The Synthesis

Dearest Rachel –

She is a genius. Oh, perhaps not to the extent of that of the professor she works alongside, but certainly a prodigy in her own right. She has an almost uncanny understanding of the neurological network that is the human mind, and with her mentor, she works tirelessly to help him create, not exactly an artificial intelligence, but something of a synthetic intelligence, bridging the gap between computers and humanity.

Perhaps you can see where this is going.

She is doomed. It might be all the hours and days of work and study that she’s been putting in; exhaustion is taking its toll on her, as the human frame can only take so much before it wears out. There may be an actual underlying illness; whether she’s aware of it or not, although certainly as it nears a terminal state, there’s no denying it any longer, at which point she’s racing against the clock to complete their magnum opus. Or maybe there’s next to no warning about her demise; laboratory accidents, while vanishingly rare as OSHA requirements are hewn to, are still an occupational hazard. They are, after all, working on the literal bleeding edge of science; the effects of certain causes are exactly what they’re trying to discover, so of course z can’t always be planned for when you perform x if you were expecting y all this time.

You probably can guess where this is going.

She at least lives long enough to express her regrets. Perhaps, in the true Japanese tradition of karoshi, she apologizes to her colleague and mentor for abandoning him in the middle of their project. Or, contrariwise, she may find herself wishing she could have gotten out a little bit more; to have been able to stop and smell the flowers. For all that she spent her time with the professor in the lab, studying mechanical and electronic gadgetry, did she really understand her humanity well enough to design a proper bridge between the two? In any event, she acknowledges sorrow that she will not live to see their work come to fruition, and she exhorts him to complete their grand plan.

Can you see where this is going from here?

Because, you see, she doesn’t die. After taking what she assumes to be her final breath, and some indeterminate amount of time dreamlessly unconscious, she awakes in a lab not unlike her own, but different enough for her to recognize that it’s not the one that has been her effective home for… well, she couldn’t tell you how long. As she gets up to look around, nothing is where she expects it to be, based on the space she’s used to living it. It’s not far removed from the way she tries to remember it – the room is the right size, and the same sterile white color – but something is off about it all. It’s more of a nuisance than anything life threatening, but it takes time to acclimatize herself.

Have you figured it out yet?

She’s alone. There is no sign of her mentor here, despite the surroundings being just the sort of place they were most at home together in. She can’t imagine her survival happening without his involvement, and yet… he’s nowhere to be found. No traces of his presence, like a lab coat a foot too tall for her hanging around, or a dog-eared copy of the manuscript he took notes in. Although, those could be written off as things he would keep on his person; if he were absent, they would be with him. But even the trash bin contains nothing she could trace back to him, as she rummages curiously through it – and, it should be noted that the process doesn’t take long, since the bin contains but a few scraps of paper, none of which give her any indication as to where she is.

But you know by now… don’t you?

She is bored and curious. As she discovers her legs, as well as a surprising amount of energy for one who was on the point of death the last she was aware, she seeks a way out of the room she has woken up in. Perhaps she can find her way out, and in the process, understand where she is and what’s happened to her – to say nothing of what’s happened to the professor (and any other colleagues they might have had). As it’s a relatively small room, this is easily accomplished, and she wanders through the ensuing corridor, trying to make her way to an exit, or at the very least, a window.

You must know where this is going by now…

She pokes her head into room after unfamiliar room, each one growing less like the life she once knew as she does so. The sterility of the laboratory, with its white steel and chrome fixtures, gives way to the wood paneling of a library or study, with shelves of books from floor to ceiling, many beyond her reach, were it not for ladders mounted on a wheeled track on one of the upper shelves. She is tempted to climb up and peruse one of the tomes whose titles she can’t even read from her vantage point on the floor, but she senses she doesn’t belong in this room – or at any rate, doesn’t feel comfortable making herself comfortable here without explicit permission. She presses on.

As she does so, the rooms become ever more removed from what she might have felt ‘comfortable’ in. The wooden walls begin to bear leaves and foliage, and the floor sports a thick carpet… or is that grass? In any event, everything is looking so much more organic, apart from the door she came in by… wait, where is the door, again?

This has to be familiar to you, honey… isn’t it?

She’s lost; she’s certain she’s still within the building she woke up in, but as she can’t find the door she entered the room through, she’s growing less so by the moment. It’s not as if she was outside – she can’t see the sun or clouds or the sky, but the ceiling in here extends beyond her range of sight, too, and the place is brilliantly lit from an indistinct direction, but generally from above. This is like no place she remembers from her… past life? Is this supposed to be heaven, then?

She is puzzled. And then…

She is startled to see the face of her old mentor. And I do mean ‘old’; he looks to have aged twenty years since she saw him when she closed her eyes for what she thought was the last time. It’s possible that her passing has aged him, or that he poured himself into reviving her, which would have taken time, even for such a towering intellect as himself. But what really shocks her is that she is only able to see a small portion of him – an eye and his nose at one moment, his mouth the next, and eventually just the buttons on his coat, as if he were drawing himself to his full height – as framed through an ellipse of branches in one… corner?… of this forested environment.

Shock gives way to wonder on her face, as we now see her from his perspective. There is no forest behind her, as far as he can see; it is a solid black circle that frames her. Around that, her legs disappear behind a larger concentric brown circle which is in turn surrounded by white. Suddenly, for a moment, a heavy curtain falls in front of these circles, concealing her from view, before being lifted as quickly as it fell…

She is standing inside her own pupil, looking up at the professor that had apparently placed her inside an enormous replica of herself. It would seem that he had finally achieved the synthesis of organic and artificial they had long sought with their research, and it was she who had become the prototype. Although… was she really piloting a giant version of herself, or was she reduced in size to fit inside a humanoid shell?

***

Such was this morning’s dream, honey. It feels like every trope in the world, while at the same time sounding just a little bit different from anything I’ve ever seen or heard. This could be the origin story, or it could be the end of one; it feels like it could be fleshed out either way, but for my part, I just needed to get it written down before it dissipated. At it was, I was starting to lose my grip on the last bit, even as I could visualize the shift in perspective from inside her frame to outside. I can’t even tell if this is a triumph of science, or the beginning of something horrific, but again, I suppose it could be taken either way.

For now, I’m just going to leave it here and let you muse on it; I wonder what you would think of being revived and thus placed. Of course, I’ve none of the professor’s skill and expertise – although unlike him, I’d at least be aware that you probably wouldn’t want to be taken from where you are just to be placed into some automaton for all eternity. But still, if you could keep an eye out for me, and wish me luck, that would be appreciated. After all, I’m going to need it.