I sat up a little straighter in my bed. Still feeling tired, and reading all the legal documents didn’t help. “So this is everything?” I asked.
“Yes James,” replied Tom. “Your living trust, powers of attorney, will; everything is in order. The hospital’s team is fairly solid only some minor tweaks were needed.”
“So when I wake up,” I said making air quotes. “I will sign all this again to be in a living trust with myself. Still seems weird. Are you sure this is all legal?”
“The court cases are still working their way up the federal appellate courts. No doubt the Supreme Court is going to take this up. Everyone pretty much believes they will rule in favor of uploaded consciousness, ” my attorney replied. “Besides every Justice is pretty old I am pretty sure they want to rule for this as their future option as well.”
“OK, so that’s it.” I said as a scribbled my finger in the signature block on the tablet.
“Yes that is it.” Tom said as he took the tablet and applied the new blockchain notary seal on the tablet. ” I guess I will see you in a few days.”
Well that was over with. Reading legal documents was a pain, doubly so since I had to maintain a clear head. Time to get some rest. I punched the button for morphine and laid back for some sleep.
I think I was able to sleep through the night. I felt the old pains returning as I woke up. I punched the button at the side of my bed.
—–MORPHINE PUMP LOCKED OUT—– I saw on the LED display of my IV. Not a good start for the morning.
There was a tap at my door as Dr. Novella along with an orderly entered my room. “So are we allready for the procedure this morning?”
“I think I would be more ready if I wasn’t in this much pain.”
“Sorry, we can’t have have anything that dampens the neural pathways in the brain, but normally the scanning process is a reasonable distraction.”
The orderly helped me to a wheelchair and we all went down to the scanner. Pretty much just a huge MRI.
“William will take good care of you.” Said Dr. Novella gesturing to the neurographer. “Sorry with the drugs your pain may get a little more acute, but it does enhance the readings. I will be monitoring from the control room.”
“Go ahead and get up on the table,” William said.
I hoped up to the table and sat down. William handed me some special socks and gloves with cables coming out.
“Go ahead and put these on,” William said. “You will need them for the tactile stimulus, and then go ahead and lie down.”
I lay down. I have been prodded and poked and ordered around for so long, that you just go with the flow.
William stood over me. “Sorry I am going to need to give you the neuroenhancers. I know it won’t be comfortable but we will try to get you started as soon as we can.” With that he injected the meds into my central line, and put padding around me to immobilize me for the scan.
” I am going put these googles and earphones on now. They complete the audio and visual stimulus systems. They should also distract from the pain,” he said. “I will be in the control room with your doctor. You will be monitored completely if you have an issue let us know. We’ll hear you. Other than that try and relax.”
I felt the table slide into the scanner. Then everything started. First the clicking and whirring sounds of an MRI; then just odd stimuli, sometimes sensations of poking or caressing of my hands and feet, snippets of music, conversation or other random sounds, and then random colors, pictures and all sort of odd video.
They were right, whatever pain I may have been feeling just got overwhelmed with the massive sensory overload my brain was getting, not unpleasant but definitely tiring. I couldn’t gauge how long I was in the machine. Finally all the stimulation stopped and I felt the table slide out of the scanner everything quiet except for the liquid helium pumps.
I was done. Fortunately I just needed to lie there as the staff put me on a gurney to go back to my room. I felt them put me back in my bed. They must have given me my meds back because I wasn’t feeling pain. I just drifted off to sleep.
I woke up. This was just odd. Definitely awake. I don’t seem to feel much, everything is muffled. I can’t seem to open my eyes. It’s like I feel them, but can figure out how the lids work. It is there just there out of reach. No wait, there it is. My eyes opened. I was sitting at a small conference table. Dr. Novella sat across the table from me, probably a corner of his office.
“Welcome,” he said. “How are you feeling?”
“OK I guess.” The voice was mine maybe a little off my mouth just felt weird. No pain though. I don’t think they made drugs that good. “Not sure maybe just nothing feels quite right.”
I looked down, my hands were where I sensed them to be, but I saw basic robot hands. “So I guess I’m the upload, but I thought I was going to have a normal body?”
“Oh you will James, sometimes it is easier to start with a simpler body, it helps to bring all the senses up more slowly and work on the proprioception. Don’t worry this is not how you are ending up. This is just where you are starting.”
“Actually call me Jim. I think I have been too formal in my past life.” I said.
“Whatever you prefer Mr. Bach.” Dr. Novella said with a small smile. “There is a mirror behind you if you want to see what you look like now.”
I turned around. It seemed to feel like turning. I looked in the mirror. Looking into a representation of my face on a tablet. I tried smiling and the face did indeed smile. It looked like directly above the tablet were two cameras. The rest of me was a simple robot chassis that I had wheels under the bottom covering and had the two hands attached to the front. I held out my hand in front and flexed my fingers. I turned back around to the doctor.
“Odd,” I said. “Clearly not my body, but it doesn’t feel bad.”
“That’s just some of the basic programing,” said Dr. Novella. “We have a whole suite of software designed to map inputs back to your mind OS. It allows the brain to work better with even an unfamiliar structure. I know some things right now are simplistic. But it will get you used to the interfaces, although most of it runs below the perception of your OS.
“I few questions first just to make sure you are good. Do you know where you are?”
“I am back at the hospital, I assume. In what looks to be your office, although I hadn’t been here before.” I said.
“Good, and do you know what has happened to you?”
“Last thing I remember is lying down in the scanner, getting a whole bunch of feelings, lights and sounds. And it looks like a woke up here.”
“Good. And how are you feeling?” Asked Dr. Novella.
“Well I am here. And I sort of feel like me. I guess the big thing I notice is I am not in pain. Sort of feels like I have a body” I tapped my fingers and thumb together on both hands. “And I guess I can feel my fingers.”
“We have found the mind is very plastic in dealing with its environment, as long as the inputs are reasonable and non-contradictory you make sense of them even if it is not as before.” Said the doctor. “Now with that in mind the next step will be to transition you to an android body. It will be almost the same as the final body, but without the final cosmetic applications to make it look like you, and a less robust suite of tactile senses.
“So any questions before we continue?” Asked Dr, Novella.
“So am I still alive?”
“Well that is a bit of a philosophical question…” the doctor started to say.
“No. As far as I am feeling and thinking. I would call myself alive, but what about my body? It wasn’t put down or anything?
The doctor looked shocked. “No! We would never do that. You, the scanned you, was tired after the procedure. We took him back to his room, restarted his normal pain meds. Obviously, he is not in the best of health, but not due to anything we would have done.”
“OK,” I said. “Could I go see… myself?”
“Sure,” said the doctor. “We would have wanted to do that shortly anyway. Also your attorney would want to see the both of you. I can send him a message that you are up. Why don’t you follow me?”
Dr. Novella stood up from his chair and started to the office door. I, rolled, after him. We made our way down the hallway, and to the elevator. We took the elevator up to the patient floors, walked to my/our, room.
The doctor knocked on the door briefly before entering. “James, I have a visitor for you.”
I rolled in, yeah rolled is the right word. I stopped to look at, me, myself, my body? I didn’t think I had ever been that old. The face was a little jaundiced, the eyes seeming a little dull, and just a general display of pain across the face. I rolled closer to the bed. “Hi James,” I said.
“Hello, James?” Said other me? He was clearly looking at my face on the tablet. I wonder if he thought I looked better.
“I decided to go by Jim. I think I thought I was a little too formal in my — previous life?”
“Not formal,” said other me. “Too serious, and too serious about the wrong things. I built a great business, got to build a whole lot of meaningless apps for a whole bunch of companies. But in the last days of my life who is at my bedside, me. My brother isn’t even here.”
I took James’ hand in my hand. No warmth, I don’t think these hands had temperature sensors. They did sense pressure. I squeezed his hand a little. I got a very weak squeeze in return. I looked into my old eyes. Old me was definitely dying.
Is it really old me though? The mind in this robot body is my mind. It really only now differs by a few days worth of experiences, but we are still us. Really all that is going away is one set of hardware. I guess we were able to make enough money to get a replacement, but the mind in the old hardware should have had a better life.
I looked at James again. “Go call David.” I said. “While to you in a few days or weeks it won’t matter. I think it will matter to me if I knew I didn’t say goodbye.”
James’ grip tightened on my hand. “OK buddy I will. But why don’t you see if I can go home. Probably better to die in your old bed then some hospital.”
I looked over at Dr. Novella, he was still standing in the corner. “Any issues with us going home?”
“Shouldn’t be. I will get with the charge nurse to get someone assigned to your house, and get the release paperwork done. I will need to get with your oncologist, Dr. Gorski, I think, to handle the release and get the right palliative care meds.
“We probably need to get you moved to a new body. I assume you have stairs in your house. Your current body isn’t going to work well with those.”
I looked back at me. “I guess I will see you at home.”
“Yeah sounds good,” James replied.
This ends part one one of this story come back Monday for the conclusion.