“Oh shit.” Maura was shocked. “I’m so sorry.”
“Thanks,” Ben said quietly.
“Why haven’t you talked about this with the group?” Maura asked.
“I guess I just wanted to move on with my life,” Ben said. “And I have, really. I’ve forgiven her for breaking up with me. I know that not everyone could stick it out in such challenging circumstances, so I can’t really be mad at her for that. But I guess now I’m worried that the next girl, and the next girl, still won’t be the right type, either. It’s probably why I haven’t even tried dating since the breakup.”
Even though she knew Ben’s string was longer than hers, Maura felt sorry for him, in this moment. All he wanted was for someone to say to him what Nina had said to her: I would never leave you.
Maura leaned back on her stool, feeling the chill of the beer bottle against her skin. A newspaper had been left on the seat next to hers, and she held it up for Ben.
“Did you see this?” Maura asked, pointing to the front-page headline.
It was yesterday’s lead story, tracking the proliferation of new “mind-uploading” companies, hoping to discover a means of scanning the human brain into a computer for perpetual preservation. Anything to satiate the spike in interest among short-stringers looking to extend their lives, in this generation or the next.
Ben scanned the page in Maura’s hands. “There’s never been more demand for this research,” one of the founders was quoted. “Before, very few of us knew when our time was limited, and now, of course, it’s possible to know. But, if we can find a technological solution, then perhaps the strings become irrelevant. We can offer an escape from the timeline dictated by the physical body, by your string.”
The article had interviewed two eager candidates, each at the end of their string—a scientist who dreamt of seeing the distant future and a fifty-five-year-old mother willing to leave her daughter now in the hope of returning, one day, to meet her grandchildren.
“The science has moved remarkably fast when it comes to string measurements,” said one of the candidates. “We’ve already narrowed our projections from the span of a few years all the way down to a single month. Who says the science can’t move quickly here, too?”
“People have been working in this field for a while,” Ben said. “Some companies are trying to freeze your body in a cryonic chamber; I guess these folks want to remove your body altogether.” He paused. “I don’t really think it’s for me.”
“I just wanted to make sure you weren’t secretly planning to digitize your brain and leave me all alone in the group.” Maura smiled.
“Look, it’s an exciting dream,” said Ben. “But it doesn’t really help us right now.”
“It’s kind of crazy that we already have so much technology at our disposal, and even more coming down the pike. All these brilliant minds fixated on solving the strings, if that’s even possible. But then there are these huge swaths of the world population without any of it,” Maura said. “My girlfriend, Nina, was just working on this article about people living in places with no Internet. No at-home measurement websites, no way to learn what’s going on in other countries.”
“Whole communities where nobody knows what the length of their string really means?” Ben asked.
“Well, they can still do simple comparisons, see whose string is the longest,” said Maura. “And apparently some groups have been forming their own makeshift data sets, like recording the age at which someone dies and then using that person’s string as a benchmark. Humans always find a way to adapt, right? But there are lots of people who aren’t even doing that. They’re just . . . continuing on, like before.”
Ben nodded, taking a sip of his beer. “How has Nina been through all of this?”
Maura silently recalled their heated dispute over Nina’s search obsession, then their quiet acceptance of not having kids. All the times that Nina had said, “I love you,” after the strings arrived.
“We’ve had a couple rough moments, of course, but . . . she’s never once wavered when it comes to us,” Maura said. “She even planned this whole getaway for the two of us next month. To Venice.”
“Wow, that sounds great.” Ben smiled.
“I think we both just needed to go somewhere that we’ve never gone before. To get out of our apartment and have a little adventure. It’s like Wes Johnson said tonight, we can’t go back. But at least we can go anywhere else.”