James didn't know what to do. After arriving at home he directly went to his study, a small room, now lit by moonlight, that was falling through a single window. This had been a happy room with lots of good memories, but today it just felt empty. Sad. Or was that him?
He sat down in his chair, a present from his wife, Elisa, for his 40th birthday. She had just left them and James hadn't been able to recover from the loss yet. He didn't feel like eating or doing anything. He was just tired. Soooo tired.
"What would you do if you were in my position, my dear?"
First his wife and now his son as well. The first had already left him and the other one would. Soon at that. And he couldn't do anything about it!
"Oh God... Oh gooooood!! How do I deserve this... how do I deserve this? What have I done wrong to lose the only two people in my life that mattered to me?" he screamed at the walls, while grabbing a book from his table and throwing it at them.
He thought back to the last time when they had all been together, the two boys running around in the garden, Elisa smilingly watching them play. What a beautiful summer day it had been. Blue sky as far as the eyes could reach, the sun caressing their faces, like a warm loving touch... It had all been good and the world was okay. The birds had been singing their songs and a soft breeze had been caressing the faces.
Tears started to run down his face as he remembered and he let them. He cried until he fell asleep.
The next day James was woken by sunrays, falling through the window and penetrating his eyelids. He had forgotten to pull down his window blinds. "Damn" he cursed while sitting up, groaning. "What time is it?"
The clock on his table answered his question. It was 5:32 a.m. "Ah... shit!" James cursed while looking around the room. "I won't be able to sleep anymore now anyways" he sighed and stood up. Still worn out from the last night, he scuffed into the kitchen, aiming for the coffee machine to brew some new one.
The kitchen was a big room on the left side of the house, James had bought for his family.
It was very well-lit due to the giant glass front, spanning across the side of the house and when James entered the room, the light stung his eyes, which were still red and dry from last night's events. He was forced to stop for a minute before continuing on his way.
Directly in front of the glass front was the family's dinner table. Many good evenings had been spent here with rounds of people sticking their heads together, playing card games and enjoying their conversations. It all seemed like a distant memory to James now.
In the middle of the room was a big kitchen isle, where they had cooked together many times when Elisa had still been with them. Nowadays it rarely had any use. Finally, James had reached his destination. He readied the machine and started it.
Sitting down at the table, while he was waiting for his coffee to finish, he took out his smartphone to check the news. Nothing special. A robbery here, rising prices there. The weather was going to be good this week. A new book about the possibilities of artificial intelligence, or AI, would be coming out soon. He looked at its description.
"AI's and how we use them" it read. 'Just another book about the current use cases and the last optimizations that were made over the past year' James thought, anger bubbling up. 'I've read enough of them already. Can't it be some book that could help my son?'. He grabbed his coffee that was finished by now and stomped back to his study.
There his first point of action was to sink back into his chair and start his computer.
It was one of the high-end models. With a purring sound, it instantly was online and ready to go.
James opened the web browser. [ MS treatment methods ], he typed into the search bar.
He read through a few useless articles and tried again. [ MS treatment studies ]. Now, that looked more promising! Or did it? Nah, never mind...
He continued until late in the evening, but no results. At this point, he knew all about the disease, the possible states it could take, the average remaining time of the prospects and the newest study results. However, he had found nothing that could help his son.
He sat straight and yawned while stretching his arms into the air. He was tired and hungry. 'Currently a permanent condition...' James thought. He hadn't drunk, eaten or taken a break the whole day long. His eyes had reddened even more, after spending all this time behind his PC and he had to rub them. He wanted to cry again, but there were no tears left.
He glared at the wallpaper of his desktop. It was a fan-made artwork, depicting three characters of one of the games he had created. They were standing on a wide plain, discussing their battle strategy aggressively.
"If only Daniel could be one of them... with a strong and healthy body in a world full of fantastical creatures and adventures". 'Oh yes, he'd love that...' James thought after speaking the first part out loud.
When he had been small, Daniel had always appeared to enjoy the games James made. Whenever he was to test one, he got so excited, that he couldn't sit still until he had been fully absorbed in its world, competing with other players for the top spots on the leaderboards.
'Would you like to be part of a video game Daniel?' James wondered, laughing out loud shortly after. "Haha, part of a video game... what am I thinking. Where am I? In a fantasy novel?". The words still in the air, James slowly widened his eyes, a spark of excitement in them. He had an idea!
James' only goal was to be able to prolong the life of his son. A completely fresh start should count, right?
James turned to his monitor once again, which had gone dark in the meantime. He clicked on his mouse two times and it glowed up. He hurriedly opened the web browser.
[ Studies of how to transfer the human mind ]
Daniel's problem was his body, not his mind. So why not transfer it?
"We have VR technology nowadays! Directly transmitting signals into the brain and directing its thoughts to believe in an imaginary world, like a dream, is a thing! So there has to be some way to transfer the informations of the brain as a whole into a prepared data structure like a game!"
A few hours of endless searching ran by, gnawing on the limits of James' body. He felt dizzy, exhausted and cold, but finally, his efforts paid off. With the little sleep he had gotten, he seriously felt the mental drain and exertion whenever he had to read even a single word.
"Yes! YES! Here it is. The newest study and results of an experiment to transfer the mind as a network of electronic signals into a technical alternative from the human body."
With his spirits rising up instantly, he flew over the text as if there was no tomorrow.
"The prospect, a human male, 68 years old, an IQ of 90 and serious heart issues…
Overall positive feedback… Little issues with the transfer…" James read, going faster and faster.
"However, due to brain overload caused by the new environment, the patient collapsed and the experiment had to be concluded".
James looked up. It was 4 am and the sun was rising. The first sun rays were already falling through his window, tinting the room in a nice warm colour and lighting a spark of hope inside him.
There was a chance and that was all he needed!
"Due to brain overload caused by the new environment, hm?" What did that even mean? Of course, the brain was adapted to the human body and it didn't have one in a software program, only mimicking the functions of the human body. Maybe not even that.
He decided he knew too little about the technology they wanted to use, to transfer the mind. He looked up the company that had conducted the experiment online and found it on the first hit.
There had been a lot of criticism about ethical conduct lately, questioning the general approach of imprisoning a human in a box of plastic and metal. The process appeared to be ongoing and a lot of open questions regarding the topic were unanswered. James didn't care. A few clicks were all that was separating him from finding the address, telephone number and e-mail of the company in the impressum.
Now, he only needed to get in contact with them. He stood up, grabbed a few slices of toast and a bottle of water from the kitchen on his way out for breakfast, and was off to see for himself if he had found a valid method to preserve his son's life.