Years of practice and a professional passion in pursuit of solutions had led Mike to this moment. The checklist of safety protocols was reviewed one final time. Calibrations and measurements accurately dictating both comfort and command of the moment.
"So Kathleen, it is time for you to take a nap. When you awake, you should have completed the painless journey. Your memories will be purged forever. Godspeed."
The meds began to filter through the IV and into her bloodstream as she counted backwards as directed. "Ten... n-n-ine..." She was out. The process began.
Mike sat staring at the big screen that was projecting a mix of images and script, revealing the thoughts and images indexed within the memory of Kathleen's brain. His attention at this moment was to check the neuron filtration, designed to capture only the impulses as identified for selection. These memories floated by like billboards along side the road, some images, some language.
This was the delicate process where the ethics of memory purging would be tested. Not only entrusting the nonreversible process to the metrics of the filter presets, but paying close attention to what might require course corrections along the way. Random analysis of the images, checking for compliance. Reviewing exceptions as needed.
It also meant that Kathleen was passive in her submission of memories. She had no control of what memories appeared and what actions might be taken. She had to trust the ethics of the process and of those human contacts who provided for her care.
Mike was tapping on the keyboard, constantly providing more specific filters to sharpen the performance of the computer; tightening and loosening specific filters as needed. He could see any memory he chose by simply freeze framing the digital flow of images and script, complete his review, and then continue the review process.
This purge was a service of compassion. This sweet lady had suffered an unspeakable tragedy in her family. The task was to purge only the memories of her family that were embedded within that tragedy. All other memories were to remain untouched and unshuffled (keeping their original spacing and sequence).
Mike froze the screen again, examining a memory fragment that had slipped past the filter sensor; a rogue neuron so to speak. Although randomly compacted and almost nonsensical, he noticed a mere flicker barely echo across the screen. But it was a piece of the puzzle to be extracted.
Mike was good; the best. He was able to complete these detailed reviews for hours at a time until the memory purge was complete. A full scan and core level probe could take up to 6 hours, depending on the intensity and population of memory spikes and particles.
Kathleen laid comfortably still during the procedure. The headgear was fit for her head, with wires snaking and lights blinking, providing the search engine access to her brain activity without any perceptible harm. Her body covered in a medical gown, for safety precautions only. Patients' minds were more pliable and memory mining more effective when the patient was physical unrestrained. Just the gown. Nothing else.
As professional as Mike was, the surprise of his curiosity was a bit more than shocking. When the predetermined, hour-two break triggered a pause in the process, he stretched his back and closed his eyes. After swiveling on his chair and standing up, his viewpoint of Kathleen laying about 15 feet away was striking.
She was a gorgeous woman. Red hair flowing down over her shoulders, and prone on her back as she laid there, the profile of her breasts clearly showed how busty she was. The contours over her midsection and over her thighs to her ankles mesmerized Mike for a moment. By the time he was able to peel his eyes away, the lines of her body lingered like an echo bouncing away; like the outline of a flash in ones eyes, fading in definition until incrementally gone.
When the second stage of the purge began, Mike rubbed his eyes and initiated another round of filtration monitoring. Almost immediately he was surprised at the lingering lines, blue hues blinking across the screen - or so it appeared. Lines tracing the profile of Kathleen's body; her head and neck, her breasts and midsection, her legs and feet.
With those lines having faded, Mike continued his task at hand. But whether it was subliminal or intentional, his own mind flipped through the image of the beautiful body laying just across the lab from him. And those lines. Flickering and fading; yet his mind storing the temporary images like "flash-memories" - fragments of a memory that seem like nothing more than random, illogical spikes of energy.
More than a distraction, those lines became a template for his eyes. At first he did not realize it, how his eyes were searching for matches to those lines rather than rogue, neuron spikes. He suspected a fragment floating by and executed the freeze frame function. There, suspended on the screen almost bent behind an entirely disconnected image, there was a fleshy tone filling in along those lines. Mike look more closely with the aid of the zoom function.
"Fuck," he muttered. Unprofessional and completely impulsive. He glanced around to see if anyone was lingering about. Nobody in the room except for he and Kathleen. He returned his study of the screen. The pale complexion. The lines. A tap of just 10 freeze-frames forward and the fragment developed enough definition to be more than a random fragment. It was a reflection in a mirror. It was Kathleen. It was her body more specifically, completely naked.
Without significantly altering the filtration definitions, there was no way to collect more memory data to provide context to the image. Clearly it did not fit the present purge topic. Equally clear was the magnetic tug it had on Mike's attention. That image on the screen. The tantalizing reality that the complete and real thing was laying just across the room from him. Unresponsive. Neutralized for the procedure.
