Man of Steal

了Nature 456, 836 (11 December 2008) | doi:10.1038/456836a; Published online 10 December 2008

钢人 Man of steel

rpg

译文：

自杀遗书本身并不特别引人注目。

当然，是手写的。即使最老旧的电脑也能探测到声音的微颤或分析出极不自然的措辞，并自动向当局报警。蓝墨水在整张纸上艰难涂写，就好像被逼迫着记起 每一个字母的形状。在一点上，笔尖已经穿破了白纸。没什么人经常用钢笔写字了。虽然学校还在教着书写，但就大部分人而言，书写就是奇怪的情书和购物单。当 然，还有自杀遗书。这没什么不同，书写是属于年老者，或年幼者的。

在某种意义上说，这只手很老了，仍然活着的当中最老的哪一个。但就像日出像时间一样古老又在每一个黎明时刻是新的那样，这只手也是新的： 3个月零12天，根据工厂的记录。

即使是人类思考的符号——文字，也不值一提。它们赢不了文学奖；激励不了注定失败而又富于浪漫的探寻；鞭策不了疲惫不堪、士气低落的军队。最人性的故事也是最寻常的故事：关于爱、关于厌倦；以及最后，关于心碎。

没有人——尤其是他自己——记得到底何时或者如何失去他的第一个手，超过300年了。虽然事故进行了记录，但如果活页夹依旧存在的话，廉价的墨水也早已消退至晦涩不明了。有时，他声称是一场通风厨里的爆炸，另一些时候，则称是一只气瓶从它的安放处掉落砸到了他。

确定无疑，并可以在医学文献中证实的记忆是，他在自己胳膊剩余部位接上了一只假肢（“独立地，哈哈！”，他会开玩笑说）。并不是简单的假体，而是由复合纤维、陶瓷关节和带有双向神经通路的金线组成的全功能器官。身体本身的电脉冲为微伺服系统提供能量，驱动细长的钛屈肌和钛伸肌。

第二个假体，则没有事故：只是测试与重测试，几个月前就事先计划好的。他的妻子执行手术，当他醒来，他的右手臂至肩膀部位是完全的机械的。十四天后，当他仍然处于抗生素和镇痛剂带来的神志不清中时，他的妻子在一次醉酒驾驶事故中被撞死。

记录表明，他利用风险资金开办了一间全新的实验室，雇佣了三打的科学家，而后消失在他的研究中。紧挨着的是一家专家诊所，他自己则是第一个病人，拖着钛合金假腿从诊所中走出，径直走回实验室中。

半打的诊所在全国范围内建立起来，大门向任何有医疗保险可以支付费用的人开放。十年间，公司用与原功能相当的人造结构代替了自然肢体。而且远超“功能相当”：这些人造肢体永不磨损、永不病变、永不劳累、永远不会感到虚弱和寒冷。

十年间，诊所运作着，实验室研究着。但没有发表任何论文，没有申请任何专利，投资人渐渐变得神经紧张了。利益亏损，两家诊所被关闭，三分之一的研究人员被停止工作。流言四起，在繁杂的互联网上自生自灭。又一个三年过去了，最终，一个记者招待会在第一家诊所的草坪上召开，屈指可数的嫌麻烦不想参加的记者都被拒绝进入，但后来又都被叫回来了，面对一个在晨昏的云彩下闪闪发亮的人。

次日，专利和论文接踵而至。人工血液、燃料电池、精细而微小的纤维、导管和马达，简而言之，一个惊奇而又让人惶恐的人造躯体。

只有他的脸显得有些自然，但在随后几年间也慢慢被替代了。不需要食物，仅仅依靠特别制定的培养基生存，有过滤器保护着，大自然的力量提供动力，没有毒素可以威胁到他。坚硬耐久的合金和人造的复合物代替了骨骼、组织、多余的系统和每一个可被替换的器官。他几乎是坚不可摧的了。

在他105岁时，老年痴呆症可以被治愈了。最后必死疾病的堡垒——不可控细胞扩散导致的大规模赘生物——也在几年后被驯服。那时，他已是一个在金属和塑料外壳里的活生生的大脑，谈话、行走、活着。从不疲惫、免疫所有疾病，生命之树的化身。

200年间，他就这样活着。用来不需要吃东西，由营养物和药物组成每周鸡尾酒，保持那一个不可替代的血肉的独特的人类器官活着。

当结局来临，没有号角仪式，没有记者招待会。没有人撰写论文，没有专利律师注意到。

世界上第一个不朽的人的自杀遗言的结尾很简单：

没有她，我无法生存。

原文：

The suicide note itself wasn't particularly remarkable.

Handwritten, of course. Even the oldest computers would have detected the quiver in the voice, or parsed the strained phraseology, and automatically alerted the authorities. The blue ink scratched its way across the paper, as if hard pressed to recall the individual shapes of letters. At one point the nib had pierced the white sheet. Few people wrote regularly with pens. It was still taught at school, but the odd love letter or shopping list was as far as most people got. And suicide notes, of course. This was no different; the writing was that of the very old, or the very young.

In a way the hand was old, the oldest that had still lived. But just as the sunrise is as old as time and new each dawn, so this hand was new: three months and twelve days, according to the factory's records.

Even the words, the symbols of the man's thoughts, were not worthy of note. They would have won no literary prize; inspired no doomed, romantic quest; enquickened no tired and demoralized army. The very human story was the usual one: of love, of ennui and, ultimately, of heartbreak.

No one, least of all himself, remembered quite when or how he had lost his first hand, more than 300 years ago. The accident was recorded, but if the loose-leaf binder still existed, the cheap ink was long faded into obscurity. Sometimes he claimed it was an explosion in a fume hood; at other times a gas cylinder had fallen from its moorings and crushed him.

What his memory was clear on, and what was attested to in the medical literature, was that he had attached ('single-handedly, haha!' he would joke) an artificial limb to the remains of his own arm. Not a simple prosthetic, but a fully functioning organ of composite fibre, ceramic joints and golden threads carrying two-way nervous traffic. The body's own electrical impulses provided power to the tiny servos that drove the slender titanium flexors and extensors.

No accident, the second prototype: it was tested and retested, planned months in advance. His wife directed the operation, and when he woke, his right arm to the shoulder was fully robotic. A fortnight later, while he was still delirious from antibiotics and analgesic, she was killed by a drunk-driver.

The record shows that he opened a new lab with venture capital, employed three dozen scientists and disappeared into his research. The exclusive clinic followed: he himself was its first patient, walking out on legs of alloyed titanium — and straight back into the lab.

Half a dozen more clinics started up across the nation, opening their doors to anyone whose medical insurance would pay the fees. For ten years the company replaced natural limbs with artificial constructs that were functionally equivalent to the original. More than equivalent: these never wore out, never got cancer, never got tired, never felt weak or cold.

For ten years the clinics operated and the lab researched. No papers were published, no patents applied for, and investors grew nervous. Interest waned. Two clinics closed; a third of the research staff was laid off. Rumours circulated, created by and lost in the noise of the Internet. It was another three years later when, finally, a press conference was called on the lawn of the first clinic, the handful of journalists who bothered to turn up were turned away — — and were called back, to face a man who under crepusculine clouds glistened.

The patents and the papers followed on the morrow: the artificial blood, the fuel cells, the intricate and minuscule fibres and vessels and motors: in short, a body wonderfully and fearfully man-made.

Only his face appeared natural, and over the following years even that was slowly replaced. Having no need of food, depending solely on a defined and especially formulated medium, protected by filters and powered by the elements, no toxins could threaten him. With hard, durable alloys and man-made composites in place of bones and tissues, redundant systems and every organ replaceable, he was all but indestructible.

Alzheimer's had been cured by the time he reached 105, and the last bastion of mortality — the uncontrolled cell division leading to legion neoplasms — tamed a few years after that. And then he was a living brain in a metal and plastic shell, talking, walking and living: never fatigued, immune to all disease, the Tree of Life incarnate.

For 200 years he lived like this, never needing to eat: a weekly cocktail of nutrients and pharmaceuticals keeping the one, irreplaceable fleshly and uniquely human organ alive.

When the end came it was without fanfare or press conference. No papers were written, no patent lawyers notified. With the finest of Torx drivers he opened an access panel, removed a wire, took out a power cell, held it — his life in his own hands.

The suicide note of the world's first immortal ended simply enough:

I cannot live without her.

rpg is the nom de plume of a molecular cell biologist and hopeless romantic at the University of Sydney