It’s been a while since I’ve posted.
It’s been a while since I’ve written.
Honestly, it’s been a while since I’ve had the urge to write. Strange right? But maybe not so strange. I’ve been busy. Really busy. The new job changed up my schedule on me and I’m 3/4’s of the way done with school.
I suppose that is what has keeping me the busiest. My school. I had time at first, to do things I wanted. To write. The classes weren’t that hard. But as time goes on, they get harder. It’s a good harder though. I’m learning. I’m earning that degree. I’ll be finished at the end of fall term 2019. So only a year left.
But there has been a story brewing. A few really. One that I’m just rewriting. Another that is new. This is one that was actually implanted by the hubs. I can’t seem to shake it.
Let me tell you the story. Or at least the part that I’ve had playing in my mind.
There is no title yet.
My eyes fluttered open, staring up at the fluorescent lighting and a stark white ceiling. There were voices somewhere far off and little beeps coming from somewhere. Everything hurt. I groaned a bit and tried to sit up. My body wouldn’t move though. The more I struggled, the worse everything hurt, and the faster my heart raced.
My eyes shot open as I looked around the room, looking for someone. Anyone. Hopefully a familiar face. I opened my mouth, attempting to say something. My throat was so dry and my lips cracked.
What is going on?
“Hello?” my voice cracked, unfamiliar even to myself. “Is someone there?”
There was nobody heard that. My voice was barely a squeak.
But I heard something. Squeaking shoes? Something.
“You’re awake.” A young woman leaned over me, her warm smile calmed my racing heart just a little bit.
I tried to nod, but my head wouldn’t move. “What’s going on?”
“You don’t remember?”
“No.” I licked my lips, not that it helped. “Can I have a drink? My throat is on fire.”
“You can’t drink, but I have some mouth swabs. Want one?”
“Please.” I followed her with my eyes, at least as far as I could. “Where am I?”
“You’re in a hospital. You were in a really bad accident a few weeks ago.”
“A few weeks?” My voice cracked as I tried to comprehend what she told me.
“Yes. We didn’t think you would pull through.”
“I-I don’t understand.”
“I can tell you what I know if that’ll help.”
“Yes. Anything. I can’t remember.”
She smiled at me as she held the green mouth swab in front of my face. I opened my dry lips anxious for any kind of relief.
“From what the police told us, you were driving in to work. There was a guy running from the cops and as you approached the overpass right after the Squirrel Hill Tunnels the guy came up on your car. He lost control and slammed into you.”
I winced as I tried to remember. I could hear the crunching of metal on metal. I could feel the jerk of my car getting hit, as it was pushed along the road.
“He pushed me toward the outside barrier…” I squinted my eyes, slowly remembering.
She nodded. “He hit you with such force that your car went over the barrier and hit the roadway underneath.”
“And I didn’t die?”
She shook her head, “No. You’re a fighter. The firefighters found you pretty quick, but they didn’t think you’d make it.”
“What’s wrong with me?”
“Well, honey, you’re broken.”
“I’m broken? What is broken?”
“To put it simply, everything. The doctor can tell you in more detail.”
“Everything? Like, everything?”
“Yeah.”
As I tried to keep from crying I heard another pair of shoes squeak in. “Mrs. Burkes?”
“Yes?”
“I’m Dr. Cunningham. Do you have a moment to talk?” he asked.
“Well, I’m not going anywhere, doc, so I guess so.”
“I’ll let you talk.” The young nurse squeezed my hand and left the room.
“So give it to me straight, doc. What is going to happen to me?” I asked.
“I’m going to be perfectly honest, Mrs. Burkes,” he started.
“Please, call me Emma.”
“Okay, Emma, the accident caused a lot of irreparable damage to your body.”
“As in it can’t be fixed?”
“Correct.”
“Okay. So, what can I do? How can I at least get to the point of okay?”
“That’s what I want to talk to you about.” He held up a USB drive in front of my face. “Do you know what this is?”
“Of course. It’s a USB drive.”
“Do you know what it’s used for?”
“To save files and other things.”
“Correct.”
“What does a USB drive have to do with fixing me?” I questioned.
“What if I told you I’m working on a highly experimental project that could have you in a brand new, indestructible body.”
“Put me in a brand new body? How would that even be possible?” I queried.
“It’s an experimental project, like I said.”
“How experimental is experimental?”
“Never been done before.”
“So I’m your guinea pig?”
“If you want to try it.”
“What are my options if I don’t?”
“You’re wheelchair bound for the rest of your life. Everything you knew is over. You’ll have to depend on everyone around you for everything.”
“Since you put it that way, I have to talk with my husband first, obviously.”
“We already spoke with him about everything,” the doctor said.
“Oh. What did he say?”
“It was while you were still unconscious and we were unsure if you would pull through in the body that you were in. He wanted to give you till the end of this week, then do it to try and save your consciousness.”
I took a deep breath attempting to wrap my mind around what this doctor told me. Putting me into a flash drive then into a new body. How would that even be possible? How do you download somebodies mind? Of course, how would I handle never being able to move again? Having Brandon doing everything for me for the rest of my life didn’t seem like the greatest thing either. I’d be nothing but a burden to him in the body that I have. My body was broken beyond repair.
“If I don’t do it, will the pain ever go away?” I asked.
“No. Unfortunately with the extensive damage that you have, pain will be a daily thing.”
“If we do this body switch or whatever, will I have pain?”
“No. There will be no pain.”
“Will I still be me?”
“What do you mean?” he questioned, furrowing his brows.
“The mind that is in the new body, will it be me? Will I still think the same? Have the same memories? Will I still be me and not some program?”
“You will still be you. We have developed a way to download you into the USB. It will be your consciousness that is transferred from one body to the next.”
“How will you download me from my brain to another?”
“That’s the part that is hard to explain. You own’t be going into a brain as you know it. You’ll be going into a computer.”
“What?”
“The body you will be getting won’t be bones and dying organs.”
“Again, what?”
“The body will be an endoskeleton with lab grown organs. The brain will be a computer.”
“I’m going to be a robot?”
“No, you’re going to be an evolved form of a human. Your skin will be skin. It’s going to be all grown in our labs, along with your organs. You’ll still have to get checkups, but if an organ fails, rather than going on a transplant list, we just make a new one.”
“So I’m going to be a lab grown robot?”
“Not a robot.”
“So my skeleton won’t be metal?” I questioned.
“It will be,” Dr. Cunningham answered.
“So I’ll be a robot.”
He shook his head. “Sure. In a way, yes, you will be a robot. But you won’t have a computer mind. You will have your mind. You’ll have your thoughts, your reasoning, and all of your memories. You will still be you.”
“Let me talk with Brandon first. This is a big deal and major, major change that will affect both of us.”
“Of course. We’ll talk more tomorrow.”
I tried to nod but my head wouldn’t move. I sighed heavily as he walked out of the room.
A human robot. A robohu? A humabot? What the hell will I be? Will I really be the same? Am I still going to be me once I’m out of this body? Will they be able to transfer my soul?
Squeaky shoes came walking back in and the young nurse leaned over with her big smile. “How are you feeling?”
“Sore. Everything hurts.”
“What something to take the edge off?”
“Yes, please.”
She injected something into my IV and a warm feeling rushed over my body. My eyes grew heavier as the darkness and dreamless sleep crept over me. A welcome reprieve from the pain and inability to move.
