The two men sat staring at one another across the silver table in the center of the silver room. Other than the table and the chairs upon which they sat, the room was barren of furnishings. The floor was polished silver, as was the ceiling. The walls were mirrors, reflecting the pair from all sides. Illuminated by the dim light seeping down from the globe hovering several feet above them, they looked like two men floating in a void.
The man in black typed fervently on a thin tablet, glancing up occasionally at his companion, who was clad in white. . The man in white glowered, his arms folded tightly against his chest.
“What is your name,” asked the man in black.
“You know my name,” responded the other man, thumping his fist on the table. “How many times are we going to perform this charade?”
“Please answer the question,” said the man in black.
“According to you I am Subject 59, but my real name is Doctor Benedict Stevenson,” said the man in white, sighing and slumping back in his chair. “My mother’s maiden name was Dorsey, my birthday is February second, and I obtained my Master’s Degree in Developmental, Neural and Behavioral Science in 1997. Now will you please leave me alone?”
“Do you know why you are here,” asked the man in black, ignoring Stevenson’s question.
“I’m here because I wouldn’t share my research. You wanted to steal it.”
“What research?”
“My research! My successful research into mapping the human mind!”
“We have already had considerable success charting the physiognomy of the human brain,” replied the man in black, his calm in marked contrast to Stevenson’s agitation.
“Not just the brain! The Mind! My goal was to duplicate the mind! Why are you pretending you don’t know all of this already?”
“So, you believe you have the ability to reproduce a person’s consciousness?”
“You know I do,” snarled Stevenson. “That’s why I’m here. That’s why I have to keep playing this ridiculous game.”
“It can’t be done,” stated the man in black.
“But it can,” shouted Stevenson, jumping up from his chair. “You’ve heard of the advances in organic 3-D printing. You know what we can do.”
“We have had some success with the duplication of organs, but…”
“Think about it. If you can create a viable heart, why stop there? Why not a whole body? We could duplicate entire people.”
“I don’t understand what this has to do with the mind?”
Stevenson kicked his chair across the room. As it clanged against the glass wall, Stevenson noticed his reflection. Walking over to the mirrored wall, he ran his fingers through his shaggy hair.
“I suppose I do look like a mad man,” he announced, staring at the unshaven dervish before him. With a sigh, he carried his chair back to the table, and sat down facing his antagonist.
“Think about it,” he said, “If we could document every neuron, every synapse, we could, eventually, duplicate the brain. Why wouldn’t our duplicate include everything that brain contained?”
Like memories,” asked the man in black.
“Yes. I don’t see why not. It is only a matter of having all the information. If we have a detailed map of everything in a person’s mind, why couldn’t we make a duplicate?”
“We aren’t quite that advanced yet, Doctor Stevenson,” said the other man, tapping on the rectangular slate resting on the table.
“Not yet,” responded Stevenson, “but maybe in twenty years we would have the technology. If we started charting it all now, mapping the brain down to a sub atomic level, we could be ready when the time comes.”
“And that was what you were working on when you were brought here,” asked the man, still typing on the device before him.
“You know damn well I was,” shouted Stevenson.
“Let’s just say you could do what you claim,” said the man, pushing his device aside, and staring Stevenson in the eye. “What would you do with your duplicate mind?”
“Study it, of course.”
“What if your test subject objects?”
The notion seemed to dumbfound Stevenson. For about a minute he just sat there, staring at the man as though he had just sprouted an extra head.
“We aren’t talking about a human being,” he said at last, speaking slowly as though he was addressing a small child or an idiot. “This is something we are building in the lab. It will be no different than this chair I am sitting on, other than for the complexity of the thing. As something artificial, we won’t even have the moral responsibility to it that we would owe to a lab rat.”
“But it will be able to think,” interjected the other man. It will have self-awareness.”
“It will be no different than any other form of artificial intelligence. Would you suggest turning off that tablet you are holding would be some kind of crime? I’m sure it uses A-I based technology.”
The man set the tablet down and stared at Stevenson, saying nothing.
“So, you see your argument makes no sense,” Stevenson continued triumphantly. “These things will have no souls. They are not human.”
“We are finished for the day,” said the man, standing. “We’ll continue tomorrow.”
An opening appeared in the wall behind him, and he turned to walk toward it. As he did so, Stevenson leapt up from his seat. In one quick motion he flung himself over the table and tackled the man to the ground. Before the man could react Stevenson had his hair between his fingers, and pulling the man’s head back, punched him in the temple before slamming the man’s face into the floor. Not waiting to see what damage he had inflicted on his victim, he rose, and made a dash for the rectangular gash in the mirrored wall.
Once free of the room, Stevenson paused. He had expected to find a hallway, but instead found himself on the floor of a large auditorium. Lights glared down at him from behind the rows of seats, blotting out the faces of the audience surrounding him. He turned back to the room where he had been held, and saw, through transparent walls, his interrogator using the table to pull himself to his feet. Turning again toward the lights, he noticed for the first time a gray haired man standing at the lectern. As the man turned to face him, he found himself staring at an older version of himself.
“This isn’t a mad house,” said the man in black, as two other men rushed up to grab Subject 59. “It’s an exhibition hall.”
—
Lamont Turner’s stories have appeared in numerous online and print publications, including “Death And Butterflies” and “Scary Snippets” anthologies, and Abandoned Towers, Jitter, Serial, and The Realm Beyond magazines.
Good story with a nice twist at the end. A fun read!