What if brain uploading wasn't some fancy procedure with a giant machine made of magnets and needles. no, what if it was like HRT instead? take one of these, every day for 8 years, that would be kinda crazy i think. ## Day 1 The pill looks gray, maybe with a slight green, and its very shiny, like metal. also almost perfectly round, and it has no visible seams you'd expect from a pill filled with stuff. It tastes of... well i guess nothing. you'd expected it to taste like metal but it feels like it left no trace behind. You also don't feel anything different after getting it. that's to be expected, 8 years is a very long time, you cant expect anything this soon. ## Week 2 You think something is happening, maybe? it feels like you're having a headache but you don't feel pain, just a sort of pressure, in your head. as if something is pushing its way inside. Sometimes you get these weird flashes of thought, like you're trying to remember something but its nothing specific. It feels odd but otherwise everything is fine. ## Month 3 For the past few weeks, every now and then your vision seems to flicker off and on in one spot. Never the same spot though, and there's a sort of pattern to it. You're going on with your day like normal, then in one eye a rectangular piece just disappears, and just as quickly it comes back, like nothing happened. You don't think much of it, looking up online reviews this is supposed to be normal. Just a part of the process.
Your memories have gotten weird. It's easier to recall ideas and thoughts you've had. You can sometimes remember the exact words someone spoke to you, and know you're not misremembering or making them up, they're too high fidelity for that. ## Day 1467 You've gotten really good at mental arithmetic over the few years. You weren't doing any sort of training, but any time a mathematical or even logical problem comes up, it feels much easier to get to an answer. The dread you've had from math is pretty much gone. Actually, most of your anxieties have disappeared. The world seems so much more grounded than it was before, as if it used to be an unstable vision that didn't keep its shape when you looked away. Now its all there, all the time, and a lot of it in your head. You can recognize people by their footsteps, detect emotions from their voice with complete certainty, recognize *your own* emotions as easily as the language you speak in, be it English or any of the 3 others you picked up on. You can also tell one of your friends is taking the pills too. You can sense it. Less like telepathy and more like a magnet recognizes another through its fields. You're noticing her changes, they're the same as yours were at her stage of the process. ## Day 2834 As they wheel the bed you lay on into the surgical suite, you don't feel human anymore. You're not an unemotional monster or anything, you still feel happiness, sadness, anger, if anything you feel them more than you ever did before, with so much more fidelity than ever. You still have desires and fears. You just feel so different from the person you used to be, and some things that used to be a part of your quintessential experience now just feels like a burden. Eating became boring, sleep is mostly a chore. You used to enjoy swimming and running but its been years since you last went.
One last time you confirm your identity to the surgical team, and a nurse presses a button next to the large magnet next to your head, knocking you out instantly. The doctor makes a large cut circumnavigating your scalp, then with a chemical solution works her way around your skull, dissolving it carefully down. A nurse lifts your hear off, revealing the innards. Instead of a squishy, pink brain, they find, as expected, a solid titanium sphere, built from billions of nanobots, carefully scanning sensing and replacing your neuron network one cell at a time, replicating its function precisely. As they worked, they also automated and simplified many of your functions, increasing efficiency and memory capacity.
The doctor lifts the sphere covered by sticky connective tissues upwards, severing them with tension, and transfers it into a receptacle on the side table. Along with the rest of the surgical team she moves onto your abdomen to remove your organs and other tissues for organ recipients around the country. ## day 1 You wake up. You feel different. better. You look around the room, at your hands, then body, legs. They look very much like your own, but instead of skin they're built from titanium sheathing and electric servos. All your desired changes have been implemented too of course. You feel content with yourself, as if you came home after a long trip. You step out of your alcove, getting a little notification in the corner of your vision reading "94% charged", and go make your way into the viewing room, following one of the arrows on the floor. You watch the surgeons remove the last pieces of what used to be you, box them in bio-secure containers and carry them out of the room before turning off the life support.
Today your life ends, and a new one begins
