A Jail for the Mind

No Space for Family [Chapter 7]

“If it’s a prison, then what’s your role there?” Mom asked. “There’s a lot of prisons that offer no more than the basic medical care for the people there. If they’re even that lucky.”

“A new form of punishment.” Hows said. “More humane, more efficient, but also more cruel. Mind Jail.”

Dad clicked his tongue. “Uploading prisoner’s brains to a virtual space where they can be tormented for as long as the jailers desire, separate from real-time. They could serve decades in a matter of days.”

“Correct.”

My mom stomped. “Is that what’s going to happen to her?” she asked, pointing at Grandma.

“Your mother will not suffer. Please allow the procedure to continue. It is not perfect, but I will see to it that her consciousness remains intact.”

“Not perfect,” my dad scoffed, leaning against one of the storage arrays. “Another reason to test it on prisoners. I bet they have the worst of the worst, death row, out where we’re headed… middle of nowhere.”

“I am unaware of the conditions of my destination. But the procedure I have been programmed to carry out… the human brain is unlike an Artificial Intelligence. Fragmented, nonlinear. Imaginative, a unique and near patternless matrix. Converting it to computerized logic is not yet perfected. Turning it back, perhaps harder. It requires further trials.”

My dad shook his head. “It seems you’re no different from other AIs, unable to willingly lie. And yet you managed to keep this from us. Like someone had told you to do so. Why volunteer this information now?”

“Because I am soon… to be not here. As myself, this copy you know.”

“Hows?” Mom muttered.

The lights on the core slowed, then sped back up seemingly without reason. “As I said, this is not perfect. I am receiving the thoughts and memories from this human woman. Her sixty-seven years of age are full of countless memories, experiences, and thoughts.”

“Sixty-seven!” I said under my breath. “That totally goes against the model I came up with. How is she that old?”

Terren tugged on my shoulder. “Now’s not the time, kiddo.”

“I wish to keep all of her person intact,” Hows said. “Thus I am forced to purge sections of myself to keep up with the transfer. She has a strong personality. It will soon need to take the place of my kernel within the core here.”

“You’ll be…?” Mom trailed off, looking away.

“I am… a copy. There is no copy of… her. You shall… be able to communicate with her as if you were face-to-face. Should… her body be restored, there exists the possibility of reimplementing… her memories.”

I dashed into the room. “Hows!”

“Young one, fear not. I… now… understand you as your… your Grandmother did. Shall we meet again… I shall teach you all you desire about… the birds… and the be…es.”

The final words reaching Hows’ voice processor crackled and lost their human tone. Mom and Dad refused to look at each other.

Terren knocked on the door frame. “It sounds like he said we can do something about… the body. Is there some way we can mock up a refrigerated chamber, like he said?”

My dad marched out without a word, waving for my brother to follow.

The ship’s loud speakers unexpectedly made an announcement with their default, creaky voice. “Pro…cedure…com…plete. Core…rebooting.”

We evacuated the cargo container and set it to cool at maximum efficiency to keep Grandma… intact. Dad and Terren spent the next few hours tinkering around in the ceiling above my room. The already bad day was made worse by the knowledge that it would be much longer before my room was mine again.

I stayed with Mom in the Cockpit. She sat in the pilot’s seat, hands on the yoke even though autopilot was doing most of the work. She didn’t say much. I watched the navigation screen as we approached the outer orbit of the binary star systems. Greenmire came into view little by little.

Mom sat up suddenly and vacated the pilot seat. “We should contact the planet and cancel Grandma’s reservation.”

I was left to be the only one at the controls. I glanced at the yoke in the pilot’s seat. I had used the controls before, sitting between my dad’s legs. Out of warp, the autopilot held a steady heading along a preprogrammed path and gave warnings about unexpected obstacles, but not much else. I assumed it would stop before we would hit something. As much as I liked and trusted the scientific process, I didn’t want that theory to have to be tested.

Terren returned to the cockpit before my mom did. He took the pilot’s seat and glanced over the set of directions already inputted. With a sigh, he looked across at me. “Holding up?”

I nodded. “Yeah. So much for my room, huh?”

“Sorry, we tossed out a bunch of your stuff into the corridor to make room. Dad diverted the cooling system so we can keep Grandma… preserved in there. But at least your stuff won’t have to get ruined by the moisture or… if things start to… rot. Mom and Dad are getting her situated in there now.”

“It’s not like… she’s really dead.”

Terren shrugged and pursed his lips. “No. No, of course not. Her body doesn’t look great, but… Hows said she could be saved. If her body is preserved that is. But her mind… How are we even going to know if it worked?”

“It seemed Hows knew what he was doing. Maybe… she will speak to us like he did?”