Page 7 - gAIa — Advance excerpt

She had insisted on going first. If she couldn’t trust the ma-
chine with her own mind, she had no right to ask anyone else to
trust it with theirs.
The principle was simple, even if the execution wasn’t: cap-
ture every neural and biochemical pattern that gave rise to a
self-aware mind, then create a digital clone of that conscious-
ness. Archive it. Save it from the world collapsing outside.
“The Allotriosis Protocol will handle the transition to the dig-
ital substrate,” she had explained to the UN committee that
morning, adjusting her lab coat’s collar to cover the summer

dress underneath. “Allotriosis means becoming someone else,
but the Protocol provides just a gentle sedation for minds
shocked by disembodiment. A way to mitigate the panic of sud-
den digital rendering.”
By evening, the lab had emptied into the garden for the Sum-
mer Solstice celebration. The air smelled of rosemary bread still
cooling somewhere near the kitchen door, of crushed grass, of
wine going warm in forgotten glasses. Everyone was laughing,
talking, trying, if only for an evening, to forget the dark future
ahead. They glowed against the lingering twilight as warmly as
the red paper lanterns strung through the garden’s plane trees.
Eurydice’s father, Liang, had brought the lanterns from Bei-
jing; he strung them everywhere with the same patience he al-
ways showed, the same patience with which he left them up at
home, long past the New Year’s. Clio, her mother, with sharp
eyes and even sharper tongue, was moving between every little
gathering with a glass of wine and an opinion to match.
Just as Eurydice began to look for her daughter, Callie came
running past, crouching low over each green-and-gold light on
the grass, then springing for the next one before it could slip
away. “Redy! Redy, look, fireflies!”
Callie still called her mama just as she had when she first
stammered the name as a baby. Eurydice had stopped correct-

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© Danis Dedes — Advance excerpt, not for redistribution!