This is a work of (science) fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, business establishments, or locales is entirely coincidental.

VISION: A Cautionary Tale

Chapter 4

Almost 2 month had passed by. Levi had been working nearly everyday at the Galant, only staying at home on Saturdays. Normally, he would have taken the days off on Sundays, but most of the protestors were at the church on that day. The relative silence was something he enjoyed and made his walk from the metro to the Galant less of a pain.

It was in that sense a regular Sunday. Almost nobody had shown up to shout to him for all the sins he was about to commit. A lone, disfigured and paraplegic man sitting a wheelchair caught his eye. He almost felt some empathy for the man, until he saw the sign that he was holding:

''FAITH IN GOD – NOT TRANSHUMAN SCIENCE''

People, like the man, believe that suffering is part of something bigger. "There is no misery, when there is faith." They say. 'Faith'. The word has become synonymous with progress. Levi never had faith, he had taught himself to fix his problems. Waiting for God to help left his family ravaged. This feeling of being cheated on resulted in Levi opposing everything that was related to God.

And that lead him to wanting to kill the idea.

"The machine is functioning normally. We should be able to begin." Smart said as he was booting up the Exocortex.

"Good. Levi, bring in the volunteer." Rubin responded as he made his way to the table.

Levi walked towards the door and opened it. The volunteer was surrounded by 3 other specialist, who walked him through the briefing. He beckoned the volunteer to come in, who stood up and shook hands with Levi.

Levi didn't ask for his name. It was one of the many faces he had seen in the last 2 months, after about 10 people he didn't bother to ask for their names anymore. It was just another being, living his own life, only appearing at the same crossroad to eventually walk the other way.

He assigned him where to lie down and sat down behind the computer as Smart put him in an artificial sleep.

"Okay, turn it on." Rubin commanded. Levi opened the data receiving program as Smart pushed on the quantum teleportation transmitter connected to the volunteers brain. "All right mister Shuman, can you hear me?"

Rubin looked at Levi, who looked at the screen. The wavelength started moving and a section of the model of the brain lighted up. In the top right corner, a coded message appeared in a message box. Levi rose his thumb, signaling he indeed heard Rubin.

"Great. I'm going to walk you through this..." Rubin continued. "We are going to send you imagery with questions. We want you to answer these questions, you understand." Rubin looked at Levi, who saw on his screen that he understood. Rubin signaled Smart, who walked towards Shuman, hovering his hand over another transmitter.

"Just relax and focus on the questions." Rubin said to Shuman as he turned to Levi. "Turn it on." He whispered. Levi opened a new program and turned it on. They waited in anticipation for a few seconds, as activity began to appear on the screen.

This had been achieved a few weeks before. They thought they managed to put the human brain into the computer, but it turned out all activity was still taking place inside the brain and not in the computer. While a breakthrough in the field of robotics, they weren't satisfied with the finding, because a few years before them other scientists were able to copy and paste human emotions into robots, effectively creating a second version of that person.

However, what troubled the team was that the robot was essentially a clone and that the awareness of a person wasn't transferred into a new body, allowing people to become immortal. While they were getting closer, they hadn't really found the solution yet.

Yet was the keyword, as suddenly the activity on the screen multiplied. Levi jumped up, nodding that it was working. In rapid succession, answers appeared in the top right message box.

The euphoria was short-lived. After Smart turned on the second transmitter, activity on the screen stopped and Shuman's body started spasming.

"He is fighting against it." Smart noted.

"Turn it off!" Rubin thundered.

Levi turned off the programs and Smart deactivated both transmitters. Shuman woke up disoriented. Smart helped him up and escorted him out, while Rubin was clearly agitated by the end result.

Minutes went by as the 3 sat and stood, thinking what could've gone wrong.

"We are getting close." Rubin said. "We cannot back down now." Levi, who was already tired, sighed deep and scratched his head.

"Maybe we can't transfer the ghost." He said, causing the other 2 looking confused at him. "You know, the soul."

"I don't know what you are on about. What has that spiritual nonsense to do with this?"

"Well..." Levi paused for a bit. "The ghost in the machine, the soul in the body, the illusion of human perception. What makes us look through our own eyes and not those of others."

"We have been able to transfer volunteers' perception into the exocortex for a few times now." Smart replied.

"How do you know?" Levi countered a bit curtly. "Have you experienced it?"

"Well, the tests indicate that-"

"That the awareness remains in the brain." Levi finished the sentence for Smart. "Isn't that what we want to reach? To put our awareness into the computer."

"I think we have discussed this before, Cross." Rubin stepped in. "We know our goals."

"But we are not reaching them." Levi stood up, as Rubin faced away to look outside and Smart looked to the ceiling, stroking his face out of fatigue. "...Boot it up again." Rubin and Smart both turned to Levi. "I'll be the volunteer."

Minutes passed until Levi was ready for the experiment.

"You ready?" Smart asked as he sat on Levi's place.

"Yeah, let's go." Levi responded. Seconds later, he woke up in a void. The sound of Rubin asking the routine question echoed and Levi wanted to speak up, but couldn't. He could only think, so he thought of yes.

"You are going to see multiple images with questions. Answer them accordingly." Rubin's voice echoed.

The images flashed by. Simple questions, like what's your name and where were you born, alternated with difficult mathematical and physical problems. Levi tried to answer all the questions as good as possible, but suddenly his vision turned dark again.

It didn't stay black for long, as suddenly a huge wave of information skipped through his thoughts, causing Levi's mind to overload with information. Levi felt as being struck by lightning, as everything was flashing by.

However, he felt tranquility when images of a falcon passed by. His thoughts relaxed and it stopped at the image of his family. On that image stood father, mother, son and daughter, all looking happy. The image faded out however, instead replaced by an echoing sound.

"You can't fix them. You can only save others."

Suddenly, Levi's eyes opened. Rubin hung over him, keeping Levi's eyes open with his fingers.

"He's awake." Levi only vaguely heard him.

After coming to senses for a brief minute, Levi sat down straight up.

"So what happened?" He said, while still a little bit grasping for air. Smart looked to Rubin, smirking a bit.

"You're a tough son of a bitch, you know." Smart said. Levi looked a bit confused "You held out for almost 30 seconds after we suppressed your brain activity."

"30 seconds?" Levi questioned that, as it felt he was longer than 30 seconds in the void. "It felt like a few minutes." Rubin nodded.

"That means it wasn't a hoax. What was it like?" Rubin asked.

"Painful." Levi immediately responded. Smart frowned and looked at Rubin, who nodded once again.

"The amount of information your brain had to process must have been to much, as it had access to all the information inside the computer. The amount of impulses must've created the pain sensation." Rubin concluded.

"But then..." Levi paused, but Rubin and Smart both rose their attention. "It became serene." The others looked confused. "I saw... Peregrine."

"What?"

"I saw a falcon. It guided my thoughts." He was going to continue about what he saw, but he swallowed his words. "I must associate the code with the image of a Peregrine falcon." The discovery astonished all 3.

"The code must be working under the influence of the impulses." Rubin said. "If what I think is true, then your code is working, but not as we thought it would..." He walked towards the window, he looked outside.

"What do you think?" Smart asked.

Rubin stared out the window, not immediately responding. Levi and Smart locked eyes, both having no idea what Rubin was thinking about.

"I don't know right now." Rubin hastily threw out of his mouth. "You two take the week off, I gotta meet with an associate." He walked in a straight line out of the room into his office, leaving Smart and Levi behind.

They speculated about it for a few minutes, but nothing made sense anymore. They left Galant more confused than ever before and the whole ride home went by in a blink as Levi was sunken into his thoughts.

He stepped back into his apartment and plopped down into the nearest chair. He was about to fall asleep right away, the whole experience of that day exhausted him. His eyes remained idle looking at the wall, focusing where a small portrait hung. On it was a picture he saw while in the void.

It was a family, looking happy.

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