Time waited for no one.
…
As I continued my physiotherapy sessions, unending struggle that was measuring my endurance at every turn and movement. Every movement, an uphill battle of mind and body against gravity and despair that threatened to drag me down.
The therapists' encouraging words, though well-meaning, stung as it passed minutely registering in the storm that is my mind.
A raging tsunami of guilt and doubt rising as high waves with hidden darkness in the depth of the sea filled with depression. Hope was but a faint flicker light on a tiny boat fighting the rising seas. It dimmed with time, assaulted by an unforgiving storm and engulfed in the darkness of the depths.
What happened to the light? What kept it alive you say? A piece of news delivered by my professor as I visited for a check-up. He told me that I qualified for an experimental study that combined the highest of human scientific advancement. He arranged a meeting with a well known bio-tech company that could be my key to regain a semblance of normal life and dignity.
Brolon Rusk, a figure cloaked in technological innovation, a pioneer of advancement in a pool of stagnation that helped re-ignite the need for innovation and to push forward (even if he got richer while promoting change he did advance it). His latest venture has reached the human testing phase, and his professor has been asked for people who are willing and within a set of criteria. I qualified.
Next week…
Was I ready?
Well I don’t remember that week much, I was hopeful that was my mental… a word I was afraid off filled me.
…..
And the meeting came.
The meeting was presented as a radical procedure that could redefine Alex's path to recovery. It promised more than he could ever ask if successful.
Now nothing is free. Risks are everywhere and the negatives are …. Well, simply fatal.
What is this procedure you ask?
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A robotic eye and an ear implant that integrate with my auditory system and visual controlled areas of MY brain. The latest technologies of both ophthalmic and auditory systems in the medical field.
..
In testing phase mind you.
..
A marvel of modern medicine.
The auditory system would fully be replaced in the right inner ear and middle ear. All structures are going to be of non-degradable military level components which I never heard of. Polymers and crystalline material that I never knew about. I felt happy when I recognized the simplest material which was a piezoelectric crystal, used in ultrasound probes.
Expensive little things. Can you imagine that a modern probe could cost more than a million dollars? These crystals were the simplest of materials apparently.
The concept was audacious yet tantalizing and the carrot and stick soon approach made to entice me…. Very, very, very apparent.
The carrot is the entire procedure and follow up is free as well as yearly allowance of 1.3 million dollars, would support me and my family more than comfortably, as matter of fact, I didn’t see such money ever not even a tenth of that, even if you collect all that I earned since in my life.
All that in a year!
How dangerous is this procedure?
Oh, I was being played.
There is no way.
Are they mad?
I would be happy with 200k. Hell, give me 100k. 50k.
daily necessities are covered as well? I almost signed up then and there without listening further.
The stick was fairly straight forward. Losing more of my mind and senses than what I started with, along with unknown complications. Death has been explicitly conveyed to me as a risk.
I will have almost no privacy for the rest of my life. I will be monitored, my life turned into numbers and data on sheets. Daily goals and monthly requirements given to me for the next 10 years.
After that monthly follow up and removal of monitoring and partial privacy given.
I am not allowed to speak about it of course.
I can’t even be with my family fully for the next 10 years. I can see them every 3 months for a week under supervision. That means they visit me under surveillance in the lab turned into a tiny monitored apartment. My cell.
The reason for all this secrecy and testing?
An AI chip Implant.
A fusion of cutting-edge AI technology and biomechanical augmentation designed to resurrect Alex's shattered reality.
A symbiotic integration between man and machine.
The first of its kind.
Hell, I almost didn’t even notice them saying that they will reinforce my spine with strategically placed metal reinforcements that promised both robustness and flexibility.
As discussions unfolded and plans took shape questions answered and more are raised, hope soared within my chest, a fragile ember that was my hope fanned into flame by the possibility of reclaiming a semblance of my former life.
Yes, it sucks that I will lose my freedom.
Who wants that?
A desperate cripple that will not live as a burden.
I can contribute. I can look my mother and siblings in the eye again.
I can fill my hollow chest again.
The tiny me on that boat can finally pass the storm.
..
I can be Free.
Free of myself.
…
Finally
…