In the haze of the end of the evening the port was passed leisurely around the table and cigars were lit, Dr Allbright coughed laboriously, sipped at the dark, thick liquid and nodded at his guests.

His companions were an eclectic bunch,they had come from the Nobel peace prize awards in Bonn,to Allbright's mansion in Shropshire,England courtesy of his private jet. He sat at the head of the table,his great oaken mass harmonious with the wood of the drinks cabinet and the grandfather clock behind him. On his right hand side sat the writer Finnegan Trilby, still flushed with pride at his recent Booker prize award for his novel, 'Impossible truth'.

Next to him,wearing a look of resigned annoyance was the Multi media,multi millionaire Chet Bukowski,who had felt affronted by Trilby's earlier alcohol fuelled attack on capitalist opportunism.

Now seething,swirling in his head he held several witty repostes to Trilby's accusations,unfortunately the conversation had drifted on now and so they remained grounded. He crushed his serviette in his fist.
Next to him,looking stern and sombre as a tombstone with nothing but 'dead' written upon it,sat Major Bell,both he and Allbright were sixty four years old though they had aged differently.With Allbright,colour had accumulated over the years to give a mottled,almost impressionistic effect.With the Major colour had slipped away with each passing year to leave him grey,he seemed distanced from the living world,one could not imagine him stood in a forest,he looked comfortable in front of the defence systems he presided over with green and red lights casting their colour across his grievous features and the outside world safely transposed into coordinates and pixels.

He was looking at his cigar with dissatisfaction as it exhaled tiny coils of grey blue smoke.

Next to the Major and at the opposite end of the table from Allbright sat Francesca Wordsworth the philosophy professor,in her late forties and with a grace and dignity that surpassed any collective she was part of,she leant over and,using a candle from the table,lit the Major's cigar properly.She then returned to listen to the conversation once more.The Major offered a mumbled thank you.

Next to her,on the other side of the table,was the action film star Leo Vast,who was barking about his latest blockbuster in which he played a male nurse who 'single handedly protects the United states (and the rest of the world too,of course) from malevolent alien invasion'.

Next to him,unusually silent was the extremely rich Perigrine Auslander,pale and tall with thin dark hair bound in a pony tail and absorbing green eyes surveying Leo's muscular face as,like an excited child,he demonstrated a scene from his film using his cutlery in place of weaponry.

Next to Peregrine sat myself,laughing at Leo's vivacious mime of wrestling with a tentacle,and next to me sat Teresa Diane the ecological scientist and spokeswoman who was cleaning the sauce off her plate with a piece of bread. I must admit I felt out of place amongst so many great intellects and Leo's gregarious personality.

My invitation was something of a mystery to me,in fact most things were a mystery to me.I had been in a bad accident, a car crash, I think and had only recently recovered conciousness.I was now unsure of most things and though I had found the evening entertaining my only contribution of any note to the night's exchange had been to posit the question 'Why do they put these little stickers on apples?' the best answer to which was provided by Finnegan Trilby who said it was because they slipped off strawberries. It was, of course,Dr Allbright's evening and he glowed with the honour of his nobel peace prize.

Teresa was asking Leo if,with the exhorbitant amounts spent on his films and the phenomenal audiences reached across the world,shouldn't he be using his medium to spread knowledge and understanding rather than images of American supremacy and closeted xenophobic ideals.

Leo was replying with a look of amusement on his face that contrasted directly with Teresas earnest elfin stare.I sat between them sipping my port. 'I make entertainment,not statements',he smiled. Teresa looked angry. 'What you don't seem to appreciate is that every film you make is full of statements,ideals which are taken for granted,imposed upon your audience as acceptable.If you make a film in which America triumphs against an 'alien' invasion,you are essentially using a metaphor of cultural otherness,defeated by the familiar capitalist ideal'

'Wait a minute lady,these aliens want to eat our brains'

The drunken Finnegan Trilby then asked Leo what he played in the film,'an after dinner mint?' and Leo replied with a straight face that he played a male nurse. Francesca then alleviated the mood with the diplomatic suggestion that to a certain extent Leo's films only embodied ideals which already existed,that they were not formative of the peoples conciousness but reflective of it,and,though Teresa was right in her assumption that film was a powerful medium capable of altering the way people thought about the world,Leo's films were made to appeal to the senses rather than the intellect,they were primarily entertainment. Leo sat back,thankful of Francesca's support and I noticed Francesca give Teresa a look of clandestine agreement with a subtly raised eyebrow.

"There's nothing wrong with entertainment",Perigrine said somberly.I found him disquieting and distant.He placed his glass down carefully. "People live tiring,disillusioning lives,they need to escape.They need illusion.They need hope.Leo's glossy mirages provide that hope" There was a silence,Perigrine did not often speak,and when he did he spoke in a manner that did not invite response.One was instead meant to digest. The silence proved awkward for me,being already nervous.

"Yes",I said.

To my surprise everyone turned to look at me as if i'd just said something very profound,or very amusing.It was difficult to tell which. I was agitated by this further and felt I was obliged to continue speaking.

"Hope,I mean...Is essential.We cannot live without hope...and,maybe people need to believe...even in something that can't be proved...people need that belief."

Everyone continued to stare at me as if I were a great and erudite speaker,I saw a bizarre fascination in the Major's eyes.Trilby too seemed fascinated,but he wore an amused wry smile.Chet Bukowski was looking blankly at me,Allbright wore a genial smile but there was something patronising in his face.Teresa looked sad,and this I couldn't understand,there appeared to be pity in her eyes which I thought was a bit too sympathetic,it made me feel suddenly very sad but I didn't know why. Francesca stared at me with a furrowed,thoughtful expression.Peregrine looked at me as if I were an animal in the zoo,which I didn't like at all. Leo was just smiling at me.

For a while no one spoke.Then Allbright said; "Yes,you're right.If it hadn't been for hope I don't think I would have been able to have completed my research,and if that hadn't happened then none of us would be sat round this table tonight" Everyone laughed then,including me. Allbright's cheery disposition was a great relief and he made us all raise our glasses to 'hope'.

Then the Major suggested a toast to 'money', saying that without that Dr Allbright would not have been able to have finished his research either.

Everyone laughed again and we raised and lightened our glasses. I was uneasy.I wasn't sure I was ready for this,not so soon after the crash.In laughter there was some relief from my confusion and the port was delicious,so I relaxed. Finnegan then asked Francesca what were the purposes of science.She thought for a while and then said; "Science is an important application of the human mind.It is a systematic approach to increasing our understanding of the world around us,via experiment and control we can..." Finnegan interrupted her. "Yes,yes.We know all this.There is a human curiousity of which science is a component.I want to know how you feel,everyone at this table feels,about the extent to which science can be allowed to infringe upon human rights"

Perigrine sneered,he obviously deemed this subject to be of no relevance and scorned its discussion.

"Science is there to help us,it benefits mankind.It gives us medicines and fuels,it keeps us alive and makes our time here easier.It extends communication and enriches our understanding of the world around us." said Allbright,and his rosy cheeks took on a further blush of anger.

Chet caught the wave and almost shouted; "Its all very well,sitting there with your oh-so superior literary airs but when it comes down to it you are dependant upon science,as dependant as the rest of the civilised world.Because of science infant mortality is negligible,we have eradicated diseases and plagues,pests and ...All the food you eat,science has brought to your table,the car you drive,the plane you fly in,the toothbrush you use,the pen,the razor,the TV,the 'phone,the suncream.You would die without science"

Everyone was looking at Chet,we all turned to look at Trilby.He seemed amused and held his glass at an idle angle.

Then Teresa spoke; "I think its important for us to acknowledge Science's failures as well.It can be very cruel..."

"That's because it is bigger than us,it is a component of something-a knowledge to which we are mere atoms.It is objective because that is its nature.We are only the instruments of its self revelation",said Peregrine and then he retired from the discussion.

Teresa continued; "...I think Peregrine is trying to suggest that the knowledge exists already,it simply waits for us to find it out, and so it is pointless to pretend it does not exist.I do not think however,that the mere fact that something exists is an adequate reason for using it.I think that there are things that human beings do,in the name of science,which are abhorrent to humanity.And I think that humanity is bigger than us and bigger than science."

"Yes,yes,animal testing and bullets are all very sensitive.However,in the name of progress we must rely on reason rather than sentiment to guide us.Life is an incredible undertaking,fraught with difficulty and darkness.Scientific reason is the harnessing of flame to illuminate that darkness.With it we can heal and feed the world,we can navigate the stars and irrigate the deserts,we can..."

Dr Allbright was interrupted by Leo Vast who said,with a gentle smile; "Then why don't we?" Finnegan clapped ostentatiously. I caught the eye of the Major,who sneered at me.His grey eyes held the flickering reflection of the candles flame and I felt a sickening lurch inside me

.I clenched my hands. There was a nasty silence around the table. The Major looked away from me and addressed the table.

"Because,in case it has escaped your attention,there is a world economy of which we are all part and in which we must compete or be over run.We live in the century of the two most destructive wars ever fought.It is an age of instability and tremendous industrial growth,we have to implement the knowledge we have in order to ensure our position in the world.I agree that there are concerns,both humanitarian and environmental,to which all knowledge should eventually be applied but this is not possible now.We must maintain might in order to rule with compassion."

"When did a book ever save a human life? When did a book ever make the world a better,safer place to live in? When was the last time a play cured disease or a short story pasteurised milk? When was the last time a poem split the atom?", said Chet sarcastically,still feeling affronted by Finnegan.

Finnegan just sighed in a weary, patronising manner,and said; "Now,I am become death - the destroyer of worlds".

Chet almost spat in open disgust at Finnegan and turned pointedly away from him.

Allbright stepped in,speaking in a level and calming manner. "Come,come everyone.Yes there are great questions and the answers are elusive and to a certain extent,subjective.Let us not argue,today is a great day.A day of celebration and I will not let it be marred by petty argument.I propose we fill our glasses and drink a toast to the furthering of human knowledge,a cause to which everyone here is in some way committed." And with that the mood was lightened,more Port circulated and the conversation became more abstract and playful.Laughter bloomed and any disagreements were forgotten,we drank to Allbright's toast and then Francesca proposed a toast,first to Allbright himself and then to his incredible accomplishment which was sure to 'change the world forever'.

Everyone cheered quite amiably and drank to this.I began to feel quite light headed and comfortable,the drink soothed the gaps in my memory which were of such concern to me when sober.Quite out of the blue I found myself proposing a toast. "To Dr Allbright's momentous achievment" I boomed,though I had no idea what Allbright had done.I surveyed the faces all looking expectantly at me.

"And to life-the greatest achievement of all-three cheers!" I concluded with vivacity.

To my surprise my goodwill toast made everyone look quite miserable.Leo was the only person to offer a 'hip-hip'.Teresa's face quivered and then she burst into tears.She got up and left the room crying heavily. The icy silence that followed Teresa's exit seemed unbreakable.Everyone sat in a deep and overwhelming contemplation.

I myself felt terribly upset.An unbearable pain was blossoming in the heart of me.My mind recounted the interior of a car,the dashboard and the drumming of night rain upon the windscreen,the hypnotic swish of the windscreen wipers.The mute red of the trucklights ahead.Then lightning and nothing. Lightning and nothing. A hospital. With no windows. No other patients. Under the ground. Drifting on the outskirts of consciousness.

suffering and nothing.

Nothing.

Then lightning again and I was... At the Nobel peace prize ceremony watching Dr Allbright recieving his award,the award he had won with his late partner,Dr Alan Price.

I lurched up from my seat.I heard the crash of cutlery but could not focus.I staggered backward. 'My God', I screamed. 'I know who I am'

I looked into Allbright's eyes,he hung his head in shame. Nobody spoke.I held the floor. 'You did it,didn't you.You completed our research.I was Dr Price,wasn't I?' Allbright looked up with a strange,startled expression. 'Alan?' he said with a trembling voice.

'No...',I fell to my knees. Sweeping out in front of me was an unceasing blankness,I found myself weeping. 'Not entirely foolproof', I heard Major Bell say. I could feel arms around me.My eyes were clenched shut. Tender whispers fell across my cheek.

My mind had clarified now.It understood all.I don't suppose they,I mean we,had accounted for that. Still the recurring trauma of the crash was replaying itself,the moment of impact.Searing painful light and then ebbing,fading,nothing but weakening thought.

Then vague impressions.Ones amongst fields and fields of zero's. The part of me that was once Dr Alan Price is thankfully blessed with an excpetional, rational brain, or else the rest of my mind,its blankness would have driven me mad.

This had been what was confounding me,my mind was trying to reorder itself, believing that there was some order-the order of my previous mind- to which it could aspire. I had died.This was not my body.And this was not my mind.

When I was alive I had,in cooperation with Dr Allbright, grown human organs genetically from sample tissue.These organs were transplanted successfully into needy human hosts. The part of me that they had used,it must have been physical tissue from my brain,had retained itself.In whatever form that self was contained-it seemed to suggest it lay in the physical neural networks.And they had grown a new,working mind from that tissue-using simple,stock DNA replicated around it. This was not my body,it was a stock cloned frame.

I was not weeping now,the tiny percentage of my mind that was truly mine, was gripping at itself,holding itself against the blizzard of blank,unimpressioned mind.I opened my eyes. It was Francesca who had her arms around me.

The table above and ahead was inhabited by sombre,silent shapes.The ruins of the tables dressing lay around me,cutlery and glass and splashes of dark liquid.

I looked into Francesca's eyes and saw two small tears.She looked shamefully away from my gaze. Someone coughed. I stood,with a heavy awareness of my limbs and looked at the bare table and its solemn party.Allbright cradled his head in his hands. All eyes except his were upon me.I looked at each in turn,in my new found strength.Leo's green eyes were questioning.

'So...',I breathed in heavily. 'You finished our research.And it is possible to clone the human mind.' I was shaking.I clutched the stem of a broken wine glass like a sick,jagged rose. 'But where did the funding come from?-The Unversities had ended their contributions...'

Here I was,alive,with a scattering of memories and another body and an endless seam of tabula rasa to be filled with impressions.With the constant trauma of my most tangible memory,that of the crash, replaying itself.

I laughed a balking wild laugh and then broke down into tears again. Nobody spoke,they all held a uniform stillness,they were all ashamed. They had all financed this.I knew this from their shame.They had funded 'me'.

'Well here I am.' I tried to laugh through my sobbing. 'I hope I'm worth the money' The Major turned to Allbright. 'Stop this.I think we need to exercise some sort of restraint' Allbright looked up at the Major,his face looked tired and heavy.He looked at me.

Our eyes remained joined for some time,neither of us spoke.I felt a searing anger,his eyes looked remorseful and lost.I turned away from him in disgust,to the Major. 'You.You must be the chief investor...'

'Not me personally,no.'

I spat with hate. 'Not you personally.That's the thing isn't it.With the military,its never personal-murder I mean.Murder,young men murdering one another.

That's what I am isn't it.I'm just another John Doe.the technological equivalant of the private,the expendable soldier-alive solely to murder or be murdered,THAT'S WHAT I AM TO YOU!' My throat was sore with shouting.

'But you just have to give the orders now.You've crawled your way up,out of the carnage.How many men did you have to kill to get here Major?' The Major stood and turned to leave.

I leapt and grabbed him round the throat,dragging him back and holding the broken glass in front of his eyes.Everyone gasped,Leo half stood but knew not to interfere. I backed the Major and myself away from the table.

'Listen to me.I may not be myself anymore,I will never be the man I was before... but I retain the same beliefs,it was Socrate's who suggested that all people have the same capacity for reason-regardless of who they are-and I tell you this,I will not murder for you.My body may belong to you,you may patent my conception,you may cage me and strip me and dissect me and tear out my heart in front of my eyes-it does not matter-it is not my heart.

'Socrates never actually existed...', I heard Trilby mutter under his breath.

'You may chain me and exploit me and send me off to kill for you, to die for you...to live for you...but you will never own my mind.No matter if the self is no more than a physical construct of the brain,no matter if there is no transmaterial soul,no matter if all we are is temporary assignments of flesh and bone.

The mind is free Major,whatever it is,it is free.'

I pushed the Major away and he reeled round.I gestured with the glass to keep him at bay.
'Not free,exactly,I put in half a million' Trilby said ostentatiously.But he did not look up. 'Richard?' I said,and Dr Allbright looked up. 'How could you.We said,remember,that we would never allow the military to govern our research.We were working with a medical agenda'

'Yes,and we lost our funding after our initial processes were patented.it was the only way,Alan.'

'And the others here,they are just the curious rich-I am an investment?'

Allbright stood and slowly walked over to me.He clasped his hands together and said;

'You and I Alan,we were naive.We believed in knowledge,we thought that it would be the redemption of Mankind.And it worked,we made the world a better place-you and I-we made healthy human organs from cells.We saved lives.We were theoretically able to make human beings.We were the most respected scientists alive. 'Then we lost our funding,the process became commercially available and we made a lot of money,not enough to continue with the loftier aims of our research but enough to live well.And they were good times,weren't they Alan?'

'I'm not Alan anymore and I can't remember,I remember...Champagne...and blood'

'You left the party drunk...'

And then I remembered.We were at a party full of potential sponsors,the press and various glittering characters.The Major was there.There were so many beautiful women,I found myself quite intoxicated.Cameras flashed and Champagne poured. I remembered leaving,the warm spring night air and my car,and a giddy haze...speed and flecks of rain in the headlights,the stretching road and the red lights somewhere ahead and then,then the lightning of life crashing against death.

Richard Allbright looked down. 'When the ambulances arrived you were physically dead.Your heart had stopped beating and you were no longer breathing.You were rushed to an intensive care unit.'

'Your brain was dying,but it retained some life.It had sustained a large amount of damage from oxygen deprivation but they took living tissue from your brain and soaked it in an oxygen rich plasma solution.When I heard,that evening, of the accident.You must understand-you know the respect and fondness I have for you.I worked tirelessy day and night on using the innate structuring code of the DNA of your brain tissue to replicate itself,To grow your mind.Part of me...I thought I could resurrect...', he coughed and continued.

'The Military offered me a huge amount of money,as did various other sponsors,to continue with our research.We managed,the rest of the team and I,to clone the first defect free human being after six months of work.We used your tissue to grow the brain and spinal column.The body is a cocktail of various sources of RNA and DNA.' 'I realised our dream.We did it.'

Richards eyes welled up with tears and he moved forward to embrace me.I was weak and stood mutely as he hugged me. The thought of the other ‘me’s’, the unsuccessful experiments that had preceded me, made me feel a deep and unsettling physical revulsion, an instinctual rage that made my stomache clench. How many had they terminated before me?

Me. The word no longer belonged to...me

'I think therefore I am.I think therefore I am...You mustn't ever repeat this experiment.I tell you this both as a scientist and as an experimental subject.I wish now that I had listened to the pleading yelps of the animals we used in our experiments.You can see it all in their eyes, the suffering.

I am not your Lazarus and you,you are certainly not Jesus Christ.You are a human being. More than that,you are an animal.A creature.I too am an animal,a creature.I am in pain.I cannot think clearly and I am alive by your hand.I do not belong to myself.You have exercised the divine power of granting life without possessing divinity.You have made a clumsy pastiche of life.I know,I can feel it.I can feel...'
I became lost in the very act of sensing,of feeling.I felt my incomplete appraisal of the qualities surrounding me.The give of the floor,the delicate heat of the room.The thick tastes and smells of the evenings food,wine and cigars.The deep resonant hue of the exposed wooden table.The beating of my heart in my chest.

But it is not my heart.

'I'm sorry.I'll leave you now.I want to walk-I don't know where.I think I would like to see the ocean',I said. The Major jerked round.

'I am allowed to go?'

'Do you think that's best?' Dr Allbright said.

I caught the Major's eyes and they pierced cold and hard into mine, my humanity was no more than a glitch to him. Something to be ironed out. I felt deep within myself a hateful indignation at his existence.The fact that he had power and influence in the outcome and direction of the worlds progress.The fact that no more than words spoken from his mouth could bring the shadow of death to hundreds of thousands of human beings.He was a personification of violence to me,something ugly and weak and scared.

His eyes did not blink as they froze on me,like the search light of a prison camp.Looking away from him I saw that Francesca's mascara had drawn sooty plumes on her face.Trilby and Chet were both staring hard at a point on the table.Perigrine looked at me,expressionless.Leo was chewing and staring down at his hands.

‘Perhaps, without compassion and wisdom, science is just a sickness. Greedy mortals playing at the game of the Gods’ without understanding the point, nor the rules’, Trilby said, in a voice without affectation.

I stood in silence.The unbearable knowledge of what I once was and what I now am lay discordant in my mind.I knew now that I had no freedom outside of my own shattered mind. 'Well.Congratulations everyone.You must all be very proud of yourselves,you have contributed to the creation of life.Life untouched by the cluttering facets of dignity and humanity.Life without childhood or innocence of any kind.Life without a subjective purpose,but life born enslaved.I find it difficult to express my feelings at myself point...I am not free.'

I screamed then.It burst from me like flame.The noise was a ghastly,primal wrench.I screamed till I fell limp to the floor.

'I think we should get you...back' said Dr Allbright. 'Keep away from me!' I cried. 'Look,just calm down.You need time to adjust,that's all.You are alive.It's a miraculous thing and,in time,you will feel a whole lot better',said Leo,looking at me with a kind but patronising expression on his square face. I brought my hand up to my head and felt the curly hair there.I had straight hair before,I remember that much.The hair felt foreign and curious,I was feeling someone else,but they were me.

I thought of the interior of the car again.The driving rain and the swimming light headiness of the champagne.The purr of the tyres on the road,skimming through the surface layer of water.I was laughing,the red lights ahead. There was music,playing on the radio,the beat reverberating, the sweet harmony reeling round and around and I was laughing.Happy, I took my hands off the wheel and closed my eyes, and there the was the the washing hush of the rain outside. So happy.As the red lights drew closer and horns wailed... I brought the jagged glass savagely up to meet my jugular,tearing a deep gash in my throat.I fell back against the wall,gurgling and kicking uncontrollably as my body writhed in protest. My mind lay calmly beyond the pain. Beyond the shouting of the ghostly figures my staring eyes could see the grandfather clock, its silver pendulum swinging slower and slower.They were all round me trying to stop the gushing blood.

I watched from somewhere else, somewhere removed from the base physical world they struggled in. I watched from a place of just thought. God, a place of just thought. All things slowed,a drowsy warmth oozed through me and there,then I was myself. With free will and reason and the countless delicate emotions that twine together to form the deep, lyrical poetry of being.

No one's slave nor property. My self merged gently into the sweet dying of the light.

Copyright Michael Fredman 2002