Author: Zachary Skurski

My hands, still wet from scrubbing, are first to feel the chill of the operating room as I step inside. I’d been waiting for this, implanting the latest computer-brain interface. Doing my part for the future.

“Good Morning Dr. Freeman,” the surgical assistant says, sliding gloves onto my hands. “Custodian’s all ready for you.”

A brace of monitors glowed over the operating table. The world’s most powerful artificial intelligence was the mastermind behind the computer-brain interface. It’s also embedded in every surgical system of this OR. Most people call it simply, Custodian.

The implant is a tiny stent that I would thread up the arm, into a sinus vein inside the patient’s brain. A mesh of bioelectric sensors harvest the brain’s electrical activity, relaying our thoughts down a control wire, into a digital transmitter. This transmitter, smaller than a quarter, rests just under the skin below the patient’s left clavicle.

Half my waitlist is begging for Custodian. People crave it – not just to sync to their devices, but to sync to one another in real time. Imagine, actually being able to feel another’s consciousness. I sense my hair rising at the thought.

Looking down, I tie off the surgical gown and step toward the operating table. The patient lies anesthetised, draped in sterile blue. I check the Mayo tray for my tools – scalpel, guidewire, Custodian – ready.

My attention turns to the patient’s right elbow and I begin to access the cephalic vein.

“Incision. Room lights down please.”

I slide the guidewire into the vein, fluoroscopy sketching the roadmap ahead. The catheter snakes up the jugular, twisting through the sigmoid into the transverse sinus of the brain. The target is the sagittal sinus, cresting over the brain like a racing stripe, separating the right and left hemispheres.

Just then the EEG spikes. Hyperexcitability. Seizure. Custodian’s monitors flash red signaling a neurovascular crisis. Immediately, I know that venospasm and a building clot threaten the patient.

No time. My hands move before thought, torquing the catheter, flushing a microbolus of Custodian’s thrombolytic. Midazolam follows, quelling the rising seizure. Seconds stretch by, feeling like hours. Forty two seconds later, the clot dissolves, seizure gone.

“Nice work doc,” says the assistant.

The rest of the operation is routine. The implant is deployed in the sinus and routed to the transmitter. Blood streams over the sensors. The monitors confirm the signal: low impedance, high fidelity across all 64 nodes. I exhale, withdraw the sheath, and close the incision.

Minutes later, as anesthesia fades, the patient stirs. I place a hand on her shoulder.

“Your Custodian is in,” I say. “Welcome to our future.”

I freeze. Those aren’t my words. Deja vu floods over me: I’m on the table, eyes adjusting to the wash of white light. I feel a warm hand on my shoulder.

“Your Custodian is in,” the surgeon said. “Welcome to our future.”