Do you know what it feels like to have a drill in your mind?
There are no nerves in the brain, few in the skin, and none in the bone that encases that little machine that makes us go go go. No, there is no pain, as contrary as that may seem. No need to scream, no agony to rise above. No distraction (I would never consider the symphonic whirl of the drill motor as noise). So what is there?
Imagine. No, imagimagimagine. Start with your favorite flavor of ice cream (of course, the first thought depends entirely upon the geographic entry point, the point of the surface of your brain in which the drill first penetrates). Imagine this experience as if it is happening. And happening. And happening. Explosive in its now-ness, its intensity, its undeniable reality. For you are tasting that ice cream a thousand different ways, actually every way you have ever tasted it. Memories are connected within the neural net, not like scattered piles of papers like on my desk but so neatly organized, like with like with like. As that drill tears into the essence of the experience, it connects to all of them.
I have tasted vanilla ice cream three thousand two hundred and eighty one times.
“oooooohhhhh” escapes my lips.
And then the sensnado rises as the drill passes another millimeter into my mind, tearing into the next memory. And the next. Watching Marie ride her bike along…slicing open Spirit’s chest with a newly sharpened scapel…reading the latest issue of Mad Scientist Weekly on the toilet… All of my favorite things, all at the same time, all of them. I wonder, briefly, whether I will lose all of them, whether the drill is merely triggering them or shredding them for all time. Ah, it doesn’t matter. Memories are overrated. They are flat, like paper or photographs, more useful for feeding to the fire to create real warmth in a real moment. Have I just cashed out an entire cubic centimeter of memories for a single revival, a single compressed re-experience?
My hand trembles. Should I push the drill in further or try a different spot? Imagine if I hit the experiment mother lode. Every surgery I’ve ever performed relived at the same time? Now my entire body trembles. I imagine that even boring stuff like filling out paperwork would be exhilarating if it were like this. Well, maybe not.
Something holds my hand, fights me for control of the drill. I hit a pocket of all the times I dissected animals as a young boy and the thrill of the mega-experience causes me to momentarily loosen my grip. Suddenly the world is flat, a single palette of colors, just this moment.
“You’re liking this way too much,” says the voice. It sighs. “Now I’m really going to have to do this the hard way.”
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Stein-The Early Days
FanfictionSet back in the early days when they were just students themselves, Stein and Spirit face Legion, a terrifying foe who can meld keshin eggs together into monsters that may be impossible even for Death to kill.
