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[Story][Season 0] Bi-location
[Story][Season 0] Bi-location
#1
Bi-location - 09/Jun/2012
Eastercon[1], 2008, UK.
Sitting in a bar.  Even at a science fiction convention.  In a wheelchair that made you socially invisible.  Yes, Brains was willing to admit.  It was pretty lonely.
Things'd gone reasonably well.  He'd had to hire a disabled-adapted van, as he usually did for cons; his old Bedford hadn't worked for years now, and he'd never got around to getting it fixed.  Brainless clamped-down in the back as he'd driven down.  No police cars stopped them for having an invisible driver, as he'd joked with Uran before they left, but he certainly wasn't letting Brainless drive.
He hoped leaving Uran to poke around the village, and surrounding area, invisible, wasn't going to have any long-term consequences.
Brainless'd seemed almost cheerful when they arrived.  He'd picked up their con package from the desk, and pinned-on the badge, giving Brains a quick look as he did.  Brains nearly protested, then realised Brainless would be the one people looked at.
Getting the dioramas set up in the Dealers Room went smoothly.  No one seemed to notice that there were two, identical, heavily-built red-haired men in wheelchairs; they just walked around Brains, as usual.  Though, Roger came in after they'd set-up, gave the pair of them a funny look, before turning to a customer.
Brains hung around a while.  Brainless actually smiled, talking to someone, explaining the background to one of the SF dioramas.  After a while he couldn't stand it any more, and wheeled-off to the bar.
Thinking about things, maybe Brainless was so unhappy, around him, because the two of them being there meant he couldn't be 'Brian'?  That made some sense - his main reason for existence was to be a stand-in.  For a moment Brains had the nasty notion that he just pretended to be non-sentient to wind him up...
"Brains?"  A woman he half-recognised called across the bar to him, then swiftly strode in his direction.  "I know you're pretty fast in that wheelchair, but we've just come straight from the Dealers Room.  Wait here."
Brains heart sunk, as he watched her stride out of the room, then back in a minute later.  "There's two of you!  How'd you manage that?"  And she stood there, tapping her foot on the carpet.
Maureen, as he saw her name badge said, obviously wasn't just going to go away. While waiting she looked over at a stocky man coming out of the loo.  "Dave!  Come over here and talk to Brains."
Dave looked around the bar, then ambled towards them.  "Brains?  Didn't we just see him in the Dealers Room?"  And his gaze slid across Brains.
Brains remembered Dave, one of his better on-line friends.  He'd a partner called 'Maureen'.  Best as he remembered they worked together at a small biomedical research company.  One of the few people he passed handwavium on to.  Hadn't Dave said Maureen was unwell and not coming to the con?
"Here!"  Maureen slapped the back of Brains wheelchair; definitely a social no-no.  Dave blinked, then looked straight at Brains for the first time.  "How did you get here so quickly, Brian?"
"That's just what I was asking him!"  And Maureen raised her hands into the air in exasperation.  Other fans in the bar were polite enough to do no more than glance over.
"I'm invisible.  That's why I brought a visible version of myself as well."  Maybe the truth would get him out of this?  Dave went white.  "You waved a copy of yourself?  And it worked?"  He slumped into a chair, put his hands over his face, and shook.  Brains could tell he was resisting crying.
Maureen moved over, put one hand on Dave's shoulder, then started rubbing his back.  She gave Brains one or two annoyed glances, but most of her attention was on Dave.
Brains sighed.  Then stood up, his wheelchair folding to support his lower body, and stumped over to the bar.  On the way one or two fans gave him admiring glances, and he caught at least one flash of a quick snap.  Good job he was going to go live on the Moon.
Their story slowly came out as Dave and Maureen sipped their drinks.  Brains was waiting for his toasted sandwich to arrive.  Dave had taken the handwavium and fed it until he could wave-up all the medical instruments and testing tools he could imagine.  A bio lab provided good enough containment facilities that waving involved little risk.
His prize piece was a replica of the human brain, that showed all the same readings as an unconscious adult one would, and responded to drugs in the same way.  Obvious ethical issues prevented him going any further.  Unfortunately his employers, while impressed by his enterprise, didn't think that they could sell instruments that you had to literally coax into working.  The idea of needing to sing to, admittedly a fully comprehensive hand-portable, brain scanner wasn't on.
Then Maureen had her fatal accident.  Dave's instruments showed she was totally dead, with only some residual brain activity, so he didn't think he had anything to loose.  He kludged the brain scanner to transfer as much of her as was left into the synthetic brain.  Then concealed her death while he built a steadily more functional body around it, organ by organ, part by part.
"I don't know how I did it", he admitted to Brains.  "But I'm not doing it again.  The nightmares have mostly stopped now, and I'm only going to do enough to keep Maureen healthy."  "Probably still sell the instruments, but I've always fancied taking up farming.  What do you think?"
Maureen gave Dave a 'we will be discussing this further' look.
"We're going, soon", and Maureen pointed up.  "Will we see you?"
--
"It is the business of the future to be dangerous" - Hawkwind
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#2
META "Bi-location"

The synthetic human brain, followed by the cross-loading, is supposed to be a one-off handwavium special - others seem to have done things not totally dissimilar, so I hope it'll be OK.

Dave would appear to have taken some bad effects from the process. I'm guessing he might have a small business in Fenspace selling waved medical instruments and research tools; I doubt Maureen will let them just be farmers. Waved droid farmhands that look a bit like medical dummies? You could make use of Dave and Maureen if you like.

We learn a bit more about the relationship between Brains and Brainless in this.
This follows "Day Trip", and is followed by "Deadly Weapons".
--
"It is the business of the future to be dangerous" - Hawkwind
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