Weight of the Heart (Bruna Husky Book 2) (31 page)

“Let’s see. Extend it. Move it,” Tatu said.

Bruna moved it. It responded to her mental orders without any problem, although she found it a bit strange. The doctor touched and pinched her fingertips and compared the stimuli reactions to her other arm.

“I feel everything, but at about sixty percent of what I sense with my real arm,” said the rep.

“Perfect, perfect,” said a delighted Tatu. “A total success. In a few months, when the nerve connections have finished maturing, you’ll recover all sensitivity. It’s a very good arm. The latest model.”

Technology can be a miracle,
thought Bruna admiringly. But then she herself was the product of that miraculous—or maybe cursed—technology. A monster born of genetic manipulation. When she’d cut off her arm in Onkalo rather than vaporizing her head with the plasma, had she done it because reps really couldn’t commit suicide, as Carnal had maintained? Was it true that she had no option? That the engineers had robbed her of the freedom to decide her own end? Or was it maybe just that it had turned out to be impossible to die under a sky as beautiful as the one that night?

In any event she was alive, and she was happy to go on living, and she had the best bionic prosthesis on the market. Then she thought of her friend Mirari, the violinist, desperate because of the disastrous quality of her orthopedic arm, which was always jamming and prevented her from playing her beautiful violin. Bruna picked up her mobile and called her. The woman’s face, with its halo of stiff hair, appeared immediately.

“Hey, Mirari, I’m calling to let you know that you are going to inherit the best bionic arm in the world. Wait, what day is it today?” she asked the people in the room.

“September 2,” answered Lizard.

After doing a quick calculation, Bruna said, “Just so you know, Mirari, you’ll have your fabulous prosthesis in three years, eight months, and thirty days at the latest.”

And she burst out laughing. It was the first time Bruna Husky had ever laughed after she’d done her countdown. She felt light enough to fly. It was wonderful to discover how little a happy heart weighed.

DOCUMENTARY APPENDIX

CHRONOLOGY

2017–2028: Terrorist Wars.

2028–2031: Crescent Moon War. Ends with the total defeat of fundamentalist caliphate coalition by coalition of Western powers and moderate Islam.

2040–2050: The Plagues. Sea levels rise due to global warming, submerging about 14 percent of the Earth’s surface, inundating the most fertile coasts of the planet, provoking mass migrations, famine, disease, and violent confrontations that end the lives of about two billion people.

2053: First versions of technohumans created by private company Vitae.

2059: Atom Protocol. Prohibits production of energy by means of nuclear fission.

2060: Enceladus Revolt. Technohumans working in mines on one of Saturn’s moons, Enceladus, rebel against harsh working and living conditions and kill all humans in their colony.

2060–2062: Rep War. A confrontation between humans and technohumans.

2062: Moon Pact. An agreement between humans and technohumans proposed by replicant leader Gabriel Morlay. It ends the Rep War by granting civil rights to technos.

2067: Discovery of astatine, an essential material for the development of teleportation technology.

2073: Prof. Darling Oumou Koité teleported from Bamako (formerly Mali) to Saturn’s moon Enceladus. First time a human is teleported, or TP’d.

2073–2080: Cosmos Fever. Escalation in tension worldwide due to expanded capability for exploration of Universe via teleportation; 98 percent of explorers die.

2079–2090: Robot Wars. Given this name initially because of attempt to resolve dispute using robots alone. Ultimately causes huge loss of both human and technohuman lives.

2085: Keops Treaty. Secret agreement to regulate nuclear waste on Earth.

2087: Construction of first Floating World, the Democratic State of Cosmos, a hypertechnological totalitarian regime.

2088: Construction of second Floating World, the Kingdom of Labari, a fundamentalist religious tyranny.

May 3, 2090: Day One. Date of first encounter between Earthlings and aliens. Gnés spaceship from planet Gnío lands in Chinese sector of mining colony of Potosí, a remote planet that, like Gnío, circles the star Fomalhaut. The date becomes known as Day One.

May 6, 2090: Signing of Human Peace, which ends the Robot Wars. An immediate consequence of encounter with the aliens.

2096: Unification. Creation of planetary government and federal system of United States of the Earth (USE).

2096: Global Agreements of Cassiopeia, the first ever interstellar treaty, which regulates a vast number of matters, including use and copyright of technologies, commercial exchange, foreign currencies, use of teleportation, migratory conditions, etc. The Floating Worlds, Cosmos and Labari, are the only known states in the Universe that refuse to sign.

2098: First Constitution of USE enacted and promulgated. Magna Carta amended to grant full rights to all technohumans.

2101: Law of Artificial Memory, which regulates the use of artificial memories in technohumans.

2109: Constitutional Tribunal prohibits sale of air.

Central Archive, the United States of the Earth.

Technohumans

Keywords: history, social conflict, Rep War, Moon Pact, discrimination, biotechnology, civil movements, supremacism.

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Midway through the twenty-first century, projects connected with the geological exploitation of
Mars
and two of
Saturn
’s moons,
Titan
and
Enceladus
, led to the creation of an android that would be resistant to the harsh environmental conditions in the mining colonies. In 2053, the Brazilian bioengineering company
Vitae
used stem cells to generate an organism that was matured in a lab at an accelerated rate and was virtually identical to a human being. It was marketed under the name
Homolab
but quickly became known as a
replicant
, a term taken from a futuristic film very popular in the twentieth century.

Replicants were an instant success. They were used for mining exploration not only in outer space but also on Earth, as well as for deep-sea fish-farming. Specialist versions began to be developed, and by 2057 there were already four distinct types of androids available, for mining, computation, combat, and pleasure (this last specialization was banned years later). In those days it was inconceivable that Homolabs would have any control over their own lives. In reality, they were slave laborers with no rights. This abusive situation became less and less viable, and finally exploded in 2060 when a squad of combat replicants was sent to Enceladus to put down a revolt by miners who were also androids. The soldiers joined forces with the rebels and assassinated all the humans in the colony. The rebellion spread rapidly, giving rise to what became known as the
Rep War
.

Although the androids were at a clear disadvantage numerically, their endurance, strength, and intelligence were superior to those of the average human. During the sixteen months the war lasted, there were many losses, both human and technohuman. Fortunately, in October 2061
Gabriel Morlay
, the famous android philosopher and social reformer, assumed leadership of the rebels and proposed a truce in order to negotiate peace with those countries that produced replicants. The difficult negotiations were on the point of failing countless times; among the humans there was a radical faction that rejected the granting of any concessions and advocated prolonging the war until such time as all the replicants started to die, given that in those days their life expectancy was only about five years. There were also humans, however, who condemned the use of slaves and defended the justice of the claims of the rebels. Referred to disparagingly by their adversaries as
replickers
, these android-supporting humans became very active in their pro-negotiation campaigns. This, together with the fact that the rebels had taken control of various production lines and were making more androids, finally resulted in the signing of the 
Moon Pact
in February 2062, a peace agreement based on the concession of a series of rights to the insurgents. It should be noted that the android leader, Morlay, was unable to sign the treaty, which had been his great work, because just a few days beforehand he completed his life cycle and died.

As of that moment, civil rights were progressively won by the reps. These advances were not devoid of problems. The first years after the
Unification
were particularly fraught with conflict, and there were serious disturbances in various cities on Earth (Dublin, Chicago, Nairobi), with violent confrontations between
antisegregationist
pro-rep movements and human
supremacist
groups. Finally, the
Constitution of 2098
, the first Magna Carta of the
United States of the Earth (USE)
, and still in force, recognized the same rights for technohumans as for humans.

It was also in this same constitution that the term
technohuman
was used for the first time, as the word
replicant
is loaded with insulting and offensive connotations. These days,
technohuman
(or
techno
, as it is used colloquially) is the sole official and acceptable term, although in this article the word
replicant
has also been used to ensure historical clarity. There are, however, groups of techno activists, such as the
Radical Replicant Movement
(RRM), who reclaim the ancient designation as a banner of their own identity: “I’m proud to be a rep. I’d rather be a rep than a human, never mind a technohuman” (
Myriam Chi
, leader of the RRM).

The existence and integration of technohumans has generated a fierce ethical and social debate that is far from being resolved. There are some who maintain that, since the original creation of replicants as slave labor was an erroneous and immoral act, their production should simply cease. This possibility is rejected outright by the technos, who view it as genocide: “What has once existed cannot return to the limbo of nonexistence. What has been invented cannot be uninvented. What we have learned cannot cease to be known. We are a new species, and like all living beings, we yearn to continue living” (Morlay). Currently, the management of the android production lines (these days referred to as
gestation plants
) is split fifty-fifty between technos and humans. An android takes fourteen months to be born, but once born it has the physical and mental development of a twenty-five-year-old. Despite technological advances, a life span of a decade is still all that has been achieved: at approximately the age of thirty-five, the cellular division of replicants’ tissue accelerates dramatically and they undergo something like a massive carcinogenic process (known as
TTT
,
Total Techno Tumor
), for which a cure has yet to be found, and which leads to their death within a few weeks.

Also controversial are the regulations specific to technohumans, especially those dealing with memory and with the period of time dedicated to civic work. A committee consisting of an equal number of humans and technos determines how many androids will be created each year, and with which specifications: computation, combat, exploration, mining, administration, or construction. As the gestation of these individuals is very costly, it has been agreed that all technohumans serve whichever company made them for a maximum period of two years, in work consistent with the area of specialization for which they were created. Thereafter they are granted a license, together with a moderate amount of money (the
settlement allowance
), to help them to set up their own lives.

Finally, all androids are implanted with a complete memory set, together with sufficient actual documentary support (photos, holograms, and recordings of their imaginary past; old toys from their supposed childhood, etc.), since various scientific investigations have demonstrated that humans and technohumans coexist and integrate socially far better if the latter have a past, and that androids are more stable if they are furnished with mementos. The
Law of Artificial Memory
of 2101, currently in force, thoroughly regulates this sensitive area. Memories are unique and varied, but they all contain more or less the same version of the famous
Revelation Scene
, popularly known as the dance of the phantoms. This is an implanted memory of an event that supposedly took place when the individual androids were about fourteen years old, when their parents tell them that they are technohumans and that they themselves lack reality and are merely a software program. Once the memory has been installed, there can be no modification of any sort. The law prohibits and prosecutes vigorously any subsequent manipulation of, or illegal trafficking in, memories, a fact that neither stops the aforementioned trafficking nor prevents a lucrative underground market in memories. The existing regulations governing the lives of technos have been contested by diverse sectors, and both the RRM and various supremacist groups have several appeals lodged against the law. In the past decade, numerous university chairs in technohuman studies have been created (such as the one at the Complutense in Madrid) in an attempt to address the multiple ethical and social questions posed by this new species.