Part 3

Excerpt: ' “ Exactly is it? How old are you?”McLauren shifted uneasily in his seat, “ Two-hundred and twenty five, doctor.”The doctor’s eyebrows rose. '

Part III.

The following day, Dr. Fraunbach met with his patient, Jonathan McLauren and his wife Susan. I listened to their conversation through the walls of the parlor. 

I heard the footsteps of the doctor. Judging from the tone of his voice I could picture his blue eyes blazing, straining at their highest intent, torrents of fire breached within them. 

McLauren trembled gazing into the infinite depths of the doctor’s eyes.

“ You will live forever, McLauren.” The doctor’s gaze did not shift once. McLauren swallowed hard, his face flushed. “ Oh, d-doctor.”

Fraunbach seated himself, he waved his hand and a paper appeared before him.  

The doctor turned his eyes upward, intently studying McLauren’s petrified face.

“ Tell me.” The doctor breathed, “ Exactly is it? How old are you?”

McLauren shifted uneasily in his seat, “ Two-hundred and twenty five, doctor.”

The doctor’s eyebrows rose. “ According to your charts you have been receive regular injections of stem cells?”

“ Yes.” McLauren replied.

The doctor nodded, continuing to scan his eyes up and down the paper. “ And your body has begun to reject them?”

“ Yes sir.”

There was something about Fraunbach, something just in his presence that brought humbleness, almost fear. Nay, I could never tell if it was from respect or abhorrence, or fear.

The doctor turned towards McLauren his eyes glistening. Several silent moments passed, the doctor entranced in a deep thought. Suddenly, from no where he began to chuckle, “ How many times have you been married, McLauren?”

The man stopped, “ Why this is my fourth marriage.” He took ahold of his young wife’s hand. “ Susan is my favorite, though.” He nuzzled his wife.

The doctor scoffed, “ I’m sure he’s told all of them that.”

The doctor watched as McLauren blushed, turning uneasily in his seat. “ D-Doctor, do you know why? Why has my body begun to reject them?”

The doctor didn’t even pass a glance at McLauren. He intertwined his index and middle finger and drew them down, a pen appeared. Fraunbach tapped the pen on his desk. “ Because McLauren, your brain is two hundred and twenty five years old. It is a very old brain. It is just beginning to breakdown. You are aging, McLauren. According to your charts, everything in you has been replaced. You have an artificial heart, liver, kidney. Why, all thats left of you is your brain.”

A look of abhorrence shot on McLauren’s face, he began to tremble. “ Yes, doctor all that is true Doctor. Oh, all I want is to live, I’m so afraid of death doctor.”

Fraunbach slammed the pen on his desk, his eyes darted towards McLauren, “ That is why I am here to help you.”

McLauren and his wife, surely had failed to notice a small box placed upon the doctor’s desk. Fraunbach opened it and carefully removed a microchip. He turned it slowly in every angle for them to see.

“ This will be your brain, McLauren.”

McLauren and his wife sat unblinking.

The doctor continued to turn it in his hand, “ It is incomplete, yet. On the day of your operation, should you choose to proceed, I will implant the chip into the robotic body, and I will connect the circuits which will duplicate your brains’ electrical nerves and impulses. All the while though, the electrical shocks will fatally destroy your original brain cells once they have been copied successfully.”

“ What if they don’t doctor? What if something malfunctions?” Panic was seizing onto McLauren. 

The doctor, however remain very tranquil. “That is why you will have a month’s recovery period. And be there any bugs, I shall be there to work them out. But this experiment will not fail.”

Looking back, I roll my eyes. I continued to listen as the doctor explained the proceedings. I listened as McLauren consented and signed the paper. I recall my blood pumping quick, the excitement in my nerves on edge. Our greatest feat was happening, we were finally going to change a human into a robot.