Mind in Transit
Science-fiction
It was the flash that woke me up.
That blinding, scorching flash that accompanied the needle-teeth of the electrodes piercing my skull. The computer was tugging at me. Not my body but me. The consciousness, the soul, whatever you called it.
The tug of the processors was repulsive, but it was quick.
A zip, a split-second. The mind-transfer was a success.
I opened my eyes- my new eyes- and my knees twisted. My vision was so intense, so alien, that I convulsed, vehemently, despite my restraints. My muscles squirmed, shivered, contracted, pressed in on themselves. I gasped and spat uncontrollably into the air.
I shut my eyes, squinted my muscles as far as they would go and then more, but intense lights of the operation theater would not be held back.
My muscles went lax. I urinated. I had no control. I did not know how to steer my new brain. It was like writing Shakespeare with Bengali alphabet and French phonetics. The mass of neurons would not listen, and I could not interpret the neurotransmitters.
“Reverse it,” I wanted to say but couldn’t.
I could feel people milling around me. My original brain could not have known what this meant but this new one did. “They are breaking quarantine,” said one bundle of neurons. “Heej uncle potato duckweed,” screamed another.
Then I lost connection with my senses. I could not see, could not hear, could not taste. Dimly, I perceived a tall figure beside me. Then that was gone too.
In vain, I tried to adjust the surroundings to suit me. I rearranged the furniture, counted the utensils, scanned the wood for mold. But it was not enough. The barbed dendrites made no room for me. I was in an un-consenting, hostile world tailored for and by another mind.
I did not feel the electrodes jab into me, but I felt something poke my eyes. The basest animal perceptions, it seemed, were still intact.
I was tugged again. But this time it was harsher, forceful. I yielded.
A zip, a split-second.
A zip, a split-second.
A whole second.
Two seconds.
I do not know if I existed these two seconds. The machine swirled me round and round and sent me back the wrong way. The electrodes pummeled me into the skull of the new body but there was no chance of re-entry. The brain had rejected me once, and unlike the immune system, it cannot be reasoned with.
The shock of the implosion left me shattered and fragmented. The machine jostled me around, pulling, pushing; then receded completely. I was alone, without help, without existence, without guidance; outside of a body, mine or otherwise. Outside of the machine, even. The feeling, the sensation, the experience, of being un-fleshed was devastating.
I was in darkness, with leptons and quarks. Suspended. Barely an entity. The world, the universe, was faint and peaceful. Existing without existence, with the leptons and quarks; alive, but only as thoughts are alive. I would have stayed, allowed myself to disintegrate back into the universe, except that there was someone else there and I was intruding on their hospitality.
My host shows me the correct way. That initial tug is back. I am pulled into the computer. The machines and AIs do a decent job of patching up what remains of me. Even so, part of me, the part that is dust now, stays behind.
I enter my skull, my own skull. My brain is dark, devoid of activity. My body is still comatose.
I touch a neuron. There is no response.
I touch another, then another, then another. They are all cold, listless, lifeless.
I pluck on the optical nerve and get it to work. My eyes are partially open and all I see are hazes and blurs.
A figure is sitting on my chest, pounding it. My sinus node is unresponsive. I taste my blood and it is foul with chemicals. I can feel the pressure behind it subsiding.
I do not need these hints. I know this. It is both in my long-term and short-term memory. The neurons are unresponsive, but I can still read them. When they list a body for mind-transfer, they also list it for the morgue. Gets the paperwork done together.
The doctors continue their efforts. It is in their contracts; but they are not expectant.
I flip all the switches and wait.
A few of my fragments float up. Some push against the skull, some squeeze into the electrodes. There is no exit, and the sharp electrodes cut deeply.
Soon enough, there is another tug, similar to that of the machine.
I don’t want to go, but I do.
