Between Two Minds: Awakening

by D C Wright-Hammer

  “Ryan D. Carter, the technicians are ready to see you in room eight-thirteen,” chimed a monotonous voice from the intercom. “Ryan D. Carter to room eight-thirteen.”

  Goosebumps formed down my partially functional spine as the voice rang through the waiting room. They called me! They’ve finally called me for my mind migration!

  Without thinking, I shifted Auto from stationary to mobile on the code pad. Springing to life, Auto’s motor emitted that familiar low hum that was always calming to me. It reminded me that while I couldn’t walk, I could still move. But in that moment, I needed a little more self-motivation.

  “I can do this. I can do this,” I whispered under my breath, then I was off.

  Leaving the waiting room and entering the building’s enormous foyer was always like entering a different world. Auto rolled off the vomit-like carpet and onto a classy, slate tile floor. Foliage netted the walls, giving the building more of an indoor botanical garden feel than that of a medical facility. Peering up as I always did at the twenty-meter high, domed ceiling, I admired the replica of the Sistine chapel transposed there, adding a bit of ancient class. After peering up at the painting, my eyes instantly locked onto the colossal fountain shooting water in interesting patterns at the center of the foyer. Then I moved past the check-in desk where I waved at Patty.

  “Good luck, Ryan! You’re going to do great!”

  “Thanks, Patty!”

  Turning down the hallway toward the elevators, a nurse who was obviously preoccupied suddenly entered me into a game of chicken. I made the instant decision to lose by slamming on Auto’s stop button to prevent a collision.

  He proceeded to exaggeratedly step out of my path as if to make it a point of how my sheer presence was an inconvenience to him. “Oh, excuse me, sir. I didn’t see you coming.”

  His words were nice, but based on the look on his face, he must have been eating a lemon. For crying out loud, I don’t bite! As much as I wanted to scream it, I let the thought fade.

  For better or worse, I was used to that kind of treatment. While some people were just trying to be nice, it almost seemed as if they thought that I was a hazard. Granted, the factory recall of Auto’s model, which had been the most popular auto-chair in history, probably didn’t help. I didn’t see what the big deal was. It was true that due to a battery flare up issue, his assembly line mates were responsible for hundreds of fires and maimings, and at least twenty official deaths. But I never felt in the slightest danger. Not even a little. Auto had always been good to me. There was no telling when my luck would run out, though, so it was probably a good decision to have the procedure. But that didn’t make it any easier to give him up.

  I continued down the hallway to the bank of elevators and picked a winner. Virtually interfacing with the control panel from my code pad, I entered the direction I was headed.

  Up.

  Maybe it was my nerves, but the elevator took much longer than usual to get to my floor. I became aware that I was sweating profusely despite the consistently frigid temperatures in the building. Then the doors took unnecessarily long to open. It was finally becoming a reality, and I was freaking out subconsciously. After an eternity, the elevator opened and I zoomed in, keyed the eighth floor into my code pad, and hit the enter button. The resulting ascension quickly confirmed that this was, in fact, the slowest elevator that had ever existed.

  If that wasn’t bad enough, a dry, monotonous pop instrumental from the 2010s assaulted my ears from the speaker system. I’d always questioned how anyone could listen to that music, but I guess I had to be alive during that time to really get it. To my joy, I had successfully distracted myself all the way up to the fourth floor when the elevator dings brought me back to reality. With each floor, I was getting that much closer to my new host and, based on my anxiety levels, that much closer to cardiac arrest.

  Ding.

  My new life.

  Ding.

  My new beginning.

  Ding.

  As the elevators slowed nearing the eighth floor, the queasy feeling in my gut evolved into a full-blown ache. I took a deep breath and held back my lunch the best I could.

  Ding.

  I awkwardly eyed the doors as they took their time opening. Then a crease of light shown through, and I winced a little as the elevator opened on the brightest hallway. I was frozen in time for that moment, staring dead ahead at a sign that I was all too familiar with.

  The top line read, “800 - 812 Mind Migration Prep” with an arrow pointing to the left. The bottom line read, “813 Mind Migration Procedures,” and pointed to the right. I had gone left so many times that even the thought of going right felt foreign to me. Almost wrong. It took a couple of deep breaths for me to gather myself.

  Inching out of the elevator, I slowly rolled unnecessarily close to the sign. I peered up and then toward my final destination to the right. The hallway seemed to go on forever. Looking back toward the opposite corridor, I had an odd sense of pride for having survived the gauntlet of emotional torment in that direction. If nothing else, it hardened me to the next steps in the process, and then I couldn’t help but think that had been the plan all along.

  Spinning back around to the right, I engaged Auto for nearly the last time. The gentle buzz of my motor echoed against the bare white walls, and my nerves began to calm just a bit. There were windows into the physical therapy areas I passed along the way, and curiosity got the best of me. I noticed a woman walking between two balance beams, definitely uncomfortable in her gait and leaning heavily on her arms. Anguish was all too apparent on her face just before she fell out of my sight. Technicians swooped in to aid her, and as they lifted her, I could see she was crying hysterically. It might have been my imagination, but her lips seemed to read, “Get me out of this body!” I couldn’t help but wonder if that was soon to be my fate. As exhausted as I was from all of the work and worry, I knew that mind migration was the start of a completely new journey with many unknowns.

  Am I ready for this? Can I handle this?

  While I didn’t think it possible, even more doubt bubbled into my mind. For as long as I could remember, I had thought of myself as weak or, more accurately, fragile. The feeling was mostly fueled by the way I had been treated by others my whole life, but after so long, it seemed like my self-image reflected what the world had given me. It took a hard head shake to remind myself that I had earned the right to migrate minds. I had worked harder for it than for anything else in my life, and I was going to see it through no matter what, dammit!

  Without warning, Auto stopped.

  “Huh?”

  It was sufficiently awkward that the emergency brake turned on without reason or warning, and had I not known better, I’d have thought Auto was trying to preserve his existence and, with it, our friendship. Or maybe he was trying to stop me from making a huge mistake.

  But I did know better. It was just a program glitch with his model. While it had happened a bunch of times over the last year or so, the timing was so perfectly bittersweet that I couldn’t help but to talk to him out loud since we’d soon part ways.

  “Come on, buddy. Let’s get one last ride in.”

  I took off my brake and reengaged my old friend. Doors to a new life slid open before me, and just as I rolled through, a realization popped into my head.

  This is the last time I will enter a room in this body.

  Chapter 2:

  One Last Goodbye

  “I’m here for my mind migration.”

  The man in scrubs behind the desk was more than intently focused on the data he was processing. Without looking up, he grumbled. “Ryan D. Carter?”

  “That’s me.”

  Still focusing on typing, he droned on. “Please face the identification reader, place your right thumb into the print scanner, and look into the face-recognition camera. Then clearly state your
full name and sixteen-character vocal passcode. Finally, type the same passcode into the code pad or linked device.”

  As the gatekeeper for a life-changing procedure, he couldn’t have been anymore lifeless.

  I turned to the large device and peered up. “Uh…that’s going to be a problem.”

  His rhythmic work came screeching to a halt with obvious annoyance. When he looked over at me, I could spot the exact moment familiar shock came over his face.

  “Oh.” He double tapped a button on his desk, and the identification reader lowered to my level.

  I zoomed into position, and with blips and beeps, the machine came to life. I placed my thumb into the device, looked directly into the camera, and clearly stated the information it needed. “Ryan D. Carter, T6951A0561V0NI0B.”

  I was rewarded with a green light and a hologram of Atlas the Ant.

  “Greetings, Ryan! Thanks again for your investment in Atlas Digenetics with your purchase of a standard mind migration and host package. You’ve come a long way to get to this point, and the next phase of your journey begins with your acceptance of the terms and conditions that were laid out in your migration contract. To review the terms and conditions, please say ‘Review’ or tap the Review button on the hologram below. Otherwise, simply say ‘I accept’ or you can press the Accept button.”

  “I accept.”

  “Congratulations! You’re all set for your procedure. Please check with the data specialist behind the desk for your next instructions. So long, and happy migrating!”

  After all of the waivers I’d signed, that had to be the thousandth time I was reminded of the terms and conditions. Mind migrations were dangerous procedures and Atlas Digenetics, also known as ADG, would be in no way liable should I be dissatisfied for any reason with any aspect or the entirety of my mind migration, including death. All procedures were final, and there would be no grounds to sue. Attempting to bring suit against ADG would result in an immediate countersuit for breach of contract. As all of those lovely memories faded, so too did the hologram of Atlas the Ant.

  I turned to the medical worker typing away, who apparently had better things to do. “Ahem.”

  “Oh, right. You can take a…uh, you can move your seat into the waiting area over there, and a migration specialist will be right with you.”

  “Thanks!” I figured I would be the polite one while I headed to yet another waiting area.

  Having never been to the actual migration area of the floor, I was as curious as ever. Peering around the desk, I could see that the lab was divided into three areas: staging surrounded by privacy glass, processing with life tubes, and the physical therapy area. Workers in scrubs walked about with holo-charts, looking busy with whatever it was they did. I could faintly hear a discussion likely related to the woman I’d watched fall. So much for medical privacy. Regardless, I was relieved that the tone of the discussion seemed optimistic.

  After surveying the space, my thoughts raced like those of a child in line for a mega roller coaster. The entire process started to play itself out in my mind from start to finish, something I was purposefully suppressing while I’d waited downstairs. But having it drilled into my brain the last several months, I knew it like the back of my hand.

  First, they would need to replicate my brain’s central processors, or CPs—the way in which my brain handled information, thoughts, and memories. It was one of the trickiest parts of the procedure because a lot of that “programming” was biologically wired to the physical brain. Once they acquired the “blueprint” of my CPs, they would upload it to the host’s brain, and then using tiny medical machines, physically alter the host brain to be as close a match as possible. Too much deviation between our brains, they cautioned me, would result in a botched migration.

  With the CPs in place, they then had to copy and compress all of my thoughts and memories into self-extracting packets of data called thought bytes. ADG prided itself on being able to obtain thought bytes down to the last microsecond prior to the actual transfer of data. I often joked that they might make a mistake, and then third grade would be stripped from my memory, but that was me just trying to cope with the seriousness of the procedure. After successfully copying all my thought bytes, they would place the packets into the recreated CPs in the host, and if everything went smoothly, they would be processed exactly how they were when first created in my mind. It all sounded so simple until you remembered the potential issues that could occur, which I couldn’t bring myself to think about so close to the actual procedure.

  The last step was proprietary and not disclosed with much detail. Many speculated that it was at that point they took the soul in your biological body and placed it into the host. While ADG used a “soul” analogy in their therapy, they vehemently denied any knowledge of a human soul. They did, however, make it clear that your original brain would be wiped clean of your mind so that there weren’t duplicates of you in existence. Regardless, the whole process didn’t sit well with many religious groups, especially that mystery behind the last step. Yet ADG was staunch in hiding behind their patents and troves of lawyers, and the process saved and improved enough lives to appease just as many, if not more than those concerned.

  Replaying the whole procedure and all its potential points of failure had only managed to increase my fear. Even after all the hands-on work I’d done for the last year, I had no control over the actual process itself. I had to literally put my life in the hands of strangers—highly trained strangers, but strangers nonetheless—and hope that their processes kept me safe along the way. It was really tough to accept that, though I’d become fairly skilled at ignoring the fear just enough to keep the process moving forward all this time. I kept telling myself that most procedures went off without a hitch and the most likely outcome was that all of my dreams would come true. I would be in a new body with functional legs and could start a new life. Of course, I would still have to get through the weeks of post-migration rehabilitation, but while they would be very tough days, I would be driving most of that work.

  My thoughts were interrupted by a technician who wandered over to me.

  “Hi, Ryan. I’m Sophia, and I’ll be your migration specialist. I have a few questions and items to review with you prior to getting started with the migration process. So you know, this conversation will be recorded for quality assurance and training purposes.”

  “Okay.”

  She tapped the ADG logo on her lab coat. “This is Sophia Elias interviewing Ryan D. Carter, pre-migration. Are you feeling emotionally and physically well today, Ryan?”

  “Well, I’m nervous. Really nervous. But otherwise, I feel fine.”

  “It’s completely normal to be worried before a mind migration. You’re going to be living in a new body for the rest of your life. Your very existence is going to be enhanced, and that will take some getting used to. But you’ve done all the training. And you may have heard that we’ve successfully completed over two thousand mind migrations this year already. I worked on over one-hundred-fifty of them myself. So you’re in good hands. Has your medical status changed since your physical last week?”

  I shrugged. “No.”

  “Are you on any nonmedicinal drugs?”

  “No.”

  “Since your test migration, have you had any unusual nightmares, night terrors, hallucinations, or any obscure visions, thoughts, or memories?”

  “Uh…” The question froze me dead in my tracks, like coming across something on a high school test that I didn’t expect.

  My nerves and fears had gotten exponentially worse over the last month since the test migration when my actual mind had virtually occupied several host brains for a brief period. It didn’t help that the test results weren’t disclosed to migrators. Since ADG couldn’t guarantee just how closely they could match your host and specifications, it just felt like there was a big unknown looming over the who
le procedure. But nightmares? Obscure thoughts or memories? I did have an awful dream about being a soldier the other night, but I chalked that up to all the war documentaries I had been watching. Otherwise, nothing came to mind, so I figured all of my nervousness was related to getting closer to the finish line.

  “Ryan?”

  Yeah, that had to be—

  “Ryan?”

  Snapping out of it, I sensed the annoyance in her tone. “Sorry, what was the question?”

  “Any unusual nightmares, night terrors, hallucinations, or any obscure thoughts or memories since your test migration?”

  “No. Nothing like that comes to mind.”

  Her face indicated that she didn’t believe me. “Are you sure? You seemed a little taken when I asked that.”

  “Uh, I’ve had my fair share of nightmares after the therapy and maybe a few weird dreams since the test migration. But no. Nothing that seemed all that out of the ordinary.”

  “Okay, great. You’ve chosen our standard migration and host package. Your host was obtained from a physically fit fetus that received mind inhibitors since conception. It was artificially matured to roughly twenty-two years of age as requested. The final result is a host of six feet and two inches tall, tan skin, black hair, green eyes, and an athletic build. We’ll be scanning your facial features and biocopying them over the face of the host. Per statute MC-3881, your host will have your fingerprints transposed over his and your genetic markers will overwrite his as well. Does all of this sound accurate?”

  “Yes. I remember that from the paperwork.”

  “Lastly, please confirm that this is your first attempted and only mind migration as per regulation 5981EF. Subsequent migrations attempts can cause psychosis, dementia, and/or death.”

  Originally, people thought a person could live forever by migrating their mind each time their current body wore out, but it turned out that the human mind could only handle one migration. After that, it was like making a copy of a copy—the integrity of the mind became warped, making a second migration extremely dangerous.