Advance Detective

There's A Catch

I run a hand through my hair.

"Look," I say, "Look, OK, I'll hold off. For the moment. If Tommy needs some time, then OK, we'll give him some time."

Also, it'll give me some time, too. I suddenly realise that maybe I'll have a chance, not only to get to know the woman Karen has become, but also to get to know my kids. To get to know Tommy.

"Thanks, John," she says. She half-smiles at me. I nod, and kill the connection on the computer screen.

Her face flashes and is gone, replaced by a familiar view of John's hospital room. I watch his chest rise and fall, slow, laboured. A doctor comes and stabs his good arm with a little needle so they can put another bag of fluid up, to keep him from dehydrating and dying while I refuse to make the decision that he would want, but that the woman I love does not. His hand jerks a few times, and the doctor calls a healthcare assistant to pin the arm down while he gets the needle in position.

His eyelids flutter briefly, then still.

I'm not scared of dying. I know that sooner or later I'm going to be pulling the plug on John, and when I do that I'll basically be pulling the plug on myself too. Us advance directives do not enjoy the right to live beyond the souls who made us.

There's a catch, though, to stop ADs from choosing to keep their "real" counterparts alive as long as possible, just so that they can go on "living" (in this weird, digital sense) themselves as long as possible.

You get a couple of weeks to make your choice, then either way, that's that buddy, time's up for you.

Say I decided to say, OK, John Price would want to go on living, don't pull the plug. I'd make my choice, throw my two cents in the ring, then I'd be switched off, just the same as if I'd decided to pull the plug. Goodbye John Price AD. The only difference is, if I decided to keep him alive, I could be re-awoken again if there were any change in his condition. If he deteriorated, for example, say he had a second stroke or something, then I'd be brought back to reassess, to see if I felt the situation had changed significantly.