I just realised I can not only blog but post a promo for my book.
Here is chapter one of my Sci-Fi book Pod-Animity available on Amazon (see link in my bio)
Pod-Animity
(Premise)
After death technology has allowed moderately rich humans that have a full spine and brain to be transported into a cybernetic body that looks exactly like their human body, making death seem almost obsolete. Some choose through strict privacy to choose a different body. Either a person didn't enjoy their life, family or friends so they choose a body nothing like their past body image but still with all their thoughts and memories intact or they choose an exact replica of the old body if they have the money.
Of course the vocals are different but for those who choose to be in the same body image if there is any audio of them say by video or an mp3/mp4 or answer machine message this can be put into their new system so they're able to talk to relatives and friends as though nothing has changed in the same pitch, tone it’s seamless. Usually all the perks are afforded to the rich who can afford and prepare for any future unforeseen circumstances namely death but recently the criminal world have sought to profit from making pods or escaping a messy death.
If a person was one race they can choose to come back as any other and experience it. You have black people wanting to try the experience of being white and vice versa to see if there are any privileges or benefits. There is always the curiosity of having what we perceive as advantages or disadvantages associated with various races some well found some just rumoured.
The only thing is they can't change pods once they've chosen and their family members who felt they would see their loved ones again in the same form don't hear from them again because they've chose a different body leaving many angered and wanting the law to change so everyone has to disclose who they become and more importantly who they were. You can imagine the controversy when someone choses as has happened before many times to come back in a different body but can still interact with family or friends knowing things about them but not disclosing their true identity.
To change Pod’s now is a life sentence and many have been put away plus the only place that has the market on pods is a large multi-million pound company called “Burls”.
Chapter 1 “The Beginning or End?”
“Death normally gets the final say in all issues but not in this world or time!”
The body is on one of those metal tables that you would see at a morgue or dissecting table with four wheels rattling side to side as the medics try to be quick. Surgical instruments are shuffling in a tray on top of the body being moved. A green blanket over it, the person is dead but there's heavy security around the table as doctors rush it to a room. Five strong over fed steroids eating goons in black suits heavily armed with 9mm's keep looking over their shoulder, they know their boss Kingsley can come back from this with the help of technology and he can rule his patch as he once did. The rival gang Carlito's done their best to take him out in their last shoot out. In this world if you still have your brain and spine you can live on almost like it never happened.
It is late 22:16 to be exact the body being taken through the down town hospital is a cold slab of meat to most but this is no ordinary dead body it is a well-known criminal Kingsley. There should be no urgency but there is. The Dr’s have ten hours to get the brain and spine out of the body and into a pod for the process to work, any longer than this and there’s various issues of malfunctioning and rejection of tissue that can take place. A pod sounds small and cute but we are talking about a high tech piece of machinery.
The DR. wipes his sweaty brow with the back of his hand whilst working on Kingsley knowing they can't make any mistakes. The body is cut open with an electric hand saw buzzing away much like one you would cut wood with, right down the middle from the forehead down the throat, centre of the chest cracking open the breast plate and stopping just before the groin region.
Robot pincers making swift sharp sounds of precision positioning carefully the brain stem spine and all connecting nerves into the pod then like a circuit board all necessary nerve endings are connected through an adhesive substance. A jelly like fluid is used to fill the inside of the head to cushion the brain from any damage. The last part involves putting the Nano bots inside via the mouth entrance where they spread throughout the body and are being watched closely on a monitor to ensure they go to all areas.
There is also the issue of money, who wants to miss out on a pay-out for helping a wealthy criminal? Everyone with street intelligence knows there’s good money to be made. The medics know there's a lot of money to be made if they keep him alive so to speak the term people use now is "Re-Born”. The external or outer body is referred to by many as the “Pod”. The medics risk a backlash from rival gangs for saving a perceived threat but the money makes it tempting where they can disappear to a different country or just live in anonymity in a wealthy area or of course there is the option of being Re-Born themselves but many gangsters are ensuring this doesn’t happen by shooting the brain or severing the spinal column of Dr’s helping rivals.
Of course Kinsley had his robot (pod) on standby with all the illegal money he made through his strip clubs that laundered drug money. It's one of the first things the rich now do, book an appointment have your face mapped on a computer, body and face measurements taken along with vocals, weight and height, eye colour all the details to make a sufficient pod replica.
Kingsley’s option isn’t of a replica, why come back as a well-known criminal? When you can be someone else.
To the rich it's like a life insurance that pays out with them still being alive because they feel they've cheated death, as long as they can keep the pod going. The pods simply need charging once a week which you don’t forget due to system warnings during the day and night, it’s not a long process it simply involves sitting down and plugging in a USB sized wire into the belly button area. Cleaning is pretty much as you would clean a human body since the technology is water proof unless you were to somehow get fully inside to all the circuits via a damaged area but any damage sustained is reported back to the company’s A.I system Bertha and alerts are sent to the user. Are you sold yet do you want one?
The whole issue of knowing if a person elects to come back as someone else arose due to an instance of a man coming back in a different form that resembled someone he thought his wife was interested in and their relationship grew but he murdered her based on his jealousy when he felt she was acting more favourably to his new body then how he was treated when he was alive and a proper human. Whether this exposes our human insecurities or anger some plead the case of both but human emotions cannot be gaged at the best of times by others, who knows what makes us do what we do.
To have an exact duplicate of your former self is a lot more expensive so the average person goes for a different form due to the price or just wanting a change. To an ordinary person it is still costly, more expensive than two houses depending on the option you chose. There is option one to come back as yourself which is highly priced since the work is done before death to secure the voice, facial image and body shape, posture and other intricate parts. Option two a totally different body even race if needed the only option that isn’t there for people yet is to be a different sex people have tried illegally to perform this but once found out they faced prison sentences. Why I hear you ask does it make a difference? I don’t know this was the process put in place possibly because it can be seen as fraud or deception when it comes to intimacy with partners. Option three for the poorer people is a standard pod not looking as human like or with all the great features afforded to the rich but hey you’ve just cheated death for cheap what more do you want?
The rich pay for their pod normally but poorer people have been offered the option of paying for a pod via organ donation which many have argued causes the Dr’s to favour the decision of declaring people dead more rather than trying to save their life. For a full donation of organs excluding the brain and spine necessary for the procedure poorer people can have option one. Some have found out the hard way that they had agreed, to donate all organs but woke up in a pod of a different standard because not all the organs taken from their body were useable such as alcoholics not having useful kidneys, lungs or livers.
There was a case of a man who took his Re-Born body mountain climbing in the Alps and due to conditions froze inside his pod, the cheaper option has been improved a lot since. This was before the advances that led to better temperature adjustment for the spine and brain whilst in the pod. Of course there are drawbacks for people that feel they might as well end their life to continue on as kind of an immortal in one sense because they obviously can't reproduce or enjoy the pleasures of intimacy but they can try, some would say the feeling isn't there and the women have really gone off the idea since that one incident where a woman died because of the force of a guy’s pod ramming into her. You may laugh but again this was before advances made the pod more controlled in those areas and less forceful in
intimacy and fights. One guy was able to punch a guy’s head clean off due to the force of the arms but now custom-made upgrades aren't allowed and the force applied by pods are limited to strong but not overly forceful limits when fighting. There were instances of people arguing it was the companies fault for allowing them to punch with such force and that is not what they intended to do but due to their lack of knowledge of what their pod could do or was capable of they ended up causing serious bodily harm.
In one sense pod users have said they feel and have sensitivity with their hands and experience as a human would but you can’t replicate love and the feeling in your heart of butterflies. Pod users don’t need to eat they can due to an upgrade do this process to help recharge their battery and they do however need sleep for some reason due to the brain I guess not getting overloaded with constant activity.
As with everything there are limitations Dr’s have around ten hours to perform the procedure of removing a spinal cord and brain from a body with any connecting nerves or veins that are of use to put inside the pod. It is intricate work but manageable when the team of neurologists, physicians and other experts know what they are doing.
Some criminals due to their activity opt to come back in a different form to try evading prison and they get away with it because of paid dodgy specialists that can triple the money they are paid for these procedures to be done without the laws knowledge and anonymity. There are a few Re-Born’s in jail, those who thought they could evade capture by becoming a different person.
So that brings us to the issues facing pod users today, people wanting pod users to have their original identification (pre-death) known so they can’t simply abandon an old life and start as someone else whilst knowing the people they communicate with and that person being unaware. You can imagine the drama of telling secrets to someone you think is a stranger but they had actually known you well or intimately. In the past pods were easy to identify by the appearance not looking as smooth as a human and the robotic simulated walk or robotic tinny voice but now advances mean they are very convincing as humans.
When you integrate something into society it naturally becomes part of it and accepted as normal. There have been calls for pod users to carry cards displayed on their chest showing who they were before. Many have argued this is an invasion of privacy, discrimination and a form of slavery against them so this hasn’t come into force.
How the pod works with just the spine and brain alone with sometimes only minimal other nerve functions I don’t know I am not a scientist but the technology exists and is being made use of. Nano technology has its part to play with the Nano bots moving around making things work is as much as I could understand from various news reports that tried to explain. Who thought of this first and patented it? is questionable but one major company Burls works on producing pods to order and create a few standard pods for poorer people based on general appearances.
There is the issue of trying not to create one pod that looks like another so the computer-generated image before the pod is developed runs a matching system to check and changes features on a pod it deems are too similar in appearance to previous pods made. There are always exceptions to who can be placed inside a pod, obviously if someone is suffering with a degenerative brain disease or disorder (Alzheimer's, Schizophrenia, Dementia or any other
mental health issue) they cannot be placed inside a pod because they would still have the same problems they suffered before.
If you are in a pod before doing large investments (property, car, boat or setting up a business) you have to disclose who you were prior to death to ensure you’re not a criminal and aren’t trying to use funds gained through criminal activity. Each pod has a unique reference number associated with it and engraved at the back of the foot even if removed the A.I Bertha sitting in Burl’s building has recognition software based on appearance and the Nano-bots used.