Immortality is grand. Immortality is great. As long as you have a clear conscience, that is. As long as you’re not tortured by doubt, racked by depression, overcome with guilt.
That poor woman, Dr. Ng. She’d done nothing wrong, nothing at all.
And now she was dead.
And he—a version of him—had caused her to be killed.
GR-7’s words replayed in Rathburn’s memory. We’d just never been in such desperate circumstances before.
Perhaps that was true. But he was in desperate circumstances now.
And he’d found himself contemplating actions he never would have considered possible for him before.
That poor woman. That poor dead woman…
It wasn’t just GR-7’s fault. It was his fault. Her death was a direct consequence of him wanting to live forever.
And he’d have to live with the guilt of that forever.
Unless…
Desperate circumstances make one do desperate things.
He picked up the magnetic pistol—astonishing what things you could buy online these days. A proximity blast from it would destroy all recordings in nano-gel.
George Rathburn looked at the pistol, at its shiny, hard exterior.
And he placed the emitter against the side of his stainless-steel skull, and, after a few moments of hesitation, his golden robotic finger contracted against the trigger.
What better way, after all, was there to prove that he was still human?