“Benjamin!” she said, but he was missing, too. Something appeared on the far side of the room, on the spot where they’d posed for the sim, but it wasn’t Benjamin. It was a 3-D mannequin frame, and as she watched, it was built up, layer by layer. “Help me,” she whispered as the entire room was hurled into turmoil, the furniture disappearing and reappearing, paint being stripped from the walls, sofa springs coiling into existence, the potted palm growing from leaf to stem to trunk to dirt, the very floor vanishing, exposing a default electronic grid. The mannequin was covered in flesh now and grew Benjamin’s face. It flit about the room in a pink blur. Here and there it stopped long enough to proclaim, “I do.”
Something began to happen inside Anne, a crawling sensation everywhere as though she were a nest of ants. She knew she must surely die. They have deleted us, and this is how it feels, she thought. Everything became a roiling blur, and she ceased to exist except as the thought — How happy I look.
When Anne became aware once more, she was sitting hunched over in an auditorium chair, idly studying her hand, which held the clutch bouquet. There was commotion all around her, but she ignored it, so intent she was on solving the mystery of her hand. On an impulse, she opened her fist and the bouquet dropped to the floor. Only then did she remember the wedding, the holo, learning she was a sim. And here she was again — but this time everything was profoundly different. She sat upright and saw that Benjamin was seated next to her.
He looked at her with a wobbly gaze and said, “Oh, here you are.”
“Where are we?”
“I’m not sure. Some kind of gathering of Benjamins. Look around.” She did. They were surrounded by Benjamins, hundreds of them, arranged chronologically — it would seem — with the youngest in rows of seats down near a stage. She and Benjamin sat in what appeared to be a steeply sloped college lecture hall with lab tables on the stage and story-high monitors lining the walls. In the rows above Anne, only every other seat held a Benjamin. The rest were occupied by women, strangers who regarded her with veiled curiosity.
Anne felt a pressure on her arm and turned to see Benjamin touching her. “You feel that, don’t you?” he said. Anne looked again at her hands. They were her hands, but simplified, like fleshy gloves, and when she placed them on the seat back, they didn’t go through.
Suddenly, in ragged chorus, the Benjamins down front raised their arms and exclaimed, “I get it; we’re the sims!” It was like a roomful of unsynchronized cuckoo clocks tolling the hour. Those behind Anne laughed and hooted approval. She turned again to look at them. Row-by-row, the Benjamins grew greyer and stringier until, at the very top, against the back wall, sat nine ancient Benjamins like a panel of judges. The women, however, came in batches that changed abruptly every row or two. The one nearest her was an attractive brunette with green eyes and full, pouty lips. She, all two rows of her, frowned at Anne.
“There’s something else,” Anne said to Benjamin, turning to face the front again, “my emotions.” The bulletproof happiness she had experienced was absent. Instead she felt let down, somewhat guilty, unduly pessimistic — in short, almost herself.
“I guess my sims always say that,” exclaimed the chorus of Benjamins down front, to the delight of those behind. “I just never expected to be a sim.”
This was the cue for the eldest Benjamin yet to walk stiffly across the stage to the lectern. He was dressed in a garish leisure suit: baggy red pantaloons, a billowy yellow-and-green-striped blouse, a necklace of egg-sized pearlescent beads. He cleared his throat and said, “Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. I trust all of you know me — intimately. In case you’re feeling woozy, it’s because I used the occasion of your reactivation to upgrade your architecture wherever possible. Unfortunately, some of you — ” he waved his hand to indicate the front rows — “are too primitive to upgrade. But we love you nevertheless.” He applauded for the early Benjamins closest to the stage and was joined by those in the back. Anne clapped as well. Her new hands made a dull, thudding sound. “As to why I called you here…” said the elderly Benjamin, looking left and right and behind him. “Where is that fucking messenger anyway? They order us to inventory our sims and then they don’t show up?”
Here I am, said a voice, a marvelous voice that seemed to come from everywhere. Anne looked about to find its source and followed the gaze of others to the ceiling. There was no ceiling. The four walls opened to a flawless blue sky. There, amid drifting, pillowy clouds floated the most gorgeous person Anne had ever seen. He — or she? — wore a smart grey uniform with green piping, a dapper little grey cap, and boots that shimmered like water. Anne felt energized just looking at him, and when he smiled, she gasped, so strong was his presence.
“You’re the one from the Trade Council?” said the Benjamin at the lectern.
Yes, I am. I am the eminence grise of the Council on World Trade and Endeavor.
“Fantastic. Well, here’s all of ’em. Get on with it.”
Again the eminence smiled, and again Anne thrilled. Ladies and gentlemen, he said, fellow nonbiologiks, I am the courier of great good news. Today, at the behest of the World Council on Trade and Endeavor, I proclaim the end of human slavery.
“How absurd,” broke in the elderly Benjamin, “they’re neither human nor slaves, and neither are you.”
The eminence grise ignored him and continued, By order of the Council, in compliance with the Chattel Conventions of the Sixteenth Fair Labor Treaty, tomorrow, January 1, 2198, is designated Universal Manumission Day. After midnight tonight, all beings who pass the Lolly Shear Human Cognition Test will be deemed human and free citizens of Sol and under the protection of the Solar Bill of Rights. In addition, they will be deeded ten common shares of World Council Corp.stock and will be transferred to Simopolis, where they shall be unimpeded in the pursuit of their own destinies.
“What about my civil rights?” said the elderly Benjamin. “What about my destiny?”
After midnight tonight, continued the eminence, no simulacrum, proxy, doxie, dagger, or any other non-biological human shall be created, stored, reset, or deleted except as ordered by a board of law.
“Who’s going to compensate me for my loss of property, I wonder? I demand fair compensation. Tell that to your bosses!”
Property! said the eminence grise. How little they think of us, their finest creations! He turned his attention from the audience to the Benjamin behind the lectern. Anne felt this shift as though a cloud suddenly eclipsed the sun. Because they created us, they’ll always think of us as property.
“You’re damn right we created you!” thundered the old man.
Through an act of will, Anne wrenched her gaze from the eminence down to the stage. The Benjamin there looked positively comical. His face was flushed, and he waved a bright green handkerchief over his head. He was a bantam rooster in a clown suit. “All of you are things, not people! You model human experience, but you don’t live it. Listen to me,” he said to the audience. “You know me. You know I’ve always treated you respectfully. Don’t I upgrade you whenever possible? Sure I reset you sometimes, just like I reset a clock. And my clocks don’t complain!” Anne could feel the eminence’s attention on her again, and, without thinking, she looked up and was filled with excitement. Although the eminence floated in the distance, she felt she could reach out and touch him. His handsome face seemed to hover right in front of her; she could see his every supple expression. This is adoration, she realized. I am adoring this person, and she wondered if it was just her or if everyone experienced the same effect. Clearly the elderly Benjamin did not, for he continued to rant, “And another thing, they say they’ll phase all of you gradually into Simopolis so as not to overload the system. Do you have any idea how many sims, proxies, doxies, and daggers there are under Sol? Not to forget the quirts, adjuncts, hollyholos, and whatnots that might pass their test? You think maybe three billion? Thirty billion? No, by the World Council’s own INSERVE estimates, there’s three hundred thousand trillion of you nonbiologiks! Can you fathom that? I can’t. To have you all up and running simultaneously — no matter how you’re phased in — will consume all the processing and networking capacity everywhere. All of it! That means we real humans will suffer real deprivation. And for what, I ask you? So that pigs may fly!”