Day 10 - Brain Box

‘Hello Mr Alabi; how can I help you today?’

Bloody daft question that; how does he think he can help me. ‘I’d like to understand what this is all about? How it works?’

‘Well, Darren. You don’t mind if I call you Darren do you?’

‘No, you’re fine’

‘Good.  Well, here at brain box we specialise in assisting people to move beyond the physical restrictions of their bodies and provide them with an opportunity for immortality.’

‘I get that, but how does it actually work’

‘Once you’ve gone through the vetting process and signed the appropriate disclaimers and contracts, paid your fee’s, established your trust fund for the future. We simply put you to sleep, remove your brain and put it into one of our brain boxes.’

‘No. I get that I’ve read the brochure; I’ve read the T&C’s all of that.  How do you actually box the brain? What is a brain able to do once it is boxed.’

‘Oh.’ The doctor lifts a clear glass box onto the table. It looks a lot like a fish tank, just it’s not.  It does not have sharp edges, or corners, so seamless is the box it is hard to see how you would put anything into it. The doctor runs his hand down one corner and the lid makes a faint click and then lifts slowly.

‘All right, how it works is we take one of these brain boxes into the surgery, it is filled with some warm ambionic water. As you would know the human body is 70% water so this is central.  See here at the base’ pointing the doctor shows what looks like a snowflake engraving in the base of the box.

‘When we remove your brain we also take a couple of inches of your Spinal cord ensuring that the brain stem remains intact.  This is actually critical to ensuring that your brain is transferred in the healthiest way possible.’

‘Ok I get it you take the brain and stick it in a box of water, how exactly does that give you a chance at immortality.’

‘Well as I was saying that pattern, the one here in the bottom of the box that looks like a snowflake etched into the glass. Our patented spinal binding technology meshes with your spinal cord.’

‘How’

‘Well remember that movie back in the 90’s called avatar? The blue people and how they could mesh their ponytails with the animals’

‘You mean the Na’vi?’

‘Yes that’s them, I think that is what they were called. Well, the founders of brain box took some inspiration from that movie and created the spinal binder.  It is this binding with the spinal cord that allows you to do all sorts of things.  It forms your communications channels with the outside world.’

‘What sort of things? Really?’

‘Darren, before we continue, can I please ask; are you here to satiate a curiosity, or are you really considering our services?’

‘I am seriously considering your services?’

‘Can I ask why?’

‘Why do people normally take up your services?’

‘For all sorts of reasons. Some are terminally ill and want to escape the pain of their bodies. Other’s well their corporate investment. There have been a few ultraistic types, doctors, mathematicians, scientist’s, even artists and creatives.’

‘What, no suicides?  No criminals? Anything like that?’

‘No Darren, we will actively screen people before we let them undertake this procedure’

‘Why?’

‘Well, once we connect you the spinal binder it is very hard for us to know what you are doing.  You see the spinal binder basically connects you to the world in every way.  Ever since the evolution of the internet of things, telepresence technology, AI Bots and more a brain in a box can do a lot of things, and the challenge we have is once your brain is plugged into the brain array we cannot tell what you are doing so we want to protect the organisation by making sure we don’t have any megalomaniacs boxed up and connected.’

‘ok. So you are saying I can access the internet of things once I am in a box. So this would mean if someone out there has a drone accessible to the internet I could fly it?’

‘Yes that and more. In fact this is one of the reasons that we ensure your trust is set up correctly before you go into the brain box. You see if your trust is set-up correctly you can continue to spend money on services you may need.’

‘Seriously.’

‘Yes. One of our customers is hiking the inca trail as we speak through the use of a Boston Dynamic’s robot.’

‘How do they see?’

‘Well that’s the trick of the spinal binder. Mr. Alabi how about I set-up a consultation for you in the next week or so and I can organize for all of your questions to be answered.’

‘Yes Please.  This Thursday if at all possible would be good. Can you tell me how much this cost and how long to transition from this life into a box?’

‘Mr Alabi, please, all good answers in good time.’