The normal situation was that you had the Choice. It was yours; indeed yours as a matter of right.
Roger had not been given much of a choice. Actually he had not been given any choice in the matter at all; there had not been the time. Roger had not known a thing about it, not until he awoke and felt different, actually really quite different. He had been eighteen at the time. Any younger and the Choice would have been made the other way, another few years older and it would have been up to him to choose. Only he would not have had the time to make the Choice. In being only eighteen he was lucky. In every other respect he had been unlucky.
Having to make the Choice at less than your one hundredth birthday is normally rather bad luck.
Of course, that was years ago. Roger had got used to what had happened, had accepted and made the most of it. Yes, he regretted the lost years of life, mourned his birth body, but he was naturally cheerful, resourceful and a person who made the most of a situation. He had got on with life: or what had a strong resemblance to what had been his life.
Roger stood and looked out over the structures and interconnected buildings making up the mining complex. It was not a bad looking place and he had got used to it, which was just as well as it was to be his home for the next ten years at least. His original home was a very long way away.
Roger's job was what could have been called Head of HR for the Complex. It could have been called that, but it would have been inaccurate. Certainly he dealt with resources but they were not really 'human' resources. They had been human once, but that was before they made the Choice. It was similar in many ways to the job that would have been covered by a head of HR in the twenty-first century, but it was different. There were no hirings, firings, very little sick absence (and even that was different - nobody was 'sick' whether that term meant ill or, well ill: but there was damage to be repaired) and actually not too much conduct and discipline. The job did entail promotions, training, remuneration including accommodation and the like. It also included personnel records and control adjustments.
Roger turned back from the window to the girl sitting opposite him. To a twenty-first century eye she looked a normal healthy girl in her twenties, assuming, that is you, accepted the silver colour of her skin. To say she was a robot would not have been completely inaccurate. Equally, to say she was an android and living would not have been totally correct. The distinction between the mechanical and the biological had become an overly simplistic distinction by the twenty-third century. What was undoubtedly true was that she was sentient, a person and had been born of woman. It was just that things had changed rather a lot for her since then.
Mankind in the twentieth and twenty-first century had had great dreams of travelling across the vastness of Space, boldly going where no one had gone before. The technology to travel had proved up to the job: people had not. Maintaining a biological person in a spaceship, and on other planets, had proved extremely difficult, albeit not impossible, just extremely difficult. The basic sanitary requirements were a major problem, both the very personal ones as well as simple washing; even the problem of the dust from skin flaking as it renewed and hair falling out caused major difficulties. Sending machines, robots to the stars, as advocated by some did not have any spirit of adventure or progress. It seemed a sterile activity, a very poor second best to sending people to the Stars. The solution came when it became feasible to map and accurately copy a human brain. It became possible to lift someone out of his or her head and put the memories, personality, everything into a synthetic equivalent. Naturally there were ethical problems, indeed very, very big ethical problems. It was possible in theory to copy people, create any number of clones that would think they were the original person, indeed would in their minds be that person. Who then was the real person?
Tying the ability with the ethics had taken a long, long time. Ultimately the legal position became that such a transfer could only happen if the person elected to change, to make the Choice. The emphasis being on 'change'. It was an irrevocable choice as the original body and brain was destroyed at the same moment the Change occurred. The person changed from being organic to 'different'. The person accepted that he or she would wake up in a different body, or rather a copy would wake up in a different body. That copy would think him or herself the original but the reality was that it was only a copy, albeit a perfect copy. The person in the new body would see himself as a continuation, indeed that person, but nonetheless the original had died. A very big choice to make, suicide really, would you make it?
People usually, often after years of procrastination, finally made the Choice towards the end of their natural lives, but it could not be made too late when the brain had deteriorated too far. Society did not want or need senile brains in new bodies. Indeed it did not want mentally impaired brains in new bodies. The Choice, then, was not open to everyone. In twenty-first century terms it was not a very 'politically correct' matter. That said, by no means everyone chose: well, the vast majority chose but many did not make the Choice to become post-human. If you chose you could not stay on Earth, your new life was in the Stars and there was plenty of work to do, plenty of worlds to travel to. Mankind was on the move in a big way spreading out and colonising. An adventure of colossal proportions and you could be a part of it. Would you make the Choice, would this adventure interest you?
Being post-human had many advantages but it was not the same as when human. Things were different. Essentially it was the same person inside the new body but modifications needed to be made, or just naturally occurred, as a result of the body change. Physically the body units were much improved on the organic prototype. The narrow band of temperature in which humans could comfortably exist were too limiting away from Earth, relying on organic food was too inefficient and complex.
Post-humans did drink, but needed to only occasionally to take in certain required liquids. Energy could be obtained through the skin from sunlight but this was a limited collection and a more direct means was usual (though there was no electric socket hidden under a flap on the arm nor was there a need to plug oneself into the mains by sticking a plug up the rectum at night!). The body appeared as a replica human. There was a wide range of types; post-humans were not facsimiles of an individual's birth body. There was plenty of differentiation, plenty of choice in what the person could look like, post-humans did not all look the same: far from it, a crowd of post-humans did not appear as a sort of 'clones' convention'. Externally they were complete in every way including genitalia. The latter did not serve any reproductive purpose: nor generally a recreational purpose as the sexual function was usually disabled. Provision had been made in the design but the consensus was that it was not needed by post-humans who had been through their human phase; who could now concentrate on developing their minds; experiencing new things and working for the expansion to the stars of Earthkind.
Mentally the person after the Change was the same; the personality was the same even emotions were the same though no longer partly relying on hormonal and chemical changes. Enhancements could be made to memory, processing power and indeed many factors. A person could have modifications to his or her mental capabilities, predilections and emotions. Most people did, they needed to be equipped for a new life. This was undertaken at the start, though changes could be effected later but under strict control.
Post-humans were re-orientated, re-trained and sent out from Earth. It was not that they were chattels or slaves but Mankind had a new role for these ex-people. They had had their time on Earth; the mother planet belonged to new living people now. It was a contract between the living and the ...post-humans.
Roger had been unlucky, an accident had nearly killed him when he was eighteen, he had been nearly dead when the Choice was made for him. There had been no need to kill his body. He was young, his whole 'life' ahead of him, so much to learn and do. Nonetheless his time on Earth had finished. Rather than going to university with his friends he had had to wish them well and move on to his new life. He had been allowed, because of the circumstances of his Choice and age, to stay on Earth for a few weeks.
Usually post-humans were not allowed any time at all, it was a clean break. Because of his girlfriend and his sad story his sexuality had not been turned off at the Choice. The intention had been to do this as he left Earth but it was over-looked. To Roger this had been a very mixed blessing. His short period with his girlfriend had been great, the sex had been fantastic, and they had parted still very much in love. His girlfriend had accepted his perfect silver body even if it had not looked much like the old Roger (not a bad thing in many ways, if truth be told). That had been the plus part, but leaving Earth he had found himself with attractive post-humans of both sexes but he was the only one with the slightest interest in sex. Frustrating? Yes, very.
"How about a date, Mary?"
