I can’t and wont guarantee this kind of update rate. When writing strikes me I will indulge it, when I need to take care of other tasks, there may be a lull. I am after all the father of a 13 month old, and that can take up a lot of time and energy. At any rate, here is the next Multiversal Yarn. Let me know what you think.
Brain-Feed
Arthur Wilson was an Electronic Engineer by trade and a noted inventor. His creations had provided a comfortable life; he often worked from a shop build into the home he shared with his wife Edna. They had a very happy marriage and before long Edna had become pregnant.
As an inventor and creator, the concept of teaming up with his spouse to create a new life was something that fascinated Arthur greatly. He went out of his way to look after his wife and made sure she wanted for nothing during the pregnancy. Any spare time however, was spent busily in his shop creating new products for their child and in time for the mass market of baby products.
When inventing, his attitude was always “I see what you were trying to do there”. He shopped at five stores and analyzed the designs and features of every stroller on the market, then goes home and builds a stroller based on those ideas but takes it to the next level. Some would call the technique “standing on the shoulders of giants” but Arthur didn’t give his competition that much credit.
He repeated this process until the new arrival had a room stocked with prototypes: Crib, Car Seat, Stroller, High Chair, Play Pen, Swing, Activity Table, and a staggering collection of infant and toddler toys. He tested them all rigorously for safety and potential harm and once they received the seal of approval from the new baby, he would hand them over to his media team. Most children cost money to their parents, if even half of Arthur’s ideas took off, the Wilson family would profit greatly from the new child.
The day their son Thomas was born was the happiest day of Arthur Wilson’s life. He and his wife were exhausted but found that when something needed to be done, there was an almost magical source of unending energy to save the day. For 36 hours they had experienced a non-stop rollercoaster of emotion and energy expenditure. Son in hand, they were wheeled over to the “Mother/Baby Care” side of the hospital. After a feeding Edna and Thomas were quick to fall asleep, they had after all done the majority of the work. Arthur’s eyes wouldn’t close; watching his new son sleep entranced him. Arthur rarely slept more than about four hours a night as it was but with something so amazing to look at, how could he sleep now?
Right before his loving eyes, something surprising happened, baby Thomas began to dream. Arthur asked a passing nurse, “Is it normal for a newborn baby to be dreaming?” “Of course Mr. Wilson, babies are people and people dream.” “But what could he be dreaming about? He has two hours of life experience, what could possibly form a complete dream to him?” “It is impossible to know, but I too have found myself to be curious.”
Never tell an engineer that something is impossible, forgoing sleep Arthur pulled out his laptop and began some cursory research. He found out that it may take two years or more before little Thomas can form his thoughts into somewhat coherent sentences. By that time he will surely have forgotten about what he dreamt during his first sleep outside of the womb. Arthur could not accept that.
With Thomas now home and happy, Arthur practically ignored the baby-oriented inventions he had prepared in advance. Having a newborn in the house was a lot of work but Arthur was more that happy to spend every waking moment working with Thomas and in fact studying him. He could not form words but his facial expressions and body language were surprisingly developed, that coupled with the few sounds he was making, could be construed as a form of language.
With a series of Motion-Capture cameras and Stereoscopic microphones Arthur began recording interactions with Thomas. Any other woman would become concerned, but Edna was familiar with Arthur’s obsessions and knew when to step in and when to sit back and appreciate his help with the newborn.
By the time Thomas was a month old, computer banks in Arthur’s office had compiled an extensive gallery of reactions and attempts at communication. It was time to build a device. This was Arthur’s favourite part of the design process. A machine needs to have a certain function yes, but in order to be viable and useful in the mass market it must also look appealing and be adequately mobile. Once he was satisfied with his CAD (Computer Assisted Design) model he sent it to the 3D printer and joined his wife, who was asleep in bed.
The sound of a child crying slowly stirred Arthur Wilson into consciousness, brain coming back online, his eyes suddenly darted open. He perked up, sitting excitedly in bed. “Today is the day!” he couldn’t help but say out loud. Groggily Edna replied, “What is it now?” “The device, I finished it last night, it should be printed by now.” “Yes yes, dear, the device… Wake me in an hour.” “Sleep as long as you like, Thomas and I have work to do.”
At only six weeks old, Arthur had observed Thomas go through almost every detectable human emotion. His dreams were easily the most interesting of all, in his first week alive, Thomas had what could only be perceived as a nightmare. He slept fitfully, brows furrowed, un-developed motor-muscular control trying to worm his way away from, something. That puzzled Thomas the most, what could a one week old infant, having seen nothing except the loving faces of his parents, possibly have a nightmare about?
Baby in hand Arthur rushed down to his shop and looked in awe at the device that had been printed for him. It was more beautiful that he could have imagined. What you see in CAD doesn’t always look the same once it has been printed and you get your hands on it. He couldn’t wait to hear from his son but he knew he had to run some quick safety checks or he would never hear the end of it from his wife.
Checks finished, he turned to six week old, little Thomas and pointed the still un-named device at him. “Please take a moment dear son, and really think about your situation. What do you feel right now?” Arthur only now realized that direct pointed questions might not work. Presumably we would be able to hear the child through this device but that doesn’t give the child any greater grasp of human English. Frustrated at his own stupidity Arthur turned away only to hear a single robotic word echo from out of the device: “Hungry”. “I didn’t feed you yet, did I? I’m sorry little Thomas. Let’s go get you a baba!”
Months down the road, the device was proving itself to be useful, Thomas could make simple thoughts heard. He seemed proud to be able to tell his parents to change his diaper or bring him milk. Arthur shipped off a press kit for this invention calling it the “Infant-Cite” as well as a drastically redesigned stroller, car seat, crib, bassinet, high chair and rocker chair. His production and media team were ecstatic and went right to work bringing the new products to the mass market.
With money rolling in from these new inventions, you would think Arthur would be happy to simply spend time with his wife and son. Then you don’t know engineers very well. “I still don’t know what he dreams about.” he said distractedly to Edna. “Maybe we weren’t meant to know dear” “What are you? New!? You know I can’t leave it at that. We can hear his most basic desires but we can’t ask him any questions, because he doesn’t yet perceive language.” “Well, maybe, create something that doesn’t rely on being able to ask questions, something that can merely observe what their mind sees directly.” Arthur’s eyes were suddenly very serious, the thousand-yard stare glossed over and he became very silent. “I know that face, go play in your little shop, I will look after Thomas.”
Without a word Arthur left the room, he doubled back for a brief moment, “You’re a genius dear, I love you and thank you. I have much to do.” His research this time around was based on mind-controlled video games. New headsets were able to sense brain activity in certain areas and allow people to control the movement of a character or vehicle in a game. It didn’t seem like that much of a leap from there to getting a video feed of someone’s mental images, such as dreams. This invention however, was something he would need help with. He was going to need a real team of scientists this time.
He called his media team, “I need some Neuro-People.” “What, pray-tell is a Neuro-Person?” “You know, a Neuroscientist and a… Neurosurgeon and a… Neonatal Neurologist… Neuro-People. Get me four or five of them and rent me a lab in the same building as a electronic engineering shop.” “Do we even want to know what you’re building now?” “What do I always say about that?” Arthur chastised. “I know, I know “Don’t ask questions that you don’t want the answer to.”” “good man, get me my team and a place to work”.
One year and a lot of R&D money later, Arthur Wilson and his team had created a device so powerful, they weren’t sure if it should be put in the hands of John Q Public. The placeholder name for the product was “Brain-Feed”, the idea being to tap a feed off the brain itself and actually see what people are thinking.
Edna was now once again pregnant, this time due to have a girl and Arthur couldn’t be happier. To his wife he was happy because another child will grow their family. Internally he couldn’t be happier as he needed someone close to him to test the Brain-Feed. The team of “Neuro-People” kept telling him how important this device will be for the field of medicine, it will help discover the roots of migraine headaches and countless mental disorders. All he really cared about was solving the supposed impossibility of knowing what newborns dreamt about.
When his daughter Olivia was born, Arthur did everything he could to care for his wife and look after the needs of the new child. Once she was asleep, and clearly dreaming he pulled the brain-feed out of his bag. Fitting the sensor to the head of his tiny newborn daughter, he donned the headset consisting of two little screens fitted into a pair of snowboarding goggles and a simple pair of headphones. Nothing could have prepared him for what he saw.
The system came online and he thought there may have been a malfunction, as all he could see was darkness. Once his eyes adjusted, stars could be seen but he didn’t recognized any of the constellations or patterns. He fancied himself an amateur astronomer but nothing about this sky looked familiar. He had no ability to look down or pan around, as he was just seeing a repeat of what young Olivia was dreaming. Taking stock of her surroundings, Olivia now looked around, within her dream. Father and daughter found themselves in a great city formed of towering black stone obelisks and pyramid-like buildings. The architecture seemed to incorporate flowing streams of a liquid, which would be described as water, except that it glowed an eerie green.
This city was not only expansive but also wholly alien to Arthur’s eyes. The stone material itself, the sheer size of the obelisks and the glowing green, oozy water all spoke of a place not on this earth. The only thing this city seemed to be missing was people. Spaces that could only be described as streets, in this cyclopean city, were all deserted. Turning to look out over an expanse of cityscape from a nearby vista, the reason for the empty streets became clear. Vast elongated ships flew low over the city scattering some form of laser fire across the ground, clearly targeting people. The ships’ shimmering mirror-like surfaces, offered a strange sort of camouflage against the night sky.
A much smaller ship rose up to their lookout and spotted Olivia standing on the ledge. As the ship came ever closer, Olivia’s reflection could be made out on the hull of the ship. It wasn’t the Olivia that he now knows; it was a grey/green gelatinous plasmid form with no discernible features. The ship paused just feet away and then fired at Olivia. As it did, Olivia stirred and woke with a fitful cry.
Taking off the Brain-Feed, Arthur brought baby Olivia to her mother for a feeding. Seating himself, he tried to process what he had just witnessed. No part of it made sense. How could a child, who isn’t even a day old, think up a complex science fiction dream?
Feeding over, he changed baby Olivia, put her back to bed and kissed his wife. Turning back he saw that Olivia had already fallen into yet another dream, this one caused her to visibly squirm and pull away as best she could. He couldn’t help his curiosity, so once again, the Brain-Feed was called into action.
The dream started in pitch-blackness once again, as shapes started to form the stars of the previous dream were absent. The darkness persisted but it wasn’t still, there was movement happening but Arthur couldn’t make out what was happening. A green ectoplasm moved rapidly from the left, its movement could only be described as swimming. Purple was next then red, these objects or creatures were swimming from behind Olivia, their path darting around her. She started to swim along with them and built up speed. Swimming up as she went, Arthur could soon see the surface of the black murky fluid. Cresting the surface there appeared an all-together different world than that of the previous dream.
A blood red sky was visible through cracks in the brickwork of a towering cathedral. Long spire-like columns held a vast ceiling aloft. The flow of the churning dark waters kept them moving inexorably in a slow spiral within what seemed to be a well of souls. Around the well there were eight distinct figures. There was an anthropomorphic lizard of some kind, a grey/green plasmid from the previous dream, a cyborg, a stereotypical little green alien with an oversized head, a gas cloud, a stone golem, a dragon and what appeared to be a human.
They were spaced evenly, hovering around the well of souls. The cyborg lifted his hand and a soul was plucked out of the well, it floated up and in a flash, vanished. The little green alien was next, then the golem. They seemed to take it in turn to pluck a soul from the well and cause it to vanish somehow. Once the dragon had chosen, it fell to the human to draft a worthy soul from the well. Olivia was chosen, as the viewpoint slowly rose, Arthur tried to see a little more around the room and then poof, plunged into blackness once again.
He could now hear a muffled version of his own voice. The eerie part is he could actually remember saying the phrases he was hearing. He talked about how safe she was and how much he was looking forward to meeting her. He explained that he was her father and that she was very safe. This are all things he had said, quite regularly, to his wife’s pregnant belly, looking to reassure the child within.
Removing the Brain-Feed, what he had seen slowly dawned on him. This device should not be handed to every parent as the Infant-Cite had been. The Brain-Feed was far too powerful. Philosophers and Theologians spoke and debated at great length about what happens after we die. There was surprisingly little information about what happens before we are born. The age-old concept of reincarnation seems to have some merit but if this dream is to be believed, reincarnation is not limited to just earth’s creatures.
If the dream is any indication, there are at least eight great civilizations that tap into that one well of souls, but that creates more questions than answers. Are there other wells out there? Who are these other seven civilizations? How was that human chosen and how did he get there? Does he only draft souls to become human or does his selection cover the souls of all animals on earth? What happened in that vast city where Olivia’s last incarnation was killed?
The Brain-Feed earned its place as one of the great developments of modern medical science. Leaps and bounds were made in the study of schizophrenia and other mental disorders. Giving psychiatrists the ability to see the vision that there patients were plagued with, which helped to understand the disease and pioneer cures. Migraine sufferers profited greatly from the new information provided to the worlds “Neuro-People”.
Arthur Wilson never again used a Brain-Feed. He was listening to his own advice, “Don’t ask a question that you don’t want the answer to”. He loved his daughter unconditionally but there was that odd time where he caught a certain glint in her eye, or knowing look… in those times she made his skin crawl and the hairs on his neck stand up.
We forget much of our formative years, so that begs the question.
How far into our lives do we remember our last one?
Drew Torchia
Multiversal Yarns 