"So how does this work?" Jason asks.
It is a big lab with lots of people and machinery. It is a real lab and not one of those mad scientist labs you read about in fiction. Most of the machines are computers calculating out different formulas. There is a small table with a bowl of fruit on it. Next to it is a booth seven feet tall and three feet by three feet. The interior of the booth is covered by sensors and special lasers called digitizers. A few feet away is an identical booth. Between the booths is a computer station where Paul, Ben and Jason are talking.
Paul says, "You put something like an apple in one of these booths. It doesn't matter which booth. The booth digitizes it. Then the computer sends the apple to whichever booth you tell it too and recreates the apple."
Ben says, "There are so many ways that could go wrong. Has it been tested thoroughly?"
Paul says, "Thoroughly, we've followed standard scientific procedures and then we sat around brainstorming to think of anything outside of standard procedures we should test for."
Ben asks, "So how do you know it's the same apple?"
Paul says, "We trained some monkeys to do random tricks that no other monkey was ever trained to do. We sent them through the digitizer and they came out still knowing their uniquely taught trick but not knowing tricks they hadn't been taught. Even the monkeys memories made it through the digitizer. Their personality, their habits, every detail made it through the digitizer intact without alteration."
Jason asks, "So we can create identical copies of those monkeys?"
Paul says, "Unfortunately, no. We've tried but the copies came out dead. We've tested that over and over again. Some things we can make copies of such as apples, flies, and snails. We've already got a team looking into using this technology to mass produce food and that's going well. There does seem to be limits on how many copies can be made and the more complicated the item, the fewer copies can be made successfully, but we haven't figured out the nature of the limit. So far, every mammal makes it through the digitizer but cannot be copied."
Jason says, "So we can only go through the digitizer once. That would not make a good system for teleportation."
Paul says, "You can go through as often as you like. We sent one monkey through twenty times each day and so far, there's been no limit. The monkey comes out exactly as it went in with no ill health effects. We just can't make living copies and we are baffled as to why. Only the first copy sent to the digitizer lives. All other copies are perfect copies with no reason for death but they're dead anyway."
They set up a demonstration. They put the bowl of fruit in the digitizer and digitize it.
Paul says, "Now here's the fun part. While the fruit is digitized, we can play with it. We can make the apple bigger than all the other fruit."
Jason asks, "Will it come out the same apple?"
Paul explains, "There are limits. We can play with it all we want digitally but most changes will automatically revert to normal before coming back out into the real world. We can make the digitized apple humongous but when it comes back to the real world, it will still be within the size limits of real world apples. That seems to be the primary limit on what kind of alterations we can do. We took a monkey and switched it's arms and legs but it came out normal with arms and legs where they are supposed to be. So other than minor modifications, this cannot be used as a transformation device in the real world. However, while digitized, there are no limits. We can even pixelate."
Paul types and the apple turns into a two dimensional apple made of twenty pixels.
Ben asks, "And that will still come out as an edible apple?"
"Absolutely."
Jason asks, "And you're ready for human testing."
"We are. We're going to start out slow. The first test will be simply to send one of you straight through. We don't want to leave you digitized for any length of time until we know the preliminary tests are successful."
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