— Ozzy, old man, you're done for. Sorry, but if I hadn't known you half my life, I wouldn't be saying this.
— But you have known me...
The man on the cot—the one they called Ozzy—sighed, coughed, and tried to laugh. His lips, the color of crumpled cigarette paper, split in the middle as they formed a smile, and then truly split—cracked right across. Blood oozed from the cracks, nearly the same color as his lips—gray, lifeless. From the ventilator, or rather from the coordination unit above his ear where the vent tube connected, three deep crimson mechanical spiders emerged—one for each crack—and crawled over to stitch them up. The man coughed again.
— Jim, my friend, that's the thing—you do know me. Which makes hearing this from you hit twice as hard.
— Well, I'm sorry. But I'm not gonna lie to a man with a week left to live.
— You wouldn't talk to a man with a week left, no matter if he were your brother, cousin, or the Apostle Peter himself. You've always been a ruthless bastard, no offense...
The spiders finished their job and crawled back inside. Ozzy's lips regained a slightly more lifelike hue, and from his nostril emerged a long, grayish plastic worm, slick with something green and black. It slithered out and dropped to the floor, where a vacuum-bot promptly collected it.
— I'd be offended, but you're right.
— And anyway, you're not my doctor or my priest. Let's cut to it. Time's short.
The window panes suddenly darkened, then just as quickly cleared. Jim—who stood by the window—watched without emotion as the old streetlamp outside twisted like a stroke victim and the bulb exploded.
— Fine. I'll be blunt. You're dying. Fast. That's a given. Upload yourself.
Ozzy said nothing. Jim sighed, pulled a device from his pocket—round, like the vacuum-bot hiding under the bed, but five times smaller—set it on the table, and switched it on. A small blue dome shimmered into view above it, then expanded to cover six meters across, enveloping both men.
— Alright. Totally straight. The new Kray is a mess. It doesn't work.
Jim covered his face with both hands.
— I mean, sure, it works, but we can't get it stable. At all.
— My condolences. I always said it was a stillborn—
Another coughing fit.
— —project. What's it to me?
— We won't finish the Keepers before the Station launch. Kray needs... a foundation. If you get my drift.
— I get it perfectly, Jim. You need binding matter—like those thousands of corpses that kept the Great Wall from falling apart. And you want me for that role. Much appreciated... friend.
— What's the issue? You'd become the soul and core of the most badass AI in history. You'd live on, basically! The body dies—so what? What is life, huh? If it all works out, you'll save humanity in the end! What's not to like?
— Just the fact that you're calling it a choice when it's already been made.
— It's just a Sphere of Silence, Oz! No one can know Kray is failing—
— And your "Sphere of Silence" also strips my cloud access, whether I consent or not. I'm guessing it fried all electronics in the room, too?
Jim kicked the lifeless vacuum-bot carcass.
— I didn't have a choice, old man. The storms are getting worse every day. Something has to be done—so, sorry, but you will be uploaded, like it or not.
Ozzy laughed again through the coughs. His lips cracked open once more—but this time, no spiders came.
— I get it, Jim. Maybe better than you do. And yes—I agree. Know why?
— Why?
Ozzy's voice now matched his lips—gray and lifeless:
— Because neither you nor I really know what life is.