Fiction Fix Seventeen

Your Eternit y 18
keeps going. Light years and light years of
immortality. Do you know you can rent satellite
channel time to far space for a pittance
now?”
“For you it’s a pittance, thanks to your
parents.”
“But that’s the natural generational result,
for the far-minded,” said Justin. “Take John
Adams—he dedicated himself to politics and
war so his sons could learn navigation and
commerce, so their sons could dibble-dabble
in poetry and music. He left out the next
phase—the sons who would transmit their
souls to the universe. Daughters, too. And
about your yellow pages complaint: hell, way
out there they’ll be starved for this kind of
stuff. First contact—they’ll lap it up, like those
home confinement shows on TV down here.
But, baby, this is between you and me. If word
gets out, there’ll be a race, and then all the
clutter would…”
“Drown out your immortality?” Sasha’s
expression seemed slightly wicked.
“It’s not like that exactly. There’s space for
everybody. But first carries a premium. Like
Plato—now there’s a guy who knew how to
transmit over time and space. Get the message
recorded, and get it out. And besides,
some souls are more immortal than others.
It’s like those plant species imported to foreign
continents where they have no natural
competitors and take over. That’s why I’ve
gotta send it out in as many formats as possible—you
never know the niche in which your
soul will best propagate. I want pollen, spores,
seeds of me spread everywhere.”
“Well, Plato, if it doesn’t have any big ideas
attached, won’t the at-home series fizzle out
after a while, like all one-shot wonders do?”
She arched her eyebrows. Checkmate.
“I’m ahead of you, my smooch.” Justin
winked. “Here’s the fix: The digital composites
of my soul will have subprograms
attached, like viruses. Call them my gifted
replicons. You’ve seen those programs that
generate poems or plots with a few keystrokes?
The replicons will generate new permutations
based upon my soul data set. As for big new
ideas—that’s just a matter of semi-random
associations subjected to selective pressures.
The viruses will spew their stuff out and some
will stick, with my name and personality