The First Transfer

It began to become clear to us all, this technology wasn't anywhere near perfect. This chip had indeed been made to take memories from a mind, but was so crude in comparison to what it was likely modeled after that it left residual bits and pieces behind, making it possible to have abilities from the previous memory without having the actual memory behind it, which would likely explain my ability to quickly develop things. We also found that a similar effect would be likely when memories were inserted, meaning you'd have phantom moments where it didn't seem that you were in control of yourself, which I had already experienced. I wondered though, if I were going to force myself to make this chip, why would I make it imperfect? It didn't make any sense to me, it would have been easier to pull the full memory out directly and just put in the knowledge I needed. We continued studying the tiny chip, learning all we could about how it worked before preparing to make our own version of it which should, in theory, be closer to the perfect design we all envisioned. One of the more interesting parts about this design was that what it contained could only be inserted back into the one it had been pulled from, the ragged edges of its extraction making it so that if they didn't match up they wouldn't stick. This also meant that the information contained on the chip would not be readable without putting it back into the head it came from, which meant I would not learn what was on it until such time as I could handle the influx of knowledge. This thought of course was met by an immediate warning from my inserted memories that my brain was not ready to have all that knowledge back, and so I was resigned to just learning the technology instead of worrying about what my life had been.

The first chip wasn't constructed until we had gone through many designs, each time we came up with a finished one we learned something new and had to redo it all over again. It wasn't a very forgiving technology, you had to be sure to get the bits and pieces right. When the first one was made we had to get a couple of volunteers to try it out, and hopefully use it as intended first instead of just trial an error with a random memory. Finding some volunteers didn't take long, there were plenty of individuals who had some knowledge they didn't want but someone else did. We explained to them how it all should work and what the risks were, though we were confident in the design and ability of the technology. When they fully understood it and agreed to proceed we set them up in our version of the extraction device, which was built in to a chair so they could be kept still while the device worked. A vague shadow of the pain associated with the process lingered in my head and I dreaded what it actually felt like. We double checked the configuration and then brought a display for them to use to choose the knowledge that would be pulled from their brain. It was an interesting thing to watch, there were fragments of images associated with the knowledge and that was how you figured out what you were looking at. When the selection was made the subject was asked one more time if they were sure and once we were assured the device was activated.

It was difficult to watch them squirm as the knowledge had been extracted and even harder to watch when it was inserted back in the other individual. It was clearly an unpleasant experience, though in the end they didn't seem too disturbed by the pain, nothing like my faint knowledge of it at least. The process worked cleanly and the knowledge was fully extracted from the one and placed in the other and the second subject quickly demonstrated their mastery over the knowledge they were given. It wasn't until we got to some of the finer details of some of that knowledge that we noticed some of it had been lost, though not enough to make a huge difference in the use of the technology. It just meant we still needed to be teaching others at the same time as moving knowledge around. The next task we had would be a little more complicated, we knew with the modified design we could view the knowledge that was stored, but we weren't sure how successfully it could be copied to multiple chips and still retain the information it held. With the data we had gathered from the first test we were able to modify our simulation and make a much more educated guess on what would happen. If this worked it would mean their civilization could advance to a level I never even dreamed of, not even in my own technological abilities.