Dave 2.0

"Dave, you can't mean to go through with this."
He pushed her aside, more roughly than he intended. He might be trapped in this horrendous wheelchair, and he had very little strength, but sometimes he had control of his voluntary muscles. "I do, and I am."
She moved, stood in front of him, blocking his route to the tall, super-modern building. "But a robot's body? It's insane. And you have no idea what it will do to you, even if you survive the procedure, which isn't likely."
He exhaled slowly, feeling the pain ripple through his chest. "Marissa, it's not a robot; it's an android. I've been assured that the procedure is perfectly safe."
"Safe? If it's safe, then why hasn't anyone else done this?"
"Someone has to be the first. And 'Rissa, even if I die, don't you think it would be better than living like this, in this worthless, wasted body?"
She let her eyes water. He wasn't suicidal. He wasn't. But he might not be looking at all the pros and cons of the situation logically either.
She had been playing with the engagement ring on her left hand, idly twisting it, turning it, was surprised when she found the ring freed.
She tightened her fingers around the promise she had been building hopes around. "If you go through with this, I'm not sure I can marry you."
"Good. I don't want you to wait. There might be an adjustment time..."
"Dave, think this through."
"I have. I've thought of nothing else since I heard the advertisement. And 'Rissa, I can't live like this. I'd rather take a chance and die than waste away to nothing."
"Go then." She swiped her eyes. "I wish you the best."
"But you won't be waiting?" He had no need to make it a question.
"I won't be waiting. I'd rather love you in that chair than try to fit into your life when you turn into a monster."
"Not a monster..." he whispered, the chair slowly moving forward toward the surprisingly empty building. "Not a monster."

------liz m------
Dave rolled into the foyer, which echoed up for 3 stories. I-beams carried lights across the expanse, with massive industrial lighting suspended from them. They emitted a low hum, and Dave could feel it reverberate inside his chest. It was the only sound he could hear. A moment past, and no one came to greet him, and he spun back to exit into the city's light. Maybe Marissa is right, he thought, pressing his hand against the door.

"Mr. Ellis, I presume?"It was a woman's voice, and Dave started in surprise. He turned to see his greeter.

"Yes, but please," his voice was shaking - she was beautiful, "Call me Dave."

She leaned back and put a translucent and manicured hand over her heart as she laughed. "Oh! Of course. Dave it is. And by all means, call me Penny. We'll be spending a great deal of time together, Dave." She smiled, parting her lips to reveal teeth slightly large, and Dave was transfixed.

"Penny," he said, barely loud enough to hear, "Are you the, uh, the doctor?"

Penny walked behind Dave's chair and turned it around toward the opposite end of the massive foyer. He was a little disappointed that he could not see her directly, and silently cursed that he never installed the mirrors. He could hear her heels click on the granite floor, and imagined the whiff of perfume as they headed for the elevator.

Again, the listing laugh. "Doctor? No, but you will see soon enough that I am a most critical part of the work." He felt her hand rest on his shoulder as they ascended to the 15th floor. The elevator glided up with uncanny speed, and Dave cursed its efficiency. Not enough time with a goddess in an elevator.

-------------- vvv Dave K vvv----------------

The doors opened and Dave motioned Penny out. "I don't need to be pushed."

Penny smiled and lead the way. "This where you need to sign the contract." She held up a folder, legal size and over an inch thick. "I'll take you to an office where our lawyers can answer any questions. Then I'll take you down to the labs, we have a few tests to do to prepare you and then we have to choose your new body."

Penny opened a door and Dave rolled into the office. Inside were a middle aged man just graying at the temples wearing a suit that must have cost as much as Dave's car. Next to him was a beautiful young woman holding another copy of the contract.

"Mr. Ellis. I'm Dr. Light. I'm the founder of Rebody Inc. And this is Ms Dazzle, our corporate lawyer. She will answer any questions you may have."

"Mr. Ellis." Ms Dazzle reached to shake Dave's hand. "I know you've had a chance to look over the contract. Is there anything you need me to explain? We like to be completely open here at Rebody." She let go of his hand and stood up.

"No. It's quite long and involved but it seems clear enough. You transfer my conscious ming to an android body and discard my remains."

"Not quite discard, Mr. Ellis. We do reserve the right to harvest your organs for transplants and research. In the unlikely case that any of your organs are used to develop a medical treatment we split the royalties with you. No other organization gives the doner any rights to anything developed from their residuals."

She pushed Dave's chair to the desk and opened the contract in front of him. Still standing behind the wheel chair she leaned over and pointed to a section in the contract. As she pointed to the different paragraphs she rubbed against Dave's cheek.

Her perfume was even more intense than in the elevator. Dave couldn't focus on the letters. "Okay, yes, that explains it very well," he said. "Where do I sign?"

Still bending over him, Ms Dazzle pointed to a spot on the last page. "Sign there, and initial here and here. There all done. Penny, would you take Mr. Ellis down to the lab?"

Dave looked at his signiture. The ink in the pen was bright red, it almost looked like blood.

"Of course, it would be my pleasure. This way Mr. Ellis." Penny lead the way out the door.

In the hall Dave's head cleared a bit but they entered the elevator again and doors closed cutting off the fresh air.

Penny bent over to push the bottom button. She turned to look at Dave. "We used the blood you gave on your first visit. We'll have to take a bit more. But then you get to pick your new body."

The doors opened and they entered a large open lab. At one side was a sign that read:

Abandon those who are negative.

Hope will enter your life.

All that you need is here.

-------------- vvv Anneliese Fox vvv----------------
Strains from a Bach fugue obscured any conversation on the lab floor. Smells were masked by industrial blasts of the same scent that Penny wore.

Lab tech Lenny Gasket efficiently inserted needles in each of Dave's arms. Blood flowed out from the left while a bright blue liquid entered the right.

"We need rather a lot of blood at the moment," Lenny explained, "so we're giving you replacement fluid at the same time. Works much better than a tuna sandwich." He grinned. Diamond encrusted incisors glittered when he smiled.

-------------- vvv betzgreat vvv----------------

He didn't feel the needle in his right arm since it went in so smoothly, but it bothered him on a psychological level the amount of blood he was losing. He couldn't see where it went. He'd donated pints of blood dozens of times, back before the accident, when he had two legs that worked, but he knew as initial tendrils of fear washed through him that he had already lost far more than a pint.

Dave tried to be logical about this. They wouldn't do anything to hurt him. They needed this experiment to succeed just as much as he did. He was the first afterall. The guinea pig.

But didn't a lot of lab rats die in first attempts?

Suddenly he was ashamed of his bitterness, his own callousness of a few minutes before when he was talking to 'Rissa. He didn't want to die. Really, now that he thought of it, there was nothing wrong with living a life from a wheelchair. He still hand his hands, his brain. What did he need his legs for? What did it matter that he wasn't fully independent?

Maybe he had been a bit too hasty in signing his name.

From the back of his throat he started tasting something sharply chemical, bitter, and repulsive. He swallowed, using his own human, familiar salivia, and the taste intensified. His vision started going blury, particularly around the edges, and his fingers tingled, and that did not feel normal.

"I think you've taken enough blood!"

"Just a bit more. Not to worry, Pal, we're replacing the fluid." The technician was busy doing something out of Dave's sight, involving tapping of computer keys, and clicking of machinery.

"That antifreeze?" Dave asked, inclining his head toward the blue fluid now flowing into his left arm. He had hoped to make it a joke, a tension breaker, expected the technician would chuckle, make some off-the-cuff response about him now being so cool he would need antifreeze.

The technician kept a straight face. "Something like that."

Coldness washed through him, was, he know a symptom of shock. He hadn't felt this lost, this confused since an emergency room doctor mentioned a severed spinal cord.
"Surgical team is assembled," Dave heard. the voice sounded mechanical, was, he decided coming from a phone not a person, someone he could ask, or beg, to intervene.
"I'm almost ready here," Lenny answered in good humor.
Panic continued to ripple through him, and Dave now realized he was strapped to the gurney, although when that had happened, he had no clue. He wondered now if he had lost consciousness sometime, found it entirely possible. He struggled to move his hands. "Let me go."
"Can't. Don't worry. They're waiting for you up in Section 4."
"Section 4?" Why did that sound even more ominous than the generic 'surgery'?
"I thought I would have time, pick out the android body I wanted," he said, grasping at anything to delay.
"We've only one model."
"What? I was assured I would have a choice."
"Think of it like Henry Ford introducing the Model T. You can have any color you want as long as it's black. With our androids, you can have any model you want..."
"As long as it's the model you have."
"There's a good fellow. You're catching on."
The door opened, and Dr. Light entered. "Lenny?"
"We're ready here. Fluid transfer complete."
"Dr. Light, can we stop this?"
"Why would I want to stop this? I've got buyers for all your organs."
Dave swallowed, tasted that ugly metallic taste again. "My organs?"
"You won't be needing them."
"But...but they're mine."
"Actually, no they're not, not since you signed on the dotted line. Listen, Mr. Ellis, I know you're confused, and this is all new to you, but you're going to be happy with your new android body."
"If you survive," Lenny added.
"Lenny--"
"What do you mean, if I survive?"
With Dr. Light at the head of the gurney and Lenny taking the foot, Dave started moving through the lab. Dr. Light did not speak again until they were in an elevator, going up, or down, rapidly. "Actually, you're not the first we've experimented on. You're the tenth. The first nine did not have the outcome we anticipated."
"They died."
"Their organs were put to good use. Dozens of other people were helped. And we learned considerably from our trials. None of them could be considered a failure, because of the scientific data we amassed."
"I, um, don't feel so good."
"You'll be feeling fine in a few minutes." The elevator door opened, he was wheeled out into a brightly lit room filled with people all wearing surgical masks. "People, here is our brave pioneer, willing and eager to try to be the first sucessful transplant into an android body."
"We're honored you made this decision," a disembodied voice said, from somewhere to his left.
"All right, let's go team!" Light said, as an oxygen mask was lowered over Dave's face.

Music played in the background, that same, subtle Bach fugue he had heard before. For several long minutes, before he found the courage to attempt to open his eyes, Dave listened. There was something significantly different about the composition this time, the sound was sharper, clearer, yet by the same time, more mechanical. Music. He felt comforted until other sounds entered his consciousness.
"He's coming around. I've got positive brain activity!"
The next sounds were unintelligible, due to loud cheers.
"BP steady, 98/34."
"Respiration steady at nine. Pulse an even 60."
"Give him time to come around," Dr. Light's voice. The first Dave recognized.
Dave tried to open his eyes, found he did not yet have the strength, although something else clicked in his brain, something about new neuropathways, new things he had to learn, with included something as automatic as opening his eyes. What the hell... Then he recalled the surgery and recalled traces of information which had been pouring into his brain, probably while he was unconscious, the continual drone of a voice promoting calmness and restraint.
"Dave, are you conscious? If you are, can you give us a verbal signal?"
Verbal signal?
"Dave, try to say something."
This voice was lighter, feminine. He recalled a woman from the elevator, and the way her perfume had worked its way into his libedo, only he couldn't remember her name, nor remember when such an encounter had taken place. Yesterday? Ten years ago?
"Take it slowly, Dave. If you can hear me, try to grunt, clear your throat, make any kind of noise."
He tried, failed, grew frustrated, even as the voices around him charted changing blood pressure and pulse and continued to urge calm. After a while, consciousness grew sluggish, and he faded into sleep.

"Dave? Dave I hope you can hear me. The data we're collecting say you're awake. Right now it looks like the procedure has been a complete success. Do you understand? it worked. You've got a new android body and the lab here has been celebrating for a while. I know this is confusing to you. It's going to take some time to get your brain to access the new neural connections, to be able to do even simple things unconsciously."

"I want my own body back."
"I'm afraid that's impossible," Dr. Light said. "Look how far you've come. You've made significant progress. We can keep working. We'll have you accessing gross motor functions within the month, and then we'll work on fine motor coordination. You'll be as good as new. No, understand you'll be far better than new."
"I want to see my body."
"Concentrate on what you have, on how far you've come."
"I'm paralyzed in this hunk of ugly metal."
"Not for long. As soon as you learn to access the proper responses, we will hook up robotic arms and legs. There was no need for them until you were ready for them."
"And my body?"
"What was left of it has been discarded. Since the Tractlin v. Wells decision of 2014, it has been legal to sell human organs to the highest bidder. Since it was impossible to put your mind back into your body, and since you signed the body over to us, we sold everything we could. Because of you, fifteen patients are living a much healthier life. Of course, in order to do so, we had to declare you legally dead."
"But I'm not legally dead."
"To your body you were, the moment we initiated the surgical procedure . And now to the state of New York, you are."
"Dead? How can I vote? Get a job? Rent an apartment?"
"Well, you'll be staying with us, for the foreseeable future."