Identity Theft Read Online Free PDF Page A

wasn’t.
    I took a swig of my drink. “Tell me about this transferring game.”
    “Ah, yes,” said Raoul. “Fascinating stuff. Thinking of doing it?”
    “Maybe someday,” I said.
    “You know, it’s supposed to pay for itself within three mears,” he said, “’cause you no longer have to pay life-support tax after you’ve transferred.”
    I was in arrears on that, and didn’t like to think about what would happen if I fell much further behind.
    “That’d be a plus,” I said. “What about you? You going to do it?”
    “Sure. I want to live forever; who doesn’t? ’Course, my dad won’t like it.”
    “Your dad? What’s he got against it?”
    Raoul snorted. “He’s a minister.”
    “In whose government?” I asked.
    “No, no. A minister . Clergy.”
    “I didn’t know there were any of those left, even on Earth,” I said.
    “He is on Earth, but, yeah, you’re right. Poor old guy still believes in souls.”
    I raised my eyebrows. “Really?”
    “Yup. And because he believes in souls, he has a hard time with this idea of transferring consciousness. He would say the new version isn’t the same person.”
    I thought about what the supposed suicide note said. “Well, is it?”
    Raoul rolled his eyes. “You, too? Of course it is! The mind is just software — and since the dawn of computing, software has been moved from one computing platform to another by copying it over, then erasing the original.”
    I frowned, but decided to let that go for the moment. “So, if you do transfer, what would you have fixed in your new body?”
    Raoul spread his arms. “Hey, man, you don’t tamper with perfection.”
    “Yeah,” I said. “Sure. Still, how much could you change things? I mean, say you’re a midget; could you choose to have a normal-sized body?”
    “Sure, of course.”
    I frowned. “But wouldn’t the copied mind have trouble with your new size?”
    “Nah,” said Raoul. The waitress returned. She bent over far enough while placing Raoul’s drink on the table that her breast touched his bare forearm; she gave me a look that said, “See what you’re missing, tiger?” When she was gone, Raoul continued. “See, when we first started copying consciousness, we let the old software from the old mind actually try to directly control the new body. It took months to learn how to walk again, and so on.”
    “Yeah, I read something about that, years ago,” I said.
    Raoul nodded. “Right. But now we don’t let the copied mind do anything but give orders. The thoughts are intercepted by the new body’s main computer. That unit runs the body. All the transferred mind has to do is think that it wants to pick up this glass, say.” He acted out his example, and took a sip, then winced in response to the booze’s kick. “The computer takes care of working out which pulleys to contract, how far to reach, and so on.”
    “So you could indeed order up a body radically different from your original?” I said.
    “Absolutely,” said Raoul. He looked at me through hooded eyes. “Which, in your case, is probably the route to go.”
    “Damn,” I said.
    “Hey, don’t take it seriously,” he said, taking another sip, and allowing himself another pleased wince. “Just a joke.”
    “I know,” I said. “It’s just that I was hoping it wasn’t that way. See, this case I’m on: the guy I’m supposed to find owns the NewYou franchise here.”
    “Yeah?” said Raoul.
    “Yeah, and I think he deliberately transferred his scanned mind into some body other than the one that he’d ordered up for himself.”
    “Why would he do that?”
    “He faked the death of the body that looked like him — and, I think he’d planned to do that all along, because he never bothered to order up any improvements to his face. I think he wanted to get away, but make it look like he was dead, so no one would be looking for him anymore.”
    “And why would he do that?”
    I frowned, then drank some more. “I’m