irony that the one type of cancer his organisations had not found a cure for was the very thing that was slowly killing him.

Which was why he had selected himself as the pioneer research subject of the highly-secretive Lazarus program. Although the Durante organization has found way to prolong human life, they were so far only estimated to add 10 or 20 years to a person's life expectancy. For Durante, it was not enough. Not only did he want to cheat death this one time, he wanted to continue to cheat death, if he so chose, forever.

He wanted the impossible, and he was determined to get it. How? Not by perpetuating an individual's bodily life. No, there was a limit to how far the useful life of frail human tissue could be extended. A life expectancy of 130, maybe 150 years was about the maximum. The solution, so Durante had concluded many years before, was not to extend the life of any individual body, but to find a way of transferring the life, the personality, the memories, perhaps even the soul, to a completely new body.

A new body? Not so easy. Even if they could find a way to transfer the 'life and soul' of a person into a new bodily host, they still needed to find a way to create that body. Great strides had already been made. Artificially grown hearts, livers, lungs, bones, were all possible and had already been achieved long ago for organ transplant purposes. The brain was the stumbling block. They had made considerable progress, but the most optimistic estimate was at least 10-20 years to perfect the techniques and then to test out the various prototypes. Far too late for Durante's needs.

The answer, in the end, was simplicity itself. Find a living whole-body donor. This might be thought problematic, given that any volunteer would, in effect, be signing their own death warrant. To transfer a complete personality, memory, experiences, from one body to another, meant the total obliteration of everything the donor was, everything they had, and everything they ever could be. It would be a death of everything but the physical body which, from that point forward, would become the person transplanted into it.

The whole concept is difficult to grasp, unless of course you can accept the notion that a body is nothing without its 'soul,' for want of a better way to put it. If you could find a way to package that soul, all the memories, personality and very life essence of a person who would otherwise die, and then transplant it into another body, then the new owner will have been given, literally, a new lease of life. And if you could do it once, then you could do it again... and again. Or so Durante believed. Have himself transplanted from his aging, worn-out and dying body to a much younger, fitter and completely healthy model. Then, when the new body started to age too much, find yet another body to take over, at least until the process for complete body and neurological fabrication could be perfected.

But... why would anyone want to volunteer to donate their body? The answer to this problem turned out to be less problematic than first thought.

It began with the offer of a huge sum of money, $20 million, to join a discreet medical research project. The recruiters were quite candid that the risks were very high and calculated at around 50% chance of death, if not higher. The reality was of course 100%, which was later explained to the candidates, who were given plenty of time (and independent counselling) to grasp the implications.

In the end, the deal was sufficiently attractive to leave them with hundreds of willing candidates, before the list was narrowed down to those who scored highest on health and fitness. Mostly, the volunteers were people who were despairing of any future for themselves or their families, and wanted to be able to make this grand sacrifice for the loved ones they left behind. Some applicants were clearly of a state of mind that made suicide a distinct possibility, if not actual intent. These people were mostly rejected, to avoid taking unfair advantage of their condition.

The intention would be to allow the person up to a full year, after agreeing to the deal to live life in whatever way they chose. They would be able to access some of the $20 million to take a long vacation or otherwise live life to the full. To complete their 'bucket list' if you will.

They would then report to the clinic where they would be made comfortable, say their last goodbyes, and then be put into an induced coma that they would not recover from. At least not with their own personality intact. All memories, habits, experiences, knowledge, and everything that goes with it, would be erased, ready for the recipient's own 'soul' to be implanted. The technology for achieving this was nothing short of astounding. The vast store of information held by the recipient's brain would be uploaded to a specially created quantum-organic (artificial) intelligence unit, of a kind used to pre-program the new generation of Nexus domestic androids. Unlike the android's artificial intelligence, however, the uploaded intelligence would be human, would be an actual person. And Lawrence Durante would be the first to experience such an upload, and subsequent download into his new host body. It would pave the way for future commercial full-body transplants. For a person who could, like Durante, afford multiple successive transplants, it meant that, in theory at least, he could 'renew' his life indefinitely. Cash in his old body for a new one. Just like buying a new quadcar.

Deliverance day

"All set, Lawrence?"

"Sure, Carl, let's get on with it. I'm looking forward to seeing my new body. Who's the volunteer?"

"Male, 32 years old, athletic build, 1.8m, weighing in at 82 kg."

"Intelligent?"

"Not any more, Lawrence. He's already been wiped and, for all practical purposes, is dead. The body is under fully-automated life support, until you are transplanted and ready to wake up a new man... literally. Sufficient aesthetic changes have been made so that nobody will recognise the body as its former self. And, as you know, your knowledge and IQ will be carried over with you. So quit the dumbass questions, will ya!"

"Okay, Carl, I'm ready to go. Hit the button."

"Right, Lawrence, before I ask the clinical lead to proceed, you know you will need to take it easy when you wake up. It will be very like the simulations you did a few weeks back. You'll feel a little groggy at first but, after a few days, you really will feel like you are a new man. Trust me, Lawrence, I will be here for the whole show. I won't leave you until you are ready to start again as a new person. All of your ID and new life details will be a part of the upload. You'll still have your own memories intact but are strongly advised not to talk about them to anyone. There will be sufficient memory inhibitors to prevent you blurting out your old name in a moment of weakness. From now on, your name is Adam Bruce Smith."

"I'm going to miss my family."

"You have taken care of them much better than if you had died in a year or two. The funeral will go ahead as planned. Your old body will be cremated in accordance with your instructions. The Trust funds you set up for your wife and children will be more than adequate for their needs. They will know nothing about your new life and will mourn your passing just as if you had really died.

"The rest of your fortune will be divided according to your various research and clinical priorities after the provision made for your own personal needs for the rest of your lives."

Most of this speech went unheard by Durante, who had been given his first dose of anesthesia, not by a doctor, but by Carl Winfield, the trusted friend standing beside him, whose smile broadened as he spoke. Winfield had slipped his lifelong buddy the initial dose without Durante realizing it.

"I've got you now, you bastard..." he said to the now unconscious Durante. There would no donor body for Durante to be transplanted to. It was all part of Winfield's scheme to take control of the Durante empire. Instead of a volunteer donor body, Winfield had set up something far less human as the new host for his one-time friend.

"This'll teach you to run off my with the only woman I have ever loved," he said before initiating the transplant sequence."

The new arrival

It was an exciting day for the whole Davis family. Geena, Pete and the two children were buzzing. They all leapt up as the doorbell rang.

"Hi, I'm 'A. Lawrence', your new Android companion from the Durante Cybernetics Corporation." said the new arrival at their door. "I have been looking forward to meeting you all, and am ready to serve you to the best of my ability. May I come in?"

Although he said these things, feeling compelled to use the exact words of the script he had been given, Lawrence couldn't help feeling that there was something false in what he had just said. But it did not stop him from performing his duties to the utmost of his abilities... just as he had been programmed to do.

The Davis family were delighted and immensely proud of their new purchase, showing him off to friends, family and neighbours at every opportunity. Their dinner parties, in particular, had become lavish affairs, not lest because of 'A. Lawrence's' prowess as a gourmet chef.

Nancy, in particular, was overjoyed at their new acquisition, as she explained to the man from Durante, who called to see how they were getting on.

"You say that Lawrence... is a new prototype model?"

"Yes, that's right, Mrs Davis. A. Lawrence is the first in our new line of ultra-human humanoids. We have been working for a long time on the learning capabilities of his pre-programmed intelligence."

"Well, I can't believe you made him quite so human. If he hadn't announced himself as 'Android' Lawrence, I would have sworn he was a real person, just like you or I."

"Well, I am so glad to know that you are happy with your purchase, Mrs Davis. Do please call me if there is anything you need. I would be happy to hear from you any time, if only to let me know how you are getting along."

"Oh, I will Mr... er... Mr?"

"Winfield, Ma'am... Carl Winfield."