Dear God.

It was just another test run. Must be number three hundred and some by now. I had lost count months ago. Three years of building, six months of testing. And still not a single mind had been uploaded to the computer. Even the post transfer analysis (done by the second fastest and most powerful AI computer in them World) had failed to reveal why.

Why couldn’t we upload the entire mind of a volunteer. (Okay, granted all our volunteers are deceased, but still their minds should have contained all their memories, experiences, and thoughts.) Some of them transferred only minutes after being declared: “Brain dead.” According to the Quantum Wizards, it should have worked. It didn’t. What were we missing?

And then…it happened.

*****

Darlene looked a bit nervous. I had to admit I would have been too. She lay on the cold slab with wires attached to every part of her head. Dr. Mika and Dr. Storz had told her that the machine would just “read” her mind, take all of the activity and upload it to a memory bank in Harold. (Harold is what we all called the Super Computer with the most advanced AI ever designed living inside it) Harold had told her itself that she would retain all of her memories …that this was nothing more than an exotic EEG.

“Just ones and zeroes” my Dear” Said Harold.

Still we did give her a little jab of anesthetic to relax her. It worked. She smiled a “not quite here anymore” smile, as we slid her into the machine. When the board was green, Dr. Mika tripped the sequence to upload. I just happened to be standing next to the Machine when it tripped. I dropped my clipboard almost immediately.

I guess I screamed. I must have. Because one of the Techies slammed the “abort” button, two others rushed to grab me as I pin balled in confusion, bouncing off of the machine, a table, and a wall before they finally caught me. I fell to my knees. They cradled me. I heard Dr. Mika say:

“What is going on? The Abort button should have stopped the transference.”

It did. But only to the AI.

My brain got it all.

I fainted.

*****

Three long years pass. Three…long….years.

*****

Of the seventy or so known “Doubles”, I was the first. I am also the only one still sane. I apologize to ever Lab Rat, Monkey, or bacteria ever studied. For three long years I have been the benchmark. The first successful uploading of a “person” to storage. The only real problem is, I was already stored there when Darlene came in and took up all the remaining space in my mind.

Say hello to me, as how I am doing, and you have to stare in amazement as you get two very different answers. One from me…a male named Linus. And…one from HER…a female named Darlene. And it gets worse. For Darlene is still alive…and every new experience she has…I share. It doesn’t matter that she has moved to the woods of Northern Maine …and I am stuck here at the University.

If she is hungry, I am hungry…even though I am not. She can’t feel the things I do, or think. But every thought of hers is instantly placed in my memory banks. The Quantum Gurus call it Super Position. I call it a bit of a chore…in what has to be the understatement of the year. I am glad that my thoughts don’t rebound in her head. I am not sure she would appreciate the echoes of her own orgasm spewed back at her after being filtered through the experience of a male brain.

And when she is on her period…well, let’s just say I don’t have the pathways to process that. Not that the prying minds of myriads of Shrinks haven’t wanted to probe that experience, or pry it out of me. I will tell you that my respect for women and their tolerance of us males has gone way up. She doesn’t know I share her experiences, or I don’t think she would be making out with Tommy while driving anymore.

And the hangovers. I wish I could send those back to her…a bit of schadenfreude would be wonderful.

She is always surprised when she visits (just once a year to check up on her mental health and see if she has any unusual thoughts. Ha!). She is surprised that I know everything that has happened to her. That I know exactly what to say to her to make her feel better. She told me once:

“You are like my Twin, but better.”

Yeah. For her. For me…it is hell.

I am living two lives in my mind, and only one with my body. I had to learn to keep my body …mine. For those first few months, I would suddenly jump up and have to use the bathroom. Not because I had to pee…but because Darlene drank to much. Or I would stop my daily run because Darlene was tired out from her spinning Class. A class I didn’t go to.

“You have to compartmentalize, Linus. Take control of your mind.”

Yeah, easy for the Docs to say. You try to keep someone life out of your head. I did learn though. That is why I am still here at the University. How did I learn to do that? I really don’t know. All of the other volunteers have gone insane. All of them but me. I guess they couldn’t compartmentalize. At least after me, every attempt at transferring a human mind - in toto- has been with the same sex. Male brains and female brains do not readily adapt to each other. Mine and Darlene’s sure didn’t.

Three years I have lived with this “Double Mind- One Body” …it is getting old. Oh sure, the Science is exciting. We now know that you can’t stuff a human mind and life into a Silicon Chamber. No matter how smart, fast, or capable the AI is…it can’t support organic thoughts. The Quantum people think it has something to do with a field we can’t detect.

I laugh. I know what that Field is. It is my soul. Now it is mine and Darlene’s soul. Darlene, the lucky girl, only has her own soul. I have both.

And then…I felt it.

I screamed.

I felt like my soul was torn from my body. Ripped out. Shredded. It was the greatest sense of loss I have ever felt. It put me in a coma from shock.

When I woke up…almost a week later…surrounded by the entire Staff of the Transference Experiment…all of them with worried, sad, or pitiful expressions crowded around my bed.

“What happened?”

“Darlene committed suicide.”

“Oh, Dear God.”

“It will be okay, Linus. She just was in a lot of pain after her Divorce. She made a stupid decision.”

I couldn’t talk through the tears. I don’t think they understood me. I know they didn’t.

I did not say: “Oh,God,” as a response to her suicide. I said it because of who she was standing in front of:

Dear God.