“Good afternoon, Mr. Porter.” His eyes opened slowly as his vision returned. The bright lights of the hospital room made him squint until his pupils adjusted.
“Response to the light, excellent.” A man in a lab coat was standing outside the corner of his eye. His hands worked a pen on his clipboard.
“Where…”
“Begin testing his pain reflexes. Just relax, Mr. Porter. We’ll have you up and around in no time.” A stabbing pain started in his left side and shot through his body. He tried to move away or cover the spot of impact. His hands were bound to the table. A rush of panic washed over him.
“Relax. Just a couple more things, and you’ll be on your way.” A searing pain in the bottom of his foot made him try to pull it away. He let out a scream as it continued for another moment. No words left his mouth as he tried to speak. His breathing was too intense to allow for coherent speech.
“That’s all for that, I promise. The nurses will finish up here in a moment.” The doctor’s hand rested on Mr. Porter’s shoulder. He looked over to see the doctor smile and make more notes. Neither that grin nor the doctor’s words did anything to calm him.
“Where am I?” He managed to put a sentence together now that his breathing was on the path to recovery.
“That…” The doctor looked up as he put the pen to his chin. “I first have to ask, do you want memories implanted into you or not?” Mr. Porter’s face contorted at this question.
“What do you mean?”
“You had signed some documents, a while ago, stating that you wanted your mind essentially backed up in the case that anything happened to you. This was completed. At the time that you signed the documents and after we saved, well, you, the technology didn’t exist to imprint or upload your mind.” The doctor leaned in and pressed on Mr. Porter’s bare arm. His finger pressed on Port’s chest and then to the spot of the stabbing pain. He jotted down a few more notes on his clipboard.
“We now have the ability to restore you and give you a body. This is based on images of your past self. Do you want to see?” All he could do was nod. The doctor walked out of his vision. He reentered, pulling a mirror that hung from the ceiling. Porter looked up and down his mostly nude body.
“That’s me.”
“It’s you. Just how you used to look. We have come a long way. This brings me to my original question. It has been a while since you have been in limbo. Roughly 200 years. The best way to describe where you are is that you would have known it by the name Miami, Florida. What it comes down to is we can either let you experience the world for yourself and catch up by absorbing the information and changes on your own, or we can upload memories and history. It is a quick and painless option if you choose. There will be memories that aren’t yours, but it’s the quickest way to answer any questions you have. If you wish to learn on your own, there’s a village that helps with reintegrating people such as yourself…
“Wait, how can you do that?”
“Do what?” The doctor looked at Porter with a look of confusion. He had apparently felt the information was clear enough to be understood.
“The memories. How can you, give them to me?”
The doctor smiled.
“I guess I did skip that part, Mr. Porter. You’re an android.”