Restoration

by Daniel C McWhorter

  These networks of connections, called engrams, grow and evolve, becoming ever more complex with age. As a result, each person's brain is unique from birth and becomes more so as they age. Although it was possible to alter recently formed short-term memories, the complexity of the interconnected mesh of engrams (or engramic mesh, as the scientists at Telogene call to it) makes it virtually impossible to isolate and remove older memories without damaging others.

  God, I hope he adapts, Aubrey thought as she began the descent to sub-level 46.

  She had experience with patients who failed to accept the transfer and it was never pretty. Some experienced dislocation similar to that of traumatic amputees, the difference being that, instead of feeling a phantom limb, these patients had reported that their body didn't exist from the neck down. Most of the time their bodies functioned normally but they just didn't feel “right.”

  In a few extreme cases, the patients had experienced debilitating hallucinations and that resulted in insanity. Overcoming this problem requires lots of physical therapy and mental conditioning to retrain the brain and even then, there was still no guarantee the brain would accept the new body.

  These were but a few reasons the GFN had banned full body replacements as one of its first official acts when formed three decades ago. Plus, several of Telogene's less scrupulous competitors had tried to clone long deceased tyrants like Joseph Stalin, Francois “Papa Doc” Duvalier and even Saddam Hussein. Aubrey's mother was running the company then, and she refused to allow anyone to use Telogene's technology for that purpose but that didn't stop a rogue Telogene scientist from trying to clone former President John Fitzgerald Kennedy.

  They had terminated those clones and destroyed the source genetic material but the GFN remained vigilant and spared no expense to track down and prosecute those who violated the ban. The same violation that Aubrey and her dedicated team of scientists had just committed by restoring Doctor Evan Feldman.

  Although he did not pose the same threat to society as Hitler or Stalin might, the ban made no distinction between resurrecting good people or bad people. Bringing someone back from the dead with a full body replacement was illegal regardless of the legacy of the person being revived or the motivations of those performing the restoration. Aubrey and her team gladly took the risk though—the stakes were just that high.

  Aubrey exited the elevator and walked down the hallway past the Cryonics Lab to the recovery area, which was a suite of small apartments that provided a controlled environment for monitoring patients and helping them get adjusted to their new body and circumstances. The company had long ago learned that you couldn't just take a newly restored person and thrust them back into society after an extended period of non-existence, you had to give them time to process everything that had changed since their death, and it was also prudent to keep them under observation until you could be sure that the brain had fully accepted the body.

  Aubrey placed her hand on the DNA scanner. It flashed green and the door to her grandfather's apartment slid open.

  God, I wish Mom was here to help me with this.

  Aubrey entered the small, sparsely decorated studio apartment and saw her grandfather sitting in front of a holoterminal. She saw an image of her mother on the display and she immediately recognized it as the speech Lily had given at the GFN's ten-year anniversary. The year was 2052 and Lily was sixty-nine but she didn't appear a day over forty.

  This should be interesting.

  “How are you doing, Papa?” she asked.

  Evan waived his hand to pause the video and turned to face Aubrey.

  “I am fine, thank you,” he said. “The real question is what are you doing?”

  “I didn't mean for you to see that just yet,” Aubrey said with an exasperated look on her face. “Where is Doctor Hao?”

  “He's in the bathroom.” Evan stood up and put his hands on Aubrey's shoulders. “Now please answer my question.”

  Aubrey removed her grandfather's hands from her shoulders, took a small step back and, still holding his right hand, gestured toward the sofa.

  “Come on, Papa, let's sit. I know you are upset but please give me some time to explain. I promise I'll tell you everything.” This conversation would be far more uncomfortable than she had expected.

  Evan pulled his hand away and crossed his arms in an obvious sign of refusal. “I have been sitting since lunch. Please, Aubrey, no games. Tell me what's going on.”

  The bathroom door hissed open and Doctor Hao stepped into the room. “I am sorry, Doctor Harris. Nature called.”

  “I see you have given him access to the corporate archives already,” Aubrey said with a clear element of displeasure in her voice.

  Doctor Hao glanced at the frozen image of Lily on the holodisplay. “Ahhh, well, yes. He is doing well and was keen to learn about his daughter. I'm sorry if I have caused a problem.”

  “There is no problem, Doctor Hao,” Evan interrupted. “I would find out, eventually.”

  Aubrey nodded in agreement. “There is no problem. I just wish we could have talked first.”

  She took a seat on the sofa. “Doctor Hao, will you please excuse us for a few minutes?”

  “Of course, I will be in my office,” Doctor Hao gave her a deferential nod as he exited the room.

  Aubrey gently patted the cushion next to her. “Come sit next to me, Papa. Please?”

  Evan dropped his arms and rolled his eyes as he begrudgingly complied with her request. “Okay, I'm sitting again. Now what?”

  Aubrey reached over and took hold of his hand. “Now we talk and get to know each other. I am sure you have lots of questions.”

  “Well, I do but I don't know where to begin. I guess for starters you can tell me how long I will be locked in this room?”

  “You’re not a prisoner, Papa, they lock the door to keep others out not to keep you in.”

  “Then how come I can’t go outside?”

  “You can once you’ve finished your orientation. You seem to be adapting well but you still need time to acclimate, and we need time to be sure that your brain and body are working as they should.”

  “And how long will that take?”

  “Well, it depends on you,” she answered. “Usually a week, sometimes longer.”

  “A week! You mean I have to sit in here with the good Doctor Hao for another week?”

  “Not just Doctor Hao, Doctors Berkovic and Walker will also work with you.”

  “I don’t know if I can stay cooped up in this little room for a week.”

  “You won’t just be in this room, there is an exercise room next door. You can do this Papa!”

  Aubrey tapped the large, white plastic bracelet she wore on her left wrist causing a holographic image to appear in the air above her arm. Evan stared in fascination as Aubrey used her free hand to gesture and poke at the floating image which he guessed to be some kind of control panel. Several swipes and pokes later, and the image disappeared.

  “There,” Aubrey said, “look at the wall behind you.”

  The previously bare white wall was gone. In its place was a lush field of grass and trees with a small river running through the middle.

  Evan stood up and crossed the short distance to where the wall had been. A soft breeze caressed his face, and he smelled damp earth and grass. The room filled with the sounds of water rushing over rocks and leaves rustling on trees. He put his hand out to see if the wall was still there—it was. The image flickered slightly as his hand brushed against the wall.

  “Th…that’s amazing,” he said.

  “Yeah, it’s pretty cool. You can control it from your holoterminal and there are lots of scenes to choose from.”

  “It’s like I am standing in that field. I can even smell the grass.”

  “It's but one of many technological advances made over the last fifty years.”

  “Okay, I guess I don’t have to worry about dying of boredom.” Evan turned to face her. “Now, tell me why I a
m not in my body.”

  “Well, that’s complicated. We came as close as we could with what we had to work with. We debated plastic surgery but decided against it.”

  “What happened to the body I put in cryogenic suspension? You had to have at least some original genetic material to work with if you still had my brain.”

  “We didn't.”

  “You didn't what?”

  “We didn't have any of your genetic material.”

  “How can that be? This is my brain isn't it?”

  Aubrey inhaled deeply. “No, Papa, it's not your brain, and that's not your body. Your body and brain were lost in the New Madrid quake of 2037. The quake was massive, and it destroyed the storage facility outside of Kansas City, along with the company headquarters. Hence the reason we are now deep underground in South Dakota.”

  “Then how am I here?” Evan said, with equal parts confusion and fear in his voice.

  “Because before that happened we figured out how to digitize your engrams, and we stored those in multiple locations around the world for safekeeping.”

  “You mean you made a copy of my brain and stored it in a computer?” Evan asked incredulously.

  “Well, sort of, that's a long story. The short version is that we invented a carbon-based organic storage medium that replicates the function and capacity of the human brain. Even after all these years we still can't achieve the density and efficiency of the brain but we are pretty darn close. Our storage technology has replaced silicon memory chips and hard drives in computers, and it was that invention that earned us our first trillion dollars. Even today, organic storage still represents over forty percent of our annual revenue.”

  Evan was stunned. Not only was he not in his own body but he wasn't even thinking with his own brain. He had envisioned the possibility of memory transference when he had himself cryogenically frozen, but he had always assumed that the technology would involve transferring a person's memories into a clone of their own brain and body. His vision had been to replace diseased brain tissue with healthy brain tissue while preserving memories, not putting one person's memories in another person's brain!

  “Where is Christina?” he asked about his wife. Her untimely death was the reason he had started down this path, and he had to know where she was. Surely they wouldn't revive him without her!

  Aubrey had expected this but she struggled to answer. “Umm. Well, I don't know exactly how to say this...”

  “Oh, just tell me for fuck’s sake!” Evan raised his voice almost to a yell.

  Aubrey was surprised by his sudden change in demeanor but she remained calm.

  “She's gone, Papa. Her brain was deprived of oxygen for too long before it was retrieved from the crash site and put into cryo-storage. Her engrams were too degraded and we never could get a good copy. Mom tried and tried and tried but it wasn't possible. I'm sorry.”

  He slumped into the couch and his face contorted with the pain of profound loss.

  “Nooo. No, no, no, no, no,” he said, covering his face with his hands.

  Aubrey reached over to put her arms around him. “I'm so sorry. I wish I had better news Papa but please know that Mom tried really hard.”

  Evan sat up and wiped his face. “And what about your mom? Where is she?”

  Oh shit, now I’ve done it. Aubrey realized she had said too much.

  “Papa, I need you to listen to me. We've already gone too far in this conversation and I need you to focus on acclimating to your new body. You probably feel fine now but I know from experience that will not last. The next couple of weeks will be hard on you and I need you to focus on getting through the adjustment period. Can we please talk more about this later?”

  “I need to know if she’s alive or not.”

  Aubrey looked him in the eyes and slowly shook her head from side to side. “No Papa, I’m sorry but she's not with us anymore.”

  She stood and motioned for her grandfather to do the same. “Now give me a hug and I will call Doctor Hao back so you two can continue your work.”

  Evan stood. “That's not good enough Aubrey, I need to know what happened to her.”

  Aubrey took a deep breath and tears welled up in her eyes. “It was a…it was a plane crash…last year.”

  Evan looked like someone had just punched him in the gut. He wanted to comfort his granddaughter but he couldn’t think of the right words. He couldn't believe both his wife and daughter had died in a plane crash. What were the odds?

  “I can’t believe it…is Lily in storage somewhere? Is she recoverable?” he asked.

  Aubrey took a minute to consider how best to respond before answering. “Yes, we have her last engramic archive from the day before the crash, but she made me promise not to restore her.”

  “Why would she do that? That doesn’t make any sense.”

  Aubrey wiped the tears from her cheeks with the back of her hands. “It will once you learn more about her. The short version is that she had seen too many failed restorations, and she didn't want to have that happen to her. And it’s illegal so we couldn’t do it anyway.”

  “Being illegal didn’t stop you from bringing me back.”

  “No, but that’s different.”

  “How so?”

  “For one, nobody knows you and you’re not registered in any GFN system, so technically you don’t exist—at least not as Evan Feldman.”

  “And?”

  “And you made Mom promise to bring you back so I am fulfilling that promise.”

  “I didn’t make her promise any such thing. That’s absurd.”

  “You don’t remember yet but trust me, you did. You left her a video you recorded a few weeks before you died, and you asked her to do everything she could to bring you and Grams back,” Aubrey said, referring to her grandmother by the name she had called her as a little girl.

  “So that’s it? The reason you broke the law and brought me back was to fulfill a promise?”

  “That’s one reason, there’s more that I can't share with you yet.”

  “But…”

  “No, now is not the time. Please be patient, Papa, I need you to trust me.”

  Evan pulled her into a tight embrace. He kissed her cheek several times and stroked her hair with his hand.

  “I'm sorry, Princess, it’s just a lot to take in. I wish Lily and Christine were here but I am so happy to see you. I love you more than anything, you know that.”

  “I know, Papa. I love you too and I wish more than anything they could be here with us.” She kissed him on the cheek. “I’ll come back and check on you later when you are ready for bed.”

  “That would be great, I'll look forward to it.”

  Aubrey tapped the communicator implanted behind her right ear. “Doctor Hao, will you please return to Recovery Room 1, please?”

  “On my way,” he responded.

  “He's on his way down,” Aubrey said to her grandfather.

  Evan stood and walked Aubrey to the door. “Okay, I’ll see you later.”

  Aubrey kissed him on the cheek again. “See you later.”

  Aubrey left the room and headed toward the elevator that Doctor Hao would be using. A few minutes passed before the elevator door slid open and he stepped out into the hallway.

  “How did it go?” he asked.

  “As good as can be expected. He’s as inquisitive as ever.”

  “I am sorry for giving him premature access to the archives. I just thought I’d try a different approach this time.”

  “No need to apologize, Chen. Do what you think is best, just get him ready to travel.”

  “You think thirty-six hours will be enough?”

  “It will have to be, won’t it?”

  He shrugged. “I suppose it will.”

  CHAPTER 5

  APRIL 3, 2075 5:00 PM GST

  Telogene World Headquarters

  Lead, South Dakota

  Aubrey returned to her office and spent the rest of the afternoon review
ing the lung enhancement protocol—it looked promising. She suggested a minor change to the lead researcher and gave him approval to begin clinical trials on primates.

  Unlike the past, when researchers had to rely on animals captured from the wild or bred in captivity for their lab specimens, Telogene's scientist could clone test subjects on demand. The company had achieved complete mastery over the genomes of these animals and could alter them at will during the growth process. Need an animal that can't feel pain? No problem. Do you prefer your test subjects without teeth or claws? No problem. Don't want to deal with fur all over your lab? No problem!

  All genetically modified creatures were destroyed once they had served their purpose to avoid any chance of escape and interbreeding in the wild. Although animal rights activists had protested mightily in the early days, nobody seemed to give it much thought anymore. Most people had just accepted it as the cost of progress. Besides, these weren't real animals produced by nature—they were organic tools that were created and altered at will.

  Even still, Aubrey tried to avoid visiting the labs using live animals whenever possible. Although she had never agreed with her mother's hard-core position against the use of live test subjects, she still felt a little pang of remorse every time she saw one of her company's creations being used for research.

  Aubrey's holoterminal chimed and Evelyn appeared on the screen. “I'm sorry to interrupt, Doctor Harris but Secretary General Merkel is calling.”

  The Global Standards and Safety Administration was an independent agency responsible for ensuring that multinational companies, like Telogene, adhered to all global treaties, rules, regulations and policies. Dianne Merkel was the head of that agency and getting a call from her was never a good thing and especially not today.