Janus extracted a circular device from the box on the table.
“But it’s so small,”
Ellen said.
“Marvelous, isn’t it?” Janus held the device to the light,
admiring the network of wires and pathways etched upon it. “Every year, we cram more onto it. With this one chip, there will be no more
need of school. No child will be left
behind, because everyone will be the same.”
He laughed lightly. “Hell, a
three day old baby may very well be better educated than you.”
“But, Doctor…Surely you can’t be thinking…A child isn’t
capable of…”
Janus held up a hand.
“Already tested in three hundred newborns in trials going back as far as
ten years.” He giggled. “Their parents think they’re geniuses. And I suppose they are, in a way: Everything
ever known to mankind has been etched upon this chip.”
“Not everything, Doctor.
Individual memories…”
“Downloaded to the main computer instantaneously. A person’s memories become shared
memories. What you ate for dinner; the
book you read.” Janus grinned. “Whether you’re cheating on your
husband.” He glanced at the man strapped
in the chair. “What about you,
Davis. You ready to become a genius?”
Davis’s eyes widened.
He clutched the arms of the chair.
“No. I…”
“Poor Davis,” Janus sang.
“Every year it was the same. Last
to know your times tables. Last to turn
in your papers. Last to read. If I recall correctly, it took you until the
third grade to understand what a paragraph was.”
Davis cast his eyes to the floor.
“You held me back, Davis.
You held us all back.”
“Doctor,” Ellen
said. “If the subject isn’t willing…”
“Ellen, all this subject
does all day is play video games and watch TV.”
“That’s his choice.”
“Trust me, Ellen, we’re doing him a favor.” Janus picked up his tools, and approached the
chair. He shaved the back of Davis’s
head and rubbed a numbing agent there. “Once
I remove all this gray matter, Ellen, I can insert the brain.”
This piece was written for this week's Trifecta Writing Challenge. The word was brain: something that performs the functions of a
brain; especially : an automatic device (as a
computer) for control or computation.
Labels: Fiction, Trifecta Writing Challenge