Alan continued to stare at the monitors as they logged brain activity. “I can’t imagine what he must be thinking right now.”
“Something like a waking coma,” said Steven. “A dream state. I’m sure he’s completely confused.”
“When do we begin installation?” Nodden asked.
“If all the readings are sound, and they appear to be, we can begin the transfer in fifteen to twenty minutes,” Steven said. “The host shell is prepared. The brain has been digitized and loaded onto a portable platform. Really, it should be as straightforward as installing a computer hard drive. It just takes a lot longer to boot up. There are trillions of connections to be made between the brain and the body. It’s hard to say…but charging could take anywhere from a few hours to the better part of a day. Like everything else in this experiment, there’s no guarantee it will work. We’re flying on theories, not practical experience. The digital consciousness could blink out at any time, like a computer crash. But – so far, so good.”
Alan continued to follow the wavy patterns on the brain activity monitor. “His thoughts are getting more aggressive. There’s more intensity than when it started.”
“Yes,” said Steven, nodding calmly. “Our patient is probably experiencing an extreme form of claustrophobia right now. Do you blame him?”
* * *
Louis experienced a jolt, the collective power of a million tiny surges that pushed through his mind like a swarm of goldfish, dashing and darting in angular patterns.
His fear climbed another notch. He wriggled his body and emitted a small, dry cough.
Then he realized what he had just done. The wriggle, the cough.
Louis moved the fingers on his left hand. They responded to his mental commands with precision. He stirred his feet. They moved slightly, then stopped, held back by something.
“Hey,” he said, a tiny, uncertain croak. He could now feel his body.
Louis concentrated very, very hard and commanded his eyes to open.…
And they opened.
His eyesight was crystal clear. It had never been sharper. He didn’t wear glasses, but sometimes squinted, and this was far better than he had ever experienced.
The room around him was familiar. It was the private space next to the lab where they brought him for the operation. This was where they placed him in a hospital bed and talked through his medical treatment. They told him he would be put under and wouldn’t feel a thing. He said, “Let’s go for it.”
Regaining consciousness, he discovered he was vertical. It was a strange sensation, and he realized he was propped upright in a standing position, strapped to some kind of metal frame to prevent him from falling.
There was no one else in the room. He could hear voices just outside the door. Quite a few voices. Excited chatter, some laughter.
He smelled pizza.
I can smell. I can hear. I can see. I can move.
Then he discovered a bonus revelation.
Hey, my stomach doesn’t hurt.
For weeks, the cancer had punched his midsection with horrible discomfort that drugs could barely subdue and he had accepted it as a way of life for his remaining days. But now…
…it all felt fine down there. Everything felt fine. He didn’t have a single ache in him.
The surgery was a success.
Louis was not a religious man, but in that moment he thanked God. He felt like he had been to hell and back. This new feeling was so much better than the black hole that had consumed him and stripped his senses.
Louis was ready to go exploring but someone had secured him tightly to the metal frame. He didn’t know why he was clamped down but these straps needed to come off, pronto. He felt restored to full strength – in fact, even stronger than before. Without much effort, he pulled free from the straps that held back his arms. Then he unlatched the rest of the restraints, down to his ankles.
So far, so good. Then Louis stepped out of the metal frame and realized he wasn’t so steady without it.
He nearly fell to the floor. He caught himself, forced greater concentration on his movements, and his limbs dutifully obeyed.
His movements were hesitant, lacking confidence. With extra effort, he was able to guide them. He walked a slow arc around the room, not ready to summon the doctors yet. He wanted to get a good look at his surroundings and continue to clear his head. He was regaining a more fluid command over his mobility.
He studied the room. It was such a weird place. The volume of computer equipment and monitors looked like something out of NASA. It certainly didn’t resemble a normal hospital room. Maybe they used computers to zap the cancer with super-advanced lasers like a videogame? Star Wars surgery. Why not?
Louis stepped over to the hospital bed he had previously inhabited. Startled, he discovered something big on top of the sheets. It was a distinctly human shape, zipped up inside a thick canvas body bag. Like a corpse waiting for delivery to the morgue.
What the hell? he thought. Who’s this poor guy? What’s he doing in here?
Curiosity quickly got the better of him. He reached down and took hold of the zipper’s tab. Very slowly he peeled open the top of the bag to reveal the deceased man inside.
As the top of the body bag split apart, Louis stared into his own dead face.
Louis let out a shout. At once, he lost control of his movements, his concentration giving way to wild panic. He staggered backward from the body bag and collided with a table of surgical supplies, sending them crashing to the floor.
Within seconds, a cluster of doctors and scientists entered the room, pulled away from their pizza break. They were astonished to find Louis on his feet and moving about.
“That was fast,” one of them said.
“We did it!” shouted another in excitement.
Steven Morris stepped to the forefront and took Louis’s arm.
“Louis, how are you feeling?” He stared into Louis’s eyes.
“Good. I’m feeling really…good. Who is…?” He began to turn back toward the body bag. Another man was already zipping it shut.
“We’ll explain everything to you in due time,” said Steven. “But first, we need to run a series of tests. Nothing invasive, just your hand-eye coordination, your joints, muscles, your speech.”
“My speech feels weird,” Louis said. “It sounds wrong. Did this surgery do something to my voice?”
“Yes, there are side effects. We’ll explain. Can you sit down? There’s a chair behind you.”
Louis noticed several men rolling the body bag out of the room on a gurney.
“Is that me?” Louis asked, fully aware of the absurdity of the question.
“Not anymore,” said Steven.
Louis sat in the chair. His vision filled with scientists staring at him in awe, some of them grinning, some simply appearing shocked. He felt like an animal in a zoo.
“First, let’s test your memory. Can you tell me your name?”
Louis smirked. “Call me Charlie.…”
“Giamatti is on his way,” someone called.
“Who’s Giamatti?” Louis asked.
“He paid for all this,” responded Steven.
“I guess I owe the man some gratitude.”
“We all do,” Steven said. “He believed in this research. He believed in this team. He believed in possibilities that others didn’t believe or didn’t want to believe.”
The lab scientists proceeded to conduct a checklist of tests requiring Louis to perform various movements and activities, including tasting and eating a slice of pizza.
“Tastes great,” said Louis. “Best pizza I ever had. Then again, I’ve been living on prison food.”
Several times, Louis asked again about the man in the body bag, and each time he was told he would learn more after the tests.
After forty minutes of performing simple physical tasks while answering questions to evaluate his mental clarity, Louis looked up to see a heavyset man with designer mirror sunglasses and a bulky white beard enter the room. The big man moved as quickly as he could, his pace hampered by a stubborn limp.
The others greeted him with reverence and parted to create a path for him to approach Louis.
“So this is our little miracle,” he said. He removed his sunglasses and hooked them in the collar of his shirt. He held out his hand. “I’m pleased to meet you. My name is Simon Giamatti. You know my associate.…” He turned and gestured at a neatly dressed man who had followed him into the room. “This is Cooper.”
Louis nodded at Cooper, the man who’d visited him in prison.
“It’s incredible,” Steven told Giamatti. “He’s become fully functional even sooner than we expected. His mind is sharp. He’s quickly building a repertoire of remembered movements and coordination that will become second nature. His senses are replicated…heightened, really, from their former standing. The mind and body are communicating beautifully. Everything we mapped out…every element of the design…is becoming a reality.”
Giamatti turned away from Louis and faced the others in the room. “Now, I’m sure I don’t need to remind you…no selfies, no texting, no outreach to anyone outside this team. We are still a work in progress. Don’t spoil it.”
Louis asked, “Am I cured?”
Giamatti turned and stepped closer to him. He gave Louis a big smile.
“Cured? My dear boy, this is bigger than that. You could say that today the entire human race is cured.”
In that moment, standing in front of Giamatti, Louis caught a glimpse of his own reflection in the old man’s mirror sunglasses, which remained hooked on the collar of his shirt.
Louis moved closer for a better look, alarmed. It wasn’t his face. He looked nothing like himself. It was another man – lighter complexion, blond hair, rounder face, narrow nose, all wrong.
Louis immediately put his hands on his face to feel his features. They felt out of proportion.
“What did you do to me?” he said in a shocked voice. Then he demanded, “Who was in that body bag? Was it me? Who am I?”
Louis quickly erupted into panic and outrage. He grabbed Giamatti and was immediately pulled off. The faces around him turned from warm and welcoming to frantic and hostile.
“Back off!” demanded Giamatti.
Louis began yelling threats at them. He felt the rise of his old temper, his lifelong backlash against a condescending society that was always trying to control him and force him to be someone other than his true self.
Louis’s outburst only lasted about ten seconds.
Steven pointed a device at him – it resembled a television remote – and stabbed a red button.
In an instant, Louis was turned off, like a squelched stereo. He went silent and blind, began to stumble, and the others caught him and sat him back in the chair in a stiff, sitting position.
Louis’s thoughts vanished down a black hole and quickly became nothing.
Chapter Five
Tom Nolan kissed his wife goodbye, briefcase in hand, and walked the four blocks to the Wilmette train station. The seven forty-five train to Chicago arrived and left with Tom still standing on the platform. As far as Emily was concerned, he had gone to work. He loved her and hated to deceive her but knew it was for the best for now. He had to honor the agreement he had signed. He was good for his word.
When Steven’s Camry pulled up in the parking lot, Tom left the platform. Walking steadily but stiffly, straining against the early stages of his disease, he made it to the car and climbed in.
Steven could not hold back a very large grin.
He said, “It worked.”
Tom felt a shudder. “Really?”
“It’s unbelievable. Everything went as planned. Technology has caught up with human biology. Things are possible that were unthinkable five, ten years ago. I haven’t been able to sleep. My mind keeps racing with the implications.…”
“What happens next?”
“Plenty.” Steven maneuvered the car around crowds of commuters. “First, let’s get out of here before we’re noticed. We need to get you to the lab. Seeing is believing.”
During the drive, Steven prepped Tom for what he was about to encounter. “The brain-mapping process is very destructive to the source and ultimately kills the original life form. We tested it with another man who is, for lack of a better word, expendable. He’s taking your shell for a test drive. We’re in our third day and not seeing any major problems. It takes time for the coordination between the new brain and new body to become second nature, but the progress has been very good. We regularly check the vitals and everything is holding steady. The mind is fully functional without memory loss and the body, limbs, and senses are performing extremely well. In some cases, the synthetic replacements are performing better than the capabilities of an ordinary human being.”
“I’ll be happy with just being ordinary again,” said Tom.
“We’re going to save your life,” Steven said confidently. “And then we’re going to save a whole lot more lives.”
“When can I tell Emily?”
“We’re getting closer. It’s up to our sponsor.”
“Mr. Giamatti?” Tom had met Giamatti once, briefly, during the screening process.
“Yes. Just hold tight a little while longer.”
As they arrived in the parking lot of Perking Institute, Steven prepared Tom for the personality currently inhabiting his shell.
“He’s a terminally ill prison inmate who agreed to be a test subject,” he said. “He was carefully selected as someone with minimal ties to the outside world. The arrangement has a very small paper trail. I wanted you to be prepared because it will be startling to see yourself with a different persona.”
“How long is he part of the test?”
“Two more weeks,” said Steven. “Then, if all the signs are good, we’ll work on the fusion of your mind with your shell. That’s when Emily will be brought up to speed. We have people who can prep her with the right sensitivity. As you know, it’s a significant concept to comprehend.”
“I want her by my side when the operation takes place.”
“We can arrange for that.”
Steven parked the car. Tom hesitated before climbing out. A question lingered.
“The man.… The brain…that’s doing the ‘test drive’. What happens to him?”
Steven paused, staring down at his hands, which still gripped the steering wheel.
“He currently exists as a hard drive,” he said. “Basically a large cartridge that has been installed in a very expensive recreation of your human form. In due time, we’re going to remove his cartridge and replace it with yours. That’s the simplest way to explain it.”
“So what happens to his hard drive?”
Steven hesitated. “This is really more than I’m authorized to tell you. But I trust you. I know you. Please understand the delicacy of our moral ground. This man…comes from prison where he’s serving a life sentence for multiple murders. He has terminal stomach cancer. We’re not altering his fate.”
“But the hard drive…his computerized brain.”
“It will be wiped clean.”
* * *
Steven and Tom signed in through the security desk and entered the main lab area, where members of the various science, medical and technology teams quickly stepped forward to greet them.
“Today’s the day?” said Alan, giving Tom a hearty handshake.
“Yes,” Steven said. “He’s going to meet himself, maybe have a little conversation.”
“How weird will that be,” said Alan, smiling.
“I’m freaked out just thinking about it,” Tom said.
/> “Is the patient regenerating?” Steven asked.
“Yes,” said Alan. “He’s in passive mode.”
“What does that mean?” Tom asked.
“He’s turned off,” Steven said. “Sort of like sleep.”
“Does it dream?” Tom asked with a nervous laugh.
“Not exactly,” said Steven. He turned to look at a secured door on the side of the room, equipped with a keypad. “Listen,” he told the others, “I’m going to take Tom inside to see our progress. I’d like to keep this first encounter private. Just the two of us, then we’ll bring in more of the team. I think it’s going to be a bit overwhelming.”
“I’m ready for anything,” Tom said.
“Then let’s do this.”
Steven guided Tom into the small operating room where two months ago he had met his lifeless shell replica. This time, the shell appeared equally lifeless, seated stiffly in a chair on one side of the room.
Steven closed the door behind them and brightened the lights.
“Hello, me,” Tom said.
Steven took out a key and unlocked a drawer in an area of cabinets. He took out a thin, rectangular device.
“What’s that?” asked Tom.
“Control,” Steven said. “It allows me to activate or deactivate with the click of a button.”
“Emily’s going to love that. So she’ll be able to turn me off when I get on her nerves?”
“It’s more of a safeguard to keep our test subject from getting too independent, if you know what I mean.”
“He’s traded one jail cell for another.”
“Oh, Tom,” Steven said. “Don’t call this a jail.” He pointed the remote at the Tom replica and pressed a red button.
At first, nothing happened.
“He’s warming up,” said Steven.
Tom giggled. “I’m.… This is crazy.”
“Look. See, his fingertips are moving?”
The Gemini Experiment Page 4