Conversion to Digital

“I know I’ll never do everything I want to –before I can learn all the languages, and see all the places, and meet all the people, do everything I want to do, I’m going to die.  Pfft, gone forever.”  She pulled her hand out of the water and flicked her fingers, watching the drops spin away and fall like the moments of her life that were leaving her even as we spoke.  

“But –”

“And I know it’s selfish.  I know what conversion has done, for us, for the environment.”  She lay back in the grass, gazing at the branches of the tree above us.  Her feet splashed in the stream, and I pulled my legs closer up the bank, away from the water. “Twenty years ago, they thought the world was going to end.  That the pollution would finally overwhelm the earth, and everything would die. And look at us now.”  My servos hummed a little as I leaned back to watch clouds drift across the crystalline blue sky. She continued talking, half to me and half, I think, to herself.  “No more herds of methane-producing cows, no air-conditioners or heaters, no soap suds or food wrappers or fishing trawlers. A whole world full of people, and hardly any waste.”  

“Why don't you convert to digital, then?  Nearly everyone else has.  The technology has advanced, you can have it done as old as thirty now.  You could live forever!”

She turned towards me and held her hand out, palm flat.  I aligned mine with hers.  She flexed her fingers, rubbing the grip pads on my fingertips.  

“Can you feel my hand?” She asked.

“Of course,” I answered, slipping my fingers between hers to hold her hand. Her rings clicked against my skin.  After a moment, she closed her fingers over mine.

“You can feel degrees of resistance.  If you were made of bones and muscles like me, you’d feel the warmth of my skin, the roughness of my fingerprints. If you concentrated, you could feel my pulse.”  She pulled her hand away and rolled onto her back, resting her head on one arm. Her whole body shifted a little every time she inhaled.

“No more dancers.”  The non-sequitor startled me, and she continued before I could protest. “Sure, there’s people who dance, but all they have to do now is download the choreography.  They run through it maybe once before they perform.  Back when humans were made of flesh, it used to take hours of practicing, every day, and only eating certain things.  It used to take work.  It used to take love.”  She waved an arm above her head in some kind of looping demonstration.  “And it was never perfect.  Even the best dancers never got it perfect, even if they were the only ones who knew enough to see it.”  Her arm, which had stayed hovering above her, thumped down onto her stomach.  “There’s no individuality left.”

“There’s more individuality than ever before! You can customize everything, be whatever color or size or shape you want!”

“You think choosing your face and your voice out of a catalog makes you who you are?  When you can change out depending on your mood?”

“You think a random collection of physical attributes makes you who you are?”  

We glared at each other, then both looked away.  I thought about my voice.  I used to use #5829: Dan O’Herlihy, but since I met her I’d started using #2065: Brad Pitt.  Maybe she’d noticed.

After a few minutes she spoke again, quieter.  

“You were only five when you were converted, right?  You don’t remember taste or smell or sneezing or hiccups or the feel of wind.  You don’t remember pain, or marshmallows, or your parents tickling you until you were laughing so hard you couldn’t breathe.  If I converted, put all the electrical impulses of my mind into a body of titanium and wires and plastic, I’d lose all of that.”

“You could live forever.” I repeated.  Her eyes met mine, and she smiled.  And turned away to look back at the sky.