“Just doing my job.”
Gabriel returned his attention to the operating table and flinched his gaze away. Her head was wide open, Gloria's brain was plain for everyone to see as the doctors ran scans over her entire nervous system to verify that she was ready for the next phase.
“All right, starting to connect the new mind with the nervous system. Watch for neural spikes and call out problems with connection strength,” announced Doctor Barnes as he brought a circular device with cables leading directly into a tank behind him where the Eve brain waited, anaesthetized like the patient on the table.
The ultra fine net of wires seemed to move on their own, reaching down to the table and around the brain inside Gloria's head. They were drawn into her skull by nanobots programmed specifically for the task and none other to make a connection between a living, working nervous system and a new brain while the original was still in place.
“Wow that's quick. Did you program these yourself Doctor Barnes?”
“I had to. Outside of emergency brain transplants into machine managed clone crop bodies no one does this anymore. The idea of bringing an old brain into a body with a pre-existing mind became taboo centuries ago,” replied Doctor Barnes without a hint of pride as he watched the holographic display of the lines being connected to the brain stem in hundreds of places.
“Looks like all the lines are in, Doctor.”
“All right, let's start with something simple. Let's see if our patient can connect with the tactile nerves in her upper body.”
“Anaesthesia won't interfere with our readings?” asked one of the red clad men around the table.
“Of course it will, that's what anaesthesia does, but that doesn't mean we can't run an artificial sensation up and down the nerve to check to see how we're doing,” Doctor Barnes replied with a little irritation. “I'd go back to wherever you studied neural science and request a refund if I were you. Until then, keep your questions to yourself,” he commented as he programmed the test sequence in a holographic control pad. Barnes couldn't feel the keystrokes or icon selections, but that didn't seem to slow him down. “All right, let's see if Eve is willing to communicate with the new body.”
Several of the half hair thickness lines lit up, glowing different colours as several new readings on the floating two dimentional display remained completely flat. “Come on, you've been in active preserve for a long time but you've got to remember what it feels like to be human,” Doctor Barnes said to himself.
Gabriel watched intently as the display still showed four flat lines. “I'm not sure what this means. It has to do with Eve accepting the new body?” he asked the nurse in a hushed whisper.
“They're checking to see if she could feel something touching her if she weren't under anaesthesia. It's a standard test for people with severe brain damage.”
“You think Eve's been damaged?”
“Probably not, but they have to find out if she can accept a new body, this is a good way.”
“But she's not communicating with the new body.”
“Not yet. No one's done a brain transplant with this kind of technology before, not on the books anyway.”
Gabriel stared at the flat lines as everyone in the operating room watched her vitals in silence. “So we don't know how long it'll take or if it'll work.”
“I'm sorry, you're asking the wrong person sir. I'm a good nurse, but not a neurosurgeon.”
“All right, we're going to have to simulate a sensation,” Doctor Barnes announced as he brought up another manipulatable hologram beside him. It outlined Gloria's entire body with a focus on her nervous system. “Stimulating a cluster.”
All four activity lines bumped for a moment, then returned to scrolling from left to right. The half dozen doctors all waited in silence, watching the steadily breathing form on the operating table and the readings hovering translucently above her.
Gabriel had become more accustomed to the grisly display before him already and his gaze went from the display with the flat readings to the body, then to the wires leading from her skull to the halo that kept them gathered and from there down the blue cable that carried the whole bunch to another ring that spread the lines out again and fed them into the opaque tank that held the Eve Mind.
“Stimulating a cluster closer to the brain, it might feel like a broken nose but if our anaesthesiologists did their jobs right she won't remember it,” Doctor Barnes announced as he activated a holographic control beside him.
The four lines spiked once again, this time much higher and to Gabriel's dismay they returned to scrolling along, from left to right, as flat as they were before.
He didn't blink, move and barely breathed as he looked on, his gaze flinching between the readings and the grey tank that held so much promise. A mind that had been in storage, connected to an interactive computing system for a hundred years while the galaxy moved on, while humanity expanded and Eve's children went on with their existence. They pined for her, worshipped her like an absent Goddess, looked for ways to bring her back to life and failed for all that time because of some block that had been put in place, some inability for them to generate a solution to the problem.
“It's been too long. This mind hasn't seen the inside of a body for centuries, it was a long shot to begin with,” said one of the Doctors quietly.
“Let's try one more time. Maybe we're going about this the wrong way,” replied Doctor Barnes. “I'm going to simulate a sensation artificially then send a similar sensation through the tactile senses.”
The lines spiked again, more gently this time.
“All right, that was the simulated stimulation, from our technology to the Eve mind. Here's the real thing.”
The four readings spiked once more, only slightly differently, the line was more gradual, less jagged. For a long moment those lines returned to being flat and then they started showing activity on their own.
“There we go! Basic nervous system interaction, it almost matches the original host brain,” announced Doctor Barnes with a sigh of relief.
“Congratulations Doctor,” said one of the other physicians attending.
“Yes, this has got to be the most humane transplant ever done.”
“I'd agree with you if we had a host body for the woman who has original possession of this body,” Doctor Barnes contested quietly.
“That body was property of Vindyne Industries until I purchased it. She was a known criminal and a burden on society. If Vindyne hadn't used her for medical purposes she would have been put to death, your conscience should be clear. Continue Doctor,” Gabriel called out from behind the sterile screen.
Most of the surgeons turned to look at him but only for a moment. The eager giddiness on Gabriel's face was enough to unnerve most.
“All right, let's make the primary connections.” Doctor Barnes directed as both his hands began to manipulate holographic tools that appeared around them.
“What does he mean, primary connections?” Gabriel asked the nurse beside him. He could have just as easily have looked up the information himself, but his attention was fully focused on the surgery.
“They have to get the new brain to take over the automatic functions of the body like breathing. Then they can start calibrating the finer points of the nervous system.”
“So when they're finished she'll be able to walk around and speak?”
“I doubt it, but it shouldn't be like learning to walk all over again either. She'll remember how to walk and do other things, but she'll have to apply that knowledge to her new body. I've seen brain transplants into full grown clone replacement bodies before and I don't expect this to be much different.”
“You'll be staying?”
“I'm on Doctor Barnes' staff. I specialize in physical therapy so I'll be helping her with her motor skills. I'm Nathan,” he offered his hand to Gabriel as they both watched the fine wires leading into the woman's skull light up in colours of blue, red, green white and yellow.
Gabriel shook it. The man's hand was thick and strong. “We'll be getting to know each other Nathan,” he meant to sound reassuring, to put the man at ease, but instead it sounded more like a threat. If it had any affect on the nurse, it didn't show.
