Between the Brain and the Camera

 Between the Brain and the Camera

By Dylan Clockwork

Wren was having a strange day. She found it was about to get a lot better though. After three days of not having working wifi, she had discovered that her laptop had connected to a secured network automatically. Someone called Gary Harman was going to save her days of waiting around for her new router to arrive. 

“Who is this guy? He sounds familiar,” Wren asked. 

For the heck of it, and possibly to warn the guy to change his password when her router got there, she checked the network for other devices connected. On the connection sheet she was expecting something like two laptops, and a gaming console. Instead she found several devices that were all listed under various long serial numbers. 

“GaryHarmanExternalHardriveReadme,” Wren read. “Is he running a website about himself or something?”

Wren opened the file and took a look. She did not move from her chair for the next several hours. Inside the file were references of basic repair and maintenance for the person known as Gary Harman. Everything about Gary Harman you didn’t want to know was there. How his eyes needed to be cleaned with glass cleaner every few weeks. The hookup and boot up procedure for every motor controller and sensory apparatus. How the optics computer needed to have every connection port screwed in due to the unit running around. How to replace the fluid and add nutrients for the brain jar. How there was a wireless charger under his ass cheeks that connected to every chair he regularly sat in. There was even an up to date social media page that showed his likes and dislikes. All of this was funneled through the wifi connection that she had interfaced for regular downloads and archiving.

“What the… no…” Wren said, closing the image she’d been looking at. “Somebody's making some kind of augmented reality in game development, or something.”

She couldn’t think of doing anything. So she did what most people did when they weren't thinking. Without realizing it she opened her phone and pulled up her social media page. Barely glancing at it she typed the name Gary Harman and found a local result.

“I know this guy,” she said, squinting at the profile. 

They had been in the same 101 classes last semester. He didn’t look like a machine, maybe a little tired, but who didn’t during midterms. She checked the activity feed, everything seemed normal. The last picture was of him sitting in the library inviting people over to study, hinting that he really needed notes on microbiology102. Time posted, twelve minutes ago. Wren found herself getting up and getting her shoes on before she thought about it. 

“Just going to see if he’s completely human,” Wren said, “I have the notes anyways.”

Wren bagged her laptop and headed down to the library in just five minutes. She recognized Gary from the picture he took just a few minutes before. He was dressed in jeans, a tshirt and was looking at a website containing pictures of green plastic army men in unusual situations. All in all, he seemed pretty normal.

“Hey were you the guy who wanted microbiology notes?” Wren asked. 

“Yea,” Gary said. 

“Alright let me transfer them over,” Wren said, pulling out a flash drive.

While the files were transferring over Wren started wondering what the hell to ask him.

“So how do I know you?”

“Did you know there’s some kind of web server dedicated to you as if you were a brain in a jar?” Wren asked not wanting to have the other conversation.

“Umm what?”

“Yea I found it by poking through a wifi router with your name on it,” Wren said. “Here I can probably pull it up.”

She poked through her network connectivity settings. After a minute she found his name.

“You don’t happen to know about this, I take it,” Wren said. 

“I don’t know about a random linksys wifi network?” Gary asked.

“Ok not what I thought he’d say,” Wren thought clicking through the other files. “Hang on let me pull up the weird stuff.”

Gary looked around to see if anyone was watching and turned back to the computer screen.

“Here we have the part that describes how all information is linked from you to some kind of central server on campus,” Wren said.

“This looks like computer science notes by a bad typer,” Gary said. 

“Well, yes hang on,” Wren said.

She then pulled up the algorithms on how the data was pulled from Gary and sucked to some kind of server. He couldn’t seem to understand what he was looking at. Since he wasn’t a coder, she pulled up the diagrams and photographs for maintenance. That got a reaction, wasn’t every day you saw your own brain having it’s oil fluid changed. Unfortunately his reaction was wondering from what hole of the internet she had gotten these from. Wren started looking for something else to show him when Gary received a text message.

“I have to go and get myself weighed, thanks for the notes, here’s your usb back.”

“What,” Wren thought. “No, no I’ve already made a fool of myself, I’m figuring out what’s going on.”

“See ya.”

“Why are you getting weighed?” Wren asked.

“Oh the guys at the biochemistry dept are testing weight loss treatments,” Gary said, “I signed up for the twenty bucks.”

“I’m coming with you.”

“Um alright.”

They walked across the campus for a minute before Gary had to say something.

“So I know it’s finals week and all, are you- you know, feeling alright?” Gary asked.

“What?” Wren asked, wondering what he was getting at. “Yea yea I feel fine, little on edge since my router broke, and all my stuff is online, but I’m doing alright.”

“Ok,” Gary said, eyeing her oddly. “Just you know, there is consoling here, I haven’t been but…”

“You are not turning this around to be about me,” Wren wanted to scream in her head.

They reached the biology building. Inside they descended several flights of stairs until they found a bored guy surfing on his phone in an old lab classroom. 

“Hmm,” the lab worker said. “You brought a friend.”

“More like found a stalker,” Gary said, taking off his shoes. “She’s friendly though, want me to weigh myself then?”

“Yes, ditch the shoes, the belt, ect ect, you know the drill,” the lab worker said.

The lab worker set out a scale, as well as a cushy looking chair. He sat back down and went back to browsing his phone while eyeballing Wren oddly.

“So do you know that there’s some kind of a network with this guy's name on it,” Wren said.

“Did you set it up?” the lab worker asked.

“No, did you?” Wren asked.

“Probably not,” the lab worker said with a yawn.

“Did you know that it’s full of diagrams of him being some kind of robot?” Wren asked.

“Um,” the lab worker said, looking at Wren oddly. “I don’t really want to know. Is this one of those furry things?”

Wren pulled out her laptop and opened the network area. She clicked on several files at random to be opened up and gestured the lab worker over. Oddly enough he seemed to be looking at her laptop more than the files themselves.

“How’d you get one of our old laptops?” the lab worker asked.

“School resell sales last summer,” Wren said. 

“Hmm,” the lab worker said, drumming his fingers. “Dam Gerralt, tell him to wipe the computers and he probably just started deleting files. Well I guess you know now.”

“Yep,” Wren said, wondering what she knew. “So what the hell is going on.”

“Oh we have this wonderful relationship going on between a brain we scooped out of a traffic accident and that husk over there,” the lab worker said gesturing towards Gary. “The jackass in the chair is just a husk, a drone, a machine, though he is just controlled by a human brain in some capacity.”

Wren looked over Gary Harman. He didn’t seem to have much of a reaction to this, he seemed to be flicking through something on his phone.

“Ya hear that, you’re a machine,” Wren said.

“Freaking biomechanics classes,” Gary muttered under his breath, not looking up.

“Any reason he can’t understand us?” Wren asked.

“Oh the optics computer runs through everything he tries to process and either alters it or suppresses it, if it has a chance of altering his perceived reality,” the lab worker said. “After that he fills in the blanks with stuff that makes sense to him.”

“Oh I think he’d notice,” Wren said. 

“Of course he does, it’d be impossible for him not to,” the lab worker said. “Little pauses in the consciousness can be easily explained away. Everyone walks into rooms and forgets what they were doing. Heck do you remember how you woke up this morning or did you autopilot your way here?”

“I have a caffeine problem,” Wren said.

“And I have a hangover problem,” the lab worker said. “Him, he thinks it’s the sugar pills we’ve been having him take every morning. That or it’s the long all nighters, or his diet of stale doughnuts, pizza and chips. Anything he won’t really change about himself.”

Wren held her forehead and tried to process it. “Alright but what about…”

“Here let me take a look at your computer.” The lab technician said poking through some folders. “Hey picture of the vat.”

He pulled up a picture of Gary Harman. It was a dimly lit container with several tubes poking into the muck. At the bottom obscured by everything on the surface, was a grey lump.

“Jesus.”

Before Wren realized what was happening the lab worker pulled up her network settings, found Gary Harman, and deleted the password.

“Bet you didn’t copy anything,” the lab worker said, handing the computer back to Wren.

“Whatever,” Wren said, cringing her eyes. “I can tell people.”

“Hmm, another biomedical student having a mental breakdown before the test,” the lab worker said. “Good luck with that, you know there’s a code for that on the security radios right?”

“I’ll do it, I’ll cover him with magnets and shit too,” she said pointing at Gary.

“Better start with yourself,” the lab worker said.

“What?”

“How do you know you’re also not a brain in a vat?”

“How do you know-” Wren started.

“Oh I don’t know, and I don’t care about me,” the lab worker said. “You seem to care a lot though, prove you’re not a brain in a jar.”

Wren thought about this for a few seconds.

“You said that these computers censored data that would lead people to believe that there were brains in jars.”

“I said his computer did that,” the lab worker said, “didn’t say anything about yours.”

“What could the purpose of that be?” Wren asked.

“Maybe neural computers are expensive,” the lab worker said, “maybe we’re collecting data on how people react to the information they’re just brains in jars,”

“I’m not a brain in a jar,” Wren said.

“Of course you’re not being manipulated to think that.”

Wren wondered, “Everything I think about is based on what I experience. Everything I experience is based on my nerves. If my nerves are being perfectly simulated, then I could not be sure of anything for certain. That includes if I’m actually just a brain in a jar having information piped into me from a computer.” 

“Alright then,” Wren said. “Let’s say we all might be in jars, how do you deal with it?”

“I don’t,” the lab worker said with a shrug. “There’s no point. I just get on with life. Heck if I was plugged in, there’s no way for me to know. So if I piss them off and they unplug me there’s nothing I could do about it. The only thing to do is drink, annoy Gary, and get on with my life.”

“Hmm.”

Wren wasn’t sure what to say at that. She packed up her computer and walked back to her dorm, mind blank the entire way. When Wren got inside she booted up her computer, and tried to browse the web out of habit. When she got to her network suggestions she almost thought she read one called “WrenCambul.” She quickly diverted her whole attention to the network list and started looking for it again. The closest she was able to find though was “WestCambus.” 

“I make that same mistake every time I hear someone say nearly my name, or see something written like it,” Wren thought to herself.

Wren started at the network list on her screen for the next several minutes. She decided to diagnose herself with dyslexia. Then she diagnosed herself with getting twelve hours of sleep total last week. Then she diagnosed herself with sleeping at that very moment and OH GOD MIDTERMS. When she did not cease dreaming after screaming that she diagnosed herself with needing to get some actual sleep. As Wren laid down there were two things that stuck out, a charging cable leading out of her wall that didn’t connect to any device she owned, and a vague sense of familiarity.