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Author's note: This one won't be too long, but I figured that by posting it in parts I would motivate myself to finish it. The second part is mostly done so there shouldn't be too long a wait for it. After that, I make no guarantees.
“I am sorry, Rebecca, but the cancer has metastasized to your brain.”
“Oh, God,” Becca’s mom sobs, leaning into her husband’s arms. I’m standing there, numb, feeling out of place in my trenchcoat and boots in the antiseptic hospital room.
“We had hoped the nanoparticles had scoured the cancerous cells from the abdominal cavity,” Dr. Im goes on, “but it appears we did not get everything.”
Mr. Hennessy, stroking his wife’s hair, looks up. “What are the options?”
“At this point, the only option we see is a transfer.”
“No,” Mr. Hennessy barks. His wife gasps, twists her head to look at him. “No,” he says again. “Out of the question.”
“Papa,” Becca interjects. “It’s not your decision.”
“I’ve lost my son,” her father says. “I’m not gonna lose… all I have left. Not gonna see you become… Fuck.” He shook his head.
“God, David,” Mrs. Hennessy protests. “Not here, not now.”
“Yes, we’re gonna do this now! It was people like you-” he says, waving a finger at Dr. Im, “Doctor, that told my son he could do this to himself, turn himself into this-”
“Hey,” I speak up. “You don’t talk about her that way.” Hennessy turns, and the contempt in his eyes… I see red for a moment, and when my vision clears I have him up against the wall, spitting every swear I know in English or Serbian right in his fat face. Dr. Im is shouting, probably calling security or something, but I can’t hear a thing.
Until Becca screams. “Stop it! Stop it now!” That cuts through. I let go of her father’s shoulders. “All of you get,” she starts to say, then breaks up into coughing. “Out,” she manages to finish. Im injects something into her IV. Her father wrenches the glass door aside and stomps out, Mrs. Hennessy following behind. “You too, Romi,” Becca says weakly, as soon as she can breathe normally again.
“I’m sorry, hon,” I say. “I didn’t mean…”
“I know. But I can’t deal with this right now. Please just go.”
I’m walking past the receptionist’s desk when Becca’s mom finds me. “Romin,” she calls out. “Wait!” I stop and turn around. “He’s sorry,” she says. “He won’t say it to your face, but he is.”
I grimace. “Yeah. I’m sorry also. Becca is the one person I want to have a good opinion of me, and her I disappoint.”
“My husband is scared,” Mrs. Hennessy says. “What he said was rude, but true. We’ve already lost our son-” she holds up a hand- “or we feel that way at least, and now we’re going to lose our daughter. To the cancer, or to some machine.”
“You won’t lose her,” I say, “if you just let her make the transfer.”
“That’s what they say, but… do you believe in the soul, Romin?”
“I don’t know,” I say.
“I do,” she says with conviction. “What happens to the soul when they transfer a person?”
“I don’t know,” I say again.
“Nor do I.” She sighs. “It’s not our decision anyway. It’s Rebecca’s. Look, I’m going to talk to her, and to my husband. Whatever bad blood is between them right now, and between you and him, he is her father and you,” her voice caught, “you are the man she loves. It’s her decision in the end, but all of us should be there for her.” She wipes a tear from her eye and hurries away.
The question lingers with me in the car, driving home. By some chance the shuffle selects a late-period Iron Maiden song. Maybe in my current state I’m reaching for significance where none exists, but the lyrics call to me:
I will hope, my soul will fly, so I will live forever
Heart will die, my soul will fly, I will live forever
I want very badly to be drunk. Open container laws are still on the books in Georgia but nobody enforces them anymore, so I pull a warm beer from under the seat. Yet by the time the satnav parks the car neatly behind my apartment I’ve barely consumed half the bottle, and already I’m feeling weepy. It’s raining hard. Appropriate. A septic tank has overflowed; I dash through the muck and up the stairs. Once inside, the act of wiping the crap from my boots is distraction enough that a minute passes before I’m confronted by the emptiness. This was our place, Becca’s and mine; without her it’s just another box.
There are photos of her, of course. My eye is drawn to one as I hang my trenchcoat. Her huge brown eyes are the first thing you see, expressive and undeniably feminine, even in the few photos she’s kept from when she was a boy. Looking into those eyes, I can’t doubt the existence of a soul behind them. Could anyone sculpt those eyes into the body they would put her in?
I take a hot shower. The heat almost makes up for the stingy quantity of water; Atlanta has been on drought alert for three weeks now. I’m toweling off when I feel my phone buzz.
“Hello… is this Romin Bosnić? This is Dr. Im from Emory. I wanted to talk with you before you came in tomorrow.”
I sit on the couch wearing nothing but the towel, feeling ridiculous even in the privacy of my home; without my jeans and trench and baggy shirts, without my spikes and rings and studs, I’m skinny like a little kid. My ribs stick out. “Go ahead,” I say.
“I was concerned about your behavior today. Ms. Hennessy’s mother tells me that both you and her father will be present tomorrow. How can you guarantee that there will not be a repeat of this incident?”
I sigh. “I have problems of anger management. I see a therapist every week to help with controlling this. Usually I can talk myself down before committing violence. Today was an exception. I don’t anticipate it happening again.”
“The Hennessy’s say much the same, even the father, though I detect a hint of reluctance there. Nevertheless, if there is a repeat performance you will not be visiting Ms. Hennessy again in my hospital.”
“I understand,” I say.
“Good night, Mr. Bosnić,” Im says, and hangs up.
“Papa, you’re not going to say anything until the doctors have explained everything. Romi, you too.”
Mr. Hennessy, jaw clenched, nods his assent; I reach over and squeeze Becca’s hand, and smile.
“Good. Now, tell them exactly why you can’t cure my cancer. Tell them what you told me.”
Dr. Im clears his throat. “When the cancer was confined to her peritoneum- the lining of her abdominal cavity- we were able to direct targeted gold nanoparticles to kill off the neoplastic cells. Once migrated to the brain, that technique becomes impossible. The only course available would be to fall back on older chemotherapy regimens-”
“No. Hold on,” Becca interrupts. “You’re not talking to a patient with a terminal case. You are not trying to give false hope here. Tell ‘em the odds on the chemo.”
“The odds are low-”
“The odds are none.”
“The odds are low.”
“I get it,” Becca’s dad says. “Chemo won’t work.”
“The odds are against it,” says the other doctor in the room. She smiles, a smile that reaches up and crinkles round her eyes; where Dr. Im’s voice was clinical, her Savannah accent is rich and full of warmth. “That’s why we’re advocating another option.”
“Mama, Papa, Romi, this is Dr. Qureshi. She works with shells.”
“Call me Sandra. I know you’ll have a lot of reservations about transference, so I’m hoping we can get those right out of the way?”
Mr. Hennessy shakes his head. “I just don’t see the point. At least with the chemo there’s some chance- yes, I know it’s small. But dead is dead. I’m not interested in seeing a copy of him-”
“David!” Mrs. Hennessy rolls her eyes.
“Her. Whatever. Running around acting like it’s my- child. A shell’s not the original. I’m not even sure a shell qualifies as a human being.”
“Papa, some of the people you work with are shells. You’ve invited them home for dinner.”
“Fine, so maybe they’re people. But a copy’s a copy. If I get the dog I had when I was a kid cloned, it’s not the same dog.”
Qureshi smiles again. “That’s actually a great place to start off. Mr. Hennessy, if your dog had had a hip replaced, or an eye, would it still be the same dog?”
“There weren’t eye replacements back then. But yeah, sure.”
“What about a heart or lung?”
“Of course.”
“People, then. If you started showing symptons of Parkinson’s disease, or Alzheimer’s, and you got a cognitive implant to replace the malfunctioning brain cells, would you be the same person?”
“Yes…”
“How many brain cells would I have to replace before you ceased to be the same person?”
“I don’t know. Half, maybe.”
“So when half of your brain cells were replaced you would suddenly become someone else?”
“Yes… no… huh. I guess it depends.”
“If the cells were replaced gradually, a few at a time, with cells that were identical?”
I can see him working on it; his cheeks tense up. “Uh…”
Qureshi beams. “That’s how the transfer process works. The functions of just a few neurons at a time are switched over to nanomachines, then the original neurons are cut out of the loop. Eventually you are left with a dead brain and a live mind in a computer, but there is never any point where the old brain died and the digital mind was born. The one is simply migrated to the other.”
Hennessy chews his lip. “I think I get it. But I’ll have to think about this.”
“Don’t forget, it’s not your decision,” Becca says. “Get comfortable with the idea, but don’t think that just because you don’t like it you get a say. You gave up that right years ago.”
Her father looks away. To my surprise, shame shows on his face.
“Well, alright,” Qureshi injects herself back into the conversation. “Does anyone have any more questions for today?" She looks around expectantly.
Quietly, Becca’s mom asks: “But what about the soul?”
I can see Qureshi searching for an answer. But it’s the same question that kept me awake last night, so I speak instead. “I can’t believe that God would call a soul up to him and then allow a machine to parade around impersonating the real, living human that soul belonged to, in such a way that everyone who loved them couldn’t tell the difference. If there is a God, if there is a soul, He must transfer it. The person has to live on in the shell.”
Mr. Hennessy looks sharply at me, but his wife smiles and shakes her head. “Thank you,” she says, and tears come into her eyes. She looks away.
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Comments
I have to say...
This is an excellent start. You grabbed me and pulled me in from the very first sentence. I shall be very interested in seeing how Becca's life plays out.
Rachel
Livin' A Ragtime Life,
Rachel
New to me,
I've come across the idea of mind transfers into computers, spaceships, aircraft, animals and of course androids. I have not seen it approached this way and I find your approach interesting. Please continue, I would love to see how the story develops.
Interesting concept. The
Interesting concept. The brain does replace cells anyway, so that would make sense...
Thank you for writing, I can't wait for the next chapter,
Beyogi
Interesting concept. The
Interesting concept. The brain does replace cells anyway, so that would make sense...
Thank you for writing, I can't wait for the next chapter,
Beyogi
Transfer technology
I have seen this technology discussed, but this is the first time I have seen it used in fiction.
The question of a soul is a good one. Unfortunately, nobody has come up with a way to test for the existence of a soul, let alone the question of transferring it.
As a Christian, I believe that I have a soul. More accurately, I believe that I am a soul, and the rest is just my 'Earth suit.' I'm also confident that God will take care of me one way or the other.
If given the option, I would go for a transfer. Whether it means an early trip to Heaven or another spin around the wheel is a moot point. I won't know until it happens, and the people around me can wrestle with the philosophical questions.
It is possible that a human body without a soul would be a psychopath, but I can see no way to test that theory. If we come up with the transfer technology, the only thing that we can test is whether or not the mind in the target body is sociopathic. That practical test would make or break the technology.
The real (and practical) philosophical questions will arise if we try to make two copies instead of just one.
Frankenstein
That was part of Adam from Frankenstein. A created person had no soul and so felt no compassion or remorse. On the other hand it was suggested that Adam did learn those qualities in the end.
With all the talk about genetics and environment affecting how a person acts what part does a soul have? Very interesting stuff here!
hugs
Grover
Teleportation
If teleportation were possible....and some scientists say it is not too far away....a person's body would be disassembled in one place and reassembled in another.
We would have to answer the question of whether the soul (if it exists) transfers along with the body. If the person who is reassembled acts and feels exactly like the person who was disassembled then would we not have to accept that the soul transferred with the body?
Beam me up, Scotty,
Joanne
Here!
Let me shoot you with this high energy cannon Disintegrating you, but I'm going to reassemble you over there so no worries! Hey, chicken has parts and parts are chickens, so parts are parts. Energy is matter, and matter is energy, so does it matter where the energy that made you comes from?
Hugs
Grover
Different take
On a subject that has been explored and discussed a lot. Is there an answer to the soul question? Very likely, but then we won't really know until something like this actually does happen, will we?
Very intriguing start here.
Maggie
The Transfer - Part I
The concept is a bit on the wild side, waiting for more
May Your Light Forever Shine
very interesting!
I'm fascinated by this one. Obviously, she transitioned, and now she's going to be put in a "shell" which sounds like a copy of her body. Very different, and I look forward to more.
Reading thru the comments...
and the discussion of transferring of the soul reminds me a SF short story I once read,about 40 years ago. In part the story was based on two premises, first that the soul is reincarnated until called to finally be with god, the second that there is a finite number of souls. The result of these two actions is the increasing number of births unaccompanied by souls, amoral and at worse, pure evil. Why? the reason given is because there are more humans alive now than the sum total of all born before. Yes I know that this had nothing to do with the story, but indeed I was reminded...
which also would make me wonder if a soul was separated in a transfer or telaportation, could it be captured by another yet soulless?
Is The Shell,
Brain and body made of human cells or is it an android with some humyn/computer designed computer for a brain? If:
>> then allow a machine to parade around impersonating the real, living human <<
It must be the latter. That would take a large increase in technology; each neuron would have to be replaced with a nano-computer, because even what one neuron does is very complex and influenced by very many other neurons and brain cells and levels of a myriad of chemicals within and without. I guess part of these nanocomputers could be electrochemical or non-electric in some way, but whatever was electronic and probably quantum scale would have to be very resistant to outside EM and other radiation. Think about your computer in an NMRI machine......or maybe the android would have to stay out of those.
OTOH maybe the brain could be read, neuron by neuron and various functions could be duplicated in a computer language. Then the brain computer wouldn't have to have 100G of nanos, but maybe 10M, massively parallel.
Then where is the soul? Is it entirely a spirit, held in place by an intimate bond to the intelligence and other characteristics of a humyn personality, however the personality is produced? Even however degraded? Like last stage Alzheimer's? Might be.
Hugs and Bright Blessings,
Renee
Oh, Teleportation...
I just had a thought about teleportation, as it was just mentioned. If it were somehow done with magic or metaphysical means then I would believe it in a story.
I was thinking the Star Trek type wouldn't be too hard, just a huge memory task to put 10^30 (?) atoms, electrons, etc. back in the same relative place they were at some instant at some other location. Then I thought a little more..... If all go back in exactly the same place...., but that's not enough; each of these "particles" is in motion relative to all the others. If that isn't also duplicated the particles won't have the right relative energy. In a chemical reaction some electrons are moving and, more slowly, the molecules are too. If this motion isn't duplicated, something alive might be dead or molecules may fall apart and some cell structures might be damaged. The composite motions, also, produce the temperature. If everything is in the right place, but not moving, the body, overall, is at absolute zero!
So we need motion, too, right? But I think the uncertainty principle says we can't know both the location and velocity of a particle within some limits. I don't know if body temp produces velocities in the range that if approximated so chemical reactions continue, the location might be out of position enough to matter. That might actually take someone with real knowledge to evaluate! So, consider: we might have to freeze a persyn to teleport 'im then thaw 'im out at the other location!
Hugs and Bright Blessings,
Renee
Quantum Teleportation
It already exists.
Really.
It involves comparing some entangled particles with the object you want to teleport, sending the data to the receiving end, and using that data to reconstruct the original object from a batch of particles that were entangled with the particles at the sending end.
Quantum physics is weird.
So far they have managed to teleport photons. I think they managed to teleport something fairly big, like a single cobalt atom, across the room. They hope to be able to teleport a virus in a few years.
No, I don't understand quantum mechanics. Do you understand quantum mechanics? If you do, I have a nice padded cell for you, along with this wonderful long sleeved jacket.
Quantum teleportation
Unfortunately, it actually doesn't work that way. You can't use quantum entanglement to transmit information superluminally. The main usage scenario is in encryption, not communications or commuting to your day job on Mars. You can 'teleport' an atom because it can be treated as a coherent particle, but that definitely doesn't hold true for a virus.
Quantum Teleportation
Quantum teleportation doesn't work superlumally.
Without getting too technical...
You first prepare two batches of particles that are entangled. If you're going to teleport a photon, you need one pair. If you're going to teleport something bigger, like a virus or a person, you need a whole not more.
You scan whatever you are planning on teleporting by comparing it to one of the batches of entangled particles. Next, you send the information that you extracted to the receiver via the internet, phone, carrier pigeon, or whatever. Finally, you use that list of comparisons to reconstitute the object from the second batch of entangled particles.
It's kind of difficult to do it with photons or electrons. They haven't managed to do it with a virus yet. Doing it with a person, while it doesn't break any of the laws of physics, is a task that is way above our current technical abilities. Just sending that much data would be an extreme challenge.
But please note that one of the steps is to send data from one place to another. That limits the speed -- especially if you choose to do it via carrier pigeon.