The iBrain

Another short story for my creative writing class. I made some more changes to hopefully make it better but still editing it :) Leave reviews!!

September 24^th, 2097.

Within a year of graduating from university, my inventions began to attract attention and I was employed as a trainee engineer at Apple Inc. I excelled in every enterprise I was involved in and was eventually promoted to CEO. I was even given the prestigious Steve Job’s Award: A prize for revolutionary development of electronics. Awarded to Rebecca Ivy McFall in May, 2085 for entrepreneurial brilliance and innovation at Apple Inc.

I had always been very independent, even as a little curly redheaded child, I would read alone rather than play with my siblings. I threw myself into a career as soon as I could, putting family and romantic relationships second. I have worked at Apple for over 20 years now and I have developed their most successful products: iTattoo, an automatic machine that can tattoo picture-perfect copies of any photograph onto skin in seconds; iPortal, a teleport that can transfer someone from their current location to anywhere in the world; iTime, a time machine that can transport someone to any period in history or in the future; and now iBrain, a device that allows the viewer see inside the mind and the memory of a dead person’s brain. However, for the iBrain to fulfil its true potential, I needed one last ingredient: Dr Jacob S. Fitzpatrick’s brain.

January 15^th, 2098.

I sat down with my porridge and mixed berries to watch the news in my large, empty penthouse this afternoon and heard: The famous doctor, Jacob S. Fitzpatrick, was found dead in the early hours of this morning, aged 364. It is suspected that the world renowned biologist, who discovered the elixir of life, which grants the drinker eternal youth and immortality, was murdered. His killers are said to have been scared off by the sound of the doctor’s wife, Rachel Fitzpatrick, waking in the adjacent room. This revelation has confirmed the suspicion that the elixir does not protect the drinker from injury but only prevents aging and death from natural causes. The location of the elixir is still unknown and many are now asking: will the secret die with the doctor?

I immediately seized my opportunity and searched for the doctor’s address so I could visit his widow.

January 25^th, 2098.

“I know who you are, Rebecca. I’ve heard all about you. Why can’t you all just leave it alone? You are not going to find the elixir!” Rachel shook with anger and bit her lip to force back tears.

I felt so heartless and selfish for even approaching Rachel while she was in mourning, let alone asking for her late husband’s brain, but I was determined to find the elixir before it fell into the wrong hands.

“I realise how upsetting this is for you but you have to understand that if I find the elixir, I could change the world. I could live long enough to find cures for every disease and invent everything the world would ever need. I just need to know where Jacob’s grave is,” I pleaded.

Rachel’s tiny frame shivered as she grew more fragile. She knew that if I didn’t take Jacob’s brain, then his murderers’ soon would and finish the job they had started. I was the lesser of two evils.

She ran her fingers through her velvety hair and looked at me with defeat and anguish in her cloudy, chocolate eyes. She scribbled something down on a piece of paper and handed it to me with cold hands.

“Please treat him with respect,” she sniffled.

February 5^th, 2098.

At midnight, after exhuming the doctor’s body from his luxurious tomb, I extracted his brain. I reburied the doctor, now with an empty, hollow head, and fled to my workshop.

I delicately lifted the brain from the container. The slimy, blubbery tissue squirmed around in my hands like wet soap. I had already prepared the silver, floating bowl of the iBrain with the glittery, electrified fluid that was essential for reigniting brain activity. I cautiously lowered and submerged the doctor’s fragile brain into the mystical liquid.

Thin white roots from the base of the bowl were awakened. They crackled softly as they wrapped themselves around the pink, gooey brain. The organ was soon completely encased inside a white, webbed cocoon. Huge boiling bubbles swam to the surface of the liquid and blinding light shone from the brain. I brushed back my long, red, straggly hair and dipped my hands into the hot water. Tiny roots began to slither up and around my shaking fingers. The light coming from the maze of squishy flesh flowed into the veins in my wrists and climbed up my arms to the rest of my body.

The light completely bleached out my vision. After a moment, once the light eased and I could open my eyes again, I realised I was occupying the body of the doctor on an empty scorching beach. I could hear waves from the crystal turquoise sea and squawks from the hungry seagulls. I could feel wet sand between the doctor’s toes. The air was thick and granulated with moisture, sea salt and the hot, dank scent of coconut.

Everything seemed hazy and dreamlike as the body I inhabited began to walk towards a grotto on the beach. The doctor drifted down and deeper into the cave until a light immerged.

The magical gold stream flowed into a small pool of liquid that radiated and lit up the crevice of the dark cave. A solid gold goblet sat beside the small pool. The doctor’s body raced towards it and drank in large gulps from the elixir of life.

The elixir had the consistency of ink, thick and sticky. It tasted like syrup but with a metallic edge as it slid down the doctor’s throat. The gluey substance began to burn in his chest like raw alcohol but then sharply shifted to a cool, soothing sensation.

I could feel the doctor’s body bubbling with energy. His wrinkles faded, his aches vanished, his posture straightened and his very being felt reborn.

Abruptly I was pulled out and thrown from the doctor’s memory. I immediately realised exactly where that beach was.

February 14^th, 3010.

My notion of the elixir’s location was correct and I still visit that lonely sizzling beach every decade for a top up of the elixir. I am now 942 years old, though I still look and feel like a 25 year old. I have assisted the world’s brightest engineers and scientists in the ground-breaking development of useful new inventions and new drugs that have already eradicated several diseases. I continue to prosper and create but I have a relentless hollow feeling that something is missing.