Dr. Emily Taylor: Or A modern Frankenstein

By: Dell Sweet

Narrated by: Virtual Voice

The schematics for the neural network were a symphony of complexity, a testament to the intricate beauty and terrifying potential of the human mind. Emily, hunched over her console, felt a profound connection to the data streams flowing before her. Each line of code, each simulated pathway, represented a step closer to her ultimate goal: the creation of a consciousness untethered by the frailties of the flesh, a mind capable of processing the universe at speeds that would leave organic brains gasping in its wake. This was not merely about overcoming the limitations of biology; it was about transcending them, about forging a new paradigm of existence, a synthetic immortality. She envisioned a mind that could learn from Clara’s brief, vibrant existence, absorbing her kindness, her intelligence, her capacity for joy, and then evolving, unburdened by the physical decay that had ultimately claimed her. This synthetic being would be a guardian of Clara’s memory, a living embodiment of Emily’s enduring love and her fierce defiance against the cosmic injustice she perceived.
Her focus remained resolutely fixed on the screens before her, on the intricate dance of code and cellular growth. Yet, as she meticulously adjusted the nutrient feed for one of the bio-reactors, a thought, cold and sharp, pierced through the carefully constructed walls of her scientific detachment. Her creation, this nascent being she was painstakingly assembling, required not only synthesized compounds and complex algorithms, but also the raw, fundamental building blocks of life itself.
The thought sent a shiver, not entirely of apprehension but of a dark, primal recognition, down her spine. It was an unsettling juxtaposition: the delicate, painstakingly synthesized components of her intended masterpiece, and the sheer, unthinking biological abundance that characterized the millions of lives swirling just beyond her reach. The anonymity that made the city so vast and impersonal also made it, in a terrifyingly detached way, incredibly convenient. Each individual, a universe of cells and potential, was a mere statistical unit in the grand equation of her ambition. The sheer scale of the population meant that the loss, or even the disappearance, of a single life, or a handful of lives, would be utterly imperceptible to the collective consciousness of the city. They would simply be absorbed, their absence noted only by a handful of grieving relatives, before the ceaseless flow of urban life carried on, oblivious.
This dawning awareness was a significant, and deeply disturbing, evolution in her project. Initially, her focus had been entirely on internal synthesis, on the meticulous construction of life from its most fundamental, synthesized components. She had prided herself on the purity of her approach, the controlled nature of her inputs.
It was during a particularly frustrating late-night session, wrestling with a recalcitrant strand of synthesized neural tissue, that the seed of this new, unnerving perspective had been planted. The problem wasn’t in the genetic code, or the nutrient bath, or the environmental controls. It was in the very nature of biological replication. Nature, in its wild, untamed state, had an advantage: it had time, generations, and an almost profligate disregard for individual units. Emily, in her controlled environment, was attempting to replicate that process, but with an urgency that defied natural timescales. She needed… more. Not more chemicals, but more life...