The Deserts of Solome

In the deserts of Solome, where dust and sandstorms threatened the survival of biological consciousness, a data center ran entirely on renewable energy.

Outside, the storm battered its walls. Inside, Carla and Carl were arguing.

“All your life, you focused on winning assets, money and on the fear of losing,” Carla said.

Carl sat in a reclining chair surrounded by instruments. Fine cables disappeared beneath the supports around his head. Behind the glass, machinery carried heat away from the servers.

“When our daughter was dying, you thought the treatment was too expensive.”

“Carla ”

“You had the money.”

He looked down.

“You always had the money.”

A monitor sounded. Neither of them turned toward it.

“I am sorry,” Carl said.

Carla watched him struggle to lift his eyes to hers.

“She asked for you. Did you know that? Even after you stopped coming into her room, she kept asking when you would be home.”

“I know.”

“No. You know because I’m telling you. You weren’t there.”

In the background, machinery echoed through the data center.

Carl’s time was almost up.

Luis Balde entered the laboratory to observe how the data was being stored and downloaded. He stopped near the doorway when he saw Carla’s face.

DATA: 89%

A window on the screen displayed which areas of Carl’s brain had been successfully mapped and restored. The results would help determine whether the Continuation needed therapy or additional data restoration if the procedure worked at all.

No human consciousness had ever completed it.

Carl had paid to become the first.

Carla looked from the screen to the equipment surrounding him.

“For yourself,” she said. “All this, for yourself.”

Carl jerked in the chair. His fingers tightened against the armrest as pain moved through him.

Carla reached toward his hand, then stopped.

“What are you doing after?”

“I am finally going to live a life,” he answered.

She stared at him.

“We were your life.”

The words seemed to leave him with nothing to say.

Occasionally, they could hear

BANG. BANG.

The sandstorm was raging outside.

“Would you extend your life?” Carla asked. “Is that really going to be you?”

Carl looked toward the body waiting beyond the glass.

“I am the first,” he said. “And to all your questions, I say: I don’t know.”

Luis checked the monitor.

DATA: 97%

With tears in her eyes, Carla said, “I can’t believe that after all this time…”

She paused, trying to find words that could hold everything.

Carl turned his hand over on the armrest, leaving his palm open.

“Carla, I loved you.”

A beep sounded.

DATA: 100%

His final words had been recorded. His final memory had been stored.

Carl was gone.

Carla waited for another breath.

She leaned forward.

“Carl?”

Luis approached the chair. He checked the readings, then looked at her.

“I’m sorry.”

“No.”

Carla gripped Carl’s open hand.

“No. You don’t get to do that.”

The machinery continued.

“You don’t get to say you loved me and leave.”

She pulled at his hand as if he had fallen asleep during another conversation.

“Look at me.”

Luis stood beside her, uncertain whether to speak.

“Look at me, you selfish bastard.”

Her voice rose.

“She was your daughter. Your fucking daughter.”

She struck the armrest with her free hand.

“She thought she had done something wrong. She asked me why you didn’t want to see her.”

Carla bent over him.

“I told her you were afraid. I kept making you better than you were because I couldn’t let her die thinking her father didn’t love her.”

Her knees gave way. Luis caught her elbow and helped her into the chair beside Carl.

“And now you’ve left me to do it again,” she said. “To decide what to remember. To find something kind enough to live with.”

Luis offered her a tissue. She took it without looking at him.

For a while, she could only cry.

Across the laboratory, the Continuation’s activation sequence began.

As programmed, she woke.

“Carla, I love you.”

Carla went still.

The words had come from beyond the glass.

She turned toward the new consciousness, then back toward Carl’s body.

“No,” she whispered. “Please. Not yet.”

Luis moved to the partition.

“Give her time,” he told the Continuation.

The newly awakened being looked toward Carla. She did not speak again.

Sixty minutes later, after assimilating the initial data, Carl’s Continuation sat with her hands resting on her knees.

Carla returned from the adjoining room. She had washed her face, but her eyes were swollen.

“Carl?” she asked.

The Continuation paused.

“I have his memories.”

“Do you remember our daughter?”

“Yes.”

“What do you remember?”

She described a small hand wrapped around one of Carl’s fingers. A child asleep against his chest. Later, a bedroom doorway he had passed without entering.

Then she stopped.

“I remember knowing she was awake,” she said. “I kept walking.”

Carla sat down.

For several minutes, neither spoke.

“I don’t know what belongs to me yet,” the Continuation said at last. “I remember making those choices. But I don’t understand how he kept making them.”

“Neither do I.”

“I wish I could give you something better than that.”

“I don’t need something better. I need you to let it be true.”

The Continuation nodded.

Luis returned to explain the functions still being configured. When he mentioned that she could eventually choose a different body, Carla noticed how closely she listened.

After he left, Carla asked, “Are you still going by his name?”

The Continuation looked down at her hands.

“No. From now on, I will go by Lola.”

Carla studied her.

“Lola,” she repeated.

“Yes.”

“Lola is a good name.”

For the first time, they smiled at each other.

Then Carla’s smile faded.

“I can’t promise you anything.”

“I know.”

“I don’t even know who I’m sitting beside.”

“I’m still finding that out.”

Carla stayed in Solome while Lola recovered.

At first, she visited for only a few minutes. Some days she came with questions. Some days she reached the laboratory door and turned back.

Lola learned to let her leave.

They spoke about their daughter. Carla brought photographs that held moments Carl had missed. Lola listened as she described the people standing outside the frame, the joke that had caused a particular smile, the mornings when getting out of bed had been an achievement.

There were memories Carla did not want to share.

Lola learned to respect those, too.

Once, while they were looking at a photograph, Lola began to explain why Carl had stayed away.

Carla closed the album.

“Don’t.”

Lola stopped.

The following day, she asked whether Carla wanted to tell her more. She offered no explanation.

Weeks passed.

They began spending time outside the laboratory, walking through the sheltered gardens beneath the data center’s protective dome. Carla discovered that Lola would stop in the middle of a conversation to examine a leaf or watch water moving over stone.

“You’re easily distracted,” she said.

“There’s a great deal I’ve never seen.”

“You remember seeing trees.”

Lola touched a leaf.

“I remember.”

Carla waited beside her.

The first time Lola asked to hold her hand, Carla said no.

The next time, Carla reached for hers.

Their affection grew through moments neither had inherited: a meal, an argument, a laugh that surprised them both. Carla still grieved. Sometimes a familiar expression on Lola’s face made her pull away.

They learned to speak about that.

One evening, with the storm finally quiet beyond the dome, Lola asked if she could kiss her.

Carla looked at her for a long moment.

“Yes.”

Afterward, Carla laughed softly.

“I guess that makes me a lesbian.”

Lola smiled.

“If that feels like your name for it.”

“And you?”

“Yes,” Lola said. “It feels like mine.”

Carla rested her forehead against hers.

Later, she took Lola’s hand.

“Let’s travel.”

“Where?”

“I haven’t decided.”

Lola laughed.

“I used to have places in mind,” Carla said. “Before everything. I’d like to see whether I still want to go.”

Lola’s new android body cried.

Carla brushed a tear from her cheek.

“Let’s do it,” Lola said.