Transporting Brains and Not Bodies

Yet, based on the visitations that the Earth has had from Aliens throughout time, he suspected that we are all children born from Alien beings, super humans, if you will. Only and unfortunately, with all of us so genetically encoded, it will take us eons to unlock the secrets that we have stored just in our brains, never mind in the rest of our body. Our brain, our computer backups, if you will, and knowing that all he needed was there, he's been trying to find the key to unlock it but failed miserably.

Assuredly, it won't be until the day that we are able to make more use of our brains and/or find a more superior life force that we'll finally realize the secrets of the universe, et al, the human body and the human brain. Until then, we are no more than a collection of prehistoric idiots. Out of the billions of inhabitants of this more than 5 billion year old planet and more than 10 billion year universe, had they lived today, he could list a mere one hundred people who walked the Earth before him and who may have been able to bridge the gap from man to God or from man to Alien. Galileo, Einstein, Darwin, Freud, Pasteur, Kepler, Fermi, and Faraday among them, just to name several, no intellectual match for any of them, he was heads and shoulders below their genius.

Much like the process of Cryogenics, the science of bringing back someone frozen from the dead, to transport someone by pulling their molecules apart and putting them back together in the exact order and location they were before, he'd have to kill the person first in the hopes of bringing them back to life later. Only, once back, is that really them or is it their clone? Moreover, what about the soul?

Something he never accounted for or even considered, being that he didn't believe in God and being that he can't even see it, touch it, and feel it to replicate it, even if he was able to transport someone, would they return to life without their soul? Then, when they die, would they be denied access to Heaven or not allowed entry to Hell? Where do these life forms that he recreated without souls go when they die? Do they just no longer exist? With the church and religion against him, and making his work impossibly difficult by protesting outside of his lab and breaking in his lab and sabotaging his experiments, too many religious, zealot protesters thought he was trying to play God.

"How dare they! Those stupid idiots cost me my job, ruined my research, and ended my career."

Moreover, when trying to transport someone or return someone from having been transported, what if something went wrong? God forbid if he lost power or if there was a sudden electrical storm and the computer crashed, there was so much that could go wrong. Just a nanosecond of a power surge would ruin everything. It wouldn't take much, but some of their DNA could be lost and not transferred in the process of transportation. What if he was transporting more than one person? Could their molecules become mixed? What would happen then? He cringed at the thought of thinking what could happen if something went wrong when transporting the human form with an animal form.

In essence, instead of transporting them, he could be creating a living and breathing monster to unleash upon the world. He could invent the next Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Without even realizing it, thinking that his process of transporting someone was successful, he could release mayhem upon the world by creating a superhuman or more likely an inferior being to the one being transported. Imagine the liability he'd face. Imagine the civil lawsuit that could be brought against him, his grant providers, and the university. There could even be criminal charges that could land him in jail for the rest of his life. With the limited technology he had at his disposal, not wanting to play the part of a mad scientist, the science of molecular transportation was all too risky, before his time, and way beyond his abilities to do.

After going through the myriad of paperwork and permits, if he experimented on a human and failed, he'd be even more of a laughing stock than he was now. No doubt, in today's litigious society, he'd be arrested, convicted of a crime, and sued civilly. He'd lose everything he's worked so hard to earn. His reputation as a scientist ruined, at the very least, he'd live the rest of his life in exile and obscurity. Besides, he never even reached the point of trying his experiment with humans.

Unable to even begin transporting humans, his research had been spent trying to transport plants, insects, and mice. He could transport them, to God only knows where, but the problem was in trying to get them to return. For him to return them, he needed to know where they went and he had no idea. They just disappeared in the way they disappeared on Star Trek. Only he didn't have a Scotty to beam them back up to whence they started and where they belonged. Whatever he tried to transport disappeared. Basically what he invented was an evidence free, no clue left behind, killing machine instead of a molecular transporter.

Certainly, in hindsight, now that he's failed, thinking that he could build a transporter was strange science that bordered on mad science. Regaled and rejoiced in the beginning at being on the edge of a new technological era, a mere ten years later, his research was viewed by the scientific community, as something that would interest Doctor Frankenstein, had he lived today. When his experiments failed to bring back what he transported, he lost the credibility of the scientific community as a whole. His published journals more of a science fiction novel, where an embarrassment to him, to his grant providers, and to the university. Then, with the negative press that the protesters created, companies that embraced him and his research before with grants that not only paid for his research but also supported him, no longer wanted to be mentioned with him in the same scientific journals and/or news articles now.

He was done. He was finished, after losing the grant funding that he so needed to continue his work and his research. Even the military, the last one to buy in and the first one to leave with all the budget cuts, they pulled their Pentagon funded money from his project. All of those years of work and research was for naught. All of that time and energy that he invested was wasted. He didn't know where to begin. He didn't know what to do. How can he just give up and throw away research that he's been working on all of his life? His dreams of winning the Nobel Prize vanished, along with his wife. Working around the clock, sleeping at the lab, he was never home anymore anyway.

Now that all his employees and interns were gone, standing outside his lab with his moving truck filled, he was left with nothing but his notes, his computers, and his lab equipment. He took one last look at the MIT campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts before leaving to find a storage facility to safeguard his equipment. Without a buyer to buy any of this useless stuff, he would have been left with a warehouse full of junk, that is, had he not had a last minute idea, an epiphany of sorts in what to do with all of his research equipment. In his most desolate moment, he realized that he had stumbled over something bazaar. As interesting as it was exciting, if not more marketable, along the way, he had another idea of what to do with his research that didn't include transporting bodies just minds.

Not sure what he found, too busy with trying to transport humans to entertain the thought of any other breakthroughs, those findings that he discovered and ignored before hit him hard with the excitement of their possibilities now. With his hair uncombed and wild in the way of comedian, Dr. Irwin Corey, looking so much like the crazy professor that he was in his white lab coat, it was a good thing that he didn't tell a soul of his other discoveries. For sure, the government, namely the military, would have claimed his inventions as their own by sticking a top secret label on it. If they knew that their grant money had enabled him to develop something nearly as extraordinary as a transporter, they'd want it. Unable to do anything with it, they'd just stick it in a vault and in a guarded warehouse somewhere.

Revoking his security clearances and with the government done with him now after having washed their hands of him, abandoning him as their chosen star researcher, he was free to continue the research on his new project, so long as he did it in secret. He needed time to think about how he could market his creation to someone to make money, enough money, perhaps, to fund and continue his human transporter research project on his own. He realized now much in the way of an exploded planet coming back together with gravity in the exact same way it had exploded, his theory was an impossible one to prove. Yet, much like in the movie, Total Recall with Arnold Schwarzenegger, he realized that in trying to turn the human molecules to an energy source and reconfigure them back to exactly the way they were before being transported, he made a huge, accidental discovery.

In his intensive and exhaustive studies of the human body, especially the brain, by introducing specific, secret drugs in a chemical cocktail of sorts. Namely and specifically, he loaded the brain with neurotransmitters such as, Caffeine, Serotonin, Norepinephrine, and Dopamine, as well as other chemicals too. He realized that he could give people experiences, a memory, not unlike a Timothy Leary LSD trip, if you will, as if they've actually experienced them and lived through them. Of course, being that it was all drug induced, the feeling would dissipate once awakened but they'd still have their implanted memories as if they had truly experienced them. How much is that worth to have a memory of climbing Mount Everest or traveling in a submarine to the bottom of the ocean or traveling in a space shuttle to outer space? He could only imagine what a wealthy person would pay to have memories so specific and memories that they'd never have but always wanted.

From traveling to faraway places, to driving exotic cars, to having sex with celebrities, he could only imagine the endless possibilities of memory implants. Being that he already had the capability of giving people a memory of their choice, other than to research the memory, he didn't need to do any further research to give them the specific memory. He already had everything in place to give those implanted memories to those who were willing to pay him a lot of money. Whatever experiences they always wanted to have but never had the time, the money, opportunity, the talent, the fortuitousness, or the resources to have, he now could give them.

Only, how would he find such people who could afford to pay him exorbitant sums of money for the pure pleasure of him giving them merely a realistic memory? When he thought more about it, in the way of typical vacationers taking a summer vacation and a trip, all we are left with are our photographs, videos, souvenirs, and memories. Surely, based on the subject's memories, by hooking the subject's brain up to a computer with especially designed visualization software that he had developed and injecting them with secret mind altering drugs, he could even give them photographs of the experience, as if they had taken them with their camera. Now switching gears from a smaller piece of the pie, instead of reinventing the whole pie, pure genius, he was as excited about memory implants, as he was about trying to invent a molecular transporter.

Figuring he'd be deemed just another crackpot and his idea a scam, this time he refrained from prematurely publishing his papers until he had conclusive proof that his memory implants really worked. So as not to call undue attention to himself and to his memory implants, no doubt for them to be stolen by the government, before he could successfully use them on a paying customer, if only to merely test the waters, he put an ad on Craigslist, of all places. Surely someone of interest will contact him. He busied himself writing the ad as soon as he got home.

"Scientist, MIT grad, can implant memories. Memory implantation is a way for you to visit faraway places and/or do things you always wanted to do, without leaving the comfort of my laboratory. From skydiving to underwater exploration to space travel, you name it and I can implant it and even give you photos of your trip."

Even though he wrote the ad, even though he could do everything as advertised, the ad sounded too much like science fiction. Nonetheless, he posted the ad and waited for his e-mail account to respond. Within minutes, mostly questions, he received dozens of e-mails. Within hours, there were hundreds of e-mails. By the next day, he had thousands of e-mails. He was on to something enormous.

People were just as eager to leave their reality, as he was eager to help them leave. Yet, for a price. What was the price? How much should he charge them? Well, that would depend on where they wanted to go and what they wanted to do. It was all in the programming after all. It was all in the code. The more that they wanted to experience, the more code he'd have to write and the more time it would take for him to write it.

All it took was information and he had plenty of that. The Internet was his best source. The information, words, photos, and videos were all there and were all that he needed to download, along with his brain expanding and mind altering drugs, to give his customers whatever they wanted for whatever price they were willing to pay.

Dr. Durkin read through the e-mails, until he found the one perfect candidate, his first human guinea pig to test his memory implantations. Angelo Giovanni, an olive oil and wine importer turned pizza parlor chain owner, wanted to experience the woman he loved for decades, but didn't marry. A touching and romantic story, she was the one who got away. Now, married forty years with 5 children and 14 grandchildren, he needed to know what it would have been like had he married Angela Andolucci, instead of his current wife, Maria Palermo.

* * * * *

Fortunately for Dr. Durkin, for the sake and success of the experiment, and for the satisfaction of his customer, Angelo had saved all his old love letters from Angela. In addition, he had photos of her, when she was a young woman and later, found more photos of her, after she had some success as an Italian chef. Her name was all over the Internet, along with video, plenty of videos, until abruptly the record of her stopped just before her 47th birthday. After that Angelo and Dr. Durkin were not able to find any other mention of her.

Perhaps having made enough money and having had enough success, she prematurely retired to live her life with her children and grandchildren. No matter, being that Angelo wanted to know what it would feel like to have sexual intercourse with Angela as a young woman, Dr. Durkin had more than enough literature and video to implant him with that memory and give him that memory. Mingled in with the photos that Angelo had of his wife, Maria, Dr. Durkin could easily insert Angela for Maria, whenever necessary and wherever needed. Everything he needed to give Angelo the experience of being with Angela, instead of living with Maria was there for the taking and there for the implanting.

There was a lot of work involved before the implantation process. Much preparation needed to be done to give Angelo a believable experience. Would a million dollars be too much to ask him to pay or would that even be enough? A very successful and wealthy man, certainly Angelo could afford to pay that much and more. He had the money and would, no doubt, be willing to pay that exorbitant fee for the memory of being so sexually intimate with his beloved Angela. Moreover, he'd be under for a long time, 8-12 hours, depending on how long the drugs lasted on him. Being that he was a man in his sixties, sixty-four-years-old actually, the drugs may even have longer lasting effects. Dismissing the thought that he could die while being so drug induced, unproven and untested, his only real concern were the side effects and not the fatal consequences.

Certainly, as anything of a medical nature, the memory implants had risks. More from the drugs that he needed to give Angelo than the actually memories he'd implant, he had no idea how Angelo would react to receiving a flood of memories, memories that may overwrite, override, and even replace his real memories. The brain was still uncharted territory. Any procedure that had to do with the brain and the nervous system of the body could be dangerous, even deadly. Yet, surely, this procedure was not nearly as dangerous as trying to molecularly transport someone from one place to another and back again. All he was actually doing was implanting a memory by using the memories that he already had and replacing Maria with Angela. It seemed easy enough to do that it was no big deal, especially after his weird science of molecular transportation.

The first thing to do was to meet with Angelo and have him relate the exact experience that he wanted to have with Angela. Dr. Durkin prepared an exhaustive list of questions for Angelo to answer. The preliminary work that he did, questions and answers, photographs and videos, and the client's wishes and desires would all help to make for a more realistic experience and a longer lasting memory implant.

"What experience do I want to have? What memory do I want to take to the grave? What do you think Professor? To be honest," he paused, "I want to know what it would have been like to have had sex, sexual intercourse with Angela," said Angelo in broken English. "Moreover, I don't want to experience sex as a 64-year-old man but as a 24-year-old man. I need to know if I married the right woman. I need to know for once and for all if Angela was meant for me. I need to stop torturing myself and souring the memories of Maria by those memories that I would have had with Angela."

A new wrinkle, other than someone asking to have sex with a celebrity, sex was something that he never seriously considered. Dr. Durkin looked at the man with intrigue. Not one to turn down a challenge, he wondered how he'd do it, give Angelo the exact memories that he wanted of having sexual intercourse with Angela. He had the old photos of Angelo and of Angela but not of them having sex. He could exhaustively pick Angelo's brain as to what he experienced when having sex. He could document how he felt kissing, touching, feeling, and having oral sex with Angela forty years ago, as compared to how he felt now when having sexual intercourse with Maria. Yet, somehow having to manufacture one, the missing piece would be the one memory that Angelo wanted to have.

Angelo wanted to know what it felt like to make love to the love of his life. He wanted to know what it would feel like to fuck Angela, really fuck her when they were both so young. There was software already out there that would show what the woman her dimensions and age would look like without her clothes. Moreover, he had videos of her and he had his client to give him the information that he needed of all the sexual experiences that he had and wished that he had. Definitely, it was doable. Only, would it be believable? Only, Angelo would know.

One week later after loading everything about Angelo and Angela, even Maria, in his computer, in a darkened room, too dark to see his hand in front of his face, Angelo was hooked up to a computer as if he was on life support. The computer screen flashed his thoughts as if his brain was the main processor of a video game that played his thoughts through computerized interpretation. From this video of Angelo's thought waves, the computer translated his thoughts to images. A newly invented, one of a kind program, Dr. Durkin needed this kind of elaborate software to perfect the images that would become Angelo's memory implant.