Case - 2 : What have I become?

"It's alright." Anneliese was the first one to comfort me as she patted my shoulder. "I mean are you really going to get upset over what you don't even remember? Like, how hard is that?"

"I thought you were better than this Sarg." Gracewell complimented.

"I have a way to remember everything that happened.", I said.

"And do what? Give yourself a split personality?" Atlas questioned with a stern look on his face.

"I'm going to have to remember it anyway, won't I?"

"Why would you have to remember about it?" Anneliese asked.

"I'm willing to bet you were kidnapped or being pursued because of this weren't you?"

Atlas and Gaia stayed silent as Dave continued.

"How long until they track me down?"

"..." Everyone fell silent at Dave's assertion.

"How long till one day, I'm kidnapped and trapped inside a box to remain there until I decide to get my memories re-written?"

"..."

"I'd rather have my memories filled on my own terms. What's the worst that can happen? Split personality? I'm sure there are plenty of meds for that."

"You can't just pop an Elixir for everything you know." Gaia snided Dave's casual approach to the problem.

"And I don't want to keep having to look over my shoulder for the rest of my life!"

"...this is wrong and stupid. And it'll give you a whole host of other problems to worry about."

"Then what's the solution?" Dave asked.

"Why not do this instead." Gracewell spoke, interrupting the flow Dave had built up in his wallowing.

"What?"

"You can regain your memories but instead of storing them inside your head you'll store them inside a physical device."

"That's possible?" I asked turning towards Atlas and Gaia.

"Definitely. Since a device has to read the old memory destroyed by the mind wipe tool and rewrite it to new regions, it is possible to skip the rewriting part altogether and store the memories in the device itself." Gaia explained.

"Exactly." Atlas echoed his hand forming a perfect thumbs up as if he was promoting me to choose this solution.

"...I see. So, what's the catch?"

"...you'll need to get a neural implant."

"Shit the damn thing! I don't want to go anywhere close to that thing!" I exclaimed out loud.

My fear of neural implants had only gotten worse after the things I had seen people do with it.

"But why!?" Gaia pleaded.

"Because a random shot from a waver can blow it up if it's not maintained properly! All it needs is a rouge shot and I'll be paralyzed from the neck down for until who knows how long it is when I get my Elixir shot!"

I'd seen enough people die like this to know just how fragile a neural interface chip really was.

"But you made a good point! It is necessary to have your old forgotten memories just in case someone comes after you for them!"

"Then tough luck! I can live while always keeping an eye over my shoulder! But on my neck!? No, thank you. I'm good without needing to have to constantly tend to an explosive attached to my neck that can kill me at any moment!"

"Don't you think only because it is safe, that even the president uses it!?"

"The president has human flesh bag shields that I don't carry around myself! He can escape near-death situations simply because someone beside him stabbed him with an Elixir syringe! How will I survive? No one will stay beside me twenty-four seven will they!?"

"The fear of getting a neural implant is irrational Sergeant Dave." Gracewell commented as I looked at her with a scowl.

"And so is your love for Bobbleheads! But you don't find me complaining do you?!"

"..." Anneliese and Gracewell gave me an exasperated look as Gaia and Atlas looked at me with pity.

"What?" I asked rhetorically. "I'm not ever going to get a Neural implant! No matter what." I nearly ended up shouting.

A day later, I was at the doctor's office.

Waiting to get a checkup done so that I could have the twenty-minute procedure to have an implant installed, I read through the last magazines on my AR device while I waited in the lobby with a projection mask covering my face. 

Although only a twenty-minute procedure, I'd have to stay the night because of the anesthesia used that will leave me in a state where I will need to be monitored.

Hawthorne had gotten his sample and would announce the results of his tests soon enough.

The test would be enough to prove that Lazarus was also present at the crime scene but I doubted Lazarus wouldn't want to reveal the truth himself.

'I think he's only waiting for the exhibition event to finish and then he'd likely do it himself. But there's always room for doubt. And since there was no 'murder' there's nothing I can do to arrest Lazarus in this case.'

"Dave. Dave Neotestudo. Number 31514." A monotonous controlled voice with perfect pitch for it to be heard in the hall called out on the speaker in the hall.

The voice got me to rise up from the uncomfortable metallic chair in the hospital waiting room and crack my back for a second before I strolled towards the reception desk that had an Android waiting for me to collect my token.

'Am I going to become an Android now?' A hyperbole of thought occurred to me, but I just couldn't stop worrying. Today it was a neural implant, tomorrow will it be an entire arm? What then? An entire limb? Where did it stop? Or did it stop at all?

How many parts of me could I replace to become not me?

As the great philosopher Felix Lengyel put it how many parts of the Ship of Theseus need to be replaced before it is considered brand new?

'I wonder what the difference is between me and the android if I ever merge with my childhood memories.'

'Aren't we the same things? Just running on different hardware?'

'One fleshy, one robotic?'

'Is there something more fundamental to being human?'

'How did Lazarus and Prometheus figure out how to merge people's memories without giving them split personality disorder?'

Handing over my token to the Android by swiping on my AR interface, I moved toward the appointed room that the Android graciously booked for me.

"Good evening Mr. Dave." The doctor inside the room said in a low voice.

"Good evening." I greeted back.

"I've seen you file, you would like a neural interface chip installed, am I right?"

This was the last chance for me to stop this madness, but I reluctantly agreed.

"Yes."

"Any guardians?"

"One will be arriving shortly after the surgery is completed."

"You mean at around Seven thirty PM?"

"Yes. Her name is Anneliese."

'Anneliese was going to arrive because everyone else, my parents were hiding from the members of BloodSHA to protect themselves and Gracewell had a court case to attend, were busy.'

"I understand. Please turn off your projection mask so that we may immediately begin the procedure."

"How long will it take?" I asked before turning off my projection mask.

"We should be done in twenty minutes. But you'll have to remain unconscious for about thirty because of the Anesthesia."

"Can't an Elixir be used to wake me up?"

"It can, but we prefer not to force the body to get up immediately after it has been through something traumatic."

'Great, now I spend ten extra minutes unconscious inside a locked room where anything can go wrong.'

I turned off the projection mask and much to my surprise the doctor didnt' act surprised.

"New?" I asked him.

"Yes, it's only been a month since I shifted my practice to Inception City."

"Why inception city? I'm sure you could've gotten a better place to live in anywhere else."

"Isn't it the dream? To live in Inception city?"

"To each their own I guess." I mumbled as the doctor pushed in just the right dose of anesthesia that had been calibrated just for me after measuring my height, weight and age.

'What's that dipping on my forehead?'

I shuffled around the bed and tried to get away from wwhatever was driping onto my head but it was insistent.

'What is it?' I opened my eyes and glared at the thing in anger, only to be confused when I saw fingers.

'Fingers?'

'Blood?'

'No, water?'

'Who's waking me up?'

"You already forgot you got a neural interface implant?"

I heard Anneliese's voice kick me out of sleep as I suddenly remembered it all.

"Right! The implant surgery! How did it go? Is everything alright?"

I touched my throat and tried to scratch at it to feel the implant but I felt nothing.

I expected to feel different, like I had superpowers or something, but I felt no different.

'It honestly feels a little underwhelming.'

"Did it not work?" I asked Anneliese.

"No silly, it worked, you just need to activate it."

"How?" I asked like I hadn't seen a thousand media before I got my surgery done.

"Simple, focus on a floating square, and the interface should come to life on its own. It is powered by your body and should be able to function based on your thoughts. You can calibrate it later for better control."

"Later? Why later?! Was there a mistake during the surgery that needs to be corrected?"

"No. Nothing needs to be corrected. Everything is fine. Later becuase you slept through the night. I only woke you up right now because you promised to go to Mnemosyne's product launch party!"

"I slept through the whole day!?"

"Yes. You must've been tired." Anneliese stated like it was something normal but I was panicking.

"How could I have slept through so easily!? There must be something wrong with the implant! Perhaps it took more energy than necessary and pushed me to sleep deeper than usual!?

"So you don't want to go to the product launch? Didn't you say you had something planned for today?"

'I did.'

'But revealing the killer's identity wasn't the topmost priority on it.'

'The main priority was something else.'

'It was the reason I had gotten a neural implant in such a hurry.'

'I was going to use my chance as a volunteer for the tech to attempt to recover my memories and then transfer them to the Neural interface.'

'Not a great plan, but all I had at being able to recover my memories without having to spend extra time dilly-dallying around to make a new machine that would recover my memories for me.'

With a heavy heart, in spite of the risk of the neural implant exploding on me at any moment, I worked up the courage to say goodbye to the hospital for now.

"Alright, how long do we have? Wait! Don't tell me, let me look at my own neural interface."

I focused on a floating square in my vision and suddenly as if a switch was flipped a blue floating window appeared in my vision.

I instantly felt the difference between my AR glasses and the neural interface.

The interface followed my vision perfectly and did not lag behind a little like the AR glasses while the floating screen was much larger and clearer, like I was actually seeing it as a part of the world and it wasn't plastered on haphazardly.

"Seven thirty AM.", I said looking at the corner of my screen.

"Yes that's the correct time." Anneliese nodded

"Why am I feeling thirsty all of a sudden?"

"Ah, the doctor did say you might have a sore throat for a few days since it takes a little time for the body to adjust to the foreign object that has been implanted in it. But you'll be fine as long as you take an Elixir shot every day."

"*sigh*"

'It's alright Dave, the neural implant won't explode when it comes in contact with water. You can drink water normally.'

I consoled myself as I began this new chapter of my life.

A chapter to come to terms with who I am and what I have become.