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Upgrade: To Founding
© 2024 by Walter Reimer
Thumbnail art by
Scotik_Productions
One.
“Come on, come on,” Sarah Connolly said, muttering under her breath as she passed the back of her right hand over the reader again and again. Finally, the lighted telltale turned from red to green and the door to her apartment unlocked. She shouldered her way in before it could change its mind and kicked the door closed in passing, shutting out the sounds of querulous voices and crying children echoing down the corridor.
The lights came on as soon as the apartment sensed that she was inside, which cheered her up only somewhat. The grid was still running, but there was no telling how long that would last. In fact, it seemed like it was off more times than it was on these days.
“Sabotage,” was the word the newscasts used, taking their lead from the government. It was a good word, because they used it a lot, and a lot of people had been arrested for it over the past few years.
The power supply behaved, so Sarah was able to get a shower and a hot dinner. While going through the drudgery of cleaning up after her meal, she mentally replayed the events of the day.
Her elementary-level class had been more listless than usual, and they had struggled with their lessons despite her helping them. Hungry bellies aren’t conducive to keen or inquisitive minds, or to learning in general, but food wasn’t cheap and in some parts of the city wasn’t readily available.
Getting into bed, she debated staying up to read a little when the lights went out. The decision made for her, she sighed, rolled over, and was soon asleep.
The lights came back on in the middle of the night. Sarah mumbled a curse and switched the lights off before going back to bed.
Yawning before taking a sip of the bitter, watery slop that passed as ‘coffee’ for people in her income bracket, Sarah opened her tablet and accessed the latest news. The power grid failure last night was, yes, ‘sabotage;’ two people had been arrested. There were riots going on in various parts of the world over water.
The usual.
A musical tone sounded as the tablet received a call for her, and Sarah brightened slightly when she saw who it was. She flicked a fingertip over the ACCEPT icon and said, “Good morning, Jeff.”
“Hiya, Yogurt,” her older brother said, and he grinned as she scowled at him. Sarah had very fair skin and a mop of strawberry-blonde hair. Jeff had teased her about it, back when they were children. “What’s new?”
She shrugged. “Coffee still tastes bad,” she said, taking a sip at the beverage. “I have my first class at nine.”
His face grew serious. “You know, that job offer’s still open for you. All you have to do say the word, and I’ll move Heaven and Earth to get you in.” Jeff was a middle-level figure in one of the government’s many departments, and he’d made the offer before.
Sarah smiled. “Still sweet of you, Jeff, but,” and she sighed, “I like teaching . . . yes, even though it doesn’t look like I’m making a difference. How are Jane and the kids?”
“They’re fine.” The two talked of this and that for a few minutes before Jeff asked, “Have you heard about Rodney?”
“Rodney?” Sarah asked, frowning for a moment before nodding. Rodney was a cousin of a cousin. “What’s he up to?”
“I heard that he’s gone to Founding.”
Sarah blinked. The Upgrade Corporation had made several scientific breakthroughs, building on earlier research, that enabled them to reach an Earthlike planet in only two years. There had been a steady trickle of colonists from what she’d heard, mainly from countries that had seen the worst effects of the climate crisis.
The planet wasn’t a paradise, but it could be tamed. Or so Upgrade claimed, at any rate.
“Any idea why he decided to leave?”
Jeff shook his head. “Aunt Martha thinks he just got fed up. Didn’t talk to her or tell anyone else. He transferred all his money and property to Upgrade and disappeared.”
“Huh.” The conversation moved off the topic for several minutes before Sarah reminded him that she needed to get ready for work.
Later, while her students were at what was still euphemistically referred to as ‘lunch,’ Sarah felt her curiosity getting the better of her, so she plugged her tablet in and accessed the Upgrade Corporation’s website, skeptically ignoring the pretty views of happy, well-fed people waving from a wheat field under a blue sky.
The image was AI-generated, most likely. She frowned and started at the site’s FAQs.
Oddly, the company admitted at the outset (in response to the question “What will your passengers do on the flight to Founding?”) that it wasn’t possible to move people bodily to the new planet. Instead, the company stated that everything that made a person a person – their personality, intellect, emotions, memories – would be downloaded from their brains and saved to storage media. Once the trip was completed, the person would be uploaded into a new body.
It sounded interesting.
***
“Hey, Jeff,” Sarah said a few weeks later.
Her brother stared at her. She looked haggard, for want of a better word. ‘Defeated’ and ‘heartsick’ followed hard behind the first word. “Sarah?” he asked, forgetting to needle her with her childhood nickname. “What happened?” She sighed, and he repeated the question.
Sarah sighed again. “A couple days ago,” she said, “my class got a pair of guinea pigs.”
“Cute little things,” her brother said, remembering.
She nodded. “They went missing yesterday.”
“Escaped?”
“No. One of the boys admitted to me this morning that he’d stolen them.” She sighed. “And ate them.”
Jeff gaped at her in shock. “D – Did you turn him in?”
“I didn’t have the heart to,” she replied, shaking her head ruefully. “He was so proud that he’d brought something home for his family to eat.” She shuddered and brought a handkerchief to her nose before blowing it. “I’m sorry . . . “
“Don’t be, Sarah,” Jeff said, “please.”
She snuffled back mucus and said, “I’m going to do it, Jeff.”
“What?”
“I’m going to follow Rodney,” she said, “and get the hell off this planet.”
On the screen, Jeff’s shocked expression was evident, and he raised a hand. “Sarah, please,” he said, “please don’t do anything rash – “
She smiled. “Have I ever?”
“No, but don’t start doing it now, okay?”
“I plan on talking to an Upgrade rep,” she said, “and learning everything I can before I put my name on anything. Okay?”
Jeff nodded and smiled. “That’s my baby sister.”
Despite her melancholy mood, she stuck her tongue out at him.
***
Digging up background on the Upgrade Corporation had been amazingly easy. In an age when many businesses hid their techniques and true intentions behind carefully chosen language, Upgrade was fairly open in all but one regard.
As Sarah prepared for her interview with a company representative, she resolved that she’d ask the person directly, and not tolerate any evasions.
***
The Upgrade Corporation representative was androgynous, but the name plate on the desk held the name Randall Wei. He wore a neutral gray business suit and his dark hair was styled in a pageboy bob. “Hello, Miss Connolly,” he said, gesturing for her to sit across the small desk from him. “I’m told that you wanted to talk to me personally, rather than simply sign up for colonization?”
“Yes,” Sarah said as she sat down. “I have a few questions that aren’t answered on your website, or anywhere else I’ve been researching.”
Wei’s smile widened. “It’s a pleasure to meet someone who wants to find things out rather than simply dive in,” he said. “So, what do you want to know?”
“First, why haven’t we heard yet from anyone on the colony?”
“Our drive technology reduces the time to two years,” Wei replied, “but Founding is over ten light-years away. Any radio transmission would still be on the way.”
“I see. Your ads talk about the ‘upgrading’ process – transferring what makes a person a person to another body when they arrive,” Sarah said. She cocked an eye at him. “Where do these bodies come from?”
“They’re grown on Founding,” Wei replied, and he grinned wryly. “With some modifications.”
“’Modifications?’”
“Yes, to help them better adapt to the climate on Founding. It’s an Earthlike planet but has some extremes of climate.”
Sarah pointedly leaned over to glance out the window. “Yes, extremes,” she said in a dry voice as she straightened in her chair. “What modifications are you talking about?”
Wei said, “Well, this might be a bit of a shock,” and he typed a few words into his laptop before turning the screen around to face her.
Sarah’s mouth dropped open as she saw a number of – were those polar bears? – wearing clothing and walking around on their hind legs. Some were shouldering tools or packs, and they chatted and laughed among themselves as they boarded a vehicle.
It didn’t look like it was an AI-produced fake, either.
The Upgrade rep said, “We basically cheated by taking a simplified human substrate and modifying it with several mammalian species’ attributes, suiting them to the climatic conditions found on the planet.” He craned his neck. “Ah. I think these would be working in one of the arctic regions.”
“That . . . that’s amazing,” Sarah said. “Would a colonist have a choice in what form they might take?”
Wei shook his head. “The choice is entirely up to the colony staff, and is based, for now, on the needs of the colony. As time goes on and the planet becomes more settled, we’ll allow colonists to make their own choices regarding their appearance.”
“This is all a lot to take in,” Sarah said, “but I admit I’m intrigued. Let me think things over before I sign anything.”
“Of course,” Wei said, standing to shake her hand as she stood up. “I’ll email you our contract, and you can read it at your leisure. Feel free to poke holes in it, and if you have any questions, I’ll include my contact information.”
“Thank you,” and Sarah left the office, her head spinning somewhat.
By the time she left the building, she had decided to discuss things with Jeff as well as read that contract over line by line.
Then, and only after she was satisfied, would she sign up to be a colonist.
***
When she made her decision a month later, Sarah notified her extended family and braced herself for their reactions.
Most of the reactions were indifferent, with only one distant cousin saying “Good riddance” and others expressing dismay that she wasn’t staying on Earth to help improve things. This stance provoked a minor dispute on her social media page, as the idea of “improving things” met with various pros and cons.
Her brother Jeff invited her to his home for the week leading up to her departure. Her older brother and his wife talked, and she embraced her niece and nephews. Jeff had misgivings, but put a brave face on things, and his whole family went with her to the airport to wave goodbye.
The school administrator merely shrugged and started looking for her replacement. Her pupils just nodded, a few not understanding and the others too apathetic to really care.
***
“Ah, Miss Connolly, right this way. We have your signed contract on file. Now, recorders are running, and I have to ask for the file if you’re ready to sign over your financial assets and accounts?”
Sarah took a breath, nodded, and said, “I am.”
The clerk was a woman, and she smiled as she offered a tablet. “Read this over, and sign here, and here, and put your thumbprint here.”
“Okay.” This was the final hurdle. If she refused to sign, the contract would be rendered null and she could go back to her apartment and her pupils.
She read over the text on the tablet. Taking up the stylus, she signed there, and there, and pressed the pad of her right thumb against the screen.
The clerk smiled. “Thank you, Miss Connolly. I need you to head out the door behind me, and go down the hallway to your right. They’re waiting for you in Processing.”
“’Processing?’ That sounds a little ominous,” Sarah said in a joking tone.
The woman laughed along with her and shrugged. “Bureaucrats.”
***
“Good morning, Miss – Connolly, was it? Good. Have a seat, and just lie back. Comfortable?”
“Yes. Will this hurt?”
“Not at all, Miss Connolly. You’ll basically go to sleep, and wake up two years later on Founding.”
“Oh. Will I dream?”
“I don’t think so. No one’s reported anything like that. Okay, now, hold still – “
<NEXT>
© 2024 by Walter Reimer
Thumbnail art by
Scotik_ProductionsOne.
“Come on, come on,” Sarah Connolly said, muttering under her breath as she passed the back of her right hand over the reader again and again. Finally, the lighted telltale turned from red to green and the door to her apartment unlocked. She shouldered her way in before it could change its mind and kicked the door closed in passing, shutting out the sounds of querulous voices and crying children echoing down the corridor.
The lights came on as soon as the apartment sensed that she was inside, which cheered her up only somewhat. The grid was still running, but there was no telling how long that would last. In fact, it seemed like it was off more times than it was on these days.
“Sabotage,” was the word the newscasts used, taking their lead from the government. It was a good word, because they used it a lot, and a lot of people had been arrested for it over the past few years.
The power supply behaved, so Sarah was able to get a shower and a hot dinner. While going through the drudgery of cleaning up after her meal, she mentally replayed the events of the day.
Her elementary-level class had been more listless than usual, and they had struggled with their lessons despite her helping them. Hungry bellies aren’t conducive to keen or inquisitive minds, or to learning in general, but food wasn’t cheap and in some parts of the city wasn’t readily available.
Getting into bed, she debated staying up to read a little when the lights went out. The decision made for her, she sighed, rolled over, and was soon asleep.
The lights came back on in the middle of the night. Sarah mumbled a curse and switched the lights off before going back to bed.
Yawning before taking a sip of the bitter, watery slop that passed as ‘coffee’ for people in her income bracket, Sarah opened her tablet and accessed the latest news. The power grid failure last night was, yes, ‘sabotage;’ two people had been arrested. There were riots going on in various parts of the world over water.
The usual.
A musical tone sounded as the tablet received a call for her, and Sarah brightened slightly when she saw who it was. She flicked a fingertip over the ACCEPT icon and said, “Good morning, Jeff.”
“Hiya, Yogurt,” her older brother said, and he grinned as she scowled at him. Sarah had very fair skin and a mop of strawberry-blonde hair. Jeff had teased her about it, back when they were children. “What’s new?”
She shrugged. “Coffee still tastes bad,” she said, taking a sip at the beverage. “I have my first class at nine.”
His face grew serious. “You know, that job offer’s still open for you. All you have to do say the word, and I’ll move Heaven and Earth to get you in.” Jeff was a middle-level figure in one of the government’s many departments, and he’d made the offer before.
Sarah smiled. “Still sweet of you, Jeff, but,” and she sighed, “I like teaching . . . yes, even though it doesn’t look like I’m making a difference. How are Jane and the kids?”
“They’re fine.” The two talked of this and that for a few minutes before Jeff asked, “Have you heard about Rodney?”
“Rodney?” Sarah asked, frowning for a moment before nodding. Rodney was a cousin of a cousin. “What’s he up to?”
“I heard that he’s gone to Founding.”
Sarah blinked. The Upgrade Corporation had made several scientific breakthroughs, building on earlier research, that enabled them to reach an Earthlike planet in only two years. There had been a steady trickle of colonists from what she’d heard, mainly from countries that had seen the worst effects of the climate crisis.
The planet wasn’t a paradise, but it could be tamed. Or so Upgrade claimed, at any rate.
“Any idea why he decided to leave?”
Jeff shook his head. “Aunt Martha thinks he just got fed up. Didn’t talk to her or tell anyone else. He transferred all his money and property to Upgrade and disappeared.”
“Huh.” The conversation moved off the topic for several minutes before Sarah reminded him that she needed to get ready for work.
Later, while her students were at what was still euphemistically referred to as ‘lunch,’ Sarah felt her curiosity getting the better of her, so she plugged her tablet in and accessed the Upgrade Corporation’s website, skeptically ignoring the pretty views of happy, well-fed people waving from a wheat field under a blue sky.
The image was AI-generated, most likely. She frowned and started at the site’s FAQs.
Oddly, the company admitted at the outset (in response to the question “What will your passengers do on the flight to Founding?”) that it wasn’t possible to move people bodily to the new planet. Instead, the company stated that everything that made a person a person – their personality, intellect, emotions, memories – would be downloaded from their brains and saved to storage media. Once the trip was completed, the person would be uploaded into a new body.
It sounded interesting.
***
“Hey, Jeff,” Sarah said a few weeks later.
Her brother stared at her. She looked haggard, for want of a better word. ‘Defeated’ and ‘heartsick’ followed hard behind the first word. “Sarah?” he asked, forgetting to needle her with her childhood nickname. “What happened?” She sighed, and he repeated the question.
Sarah sighed again. “A couple days ago,” she said, “my class got a pair of guinea pigs.”
“Cute little things,” her brother said, remembering.
She nodded. “They went missing yesterday.”
“Escaped?”
“No. One of the boys admitted to me this morning that he’d stolen them.” She sighed. “And ate them.”
Jeff gaped at her in shock. “D – Did you turn him in?”
“I didn’t have the heart to,” she replied, shaking her head ruefully. “He was so proud that he’d brought something home for his family to eat.” She shuddered and brought a handkerchief to her nose before blowing it. “I’m sorry . . . “
“Don’t be, Sarah,” Jeff said, “please.”
She snuffled back mucus and said, “I’m going to do it, Jeff.”
“What?”
“I’m going to follow Rodney,” she said, “and get the hell off this planet.”
On the screen, Jeff’s shocked expression was evident, and he raised a hand. “Sarah, please,” he said, “please don’t do anything rash – “
She smiled. “Have I ever?”
“No, but don’t start doing it now, okay?”
“I plan on talking to an Upgrade rep,” she said, “and learning everything I can before I put my name on anything. Okay?”
Jeff nodded and smiled. “That’s my baby sister.”
Despite her melancholy mood, she stuck her tongue out at him.
***
Digging up background on the Upgrade Corporation had been amazingly easy. In an age when many businesses hid their techniques and true intentions behind carefully chosen language, Upgrade was fairly open in all but one regard.
As Sarah prepared for her interview with a company representative, she resolved that she’d ask the person directly, and not tolerate any evasions.
***
The Upgrade Corporation representative was androgynous, but the name plate on the desk held the name Randall Wei. He wore a neutral gray business suit and his dark hair was styled in a pageboy bob. “Hello, Miss Connolly,” he said, gesturing for her to sit across the small desk from him. “I’m told that you wanted to talk to me personally, rather than simply sign up for colonization?”
“Yes,” Sarah said as she sat down. “I have a few questions that aren’t answered on your website, or anywhere else I’ve been researching.”
Wei’s smile widened. “It’s a pleasure to meet someone who wants to find things out rather than simply dive in,” he said. “So, what do you want to know?”
“First, why haven’t we heard yet from anyone on the colony?”
“Our drive technology reduces the time to two years,” Wei replied, “but Founding is over ten light-years away. Any radio transmission would still be on the way.”
“I see. Your ads talk about the ‘upgrading’ process – transferring what makes a person a person to another body when they arrive,” Sarah said. She cocked an eye at him. “Where do these bodies come from?”
“They’re grown on Founding,” Wei replied, and he grinned wryly. “With some modifications.”
“’Modifications?’”
“Yes, to help them better adapt to the climate on Founding. It’s an Earthlike planet but has some extremes of climate.”
Sarah pointedly leaned over to glance out the window. “Yes, extremes,” she said in a dry voice as she straightened in her chair. “What modifications are you talking about?”
Wei said, “Well, this might be a bit of a shock,” and he typed a few words into his laptop before turning the screen around to face her.
Sarah’s mouth dropped open as she saw a number of – were those polar bears? – wearing clothing and walking around on their hind legs. Some were shouldering tools or packs, and they chatted and laughed among themselves as they boarded a vehicle.
It didn’t look like it was an AI-produced fake, either.
The Upgrade rep said, “We basically cheated by taking a simplified human substrate and modifying it with several mammalian species’ attributes, suiting them to the climatic conditions found on the planet.” He craned his neck. “Ah. I think these would be working in one of the arctic regions.”
“That . . . that’s amazing,” Sarah said. “Would a colonist have a choice in what form they might take?”
Wei shook his head. “The choice is entirely up to the colony staff, and is based, for now, on the needs of the colony. As time goes on and the planet becomes more settled, we’ll allow colonists to make their own choices regarding their appearance.”
“This is all a lot to take in,” Sarah said, “but I admit I’m intrigued. Let me think things over before I sign anything.”
“Of course,” Wei said, standing to shake her hand as she stood up. “I’ll email you our contract, and you can read it at your leisure. Feel free to poke holes in it, and if you have any questions, I’ll include my contact information.”
“Thank you,” and Sarah left the office, her head spinning somewhat.
By the time she left the building, she had decided to discuss things with Jeff as well as read that contract over line by line.
Then, and only after she was satisfied, would she sign up to be a colonist.
***
When she made her decision a month later, Sarah notified her extended family and braced herself for their reactions.
Most of the reactions were indifferent, with only one distant cousin saying “Good riddance” and others expressing dismay that she wasn’t staying on Earth to help improve things. This stance provoked a minor dispute on her social media page, as the idea of “improving things” met with various pros and cons.
Her brother Jeff invited her to his home for the week leading up to her departure. Her older brother and his wife talked, and she embraced her niece and nephews. Jeff had misgivings, but put a brave face on things, and his whole family went with her to the airport to wave goodbye.
The school administrator merely shrugged and started looking for her replacement. Her pupils just nodded, a few not understanding and the others too apathetic to really care.
***
“Ah, Miss Connolly, right this way. We have your signed contract on file. Now, recorders are running, and I have to ask for the file if you’re ready to sign over your financial assets and accounts?”
Sarah took a breath, nodded, and said, “I am.”
The clerk was a woman, and she smiled as she offered a tablet. “Read this over, and sign here, and here, and put your thumbprint here.”
“Okay.” This was the final hurdle. If she refused to sign, the contract would be rendered null and she could go back to her apartment and her pupils.
She read over the text on the tablet. Taking up the stylus, she signed there, and there, and pressed the pad of her right thumb against the screen.
The clerk smiled. “Thank you, Miss Connolly. I need you to head out the door behind me, and go down the hallway to your right. They’re waiting for you in Processing.”
“’Processing?’ That sounds a little ominous,” Sarah said in a joking tone.
The woman laughed along with her and shrugged. “Bureaucrats.”
***
“Good morning, Miss – Connolly, was it? Good. Have a seat, and just lie back. Comfortable?”
“Yes. Will this hurt?”
“Not at all, Miss Connolly. You’ll basically go to sleep, and wake up two years later on Founding.”
“Oh. Will I dream?”
“I don’t think so. No one’s reported anything like that. Okay, now, hold still – “
<NEXT>
Category Story / General Furry Art
Species Human
Size 97 x 120px
File Size 76.9 kB
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