Two hours later, the living room was filled with tension and dread. Jon and Karyn had been attempting to persuade the rest of Jon's family to join them to no avail.
"You may be right, but we can't just pack up and leave on such short notice," said Jon's mother Linda.
"I'm going," Jon declared. "As soon as Karyn is ready to leave. I hope you follow soon. If not, it could be years before we can see each other again."
"How soon is that?" asked Linda.
"I could head out as soon as tonight," Karyn replied. "Most of my stuff is already in a moving pod on its way to Fort Worth. I'd just need to hit my apartment one more time to grab what's left."
"Tonight? That soon?" Linda was aghast. "At least stay for dinner and say goodbye to Mikey and Zoe!"
"Of course, Mom. We're not in that much of a hurry," laughed Jon.
That evening, dinner was more of a solemn occasion than Jon would have liked. He had still hoped his parents would come around and start planning to move, but they seemed to be digging in their heels.
After a last-minute family photo, Jon and Karyn collected Jon's bags gathered by the front door and headed out for the last time.
"Geez, this suitcase is heavy! Let me guess- D&D; books?" probed Karyn. "I think I hear dice in there."
"Correct," sighed Jon. "Maybe I should get that one."
"Oh, please, I got it," Karyn said dismissively. Outside, she nonchalantly tossed the suitcase ten feet into the air, catching it on her shoulder to be held between her head and forearm.
"Hanging around you is going to put a cramp in my sense of chivalry. Maybe I should look into getting the metahuman thing done to me," Jon said half-jokingly.
"Are you serious?" asked Karyn, smiling as she stacked Jon's bags in the back seat.
"I don't know how serious I am about that," replied Jon, placing the rest of his bags in the back and taking his seat in the front. "Supposing that I were serious, how would I go about doing it?"
"Well, it costs money, for starters. About twenty thousand for a personality offload procedure or six thousand for cerebrectomy. Then there's the body. A new mid-range body is about a hundred grand. For less money you can something new made in China--that is if you find a shop willing to sell crap. If you're on a tight budget I strongly recommend a certified refurbished model. If you already have the money, the process is a breeze," Karyn explained, seating herself behind the wheel.
"What sort of financing options are there?" probed Jon.
"Quite a lot, actually," reassured Karyn. "Demand for metahumans has started to skyrocket since they figured out that AI units don't become really useful until they've had several years to mature, while a metahuman is good to go after maybe two weeks of acclimation. So there are several businesses that have started to at least partly support workers going through the procedure. Trust me, there are probably already a lot more than two thousand metahumans. That was the official number last year and the states of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and Nevada haven't been keeping count since '28."
"Well, it's something to think about, anyway. What am I going to do for a job?" Jon wondered aloud.
"Oh, right! After you got your peek inside me this morning, I was going to suggest you become a robot tech since you seemed to be good at finding your way around my internals," recalled Karyn. "It only takes four months of courses to get a certificate, or two if you find a shop willing to apprentice you. You'd be able to work on me whenever I need checkups, maintenance, or upgrades. Also, a lot of shops prefer their staff to be synthetics. If you're seriously thinking about getting the procedure, those places tend to provide good financial assistance. Anyway, we should probably get going." The engine roared to life and Karyn took the car off into the sunset.
"Are we going to stop anywhere to sleep?" Jon asked.
"I was planning on driving all night. Scootch your seat back and get comfortable," Karyn ordered.
"You don't need to sleep?"
"Oh, I need to sleep. My brain records everything in full detail, see, and too much of that will fill up my head pretty quickly. I need a chance to process it, compress it, and compile it into knowledge, which I mostly do when I sleep. If necessary, though, I can go for a few days at a time without it."
"What's the operation like? The one where you offload your personality, I mean."
"First you do several sessions, an hour at a time, usually every day for a week, to build a preliminary map of your brain function. They stick a bunch of sensors to your head, show you a bunch of random pictures, sounds, videos, smells, texts, and look at how your brain reacts to it all. The main operation is an all-day process, and involves major brain surgery. They put your synthetic body on the table right next to you and cross-link its brain to yours. Everything the other body senses is wired into your brain, while everything your body senses is wired into your brain. They go through another regimen of random pictures and sounds and videos and eventually you really start to feel like you're in two places at once. Then they pull you into a virtual reality for a few hours and interrogate you about your life to pull over as much of your memories and knowledge as possible before your human brain dies. If it's done right, you don't even notice when it happens, until after you wake up in the other body."
"Doesn't sound too bad," remarked Jon. "I just might give that a shot some day soon."
"That would be awesome," Karyn encouraged.
Jon changed the subject and talked about the Karyn he had known growing up, while Karyn said more about how she got to know Jon and his family. Soon, though, Jon had drifted off to sleep, his overshirt removed and draped over his eyes.
The next day they reached Karyn's new apartment in time to have a not-too-late lunch.
