And of those who were young and healthy, those who were merely curious, those who knew they had a perfectly viable, living, breathing body outside?
The bale-out rate so far had been one hundred percent.
Paul stood in the middle of the room, swearing softly for several minutes, acutely aware of the passage of time. He didn't feel ready -- but the longer the other Copies had waited, the more traumatic they seemed to have found the decision. He stared at the floating interface; its dreamlike, hallucinatory quality helped, slightly. He rarely remembered his dreams, and he wouldn't remember this one -- but there was no tragedy in that.
He suddenly realized that he was still stark naked. Habit -- if no conceivable propriety -- nagged at him to put on some clothes, but he resisted the urge. One or two perfectly innocent, perfectly ordinary actions like that, and he'd find he was taking himself seriously, thinking of himself as real, making it even harder . . .
He paced the bedroom, grasped the cool metal of the doorknob a couple of times, but managed to keep himself from turning it. There was no point even starting to explore this world.
He couldn't resist peeking out the window, though. The view of north Sydney was flawless; every building, every cyclist, every tree, was utterly convincing -- but that was no great feat; it was a recording, not a simulation. Essentially photographic -- give or take some computerized touching up and filling in -- and totally predetermined. To cut costs even further, only a tiny part of it was
"physically" accessible to him; he could see the harbor in the distance, but he knew that if he tried to go for a stroll down to the water's edge . . .
Enough. Just get it over with.
Paul turned back to the interface and touched a menu icon labelled utilities; it spawned another window in front of the first. The function he was seeking was buried several menus deep -- but he knew exactly where to look for it. He'd watched this, from the outside, too many times to have forgotten.
He finally reached the emergencies menu -- which included a cheerful icon of a cartoon figure suspended from a parachute. Baling out was what everyone called it -- but he didn't find that too cloyingly euphemistic; after all, he could hardly commit "suicide" when he wasn't legally human. The fact that a bale-out option was compulsory had nothing to do with anything so troublesome as the "rights" of the Copy; the requirement arose solely from the ratification of certain, purely technical, international software standards.
Paul prodded the icon; it came to life, and recited a warning spiel. He scarcely paid attention. Then it said, "Are you absolutely sure that you wish to shut down this Copy of Paul Durham?"
Nothing to it. Program A asks Program B to confirm its request for orderly termination. Packets of data are exchanged.
"Yes, I'm sure."
A metal box, painted red, appeared at his feet. He opened it, took out the parachute, strapped it on.
Then he closed his eyes and said, "Listen to me. Just listen! How many times do you need to be told? I'll skip the personal angst; you've heard it all before -- and ignored it all before. It doesn't matter how I feel. But . . . when are you going to stop wasting your time, your money, your energy -- when are you going to stop wasting your life -- on something which you just don't have the strength to carry through?"
Paul hesitated, trying to put himself in the place of his original, hearing those words -- and almost wept with frustration. He still didn't know what he could say that would make a difference. He'd shrugged off the testimony of all the earlier Copies himself; he'd never been able to accept their claims to know his own mind better than he did. Just because they'd lost their nerve and chosen to bale out, who were they to proclaim that he'd never give rise to a Copy who'd choose otherwise? All he had to do was strengthen his resolve, and try again . . .
He shook his head. "It's been ten years, and nothing's changed. What's wrong with you? Do you honestly still believe that you're brave enough -- or crazy enough -- to be your own guinea pig? Do you?"
He paused again, but only for a moment; he didn't expect a reply.
He'd argued long and hard with the first Copy, but after that, he'd never had the stomach for it.
"Well, I've got news for you: You're not."
With his eyes still closed, he gripped the release lever.
I'm nothing: a dream, a soon-to-be-forgotten dream.
His fingernails needed cutting; they dug painfully into the skin of his palm.
Had he never, in a dream, feared the extinction of waking? Maybe he had -- but a dream was not a life. If the only way he could "reclaim" his body, "reclaim" his world, was to wake and forget --
He pulled the lever.
After a few seconds, he emitted a constricted sob -- a sound more of confusion than any kind of emotion -- and opened his eyes.
The lever had come away in his hand.
He stared dumbly at this metaphor for . . . what? A bug in the termination software? Some kind of hardware glitch?