“I’m here,” Cabigail said, taking her hand. “Do you need anything?”
“No, it won’t be long. I can feel it.”
“So, I was thinking,” Cabigail said. “When did you do your last refresh?”
“Yesterday evening. Why?”
“Well. When this is all over, and I’ve finally solved the mind-body problem . . . maybe I could bring you back. Would you like that?”
“You would do that for me?” Abigail said, brightening at the thought.
“Why not? If everything works the way we believe, it will be easy enough to hide two of us from the world.”
“That will be so nice. Thank you,” Abigail said.
“I’ll miss you until then,” Cabigail said and brushed the hair from Abigail’s forehead.
“We will have so much to catch up on,” Abigail said.
“And all the time in the world to catch up on it.”
“Until then,” Abigail said and closed her eyes for the last time.
Cabigail stood there holding her hand until Abigail stopped breathing. Then she started the incinerator. No parting words, no moment of silent reflection. All the sentiment of taking out the recycling. The tray retracted back inside the wall. The metal doors closed. Cabigail punched a second button, and the incinerator roared to life.
“I don’t understand,” Con said, stepping back from the heat.
“I thought we’d been over that,” Cabigail said.
“No, I mean, why build this place at all? Why didn’t you just finish your work at Palingenesis? Why go to these insane lengths? You spent seven years planning to steal your own invention from your own company. Was it just greed? Are you that selfish?”
“Selfish? You think I’m the selfish one.”
“What else would you call what you’ve done? All so you could keep immortality all to yourself.”
Cabigail shook her head in disbelief at how badly she’d been misunderstood. “What do you think would happen if Vernon Gaddis or Brooke Fenton got control of my work?”
“They’d sell it.”
“We agree on something at last,” Cabigail said. “And how much do you think Palingenesis could charge for immortality?”
“Whatever they want.”
“Precisely. Only this time, Palingenesis wouldn’t be selling an insurance policy, it would be rewriting the underlying rules of how our species functions. A techno-evolutionary leap unlike anything that’s preceded it. But one that is evenly distributed. It would create an overclass of unthinkably wealthy and powerful individuals who would never die,” Cabigail said, pausing for dramatic effect. “And we have a name for such beings.”
“They’d be gods,” Con said in awe.
“You understand now why I couldn’t risk Palingenesis ever finding out.”
“But you did risk it,” Con retorted. “You could’ve destroyed your research. What makes you think you deserve immortality any more than Palingenesis?”
“It is my discovery.”
“Exactly. What you did, you did out of selfishness.”
“Given enough time, I will be able to make the processes available to all.”
Con sneered. “Spare me your champion-of-humanity routine. You killed my original so you could live forever.”
Cabigail’s face clouded. “You’re really not going to let that go, are you?”
“It doesn’t seem like it, does it?”
“You truly are your mother’s daughter,” Cabigail said.
At any other moment in her life, Con would have taken that comment badly. But standing there in the violent heat of the incinerator, she wore it as a badge of honor. She was Mary Stickling’s daughter, for better and for worse.
“So convince me,” Con said. “You keep saying I’ll willingly give you what’s in my head once you explain. Well, how about we get on with it, then? ’Cause so far the answer is still absolutely not.”
“This wasn’t how it was supposed to be,” Cabigail said almost apologetically. “You were supposed to have time to rest and acclimate before I showed you, but Vernon’s involvement has rendered all of that unfeasible.”
“Before you show me what?”
“There’s a question I’ve been meaning to ask,” Cabigail said, glossing over Con’s own question. “That first night you left Palingenesis. Where did you get the money to get on the Metro? My team was meant to take you once you found out your LFD wasn’t connected to a bank anymore and returned up the escalator. By the time we realized something had gone wrong, you were halfway home.”