Pandora's Brain

by Calum Chace

  He looked meaningfully at Leo and then back at David and Sophie, who was still looking down, showing no sign of having understood. He spoke urgently.

  ‘Here’s the thing. This is a really big decision for you guys and I wish there was time for you to think about it. But there isn’t. If we’re going to do this we have to move Matt’s body to our own medical facility immediately. If we don’t it will be sent to a police lab for forensic investigation because of course there is going to be a murder enquiry. Once that happens we will have lost the opportunity forever. I’ve spoken to someone senior at the Embassy who confirmed that he can get your government’s co-operation in releasing the body to us. I’m not sure whether they would do it by arranging a retrospective cryonic contract, or by you claiming the right to carry out your own autopsy, but we don’t need to get into that; the bureaucratic stuff can be sorted out later. But we have to act now.’ As he spoke he made short stabbing movements with his hands. When he finished he clenched them together.

  Sophie was now looking blankly at David. David wondered whether they should dare to hope. He looked back at Vic.

  Leo was watching David and Sophie, concerned. ‘I can see why you would want to jump at this,’ he said. ‘And I’m certainly not saying you shouldn’t. But it could build up your hopes only to dash them again. Can you stand to go through all this twice?’

  Vic glanced at Leo, acknowledging the point. But he quickly turned back to David and Sophie and pressed on.

  ‘Look. If we get the ball rolling and get Matt to our facility, that doesn’t commit us to actually initiating the process. We will have to start fairly soon, before the neuronal structure and fibres start to degrade. We have quite a few hours before then, although the sooner we start the better. But – and I can’t tell you how sorry I am to have to press you on this – what you do have to decide right now is whether to get the body taken out of the coroner’s process. You have to make that call now.’

  David came quickly to the decision that there was only one possible answer to Vic’s offer, but he couldn’t tell how Sophie would respond. He looked back at her and although her face was turned down again he saw that realisation was dawning on her, and with it the first flush of hope. But he could see that it was accompanied by fear, and also confusion. He was still holding her hand, with his other arm around her shoulder. He waited.

  After what seemed an age, Sophie inhaled deeply, as if making an enormous effort to push heavy words out of herself.

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said, and then stopped.

  ‘What is it, love?’ David asked gently.

  ‘I don’t like it,’ she continued, her words falling from her mouth like stones. Working out how to express a thought was like being an exhausted explorer taking yet another weary step through deep snow. ‘Our son has just . . . our son has just died and we’re talking about using him as the subject of . . . of an experiment.’

  David nodded silently. ‘I know,’ was all he said. Leo and Vic said nothing. The silence was oppressive, and at the same time, fragile.

  ‘I know you want to go ahead,’ she continued at last, addressing David, but not looking at him, still looking down. ‘And I know it offers some hope . . . some hope of bringing Matt back. But what if it goes wrong, and all we do is create a creature of pain?’

  Vic walked to Sophie, and squatted down to sit on his haunches in front of her, his face level with hers.

  ‘You don’t have to make any final decisions now, Sophie. You just have to decide to keep Matt . . . to keep the body away from the coroner. You can decide whether to go ahead with the procedure later. It can wait until tomorrow.’

  Finally Sophie looked up, tears in her eyes, turning her face sideways towards David rather than straight ahead towards Vic. ‘I don’t know. I can’t think. You can’t expect . . .’

  Vic stood up quickly and stepped back as Sophie started to move. She got up shakily and walked out of the room, tears streaming freely down her face.

  David nodded gently to himself. He looked slowly across at Vic, his face grim and ashen. ‘I’ll talk to her. I think we should do as you suggest and get Matt out of the coroner’s process. Then we’ll need some time to make the big decision.’

  Vic nodded, frowning but relieved. ‘I’ll make the arrangements to take the body to our facility at the new Embassy complex. We’ll be ready to go as soon as you give the word.’

  TWENTY-NINE

  Half an hour later, Matt’s body was on its second ambulance journey of the day. The van hustled west past the MI6 building, round the gyratory system at the southern end of Vauxhall Bridge, and on to Nine Elms.

  Sophie had agreed to have Matt’s body transported to Vic’s facility, but not without a fight. Leo had winced as he listened to Sophie’s protests in the corridor outside the hospital waiting room. Biting down on his pain to find lucidity, David reasoned that transferring Matt’s body was the sensible thing to do, that it preserved their options, and that they didn’t need to make the difficult decision yet. Sophie responded by shouting angry accusations that David was being cold and clinical, and that he was willing to allow a stranger to carry out unnatural experiments on their son just hours after his death. Leo knew these accusations were unfair, and that Sophie was just lashing out furiously in response to their tragedy. But he also knew that they would be cutting David to the quick.

  Sophie’s outburst subsided as quickly as it began, and Leo went outside to find her in David’s arms, her head on his chest, sobbing loudly. Tears welled up in his own eyes as he walked away from his best friends, looking for Vic to tell him the news.

  No-one spoke as they climbed into the ambulance again. The silence in the van felt to Vic like an accusation; he sought to ward it off by assuring them of the quality of the facilities available at the compound. He spoke rapidly, nervously.

  ‘The equipment that is being installed in the new Embassy complex here is the best in the world. This site is going to be the outer skin of the USA. As far as Uncle Sam is concerned, this will be the single most important piece of real estate outside the continental USA. It will be our eyes, ears and our fingertips. The equipment in Grosvenor Square is impressive, but this is taking things to a whole new level.’

  Leo shared Vic’s feeling that silence was unhealthy. ‘There wasn’t too much difficulty extricating Matt from the hospital.’

  ‘No. My government is grateful for the assistance extended by all of you, and people were only too happy to accede to the request we made on your behalf – even though we didn’t tell them exactly what we plan to do. People in your government clearly felt the same way.’

  Sophie said nothing. Her attention was focused on Matt, her hand wrapped around his. His skin was astonishingly cold. She had touched the skin of dead people during her medical training, but she was still shocked by the contrast between the colour that remained in her son’s peaceful face and the complete absence of warmth in his hand.

  ‘So tell us, Vic,’ Leo asked, hoping to nudge David’s and Sophie’s thoughts away from the subject of their grief for a moment or two. ‘What have you found on Ivan’s ship that you think will have such a big impact on your work?’

  ‘A lot of things – much more than we expected.’ Vic replied gratefully. ‘And it’s not just his ship. His crew members and his financial backers are falling over themselves to be co-operative, and we are investigating several other installations which are gradually yielding up their secrets. It turns out that Ivan was working along the same lines as us in many ways, but had taken different routes in others. It will take us a while to understand exactly what he achieved, but we can already see that he has solved a number of thorny problems for us.’

  ‘Such as?’ Leo prompted.

  ‘Such as how to distinguish between different sub-minds. You know how when you drive a car you can focus on a conversation or a radio programme, for instance, and when you reach your destination you have very little memory of the driving?’

  ‘
Yes,’ Leo said. ‘Especially if you know the route well.’

  ‘Exactly. Well, it has long been thought that the brain divides itself up into sub-minds, or modules, and assigns different tasks to different modules. We didn’t know to what extent those modules were permanent features, and to what extent the brain would clump together different communities of physical neurons each time it needed, for instance, an automatic pilot.’

  ‘And Ivan answered that question?’ David asked, lifting his gaze from his son for a moment.

  ‘Yes he did – partly, at least. The answer – as always – is fuzzy. Some modules are mostly permanent and others are always ad hoc. But more importantly, he seems to have found a way to identify and define boundaries for certain types of modules. Some of the modules perform functions which an uploaded mind won’t need – at least not at first. Such as the ones which control the breathing process.’

  ‘The modules? Plural?’ Leo asked.

  ‘Oh yes. There are several modules permanently involved in breathing, and others are assembled from time to time when additional mental horsepower is required, such as when you decide to hold your breath and swim underwater. The oldest module is the one that tells you to breathe out. Breathing is actually driven by expelling carbon dioxide, so it’s much harder to refrain from breathing out than it is from breathing in.

  ‘We reckon that being able to identify a bunch of modules that we don’t need to upload will mean a significant saving on modelling and hosting. We’ll scan them all anyway, in case any of them do turn out to be mission-critical to consciousness and general intelligence. But assuming they aren’t, we could have a saving of between 15 and 40% of the work.’

  Then Sophie broke her silence, in a tremulous voice. ‘Very well. I won’t stop you.’

  David looked at her in surprise. ‘Darling . . . ?’

  Sophie looked and David, and then past him at Vic. ‘Go ahead and prepare him. My son is dead and you can’t do him any more harm with surgery. But David and I are going to have a lengthy discussion before we get anywhere near approving an activation of whatever it is you create inside your computer.’

  ‘I understand,’ Vic nodded. ‘I’ll make the preparations when we arrive, but I give you my word that I won’t proceed further than you have agreed.’

  There was a lengthy pause as everyone digested the significance of the moment. Then Vic continued, plainly uncomfortable.

  ‘David, there is one other thing I’m going to have to ask you. I suspect you have already realised what it is, and if you like we can have this conversation offline. But your family will need to know about it at some point.’

  ‘I know what it is,’ said Sophie, quietly. She was looking down at her son again, but she reached for David’s hand and addressed him without looking at him. ‘If you can do it, you should.’

  David’s lips pressed together in a grim, grateful approximation of a smile. ‘Thank you,’ he whispered.

  Turning to Vic, he added, ‘You want me to help you scan my son’s brain.’

  *

  It took several long minutes to get through security at the entrance to the Nine Elms complex. It was obvious that without Vic it would have taken a great deal longer.

  Everything around them was new, but temporary -looking. Some of the facility comprised joined-up portable cabins, and some of the other structures were flimsy-looking affairs made of pre-fabricated panels. Vic explained that the redevelopment of Nine Elms was one of the largest urban construction sites in Europe, and that the buildings here would be changing, morphing and moving about a lot in the coming months.

  They headed towards the scanning room. The gurney carrying Matt had been taken by a couple of Vic’s people to what Vic described as ‘the preparation room’. Sophie, David and Leo had reluctantly gone along with Vic’s strong advice not to accompany it.

  At their destination, Vic held the door open and they entered, one by one. The room was the size of a large classroom: it felt spacious because everything inside was white and bright. Light flooded down from powerfully illuminated white ceiling panels, and white was the predominant colour of the large machines and cabinets that lined the walls and filled much of the rest of the room to waist height. To one side of the room, a couple of sofas and accompanying armchairs in off-white fabric and a large oval glass coffee table provided some relief from the hard edges elsewhere. Vic gestured towards them.

  ‘Welcome to the scanning room.’ Addressing David in particular, he added, ‘You and I will be spending a good deal of time here in the next few weeks. The fridge is kept well stocked, and a phone call to reception can get you hot food any time of the day or night.’

  He didn’t ask whether anyone was hungry at the moment.

  ‘Now, I suggest that we call it a night. We have a couple of company flats nearby; you’re welcome to stay there tonight, and I’ll arrange for you to have the use of one of them for as long as you want it. Leo and Sophie: I don’t imagine that you will want to be here every day, but you will have site passes anyway, and you’ll be welcome any time.

  ‘I’m going to brief my four most senior scientists tomorrow. They’re a great team, and I’ll introduce them to you when you’re ready. We could make a start the day after tomorrow, but I realise that may be too soon. Just let me know when you feel up to it.’

  *

  Having said goodnight to David, Sophie and Leo, Vic had one last job before he too headed to bed: he called Dr Paul Humbert, his chief medical officer. Dr Humbert was in the room which Vic had previously referred to as the preparation room, although in reality it was a state-of-the-art operating theatre, equipped with brand new machines whose clean, minimalist lines whispered money.

  At 56 years old, Dr Humbert was a highly skilled senior consultant, at the top of his profession. He was head of the neuroscience department at St Thomas’ Hospital, but maintained a lucrative private practice, including a part-time role as Chief Medical Officer for Von Neumann Industries. A tall man in good physical shape, he had a handsome but severe face, with thinning grey hair and clear blue eyes.

  Matt’s body lay on a gurney next to an operating bed which was ready to be illuminated by banks of lights like the compound eyes of insects, each sending out a sensitive finger of light, probing and querying.

  Dr Humbert answered his phone.

  ‘OK, Paul, you can get started,’ Vic said. ‘We have the green light.’

  ‘Thanks Vic. Are you coming over now?’

  ‘No, I’m exhausted. I’ll come to the prep room first thing tomorrow. Will you be there – say, 7.30?’

  ‘I doubt it,’ Dr Humbert replied. ‘We’ll be at this most of the night, so by 7.30 I’ll be catching up on some sleep myself, if it’s alright by you. But I’ll make sure one of the team is here to debrief you.’

  ‘Fair enough. Has the license to carry out the autopsy arrived yet?’

  ‘Yes. A police officer brought it over a short while ago.’

  ‘Excellent,’ said Vic, relieved. ‘What do they want us to do with the body afterwards? Will the coroner commision another post-mortem examination?

  ‘Yes,’ Dr Humbert replied. ‘That is pretty much inevitable following a murder.’

  ‘And when should we tell him that we have removed the brain?’ Vic asked.

  ‘No need to do that before we return the body, I think. There may be a fuss about it, but given the cause of death and the political support you have mustered, we should be able to contain it.’

  ‘Good,’ Vic said with evident relief. ‘Did you manage to get hold of the voice expert we talked about?’

  ‘Yes, he’s been on standby with the others with a couple of his assistants.’

  ‘Great. Well, good luck. Wake me up if there are any complications.’

  ‘Shouldn’t need to, but understood. Good night.’

  As he put his phone back in his pocket, Dr Humbert looked down at Matt’s body, lying on the gurney. He looked across at the immaculate array of cutting equip
ment lying waiting for the job, and then he looked up at his team. Thanks to his own seniority and also the resources at Vic’s disposal, Dr Humbert had managed to assemble a first-rate group of surgeons, nurses and pathologists at very short notice.

  ‘Right, let’s get this young man on the operating table and get ourselves washed up. We’ve got a long night ahead of us, and the sooner we get started, the sooner we can all go home.’

  Four hours later, a layer of artificial skin had been applied in a circle around Matt’s shaved skull, hiding the join where the crown had been removed and then re-attached. His brain was sitting in a refrigerated box, ready for delivery to the scanning room. The theatre was spotless, showing no traces of the operation to separate brain from body: circular saws, clippers, forceps and various other devices of healing violence had been scrupulously cleansed and returned to their state of pristine innocence.

  As soon as the brain had been safely removed, Dr Humbert’s medical forensic colleagues had busied themselves further down Matt’s body, tracing and documenting the exact point of entry and progress through the body of the bullet which had killed him. They continued their work until they had built up a comprehensive picture of the journey and the impact of the tiny lump of metal which ended Matt’s life.

  When that was done, the final post-mortem task began: a minute examination of the structure and composition of the body’s vocal cords, the way they were supplied with air by the lungs, and the precise arrangement of the articulators – the tongue, palate and lips.

  As Dr Humbert and two of his colleagues continued to type up their findings, Matt’s body was placed back on the gurney by two other members of the team, and wheeled into a specially prepared storage cabinet in the adjoining room. Matt had taken the first steps of his journey toward an afterlife.

  THIRTY

  David and Sophie spent the whole of the next two days in the flat. Leo called round late in the morning each day, bringing some sandwiches for lunch which they hardly touched. He left them again in mid afternoon. The days passed in a trance. They were speechless, numb.