It was better when I was Allan Gerrold of no fixed address, a homeless man living on the streets. As miserable as that life was, I’d go back to it, if I could.
My new life began one morning when two men took me away. They simply pulled me to my feet, blindfolded me, bound my wrists and ankles, and dumped me in the back seat of their car. I fought them, twisting and turning, frantic to escape. I asked what they were doing and why and told them to leave me be. Neither uttered a word. A moment passed by, much too slowly. The back door opened and one of the men sat next to me. He put a cloth over my mouth and nose, and the world dissolved into darkness.
When I woke, I found myself imprisoned inside a room with nothing but four walls. I had no idea where I was or how far this was going to go, and I would have been terrified at that time had I known.
It was not long until a man and a woman entered the room. They informed me that I would be expected to do whatever they told me and warned me to cooperate. From what I read in their eyes I realized I had best do just that, so I did. They brought me to my suite. It had all I could hope for and more. This is where I would live for some time to come, while they molded me into what they wanted.
It began with surgery. They implanted small but sensitive electromagnetic receptors in my brain. I did not have to wait long to learn why this was done.
They took me to a padded room and we went inside. The woman had a remote control in her hand. It had two buttons on it.
"You will experience two things now. You will know pain," she said, and she pressed a button. I cried out in agony. A searing stab of pain went through my right eye and out the back of my head, followed by another invasion in my left eye. I collapsed and rolled around on the floor. Then more pain, bursts that flashed through every portion of my body. After what seemed like hours, the pain finally stopped. I heard the man laughing.
Worse was yet to come.
"Now you will experience the opposite. Pleasure." As soon as she pressed the button I was immersed in the most euphoric of sensations. I knew nothing but the exquisite sensation of pleasure upon pleasure. It was by far the most wonderful I have ever felt. And therein was the horror. When the pleasure stopped, despite my best efforts, I begged her to do it again, just once. She did not.
"This is how you will feel if you succeed in what we ask," she said. "The pain is yours when you fail." I was theirs, and I would succeed, not to avoid the pain, but to feel the pleasure.
They taught me many things. They filled my mind with knowledge: history, languages, physics, mathematics, mythology, and some of the darker subjects that I would learn to hate.
They put me through extensive physical training that left me in top physical condition.
This went on for weeks, maybe a month. I lost track of time.
They never answered any of the questions that I asked them. What was this about? Why had they chosen me? What were they preparing me to do?
Finally, the day came where I started to learn more about their intricate plans. They began by showing me the mice.
"Look closely, Gerrold," said the man, "and tell us how these mice differ." The woman stood back, away from us. She was quiet and still. I studied the mice. I compared every feature. I could see no difference and I said so.
"They are, in many ways, identical. This one is the original. This other one is a copy."
"Cloning?" I asked.
"No. Better." He fell silent and stared at me.
I waited. Both the man and the woman said nothing.
I asked, "What is the copy, if not a clone?"
"It is purely artificial, free of organic matter," said the woman.
Before I could ask, the man said, "Watch what happens." He took the artificial mouse and placed it in a dim container some distance from the organic mouse, which he put in a dark corridor. He placed a lamp in front of it.
"Watch what the artificial mouse does when the light is turned on."
When he snapped the light on, the artificial mouse jumped backward.
He repeated the process several times. Each time, both mice recoiled at the same time.
Then he put the lamp in front of the artificial mouse. Again, both jerked in response to the sudden burst of light.
I asked what had happened.
"You’ll find out," the woman said, and I knew I didn’t want to know.
The next day they showed me the body. I was allowed to examine it thoroughly. It was purely artificial, wholly mechanical. On the outside, it was an exact copy of me.
"Lay down on this platform," the man said. I did. He pushed a button and my hands and feet were clamped down. Soft but firm material pushed inward on my head and held it fixed. I could not move my head.
"This machine above you will scan your brain. It will determine the state of your brain completely. The quantum state, of course," he added, almost as if it was an afterthought.
"Then this information will be copied into the mechanical body," said the woman. "The state of the artificial brain will be an exact duplicate of yours."
It took a moment, but then I understood what this implied. My pulse quickened, my forehead furrowed and beads of perspiration formed on my upper lip. "Noooooo!" I cried. I squeezed my eyes shut, as if that might protect me.
I heard the humming of the machine, and I thought I could feel my brain being probed. After a brief silence, I heard another hum above the body. Then three things happened at once.
I opened my eyes and saw the room around me.
I opened my other eyes and saw the room around the other me.
And, to my horror, I was aware of both bodies, both sets of thoughts, and of what both pairs of eyes saw, all at the same time.
It is not possible to describe adequately what I experienced. I was in both bodies, seeing with both pairs of eyes and hearing with all four ears. I was simultaneously aware of the perceptions and thoughts in both brains and bodies.
Yet there was a single entity, a single me, with one mind.
I noticed that my wrists, ankles and heads, for both bodies, were free. Both bodies sat up slowly. What I saw from each was only slightly different, yet my heads swam, trying to make sense of the two images and two sets of sounds. The room swirled around me. I eased back down and closed both pairs of eyes.
"What have you done to me?" My voice croaked.
"You have been given a great gift," said the man. "You can experience the world from two bodies, with two of everything."
"But why? I don’t want this. Why have you done this to me?"
"You’ll find out soon enough. I suggest you start learning how to handle your increased awareness. We won’t let you lie quietly forever. You’d best get a grip." With that, they both left, and I was, or the two of us were, alone. Later I realized they had simply moved out of sight and were watching everything I did, but at the time I thought they were gone.
I thought of the mice. They each sensed what the other saw. The mice were their last test before doing this to me.
I wondered why they had done this. I thought I knew, and the idea frightened me.
The clock was ticking and I had to gain some control of the strange duality that had been forced upon me. I couldn’t afford the luxury of time.
I closed my artificial eyes and made my new body lie still. I sat up slowly, and I was aware of doing so in both brains. I repeated the process with the bodies switching roles. I could handle this, I thought.
With both bodies flat, I opened the pairs of eyes and sat up slowly. My heads spun again, but not as badly as before. Fearing their return, I forced myself to adapt. It was a terrible struggle, and I can give only a crude analogy of what it was like.
Think of watching your movements in a mirror. At first you move your hands in the wrong direction. With practice, you learn to compensate. What I had to learn was much more difficult. The fear of their return hampered me but pushed me as well.
They wanted to use me for some purpose. I knew I was in far more danger than I could imagine.
After a time, I learned how to control the two bodies with two brains and one mind, at least to some extent. I was exhausted. I needed to sleep, not just because I was weary, but because I needed to escape. My two brains, two bodies, and one mind were just too much for me to handle. If I could sleep, I could be at peace.
I slowed my conscious thinking, set my mind to think random thoughts, and drifted, my awareness in the two bodies merging into one. I knew sleep would come.
Instead of escaping, finding some release in sleep, I entered the most horrific experience I’d ever had.
First there were the inky blue, purple, and yellow splotches and fuzzy blobs of entering sleep.
I became aware of faint sounds. The sounds gurgled and swirled, and were now too easily heard. The volume grew. Many voices and other sounds mixed together. I heard the screams of slaughtered animals, the cries, pleading, and begging of tortured souls, the maniacal laughing of killers, the shrieking of vast numbers of evil entities. I tried to push the sounds away. Instead, the number of voices increased and grew louder. Many more distinct, evil sounds assaulted me.
More images. I descended further into this world, and the purple and yellow splotches took form. Frightening shapes. I saw and felt the presence of terrifying demon-like entities. Walking, decaying bodies. Next came more monstrous forms and shapes. Colours. Reds of blood. Yellows of pus. Blues of bruises. Greens and greys of decay.
The horrific sounds and sights grew. Evil sounds and more and more horrible visions. Louder and louder. More and more vivid. As disgusting as these were, they were nothing compared to what I was soon to smell, taste, and feel.
Next came sensations. Spiders climbing up my legs and arms. Snakes slithering. Vicious insects attacking me. I felt bites, sharp needles piercing every piece of my skin. Stabs of pain in my lips and on my tongue, sharp and penetrating. Fire licking my body, burning my flesh and cooking my skin, muscles, and bones.
Smells tortured me. The stink of filth smothered me. Scents of rotting flesh, noxious odors, and the smell of death.
And tastes, of the worst things you can imagine.
I do not want to describe any further the images, scents, sounds, tastes, and sensations of evil and repulsive things I experienced. Of things I knew or had imagined. More horrible than I had ever imagined. These built and grew until I was sure there was no more room in my mind for horrors such as these.
At some point, my mind must have shut down, for I recall a stretch of blackness, silence, nothing.
Then I woke and heard the screaming. My throats were raw and very sore. I broke down and sobbed uncontrollably. I shook and trembled.
Eventually, I reached a stunned state of mind, and both bodies lay still, and I waited until I had regained control of my thoughts and my bodies.
I knew I must never again sleep. But I knew that was impossible. There would be no escaping this nightmare.
My thoughts drifted. What could I do? How could I escape? I had to find a way.
I waited for them. I tried to think rationally. They would not want me to have to endure this, for if I did, I would not be able to do what they wanted, whatever that might be. I thought I would be used for war. That’s what having control of two bodies must have been all about. Having finished with the mice, they had made me a tool for war. They could send the artificial me into enemy territory, and use my original form to record what I would observe. Exactly how all of this would be done, I wasn’t sure.
Eventually the man returned and I told him what had happened. He listened carefully and made me report every detail.
"What you have told us agrees with everything we recorded," he said.
"Can you stop this from happening?" I asked. "It will interfere with what you plan for me."
He looked at me with a blank face. "No, it won’t," he said.
"Yes it will," I insisted. "Look, I realize what you plan to do, how you intend to use me."
He asked me what I meant and I told him.
"I’m your next step after the mice," I concluded.
A grin slowly formed on his face. He turned and stared into my eyes, and the grin widened. He threw his head back and burst into laughter.
"You have it all wrong, Gerrold. Sure, you’re our next step. But you’re not the step after the mice."
"What do you mean?"
"There were plenty before you," he said simply.
"Plenty of what?" I asked. "Of intermediate steps?"
"No. Plenty of people. People who had their brains copied into duplicate bodies."
I swallowed. "What happened to them?"
"They experienced what you did."
"And then what?"
"They died," he said. After a long silence he added, "You are the first one to survive this far."
My hands were shaking. "Well, you’ve got to make this stop. I won’t be able to do what you want me to if I have to go through this every time I sleep."
"Again, Gerrold, you’ve got it all wrong."
He stood and started to pace, looking at one of me and then the other.
"Your thoughts in these two brains, in these two bodies, are entangled."
"What exactly do you mean?"
"You know about this. We taught you this."
I said nothing.
He breathed in slowly and exhaled quickly.
"It’s like the quantum entanglement of two particles. Pairs of quantum particles can be put into a special state. In this special state, the pair of particles can be inherently connected, and remain so even if they are far apart. What happens to one affects the other. This is because the true state of the pair cannot be thought of as two distinct single-particle states. The two particles together are actually one thing. It is a two-particle system, not two single-particle systems. This special two-particle state is called quantum entanglement."
He paused, looked at the two bodies, then continued.
"You saw the mice. They are entangled. Two bodies, but only one … oh, call it a sense of awareness. But you, you are special because you have consciousness, intelligence. Simply put, there is only one of you. Your brains are innately connected. You’re literally the sum of two parts and more than the sum. You are a new being, a new man. You’ve gone to a place where no one has gone into before. No, that’s not quite right. You’re the first person to go this new place, and come out of it alive."
"By the place I’ve gone to, you mean what I … dreamed … when I, we, slept?"
"Yes. This is a new realm of power, the darker side of power. We intend to learn how to make use of this power. You," and he pointed at my two bodies, "will be our link to this power. All you have to do is sleep. As much as you can. That’s what we want you to do."
I swallowed, hard. My mouths were dry. I couldn’t control my trembling limbs.
"What are you saying? You expect me to experience again what I just did?"
He nodded.
"No. I won’t do it. I couldn’t stand it. It’s of no use to you. You can’t possibly make a connection to what I just went through." I paused and then repeated, "No. I won’t do it."
"We already know how to make the connection. What do you think we were doing while you slept?
"You’ll do it again," he continued. "And again, and again, and again. And you know what will happen if you don’t," he finished, as he slipped the remote out of his pocket.
The pain I could feel from the little box was absolutely nothing in comparison to what I’d just gone through. And no amount of pleasure would convince me to do it again.
I lost it. We lost it. Both bodies charged him. He hit the pain button. The intensity was tenfold what they’d used before. No matter how badly I willed myself to drive into him, to tear him apart, the pain was utterly crippling. My two bodies fell and writhed in agony.
"Turn … off … please …" we gasped.
He chuckled. He let the pain continue. I was determined that I would find a way to get away from him, this pain, this prison I was in. Suddenly, it stopped.
Later, I heard the man and woman arguing. I couldn’t concentrate on what they were saying. My mind went numb again.
When they returned to the room, they both looked at me. The man said something. The woman stepped between the man and me. She lifted my arm and put two fingers on my wrist. She looked at me, intensely, focusing on one of my eyes, and then the other. She continued shifting her look rapidly from one of my eyes to the other. Then she released my arm, turned around, and walked up to the man, said something softly, and walked out. He looked at me, grinned, and was gone.
"Stay awake," I said aloud, to myself. "Stay awake." Fearing a return to the world I’d been in, I somehow managed not to lose consciousness.
They sent me to the hellish place many times. It got worse each time. I was assaulted through my five senses, like the first time, but each time more intense than the last. They forced my natural body to exercise and kept it in good condition. They could not do the same for my mind. Sanity ebbed with each episode. All I did was exercise, eat, and sleep. I could not fight the sedative they fed directly in my blood stream. Whatever it was that they did to my artificial brain, I was helpless. Routinely, they sent my mind to sleep, time and again.
With one exception. They’d somehow failed to put my artificial brain to sleep. I remained awake. My natural brain slept, and I was aware of the dreams and also of the room around me. I did not go to the repulsive world.
I doubt that the place of horror is somewhere in our domain of space and time. It is a place in my mind, in my consciousness. With every visit, I sensed evil entities. I believe the place is real, even if confined to my mind. And if I could be forced to go there, so could anyone else.
Never did I see any evidence that they were acquiring any power from the horrible world in my mind, but they kept at it so long I think they must have found something.
After so much agony, I wondered how long it would be that I would retain any shred of sanity. I couldn’t help but wonder if this place was the hell that people believed in. If it was, could there be another place that was the opposite of this one? I like to think so. At the same time, it bothers me that I never went there, not even once.
I went through this so long that I’d almost lost hope. Then I remembered something, and I vowed to hang on as long as I could.
I was able to wait long enough, and it finally happened.
"Your artificial body is asleep. I need you to be very quiet for a while. I’m going to give you a mild sedative. It will relax you, but it won’t put you to sleep. Not quite. You have to hang on, Gerrold. Hang on. Stay awake."
I have a vague recollection of what happened after that, although there are gaps and I wonder how she managed it. But she did. Later, well away from where I’d been, I felt the sedative wear off, and my artificial brain woke up as well.
I read the message she’d left. She said that it had gone too far for her. With the others, death was always quick, but they learned more from each victim. They hadn’t expected me to last as long as I did, and after witnessing my pathetic and horrific existence so many times, she couldn’t go on. So she had saved me and fled. She did not want to stay with me because if they found her, she could not endure what they would do to me. She wished me well and advised me to stay where I was.
I have lived for several years on this atoll. It has plenty of fresh water and fruit and vegetables. I only sleep one body at a time. For sixteen hours each day, one of us sleeps, and all is well. The other eight we both perceive what each other does and thinks. Although we have grown differently, I remain a single person. I don’t plan to leave the atoll.
One of us will die eventually. It will probably be my natural body first. What will happen to my mind, I do not know. I live with the fear that they will find me. I hope they are not looking for me, and if they are not, I pity the poor soul who now goes through what I did. Mostly, I am grateful to be alive and not to have to go to that place ever again. I also hope she is well, and safe, that they never find her. I wish I could thank her.
I understand how it is that I have two bodies but one mind. It’s what the man said: the pairs of quantum particles exist, not as two single particles, but as a single, connected entity.
The connectedness is also true of me.
I am one person, not two people. I am the entangled man.
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