This choice: Skip Ahead to the Procedure • Go Back...Chapter #6Skip Ahead to the Procedure by: MirAli   The remainder of the week was actually pretty nice, aside from Amelia "accidentally" calling me "Melody" any time our parents weren't around and the fact that Melody's near-constant low-level excitement was a perpetual reminder of what awaited me over the coming weekend. Still, I'd managed to convince myself that things weren't all that bad. After mom and dad's decision, Cassandra and I had spent the rest of the evening together talking it out.
"I really don't want to be a four-year-old," I complained as soon as we were both back in our room.
"Hey, at least you'll still be more mature than Amelia." Cassandra laughed and I managed a bit of a chuckle too. "Besides, when you think about it, this works out better for you too."
"How on earth does trading lives with my baby sister work out better for me?"
Cassie gave me a knowing look, "You realise that Amelia's signed up for cheer-leading camp in a few weeks, right? And that she's been caught at least a half-dozen times with some boy's tongue halfway down her throat?"
I paused for a second there as I finally began to see what the full consequences of swapping with Amelia would have been.
"And then there's the fact that switching with Amelia would mean you'd be jumping right into the fun of having a period..."
I must have looked absolutely stunned because Cassie started laughing again. "Oh come on. They're not that bad. I'm just saying that with Melody there should be less to adjust to. Plus no-one expects a 4-year-old to be all that consistent, so if you start acting all tomboyish no-one will think it's weird."
I'd been forced to admit that Cassie was making sense, and it really did help me to think of things with all those points in mind.
Telling Stephen and Laura had been difficult; neither one believed me and even with mom and dad backing me up it still took the better part of an hour to convince my friends that this was really going to happen. They were as surprised as I was that mom and dad had agreed to let Melody take Amelia's place, but, as I had, they understood the logic behind it, though Stephen did tell me that it would have been nice for Amelia's body to have a non-annoying brain in it. He agreed that he'd earned the punch that his upper arm received as my response.
Anyway, Saturday quickly rolled around and it was time to head over to Larry's lab and get things over with. While Melody didn't seem to care, I really didn't want to have the whole family around for the procedure and dad agreed since Larry had mentioned that it would take a while, so it was just mom, Melody, and me in the car on the way over. Since I was 16 and had my learner's permit, I was driving. I figured that it was the last time I'd be allowed to drive for a long time so I might as well take advantage of it. When we arrived at the lab, I parked and helped mom get Melody out of her booster seat, trying not to think about the fact that I'd be riding home in it, and then the three of us walked into Ambrosia Corporation's reception.
We were greeted almost immediately by Gloria Adams, Dr. Thomas' lab assistant. We'd met her a few times before, but it had been a while and she hadn't been pregnant then. I was surprised that she hadn't taken maternity leave, but quickly decided that she must have stayed on because of Dr. Thomas' recent discovery.
"Hi David. You're doing a really big thing for both your family and for science you know. You should be proud of yourself."
I made a few noncommittal noises and commented that I didn't really see any alternative, in response to which Gloria switched her attention to Melody.
"And you must be Melody," she said, smiling. "I hear you're really excited about this."
"Weawwy ekthited! Imma be gwowed up!" Melody was positively beaming and I tried not to think about how strange my body would seem with Melody's little kid lisp.
"Well then, I suppose we shouldn't waste any time." Gloria grinned and patted Melody on the head affectionately.
"David, you can go straight into the lab and put on a gown. Dr. Thomas wants to talk with Melody a little bit first just to make sure that she's really OK with the procedure. The size of the developmental gap between you two means he wants to gather some additional information before starting. One of the technicians will take some baseline medical readings for you and then I'll bring Melody in once Dr. Thomas has all the information he needs."
I headed into the lab through the indicated doorway while Gloria took Melody into Dr. Thomas' office. The lab itself didn't look very remarkable. As far as I could tell it didn't look much different than the generic operating rooms shown on TV dramas. I figured that I had better just get on with it, so I disrobed and put on the hospital gown that I'd found waiting for me; I'd only just finished when the lab tech came in and took my blood pressure, heart rate, and a blood sample before efficiently leaving again.
Not having any idea how long Dr. Thomas might take with Melody, I settled in on the operating table and pulled out the copy of "Wired" magazine that I'd brought with me to kill the time. It was a good thing that I'd brought it, because it was at least 45 minutes before Gloria, Dr. Thomas, and Melody came into the lab. Melody had also been changed into a hospital gown and Gloria helped her up onto the other table as Dr. Thomas put Melody's clothes down next to mine.
"Hi David. I apologise for the wait, but, as Gloria explained, there's a big developmental gap between you and Melody and I wanted to be sure I was getting as much information as I could. I suppose that you're wondering exactly what's going to happen. Well, this," he held up a small phial from a tray filled with surgical tools, "is NeuroGen. It allows the body to regenerate nerve tissue in a matter of hours. Since the brain is simply a mass of nerve tissue, NeuroGen allows us to connect one person's brain to another person's body. unfortunately, the body develops a resistance after the first use, so the product can only be used once, but this is still a major leap forward for science."
"So you're physically going to swap our brains?" This actually sounded pretty cool; if I weren't the test subject, that is.
"Not the whole brain, no. We tried that in animals and it caused a lot of problems because most of what we do isn't regulated by conscious thought. Without the instinctive responses that come with the non-conscious brain the animal subjects had severe coordination and communication problems. What we've found is that it's best to transfer only the parts of the brain that contain personality, most knowledge, and memories and leave the rest alone. That way instinctive responses like motor skills and language processing stay with the body and prevent the problems we saw in early testing."
I nodded. That made sense. I didn't want to suddenly be completely un-coordinated in Melody's body, nor her in mine really. And since my personality, knowledge, and memory would still be the same at least I wouldn't lose who I was.
"So," Dr. Thomas continued, "are we ready to start?"
"Yeth!" Melody was still clearly excited about being older. I simply nodded.
"Very good then. You two just lay back on the tables and Gloria will administer the anaesthetic."
I laid myself down and Gloria walked over, placing a mask over my nose and mouth. I could hear the faint hissing of gas starting to flow as she asked me to start counting down slowly from ten.
"10...9..." I took a deep breath and blinked slowly as my eyelids got heavy, "8..." I felt like I was floating and it was hard for me to concentrate on what I was supposed to be doing, "sev...uh...se..." And my world went dark and silent.   indicates the next chapter needs to be written. |
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