A Cleansed Mind

It was a white room, with a white ceiling, a white floor, and three white walls. The room, almost as long and as wide as a football field, was filled with mainstream computers. Hundreds of cream-coated individuals swarmed around them, and whsipered urgently over the purring of the computers. One woman detached herself from one of the computers and walked briskly towards the fourth wall, gripping her clipboard in her right hand. The fourth wall was what is known as a two-way mirror. a door appeared in the middle of it, and she stepped through. She held her breath as she walked through the miniscule Decontamination Unit, then braced herself. After the DU, she found herself in an average hospital room. A youngish boy lay unconscious on a small hospital cot. His feet stuck slightly off. Watching every twitch of his eyelids was a man. He appeared old, with iron-gray hair and ever-so-stooped shoulders. He did not turn as she entered the room. " We're done, sir." the woman said nervously. " He slowly turned towards her, looking confused. " We're done." He repeated it softly. " Done." His face began to brighten, then it fell again. " Which part?" " The overall conversion to electric signals, sir, but if i may say so, much of the work is already over. People said it could never be done, but already it's taken only 50 years." " When will it be completely done?" She hesitated, then answered. " Electricity to recognizable bits of information, 20-40, Sorting, 20-40, Deletion, 10-20." " That long..." the man said in an emotionless voice. " I'm sorry sir." " How long will it probably take, overall?" " The rest of the process?" "Yes." " Anywhere from 50 to 100 years."
" How old are you?" The question surprised her. " Only about 19 or 20. I'm more of an intern, really..." " Can you take over when I die?" Speechlessness, on her part. " May you?" No words would come out. " Well, take that as a command, anyways. You can go now." She left, but before she began the DU, she turned back. The man was kneeling next to the boy, head supported by the boy's arm. A tear dripped from his face and stained the blanket. The woman finished up with the DU, then yelled over the whispering. " It nears completion. Only 50 years left." Silence. Then cheers. " But we must work for every minute of those 50 years. Not a minute wasted!" Cheers again. The woman left that room and leaned against the doorway leading to it. There, she cried. Cried for the old man's dream that he might never get to see to completion. And cried for the boy, who missed out on decades while he slept in a chemically-induced sleep, waiting for completion.