$250
That’s how much my sane mental state is worth to me, apparently.
About 2 years ago, I was a little low on money. Not dangerously so, but enough where I was looking for a little extra. So, when I saw that a science company called Visiones was offering $250 for “non-dangerous tests & samples”, I almost immediately signed up.
I had to go to a random small building in my city. It’s one I walk past all the time, but never really take any notice of. I occasionally see the doors open and people inside - I think it’s just a generic building for businesses to rent out for a day. It was my first time inside, and it consisted of just 2 rooms. The larger room, that you entered into, was full of chairs. The door I walked through was propped open, and on the opposite wall, was another door, closed. There were only 3 other people sat down. I took a seat, and waited.
I thought I had gotten off pretty well. I expected to be there for at least an hour, probably closer to 2 hours. But after 10 minutes of waiting, the closed door opened, and my name was called. I made my way into the smaller of the 2 rooms.
It felt very medical. There was a desk, with a man sitting behind it, and a woman sat in the corner of the room. Next to the desk was a box with smaller boxes inside. One was labelled “gloves”, and another “syringes”. I didn’t closely look at the other labels before the man spoke to me.
“Please, take a seat. Do you have any questions? Do you need a glass of water? I hope we didn’t keep you waiting too long.”
I sat across from him at this clearly cheap fold-away desk.
Despite the sign-up claiming this to be non-dangerous, I still asked, “Is this going to be dangerous?”
“No, not at all,” the man replied, “that being said, there are a few legal things we need to go over.”
I think the woman saw I looked a little concerned, as she spoke up, “It’s all just boring stuff. Honestly, the law makes everything boring!”
She laughed, and I faintly let out a fake quiet chuckle.
The man looked briefly at something written on paper, and then spoke again. “So, we’re going to be collecting a few skin cells. We’ll give you something to numb the pain, and then use a razor to just collect a small section off of the top layer of your skin. Are you okay with needles?”
“I’m okay with needles… A razor taking off my skin sounds a little harsher, though.”
He smiled, “Please, it’s just the wording. It’ll be from the top of your arm, and frankly, even without the numbing, it wouldn’t hurt a whole lot. With the numbing, you won’t feel a thing. Plus, it’ll heal in days!”
I felt more reassured. “Okay… Is that all the legal stuff?”
“Oh, no, the main thing is that we need your consent for what we’ll be using the skin cells for.”
“And what will that be?”
“We’re experimenting with growing human brains, without using any tissue directly from the brain. We’re seeing how we can use different cells to clone entirely different organs.”
I figured this must be for safer and more common organ transplant surgeries. I wish I had asked what exactly the brains would be used for. Instead, I asked “Sound interesting. So, will it be an exact replica of my brain?”
“Exactly! Well, maybe. Theoretically, yes, it’ll be a brain wired the exact same way as yours. Cloning an organ is usually like taking a blueprint for a computer, and re-building it.”
The woman spoke up now, “Except, in our case, we aren’t taking the exact blueprint for that exact computer. It’s more like we’re taking a different blueprint from the same library, and using it to figure out other blueprints.”
I was a little confused, but confident enough in my understanding.
“I think I get it. Because you’re not using my actual brain cells - You’re using my skin cells to predict what my brain cells are like.”
“He gets it!” the woman said whilst cheering. The man laughed and pretended to celebrate, too. The atmosphere had been lifted greatly, and I was given a contract to sign.
Within 5 minutes, it was over, and I was out, with my money.
Within an hour, I could feel my arm again, and the area of skin they had shaved off only stung a little.
Within a week, it was completely healed. It was as if I had never even been.
After that, months went past. A whole year went past. I hardly ever thought about my time donating those skin cells. Once or twice I told the story to family or friends, and some of them thought it was odd. “How do I know you’re not a clone?” was a joke made all too much.
A year ago. That is when the thoughts began. Thoughts in my head that were not my own. The thing is, these weren’t bad thoughts. They weren’t really anything. They were just thoughts that felt separate from mine, but happening in my own head all the same.
The thoughts weren’t clear. I couldn’t make them out. I could just feel my brain faintly working in the background - A feeling I don’t quite think I could ever describe in such a way that could capture it for anyone else. Focussing on the thoughts didn’t help, it just hurt. It was like trying to listen to a conversation from across the street, with busy traffic between you.
A month went by like this. I didn’t tell anyone. That’s when, for the first time, I could make out one of the thoughts. It was an equation.
“d=√((x₁ – x₂)² + (y₁ – y₂)²)”
I could clearly and vividly imagine the equation. I couldn’t hear it or see it - These were not external hallucinations. These were clearly thoughts in my own head. Foreign thoughts that I could not control.
I was not a numbers guy. I didn’t know much about math or computing at all. Yet, when I looked this up, it was a real formula. It calculates the distance between 2 points. I was convinced that I had never heard this equation in my life, but I calmed myself down. I wasn’t having visions, no, I must have learnt this back in school and it’s gone to the back of my mind.
I was wrong.
As time went on, so did the thoughts. All sorts of math and scientific theories. Ones I had never heard of.
You may have noticed my wording of “I was not a numbers guy.”
Well, that’s because I am now. This constant flow of information integrated itself slowly into my own thoughts. My brain became a container for information, and I was learning so much. I got comfortable with it, and learned to block out all the noise in my thoughts. I learned to be one with the knowledge.
I didn’t question it too much. I know that seems odd, but once it started helping me, I just didn’t care anymore. It felt nice that I had a database of information - Not even at my fingertips, but at the literal synapses of my brain. I am not all-knowing, I am not fed all information about everything ever. But I’m a lot smarter than I used to be.
Then came the voices.
The voices were shocking.
I woke up about 3 months ago, and I could hear the voices of people talking. Only every now and then, it wasn’t constant. But I remember so vividly the first things I heard. 2 people talking.
“I wonder if it’s conscious?”
“Of course it is! It might not understand us yet, but, it’s certainly conscious.”
“I guess we’ll find out how much it understands us when we hook it up completely.”
“The other ones were –”
That last sentence got quieter with each word, and was interrupted by the sound of a door slamming shut.
These voices occurred multiple times a week, usually on a weekday. Saturday and Sunday were rarer, but it happened. It was almost always people talking about vague, cryptic nonsense. Some random sentences I remember are:
“The fourth dimension is gonna be the end of us before we can utilise it, I swear.”
“Do you think anyone in Sonder has figured anything out?”
“We got another one from Beyond Perception, it’s becoming more frequent.”
I’ve been trying to piece all of this together. I can’t. I’m missing too much of the puzzle to even try.
But last week, I got another piece.
I dreamt that I was in a jar, full of water. I couldn’t move or even look around - My vision was fixed in place. But I could see other jars nearby, 3 of them with a brain inside.
After minutes of staring at this, a woman came into my field of view. The same woman who had been sitting in the corner of that skin-cell donation room. This was the first time that it clicked what had happened - I’ve been understanding the thoughts and perceptions of my cloned brain.
The other brain-jars had wires sticking out of them. I couldn’t look up, but I can only assume mine did, too. My best guess is that they cloned my brain and are trying to use it as some sort of computer, to calculate equations and understand the world better than any human. They just didn’t expect some of that information to leak back to the source.
It was around this point that I jolted awake from the shock. I caught my breath, and concentrated. There I was again - Without even dreaming, I was back in that jar. Yet, at the same time, I could see multiple other places. I was viewing so many different perspectives at once, mostly inside of Visiones HQ. It’s like I was inside the camera systems.
I could see a room of people sitting at desks, typing. I could see a small seaside village. I could see a room that was empty, all apart from a table and a tall grey creature stretched out on top. The creature was cut open, with organs spilling out of it that you wouldn’t see in any human or animal.
I can see so much whenever I close my eyes. Every day, it changes. Every day, it’s something horrific. Today, I can see a man, sat on a chair. He’s just sat, whilst there are bodies on the floor around him, inside out. They have no skin. They’re dead.
I cannot contact Visiones. They won’t answer me. I can only see the horrors that go on inside - This company is fucked up.
I want them to unplug the brain. I want them to kill it. I think it’s helping them automate their systems, but that’s my brain. They are using me to run their diabolical research. I don’t care what it does to me, I need them to unplug it. I need them to stop it.
They have no idea that they’re using me. They have no idea that I can see them. They have no idea that I’m in their systems. I try every day to control my other brain, and I feel like I’m getting closer. I’ll take them down from the inside when I can.
Until then, I can only watch.
Until then, I have to accept that I am no longer just myself.
I am Visiones.