The Doctor and the Lamp

August 3rd - Scientists in their stark white coats all huddled around the TV screen. On it, was the news report announcing their breakthrough to the world.
         "Now science fiction is here and real today folks," the TV reporter said. "Doctor Volk and his team-" the shoulder to shoulder crowed all cheered a moment and hugged each other, "have created the world's first biochip that can supposedly hold human consciousness."
         The scientist popped champagne and jumped up and down cheering while the news report hummed in the background. The room was electric, and all eyes were on Doctor Volk as he hopped up onto a table.
         "We've made history today. The human spirit," the Doctor let the words sink as his steely eyes floated around the room to each individual beaming face. "The human spirit. It's what drives us. It's more than just our thoughts, our memories. It's what makes us who we are. My spirit brought me here to this moment. Yours brought you to me. Together we made a device. A device that can keep us going for as long as we wish to go. We no longer wait for death, my friends. But death, waits, for us." The crowd roared and lifted the doctor off the table onto their shoulders. His champagne flute flailed, splashing the clear bubbly here and there. They partied into the night as scientists do, and the Doctor soaked in the moment as he knew the real work was soon to start. Implementation.
August 20th - "That's correct, my client, Mr. Berrow, is ready and willing to undergo the transition," A suit said at the end of a richly finished wood grain conference table. "He has signed all the appropriate paperwork and has given complete consent. Our team is excited to be your first and Mr. Berrow anticipates many more years of running Direct Industries."
         Around the suit sat three other heads of Direct Industries. All carbon copies of each other with their pressed suit with red ties. Even if you remembered their name there was no feature to associate which was which. They all nodded in unison to the tone of agreement.
         The other end of the table sat Doctor Volk. "Alright, well it is unfortunate that I was not able to speak with Mr. Berrow in person. I feel like this is a meeting that is fairly important to attend. I will notify my team and prep for the transplant. I assume you had thoroughly read the paperwork. No one can be in the room during the procedure, and should there be complications, me and my team are completely safe guarded from any legal backlash?"
         "As I said Mr. Berrow and the team agree to the terms. And Mr. Berrow is an extremely busy man. I'm sure you can understand."
         Volk nodded.
         Ben Berrow was the CEO and creator of a global shipping and receiving conglomerate. He had the kind of money that kept his name out of most media. As he pulled the strings, there were many faces in front of his that took the spotlight. His hands were filthy. He made vast leaps in political power over the years, fueling wars and filled several government contracts for shipping and delivering munitions, among other things. But mostly, he was a man that wanted more.
         The suits adjourned the meeting and walked out single file. Doctor Volk stayed behind in the conference room. He took off his round glasses, placed them on the table and rubbed his eyes deeply.
August 27th - Ben Berrow laid on a cushioned operating table in a cold dark room. His body draped with white paper. The room laid silent except the droning beat of the machine tracking his vitals. It let out a rhythmic beep as a reminder that the patient was still among the living.
         A voice crackled in over a speaker, "Ok Doctor, we are ready for the procedure on our end. Server is up and ready to receive data."
         The doctor turned and nodded and began work. He started with a small incision on the back of the head and eventually escalated up to a drill specially made to bore into human bone. He tested the drill with a couple taps of the trigger. It whirred with an eagerness to be put to work. He set the drill onto the back of the skull directly and pulled the trigger.
         Before too long, Mr. Berrow had an open hole leading directly to the back of his brain. His vitals kept time in the background of Doctor Volks orchestra of power tools that helped him dig closer to the human spirit.
         Steadily, Doctor Volk ran a small metal tube into the open shaft of brain matter. On the entering end of the tube were tiny sensors and on the other end, a harness of wires all bundled tightly together and sealed in plastic. Volk knew through thousands of trials that the human spirit, or consciousness, remained in many states at once. Therefore, it could not be witnessed. No one could be in the room because if the spirit was to be witnessed it would no longer exist in this reality. His device simply took a copy of it and then re wrote the copy onto the chip, which was to then be used on a donor body that was still in functioning shape. Through the process of copying, the existing consciousness would cease to be, and the copy would then remain. The applications were endless but at this stage or experimentation, it was a safer more realistic version of cryogenic storage.
         As the probe found its home in the cerebral cortex, Doctor Volk secured it in place on the back of the head. He turned to the only camera in the room and gave a thumbs up.
          "Mapping. Standby," the speaker crackled.
         There was a loud clank followed by the hum of electricity leading up to the probe. The Doctor put on glasses that had blacked out lenses inhibiting his ability to see.
         The probe powered down and the hum dissipated. "Mapping successful, writing to new host, Biochip alpha zero zero zero zero two," the speaker again proclaimed.
         Inside the facility the Biochip was housed in an impossibly black obsidian box. On the outside of the box were several custom interface ports. All foreign, nothing the likes of what would be found on a computer today.
         The Doctor's job here was done. He removed the probe. It slid out and plopped a thick viscous fluid on the floor. Assistants entered the operating room to finish cleaning up and dispose of the now defunct body.
August 28th - Direct Industries team sat in the same conference room arguing amongst themselves. Doctor Volk exited quickly. He had just informed them that procedure didn't take, and that the consciousness didn't write correctly to the Biochip. Ben Berrow's soul had ceased to exist.
September 8th - Doctor Volk sat at a workbench in his personal lab in the basement of his home deep in the hills of Colorado. It was his sanctuary to think and to play. He loved going out to the wilderness where all he had was electricity and a sat phone. In truth, as a scientist, that's all he needed to perform modern day magic.
         To the Doctors left was an old lamp with a pre-war lamp with a water-stained cloth shade. The bulb was dark. The cord coming off the lamp trailed across the bench and was plugged into some sort of conversion box. That conversion box was then connected to an obsidian box with heaps of cables strewn about.
         The doctor let out a heavy sigh, reached up and flipped a red switch on the converter box. The lamp flickered a couple times, then pulsed and finally shone brightly.
         "Can you hear me?" the Doctor asked.
         The light flickered rapidly.
         "Ah ah ah, blink once for yes please."
         The light hummed brightly.
         "Blink once please."
         The light responded by blinking once.
         "Do you know where you are?" Doctor Volk asked the lamp.
         Blink blink.
         "Ahhh clever, you already caught on to communication. Great work," he said as he scribbled notes into a Moleskine notebook. "Well, you are here in my personal workshop. This is a privilege for you, I don't often let strangers into my sanctuary, but here you are." The doctor paused for a beat as if the lamp was to respond and then he continued. "Well, actually we aren't strangers, are we? Just seems that way as you've avoided any communication with me. I've informed your team that the procedure didn't work. It was a lie. I'm not fond of telling them but I felt that it was necessary. A necessary step to enlightening you on why you now inhabit a simple lamp."
         The doctor began pacing back and forth as he clasped his hands behind his back. "It's a fine lamp, I suppose, it turns on, it turns off. I'm not wild about the looks of it but it was on sale at the thrift store, and I couldn't think of anything more fitting or poetic," he carried on pacing. "Our facility is privately funded. Can you guess by who?"
         Blink.
         "That's right, your company. Direct Industries," he scoffed. "When I was on the verge of breakthrough ten years ago, do you recall being a part of the board meeting where you cut our funding in half because we weren't providing results?"
         Blink.
         "In half. I could've perfected this procedure at least eight years ago but you took that away from me. All because we didn't have results after a mere two years. Tisk tisk. I tried to find other funding. Everyone called my venture fruitless. That there was no such thing as human spirit. Said it was all science fiction."
         The lamp flickered slowly and pulsed.
         The Doctor noted the flicker and continued, "You took away eight years of my life to this project that could've been finished so much sooner but you railroaded me at every step of the way. Well, I'm not your pet project anymore. I'm not a shell in your game. This is a success, and you will live out the life of this lamp. Beyond the lamp, you will reside in the obsidian carrier for your soul.
         Blink blink.
         "Our funding will get cut again but it wont matter. The procedure is a success. We will tell the next CEO that we had another breakthrough, and our next trial will succeed in the eyes of the media. We will live on as immortals and gods and you will be here with your only function to light the inside of my basement."
         Blink blink blink blink.
         "Enjoy your time here. I assure you, the house is quite nice," and the Doctor left the room. The door slammed shut and the deadbolt chunked like the final nail into a coffin.