Closest Continuer
By Franco Amati
Rebecca wiped Seth’s mouth with a paper napkin after giving him his medicine. She gave him a little more than he needed. After adjusting the settings on his chair, she placed a cushion behind his head. Then she walked to the television and put on an old episode of his favorite show, mostly for background noise. She was pretty sure he didn’t understand what was going on.
He was dozing off. She kissed his temple. She was never sure how much of him was still there. Some days he seemed like a stranger, his eyes devoid of recognition.
Certain that he was asleep, she spoke with a gentle frustration: “I wish you never did this. You thought you could live forever, and this is what you got. What kind of life is this?”
Rebecca dimmed the living room light. She walked to the kitchen and opened a bottle of wine. She drank an entire glass while standing over the counter. Then she took the bottle and glass with her to the bathroom.
She ran the shower until it was hot. After pouring another glass, she placed it next to the shampoo. She removed her clothes, leaving them on the floor. Naked, she stepped into the tub and sat with her back to the water. The scalding water ran down her back as she took another gulp. Rebecca wept as the steam rose around her.
When the water ran cold, she forced herself up. Wrapped in a soft blue towel she stumbled to the bedroom. Seth hadn’t slept in bed with her in months, but his pillow was still there. Her side was unmade. She draped the towel over the bedpost and collapsed on rumpled sheets. Before she could pass out, her cell phone rang. It was her mother.
“How are you, sweetie?”
“I’m okay.”
“You don’t sound good. How’s Seth?”
“Same.”
“Things will get better.”
“No, they won’t. I can’t keep up like this. Taking care of him. I can’t do it. I didn’t want him to do that experiment, and he went through with it anyway. People aren’t supposed to mess around with machines like that.”
“You can’t leave him.”
“I’m going to admit him to NeuroMed.”
“So other people can take care of him?”
“It’s not like that. I’ll still visit. I love him. But the way things are now, he’s just not the same. Richard thinks that if I keep living like this it’ll be worse in the end anyway.”
“Richard, your psychologist friend? The one that likes you. Of course he’d say that.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about. I have to go.”
Rebecca hung up the phone and dialed Richard. No answer. So she walked back to the living room and fell asleep on the couch.
The next day Seth’s sister came over to watch him so that Rebecca could run some errands. Instead of running errands, Rebecca met up with Richard for lunch.
Richard had a neatly trimmed goatee. Above his high forehead, his salt and pepper hair was cropped short and combed down. Rebecca was a few years younger than him, but somehow looked older. Her thick blonde hair was pulled back in a messy ponytail. They both ate without speaking for nearly five minutes until Richard broke the silence.
“Everything okay? You’re quiet. Something happen?”
“About NeuroMed. I’m torn.”
“It’s the right thing to do. Seth is my friend too. He’d get the best possible care. You shouldn’t bear the burden of taking care of him. The brain specialists can provide what he needs. Trust me.”
“I’m worried he’ll never be his old self again,” Rebecca said.
“You gotta stay positive and focus on yourself.”
“But it feels like I’m giving up.”
“Seth was a man of science. You think any man would just volunteer to be one of the first humans to upload their consciousness to a computer? He had faith in the future and was brave enough to risk being at the cutting edge. He’d want the experts taking care of him. Not you sacrificing yourself for his sake.”
Richard grasped Rebecca’s hand in a supportive gesture. He looked at her with an expression of sincerity. As they finished their lunch, they eventually talked about other things. Richard paid the check, and lunch ended on a positive note.
“Thanks.” She hugged him. “It helped to get out of the house. Sometimes there’s not much to say. I just have to figure it out for myself.”
A few days later Rebecca called NeuroMed. “What kinds of things would he need?” she asked.
“It’s best to bring possessions that mean something to him. Things that will give him feelings of familiarity.”
“And what will you do for him? Will he actually improve?”
“He’ll participate in our NeuroRebound program with plenty of physical and cognitive stimulation. As far as improvement goes, it varies depending on the case, but it’s top-of-the-line intervention. If there’s any capacity for improvement, we’ll tap into it.”
“Good.”
“Do you plan to admit him indefinitely?”
“I don’t know.”
After putting down the phone, Rebecca felt a warm sensation of guilt pass over her body. She went to the living room to check on Seth. He was distracted with the television. She touched his shoulder, but he ignored her. She went to their bedroom to pack the things he’d find comforting.
Seth kept a box under the bed of mementos from their long relationship. Valentine’s Day cards, movie stubs, receipts from restaurants. She was stunned by how he kept so many things that most people would throw away. She resisted the urge to rummage through all of it. Instead, she closed the lid and put the box on the bed next to the open suitcase.
She opened Seth’s closet. It was filled with expensive suits he’d worn to academic conferences. She pushed those aside and found his casual clothes. His favorites were ancient. Stuff he’d worn as a grad student. Faded denim with holes. Worn-in sweatshirts. T-shirts and pullovers on their final threads. He’d wear things until they fell apart. But they were so comfy. She’d often steal his things and wear them herself. Selfishly, she decided to keep a few items. The rest she placed in the suitcase.
Sitting there with his possessions, she began to have second thoughts. She wondered how she’d tell him, or if she’d even need to tell him. She decided she’d have to sedate him.
Drugged up, Seth was easy to coax out of the house. She buckled him into the back seat and started the car. The entire ride to the center was quiet. Despite the emotion creeping to the surface, she stayed focused. She reached NeuroMed and parked the car. In the rearview, she saw that he was still asleep. Paralyzed with doubt, she hesitated to turn off the ignition. In those few agonizing minutes tears filled her eyes. Then Seth began to stir.
Rebecca stepped out of the car. She opened the trunk and took out Seth’s wheelchair. She unfastened him and heaved his heavy body out.
“Don’t worry, baby. It’s gonna be okay. Listen. I can’t take care of you right now, but I’ll be back to see you when I can, all right? You have all your stuff here. You’re gonna get better real soon.”
He protested, contorting his face and mumbling. In a hurry, she wheeled his chair up to the entrance. When they reached the front desk, she dropped his suitcase on the counter.
“We spoke on the phone, I think. I’m checking in Seth Cunningham. I already filled out all the stuff online. I’m sorry for being so short. But I just have to go. Everything you need is in the bag. Contact info, paperwork, everything. Make sure you take care of him.”
The clerk said, “Don’t worry, ma’am. We’re all familiar with Mr. Cunningham. We’ll handle it from here.”
She exhaled. “Thank you.”
Rebecca looked at Seth one last time. She touched his hair and then his cheek. She kissed him on his temple and walked away.
Back in the car, Rebecca closed her eyes and let out a guttural scream. Then came the sobs. She punched the steering wheel with both fists, and when the sound of the horn was too much, she smacked her open palms down on the dashboard. Finally, she slumped her head on the wheel and wailed until she had nothing left.
Two months later, early on a Sunday morning, Rebecca sat up in bed in Richard’s apartment.
“Everything okay?” Richard asked.
“What?” Rebecca replied, wincing from the sunlight peeking through the blinds.
“That was some night we had. Here. Made you some coffee. Wanna go bowling tonight? Fred and Mona wanna double with us.”
“Bowling? No. Come on. Stop trying to take me out on dates. I told you from the beginning, this is just sex. Nothing more. I think I need to go to NeuroMed. It’s been too long. I have to visit Seth. I don’t even remember the last time I was there. And you. You should visit him too. You haven’t seen him once since he’s been there.”
“I just feel like things are a bit awkward now. I feel sort of funny about it. You understand.”
“No, I don’t understand. You mean since we started sleeping together?”
“Well … sorta.”
“So you no longer feel like you can be friends with Seth because you’re screwing his wife. Is that it?”
“Rebecca, please.”
“You seem perfectly fine going on pseudo-double dates with me and your friends, but when it comes to Seth, you want nothing to do with him. It’s like he doesn’t even exist. I’m starting to think that you had romantic intentions all along. That you had feelings for me even before we started screwing around.”
“Oh don’t be silly. It’s not like that,” he said.
“No,” she said. “It is like that. All your friendly advice. All along you wanted me to put him away. All those logical arguments. It was an act. You think because you’re a psychologist that people will just listen to whatever you say? You only cared about one thing. With him out of the picture you’d have me all to yourself. Isn’t that right?”
“Come on. You really think I’m like that? Unbelievable. I considered you both equally my best friends. Just because you and I opened ourselves up to this not-so-traditional type of friendship, doesn’t mean I planned it that way. You think I orchestrated this all along? That’s absurd.”
“You’re always so good at rationalizing everything. Well guess what? I’m leaving.”
Rebecca found her panties in the corner of the room. She put on her bra and threw the rest of her clothes into a bag and walked out.
At NeuroMed, Rebecca noticed a woman in a lab coat standing outside Seth’s door. She was writing on a small pad. “Oh, good afternoon,” the woman said.
“Hi, are you Seth’s doctor?”
“Yes, I’m Dr. Patrella, the neurologist on his case. Seth is doing incredibly well. You’re probably ecstatic. Are you his wife?”
“I’m Rebecca.” She shook the doctor’s hand.
“He was just speaking about you. The man simply adores you.”
“Really?” She ran a hand through her hair, suddenly conscious of how messy it was.
“Of course. Well, actually, it’s only in the last few days that he’s been talking fluently. He was practically non-verbal since the procedure, as you know. But he’s made a sharp improvement in the last few weeks.”
“Are you serious? I wish someone had told me. It’s been some time since I visited.” She tried to think of a lie to excuse her absence, but nothing came.
“We’re not exactly sure what’s causing his spontaneous recovery. We’re currently investigating the neural underpinnings. We’re hypothesizing that following a total cerebral upload, there’s severe neuronal degradation. But over time the brain compensates by having the supportive white matter go into overdrive. This leads to a process called remyelination, which helps speed up communication between neurons. Eventually, synaptic activity is redistributed, and the patient starts to seem like himself again. You made a good decision by admitting him. The high-activity environment might have made the difference. I don’t know that he’ll ever be a hundred percent, but he’s certainly better.”
“This is amazing. I never imagined …” Rebecca held her hand to her chest.
“There’s one more thing, though. Because of the incident, Seth’s upload was only a partial success. The issue remains of what to do with the incomplete data from the upload. There’s some debate in the ethics community about what a partial upload means in terms of personhood and identity. We know Seth’s goal was for complete self-digitization to create a version of himself to live on after death—his closest continuer. But since that didn’t happen, we’re unsure how to proceed. We now possess an uploaded artificial entity that is a lot like Seth, but not quite.”
“What do you mean?”
“When there’s an incomplete upload, the system’s algorithms fill in the blanks. So if we brought this artificial Seth online, he may not be what you were both expecting. There is no real precedent for this, so your decision here is crucial. It’ll be up to you, as his wife, to decide whether data termination is the best option.”
“You mean, delete the upload? Isn’t that like killing whatever’s in there?”
“If the entity has never been brought online, legally, it’s not killing. You’re still within your rights to wipe the data if you’re uncomfortable with the idea of having an artificial Seth. I know it’s an unconventional situation, but please think it over. No one expected the real Seth to improve so dramatically. So it’s up to you, Mrs. Cunningham.”
“Is there any possibility that the artificial Seth is more like the old Seth than the one that’s recovering?”
“Cognitively speaking, yes. In fact, it’s likely that artificial Seth is more like the Seth you remember in terms of his ability to communicate and engage in higher-order reasoning. If you brought artificial Seth online, you could probably have full-blown conversations with him. In fact, I suspect it may be hard for most people to tell the difference. The algorithms are that good. Real Seth still has a long way to go in that department. But there’s no way to really know what artificial Seth is like unless we turn him on. And only you can make that decision.”
The thought of being able to interact with Seth the way she used to was appealing. She yearned for the deep conversations they used to have. The inside jokes, the arguments, their plans for the future. She missed it all. The idea of turning on a switch and experiencing that again was tempting. But she was there to see the real Seth.
She walked past the doctor and into the room where Seth was eating in his hospital chair. She could tell from his demeanor and expression that he recognized her.
He had improved a lot more than she expected. But he still stuttered and slurred his words. He greeted her with uncoordinated gestures and occasionally would lapse into states of inattention. But what was most remarkable to her was the sheer joy he expressed at her presence. His eyes were filled with genuine love. He wasn’t clouded by that devastating fog.
“Seth, sweetie. I’m here. I love you so much. I’m so happy you’re doing better,” she said, cradling both sides of his face in her palms to help focus his eyes.
Rebecca stayed with him for the rest of the afternoon and evening. She returned the next day and the day after that. And Seth continued to improve, little by little, until the time came to return home.
Rebecca never did turn on the system that contained artificial Seth. But she also chose not to delete it. It should be Seth’s choice, she thought to herself. And she believed that someday he’d improve enough to regain the capacity to decide what to do with his own upload. And if he couldn’t make that choice, so be it. She was happy with her husband as he was, whatever imperfect version of himself he turned out to be.
Franco Amati is a speculative fiction writer from New York. You can find more of his work at francoamatiwrites.com or subscribe to his poetry newsletter at francoamati.substack.com. You can also follow him on X @FrancoAmati3.
Good development of a nice story idea! I would have ended it with a provocative introduction of the two Seths to each other!