Between Two Minds: Revelation

by D C Wright-Hammer

  He constantly thought of suicide. There was only one thing stopping him. He needed to see that Jessica’s sacrifice had not been in vain. On top of that, he felt that taking his own life would make him an even bigger fraud in the end.

  Through it all, Martin couldn’t deny that the state he found himself in was by no means ironic. He’d always begrudgingly taken praise and reward for others’ work but done it nonetheless. It wasn’t until he met Lana, and later, Jessica, that he even considered otherwise. But it was far too late by that point. Martin had made more than a career on being an imposter. It was his entire life.

  He, in no way, believed in fate. On the contrary, he was a conscious actor shaping his own destiny at every turn. It was for this reason that he wished deep down to his core that the numbers on the lottery ticket for his life had never been pulled. The world would have been a much better place had his ping-pong balls never left the hopper. His existence was obviously not needed, and the one shot he’d been given, he clearly didn’t deserve.

  Martin’s thoughts swirled as they had been for the last six days until something started to bring him back to reality.

  “Doctor…doctor…”

  He heard a sound and shook his head, but it still took a moment for his ears to interpret anything but that miserable music.

  “Doctor…”

  Using every bit of energy he had, he focused. He determined that it was a voice calling him. He turned his head and looked up, blinking rapidly.

  “Doctor, the patients’ numbers are a bit elevated. We need you to take a look.”

  Martin took an extra second to allow the words to register in his mind, then swallowed hard. “Thank you, Jamal.” His mouth was dry. “I’ll be right there.”

  Jamal left Dr. Martin’s office in the building being used for recovery.

  Martin slowly pushed his chair away from his desk. As he stood up, gravity tugged on his aching, tired body. He had to actively fight the urge to drop to the floor. Once he gathered himself, he zombied out of his office and into the hall leading to the recovery lab. Between the soul-wrenching depression he’d fallen into and being taken against his will, he’d never really taken in the building. For some reason, on this particular walk, he did.

  Martin quickly assessed that it must have been an old school, possibly even a community center. They had done a good job of cleaning it up, giving it the slightest semblance of a medical facility. He tried to remember just how long he’d been in the van that had brought them here. He thought if he could remember, he might know where he was. He might be able to signal for help. Not for himself, but for the others.

  Alas, his melancholic state had already advanced to the point where he wasn’t even sure what day or time it was. The only estimate he had was based on the recovery of his patients compared to the simulations he’d run.

  Martin arrived at the lab, and two armed guards moved aside. Medical equipment beeped and booped as he glossed over the screens. His expressionless face didn’t flinch as he saw that the overall numbers followed his projections nearly to a tee. He tapped a few buttons, and the machines made a little more noise, then stabilized again. As much as he was dreading it, he eventually turned his sights to the subjects.

  His first visit was to the patient who’d completed the procedure most recently. The host was a relatively large man. His face was calm, and his eyes were moving underneath their lids. While he was progressing the slowest of the bunch, he was well within a reasonable range. Still, Martin ached for him to fail the transfer altogether. He wanted, as badly as anything, for the man that lay in front of him to die, or at least, succumb to a comatose state for the rest of his days.

  However, Martin remembered the orders given to the guards. Shoot everyone if Dr. Thompson or Mr. Guerrero fail to transfer for any reason. Shoot everyone if there was even a hint of foul play. Shoot everyone unless they got their way.

  He moved on to the next patient. Although Martin had written several journals on the need for hosts to be physically similar to the transferors, he always knew it was more of an assumption than hard science. Undeniable proof to the contrary was lying right in front of him. A gargantuan man on the brink of death had his mind transferred into the body of an average-sized woman. His monitors did confess that he was having trouble infiltrating the motor cortex of the woman’s brain, but everything else was trending fine. While Martin knew of the man as a small-time investor at Oceanic Laboratories, he had never met him in person. Regardless, he longed for bad things to happen to him as well.

  Finally, full of regret, Martin stumbled over to the final patient, the very first transferred. His body went numb and his eyes burned as he approached. Looking over the subject, he saw the work of another doctor who had been brought in to implement new bio-coping technology to put Amanda’s face onto the…host. It was jarring to see someone else’s face on Jessica’s body. He couldn’t look directly at her for long.

  He turned to the screens near her bed, finding that the numbers were the best of them all. Better than on target, a little ahead of schedule. That only made him more miserable. The only thing he could do to stop himself from going completely insane was to sit next to her. Then, he couldn’t stop himself from leaning in and whispering, “I am sorry. I was not the lover you needed nor the one you deserved.”

  Against his own will, Martin’s mind took him back to the very first day that he’d come across the name Jessica Campbell.

  He had been fulfilling his duty of reviewing the works of graduating med students who’d applied for residency at Oceanic Laboratories. And by fulfilling, he’d pop a bottle of Pinot Noir and half-read the abstracts of the works until the bottle was empty. He’d only stop to read more on a piece if it seemed remotely relevant to OL’s specialties in medicine. Fifty pieces in, and he’d poured his last glass. He’d lost all hope for a qualified candidate half a bottle prior. Then, he’d come to the last paper he planned on reading. He’d sipped his glass hard, and upon reading the title of the research in front of him, nearly spit out his wine.

  THE ETHICAL IMPLICATIONS OF CONSENT ROUTINES IN UNCONCIOUS COMMUNICATIONS PROTOCOLS

  He’d essentially written the book on UCP based on his work during the war, but he’d never seen any med students bold enough to write on the topic, let alone question the ethics of his work. He’d glanced at the names on it.

  “Dr. Millard Brown and Jessica Campbell, MD.”

  He’d been surprised to only see one student after the professor’s name. It had been immediately clear to Martin what it meant—Jessica Campbell had done all the work, and Dr. Brown was taking the credit for it. It had always been that way.

  Against his routine, he read the abstract intently, swallowing his last gulp of wine some forty pages in. At this point, he stood up to finish the piece, and as he came to the conclusion, he wasn’t able to stop himself from reading it out loud.

  “The primary reason raw UCP questions are so impactful on the unconscious patient is because the program in no way differentiates the active conscious stream from the subconscious. Depending on the physical and mental condition of the patient, those streams can go from parallel to intersecting, and even flow together in a state dubbed ‘sub-active consciousness.’ In sub-active consciousness, a question can float deeper into the mind of the unconscious than it normally could. This has the potential to lead the patient to believe that the question originated in their own mind. Unless the questions are carefully crafted in an extremely precise way, they have the potential to be manipulative and all the more unethical.”

  He had shaken his head. “Brilliant. Simply brilliant.”

  Buzzed, Martin called Dr. Arlington immediately. Arlington, who admitted he’d only skimmed the piece, had grumbled about the fact that Campbell’s work was theoretical, having only been reproduced in simulations. When Martin disputed the relevancy of that, Arlington argued that Dr. Millard Brown had li
kely done most of the work and Campbell had merely been an understudy. But Martin knew Arlington’s true intentions in the disagreement. Arlington had always been a staunch sexist, never wanting women among their ranks. So, Martin had to press Arlington the only way he could.

  “Josh, if you won’t hire her, I’ll start my own lab and bring her in. I can tell she’s that good.”

  It was enough to force Arlington’s hand.

  Months later, the new residents attended the introductory seminar for OL. Dr. Arlington had started off the way he always did—the gloom and doom of medicine. It had always been an intense lecture on how every single one of them would be sued hundreds of times in their careers, how they might catch a deadly disease, or how they might just fail to make the cut after residency and their names would forever be tarnished. He warned them that if they ever deviated from lab protocol, they’d be out of a job immediately.

  Afterward, Martin would always been called in to cheer up the then trembling residents. It was an assignment he’d struggled with since the death of his wife Lana but had always told himself someone had to do it and it might as well be him.

  He remembered that Dr. Campbell would be in the audience on that day and looked forward to meeting her. When he looked up in the auditorium, the only woman in attendance had her head down, seemingly upset. Martin proceeded to pump out an energetic speech about his time at war and the work he’d done with the troops, noticing that Jessica’s head never lifted.

  There had been another doctor scheduled to speak after Martin, so he thanked the class for their attention and bowed out, making it a point to catch Jessica after class.

  Walking the hall, he spotted her as she filed out of the seminar. She still had her head down. He proceeded cautiously. There was no denying that Jessica was beautiful, but as the only woman in her class, he’d not wanted to come on too strong and give her the wrong idea. He never wanted to be that sad senior scientist, the troll tolling the bridge to success for women in the field. He wanted to be the complete opposite of Dr. Arlington.

  Martin had to increase his pace to catch up to her, and then said, “Did Josh’s speech get to you?”

  She flinched slightly as she turned around. Her eyes became wide. “Dr. Martin?”

  “Yes.” He downplayed the awe on her face. “I was just wondering if Dr. Arlington’s speech had gotten to you. Made you feel bad. He has a habit of ruining the first year.”

  She shook her head and sighed. “No, it’s just…I don’t know if I belong here. I feel like I’m in over my head.”

  “Well,” Martin snickered, “if that’s the case, then none of us belong here. We’re all in over our heads.”

  A laugh escaped her, the first smile Martin saw from her. Her beauty radiated enough to take Martin’s breath away, and he took a deep breath to calm himself. She too had quickly muted her expression and looked the other way down the hall. She’d clearly been extremely nervous. “Thanks. I guess I better get going.”

  Martin nodded. “Yes. I know you’re very busy.”

  She began walking away.

  “But when you have a moment, Dr. Campbell,” Martin urged, “I’d like to discuss your dissertation and graduating practicum. Some of the best work I’ve ever seen, and I don’t just mean coming out of med school.”

  She stopped dead in her tracks, took a few seconds, and turned back to him. “You know my name?”

  Martin nodded. “I read every bit of your work, Dr. Campbell. Impressive.”

  “But…” She was still gathering herself. “…my paper basically disagreed with your fundamental principle that sub- and active consciousness never co-mingle.”

  “Yes.” He nodded. “Turns out, I’m not always right. Hope that’s not too disappointing.”

  She just stood there, shaking her head in disbelief.

  “I have to give you credit,” Martin continued. “You chose a difficult topic, and you put it through the paces despite what established egos in the field might think.”

  Campbell realized that her jaw had slowly dropped, so she closed her mouth and took a deep breath. “I just stuck to the scientific methods. I rode the hypothesis to its natural outcome, ensuring I eliminated as much subjectivity and bias as feasibly possible.”

  Martin nodded to wrap up the conversation. “OL is lucky to have you. It was nice meeting you, Dr. Campbell.”

  She took a deep breath, staring at him in disbelief. It took her a moment to gather herself, but she finally smiled and got the words out. “It was nice meeting you, Dr. Martin.” She followed with the subtlest of winks at him.

  Martin caught it just as he turned to walk away, and he nodded in acknowledgement of her farewell. But it wasn’t until he’d gotten to his office that he realized what the wink had likely meant. Her brilliance and beauty had been undeniable, and he had to actively remind himself that he would not use his position to hinder her advancement. Had she not later initiated their romance, they’d likely have never actualized their feelings for one another. She’d always been a forward thinker.

  As the memory faded, so too did the butterflies he’d gotten in his stomach while thinking of Jessica back then. The nausea rushed back, causing him to dully moan as he became aware that tears had been streaming down his face. He stood up from the bed and tried to keep himself together, so the guards wouldn’t notice. He’d completed his duties for the next several hours with every intention of going back to his office and zoning out in his chair.

  He walked into the room and was greeted by a man he’d seen performing maintenance around the building. “Hey there. The boss told me you’d need to be able to monitor everything from here toward the end of their recovery. I’ve built you a top of the line workstation, and you’re connected to the local area network only. Don’t try to get out on the public net because I blocked that. Otherwise, that should be all you need. Let a guard know if you need something else.”

  Martin nodded without even realizing it as the man passed him to leave. Martin stepped to his desk. He sat in his seat and found his favorite spot on the wall to stare. To his dismay, the corner of the monitor obstructed his formerly clear view.

  He reached down to move the monitor, and the words of the technician unexpectedly rang in his head. He looked down and saw the computer that had been provided for him. He was able to immediately confirm that it was state-of-the-art, and he was intrigued. He reached over and pressed the power button.

  It jolted to life and acknowledged him. “Greetings, Dr. Martin. Thank you for using the Intelligent Design Operating System. Please enter a command.”

  The doctor thought for several moments, then timidly entered a routine to return the vitals of his patients. The screen instantly refreshed with the information he’d requested. The numbers were very similar to where they had been minutes ago in the lab. He nodded to himself, thinking that everything seemed to be going as planned, and quickly lost interest in the hardware. A daydream was in the process of seizing him, and he was about to resume his disconnection from reality. Unexpectedly, some of Jessica’s last words echoed in his mind.

  You aren’t stealing my work. I’m giving it to you.

  Martin was out of his element, being gifted someone’s work. He felt an odd sense of responsibility, almost like a child had been thrust upon him and it was up to him to raise them. Martin had never wanted children because parenthood would interfere with his career. Deep down, he’d always known the truth. A child required…needed…deserved to be loved, and they needed to be challenged to be their best. In that sense, a child was like original work. He would have to put forth extraordinary effort to ensure his children lived up to his standards and those of society. Martin would ultimately be judged on how his children turned out, most honestly by the children themselves. It was terrifying.

  But the neural transfer project was his element. He’d planted its seed years prior in the war. Jess
ica had sowed that seed, doing the hard labor to give birth to neural transfers. It had been a tragic birth, but their child was now out in the world. With Jessica gone, it was up to Martin to play his role, to make sure that something good came from their child. Otherwise, Martin realized, it wouldn’t just be the birth of the procedure that would end up a tragedy.

  Some bizarre notions followed. They seemed ridiculous, almost silly, but Martin couldn’t shake them. Like a maze, his mind began running through the different permutations of the ideas, attempting to prove them wrong as he went. Each time he thought he ran into a snag, he’d reason through it and persevere. The concepts continued to make more and more sense, and at a certain point, Martin was convinced. Given enough time, his ideas would undoubtedly succeed. With that undeniable truth in his head, he felt something that had been completely absent since he’d performed the neural transfer on Jessica. An almost foolish optimism began to flood the pulsating void within him.

  With no time to waste, Martin started mapping out the entire plot in his head while his hands engaged the keyboard. He typed faster and harder than he ever had, even more so than for the injured soldier. He hacked through the local area network to find its limits, all the while carefully covering his tracks along the way. When he confirmed that there was no way to connect to the public net, he was anything but disappointed. Instead, a gleeful delight overcame him as he began creating, from scratch, various programs. While he was mimicking much of the proprietary functionality from several of his colleagues, for once in his life, he couldn’t copy and paste their work. Cutoff from the world, Dr. Martin had no shortcuts or easy routes. He had to rely entirely on his own knowledge to make everything work, and he was almost maniacal in his approach. He’d finish one program and strategically disperse it to a particular quadrant on the building’s digital infrastructure. He included a trace blocker so that it would go undetected. He did this several times until he had everything in place to move things forward. As he worked, a familiar sound filled his ears, and he was so focused on his work that he almost didn’t hear it. At first, he feared it was the imps coming to torture him. Instead, it was the beautiful symphonic music that accompanied his favorite procedure. However, the tune he was hearing didn’t come from the orchestra he had conducted. He was hearing Campbell’s ensemble, and the more he focused on it, the harder and louder they played. Their intensity picked up, and they never missed a chord or beat.