Part I
Norman’s body lay lifeless on the side of 5th Street. He had been crossing the street to Central Park when a car sped around the corner too fast and hit Norman. The initial impact with the car isn’t what killed him, though. He was conscious up until the point his head struck the curb, crushing his skull. Blood now oozed from his head and slowly made its way toward one of New York’s many sewer drains. As people walked down the sidewalk they stepped over Norman’s body being careful to avoid the blood and continued on with their day.
During his time in the air he had just enough time to have exactly three thoughts. His first thought was about how angry his boss will be when his report wasn’t done by the end of the day. His second thought consisted mostly of cats doing silly things. The last thing that went through his head before arriving at his final destination was “I hope I remembered to back myself up last night.”
“Welcome home, Norman. You have died 34 times.” Heather's voice came from beside the pod. It was as soft and as pleasant as ever, though Norman didn’t like how there was no option to remove death-count on revival.
“No matter,” Norman said to himself. “More incentive to try harder today.”
Heather was a Human Entropy Avoidance Thermonuclear Epidemiological Robot used for the general care of humans, including the ability to backup and restore memories. Also, it had a pretty sweet acronym.
Within nanoseconds of Norman’s death, a cloning pod had begun to fabricate a new body using a sample of DNA he provided after purchasing the unit. His most recent backup, performed in his sleep Thursday night, began loading in preparation. After 16 hours of fabrication and 8 hours of restoring memories, Norman was back home. After dressing himself in some casual clothes he filled a glass with water from the fridge to wash away the taste of death, which Norman found to be a bit too sour for his liking.
Just then, a large gray cat entered the room and wandered over to a set of empty bowls. It sat down in front of one and sniffed around looking for some crumbs. When it didn’t find any it looked at Norman and began to meow.
“Oh, Mr. Snuggles. You’re out of food again. I’ll get you more right away.” Norman took the bowls and filled them with food and water before returning them to the floor. Mr. Snuggles took a moment to sniff the food, then dug in.
It was now Saturday and he found himself with a free weekend. He contemplated how he should spend it and settled on some site seeing. “I really don’t see as much of this city as I should,” Norman convinced himself. So he made his way to his Gateway computer to find a place to visit.
He powered it on and watched as the 15 inch CRT monitor came to live. After several minutes of waiting it displayed the familiar Windows ME logo he didn’t really care for. Windows ME was, at least as far as Norman was concerned, the last real version of Windows before they ruined it with that flashy XP nonsense. He feels fortunate that in the 18 years since he’s bought it the machine hasn’t had one single issue.
After several hours of browsing and looking at different places he’d made up his mind. Norman excitedly took his wallet and quickly walked out the door. The subway was just a few minute walk from his home in Western Brooklyn where he boarded the R train. Norman stood, holding a stanchion as the train lurched forward. He thought about how lucky he was to live in a booming technological era. Without this technology he knew he wouldn’t be here to make this trip right now. It’s given him the opportunity to live a full, albeit clumsy, life.
The Neurological Experimental Research Project, or NERP as everyone called it, acknowledging that not every acronym is a good one, had a breakthrough in understanding how memory works in human brains. They were able to modify existing SSD technology to mimic this behavior allowing them to increase storage size over 100 times while also speeding up transfer rates. With a system that understood human memories, it took scientists only 6 years to learn to accurately store them before loading them into a synthetic brain. Soon after, the Human Backup Assistant was birthed to help manage these backups and later evolved into Heather.
About 20 minutes into his trip Norman transferred to the F, heading into Manhattan. The closer the train got to the city, the less room there was on the train. Norman didn’t like being too close to so many people and began to get uneasy, so he did as he always does during these commutes. He took out his phone and looked at pictures of Mr. Snuggles. Every picture he had depicted the cat either eating or sleeping. Norman often brought toys home for him and would attempt to play with him, but Mr. Snuggles was never interested. He only wanted to nap and didn’t like it when Norman disturbed him.
The train finally pulled up to Norman’s destination where he fought against the crowd trying to board. He climbed the stairs out of the 57th Street metro and began heading north on 7th. The place he’d chosen is a place he’d always wanted to go. He’d try in the past but something always came up and he would have to put it off for another day.
Not this time, Norman thought to himself.
I can’t believe I’ve lived in New York my whole life and have never been to Central Park, Norman thought as he crossed the Street. He was too distracted thinking about his day when he was struck by a speeding bus whose driver was herself distracted by a bicycle that had become mysteriously lodged under the front bumper.
Norman’s body now lay lifeless on the side of 58th street. People walking on the sidewalk were careful to avoid the body as blood begins to stream toward the sewer.
Part II
Over the years, Heathers abilities advanced. It was now capable of remotely backing up memories every hour, as opposed to having it done overnight, so as little information was lost as possible. Bodies were now cloned in advance, in under 30 minutes, and were preserved until they were needed. If a clone was ready, death could essentially be reversed in under 10 minutes. Teleportation was also made possible using this technology since only the brain was needed on the other side.
“Welcome home, Norman. You have died 213,204 times.”
Norman smiled as he woke. It was 12:34, his favorite time, on a Sunday Morning. Feeling hungry, he entered the kitchen and opened the refrigerator and retrieved a small one inch cube labeled “salted lunch brick”. It had the texture and weight of Styrofoam and was a rather unpleasant shade of yellow and brown. After 30 seconds in the hydrator the cube had grown considerably and was far more gelatinous than a moment ago. It had the consistency of boiled tofu and tasted mostly like salt.
Due to Heather increasing the lifespan of humans to near immortality, a food crisis swept the world with its population over 15 billion. Thanks to modern technology, scientists were able to quickly grow a protein filled, mucus like substance that was packed with salt for preservation, formed into a cube, and dehydrated. While this may have solved world hunger, everyone agreed the taste could use some work.
After his lunch, Norman gathered his things and headed to the door. The fridge was getting low on bricks and nobody wanted to resort to eating the first attempt at a cheap “food substitute” which everyone just referred to as The Backup. Before opening the door Norman made sure to put on his respirator and ensured it was snug on his face.
Outside, the sky was gray with smog, but some of the sunlight still managed to make it through. It felt more like dawn than early afternoon. He began walking in the direction of the nearest teleport hub. Pollution was reaching new heights every day with no sign of slowing down and no solution in sight. The population was simply too much for the planet and it was quickly dying. Many common plant species had gone extinct and thousands more were on their way. The only animals left on the planet were those too deep down in the ocean to find.
Despite the gloom and humanity’s impending doom, Norman cheerfully walked with a noticeable spring in his step. As he neared the hub, the sidewalks and roadways became more and more crowded with people coming and going. The hub was a large brick building with two entrances clearly marked “Inbound” and “Outbound”.
Once inside the building, Norman could see circular blue pads lining the walls with a control panel for each. Even with the heavy traffic it didn’t take him long to find an available pad. He punched in his destination of Manhattan and made his payment. His local grocer didn’t sell desert cubes which had some added sugar to the mix. The pad he was standing on began to glow as it powered up. The screen on the control panel began to count down.
5…4…3…2…1…DING!
The instant he heard the ding, the room changed. He was now standing on a red outbound pad that was powering down. Heading outside was difficult. He had poorly chosen this location, forgetting how busy it can get during the day. He struggled and pushed his way through the crowd and finally emerged outside.
The smog in Manhattan was far worse than in Brooklyn, reducing visibility to dangerous levels. Speed limits in the city were dropped accordingly only making traffic worse. Norman was okay with this decision. Since then, traffic never reached speeds capable of killing him. The sidewalks were crowded, making it difficult to stay off the road, so Norman did his best to push his way through to the other side.
He came stumbling out the other side and found himself in a desolate area filled with the homeless and littered with trash. Curious, he walked in further and began to explore. He found what used to be a small pond, but was now overflowing with garbage, some of which seemed to be on fire.
Norman realized he was in Central Park. It had been over 50 years since his last attempt to visit, but he was finally here. It wasn’t as he wanted to see it, but he was here nonetheless. He spent the next several hours wandering the park, completely forgetting about the errand that sent him here in the first place. He was filled with so much joy that he had finally accomplished a lifelong dream. He found a spot to sit while the sun set somewhere in sky. It hadn’t been viewed from the city in years.
Eventually, Norman took out his phone and opened his app to connect to Heather. Then he turned off his auto-backup and auto-regen. Today was Norman’s 200th birthday, and he was happy.