“You clone me?”
“No, not your body. We use donor sperm and egg and a surrogate mother. There’s an in vitro clinic attached to the Foundation. You’re ‘placed,’ we call it, with a good family from the same socioeconomic class as you live in now.”
Covey wanted to be skeptical but he was still receptive.
“The final part is to use chemical and electromagnetic intervention to make sure the brain develops identically to the map we made of your present one. Stimulate some cell growth, inhibit others. When you’re born again, your perceptions are exactly what they are from your point of view now. Your sensibilities, interests, desires.”
Covey blinked.
“You won’t look like you. Your body type will be different. Though you will be male. We insist on that. It’s not our job to work out gender identity issues.”
“Not a problem,” he said shortly, frowning at the absurdity of the idea. Then: “Can you eliminate health problems? I had skin cancer. And the heart thing, of course.”
“We don’t do that. We don’t make supermen or superwomen. We simply boost your consciousness into another generation, exactly as you are now.”
Covey considered this for a moment. “Will I remember meeting you, will I have images of this life?”
“Ah, memories…We didn’t quite know about those at first. But it seems that, yes, you will remember, to some extent — because memories are hardwired into some portions of the brain. We aren’t sure how many yet, since our first clients are only three or four years old — in their second lives, of course — and we haven’t had a chance to fully interview them yet.”
“You’ve actually done this?” he whispered.
Farley nodded. “Oh, yes, Mr. Covey. We’re up and running.”
“What about will I go wacko or anything? That sheep they cloned and died? She was a mess, I heard.”
“No, that can’t happen because we control development, like I was explaining. Every step of the way.”
“Jesus,” he whispered. “This isn’t a joke?”
“Oh, no, not at all.”
“Let’s say it actually works…You said, ‘Forever.’ So, what? We do the same thing in seventy years or whatever?”
“It’s literally a lifetime guarantee, even if that lifetime lasts ten thousand years. The Lotus Foundation will stay in touch with all our clients over the years. You can keep going for as many generations as you want.”
“How do I know you’ll still be in business?”
A slight chuckle. “Because we sell a product there’s an infinite demand for. Companies that provide that don’t ever go out of business.”
Covey eyed Farley and the old man said coyly, “Which brings up your fee.”
“As you can imagine…”
“Forever don’t come cheap. Gimme a number.”
“One half of your estate with a minimum of ten million dollars.”
“One half? That’s about twenty-eight million. But it’s not liquid. Real estate, stocks, bonds. I can’t just write you a check for it.”
“We don’t want you to. We’re keeping this procedure very low-key. In the future we hope to offer our services to more people but now our costs are so high we can work only with the ones who can cover the expenses…And, let’s be realistic, we prefer people like you in the program.”
“Like me?”
“Let’s say higher in the gene pool than others.”
Covey grunted. “Well, how do you get paid?”
“You leave the money to one of our charities in your will.”
“Charities?”
“The Foundation owns dozens of them. The money gets to us eventually.”
“So you don’t get paid until I die.”
“That’s right. Some clients wait until they actually die of their disease. Most, though, do the paperwork and then transition themselves.”
“Transition?”
“They end their own life. That way they avoid a painful end. And, of course, the sooner they leave, the sooner they come back.”
“How many people’ve done this?”
“Six.”
Covey looked out the window for a moment, at the trees in Central Park, waving slowly in a sharp breeze. “This’s crazy. The whole thing’s nuts.”
Farley laughed. “You’d be nuts if you didn’t think that at first…Come on, I’ll give you a tour of the facility.”
Setting down his coffee, Covey followed the doctor out of the office. They walked down the hallway through an impressive-looking security door into the laboratory portion of the Foundation. Farley pointed out first the massive Mistsuhana supercomputers used for brain mapping and then the genetics lab and cryogenic facility itself, which they couldn’t enter but could see from windows in the corridor. A half-dozen white-coated employees dipped pipettes into tubes, grew cultures in petri dishes and hunched over microscopes.
Covey was intrigued but not yet sold, Farley noted.
“Let’s go back to the office.”
When they’d sat again the old man finally said, “Well, I’ll think about it.”
Farley nodded with a smile and said, “You bet. A decision like this…Some people just can’t bring themselves to sign on. You take your time.” He handed Covey a huge binder. “Those’re case studies, genetic data for comparison with the transitioning clients and their next life selves, interviews with them. There’s nothing identifying them but you can read about the children and the process itself.” Farley paused and let Covey flip through the material. He seemed to be reading it carefully. The doctor added, “What’s so nice about this is that you never have to say good-bye to your loved ones. Say you’ve got a son or daughter…we could contact them when they’re older and propose our services to them. You could reconnect with them a hundred years from now.”
At the words “son or daughter,” Covey had looked up, blinking. His eyes drifted off and finally he said, “I don’t know…”
“Mr. Covey,” Farley said, “let me just add one thing. I understand your skepticism. But you tell me you’re a businessman? Well, I’m going to treat you like one. Sure, you’ve got doubts. Who wouldn’t? But even if you’re not one hundred percent sure, even if you think I’m trying to sell you a load of hooey, what’ve you got to lose? You’re going to die anyway. Why don’t you just roll the dice and take the chance?”
Farley let this sink in for a minute and saw that the words — as so often — were having an effect. Time to back off. He said, “Now I’ve got some phone calls to make, if you’ll excuse me. There’s a lounge through that door. Take your time and read through those things.”
Covey picked up the files and stepped into the room the doctor indicated. The door closed.
Farley had pegged the old man as shrewd and deliberate. And accordingly the doctor gave him a full forty-five minutes to examine the materials. Finally he rose and walked to the doorway. Before he could say anything Covey looked up from the leather couch he was sitting in and said, “I’ll do it. I want to do it.”
“I’m very happy for you,” Farley said sincerely.
“What do I need to do now?”
“All you do is an MRI scan and then give us a blood sample for the genetic material.”
“You don’t need part of my brain?”
“That’s what’s so amazing about genes. All of us is contained in a cell of our own blood.”
Covey nodded.
“Then you change your will and we take it from there.” He looked in a file and pulled out a list of the charities the Foundation had set up recently.
“Any of these appeal? You should pick three or four. And they ought to be something in line with interests or causes you had when you were alive.”
“There.” Covey circled three of them. “I’ll leave most to the Metropolitan Arts Assistance Association.” He looked up. “Veronica, my wife, was an artist. That okay?”