Welcome to the Madhouse

by S. E. Sasaki

  Once seated, Morris Ivanovich showed Grace, a chainglass case containing two small iridescent cubes. Staring in wide-eyed fascination at those little cubes, Grace believed they were the most beautiful things she had ever seen. These glowing, pearlescent cubes shimmered and swam with soft, pastel-colored opalescence.

  “What are they?” Grace whispered in awe, mesmerized by their scintillating dazzle.

  “The memory cubes,” Dr. Morris Ivanovich breathed, reverently. “This entire process would not be possible without the ingenious technology packed into these tiny data cubes, the ‘liquid crystal data matrices’.”

  Morris recited those four words—‘liquid crystal data matrices’—as if he were a religious acolyte, chanting an invocation to the gods. Certainly, in some respects, Grace felt that Dr. Weisman’s crew were playing God, at least in terms of cheating death.

  “We will make two copies of your memories,” Dr. Ivanovich explained. “One for our files and one for you to keep, if you so desire, Dr. Lord. Or we can keep both of the recordings here, in the neurolab, for you. It is your choice.”

  Grace jerked in surprise. She would really be given one of her own cubes? She would actually possess one of those beautiful objects? Grace wanted to squeal and clap her hands, but she managed to restrain herself.

  “What did you do with yours, Dr. Ivanovich?” Grace asked the neurosurgical research fellow, out of curiosity.

  Morris Ivanovich’s eyebrows rose at Grace’s question. Presumably, he was not expecting such a personal question. He glanced at her very briefly, very shyly, then looked away.

  “I keep mine in my lockup in my personal quarters, Dr. Lord. I decided that it probably was a wise idea to keep the two memprints in different places, just in case there was a fire or malfunction that might cause damage to one of the cubes.” Morris shrugged. “Keeping them both in the same location just did not seem like a logical idea to me.”

  He paused, as he gazed at the cubes, then glanced very briefly at Grace. He said, very quietly, “Sometimes, I just like to take the LCDM cube out, just to stare at it. It is an amazing piece of technology and my mind still grapples with the enormous amount of data it can store. It is truly ingenious.”

  Dr. Ivanovich contemplated the cubes in the chainglass container some more, as if hypnotized by their beauty. He then looked down at Grace with a beatific smile, almost child-like, his eyes filled with almost rapturous wonder. Grace nodded her head and smiled back at Morris, in complete understanding and agreement.

  “They are exquisite,” Grace said, her voice barely above a whisper.

  “Yes. They are that, too,” Morris Ivanovich said, with a slightly bemused expression.

  It was obvious to Grace that what she and Dr. Ivanovich appreciated about the cubes, was entirely different, but she still felt like they were kindred souls in their admiration for these miraculous marvels of memory storage.

  With a pair of fine forceps, Morris opened the chainglass case and took each cube out, one at a time. He placed them delicately within slots in one of the consoles. They disappeared silently into the machine. A thick cable ran from the console up to the top of the recording device, which was the globe suspended in the air above Grace’s head. Through this helmet of fine electrodes, her memories and personality would be recorded.

  Morris began typing some more data into the keyboard attached to the console. He then reached over and maneuvered before Grace, a personal identification tablet, similar to the one she had used when she had arrived on the Nelson Mandela.

  “Now, Dr. Lord, would you please type in here, your name, place of birth, security code, identification code, and then place both of your palms on the screen. Please look into the eyepieces, for the retinal identification imprint.”

  Grace hesitated, asking herself one last time if she really wanted to do this. She thought about the beautiful data cube inserted into the machine beside her. Ridiculously, illogically, she had to have one—one that was her very own—a unique LCDM cube, containing her memories. She wondered if, by some accident or illness or injury, she were to lose her memory, whether the contents of her data cube could be downloaded back into her present brain, to return to her all of her memories. She would ask Dr. Weisman this question later. For now, Grace complied with Morris’ request.

  “Thank you, Dr. Lord. And now, if you could just open your mouth wide?” the neurosurgical fellow asked. Grace’s eyebrows jumped in surprise but she did as asked.

  Morris took a sterile swab and ran it along the buccal mucosa within her cheeks. “Just collecting the cells needed for the DNA sequencing data and for cryostorage, but you know all that,” he said matter-of-factly.

  ‘Oh, yes. Of course, you do,’ her little voice teased. Grace told it to be quiet.

  Morris Ivanovich inserted the tip of the swab into an opening in the console, where presumably Grace’s cells would be analyzed and her DNA template would be sequenced and added to her other identifying information.

  “Now your complete DNA information will be stored along with your memprint,” the research fellow confirmed. Then Morris turned and motioned for Grace to sit back in the recording chair. He adjusted the headrest, the armrests, the backrest, and the footrest to ensure all of Grace’s limbs and head were fully relaxed and supported.

  “Please make yourself as comfortable as you can, Dr. Lord. You will sleep, as Dr. Weisman said, for about one hour, while the equipment makes the recording. You will be cocooned in pretty securely, to prevent any movement, especially any head movement. The electrodes, once placed on your scalp, must not be able to move at all or the recording will just be nonsense. You will be sedated and given analgesics, to help you remain immobile under the multitude of probes in the helmet. Are you allergic to any medications?”

  Grace shook her head and wondered, belatedly, how she had allowed herself to be coerced into this. She asked herself whether she was absolutely positive she wanted a permanent copy of her memories and personality made. She realized she would be far too embarrassed to back out now, if she wasn’t.

  Morris Ivanovich strapped her into the seat, which then adjusted and actually inflated around her to completely seal her body in. This was to avoid any slippage in the chair over the hour of the recording, Morris explained. He then set up an elaborate harness about her head, neck, and shoulders, with her forehead and chin firmly wedged against a moulding. He had her clamp her teeth onto a clean, sterile, bite-plate attached to the moulding - more insurance that she would hold her head still during the recording.

  Grace then felt a jab in her left arm, as medication began entering her bloodstream. She felt the sedating effects immediately, as Morris lowered the recording helmet and adjusted it so it snugly contoured around her skull. Suddenly, it felt like a trillion tiny needles simultaneously stabbed her scalp. She was horrified to hear herself giggling at the tickling sensation. The embarrassing giggle, she totally attributed to the sedating medication, of course.

  Through the corner of her eye, Grace thought she noticed a SAMM-E android staring at her from the doorway of the lab, as she was falling off to sleep. She idly wondered if it was the same model as SAMM-E 777, who worked in the OR with Dr. Al-Fadi. They did all tend to look exactly alike, but there was something about the way the android stared at her that really reminded her of SAMM-E 777. It was the intensity with which it watched her, that was always so unnerving. She was probably imagining things. It was probably the drugs.

  Then there was nothing at all . . .

  When Grace awoke, Morris Ivanovich was there to disconnect her and ask her how she felt. Amazingly, she felt wonderfully refreshed. Whatever drugs they had given her had been certainly effective. She remembered nothing, but she could not have felt better.

  “Was it successful?” Grace asked the neurosurgical fellow.

  “Yes,” Morris said, as he busied himself with the monitors. “An excellent recording, actually. Practically no noise whatsoever. Now, would you like to take your memprint cub
e with you, Dr. Lord, or would you like us to keep it in storage here, with your other cube?”

  “I think I shall do as you have done, Dr. Ivanovich,” Grace said. “I would like to take it with me. Your reasoning seems sound to me and I would like to have at least a tiny modicum of control over what is done with one of my memprints. No one will have access to my memprint, unless I am dead. Is that correct?”

  “Yes, and unless you specify what you want done upon your death, nothing will be done with the memprint and DNA data. You would not be resurrected, upon your demise, without your prior permission. Would you like to make a formal decision regarding what is to be done upon your death, at this time, Dr. Lord?”

  “Well, I don’t really know, Dr. Ivanovich. I haven’t had time to really think about it,” Grace stated, her brow furrowed.

  “If you would like to know what I did,” he confided, slowly, his cheeks starting to redden and his eyes looking away, “I said ‘Yes’. I shall elaborate on my reasoning for you. First of all, one is always able to change one’s mind at a later date, if this is desired. Second, you, like myself, are still very young and in the prime of your life. The chances of you dying suddenly, at your age, would be quite low. It would probably be as a result of a freak accident or sudden illness. In either case, you would probably want to be resurrected, in order to return to the work that you were doing. You have invested a lot of time and effort into training to be a surgeon. Why would you not want to be revived, at this stage in your life, if some totally random, unexpected catastrophe were to occur? Third, if you were resurrected into an android and you were not happy, you could always decide to have the memory wiped. You could choose to have yourself ‘turned off’.”

  Grace mulled over what the neurosurgical fellow said and found little fault in his reasoning. “Since you put it that way, Dr. Ivanovich, I would have to agree. After all this surgical training, I would like to be able to use my skills, at least for a short while. And if I can always change my mind at a later date, what have I got to lose? Would you please go ahead and put on my record that I would like to say ‘Yes’ to resurrection, in the event of my death?”

  Grace shuddered. It felt eerie speaking so casually and analytically about her own demise.

  “Certainly,” the neurosurgical fellow said, as if it was the most natural of requests. He typed something into the console and then he asked Grace to again place her palms on the screen, look into the eyepieces and state her name and her intentions into the monitor. He had her again enter her identification and security codes.

  Morris then put on another pair of sterile gloves and picked up the pair of fine forceps again. He carefully extracted one of the tiny data cubes and placed it in a clear chainglass box which he then handed to Grace.

  “Here is your very own memprint data cube, Dr. Lord. Be very careful with it,” he warned her. “The chainglass box won’t shatter, but the tiny cube inside it could break, if the box were dropped and the data cube impacted the sides. We will store your other memprint cube here, in the lab. We have created a secure library for everyone’s memprint that is passcode encrypted and has restricted access.”

  “Thank you,” breathed Grace, delighted, staring at the perfect, glowing cube with a sense of excitement and deep pleasure. She felt like she did when she was a little girl and was given a special gift on her birthday. The memprint cube was truly beautiful and she would have treasured it, regardless of whether it contained her memory or nothing at all. She made her way towards the lab door, clutching the chainglass box tightly to her chest, hoping not to jostle and damage the precious memprint cube within.

  Standing at the doorway of the lab were Dr. Al-Fadi, Dr. Cech, and Dr. Weisman. Grace could see that the two men each carried their own little chainglass boxes, with shimmering cubes inside.

  “Oh, look,” Dr. Cech smiled. “You got one, too.”

  “Yes,” smiled Grace. “I couldn’t bear to leave it behind.”

  “These data cubes are stunning, aren’t they?” Dr. Octavia Weisman asked.

  “They are breathtakingly beautiful,” Grace agreed.

  “And oh so very ingenious,” Dr. Weisman said, with a twinkle in her merry blue eyes.

  “Don’t they cost a fortune? How can you afford to give everyone their own memprint cube to keep?” Grace asked.

  “Well, first of all, not everyone will get their own data cubes. We haven’t decided on a protocol yet. Since you guys are our first guinea pigs, we felt we had to entice you to do this, somehow. Once everyone wants their memories stored, understanding that the procedure is perfectly safe, we will be able to charge for the memprint data cubes and there won’t be any free ones given away any more. Finally, the production of these data cubes is our ‘big secret’, but we haven’t broken the bank giving you three your own cubes. Just be very careful with them and not just because you have your memories stored inside them.”

  “I bet my cube is heavier than your cube,” Dr. Al-Fadi said to Dr. Cech.

  Dr. Weisman just rolled her eyes at Grace and shook her head.

  “Men,” she sighed.

  Bud was so relieved. His plan had worked. The three doctors had all gotten their memprints made, without asking questions about who had set it all up. Now, the graceful Dr. Grace Alexandra Lord’s memory and personality were stored on a liquid crystal data matrix cube—two of them!—and her personality would never be lost.

  . . . Unless something happened to the data cubes . . .

  Suddenly, Bud felt something which he could not quite identify. Was it ‘worry’ or ‘uneasiness’ or was this ‘panic’? He wasn’t sure. He calculated the probabilities of possible disaster scenarios that could result in the destruction of both of the doctors’ memprints. None of those scenarios could be totally eliminated to a probability of zero. They were on a space station in deep space, after all. And the humans had managed to make a number of enemies in this part of the galaxy, as one would expect, looking at the standard human modus operandi. They also operated on traumatized, seriously wounded, highly trained killers—the combat soldiers of the Conglomerate—on almost a daily basis.

  Bud had already witnessed the injury of the fine Dr. Grace Alexandra Lord by one of those trained killers, on only her second day on the station. And how did she get that dark bruise on her right cheek and that abrasion on her chin, that both looked so very recent? What had caused her to limp into the OR that first day on the medical space station?

  There had been rumors of a commotion in one of the Receiving Bays, the day the fetching Dr. Grace Alexandra Lord had arrived. What looming danger had so recently harmed the vulnerable Dr. Grace Alexandra Lord, that Bud was unaware of? He tapped into the station’s surveillance camera records and his joints almost froze up.

  Before she had even stepped into the Nelson Mandela Medical Station proper, the fragile Dr. Grace Alexandra Lord has almost died. Bud could not stop thinking of possible dangers to the precious Dr. Grace Alexandra Lord’s life. It was almost making his liquid crystal data matrix melt.

  In order to ensure the doctors’ perpetuity, Bud would have to make copies of their memprints and store these memprints in a place that he deemed highly safe. He could store copies in various ‘safe spots’ around the station, in areas he deemed highly impregnable, even in the case of attack or explosion. Perhaps the evacuation shuttles or lifepods would be an option, so there would be no chance of loss, even in the possibility of a station-threatening emergency. He even began modifying himself, internally, to make room for three tiny cubes within his own chest cavity, where a heart would normally be. Where else could he best protect this most precious of data than at the heart of himself, where he could always ‘keep an eye on them’, so to speak?

  Bud now had all the data from Dr. Weisman’s files. He knew how to copy the memprint cubes. He learned how the tiny cubes were made. They were being fabricated right here on the Nelson Mandela. Bud was so impressed with the ingenuity of Dr. Weisman and her team.

 
Humans could be so brilliant and yet so . . . messed up.

  In their history, they could create the most beautiful works of art and yet destroy these creations without a second thought. They could reach the stars and yet sully a planet beyond repair. They could reach the heights of passion and pathos in their literature and their arts and yet declare war with other races and amongst themselves and kill each other in the cruelest of ways. They had the ability to give everyone the best of health and yet could turn their backs on their fellow man and leave other human beings to die in filth and squalor, never mind committing the heinous act of genocide repeatedly throughout human history. Humans were so . . . so . . . illogical.

  This was why Bud had to protect the enchanting Dr. Grace Alexandra Lord, his creator, Dr. Al-Fadi, and his very good friend, Dr. Cech. He had to protect them from the unpredictability and insanity of other humans. He had to preserve their memories and personalities so they would never die. There was no time to lose.

  Bud just had to obtain their memprint data cubes without the doctors noticing, get blank data cubes from wherever they were being manufactured, copy their memprint cubes on Dr. Weisman’s equipment when no one was around, return the memprint cubes without being detected, and do all of this without being missed from the operating room or shirking any of his duties.

  No problem.

  Well . . . yes . . . there were problems. He exhaled a big, theatrical sigh.