Free The Methuselarity Transformation by Rick Moskovitz Page A

death and bring him peace. But nothing really changed. His obsession with disease was, if anything, more pervasive than ever, and he continued to see threats around every corner. He was an insufferable companion, but neither could he stand to be alone.
    His brooding knew no respite. All the havoc he’d caused with HibernaTurf haunted him. When he closed his eyes, he sometimes saw the huddled faces of children he imagined had starved to death because of him. At other times, he saw barren, windswept landscapes covered in clouds of dust where once stood verdant forests. These images cast doubt in his mind about whether or not he deserved to live. Even sleep couldn’t rescue him from his torment. He lay awake for hours, his brief interludes of slumber shadowed by dreams more troubled than his waking thoughts.
    He was lost. Every moment of his existence had become agonizing and he couldn’t imagine how he would endure another hour. And yet he’d signed up for an eternity. If he were eventually to wind up in another body, would the transfer of his identity include his baneful mood and the painfully morbid outlook that accompanied it? Did that reside within his data or did it arise out of of his brain’s biology and perhaps be mercifully left behind? An interminable future as unbearable as his last minutes and hours exceeded any version of hell he had ever imagined.
    By the third day, Ray was frazzled with lack of sleep. The sunlight shining through the expanse of glass that surrounded him tormented him with its relentless glare. He longed for nightfall and missed the comforting gloom of his underground lair. For the first time in a lifetime of avoiding death, he began to contemplate suicide.
    At first, it was a curiosity, a distraction that paradoxically removed him from his suffering. He found some fascination in imagining all the ways he could bump himself off: poisoning, hanging, cutting, asphyxiation...
    “Not gunshot,” he thought, “Don’t have one...and not jumping.” And for a moment he grinned at the irony. “Not with these marvelous windows.”
    The fundamental question of whether to live or die was more daunting than choosing a method. While most who considered suicide were faced with a choice between a finite existence and endless oblivion, his was between eternal life and eternal death, which made the stakes even more overwhelming.
    To complicate matters further, he had no idea whether or not it was even possible for him to die. Terra had warned him that he was forbidden to do anything to deliberately end his life and bring about the transfer prematurely, but she never spelled out the consequences if he did. And if his data did make the leap into another body, it would mean the end of another person’s existence. He would be committing not suicide, but murder.
    And so Ray sat, hour after hour, setting sun after rising sun, paralyzed by his life’s most inscrutable dilemma.

    When Lena returned from her two-week absence, dusk was beginning to fall. She emerged from the elevator to an outlandish scene. The furniture cast shadows of the setting sun, the only source of light in the darkening apartment. In place of the usually barren, sterile interior were piles of dirty dishes, crumpled clothing, and trash. The rancid odor that permeated the place nauseated her. She covered her nose and mouth with her hand as she assessed the wreckage.
    She found Ray sitting bolt upright in a chair in the bedroom, staring straight ahead. His face was as blank as a fledgling SPUD on its first day at Corinne’s school. Bits of mucus clung to the corners of his mouth. His hair was unkempt, his face covered in stubble, and his clothes disheveled. He showed no sign that he was aware of her presence. As she approachedhim, she was overwhelmed by the stench of urine and a faint smell of ammonia.
    “My God,” Lena thought. “What’s happened to him? Could he be that lost without me?” She looked around for signs that he’d been