Chapter 3 #2
"Like many races, we all have multiple pathways to learning, but one that is very effective for Brick and all his people is guessing correctly.
Something about their people and a fruit they lived off of quite heavily but had a narrow window of being ripe.
It provides an intense dopamine hit when they guess correctly.
The kind of response that would make gambling dangerously addictive.
In fact, though the grogax are one of the prominent members of the federation and push very few changes, one of the things they are deeply against"—she nodded at the advertisements, which were now flickering away from gambling content toward other passersby, most of whom seemed to be doing a decent job of ignoring them—"is the exploitation of their own people. "
"Well, at least I can get behind that. Could we solve some of this by notifying the grogax?" I asked, finding myself particularly disliking the flashy advertisement and growing irritable just standing near it.
Melgara chuckled as we continued walking at a slower pace toward the restaurant.
"Unlikely they'd do anything. After all, this is kikai space, and they've been rather cross with the other races for some time. Any interference from the federation is unlikely to go particularly well. No, I think the chance of getting any assistance from one of the governments is slim. This place is practically a lawless zone if they’re willing to do something like that.
We'll just have to do our best to avoid them and make sure Brick isn't put under any undue influence. "
I understood. This was something that the federation, particularly the grogax, would slap down hard. Since that wasn’t happening and they felt comfortable trying to exploit Brick with the gambling ads, that meant the federation laws held no power. But then the question was, which laws did?
"You seem to know quite a bit about how brains work," I said, staring at Melgara and once again finding myself curious about exactly what it was she used to do before she had joined the crew.
"Yes. I've largely worked with brains in my past. Fixing up captains who have a knack for catching blaster bolts wasn't exactly my specialty until very recently," she told me.
"I suppose I deserved that one. Well, give me an example of what that means.
" I chuckled and scratched the back of my head as we very slowly made our way towards the restaurant.
Lily had been torn between catching up to Brick and keeping me in eyesight.
The result was she now stood by the door, watching me through the crowd.
Melgara hummed, and I figured she’d continue to hide it, but she nodded as if thinking of something. "Fair enough," she answered. "I've worked on a number of projects, though one of my main ones was called Project Immortality."
Words like that were intense enough to get anyone's interest. "Well, at least in human history, immortality has always been something people sought after. There are plenty of myths and dreams of living forever. So, how exactly were people trying to become immortal now?" I asked.
"I suppose that makes sense. But it was an ill-fitting name for the project," she said.
I raised an eyebrow.
"Rather than immortality, it should be considered generating multiple lives. Being reborn time and time again." She tilted her head as she chose her words.
"Oh?" I said curiously. A small something tickled in the back of my head. After all, this was, in a very real way, my second life.
"It might sound fanciful," she said, "but essentially, we incubated bodies while strategically altering the brains so that they matched the scans we obtained from a living person. You could induce the memories of a prior brain if precise enough."
"You just… what? Create clones?" I asked.
"They were rarely genetic clones of the original. Often they were technically children of the person wanting to live another life. Of course, with 95% or more of the original body's memories." She nodded.
I wondered if the way I swallowed after hearing that was as loud to her as it was in my own ears. "I assume it requires fairly controlled conditions," I said after a moment.
"Oh, yes." Melgara nodded. "To make those modifications, the specimens were kept in suspended animation until they were needed. In fact, the clients who purchased and maintained such clones often recycled them, abandoning them if they went outside a very small age range."
"Could something like that happen outside of a laboratory setting?" I asked, doing my best to give no indication of what I was thinking. Putting memories into another body? Well, that would be one way to explain my current situation.