Laura received a call from Millie Anderson two days after her last talk with Stilwathe. Whenever TransitionLabs took on a new client, a transition coordinator like her became the point of contact for them, helping them through every step from initial consultancy to medical and estate arrangements. Coordinators were the first person clients consulted with, and they’d be the last, going so far as greeting them in the virtual world—something all transition coordinators could do, since they themselves were virtualized.
Another job of a coordinator was to assign a content creator to make the client’s domain and avatar. Millie frequently hand-picked Laura, even when Laura was already overburdened. Every coordinator had a shortlist of designers they preferred, and as far as Laura could tell, she was on all of them. Her design work made the coordinators look good, so they got better commissions. She only wished those commissions trickled down to her, yet after seven years, she was paid only marginally better than the Fillers—hundreds of inexperiences content creators whose skills were put toward filling out tedious domain details, like brick featuring.
Technically, four creators were on Stilwathe’s project, but they were always Fair Employment types—government-mandated non-guild hires that were difficult to fire. Technically, she was one. It meant she was always stuck working with others instead of with guild-trained artisans. She used to try assigning parts of the project to the other group members, perhaps making trees in a forest no one would ever see. These days she knew better than to involve them at all, but that did make Laura Millie’s single point of contact to the design team.
She answered. It brought her into a conference between Millie and Dr. Sankar. They were mid-conversation, and neither greeted her. On her interface, they took up Laura’s left and right screen, leaving her center unused—a telltale sign that they were expecting a client to join. They always get center screen.
Laura waited for a lull in the conversation. “Hi, guys.”
Millie replied. “Stilwathe will be here soon.”
“Is there a meeting? I don’t have anything on my schedule.”
“I added you now because I want to get him to sign off on everything today. Your work on Stilwathe’s domain is done, right?”
“It is. I was working on something else right now.”
“You can get back to that after this call.”
“I… okay.” Her other work was for clients as well, but not Millie’s clients.
Millie and Sankar kept chatting. They complained about how Stilwathe was late, but he always was. He’d told Laura in one of their many talks about how his life was perpetually twenty minutes behind schedule. Laura kept that to herself.
Soon, Sankar switched to casually working. Millie did the same. When Laura followed suit, neither made a fuss.
Stilwathe popped onto the screen moments later, and the three scrambled to be presentable.
He looked at the employees spread before him on his tri-screen. When he noticed Laura, his eyes lit. She was his favorite thing about TransitionLabs; that was a snuggly feeling, even if it did cost her extra meetings.
“Welcome, Mr. Stilwathe,” Millie said.
“Sorry if I’m a tad late.”
“Not a problem. Let’s get right into it. We’re all set for your transition this coming Thursday.”
He startled. “So soon? I though this took weeks of preparation.”
“It has, sir. You contacted us five weeks ago. Our team has been working to get everything ready. The content creators on your case have finished all your assets. Your jar has arrived, and it’s been inspected. We’ve done all the preliminary work.”
“Huh. I guess time goes by, doesn’t it? I didn’t realize it had been so long.”
“Indeed, sir. I’ll have some final points to run by you to set your affairs in order.”
“My affairs? I’m not dying.”
“No, but you will need to figure out what you’ll do with all your physical belongings.”
“I’m taking care of that,” he said impatiently. “I’m still going to have most of my assets. I understand I’ll still legally be myself, just without a physical presence.”
“But assets such as your house—”
“Will go to my children. I’ve taken care of everything. I’m just… Thursday? This has really snuck up on me.”
“We can postpone as long as you need.”
“No, no. That’s fine.”
“If you do want to, let us know. Otherwise I’ll talk with you separately about how to prepare. With us today are Dr. Sankar, your assigned surgeon, and Ms. Méndez, whom you’ve already met. They both need you to sign off on certain aspects of your coming transition. Dr. Sankar, would you like to start?”
“Sure. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Stilwathe.”
“Yes, good day.”
“I’ll be the one performing your surgery. I’ve already reviewed your medical history, and everything looks in order. You’ll be getting a full one-to-one spinal nerve mapping along with a neural webbing.”
“You’re doing the surgery?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Correct me if I’m wrong, young man, but you look as though you’re virtualized yourself, are you not?”
“I am virtualized. I’ll be performing your surgery through delegation?”
“I thought that sort of tech was only used by the army?”
“No, sir. TransitionLabs has been using state-of-the-art delegate droids for its operations for nearly three years now.”
“And it’s safe?”
“Absolutely. More so, actually. Delegate surgery has a much lower risk of complication.”
“…which was already very low?”
“Very low, sir. However, I need to walk through the procedure with you step by step.”
“That’s not necessary.”
“I’m afraid it’s Federal law. It will only take a few minutes.”
“Then very well.”
“The operation is a periphectomy. After general anethsesia, we’ll be performing an incision into your neck to bypass both your carotid arteries and jugular veins. Your brain and body will be hooked up to an external source of BloodFeed.” Sankar threw a few images onto the screen shared between him and Stilwathe. All were innocent diagrams.
Frowning, Stilwathe leaned to study them.
“After that,” the doctor continued. “We’ll start on your back. Our first incision by the neck will allow us to install a temporary nerve hookup to intercept and replace your autonomic functions. It’s not strictly necessary. If your heart goes into arrhythmia during the operation, it won’t hurt you, but the brain tends to go into panic mode, which could result in complications.” He tossed up two more images. Another diagram showed the nerve rerouting. The other was a real-life photo of this operation. A nodule the width of a pen was burrowed into the nerve bundle along the exposed spine of a patient.
“Right…” Stilwathe grimaced.
“Then we get to the meat and potatoes of the operations. We open your skull with an incision along the Coronal Suture.” He indicated a diagram which traced a line from the ear, over the head, to the other ear. “Skullcap comes off, and we continue the incision down your back to free your spine.” The next image was a diagram, not a real picture, but it showed the back of a human who’d been opened like a stuffed toy.
“We’ll sever your C5 vertebrae and detach the spine from your dorsal muscles, and at this point, we’ll re-intercept your posterior artery and vein into your brain, and at that point, we can start with the actual extraction. Would you like to stop for now?”
“What? Oh, uh… no.” Stilwathe tried to smile. They’d had clients like this before. They knew their brains would be removed and put into a small jar, but they’d never put much thought into what that actually entailed, hence the law passed by anti-virtual lobbyists requiring this R-rated show. “You can continue,” he said.
“We’re almost there. Next we sever your spine again at the upper cervical junction, and we apply your spinal lead.” The next images he put up showed a graphic of a thick cable attached to the end of a spine as though plugged in. Inside of it, tiny black lines representing microscopic fibergel networked into the spinal flesh. Then came a real-life image: a fully exposed spine attached to a cable. Instead of prongs, it looked as though the cable had vomited a slimy black mold onto the nerve bundles, which had spread up the flesh in tendrils. The set up was submerged in a suspension liquid that protected the process. That same fluid would later surround the brain in its vat, along with cushioning webbing. “This process take hours, especially in your case since we’ll be guaranteeing that every nerve in your spine is hooked up. After that’s done, we’ll detach the remaining vertebrae, install a proper brace, and take over for your autonomic functions.” Sankar pulled the real-life image down the second he finished the sentence.
“What if I.. if I… will I be aware? If I wake up?”
“There’s absolutely no chance of that. We have full control of the BloodFeed into your brain, and that will accurately balance your anesthesia during this process.” More diagrams. “It’s at this point that we’re finally ready to remove your brain from your skull. Your upper spine, brain, and eyes will be lifted out through the back of your head and transferred to a temporary holding container suspended above your jar. At that point—”
“Eyes?”
“Yes. We wait until your brain is in the temporary vat before replacing them with your optical nerve hookup.”
“Oh God.”
“Are you sure you’re okay? We can take a break, although you’ll need to sign a quick form stating how far we’ve gotten.”
“No. Let’s get this over with.”
“We’ll keep your brain in the temporary vat until the leads have had time to adhere. During that time we’ll rescue all your glands—pituitary, testes, thyroid, and so on.”
“Testes?”
“Your testicles. Your jar comes with an endocrine compartment.”
“My testicles are going to be in a little box beside my brain?”
“This is elective. If you’re uncomfortable with salvaging those glands, we can elect to use a hormone regulator instead.”
“Suppose I should be glad I get to keep those.” Stilwathe’s smile was feeble.
“Nobody wants to lose those, right?” Sankar got serious again. “Once your spinal hookup has solidified, we’ll then transfer you into your jar. At that point, there’s one extra step because of your jar’s NPU Host feature.”
“The NPU?”
“The Neural Processing Unit on your jar supports a brain-integrated NPU assistant, but it requires a neural matrix to work. We’ll inject a nanofilament-rich neural conduction gel into your brain at key places which will wick its way along your brain’s folds.” He put another few diagrams up, along with a real-life image that showed a brain sitting in a vat of suspension liquid. A complex tool was fixed above it by thin jointed arms like a spider pulling a prey into its embrace. From the tips of its limbs, impossibly thin needles were stabbing into the brain, making it a pin cushion. A black mold-like substance similar to the fibergel tendrils was spreading from the injection points along the brain’s ridges.
Stilwathe was paper white. His hand rested on the call controls.
Sankar took the image down. “Sorry, but regulation makes me use those pictures. We’re almost done. Once your brain is fully saturated, we’ll enable the construction of a matrix alongside your neurons to—”
Stilwathe disappeared. Connection closed.
“Sir? Hello?” Sankar looked at Millie and Laura. “Did we get disconnected?”
“No. He ended it,” Laura replied.
“Goddamn it!” Millie said.
“He might come back,” Sankar suggested. “I think I might have overwhelmed him a little.”
“You think?”
“I have to tell him this.”
“‘And this is the meat and potatoes of the operation?’ Why the hell would you say it like that?”
“I try to play it off as casual. Helps with most clients.”
Millie was already fussing with her interface screen. “Might as well start drafting the refund form.”
“He might still come back!”
“If somebody cuts the feed, they’re gone. He’s probably vomiting right now.”
“Sorry…”
“Eh.” Millie shrugged it off. “Fuck that fucking law.”
“Am I still needed?” Laura asked.
“No. You can go,” Millie replied. “Stay available today in case he actually does come back.”
“Will do.”
“Oh, and don’t do any more work for Stilwathe until we hear one way or another.”
“Everything is pretty much already done, but understood.”
“And, Laura. You know Shoal’s rule, right?”
“Yeah. I know.”
“It’s bullshit. I’m sorry.”
Shoal’s first rule upon joining the company was that teams would not be paid for work on incomplete transitions, even though the company kept the client’s deposit. Laura would not see a penny for the hours of work she’d done for Stilwathe.