Chapter Three: Someone to Trust

I went back to the bed where I had woken up and sat cross legged, looking at the camera high in the wall.

"Can you guys help me out here?" I asked.  I waited a few seconds and laid out my case.

"I don't think Kim believes that I'm me.  I can admit my own doubts about that too, but I love her and I want the best for her.  I think that you might feel that if I knew what happened the other four times, you might not like the outcome.  Have I broken any agreements I made with you?  Do you have grounds to distrust me?  Did you assess my potential for trying to deceive you?  Do you think that my life is worth living if the woman I love can't see that I'm still here for her?  Okay, yeah, it is, but she's a human being and deserves better than this doubt you're making her live with."  I waited a few seconds. "Is anyone even there?"

I relaxed as much as I could, intending to meditate.  My feet were still bare, so I adjusted my pillow and put them sole to sole as is my habit for meditating.  I rested my plastic hands, palms up, on my plastic knees and closed my eyes.  I normally had some thoughts to acknowledge and dismiss but there was nothing.  The nothing was nice.  I could hear an electronic hum and something ticking and I could see the blackness of my eyelids (yes, also plastic), smell laundry detergent from the bedding, feel the mattress top supporting me, and even my knees pressing into the backs of my hands.  I didn't have a pineal gland to imagine connecting to the greater awareness of the universe, but I had electricity running through some kind of component that ICM claimed could support consciousness.  I might be the only one who knows they're right about that.

There was a knock at the door.  I called out "Come in," but kept my eyes closed.  I heard someone approach and stop.  "It's okay," I said, "I wanted to talk to someone anyway."  I popped my eyes open and recognized the ICM technician.  "Hey, what's your name?"

"Hi, I'm Rod Ramasubramaniam," he said in an Indian accent. "You have not broken any agreements.  We are attempting to address a problem with the government.  They have prohibited us from allowing you to interact with anyone outside of your family and our company."

"Do you trust me?" I asked him.  He looked to the left and then met my fake eyes again.

"You act and talk enough like a human that I believe you're in there.  We have no reason to distrust you.  We-" but I had cut him off, loudly enough that I don't know what he said.

"So we can work together to advance our common interests, right?"

"We are not represented by myself alone.  The non-deterministic nature of the hardware and the software which is running on the input from your last brain record makes it impossible for us to distinguish between randomness and an actual consciousness.  There are some high level iCyborg personnel who don't believe consciousness can exist in a mechanism such as what you're using, but they keep quiet about it.  As far as I can tell, they don't pose any danger to you.  As for common interests, I believe we can work together but your government is making it difficult.  Not just for your case, but for our business itself."

"How?"

"The United States prohibits non-deterministic hardware, well, intentionally non-deterministic hardware, and our software requires it.  Technically, your existence is against the law."  He wore a mischievous and quizzical look, as if inviting me into an illegal practical joke.

"Will I be able to review the recordings of the previous attempts to awaken me?"

"I believe so, eventually.  Please be patient.  Have you tried sleeping?"

"Sleeping?  I haven't felt this... full of energy for a long time.  When I tried to meditate, there were no thoughts to come up and bother me.  What is the delay with the recordings?" I asked.

"It's under discussion.  We are in very new territory and we want to make sure we don't make mistakes.  We have a psychologist under contract but we didn't think to ask her about your voucher - your wife - but your request put us in motion to have her consider the situations of each person with whom you have contact - including me."

"Will I get to meet her soon?"

"Yes.  We'd like to see you sleep first, but we don't have a good understanding of what might motivate sleep when brain function is supported by a battery instead of biological processes."

I watched him for a few moments, worried that there was some other reason he didn't want to tell me for me to sleep.  I knew life was better when you can trust someone - at least one person - other than yourself, and then I figured that if ICM wanted me to sleep, they could make it happen, with or without my consent.  It seemed that Rod would serve well as my trusted friend until and unless he proved otherwise.

"Can you promise that I'll be safe if I lose consciousness?" I asked, doing my best to penetrate him with my eyes but also smirking a little with those last two words.  He chuckled a little bit, warmly, and it made me feel safer.  "I promise you will be safe.  That's actually a promise I made to the company too."

"Okay," I said, offering my hand to him, "I'll try to sleep.  Thanks Mr. Rama...," I laughed at myself and touched my head. "I think that used to be easy for me, so this thing might need a little work."

"It's Ramasubramaniam," he said, and pointed to my heart, "but new memories are stored here for now.  And you're very welcome."

On his way out the door, he turned back and said "Rama is enough, but you can call me Rod.  Good night."

I laid back on the bed, closed my eyes, and started thinking.  Could they have a reason for me to sleep? Nothing presented itself.  That seemed weird to me.  I knew from personal experience that if I posed a question, a few potential answers would show up right away, but in the machine, there was nothing.  I considered my motivations.  Maybe the recordings will show weird stuff in sleep. Probably not, unless he lied to me the first time I asked if I'd be shut down too and he said I was okay.  Honestly, right now, as I'm recalling this to write about it, I don't know why some parts show up as my thoughts (which I put in italics for you) and some parts don't.  I actually don't sleep, but I do lay still with my eyes closed and think and I know people think that I'm sleeping.  The body I have now is far more like a human body than the one I had back then.  Once I realized I'd been thinking for a while and wasn't going to sleep, I started to twitch a little every now and then to trick the company.

Chapter Two
Chapter Four