By Rèlme Divingu
Translated from the French to English by the author with the help of the “Harrap’s Shorter” Dictionary.
I
Early in the morning, Ndossy left home to go to the factory, as usual. She worked as a repairwoman of domestic robots for the ODJULU Society, a multinational company that had a monopoly on the African android market. However, instead of taking the aerial train, she took an aerocraft that led her up to the MUZY society inside the district of Inguela in Western Africa, two districts further.
The aerocraft landed on an army base. Straight away, she was hit by the terrible heat of the Sahara Desert. As it left the base, the aerocraft generated an eddy of sand that forced Ndossy to wrap her head up in a scarf. The border post was defended by EKA-120 robots. They looked like short-legged pressure cookers and Ndossy had to present her numeric membership card of the African Reformed Coalition to them. They scanned the card and let her cross. A few seconds later, she heard a shot behind her; they had fired on a young illegal immigrant who had tried to flee, killing him in cold blood. Those military robots were real beasts!
The district of Inguela was known for its severe security and immigration laws. It was the reason why the majority of prosperous people on the continent lived here. And where there was money, you were absolutely sure to find a MUZY branch, one of the entities entitled to accomplish “the Switch.” Invented by researchers from the African Institute of Technology (A.I.T), the Switch had revolutionized medicine and science. One could now extend one’s existence merely by jumping from one body to another. It was considered by many people as a great step towards eternal life, even if death wasn’t completely eradicated. Today, only people of the poor and middle class could die. The wealthy didn’t know death anymore. They had just to buy a new body and transfer their mind onto it. It was immortality, on condition that you paid top price for it.
Many inhabitants of neighbouring districts came here to find casual jobs, hoping for future success. But since the invention of the Switch, body donors were the only jobs available in the buried district—Inguela’s nickname. Save for the access points for the lifts necessary to join the surface, the district was entirely underground.
Ndossy dived into one of these lifts. As large as a shipping container, they normally accepted around thirty people, but during morning rush hour, when employees came from other districts to work in the factories and offices, they contained double that. Ndossy was compressed between the dripping armpits of two office workers gripping the overhead security handles. The lift went down at a speed of a hundred miles per hour causing some people to feel sick and others to pass out. Fortunately, that wasn’t the case for Ndossy.
The lift’s door opened on an amazingly lit platform; it felt like daylight! The temperature was chillier than on the surface. Around her, the office workers rushed into rail-cabs and disappeared into the district. Ndossy made her way to the railway’s 3D holographic map and looked for the location of the MUZY society. Right after she found it, she leapt into the next rail-cab.
When she got out, she saw the four letters of the society’s name were displayed on the pediment above the entrance to the building. They sparkled in flaming red and underneath them was the slogan of the society: Do not die. Live! Ndossy went up the front steps. Just as she entered the building, a number appeared on the inlaid screen in her forearm. She had been identified by security cameras as one of the people who had an appointment that day. Ndossy’s appointment number was 285. She had thought she would get a better position, seeing that she had arrived so early. But she hadn’t taken into account that some people had been waiting all night long.
She called a seat and a gigantic robotic arm lowered down to her. Ndossy sat down inside its cocooned seat which instantly got back into its place in the air, among hundreds of others. She put on the virtual reality glasses inside the cocoon and chose one of the various entertaining activities proposed to pass time. Three hours later, in a small room with spotless white walls and only two salmon pink leather armchairs, an adviser met her.
The adviser was a middle-aged woman with cute little wrinkles in the corner of eyes. Her smile was pleasant and seemed genuine. Her face reminded Ndossy of her late mother and made her feel safe. Ndossy didn’t know that other advisers were presenting the same physical aspect. Computing calculations based on deep-learning had shown that body donors felt more capable of stepping over the red line when they were welcomed by a middle-aged woman who acted in a motherly way.
The adviser gently asked Ndossy to have a seat in the chair facing her.
“I hope you have not had to wait too long?” The adviser asked.
“No, I enjoyed climbing Mount Kilimanjaro.”
“Oh yes, the new programs in our virtual reality glasses allow this kind of activity. And so?”
“Excuse me?”
“Did you reach the summit?”
“Nobody can climb the Kilimanjaro in three hours!”
“You’re right. But what you are going to do is like climbing a mountain, isn’t it?”
Ndossy lowered her eyes. This woman had certainly had this discussion with hundreds of other candidates before. She evaded the question.
“How does it go?” Ndossy asked.
“Technically, the Switch consists of a quantum cloning of the brain. All cerebral functions and memories of the dying person are duplicated and transferred onto a body donor via a machine. Have you spoken of it with your close relatives? I read in your record that you are married and the mother of a five-year-old child.”
“My son is seriously ill. He needs a new body. Unfortunately my husband and I haven’t got enough money for it. I want to do a swap. My body in exchange for a new one for my son.”
“If you make an exchange, your relatives won’t receive any financial compensation.”
“I just want my son to live.”
“You know that laws surrounding children’s Switch are very strict. No human being is entitled to donate his body before they come of age, therefore, children are involuntary donors. Parents can decide if they want to donate the body of their child only after their child’s death. And any compensation you would receive will go to your children. Unlike some unscrupulous firms, we are very careful of the origin of our bodies.”
“You allude to the trafficking of human bodies?”
“Indeed. Unfortunately, the invention of the Switch caused the emergence of this new kind of criminality. But you can be sure that the body into which the mind of your child will be put won’t come from one of these Mafia-like networks.”
“How can I be sure?”
“You said it yourself: nobody can climb Kilimanjaro in three hours!”
How many people had been welcomed by this woman? How many times had she made this smooth speech? Among the 284 persons that had preceded her, how many had chosen the Kilimanjaro program in their waiting cocoon? Were they all passed into this office? Was everything measured and analyzed? Was there no place for chance? Was there no place for life?
“I will send you a tactile contract on your forearm screen. After you read it, if you still want to give your body, scan the fingerprint of your forefinger on it to confirm. You have two weeks to make up your mind.” The adviser said.
“And what about my son?” Ndossy asked.
“Don’t worry, your son will be in good hands. You will even be able to give him a goodbye kiss.”
Ndossy came out of the office deeply moved. Had this woman only just realized that this was a life and death issue? Kimeka, her husband, didn’t know the choice she was thinking of making. Would he be capable of forgiving her? Going down the front steps, Ndossy couldn’t help looking over her shoulder. The four letters above the entrance shone with a bloody glow that gave her the creeps. She took an aerocraft and set off back to her district of Gabonika in East Africa.
II
Eli was playing in the disinfected room specially built for him inside the flat. He was running after the hologram of a fox terrier. Ndossy would have liked to offer him a real dog made of flesh and blood, but it was out of the question. Eli was suffering from a rare genetic disease that affected his immune system. Even a mere cold could be fatal. The deficiency had been diagnosed not long after his birth. In his case, genetic therapy wasn’t possible. Ever since then he lived, or rather tried to live, inside this glass cocoon that separated him from the world. Despite great breakthroughs in the field, it was still impossible for medicine to give one something that nature had deprived. Ndossy watched him through the bay window. Their gazes met and Eli beamed at her. A tear slid down her cheek. She had two weeks to make up her mind.
Kimeka came back home an hour later. Like Ndossy before him, he stopped in front of the glass fence. No human being should have to live like that, to be in jail when you were guilty of nothing, he thought. What did he do wrong for his son to be in such a terrible condition? Was it the consequence of an ancestral curse? No, Ndossy and he were not responsible. They didn’t have to feel guilty. It was nature that was at fault. It was chance that was to blame. Kimeka checked his forearm screen and read the slogan displayed there.
At that very moment, Ndossy, who was in their bedroom, came and locked him in a tender embrace. He shut the screen down.
“What were you reading?” Ndossy asked.
“An advertisement.”
“Again! We asked our network access provider to stop them!”
“You know, it’s always possible for these firms to break firewalls.”
“And what was it this time? Another one prompting us to join Mars, I bet,” Ndossy said offended.
“Yes.”
“That’s unbearable! When will they understand that we feel good on Earth and we don’t want to leave?”
“We are engineers. We seem right for the job. How was your day?” Kimeka asked to change the topic.
“The same work, you know how it is,” Ndossy answered quickly.
They kissed.
Their son stopped his play and began hugging the Proxy-220 robot that took care of him every day.
“Look, he is imitating us,” Ndossy said. “I would so much like to take him in myarms.”
“If only we could offer him a new body,” Kimeka muttered.
Ndossy gave a start. Her husband had had the same idea! Did he, like her, make an appointment with an adviser of the MUZY society? Ndossy thought to reveal to her husband what she had done during the day, but she felt incapable of it. She put her head upon his shoulder and looked at her son through the glass and sighed.
Suddenly, the flat’s lights flickered. It was the signal of someone’s presence in the doorway. On their forearm screens displayed the face of a grey-haired woman with beautiful bright brown eyes – the MUZY adviser. Ndossy almost fainted. What did that mean? The woman wasn’t supposed to appear for another fifteen days! She hadn’t given her agreement yet! Unless…
“I am sorry to disturb you this evening. My name is Clementine Mbenga. I am a consumer adviser for the MUZY society.” The woman on the screen announced.
Kimeka took his wife’s face in his hands and kissed her forehead. He turned to look at his son.
“I know I should have spoken of it with you, but just try to understand it’s not an easy thing to say to your wife. I hope you will forgive me.”
Kimeka was still gazing at his son, his eyes misty with tears, when the MUZY agents came into the flat.
“No! Please! Don’t do this!” Ndossy shouted gripping her husband’s garments as they began taking him away. She couldn’t find any more words and just knelt down crying all the tears of her soul.
Entering the living room, the old woman ignored Ndossy and acted as if she hadn’t met her just that morning.
“Here is the child! Please, bring the Incubator,” The adviser said.
The MUZY’s agents put Eli into a hermetic box and disappeared with him. Ndossy hadn’t been allowed to follow them. For the second time that day the two women were face-to-face.
“Why did not you tell me?” Ndossy asked, her eyes filled with anger.
“We didn’t know if your husband would confirm his application. His two weeks were almost up. We didn’t want to deny your son a second chance,” Mrs. Mbenga answered. “Don’t worry, soon, you will be able to take him in your hands as you were longing to.”
“The child you’ll give me back won’t be my son anymore,” Ndossy said, drying her tears.
“The body is just a shell in which your son dwells. His personality will remain the same. Trust me, the child will still be yours.”
“And about my husband?”
“Unfortunately, I can’t give you any information about him. But I assure you his body will be animated by life again.”
“The life of another man!”
“Like the life of your son will animate the body of another child.”
The old adviser left, abandoning Ndossy to an acute pain.
Six days later, Ndossy received an invitation from the MUZY Society. The Switch of her son had been achieved.
The reunion was held in Mrs. Mbenga’s office. When Ndossy saw her son, a strange sensation crossed her mind. She felt as if she was taking a leap into the dark. The moment the boy saw her, he rushed into her arms.
“Eli? Is it you?” Ndossy asked, hesitant to embrace the child.
“Yes mom, why do you ask me that?”
“No reason, my angel, no reason.”
Turning her head toward Mrs. Mbenga, she said: “Thank you.”
The adviser nodded back in a friendly way.
Who were the real parents of this child? How did he die? What was his life before the Switch? Actually, Ndossy didn’t want to know. She had booked ahead two space-travel tickets for planet Mars.
END
