The Repossession Read Free Page A

those same atoms back in the right order is a monumental logistical task. Way beyond what any software program could do. We are talking turning your whole body into digital form, into photons, and sending them across town by light waves, then putting it back together exactly as it is now. Your clothes too.
    Impossible. One slight wrong calculation or dropped piece of code and your arm will come out your head or you’ll just collapse into a heap of jelly. It would have to reassemble skin, bone, and eyes.
    ‘It would need the basic carbon raw materials to generate it at the end destination. Any idea how complex your eyes are? Hell, just putting your feet back together would be beyond the power of any machine for decades ahead. Decades.’
    ‘Scientists say—’ Rian began again, but Mr Yates interrupted.
    ‘Quantum physics states that you cannot say for definite the position and velocity of any single particle.
    More importantly, Rian, for teleportation to work –and let’s assume someone actually has all the computer power in the whole world at their fingertips to store a trillion, trillion atoms – in order for you to be “transmitted”, much like an email with an attachment say, you, in the process of being disassembled would be destroyed. The new you across town would be a copy and each time you moved you would be another copy.
    Can a computer also deconstruct and store your memory? Your imagination? If it can’t, you would be a sixteen-year-old baby with no memory of anything. Your memory would get wiped every time you teleported.’
    ‘Never mind losing your soul, Rian,’ Mrs Tulane interjected.
    Mr Yates beamed at her ‘Quite. Every human is
    unique – I’m telling you it will always be totally impossible.
    We should not play God.’
    Rian looked at him, his fat fingers and smug expression.
    ‘But if you could do it,’ Rian insisted. ‘You could add DNA, like a smarter memory. People could use it to make themselves brighter, better, fitter.’
    His mother smiled. ‘Well, that might be popular.’
    Mr Yates frowned. ‘Don’t encourage him. Rian, it can’t be done. Consign it to the dustbin along with time travel and men on Mars.’ He took a mouthful of food and chewed. He looked out of the window as the curtains flew up momentarily from a gust of wind. ‘Better get the shutters fastened and the windows closed. They say there’s quite a storm coming up tonight.’
    The conversation was over. Rian looked at them both, so smug, so happy to be smarter than him, but all they were good at was imagining how nothing could happen, never what might be possible. One day he’d find someone with whom he could discuss Genie’s amazing pre-cognitive abilities. He was wasting his breath here.
    Mr Yates would say it was all bunk. Everything was bunk. Rian checked his watch. An hour to go. Everything was going to change. He’d never have to watch Mr Yates eat ever again, or suffer his mother’s despair that he
    was never going to make it, never going to amount to anything, just like his father.
    He nibbled on his food and smiled to himself as he imagined teleporting out of there.
    ‘Another child disappeared today,’ his mother suddenly stated. ‘It was on the news. Boy from your school again. Anwar – such an odd name. Sixteenth child missing since school broke for the summer, they say. Reverend Schneider is leading a prayer group tonight for him in Princeton Park.’
    Rian frowned. Reverend Schneider was always first one there leading a prayer group and speaking on local radio about the tragedy of Spurlake that the kids seemed so desperate to leave. Well, just ask Genie if the Reverend was the saint everyone thought he was. Get her on local radio and she’d open a few eyes.
    His mother was still talking.
    ‘I can’t believe how many are missing now. There’s a pile of flowers left beside the community noticeboard on Geary Street and countless candles burning. I just don’t know what’s going on in