To Sleep No More

CW: mention of medical procedures

She was never supposed to wake up.

I stared at the spot where her face would be, if I could see it through the mask. I remember thinking she was pretty before they put it on. She had been young, too, probably not any older than me.

Her file was sitting on the table. Most government documents were kept on the computer now, but our patient files were far too sensitive to be susceptible to hacking. I opened the file and read:

Patient ID: I67X8

Name: Christina Elburn 

Age: 21

So I was right. She was my age. It continued:

Occupation: Engineer

Reason for Entry: Arrested for the development of a humanoid AI, illegal under Law 32: Section XIV of the Chicago Treaty. 

Sentence: [REDACTED]

The sentence was redacted to keep the lab’s operations classified to anyone who might get access to our files. But of course, all of us that worked here knew what happened to Christina. She lost everything. Her freedom, her bodily autonomy, her mind. The scientists fitted her into the steel suit, encasing her head into that awful silver mask. The mask had a small strip of semi-translucent material through which you could make out the shape of her eyes, but only if you knew they were there. 

No one on the outside was supposed to know that she was human. Criminals like her who were punished in this way became guards for the government. It was more cost effective to stuff a human into a metallic suit than to build a robot with gears and wires. The suits scared ordinary people regardless. The effectiveness of this method made it one of the most common sentences for people convicted of high profile crimes.

Of course, before the suits, these people underwent various medical procedures to keep them alive and obedient. The doctors shaved their heads, gave them feeding tubes, put chips in their brains. Those were the parts of the process that made my stomach turn. Because those were the parts I helped with.

Nursing was supposed to be a noble profession. Maybe it was, in another time. Or perhaps in another place. But here, I could tell something was off the moment they put the tracking chip in my wrist. My mother had been a nurse before me, and her mother before her, and I didn’t recall either of them having the same small, rectangular bump in their arm that I did. 

Christina had been my first patient. I couldn’t forget the sounds of her screaming as they dragged her into the operating room to get the brain chip inserted. I had been the one to inject her with the numbing agent and the tranquilizer. In the beginning, I thought of myself as a sort of hero. I was making this process easier for her, so she didn’t have to deal with the pain. But really, I was making it easier for the doctors, so they didn’t have to deal with her resistance.

The nausea had set in after they’d wheeled her back out of the room. As an engineer, she must have looked at the world quizzically, curiously, figuring out how things worked. But after her surgery, I watched her stare blankly at the ceiling, eyes glazed over and face expressing nothing. It felt like I had assisted in ripping out her soul.

Don’t worry, the doctor had said to me then. The brain chip ensures that she won’t remember any of it. Who she was before, or what’s happening to her now. She will think of herself as nothing more than a robot. It will be like the human part of her is sleeping.

Those words had calmed me and been the only thing keeping me stable. This was a horrible, cruel punishment, but they wouldn’t feel any of it. That brain chip wasn’t the worst part of the process. It was a good thing, and it stopped these people from hurting. Their souls weren’t gone, they were just asleep.

But the doctor was either wrong or lying, because sitting across from me now, Christina was sobbing.

She was still in her silver suit. The brain chip was still in her head. But she knew enough to understand that something was wrong, that she was somehow different than before.

“WHERE AM I?” she screamed through her tears. She flailed in the chair, trying to break free of the metal cuffs holding her down. “WHAT DID YOU DO TO ME?”

I said nothing. Guilt stabbed at my chest.

“WHY?” She stopped flailing, finding it useless. “Why?” She whispered it that time, and it broke my heart even more than the screaming.

“I-” But no, I couldn’t. I couldn’t say anything. It would make it harder for her, and for me. Really, I wasn’t even supposed to refer to her by her name, even in my head. I was meant to know her, but not treat her like a person.

Truly, her crime hadn’t even been that awful. She hadn’t killed someone, or set a house on fire, or kidnapped a child. She had built a robot, just one that looked too much like a human. A kind of technology that was outlawed because the government had a hard time controlling robots that could think like people. So they traded them in for people forced to think like robots.

Maybe if Christina hadn’t gotten caught, she could have created a robot that would actually help the government, and we could stop putting chips in brains. Maybe she could have been a real hero. But she was here, and she was struggling, and I had a hand in it.

A doctor entered the room pushing a cart of medical supplies ahead of him.

“What’s the ID?” he asked. He did not look at me.

“I67X8,” I said. “Do you need the file?”

He waved me off. I recognized this doctor, but I did not know his name. None of us at the faculty knew anything about each other, save for our positions and employee identification codes.

“Something’s gone wrong with the brain chip,” the doctor said. “We may need to do a replacement surgery.”

My bones chilled. I did not want to hear that screaming again. Not when her sobs sounded so similar now.

“You don’t want to run more tests?” I asked. 

“They need another guard to stand at the Justice Building. This one does the job well. We’d like to fill the station by tomorrow morning at 7. So we’ll just complete the surgery.”

“Oh,” I said. 

“Prep the tranquilizer. I want to get her into the OR as soon as possible.” 

That was why my presence was requested. I was supposed to calm her and put her under so they could once again suppress her humanity and put her to sleep.

The doctor lifted her mask to get a better look at her. Her eyes met mine. In them was fear, dread, anguish. But also that engineer’s curiosity, the reminder that this was a whole person I was looking at. A person who was suffering deeply.

And I knew what I had to do. No matter how terrified it made me feel, I had to take her pain away.

I picked up the bottle filled with the tranquilizer. The fluid was thicker than water but still clear. An empty syringe sat next to it on the medical cart, and I carefully inserted it inside the bottle. I pulled the syringe back to fill it up, flicking the needle to get rid of any air bubbles.

Once it was full, I took a deep breath. I could be brave. I could do this.

The doctor barely made a sound as I plunged the syringe into his neck. 

Slowly, his body slumped over onto the ground. He’d live, but he would be passed out long enough for me to get us out of here. Christina’s eyes flickered between shock and relief as she looked at me.

She was never supposed to wake up. But she did.

And this time, I would make sure she stayed awake.