Prisons of Stolen Dreams

by Christopher St. John Sampayo

Day 1.

  I have served as the head of the Neuroscience Division of Verse Zero for thirty-eight years. They tell me at times that I am one of the greatest Brain Weavers to ever reside on this strange island on this Sea of Glass.

  Compliments have never meant much to me. Though they are noted I never truly understand them. I’ve never thought of myself as particularly talented at anything. When I am going about my work I simply do the things that need to be done.

  But I have found that when you are labeled with words such as the best and the greatest these labels can in their own way become a curse. When you wear such labels you are brought the problems that others are not able to solve. The weight of things that are, of the most advanced and complicated nature, falls often upon your shoulders. When this occurs, you find that you must move beyond established rules and order. You have to traverse into the unknown. You have to chart territories that have been until now uncharted. In many cases these territories were not known to exist or where previously avenues never contemplated.

  Suddenly you find yourself in a position where you are told you must do a thing that has never been done before, and where no one has previously succeeded. You are given tasks which almost by definition could be labeled impossible. However, the word impossible is replaced with necessary.

  Today Belili brought me a very special case. She said she needed me to do something that seems like it cannot be done. No neurologist, no medical practitioner, has ever been placed in the position I find myself. No Brain Weaver has ever been expected to accomplish what I must do.

  Even now as I think of this task that has been presented to me I have to wonder if it is beyond me capabilities. I have to wonder if it is beyond the capabilities of science.

  Nothing like this has ever been done. Perhaps nothing like this was ever meant to be done.

  Today, Belili brought me a dead child. That is the only way that I can really describe the subject that was brought to me. The child had no brain. What remained inside, what was once a skull, was a mere fragment of what was once a mind.

  She brought me a shell. Cradled inside this shell was a fragment of brain. She explained to me that a bullet had ripped away the rest of this child’s head.

  Belili told me this child, this corpse, is the one we need. He was the one Verse Zero was created to find. He was the one that our entire civilization has been searching for throughout the centuries.

  Then Belili asked me to accomplish an impossible task. She asked me to save a dead child.

  I understood in her eyes the importance of what needed to be done. I understood why it needed to be done.

  As I looked at this corpse she brought me I nearly cried. However, the tears were not just from seeing the horror that had been wrought upon this child’s frame. I wanted to cry from the impossible task before me. The weight of all existence is suddenly upon my shoulders. I must save the one who is needed to save us all.

  However, as I stared upon the child’s corpse another thought found itself in my mind. Should I do this thing? Should this child not be allowed to rest? As I looked at this child with his shattered skull I wondered if fate had already decreed that from a natural standpoint his life was over. I realize that in many ways what I am being asked to do is not natural.

  I have begun studying the child. A large part of the skull cap was torn away by the bullet that struck him. There appears to be little brain tissue remaining. One of the child’s eyes is missing.

  It defies rational that they were able to keep his body functioning at all. The exposed part of his brain is covered with OxyPlasm.

  OxyPlasm is the gel that was developed generations ago to feed oxygen and nutrients to the salvaged parts of brain that are collected for use in Verse Zero. It keeps the brain tissue from dying. However, this gel is used in canisters that brain fragments are placed in. It keeps those fragments alive till they can be frozen for use at a later date.

  The OxyPlasm was never designed to sustain this sized portion of a brain in this manner. I have discussed this matter with my team. Before I can begin any work a new way to keep this brain alive needs to be found. Until then the OxyPlasm needs to be applied constantly.

  I sat down with my team and with Belili. We began to outline a process to keep the subject’s brain alive as we figured out the best way to move forward to try to repair the damage. I advised Belili that a replacement for the OxyPlasm gel needed to be found first.

  My team has set about its work for this case and now I must begin organizing details for the best strategy to proceed.

  I must focus on the task that has fallen upon me to repair this broken thing.

  As I reflect on the work that needs to be done I realize this child was born with one of the greatest minds in the Multiverse. Now that mind is shattered. This child’s perfect mind was a piece of art created by God. Now I am asked to repair that mind. I am asked to repair the shattered artwork of God.

  How can any one person be asked to do a task such as this?

  The pressure of the Multiverse finds itself on my shoulders. The fate of existence finds itself in my hands.

  I need to save a dead child.

  I have told Belili this will take time. I told her I was not sure how much time it would take.

  I did not tell her I could not accomplish this task. I simply told her I must think.

  So now this is what I will do. I have seen the damage. I know what little remains of the child’s brain. Now I will think of something impossible.

  I am afraid. The challenge is overwhelming. The pressure of it is great.

  I must jump straight into the heart of my fears. I must begin to work at simplifying in my mind the most complex problem that I have ever encountered. Then step by step I will solve my way out of the problem. Step by step I will begin to decide how I need to proceed.

  Failure is simply not an option.

  God, help me. I need to do this. God help, me because if I think about the enormity of it I will realize it cannot be done.

  Day 23.

  I have studied the boy’s condition at length. Hence forward I will refer to the child as Subject L.

  I cannot think of him as more than that. I cannot think of him having a true name. For me to think of him as more than just a medical case will become a distraction. I must try to keep my work cold and analytical. That is the only way I can truly proceed

  I have studied what remains of Subject L’s brain in detail. I have found that 38.23% of the brain remains intact. Over sixty percent of who he was no longer exists. Perhaps it still exists in the place he was taken from. Perhaps it stains the ground where he was shot. However, it cannot be reclaimed.

  I have begun studying the reports on how he received his injury extensively. Part of my work will require me to take those events and play them backwards.

  Our biochemists are working around the clock to find an alternative to the OxyPlasm. I cannot begin my work until they succeed. We need to ensure that this fragment of brain that we have is constantly fed oxygen and nutrients. If we can do this then we can keep the brain alive indefinitely.

  The brain after all is really an organism like any other. Feed it the oxygen and the nutrients it needs and it can continue to thrive. The body is merely the vessel that sustains the brain.

  Timing was everything in the sequence of events that brought Subect L to me. I have calculated that from the time that the bullet hit Subject L’s brain, till Joshua arrived on the beaches of the Sea of Glass and Belili started to cover the brain in OxyPlasm, that four minutes and fifty-two seconds passed. This is very important. If the brain had gone to six minutes without oxygen then the damage it sustained would have been catastrophic and completely irreversible.

  What remains of Subject L’s brain is part of his right frontal lobe including part of the temporal lobe. The frontal lobe of the brain controls higher reasoning. That we saved this portion of the brain is truly a miracle.

  The temporal lobe of the brain is the part of the b
rain that controls memories. However, part of this lobe was torn away. What remains is a fragment.

  Now we strive to keep the mind alive beyond the damage of the body. It is strange when you consider that evolution produced the body first. The brain evolved later to help protect the body. Brains were first merely clusters of nerves. They became more complex over time and eventually produced problem solving skills. Then reasoning. As evolution went on the body began to change so that it could protect and sustain the brain.

  From the torn body of Subject L I try to keep what little of the brain that remains alive. But in truth I don’t know if I can really say the brain lives. My reasoning does allow me to know that with the OxyPlasm we can keep it from dying. But who can define life in this instance?

  From this framework I begin my task. I will build off of this. I will begin repairing this brain piece by piece. Layer by layer I will try to make this brain whole again. Slowly I will try to weave together consciousness.

  I cannot help but wonder from this fragment of temporal lobe how much of who he was will remain? How many memories of this subject will still exist? It is so hard to say. Nothing like this has ever been attempted.

  A side effect of the OxyPlasm is that it is keeping the brain awake. For a full mind this would mean the brain was conscious. I do not know what it means for a case such as this.

  I try not to think of Subject L’s mind awake and waiting. If I think about this it may cause me to rush my work. But what I must do must be done methodically and patiently.

  One question I ignore, one question I try not to think of is the soul. Does the soul reside in these remaining fragments of this brain?

  This place we exist, this glass world of ours, is outside of the natural order. In this place outside the natural order I shall create an organism far beyond anything nature ever intended. Because in my heart I know I will not be repairing a thing. I will need to basically build a thing. Or should I say build upon a thing.

  Who knows what this creation shall be like when I am complete.

  Day 42.

  A solution has been found that allows us to move forward. Our biochemists have redesigned a new form of the OxyPlasm.

  It is quite ingenious. They have created a thin aerosol version of OxyPlasm. We are housing Subject L in a special room where this aerosol will be pumped into the air constantly. The solution is highly cohesive to brain tissue and has adhesive properties to the tissues as well. Its minute particles will continually attach itself to the subject’s brain.

  However, the aerosol has a low viscosity which will allow me to work on the brain as it sustains it; unlike before when the brain needed to be covered with the much thicker OxyPlasm gel.

  I can now look to proceed with my work.

  Day 65.

  Over time as I have studied the fragment of Subject L’s brain something has begun to occur to me. It is a thought that frightens me.

  It is possible.

  This thing that Belili asks of me is possible.

  This task was in many ways easier for me to accept when it was not possible. Admitting it can be done forces me to take ownership of this problem. Admitting it can be done puts the responsibility of failure on my shoulders. If I cannot succeed it means I failed at accomplishing something that could be done. It means I was merely not capable or skilled enough to succeed.

  I have begun to form a plan. I know this plan will likely change as time progresses. I know I will have to reorganize the plan as I encounter the unexpected. However, I can see that the plan is sound. The plan can work.

  Lord help me. The plan can work.

  Now that I have the framework of my plan I need resources. I need many resources. I try hard not to think of what the ghastly word “resources” represents in this context. I simply create a list. I create a list and give it to my assistants.

  They in turn give the list to Belili. She will collect what I need. I understand what each name and location on the list represents. I push that knowledge from my mind. The distraction of it might cause me to make mistakes. Mistakes in this endeavor could be costly. I try not to think of what that cost would be either.

  Instead I must focus on the problem I am trying to solve. I must focus on it one step at a time as I move through my plan.

  The gathering to bring me the resources I need has already begun.

  Each day I am brought more canisters containing the resources I need to help me rebuild Subject L’s brain. Each day the number of canisters grows.

  We have allocated one of our large freezers for the canisters collected just for this case. The subject is that important.

  Sometimes I cannot help looking at these canisters and reflecting on what they represent. In them are pieces of minds from throughout the Multiverse. In them are pieces of someone’s brain. I know where every one of them came from. One canister was a father. He lived a life where he would take his daughter to the park on Sunday afternoons.

  Now he spends the rest of his life in a bed because a large segment of his brain has been removed. He wife feeds him. His family does not understand why this thing has happened to him.

  I dream sometimes that I am in that room with this man whose life I am responsible for changing. I try to explain to him how important his sacrifice has been. I try to explain to him that what happened to him was for the greater good. The man just stares at me blankly. I know he hears my words but he cannot understand them.

  We removed the part of his brain that processes language information.

  Day 72.

  I am different than the others in this glass world. I was not taken as a child. I was taken when I was much older. In my Verse I was already starting down my path as a surgeon. I was still young but I was already becoming established in my field of medicine.

  The Scholars identified me as unique. Because of this I was ripped away from that life and brought to this new life.

  I understand the importance of my work and the importance of this place that I was brought to. But sometimes I cry for the life I could have had.

  I came to this place and I met a young man Joshua Whitman. I was in awe of his brilliance. He trained me. He showed me things that I never imagined possible. With all that I have learned on this strange island on its Sea of Glass I could solve a thousand different complex brain related issues in a thousand different Verses.

  But that is not what is required of my life. What is required of my life is that I focus on a specific task.

  I have been trained to be a Brain Weaver. I have been trained to rewire and restructure the fabric of the mind to save all that is.

  Sometimes I wonder if I am evil. If I myself am not what God intended. God intended things to have an order. Death is death. Life is life. A person was born with a specific mind. That brain developed in a certain way.

  I change these things.

  In doing so do I not go against the will of God?

  I have to push myself forward with the belief that what I do is right. In the end however, God will decide.

  Day 98.

  I have begun my work. I have begun rebuilding Subject L’s brain. Those in my profession have always been called Brain Weavers in Verse Zero

  Those words have never been more apt then in this instance. Slowly I am weaving together a brain piece by piece.

  I am taking pieces of brain from other Universes and weaving them together to form one whole mind here in Verse Zero.

  In the past I have repaired or rewired minds. Now I am building one.

  The thing that aids me most is the plasticity of the brain. The brain has an amazing ability to repair itself.

  In the mind neurons flow along certain paths. These paths are formed through experience and formed when we learn. To learn how to do a task causes a path for the neurons in the brain to be established. When the skill is repeated the neurons flow down this path as if it was a river of memory. These paths form the foundations of a person.

  When a part of the brain is damaged th
e neurons cannot flow through that damaged tissue as they once did. However, with the plasticity of the brain the neurons can learn new paths that will have the same destination. They can produce the same outcome.

  I weave together pieces of brain. I put them side by side. Neurons learn paths between them. These pieces of different mind learn to communicate and work together. How can they not? They are pieces of the same mind. They are pieces of the same brain from different universes. I have gathered together fragments of brain from Subject L that exist in hundreds of different Verses and slowly layer by layer I connect them.

  Day 124.

  I have rebuilt all of the subject’s Temporal Lobe. This is the memory section of his brain. The subject still has no motor functions. He has no power of speech. He is merely a brain trapped in an un-functioning vessel. His mind is still awake. However, all he has are memories. The subject’s mind is living in a constant state of memory.

  I feel guilt that I must leave him in this place. I have not repaired his auditory lobes yet. He cannot hear my words of explanation. He is merely memory.

  I am piecing the rest of his Frontal Lobe together with layers of the minds of others. With layers of other versions of him. There is a quest to harvest pieces of his mind more emphatically then others.

  At times I wonder what the subject’s conscious is like. He is composed of the memories of the different lives he could have lived. These different pieces, of different minds, with different memories are learning to function together.

  There must be some degree of chaos for this poor child.

  Subject L.

  I must remember to think of him not as a child. He is a case. He is a subject. Nothing more.

  If I think of the child I will think of the torment he suffers as I build his mind layer by layer.

  Day 191.

  I have begun to rebuild the subject’s Hippocampus. This is the part of the brain that forms new memories.