“You mean, why don’t I resist and let you rip my head apart like you did to Anisim?”
“Sure,” Old-timer responded.
“Okay, besides that fact that it would really, really hurt?” Jules reacted, aghast. “How about this? Have you ever thought about the philosophy behind this whole system? The idea that if I destroy my body but if you upload my mind file, that somehow that’s still me? Look, Craig, I know you think we’re all just a bunch of mindless drones—brainwashed followers—but we do have opinions. We do have inner thoughts. I’m not a believer in our system. Most of the collective are believers, but I’m not.”
“What do you believe?” Old-timer asked.
Jules grunted impatiently. “Look, imagine I’m about to be killed on a rescue. My mind file automatically uploads into the replicator and a new body pops out. Great, right? That’s why most androids have no problem taking actions that clearly run contrary to self-preservation or respect for their own mortality.”
“You’re immortals,” Old-timer pointed out. “Why would they be concerned—”
“Because they’re not immortal!” Jules shouted out. “Look, it’s not a popular view, but let’s face it, if I’m about to be killed and my mind file uploads to the replicator, what if something happens? What if, by some miracle, my body survives? The collective’s predictive algorithms are watching me, detecting me, always making sure they know if I’m about to be killed or not, but what if they make a mistake? As far as I know, they never do, but for the sake of argument, hypothetically, let’s say they do. Then what?”
“You’d survive,” Old-timer replied, “and a copy of you would emerge from the replicator.”
Jules widened her eyes. “Yeah. Exactly. A copy.”
“Are your beliefs the reason you’ve never been on a rescue?” Old-timer asked.
“Never been on a rescue? What makes you say that?”
“Anisim said—”
“Right,” Jules nodded, remembering. “He lied.” She shrugged. “I guess he was trying to make you go easy on me. He must’ve felt guilty for leading you straight to me.”
“If you’ve been on rescues,” Old-timer said, putting the pieces of the puzzle together in his mind, “and you believe that the replicated bodies are just copies, then you also—”
“Believe I’m a murderer?” Jules finished for him. “Yeah. I do, but that’s the catch. I understand why the collective does what it does. I even believe in it, because it’s better that humanity and the universe continue to survive. But no, I don’t believe that when my android body dies, I continue on. A copy of me will, with my memories and feelings, and it will be a fully formed and functioning person—but it won’t be me. I’ll be dead.”
Old-timer thought through the logic. “Have you…have you—”
“Died on a rescue? Yes, I have. But even if I hadn’t, I was assimilated. My human body was destroyed, and my mind file was uploaded to the collective and replicated, right here in the Constructor.” She gestured to the endless body pods that stretched up into the sky, down to an unseen bottom, and 360 degrees around them. “That Jules died. I’m certain of it.”
“If you really believe that, why don’t you fight back?” Old-timer demanded of her. “It can’t just be this absurd, fatalistic pessimism—this belief that humanity will always destroy itself if it isn’t controlled. That’s just 1’s bullshit.”
Jules shook her head. “You’re right. I’ll just take on the whole collective. There are only 1.4 trillion of us at last count. I’m sure I’ll win.”
“If you really believe that, why don’t you just volunteer to take part in another rescue? The you that’s with me now will die and you’ll never have to murder anyone again.”
Jules paused for a moment. “You know, I mean this sincerely, I actually think that’s part of why they do it.”
“Who?”
“The conscripts. That’s what we call them. When we come to a new Earth, people are randomly selected for the mission. The more Earths we assimilate, the lower the chances are that you’ll be conscripted, because it takes the same size force every time, and if the collective grows, the chances they’ll need you plummets. But you never know when it’s your turn. It can be years between rescues…” she drifted off as she seemed to remember something. “You can almost convince yourself it was all just a dream.” She pulled herself back to reality, turning to look Old-timer in the eye. “There are two ways to gain honor and prestige on a rescue for yourself. The first is to rescue—or as you put it, assimilate—a lot of people. The other is to die. The more you’ve died, the more bodies you’ve sacrificed, the more selfless the others in the collective consider you.” She paused again, appearing pensive. “But you know what I think, Craig? I think they do it because they long for oblivion. I think they want a way out. Suicide is illegal, and our patterns continue eternally, but I believe when members of the collective sacrifice themselves, part of it is their death drive. They want to die—because just like you said, I think they want out.”