Breakthrough

My mother died in a fire when I was young, so my father was all I had. Then Dad, a historian with many publications and awards, died of an accidental overdose of sleeping pills when I was in my twenties. After that, I missed him so much that I was determined to bring him back to life, whatever the cost.

            Fortunately, by then, I’d already sold the computer program I’d developed at MIT and used the money to start my own technology company. Neither of these achievements had impressed my father. But they had given me the resources when he died to preserve his body in liquid nitrogen immediately and put him into storage. I’d been working secretly ever since with the slowly developing technology to find a way to revive my dad from his death chamber.

            As I would today.

            No team of top-flight physicians would be needed for the job. I alone would perform the entire procedure, aided only by machines I had invented. What would he think when Dad awoke and once again walked the earth? First, though, there was the messy business of the craniotomy. I’d been working on monkeys and people all my life. Dad was just one more.

            “Don’t worry, Dad. You’re going to be all right,” I said, patting his cold, dry hand.

            On the table, he lay, tall and lanky and covered to the neck with a white sheet. It had been such a long time since I’d seen him alive. I remembered him in tweedy jackets with hopelessly outdated elbow patches, rumpled corduroys, and horn-rim glasses, always the intellectual over-achiever. I guess he’d loved me in his tepid way, but somehow, I always felt like a disappointment to him.

            That was about to change.

            I was bringing Dad back with an updated version of the technique pioneered by scientists in Pittsburgh over 40 years ago, back in 2005. They’d kept the experimental animal in suspended animation for three hours of otherwise impossible surgery. But through the years, when they’d tried to apply it to human beings, they’d failed every single time.

            I, however, would not.

            “Don’t worry, Dad. This time, it’s going to work for sure.”

            But if it didn’t, there was always Plan B, i.e., re-freezing Dad until I could provide artificial intelligence. Such a delay would be hugely disappointing, of course. But sure as I was standing here in this archaic blue-green mask and gown, I—Dr. Carl Spoekler, Jr.—if necessary, would embed billions of microscopic nanobots into Dad’s bloodstream, turning him into the first flesh-and-blood machine hybrid, or cyborg, nearly indistinguishable from the original.

            But I couldn’t determine this until I had the surgery results.

            Attaching hoses, clamps, and IV, I got the units up and running. It was amazing how little risk was involved. Dad was already dead. I could hardly kill him again. How could performing this procedure be construed as a crime? Even though superstitious villagers usually steered clear of my aerie, I felt a twinge of paranoia. But when I double-checked the surveillance cams, I found nothing but mist and a full moon over the Carpathian Mountains.

            It was time for a limited craniotomy to get a small brain sample. It seemed a shame to ruin Dad’s hair, always so thick and dark, still no gray, with an incision in his scalp. But that would still be better than going through his beaky nose or stringy neck. I exposed the cortex and inserted a needle. Guided by X-rays and computerized scanners, I removed a tiny core and put it into the BIAE, or Brain Image Analysis Element, for a microscopic breakdown.

            There was no squeaking or creaking like in Young Frankenstein, just a low-pitched hum. Nor did I winch up the operating table to the roof. Rather than lightning, a generator would suffice to bring Dad to life. A steady beep alerted me. No evidence of brain damage was reported. Wonderful. I closed Dad up, pumped out the cold flush solution, and filled him back up with blood. I switched him over to 100 percent oxygen and began defibrillation. Miracle of miracles, after a couple of shocks, he began to stir.

            “It’s alive,” I shouted.

            As if in response, Dad’s toes wiggled. 

            “Dad, can you hear me?”

             He opened his eyes, oddly opalescent under the O.R. lights.

            Oh, joy. I’d done it. I’d brought him back.   

            “Who are you?”

            “It’s Carl Junior, your son.”

            “Carl?” Dad frowned. I noticed his skin texture was perfect. “You’re an old man. My son is much younger.”

            “Not anymore, Dad.”

            “What’s going on? Where the bloody hell am I?”

            He tried to sit up. I pushed him back down.

            “What have you done to me? I think you’d better explain. But first, where are my clothes? I’m cold.”

            I got him into a robe. He sat in his favorite leather recliner that I’d saved all these years, the like of which you wouldn’t find in any furniture store today.

            “So much has happened while you’ve been out of commission that I hardly know where to begin.”

            “Try at the beginning, Junior–-if that’s who you are, and not some crackpot imposter.”

            “I’m no crackpot,” I seethed. “I suppose envy and spite are the price all revolutionary thinkers must pay.”

            “Struck a nerve, have I? Now that sounds more like the Junior I remember.”

            “This is what I get for raising you from the dead?”

            “Raising me from the dead? You’re off your rocker.”

            “You haven’t changed at all, have you.”

            Giving me a thoughtful look, Dad said, “You know, I’m starting to think you believe this nonsense.”

            “Remember when I was five, Dad, how I wanted to be an inventor? When I was a teenager, I tinkered with computers. Remember? You said nothing would come of it, but then I wrote the program that got me into MIT.”

            “I seem to recall something about that,” Dad muttered.

            “Remember how you always had insomnia? Remember how you would have given anything for a good night’s sleep? That’s why you OD’d. Fortunately, I’d sold my company before that and thus had the means to keep you frozen all these years. While you’ve been catching up on your sleep, I’ve been working to bring you back.”

            He laughed. “Good God, Junior, you’re bonkers.”

            I could have killed him. “Am I, simply because I find death unacceptable? Dad, the machines are amazing. Computer intelligence has advanced to the point that it will soon surpass humanity.”

            He shook his head. “For the sake of argument, Junior, suppose what you say is true. What’s to keep your ever brighter machines from eliminating Homo Sapiens?”

            “Won’t happen.”

            “How can you be sure?”

            “I’ve programmed the computers to love us as honored ancestors the way I love and honor you.”

            “Well, that’s good.”

            “Once it was properly explained, I knew you’d come around. I’m glad you’re here, Dad.”

            “But I’m not so sure I am,” he said, with the stare that always made me feel like peeing in my pants. “Don’t think I’m ungrateful. Seeing you, even though you look older than me, is wonderful.”

“I understand this must be quite a shock. The world has changed while you were … away.”

            “A delicate way to put it.”

            “Tell me, what’s the last thing you remember?”

             “Not much. One minute, I was fine. The next, there was an anvil on my chest.”

            “And then?”

            “Nothing—until you woke me up.” And then he said the words I’d longed to hear for so long. “I’m proud of you, Junior. This is the greatest scientific achievement ever.”

            “Thank you, Dad.”

            “But why did you do it?”

            “Why did I bring you back from the dead?”

            He tented his fingers, assuming his old professorial manner. “Did it ever occur to you that I might not want to return? Life is an endless struggle. We sleep with one eye open for the saber-tooth tiger, and when our desire is fulfilled, another takes its place. We’re never secure, never satisfied. Why would I want to come back for that?”

            To say I was astonished would be an understatement. “Dad, I brought you back to life because you have much to offer mankind.”

            He raised one eyebrow, something I’ve never been able to do, and said, “Like what?”

            “You’ve seen the Other Side.”

            “It doesn’t work like that. I don’t remember anything from what you call The Other Side.”

            “But you might, under the proper stimulation.”

            “Exactly what would that be?”

            “We have wonderful new pharmaceuticals.”

            “I don’t believe it. Tell me you don’t want to turn me into a lab rat.”

            “Of course not.”

            “Well, that’s a relief.”

            “Dad, you seem agitated—”

            “Agitated? You think I’m overreacting to being raised from the dead?”

            “I mean, you seem stressed.”

            “Well, who wouldn’t be?”

            “I can give you something for this—call it survivor’s remorse—that would help you relax while I scanned your Recoverable Memory Data.”

            “My what?”

            “Things you’ve forgotten but may still know. Dad, you may possess the secret of life itself. Science needs to know.” Merely for emphasis, I held up an electrode.

             Dad’s horrified expression faded as he stroked his beard. “I’m beginning to see, Junior.”

            “I knew you would.”

            Closing his eyes, he seemed to relax for the first time in his old recliner.   

            “Yes, do you think I could have a closer look at some of your amazing machines? Perhaps you’d like to explain how they work? Maybe give a little demonstration?”

            I was overjoyed, naturally, for they were my children.

            I helped Dad out of his chair and back over to the surgical table, where he sat, hairy legs dangling, while I punched in codes and went over basic operating procedures. He seemed impressed, at long last, which alone was enough to justify my lifelong labor. But now that he was here, the work could be speeded up exponentially. I was thinking about this—and how his erratic behavior must be moderated through medication—when something suddenly cut off my air.

            My hands flew to my throat, and my fingers tried to pry Dad’s grip from my windpipe. But he was so strong, like steel, and I couldn’t make him stop choking me. As the room swayed, I looked at him with a question: Why?

            “I won’t let you turn me into a guinea pig,” he snarled. “I don’t want to live forever. Neither should you. We’re both better off dead. You know, Junior, the first time I died wasn’t an accident. It won’t be an accident this time, either. But at least we’ll be together, which is what you say you’ve always wanted.”

            Though my body continued to thrash reflexively, I experienced a moment of total awareness and utter calm. The last thing I heard, beneath Dad’s furious grunting, was my children steadily humming.

© 2025 Rick Neumayer

“Breakthrough” will appear in the forthcoming THREE FOGGY MORNINGS: Stories by Rick Neumayer.

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