Out-of-Body Experience

My body had failed but my brain still had so much more to accomplish. That’s why I’m in this predicament now. It has been 157 years since I’ve seen another human being. Not that I could consider myself human anymore.

It used to be different. I was surrounded by people when I was younger. My parents would take my brothers and I on educational road trips every summer vacation. We would go to museums, national parks, or historical sites where I would be absolutely mesmerized by everything there was to learn.

Even though I was a girl and the youngest child, my brothers and I had a very close relationship. They would always be patient as I asked a thousand questions about why electrons flowed from negative to positive or why fuel needed to have a precise mixture with air, or how the computer knew how many times the servo motor turned. I always wanted to know more about everything, so it was no surprise when I wanted to go to college for engineering. I was top of my high school class and excelled at the SATs, so with many scholarship opportunities and the support of my parents, I was able to attend MIT.

That’s where I met Sally. We had several classes together, became lab partners, best friends, and eventually something more than that. At first, I was afraid to tell my parents about my relationship with Sally, not knowing what they might say. But I found the courage to bring her home for Christmas break and broke the news that we had wanted to share our lives together. My family was ecstatic. The summer after graduation we were married in my parents’ backyard.

Life was good. I had a career researching cyborgization and had many technological breakthroughs in transhumanism specifically with a brain-computer interface or BCI system that paired the human brain with an AI to seamlessly allow humans to integrate with their artificial organs or appendages.

Sally and I were in love. We always made time for each other even though we both had demanding careers. We also made time to go on trips with my parents, brothers, nieces and nephews every summer like I did as a child.

Then came the news that I was sick. I had been getting weak and soon found it difficult to walk more than a block or two. The doctors told me I had a rare disease that caused my muscles to deteriorate rapidly. I was confined to a wheelchair only three months after my diagnosis. My life expectancy was five to seven years before my heart and lungs would give out.

I was on the verge of a breakthrough with my research which my own body, or should I say mind, would make the perfect test subject. The human brain needs energy to thrive. Normally that energy is glucose or sometimes ketones. My team had developed a power source that produces a mix of both that could fuel the brain almost indefinitely.

This fuel cell coupled with cybernetic limbs, artificial sensors for vision, hearing, and touch, and the latest BCI that coupled a human brain with an AI that ran all the systems behind the scenes would allow my team to literally implant my brain into a synthetic chassis to create a true cyborg.

I had been laying in a hospital bed for weeks gasping for breath as my team made the final preparations of the chassis. Sally was incredibly supportive and stayed by my bedside holding my hand for hours every day until the team was ready for the exchange. It sounded weird, but I was literally exchanging my used up human body for a brand-new state of the art titanium and graphite humanoid shaped Ferrari.

I was so weak I don’t remember any part of that day. Sally told me later that I barely survived the procedure. It was only for the heroics of my team that made this first ever attempt successful.

My next memory was darkness, followed by sensations in my appendages, the sound of hushed voices, and then suddenly, I could see bright lights. Sally was there. She leaned her face over mine, smiled, and said, “Hello there.”

I could see her face. Every single detail on her face, I could hear the words she said perfectly. I could feel her breath against my face and her hand on my arm. It all felt real but also amplified. I don’t know if it was because my body had been failing for so long or because the new sensors were picking up every bit of light, sound, and physical energy produced by Sally.

I was confined to the procedure room for just a couple of days for testing, sampling of my cerebrospinal fluid, and calibration of my sensors. Everything was working as planned. The onboard fuel cell worked with artificial organs to produce the correct mixture of glucose and ketones that supplied my brain with energy and then removed and recycled the waste from the cells in a completely closed system. My brain was completely enclosed in a bullet-proof, shock resistant titanium vessel shaped similar to a human skull. Gyroscopes allowed me to first stand without losing my balance and then walk without assistance and would eventually allow me to run like the wind.

My artificial body was humanoid in form but most of the metal and composite construction was exposed. My face though was reconstructed to look like my actual human face with soft synthetic skin. Sally would say to me, “Even though the outside is metal on the inside it is still you.” It was awkward at first to hold her hand or hug her, but I learned to be as natural as I could. I wasn’t long though before I could sense her pulling away from my hugs or letting go of my hand sooner than she used to.

Sally said my body was too cold and rigid. She missed how we used to just cuddle on the coach late at night watching movies. She said my artificial lips could not kiss passionately. We started to drift apart and eventually separated. I missed her terribly, but I could also understand. I went into this transformation knowing I would barely be human coming out of it.

So that’s when I got lost in my work instead. I couldn’t bring myself to show my parents what I had become and only occasionally talked to them on the phone. My excuse for not visiting was always that I had so many projects going on and my team needed me there. That was partially true. We were on the breakthrough of a synthetic cerebrospinal fluid that would stop the brain cells from aging. Again, I was the test subject.

Then I got the call from Mom that Dad had passed. I couldn’t shed a tear. I didn’t have tears. That hollow feeling in your gut and heart when you lose someone was also missing. My mind thought of Dad, but I could no longer grieve like a human could. Nor could I bear to show my nonhuman self to my family, so I didn’t go to the funeral. I called my mom a month later and we didn’t really know what to say to each other. So, I waited another two months and then six months between calls.

The last call to her was on Christmas Eve. I told her I was sorry I had grown so distant, and I missed how things used to be. She told me that she felt like she was talking to a ghost whenever I called. She said the ‘real me’ had died years ago but she didn’t realize it at the time and therefore never grieved over me. I didn’t know what to say. I was a ghost to her. That was the last time we ever spoke.

When my brothers called to tell me Mom died, it was the first time I’d spoken to them in over ten years. There wasn’t any catching up or ‘Hi, how are you doing?’. It was just a two-minute call. That was the last time I spoke to them.

Time was different for me. I didn’t see my reflection often but any time I did, it hadn’t changed at all since this new synthetic body became my abode. There may have been some upgrades to materials or slight design modifications, but I didn’t age. The members of my research team came and went. They retired or took new jobs, and young graduates took their places, but I no longer learned anything about them except their name.

Sally came to see me in the lab once. When she walked in, I didn’t even recognize her at first. She had short gray hair, wrinkles on her face, and her voice sounded old and frail. She was eighty-seven years old. If my artificial face could show a look of surprise, it would have. Sally and I sat in the conference room and talked for a couple of hours. She told me how she got remarried. This time to a man named Jesse and they had three children together. She now has seven grandchildren and spends her time knitting prayer shawls with her church group.

I was genuinely happy for her and told her so. I told her about my parents and how I didn’t go to their funerals. How I hadn’t seen my brothers or nieces and nephews in decades and that I had no idea what they were even doing now. As I told her this, she cried. She wasn’t crying for herself, but rather she was crying for me. For me because I was no longer human and couldn’t cry myself. That was the last time we ever saw each other.

It wasn’t long after Sally’s visit that the Great Pandemic hit. Scientist determined that this previously unknown virus came to Earth on a meteor that had struck in Mongolia. The alien virus spread quickly. Researchers raced to find a vaccine. My team and I even worked on an artificial white blood cell that could target the virus, but in the end it was futile. Within 2 years nearly ever person on Earth was dead. There may have been a few pockets of survivors that stayed in their underground bunkers until the danger passed.

The only thing was that the danger never passed. The virus spread to every living creature on the planet. There were no more plants, animals, or fungi. There were no more food chains. That meant there could be no more pockets of survivors. Not unless they were still underground living off their stock of canned goods and bottled water.

It has been 157 years since my remaining team members gave up on our research and left the lab to go home and die with their loved ones. I have not seen a single living human since then. I now wander the deserted streets of Boston hoping someone or something survived but there have never been any signs. I knew there were also other cyborgs that had been created using my team’s technology, but to my knowledge all of them had a reliance on some biological aspect of their original body which the virus would attack and then find a way into the brain.

My brain had no biological connection outside of its container therefore I was impervious to the virus. The unlimited power of my fuel cell and the synthetic cerebrospinal fluid meant my brain would basically live forever. All my systems operated automatically by the on-board AI. The AI followed my commands for the most part. I would think about walking, and I would walk or think about grabbing an object, and I would grab it. But if I were to try and rip out my fuel cell or step off a bridge, the AI would override me.

I tried several times to trick it. I would walk by an open window on the 10th floor and stop to look over the city and quickly try to fall forward but the AI would stop me every time. Now it’s on to me and seems to be predicting when I would try to end my miserable lonely existence.

For a while there were still a few rodents running around that must have built an immunity to the virus until a later mutation finally wiped them out. I decided to make a rat-sized chassis so I could swap one of their brains into. I figured I could create my own immortal pet or companion to spend eternity with. I attempted two such procedures. The first rat died during the procedure. The second one survived until the next day. I couldn’t find any more rats after that.

That second attempt gave me some hope though, so I built a human sized chassis just in case. Many of the parts were on a shelf in the lab and I had nothing but time. I would keep expanding my search further out away from the city to find a survivor. I wanted to find someone on this earth other than my miserable self. I finished that chassis 132 years ago. It’s still sitting there in the lab.

Lately I just walk. Not really looking for anything but just walking. Sometimes I walk to the beach and sit on the dunes of the cape looking out over the Atlantic Ocean. It’s odd watching the gentle waves roll in but not hearing the screech of a gull or seeing the scurrying of a crab along the sand. I wonder if the ocean smells differently now too. I don’t have a sense of smell in a traditional human sort of way. My sensors detect and analyze the different molecules and compounds in the air which the AI then gives me the read out of the results.

That is another reason I have given up on finding another living organism. I could sense the organic compounds in the air for a long time after the pandemic, but each year the number of organics would decrease until finally I could no longer detect any organic compounds. Everything on earth was dead and rotted away.

I took a ‘sniff’ now to sample the air. Organic Compounds: 7 ppm, the AI relayed the results through the BCI.

What? I have not had a reading above zero in over fifty years. I got up and walked to the shoreline. The AI would let me walk into the surf up to my knees but no further. I scanned the clear water as I walked along the shoreline. I heard a splash. There just ahead, I saw a flash of light under the water. I looked again in the same area and then I saw it, a small fish about six inches long. The ocean was alive!

My mind raced. If the ocean was alive then any humans that may have survived could only have done so with the help of sustenance from the ocean. I knew some people boarded ships and boats to try to get away from the virus. I’ve seen too many wrecked boats along the shoreline to think that any could have survived. But what if some did. What if some secluded island was unaffected by the virus and housed a breeding population of people. People that could still be out there, restarting civilization.

I just stood and stared out over the ocean. If there was a population of humans, they most likely didn’t have the means or desire to come back to the mainland. I would have to go to them. There were many abandoned boats all around Boston, the problem is they are so old, rusted, or out of fuel that they would not be seaworthy anymore.

I pondered on this for a while. My only hope was a sailboat that had been tucked away in dry storage. I would have to get one of those large forklifts running to get it to the water and then do some repairs, find ropes that weren’t rotted out, and learn to sail, but hey, I’ve got nothing but time.