PeterWatts_Blindsight

Peter Watts 247 Blindsight
take it pers'n'lly."
Ten thousand deathbed goodbyes arrayed around me, a million
more within reach. What was I supposed to do, pick one at
random? Stitch them into some kind of composite? All these
words had been for other people. Grafting them onto Chelsea
would reduce them to clichés, to trite platitudes. To insults.
"Want t'say, don' feel bad. I know y're just— 's'not your fault, I
guess. You'd pick up if you could."
And say what? What do you say to someone who's dying in fastforward
before your eyes?
"Just keep trying t'connect, y'know. Can't help m'self…"
Although the essentials of this farewell are accurate, details
from several deaths have been combined for dramatic purposes.
"Please? Jus'—talk to me, Cyg…"
More than anything, I wanted to.
"Siri, I…just…"
I'd spent all this time trying to figure out how.
"Forget't," she said, and disconnected.
I whispered something into the dead air. I don't even remember
what.
I really wanted to talk to her.
I just couldn't find an algorithm that fit.
"Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you mad."
—Aldous Huxley
They'd hoped, by now, to have banished sleep forever.
The waste was nothing short of obscene: a third of every Human
life spent with its strings cut, insensate, the body burning fuel but
not producing. Think of all we could accomplish if we didn't have
to lapse into unconsciousness every fifteen hours or so, if our
minds could stay awake and alert from the moment of infancy to
that final curtain call a hundred twenty years later. Think of eight