“Tell me how it started, Doctor Frost,” she said, leaning close.
“It was the winter of ’57 when I first opened my new eyes and saw the world as it really is.” I replied. The garlic on her breath irritated but I would not give her the satisfaction of knowing my objections. “Of course, I would not have been able to process the wealth of visual inputs I then had, but for the expanded processing capacity I’d installed two years previously.”
“But why go so far?”
I decided I hated her face.
“My obsession with bio-cybernetic prosthesis had reached the level of a compulsion,” I said. Doctors are prone to this kind of addiction, but usually medics, not surgeons. “Which is why I kept on doing it.”
“And why did you start doing it?” She glanced over her spectacles. Smug, I thought. She thinks she knows all the answers.
“Because I’m a sick bunny. I had a progressive neurological condition, which means bit by bit my body was shutting down.”
“My heart and lungs were first. They reached the point where malfunction was likely rather than possible, so I just did it.”
“Then my limbs and other internal organs. Each replaced by a better version. With each iteration of replacement, I had to add electronic control capacity: a computerised brain. My nervous system was broken, so it too was a necessity rather than just desirable.” I replied. “I confess, I wanted it, though. Designing my mind-computer interface was, I’m proud to say, a work of genius. My genius. When I turned it on and my consciousness flooded into its silicon home, I was astounded at how my thought processes sped up, and the depth of complexity I had. I was like a god.”
“And what happened next?”
“As November progressed, my eyesight started failing, and I realised I had to take another step to rid myself of the old meat,” I said. Poets say eyes are the windows of the soul, but I knew by then I was soulless. So, I did it without hesitation. “A surgeon without eyes is of no use to anyone.”
“And when did the dreams start?”
“It was about then, when I replaced my eyes. I found my remaining biological component, my brain, was turning over more thought processing to my cybernetic implants. Brain scans confirmed this. But because of my accelerated perception, the short days of winter seemed very long indeed, and most of my time was spent waiting for things to happen. So, I daydreamed: long, strange thoughts of burning skies.”
“I see, go on.”
“By December, my meat-brain atrophied, so I decided to dispose of it completely. It wasn’t as if I needed it anymore. I didn’t feel different afterwards.” I paused. This is where it got confused, which is odd for a cybernetic mind. “I was still me, but now I dreamed of death.”
“Your death?”
“No, everybody. And that’s when I woke, and everyone was screaming.”
