Mind and Flesh Read online

  “He is awake.” That was the voice of the doctor.

  The dangerous guy turns his face toward me. He seems delighted, with a huge smile on his face. My wife is crying, and doesn’t look at me.

  The guy talks. “It seems like you just relived the memory of your arrest. This is very interesting, very interesting indeed.”

  My mind is a bit fuzzy but I understand that he has been allowed to see what I was picturing in my brain, thanks to my machine. I also remember that they were planning to use my wife as a guinea pig to see if the machine works.

  “This moment is very exciting. We are about to see if your machine works on humans! Enough with the stupid experiments on rabbits. Now it is the real deal. Well, of the prototype. But it won’t stop there. If it works on you, we can try it out for all any kind of interrogations we need. And, ultimately, once we know how to receive the brain data from a distance… another team is working on that… we will be able to plant these machines everywhere we want. And monitor our targets’ thoughts directly from their brains! You are a genius. Too bad you didn’t have the hindsight to see the full extent of your invention’s capabilities, and to serve your country.”

  I need to think. I need to think. I can’t feel my body, and I don’t think it’s because of the drugs they put me under. It now seems obvious that it is linked to the accident from when they caught me. I can’t move, and they will subject me to all kinds of mental probing to get what they want out of me.

  What they think that they can do, is get someone directly inside my brain to find the information in my memory. And they are going to send my wife first to see if it works so they can later do it themselves. But they don’t really understand what they are doing and what my machine does. I am the only one with that knowledge. Which is why they want it out of me. But they underestimate me. They underestimate my machine. They have no idea how far I have been since I have stopped reporting a big part of my work. There is something that I can try. Something completely crazy. But to pull it off, I need them away from the screen. Right now they can see what I picture in my mind. So I focus my mind on picturing what my eyes see, until I will eventually find the right moment to act.

  The threatening guy is still smirking at me, but in the background I see my colleague and my wife talking in front of the screen. I can’t act yet. He has the second neuro-helmet in his hands, still turned off.

  My wife… backstabbing cunt. She helped them. For what? To punish me from using rabbits in my experiments? Is that how extreme she is, sacrificing the one she loves to prove a point. No, with what she did, she can’t love me. And I hate her. I fucking hate her now. She can cry, but I won’t feel sorry that she cries as I used to. She brought this upon herself. She had to think about it before. You stupid bitch. I won’t have mercy.

  “Are you two finished soon?” The threatening guy is starting to get impatient.

  My colleague quickly replies. “Yes yes. Was just briefing her.”

  I see him placing the neuro-helmet on my wife’s head and starting the adjustment process.

  The other guy is looking at them.

  No one is looking at the screen. Now is my time!

  What they don’t know is that both of these neuro-helmets work two-ways with the machine. There is not a master helmet and a slave helmet as they instinctively think is the case. I don’t program the machine with my own hands any more. I directly connect to the machine with the neuro-helmet and code from my thoughts. And the password they are looking for cannot be actually typed. I need to send a precise image from my brain.

  I think about my sister climbing in a tree when she was a kid, and a series of numbers hanging from the tree instead of fruits. The system recognizes the pattern and unlocks the admin connection. I can now access the interface of the machine directly with my thoughts.

  I write the sequence of events the machine will need to accomplish, thinking about every single detail.

  …

  …

  Ok, I’m done. My colleague has adjusted the neuro-helmet on my wife, and the threatening guy is giving her instructions. What does he know. Fucker.

  My wife closes her eyes. My colleague turns the neuro-helmet switch on, with the little green light appearing. The threatening guy turns toward me with a smile and tells me:

  “It’s on!”

  Motherfucker, you bet it’s on.

  The two men are looking at the screen. Oh, they won’t see anything interesting. I triggered the machine to only show the feed from my eyes, not from my mind. But what’s more interesting, is that now my wife is reading my thoughts. So I focus on making my thoughts shape up as a conversation.

  “Hello. Hello. Hello.”

  I hear the thoughts directly in her mind:

  “I can hear him! They were right it’s working.”

  “Yes it’s working. Of course it is.”

  “Oh no! He can hear me too! I’m so sorry honey. I’m so sorry. For all I did. I just thought that if they had what they wanted, you would stop torturing poor bunnies. I was stupid. I love you. I can’t suffer losing you. What have I done?”

  “Please make order in your thoughts. I can hear everything you think as well.”

  “Hey, it isn’t supposed to be that way. I should be the one reading your thoughts, not the other way round. I need to tell them! How do I turn this off?”

  “Aha the apologies ended quickly. Bitch.”

  “How do I turn this off? How do I turn this off?”

  “You are panicking. Sweet. You cannot turn it off. I trapped you.”

  “What? No! No! I want out! I want out!”

  “What were you thinking, playing into their game.”

  “I want out! I want out! I want out!”

  “Grab ahold of yourself, stupid cunt!”

  “I want out! Nooooo! I want out! Please let me out.”

  “SHUT THE FUCK UP!”

  “Please….”

  “I am about to kill you.”

  “What? No! How?”

  “You are in my realm here. I have all the power.”

  “No! You are just in your bed, you can’t reach me!”

  “But I can reach your mind. Didn’t I already trap you here? The machine is analyzing your neuronal signals in real time, and it sends its own signals in real time to short-circuit the orders you give to your body.”

  “Why are you doing that? No! Please no!”

  “You will pay for what you did to me.”

  “Are you trapping me to torture me before you kill me?”

  “That was not my first intent. I have another use for you. But yes, I am using that sweet opportunity to settle my debt with you and savor the perfection of my strategy.”

  “Help me! Help me!”

  “They can’t do anything to help you, they don’t know what to expect so they will wait a few minutes before they unplug you. But by then, it will be too late for you.”

  “Asshole! Let me out! Let me out!”

  “Aha I love your current state of mind. It is even more exciting.”

  “I want out! Let me out!”

  “It is time to say goodbye.”

  “No, please no! No, please!”

  I focus on signaling the next set of tasks I want the machine to accomplish.

  “Did it work?”

  “Yes.”

  That voice makes my mind tremble in fear. This is from my own doing, but actually living it is scary. My own mind voice talks back.

  “Are you alright? I can hear your thoughts you know.”

  “Yes. No. I am not alright. I am scared.”

  “I know.”

  I am happy that my plan worked but… now the excitation has settled down and I contemplate my own death. The voice talks again:

  “You are not dead. I am you.”

  “It’s easy for you to say, since you will be the one walking out of this room in a new body while I die.”

  “You are right. I am sorry.”

  I can feel some c
ompassion from his thoughts. His thoughts? Her thoughts?

  “Uh, I don’t know either. Well I’m in her body, but it’s still our male mind that was overwritten on top of hers.”

  “Oh, and how do you feel? I mean, the effects of the drug?”

  “We had a brilliant idea to correct the neurological effects of the morphine. It is a wonder that the machine could correct the hyperpolarization and positive reinforcement induced by the opioid receptor.”

  “So your brain is a perfect copy of mine, minus that I managed to remove the consequences of the use of morphine.”

  “Yes. Well brain is the incorrect term, we didn’t replace many of the areas involved in the control of the body. But yes, the mind has been copied successfully.”

  “So she is dead…”

  “Yes… Well we are not going to grieve that bitch. Oh, and we still get to have her, since I am in her body!”

  “You are lucky.”

  “Aha yes I will make good use of it.”

  I feel jealous and sad.

  “Oh I’m sorry. I am inconsiderate towards you.”

  “Yes you are, but that’s how I am I guess. Can you move?”

  “Yes I just discreetly moved a finger to confirm. I am in control.”

  “Good. Look, I am glad that I… we… win, but this conversation is really creepy. I am talking with myself and I will soon die. Let’s end there before I regret too much.”

  Indeed I am feeling very sad. I managed to copy my mind in my wife’s body, saving myself. But I realize that I didn’t exactly save myself. I am still trapped in my own body, and I will soon have my mind fried and die. I just… can’t make peace with that now. But it’s too late to do anything differently. I need to end this, now.

  “Goodbye. Please make a good use of your new life.”

  “I will. Goodbye…”

  I take one last look at her/him, with her/his eyes closed. He/she is smiling. I send the signal to the machine, which will completely prevent any neuronal activity so I can die without feeling a thing.

  PART 2 – Her Flesh

  He is dead. However I have no reason for sadness, there were two of me for a brief moment but now only one and everything is back in order. Except that I have replaced my wife in her own body.

  I breathe and let the feelings of that new body envelop me. Every single limb is waiting for my order, ready to move at my command. I am glad. My previous body became a vegetable. What if I was still trapped in there…? That is a scary thought. That should not concern me anymore. I feel the bladder, annoying and slightly distracting. I feel a weight on my chest. Breasts. This is new. I suppress an instinctive need to touch them, as I shouldn’t act suspiciously.

  Just as this thought was running through my mind, the doctor shouts “His heartbeat stopped!”

  And the threatening government guy replies “No! Can you revive him?”

  I open my eyes. The doctor nods and hurries towards electrodes. As he starts to work on my useless body, the government guy turns towards me “You! What did you see when you connected to him?”

  “Nothing,” I quickly reply. What the… I am startled by my own sound I produced. As I feel my facial expression becoming tense in surprise, I close my mouth shut and let my eyelids down to cover my previously bewildered eyes. Talking felt very strange. My usual voice didn’t come out, and it even sounded different from my wife’s voice.

  Understanding that this single word answer would not be enough, I invent something, “I could only see blurry colors moving and merging. It makes me dizzy.” This is what I was experiencing when I started working on the rabbits. He seems satisfied with my answer as he shifts his attention to the medic trying to revive the body.

  I realize that I should pretend to care about that body, which is supposedly my dear husband.

  “Please, make him live…” I croak.

  I still can’t get used to the voice. I hope it doesn’t sound too weird or different from her usual voice and will betray the change. So far, there is no way that I can assess how different it is, considering that the voice others hear is not the same as the voice someone would hear when hearing themselves talk.

  “There is nothing I can do anymore,” says the doctor as he places the electrodes in a case. “He is dead.”

  I need to show tears. I focus on making them come. Doesn’t work. Perhaps if… I pinch myself hard with her nails? I aim for the belly and insist until it hurts so much that I cry within a few seconds. Those long nails are mean.

  “No…” I let out miserably. I remove the neuro-helmet, throw it violently on the side and run to the side of my old body, taking his hand in my own. I don’t know how else to act, so I rely on the cliché that I have in mind. I must seem like a sad and desperate wife, but all that I am feeling right now are the scratches on my belly and the increasing pressure on my bladder.

  I try to avoid looking at anyone else in the room, afraid I might reveal any suspicious behavior. I have nothing else to look at than my old body. And what I see is horrifying.

  My left arm is missing. The body is covered with different bandages, and the places where I see the skin are black or yellow. A twitch goes down my spine. This vision is repulsive. I am sure that my expression of utter disgust might rise suspicions, but my hair is falling around my face, hiding me from prying eyes.

  I try to moan, “No… no…”, but this time there is some truth to my words.

  The government guy talks to my back, “I am sorry. It was not my intention. I just needed him to help us. The accident was… a mistake on our part. I didn’t want him to die.” He talks nonchalantly, his tone not matching his words. Fucking asshole.

  “This has all been a waste. He died in vain, since his secrets disappeared with him,” he continues. “We will cover it up as a regular accident. This is the official line. If any of you leaks what really happened, you will be in trouble.”

  I take a glance at him, without even trying to hide the look of hate that must have settled on my face.

  He stares back at me, seems disconcerted for a fleeting moment, and then recovers his harsh features.

  “Doc, you can send the body to the morgue. Everyone: this is a matter of national security. You will never mention again what has happened here. We will be watching.”

  At the very end of his threat, he turns around and leaves the room. I am not sure what to do now. I don’t care anymore about that broken body, I have a new one. I just want to leave this room and never look back. I don’t want to go through any of this again. And I need to pee pretty badly.

  A few people in suits enter the room, “We will escort you out”.

  I am relieved to see that I can leave this place and follow them. We go through a door and walk for a few seconds when I see the toilets sign.

  “Excuse me,” I say, “Can I go to the loo?”

  They look at each other with a quizzical look, then one of them nods in my direction. I quickly enter, shut the door behind me, stand in front of the toilet, drop down my pants and start peeing in relief while moving my hand towards…

  WHAT THE…

  My legs are becoming wet. Shit shit shit. So stupid. I am female now. I don’t have a penis anymore. I quickly grab toilet paper and absorb as much as I can. So stupid.

  On my second try, I drop down the seat, turn round and sit. Way better now. Although it feels quite weird. Well, I don’t have time to linger. Once I am done, I grab toilet paper, wipe myself clean, flush, wash my hands, place my pants back in position and leave the room.

  The two men in suits are goggling at my pants. I look down.

  SHIT! There is a wet mark. I didn’t even notice. I blush, ashamed, and walk quickly hoping that they will stop looking.

  ***

  They dropped me in front of my house. I am quite eager to leave their company and head home. In front of the entrance, flower pots are cracked and the soil they contained is spread all over the stones. I reach the front door and insert my hand in my wife’s
purse to look for the key. Shit, where is it? There are tons of things in here. Pissed off, I open the purse wide and empty its contents on the floor. Cards, tissues, medicine, wallets, tampons, tiny plushies and various other items fall on the ground. I scatter them until I can single out the keys. I pick them up and insert the house key in the lock. It doesn’t turn. I push the door handle, and the door opens. Fuck, she didn’t lock it. Again. How many times do I need to tell her? I grab all the items I dropped and stuff them back in the purse, enter the house and lock myself in. One deep, long, breath. Finally at peace. Finally alone. I remove the shameful pants and throw myself on the couch. This feels so good.

  After a moment relaxing, my mind gets back into activity. I look at my legs. Her legs. I am definitively in her body. This is not a dream. I achieved the first mind transfer ever. I got myself out of that horrible situation and left that disabled shell of a body. I even fooled everyone into thinking that I was dead. I feel proud of myself. I won. Not only is this a huge scientific success, but I survived and got back on functional feet. I now have a second chance at life.

  Today’s adventures were too straining and dangerous for me. I don’t want that again. I think that I should lay low, and live a quiet life. This seems like the most reasonable idea. Peace. Calm. I extend my arms and turn my hands to better see them. They feel so unreal. My fingers were plain round but now these look pointy, perhaps because of the nails. They seem so thin and delicate. I never really paid much attention to her hands before.

  ***

  Someone knocks at the door.

  I get up and move towards the entrance.

  The knocking intensifies.

  I ask who is there.

  The voice of a woman answers that it’s her.

  I open the door.

  My wife is standing there.

  She says that she is sorry that she forgot to lock the door.

  I look at her in disbelief.

  If she forgot to lock the door, there was no point in waiting outside. She could have just entered directly.

  I ask her why she knocked instead of just entering.