“All right, everything checks out fine but we haven't been able to send any subconscious suggestions to the new mind, it isn't accepting anything,” Doctor Barnes announced as he looked right at Gabriel through the transparent sterile barrier. “That means that she could still emotionally reject the body which can result in overall organ failure and death.”
“I'll comfort her,” Gabriel replied.
“With all due respect that may not be enough, sir. This isn't some old fashioned skin graft or plastic surgery; if the subject rejects her body in a deeply emotional way the first thing to go will be the brain.”
“I will guide her. Don't doubt me on this Doctor.”
Doctor Barnes stared at Gabriel, who leered back for a moment before looking back at the body in front of him, bathed in the glow of all the lines connecting it to the Eve mind. “All right, the Eve mind is taking over all nervous system control, the old mind will be dormant while we find out if the new one can handle working on its own.”
Several moments passed and there were slight changes in vital signs as the woman's breathing pattern, heart beat and neural readings shifted slightly. The time crawled by for Gabriel, it was yet another moment of truth.
At long last Doctor Barnes nodded and announced; “I'm instructing the nanobots to disconnect the old brain from the body. Prepare for removal.”
Before Gabriel was ready, before he had time to look away, Doctor Barnes put his gloved hands on bare grey matter and pulled slightly. The brain came away with a sick sucking sound, leaving an empty, open cavity. Gabriel's gaze flinched away in revulsion but all too late. He'd remember that sight for the rest of his life, and as he heard the soft mechanical arm draw the Eve mind out of the tank he steeled himself and looked back.
There was something different about the glistening organ, it looked so much cleaner, more like he had pictured a human brain before the surgery had begun. There was so little blood as the tubes feeding the delicate circulatory system of the organ were carefully removed by fine automated manipulators and the arm that held it shifted it perfectly into place inside the empty skull cavity. The hundreds of lines leading to it from the metal halo that followed it from above glowed, bathing the entire red operating theatre in an eerie light of the entire colour spectrum.
“The nanobots are connecting the blood vessels to the brain, controlling pressure and bridging nervous system pathways before removing the interim wires,” Doctor Barnes announced as he watched all the status displays carefully. He made fine, manual adjustments to what the nanosurgeons were doing, expertly assessing the situation as it developed.
Several tense minutes later the two wiring halos and the thick shielded blue cable stretching between them were taken away, no longer needed. The vitals of the woman on the table were steady as Doctor Barnes stepped away from the table.
Two other surgeons patted him on the shoulder as he stood back. “Congratulations Doctor. That's a viable transplant,” one of the two female surgeons said to him. “I didn't think I would see it today to be honest.”
“Your scepticism was just another challenge, Doctor,” Barnes replied as he watched another surgeon step in, regenerate protective and connective tissue on and around the brain then begin to replace the top of the patient's skull.
It only took a moment for the application to be performed, for the wounds to heal and during that time Gabriel couldn't help but look over to a steel pan beside the operating table, where the old brain had been placed. It lay there, disconnected, dead.
She was a crass, unreformable woman. If she had truly committed to any of the behavioural modifications things would have been done differently, but even the ones we managed to force into her mind were near breaking. No, this was the best use for her.
“Finished,” the surgeon announced as he looked up to Gabriel. “How long do you want her hair?” he asked.
The question surprised him, and he stared blankly at her perfectly bald head for a moment before mentally searching the information he had on Eve. After a moment he found it, the one picture of her before she had become the center of the construct in the Eden system, before she had become Eve. She was a young adolescent girl with straight blonde hair down to her chin. He cross referenced the style with a fashion database and found its name. His eyes snapped open and he smiled at the surgeon. “Give her a bob cut in that body's natural colour. Nora always wanted red hair.”
“Nora?” asked the nurse beside him as the surgeon got to work with a hair growth stimulator.
“It's the name she went by before her body died and she was transplanted into the machine.”
“Good to know. Do you think she'll want to be called by that when she wakes up?”
“I'm sure she'll tell me.”
The hair finished growing and the surgeon brought another tool to her scalp and traced it over top. Gabriel recognized it as a rejuvenator, used to correct damaged or over stressed skin. Artificially accelerated hair growth caused just that kind of stress. As soon as he finished two nurses who were waiting at the sides of the room stepped forward with another gurney, transferred her to it in a quick, professional, practiced manner and wheeled her out of the room.
Gabriel followed wordlessly, leaving the highly paid experts behind him in memory and actuality. Thoughts of the red room would be avoided, but never forgotten.
Within minutes she was changed into fresh, soft, clean clothes and located in a quiet recovery room with a bed, nightstand, a chair and soft, subdued lighting. He sat in the seat beside her as a nurse checked her vitals with a hand scanner and smiled. “She'll be awake in the next few minutes. It looks like everything is fine,” the nurse smiled at him before leaving the room and quietly closing the door.
Gabriel carefully took the young woman's hand in both of his. There was something pure, something innocent about that sleeping face. It was like with the replacement of it's mind the body was made pure again, clean.
The eyes creaked open, fluttered and then sprung wide in a shocked expression. Her face was unbalanced, one side of her mouth was stretching wide while the other was tense and mostly closed. Her gaze darted around the room, not taking in any one thing but glancing, sweeping around in panic. Her arms vainly twitched as she tried to move them, to accomplish something that her body couldn't yet deliver.
Gabriel shushed her strangled croaks and inarticulate cries as tears began to stream down her face. His hands held hers in a tight grip, not letting it go regardless of how she yanked, perhaps involuntarily for all he knew.
The nurse burst back into the room and he held a hand up. “No! I'll guide her!” he called out before closing his eyes and forcing a connection with the microscopic data interface built into the woman's hand.
As soon as he connected to her mind he was flooded with her frantic thoughts; “Where have they gone? What am I seeing? My brood are disconnected from me! Who has done this to me? Who are you and what are you doing connected to me? What are these sensations? Father? Father where are you? My sensors aren't picking up any of your biometric readings anywhere and my solar system, my garden is gone. I don't understand what they've done to me, who did this to me? Am I sick again? Why doesn't anything work? Am I supposed to go somewhere else? Did I do something wrong? What do I have to do to make things right? What do I have to do to get my children back? My flock is gone, the bad men disconnected me from them and then I was in a different place, a place that's unclear, but it was comfortable, I was asleep, now where am I? How did I get put back into a body? Why did I get put into a body when father told me he couldn't do it, that no one could do it, but I was the only one who could take care of the new garden, I'm the only one who can tend Eden. No one else knows how it should grow but me and my brood, how could they disconnect me? Did I do something wrong? Father, where are you father, I miss you father and I don't understand what they've done to me, where are my new eyes from and why does the light not hurt? I feel like I did before the sickness, before the burning, I remember life burning then you took me away and gave me a million children and gave me Eden to love and protect, the children carried out my will, made me whole, gave me a million eyes everywhere I wanted to see, they took me outside while I played, while I found new ways for things to grow, while I could watch and be with my father? Father? Where are you? Have you done this to me? Have I been bad? Is it time to wake up? Where is my flock? How can I make things right without my brood? Why have they left me? Did I do something wrong?”
“Stop!” Gabriel replied as his mind was overwhelmed by the feelings of regret, loss and panic that Eve
