Jack's pulse quickened and his palms began to sweat as he stepped from the tram onto Cooper Street. The girls and boys displayed their wares below flickering signs that relayed their corporate or university sponsorship, price and health information. Some were dressed, some nude, but most were skinny and pale, hormonally stymied to look the part of the vulnerable street waif.
As he walked further from the brightly lit tram station he recognized some of the faces. Surrogate Elaines who had stayed with him before, but had not impressed him, had not filled the gap between what his hand touched and what his eyes saw. He knew that by night's end he might be forced to come back for one of them, but until then he would keep looking for the woman in whose flesh he could relive the past.
Un-forecasted rain began to fall as he neared the end of the second block. Flimsy Mylar awnings sprang from the whore's signs forcing them to pull back close to the wall to stay dry. As Jack opened his umbrella an argument flared between two of the young women over sign space. Security drones swooped in and circled the combatants at a safe distance, ready to administer calming gas should physical violence demand it. To avoid the fight, Jack stepped close to the inside wall and passed within feet of standing hookers who immediately began pandering their promises of unequaled delights.
It was there - in close - amid the flesh and synthetic pheromones that he saw the perfect Elaine. Her signage had failed to produce protection from the rain so she stood soaked and dripping, thin clothing plastered to a firm, shapely build and dark hair hanging to her shoulders in clumps. She didn't yell tawdry lures or gyrate her bottom like those all around her, but instead watched Jack with quiet and intense eyes of electric blue.
Elaine's eyes.
It wasn't just the color, but the way she stared with the same cool intensity as a cat eying prey it had caught but not yet killed.
"Hello, Jack."
His hands twitched and his throat clenched.
"Elaine?" he croaked.
She shook her head. "No, but I can be... for tonight."
He stood in the rain, staring at her as people jostled past him in their attempts to stay out of the flowing gutters. Never over the decades had he found one so close to the real thing, yet it felt wrong, she was too perfect of a match. Of course it wasn't the real Elaine - he'd watched her die - yet when they had taken her cold hand from his, her skin had been that same color.
She pushed the hair from her eyes and held out her hand, palm up, in a gesture that could have been a plea or a welcome. Raindrops lay like random pearls on her death white wrists. Jack took her chilled hand, raised the skin to his lips and sucked in the droplets.
A shiver and flush brought subtle life to her face. She even had Elaine's smile. Her sign said she was twenty-two, exactly half Jack's age, that she had no sponsorship and preferred overnight customers. Not surprising that she had no sponsor at her age, yet her price was as high as those near the tram station. It didn't matter. He had to have her.
"I... I'm looking for an evening companion," he stammered. "Your price is right. I'm also offering meals and a bath."
She nodded, stepped under Jack's umbrella and wrapped her fingers around his arm. With trembling hands he raised the netpad to his face, so that the lasers could make the neural connection through his eyes, then authorized the order to transfer funds. Her broken sign registered his payment then flickered off.
* * * * *
Her name was Sydney, and when she entered the kitchen wearing the silky white evening gown he had selected from his collection, Jack stopped twisting the corkscrew mid-turn. Her hair lay loose on shoulders still pink from the bath and the high heels put her almost even with Jack's lanky six-foot frame. Those beautiful eyes had been set aglow by the white dress and when she smiled his breath caught in his throat.
"What's wrong, Jack?"
"Nothing... you just... remind me of someone."
"Elaine?"
He nodded and pulled the cork. "How did you know her name?"
"Girls talk. You have quite the rep on Cooper Street and I can see why," she said and slid her hands down the sides of the silk dress. "It's not often that a girl gets paid to be pampered."
Jack took a deep breath and poured the wine. "Oh... I didn't realize I was that popular."
"So when do you put on the goggles, Jack? When do I get to become the woman you love?"
He felt confused. Normally by this time he would have donned the device, replacing the faceless whore with his Elaine... but he had forgotten. This girl was different. It didn't feel right.
"I don't always use the goggles. Sometimes... I just prefer to enjoy the woman I'm with," he said, wondering if she would see the lie.
"I'll take that as a compliment. Is that for me?" she said and pointed to one of the glasses of wine he still held in his hand.
"Oh... um... yeah," he said, feeling his face flush.
When dinner was ready he led her into the dining room, seated her at the table and lit the candles. In the candlelight she looked even more like Elaine. The smile, the eyes, the way she tilted her head, but Elaine had died over twenty years ago. If she were still alive she would have been... Jack's knees turned to wet clay and he sat down abruptly to keep from falling.
"Jack? Are you okay?"
He swallowed and held up a shaky hand. "I'm just... dizzy."
"Are you sure? I can call the MedTechs"
"No... I'm fine. You're sign said you're twenty-two. When's your birthday?"
She leaned back in her chair as if trying to put distance between them. "Why?"
"I... just need to know."
"Sorry, Jack. I don't give that kind of information out to anyone. Especially customers. You can understand that... right?"
He nodded and after a few seconds rose on unsteady legs to fetch the rest of their meal.
During dinner he watched her eat, the way she gestured with her fork while talking, the way she separated her food on the plate and grew even more certain. It had to be Elaine. That's why he didn't need the goggles. That is why he'd forgotten. She had come back. He'd never believed in reincarnation, but there were other possibilities.
He excused himself and went to the bedroom where he kept Elaine's bracelet draped over her picture. When he laid it on the table before Sydney her eyes grew wide and she picked it up.
"Do you recognize it?"
Her eyebrows knitted together and she examined it closer. "No... should I?"
Doubt crept up Jack's back. He took the bracelet, a little too quickly perhaps, and admired it in the candlelight. The small pearls were set in a hand woven filigree of hair thin gold wire. It had been her grandmother's and she had worn it every day he had known her. Her family wanted her buried with it, but he had selfishly insisted on keeping it for himself. She should have remembered.
"So... will you be working Cooper Street from now on? In case I want to find you again?"
She blinked, glanced once more at the bracelet, then picked at her salad. "I suppose... in the evenings anyway. Come early."
"I noticed that you aren't a student, so why only the evenings? There's more competition at night."
She stared at him as she chewed and appeared to consider her answer. Then she swallowed, shrugged and dabbed her mouth. "I have a day job. I'm doing this for the extra income. A matter of economics really. If I find an overnight gig, and I usually do, then I'm getting paid while I sleep and I don't have the expense of a room."
"Very clever. You must be putting away quite a bit of money. Are you planning an early retirement?"
"An early Ascension," she said.
He felt ice in his guts. It was too cruel. Did she come back just to torture him? He didn't know if he could bear that again. He had to stop her. "Why Ascension?"
"You don't approve?" she mumbled around a smile. "I would never have pegged someone with your reputation on Cooper Street to be one of the religious elite that preach against the Heavens. They're usually much more circumspect with their pleasures and perversions."
"I have no religious problem with Ascension. They developed Ascension for those who were going to die no matter what. But you're young and pretty and have your whole life ahead of you. Why give that all up for a fake, digital existence? It would be a terrible waste."
"A waste? Of what? This body? Maybe to men like you who pay to use it, but it's standing in my way. It's a bottleneck in my learning."
"What do you mean? I don't understand."
Sydney put her empty salad bowl aside and sat back in her chair. "For some people, there is more to a digital existence than just the Heavens. I'm a physicist... or at least I'm trying to be. I was what some people call a child prodigy. I graduated high school at fifteen, received my Bachelors at eighteen and my PhD last year, but I'm already behind. If I study my whole natural life I will not learn one percent of what I could learn in a single year of digital life. My digital peers have instant access to every scrap of data known to man, they even think at the speed of light! How can I compete?"
"But... you're a physicist!"
"And it means nothing. There's no place in the physical world for people like me anymore."
Jack took a deep breath and changed tactics. "Okay, I can see your point, but what's the rush? You have your whole life to study physics."
"Because I'm running out of time! I'm going on the..." she stopped and looked down at her hands. "I have my reasons."
Jack knew from the look on her face that it was a losing battle, but he couldn't stop. She just didn’t understand. "Don't you have family? Why can't you live your real life first?"
"Real?" she said and pointed the fork at her dress. "Is this real? Wasting your life looking at hookers through plasma goggles?"
Jack stiffened and sat up straight. Her comment stung like a slap, but what alarmed him even more was the fact that she was on the edge of her seat, with her hands on the table. She was going to leave if he pushed it further. He had to calm her down and stall her.
"I'm sorry," he said.
"No... I'm sorry, Jack. That was out of line," she said and touched his hand. "And I'm sure you didn't bring me here to argue philosophy."
He faked a smile and shrugged. "House?"
"Yes, Jack," said a bland voice from the ceiling.
"Play dance compilation number three."
Soft music filled the air and Jack stood up offering his arm. "Would you like to dance, Sydney?"
She blinked and smiled. "I'd like that very much."
* * * * *
The wine and dancing had filled Sydney with new life and she little resembled the cold, stoic woman Jack had found on Cooper Street. She giggled and teased while tugging him up the stairs to the bedroom, then took complete control after sliding between the sheets. For the first time in many years, Jack enjoyed not directing his bedmate in the arts of being Elaine, because she already knew.
Afterward, they lay listening to the rain pelt the windows. Jack inhaled her scent - clean hair mixed with the faint aroma of sex - and could think of nothing more pleasant. He tried to work out how the Ascension Foundation could implant a digital soul into a newborn child. How and why?
Lightning highlighted her naked side in stark blue and white. He let his fingers slide down her arm to her hip and thigh. She sighed and pulled his arm tighter around her.
"I haven't danced like that since my high school prom."
"What a waste," Jack said.
"Yeah... I guess time moves fast for things like that."
"And slow for other things."
She stroked Jack's arm. "Elaine's dead, isn't she?"
"She must have been young when it happened. I mean... you always pick young women to be Elaine, right?"
"It was twenty-two years ago," he whispered.
Thunder rumbled and Jack could feel the vibration of the old house through the mattress as she stiffened in his arms.
"Is that why you asked about my birthday?"
He nodded, his nose rubbing against the back of her head.
"What happened?"
"She slipped on the ice and hit her head. I watched her die over the period of a month, but I wouldn't let them shut off the machines or disconnect her from the medical network while I tried to find the money to pay for her Ascension. It was new then and even more expensive than it is now. Of course the damned Ascension Foundation wouldn't take her without the money and she died before I'd even raised half the amount."
"So that’s why you're so against Ascension," she said and squeezed his hand. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have asked."
"You are so much like her."
"But I'm not her, Jack."
She didn't remember. How would she know if she had been Elaine in a previous life? Lightning flashed, followed immediately by a house rattling thunder. She squealed and burrowed almost under him.
"Now it's your turn," he said. "Why the hurry to Ascend?"
She turned toward him. He could just make out her smile in the dark. "I'm going on the Wayfarer Expedition."
Jack felt the hairs on his neck rise, the way they always did when he heard something odd. The Wayfarer spacecraft wasn't designed to carry flesh and blood humans. The amounts of air, water and food would be prohibitive, but they could take thousands of digital humans.
If Sydney didn't have the money to Ascend, she couldn't go. The Wayfarer spacecraft had already taken its shakedown cruise. It would be leaving the system within weeks. All he had to do was find a way to stall her.
"Why is going on that expedition so important?"
"I guess I could answer that with a question. Why wouldn't anyone want to go? It's the first really new chance for adventure in generations. I mean even those Ascended folks populating their fake Rome's and Dodge City's know their world isn't real. But this is real, and it's an opportunity to contribute something important to the human race. We'll be spending perhaps hundreds of years studying and exploring a new star system. And who's to say that we won't build more ships and launch new expeditions to other stars? The things we'll see, Jack! How could you not want to go?"
How could he argue with an eternity among the stars? He couldn't, but he couldn't let her go either. He had to try. "There could be lots of problems with that ship, Sydney. There's the possibility of excessive radiation that even digital people couldn't survive."
"Humanity has only made leaps forward when we take risks. They'll need people like me. By becoming part of the digital collective, I'll not just be a physicist, but a super-intellect, a true marriage of machine and human mind."
"How close are you? They'll be leaving within a month. Will you have the money by then?"
"I'm hoping they won't leave that soon. They've had dozens of delays already and I'm getting very close. In another six months I'll have enough."
"Six months?"
"And if they leave before I'm ready, there are other options."
"But..."
"You know, Jack, if you Ascended, you wouldn't need the goggles. In your digital form you could be with your Elaine construct all the time."
"That's not going to happen. I'll never give them a penny of my money."
"You mean you aren't planning to Ascend? Ever?"
"Of course not. Not after they let you die."
The storm had moved to the East and for several minutes only distant rolling thunder broke the silence. She moved away from him and rolled over.
"Good night, Jack. Thanks for the dancing."
* * * * *
When Jack woke the next morning, Elaine was gone. She had slipped away without a note. He slammed his fist into the mattress and cursed himself. How could she get out of the bed without waking him? He went to the window and looked out, hoping beyond hope to see her coming up the walk with a bag of bagels or two cups of coffee. But she was gone.
"House?"
"Yes, Jack?" the ceiling said in its blandly annoying voice.
"What time did Elaine leave?"
"Elaine, sir?"
"I mean Sydney."
"3:21 a.m."
"Did she do anything before leaving? Did she... take anything?"
"She used your netpad to check an opnet message site between 2:51 and 3:10 a.m., then immediately used it again to call a taxi, which arrived at 3:21a.m. She didn't take anything that I could track, Sir."
"Show me the message boards she accessed."
The wall panel blinked onto a web page adorned by a flowing rainbow that seemed to come out of the screen at Jack. He blinked at the tacky display and ordered the house to show him the messages she had read or left.
"I'm sorry Sir, but the site is password protected. Only members have access to the message boards."
"Well, she logged in from here; surely you have a record of her password. What is it?"
"I'm sorry Sir. I'm not allowed to record that information."
"Damn it!" Jack said and slammed his open hand against the table. The house didn't comment.
"Who owns the site?"
"A group called Ascension Salad, Sir."
Jack stood up and started pacing again. "Search the PressNets for any information about Ascension Salad. What are they all about?"
"Here is a quote from the Boston Globe that says, "Ascension Salad is a suicide cult with a unique perspective. They believe that everyone who dies while connected to a network automatically Ascends to a digital existence, but only those who pay for the service are allowed to interact with the physical world."
* * * * *
After five days, the girls and boys there no longer wasted their breath trying to seduce Jack as he walked aimlessly up and down Cooper Street. She'd said she needed to make lots of money, so she should be there on the street peddling herself. So where was she?
He looked around at the noisy Cooper Street sidewalk. Life there went on... the whores hocked their bodies to anyone who would pay... the alleys still stank... the cars crept by with leering drivers. Jack sat down on the curb in front of a used electronics dealer and considered the very real possibility that he would never see her again, that she would die again because she couldn't pay the price to get into the Heavens.
After a few minutes he stood up, brushed off his pants and dropped the netpad into his pocket. When he looked back at the washed out screens on the televisions lining the shop window, he saw a picture of the Wayfarer spacecraft. He ran inside and turned the volume higher.
"StarCorp announced this morning that the lasers driving the Wayfarer spacecraft would fire at 7:30am GMT tomorrow, beginning the first human guided exploration of..."
"Hey you!" the shopkeeper yelled. "You buy or go away!"
Jack looked at the ancient Asian woman, but really didn't hear her. The news piece continued, telling more background on the expedition and their target star system, but nothing new.
"And... from our state news pool...reports are coming in about widespread suicides. Within minutes of StarCorp's announcement, dozens of people across the state... no... this seems to be a national phenomenon. We are getting similar reports from Los Angeles, Atlanta and St. Louis that members of a suicide cult called Ascension Salad are..."
"Hey you... man!" The tiny, wrinkled lady switched off the old television and glared at him with fists on her hips.
He mumbled an apology and stepped out onto the street in a daze. "Please don't die, Elaine. Not again. Please."
A woman's laugh drew Jack's attention to a hooker and her customer standing next to the storefront. They reached an agreement and walked away together as drizzling rain started to fall. He ignored them and the rain, but kept looking at the blank sign. With a trembling hand he pulled his netpad out and turned it on.
"Netpad? Find the prostitution transaction of September third, this year."
"Transaction displayed," the netpad said.
He selected the line and ordered a second transaction. "Transfer two hundred thousand dollars to this same account number. Then notify the owner of the transaction."
"Voice verification approved, please hold your right eye to the screen for retinal verification."
Jack did as ordered and tried to hold the netpad steady between quivering hands.
"Retinal verification complete. Transaction approved."
He took a deep ragged breath, dropped the netpad in his pocket and leaned against the wall. A security drone floated by with its cameras aimed at Jack and the tiny fans sounding like drunken bees. He sighed and closed his eyes.
His netpad buzzed and his heart leapt in his chest. He fumbled it out and answered. An error message flashed on the screen. "Last transaction denied. Recipient account was closed at 6:19pm today."
Jack had sent the money at 6:26. He pocketed the netpad and stood on the sidewalk letting the rain drench him. He eventually started home but he didn't have the energy or the desire to open his umbrella. As he passed the girls and boys huddled under their flimsy awnings he no longer saw potential Elaines. Instead he saw tired, desperate faces on hopeless young people. It made him feel lonely and old.
As he opened the door to the apartment, his netpad buzzed. The origin of the incoming message was from the Ascension Salad.
"Hello?"
"This is an automated, forwarded message and will not repeat. Please stay on the line."
His hands started to shake and he stumbled to the sofa to sit down.
"Hi Jack. Wayfarer let me have one call before we leave local space and I wanted to use it to apologize for leaving the way I did and to tell you that I left Elaine's grandmother's bracelet on the table. Take care and please reconsider Ascension."
The message ended and disconnected.
Jack stepped out of the cab and looked up at the Greek columns that lined the front of the Ascension Foundation building. He didn't know if Elaine had been reborn in Sydney or if she had actually Ascended when she died twenty-two years before. And it didn't matter. He raised the bracelet to his lips, kissed the pearls and went to find Elaine.
THE END
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