Ascension by Daniel Weisbeck (reading tree .txt) 📕

Liza shot up, leaning on her right arm. His eyes were begging. “What you are you talking about?”

Henry sat up. “Just hear me out. I met someone. A lady in your building. An elderly woman.”

Liza crinkled her face in doubt. “There aren’t any elderly people in this building anymore.”

“That’s what I thought.”

“Henry Ford, what are you talking about?”

“We can’t talk here. Let’s take a shower.”

Steam filled the glass cubical, barely large enough to fit two grown humans. Liza looked at him, naked. His ivory and pink skin, ruby red nipples and light brown freckles across his shoulders and upper chest radiated under the water. She had forgotten about her Ascension over the last few hours. But something of his skin, so alive and transparent, reminded her of what she was losing. A sadness set in.

Henry lifted her chin, locking in on her eyes. The sound of water jetting out of the shower muted his voice from the outside world. “Did they tell you about the process of Ascension?”

“No, only that I won’t even know it is happening.”

“They will put you into a coma. During this time, the Ascension network will be copying your brain's entire structure down to the last DNA strand. All the billions of synapsis that create your memories, your feelings, everything that makes up your existence will be turned into code and run through a neural network.”

“Why would they do that?”

“It’s a new AI system they are working on. A program that will amalgamate all the life experiences and learnings of an entire generation. It’s a sort of living time capsule showing what it is to be human through the eyes of millions.”

Liza moved slightly away from him until her back was up against the glass wall. The words of the Arranger rang through her head, “Your visitors can create their own storylines.” A sudden fear overwhelmed her. Not only was her death out of her control, but now so was her eternal life. “They can’t. They can’t just take our lives like that.”

Henry placed his hands on her arms gently. “It might not be all that bad.”

Liza’s eyes ballooned. Who was this man talking to her? Where was the person appalled thinking about the mass suicide program? The person who fought the culling of the weak and old?

“If we are together. I mean. It might be worth it.”

“How do you know all this?”

“The old woman told me. She was one of the original programmers on the Ascension neural network. Before she was taken to Ascend herself, she secretly created a subroutine and buried it deep in the code, encrypted in a black box. That’s where she exists now. She is alive, Liza. And I’ve been in her mind. The apartment she took me to upstairs was real, as if everything inside existed, all of it. I smelt freshly brewed tea and touched organic materials. And there are others. People she has helped who have joined her.”

“Henry, that’s not living,” Liza's voice pleaded. “That’s a program, controlled and manipulated by someone else. It’s like being buried alive. I can’t think of anything more terrifying.” She shook her head.

Henry stared at her with a conviction rare for him. “What other choice do we have. I can’t live without you.”

Liza met his confession with silence. She turned and stepped out of the shower. Grabbing a towel, she dried herself. Henry leaned up against the open glass door, staring at her.

“Did you hear me?”

“Yes,” Liza said, her eyes avoiding him. She wrapped the towel around her breasts and tucked it tight so as not to fall off.

“How can you be so cold. I thought you loved me. I thought we loved each other?” he pleaded. Henry came up directly behind her, his naked damp body pressing into her back. He wrapped his arms around her waist. “I mean it. I’m not sticking around. We either ascend together, or I go anyways, right after you. I take my own life.”

Liza spun round. “Don’t say that!”

“Then you will do it? There’s no reason to wait.”

Liza pushed Henry back and made her way into her bedroom. Henry followed.

“What is stopping you, Liza?” Henry’s voice grew more and more exasperated, and his stammer returned. “Wa…wa…we can be together forever. Isn’t that what you want as well?”

Liza, half-dressed, turned at his stutter, feeling responsible. “I do want to be with you, Henry. I am with you. Right now, right here, we are together. Can’t we let this be enough?”

Henry’s enthusiasm drained from his face. His flesh went a pallid ghostly white. He fell back onto the edge of her bed, with shoulders slumped forward. Tears filled his eyes. Liza sat next to him in silence. After a few minutes, he lay his head on her shoulder.

“I love you,” he uttered in a voice so mournful, so profound, that tears came to her eyes.

Liza placed her hand on his lap and turned until they sat face to face. “Henry Ford,” she began with a gentle smile. “I love you too.”

And there it was. The words he so ached to hear from her since the day she walked into his shop. Received with a joyous rapture of relief and yet, he knew it wasn’t real.