Xchange

Stan Mason

Description

An Israeli scientist invents a machine which is able to exchange the bodies of people. No one in Israel can see any use for it but the Minister of Science in Britain cannot wait to get his hands on it. Ultimately it is sold and brought to England to a laboratory at Lytham St. Annes. The great advantage of the invention is that while the bodies are exchanged, the heads and brain remain the same.Lancaster jail is a tough place to be incarcerated. It contains five hundred prisoners all serving life sentences and is under strict control. Then the Government decides that, with the new invention, they intend to exchange prisoners at the jail with very old eminent people who contributed greatly to society, thereby extending their lives by thirty, forty or fifty years. It mean that a thirty-five year old prisoner would exchange his body with an eighty-eight year old man. The reasoning was that the inmates in the prison were simply rotting away uselessly. Although their lives would be very much shortened after the exchange the recipients of their bodies would be able to live many years longer and continue to benefit the community. The equipment is set up at Lytham St. Annes and prisoners are sent there regularly to undergo the body exchange. At the same time, well-known celebrities and people of rank were invited to gain a new lease of life. However problems soon arise. Firstly, the number of prisoners serving life sentences become used up and the Government has to seek donors from mental institutions. Secondly, because of its horrendous nature, the Government insists that it remains totally secret. However a television news reporter by the name of Sky Summers investigates and will not let go. People are assassinated by the Government for interfering in the process and Lancaster jail becomes empty and is scheduled to close. Bill Preston, its Governor, is in despair. The controller of the project, Alan Jordan, eventually realises the inhumane nature of the project and he decides to revolt against it.There are many twists and turns in this tale, but it instils horror in the reader for there is worse to come!

Sujets

• Science fiction

Informations

• Publié par: Andrews UK
• Date de parution: 08 octobre 2014
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781783339747
• Langue: English

Extrait

Title Page
XCHANGE
by
Stan Mason



Publisher Information
Published in 2014 by
Andrews UK Limited
www.andrewsuk.com
The right of Stan Mason to be identified as the Author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1998
Copyright © 2014 Stan Mason
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser. Any person who does so may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.



Xchange
Avram Solomon was born and lived in Israel for the whole of his life. He was forty-two years of age, a brilliant research scientist, and he had been employed by Hagannah Manufacturing for over twenty years. He was part of a research team in a small office which technically did very little except to think up ideas for new inventions in the hope that one day they would come across an invention by which the company could make its fortune. An inscription by a famous inventor hung from the wall of the office in which Solomon and two others worked. It read: ‘Tomorrow will be the day!’ and so they dreamed on with esperance. However, Solomon was far more astute than the others. He was a practical man and although he normally worked with theory he had been working on an experiment on his own for a period of twelve years but he was too concerned to reveal anything about it to anyone else because of its hideous nature. He nursed his secret well but he felt that he could not divulge anything of it. In truth, it involved the possibility to exchange one person’s body with another one by a process which he was developing but, as yet, he had not proved it to be workable. Some notes he had acquired revealed that it had been a theory of a German named Hertz who had advanced the theory but did not have any proof of its success. Following the information that he had acquired, he had purchased two cubicles to progress his idea but he had no one with whom he could use the process. He had bought two dummies to assist him in his efforts but they were not the same as human-beings and pretty much useless to get the required result. If the system worked and the body exchange was possible, one person would become the other one on transfer. That made no sense at all. Why should a person desire to lose his or her body simply to become someone else. There had to be a reason for it to happen but Solomon could not think of one. Yet he knew that scientifically nothing was impossible. Man had even got to the moon,,,,at least that what was reported... and there seemed to be no reason to do that... so why not body exchange? He thought hard and long to try to find a solution otherwise all his hard work... the research and the application... was wasted. There had to be a way by which the body could be exchanged without the head or the brain being transferred. That had to be the answer, although he didn’t know the reason why and cared not to think too deeply about it.
Solomon worked on the invention diligently in his own time, trying to resolve the matter but the solution seemed to elude him, even though he knew he was on the cutting edge of something very important. Then he introduced a metal coat in which was embedded a series of electrodes. The clung to the body but the coat did not extend to the head. He tried to puzzle out the development without having any subjects to use and, having build the machine after twelve years, he reckoned that he was ready to experiment with real people. The dummies he had been using had undergone the process many times and, under the advanced system, a white line had formed around their necks of each dummy identifying, without proof, that the process worked only on the body leaving the head and brain as it existed. Naturally Solomon became very excited at the prospect and he revealed his secret to his two colleagues asking them whether they were wiling to join in the experiment with him. They were reluctant at first and then scoffed at the scientist’s idea. A machine which transferred one body to another was ludicrous but, after a while, when they saw how upset he was, they capitulated deciding to humour the man if it made him feel better. After all, no one could invent a machine to create a means of body-swapping... certainly not a scientist with limited knowledge and hardly any money to invest in the matter such as their colleague, Avram Solomon. Dammit... he was a lowly-paid research scientist!
A date was made for them to visit his house and they came smiling with a solid view that Solomon was going to make a fool of himself. He took them to a room where he had set up two cubicles and they looked at the machines that he had build to support them in the process with admiration. He clearly had gone all out to invent something new. He took two large coloured markers and made different drawings on their bodies so that he could ensure that the exchange had actually gone through and he placed them in the cubicles. After donning the metal coats with the electrodes inside them on to their bodies, he checked that they were ready for the operation to begin. On their affirmation, he switched on the current and sat watching the two men with his heart in his mouth. If this experiment went seriously wrong, he would have to explain to the authorities what had happened. He would claim that both men volunteered to take part and hoped that he would get away with it.
However, within seconds he knew that he had already made a serious mistake for both men began to writhe with agony. They screamed and yelled at the top of their voices, wracked with pain, unable to move because of the metal coat as the current passed through them. Solomon made a note that if the experiment was successful, all future participants would have to be sedated before being placed into the cubicles to prevent such an occurrence happening again... if indeed there was another occasion.
Both his colleagues passed out with the pain and Solomon continued to allow the system to run for a full fifteen minutes which, according to his calculations, was the correct time for the process to be completed. When it had elapsed, he turned off the current and helped the first man out of his cubicle. To the scientist’s dismay, the marks on the man’s body hadn’t changed. It appeared that his theory was entirely erroneous and bodies could not be changed by this method. It was clearly a case of going back to the drawing board! He removed the other man from his cubicle to check his body with the same result... the marks he had made with the large markers on the man were the same as when he was placed in the cubicle. The experiment had been an utter failure and he would be severely berated by his colleagues when they had fully recovered for causing them such pain and agony.
However, a short while later, after they had recovered, one of the men examined his body to find an appendix scar on his left-hand side.
‘Hey!’ he called out. ‘What’s happened here? I never had a scar like this before!’
It caused the other man to scan his body carefully. ‘And the scar of my appendix operation’s gone,’ he gasped.
‘How are your heads?’ asked Solomon with an element of excitement building up inside him.
‘Mine’s okay, although I’ve notice a white line around my neck.’
‘I’m okay too,’ stated the other man staring at himself in the mirror. ’I reckon you might be on to something here, Avram,’ he went on in awe. ‘I mean we seem to have exchanged bodies.’
‘Yes we have,’ concurred the other man. ‘You’re a goddam genius, do you know that? How about letting us in on the act. I mean we agreed to be used in the experiment.’
Solomon thought the matter over for a while. ‘I know I’m a damned fool but I will let you in on the act providing that the executives upstairs agreed to handle it for the company,’
‘You’re on!’ declared both men in unison.
After making an appointment to see their superior, the three men went upstairs to his office to explain what had been discovered.
‘A body exchange programme,’ uttered the senior executive in disbelief. ‘What the hell is the use of that? How can the company make any money from that? I mean, who’s going to change bodies with whom and for what reason. I think you’ve all gone off your heads! I wonder why we’re still employing you to come up with this sort of nonsense. You’re supposed to be thinking ideas for new inventions that are useful to the company, not idiotic ones like this!’
They were stunned at the response and were sent away with their tails between their legs duly admonished for having invented, what they thought, was a great idea. There was no questions of an appeal and they were annoyed that they were not allowed the opportunity to state their case. As soon as they mentioned that they wanted to talk about a body exchange experiment, the executive had sailed off at them with a mighty reproach.
There was no doubt with regard to the disappointment felt by Solomon who had been working on the invention for such a long time. He could hardly believe that it had been cut to shreds by his executive in a matter of seconds. He had proved that it worked and there had to be some use for it but he still could not think of one He mulled over the matter for a few days and then found an advertisement in a British newspaper invited people to enter a competition by suggesting new inventions. He sat down and wrote a long l