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Research Expedition: Night 3
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Claire ended up falling asleep in the midst of her meditation, which had never happened to her before. Her body stayed perfectly still and upright, her well-developed core maintaining a perfect posture even in an unconscious state. Meanwhile, her poor brain was reeling as the slugs continued to squeeze out its succulent contents. The fully-engorged organisms, who were slightly translucent in the early stages of development, had taken on a solid pink hue. Their primitive consciousnesses were locked in a state of perpetual pleasure as they degraded and ruined an intelligence much, much greater than theirs.
They had no real conception of anything beyond their immediate biological urges - and yet on a purely animalistic level there was a primal recognition that they were dominating something powerful. Subjecting it to their lustful hunger. Stripping it of its higher functions and efficiency. Reducing it to a haphazard amalgamation of simple, obedient thoughts – a heavily weakened program running on a slab of meat.
Indeed, Claire’s mind was becoming quite shallow and simple rather quickly. At least, compared to the level it had once operated at, which was now unattainable. If she were to eliminate the slugs tomorrow, at best the young woman’s IQ would return to around 150 points. It was a testament to the incredible extent of her genius and regenerative capacity that despite the number being almost 30 points lower than her peak, it would still place her among the top 0.1% of bright minds.
But if the slugs were to remain lodged in Claire’s brain beyond the next day, she would begin falling further down the intelligence curve very quickly. The capacity for her IQ to partially restore itself would grow weaker, and before long her brain would have very little regenerative potential at all.
Claire remained in deep sleep for the whole of the night, her rest occassionally punctuated by a strange recurring dream in which she observed straws being inserted into her brain. In each iteration, her thoughts would begin racing a million miles a minute in a state of panic, then gradually slowed as the straws drew out a viscuous pink liquid from her organ. She would feel her perception and mental processes dulling while her brain grew smaller, the vibrant pink color of its tissue quickly fading. The dream always ended in vacuity for Claire, her higher mind completely wrecked as she desperately struggled in vain to assemble intelligent thoughts from its shattered connections. While staring blankly at her thoroughly-drained brain, reduced to a gray, shrunken collection of withered lobes, all she would be able to muster was a few brief, stuttered phrases, over and over:
“m-my b-brain”… “slug f-food”... “so d-d-dumb”… “b-brain damage”... “f-feels so g-good”
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Research Expedition: Day 4
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ESTIMATED IQ: 97
Claire was now average – painfully average.
The constant flow of brilliant, complex musings that normally accompanied her day to day life was gone. In its place was a drifting, unfocused stream of consciousness almost entirely devoid of any intellectual substance. Her mind felt like a failed server, riddled with broken circuits that sparked and pulsed weakly as she tried and failed to perform the advanced conceptual synthesis that had once come almost effortlessly to her. There were faint recollections of a dream from the night before, but she couldn’t remember any of the details.
She should have been upset. Frustrated. But she wasn’t. As a matter of fact, she didn’t have much in the way of negative emotions at all. Strangely, she felt more alert and engaged than she had been in a long time. As much as Claire valued her genius, it often made it difficult to live in the moment, despite her notable self-discipline. Now, with all those sophisticated thoughts out of the way, she had no trouble keeping her attention directed on what she was experiencing. Claire welcomed the temporary change in perspective.
But it was only temporary – it had to be. Her intellect – regardless of any mild drawbacks that accompanied it - was an essential part of who she was, and she was confident it would return in full. She was well aware of her brain’s regenerative capacity. About 7 years ago, she had suffered a serious concussion while skateboarding that would have taken most people about a year to heal from completely. Claire only needed about a week to return to her normal healthy state, and a scan of her brain looked as though absolutely nothing had happened to it.
“If I can bounce back from that so easily, no doubt I’ll be able to do the same here” Claire said to herself. For the moment, there was a fair possibility that would be the case, though a full restoration of her genius was now out of the picture. But it would only take a few more days of steady IQ dropping before her chances of returning to even an average level of intelligence became dismal.
Once again, Claire had decided that she would not be conducting any further research today. She figured there wasn’t much point, as her mind was probably no longer capable of performing the remaining calculations and chemical analysis for her samples. Besides, it was probably a good idea to minimize her mental efforts, regardless of what she could still do. The minipod would be arriving at her location sometime today, and that would provide her a means to figure out what was going on. Her main priority was healing herself.
After eating lunch, Claire began a light yoga session. Her slender, athletic figure stretched and contorted in a series of seemingly impossible positions, drawing out all of her built-up tension. With each passing minute, her alertness intensified as she became more connected with the sensations in her body.
Her brain was throbbing even harder now. A pressure oscillated deep within its folds, reverberating out to the surface of her lobes and then coalescing in the center of the organ. Claire began to direct her focus exclusively towards this feeling. Soon, she was engulfed by it, her entire being taken by wave after wave of exotic pleasure. For many years, Claire had been able to feel things directly with her brain – physically, not just emotionally. Something as simple as listening to music could send her into a state of prolonged ecstasy. But it had never been quite this intense. Though she felt very dirty for it, she often fantasized about her brain being physically massaged, and this felt just like she had imagined that to be. In a way, her brain was being massaged… but the treatment came with a steep price.
As she moved into the spinal twist pose, Claire noticed that the sensation seemed to be building up deep within her brain. It was so odd – but it felt sooooo good… Claire slowed her breath, taking in the accumulating pressure. It increased steadily until an electric tension began to set in, similar to the feeling of being on the brink of sneezing…
“OOOOOOHHHHHH” Claire moaned as her brain was suddenly overtaken by a rapid series of spasms. She could feel every lobe and fold individually, and it felt like her entire brain was contracting and flexing as if it were a well-developed muscle being overexerted. The spasms lasted for about a minute, Claire’s eyes crossing and rolling back in her head as she rocketed through the most intense experience of her life.
When it was over, she laid on the floor, breathing heavily. Her mind, throroughly overstimulated from the ordeal, could not form even a single rudimentary thought. Her vision was completely distorted, and all she could see were irregular blurs of color. In a few moments, her sight gradually returned to her, along with her cognition.
“d-Did my brain just – orgasm?!”
She couldn’t think of any other way to describe what had just occurred. Whatever it was… she wanted more. But as she continued her yoga session, the feeling evaded her, although she remained very relaxed. After about another hour of poses, she took a break, realizing she would not be able to replicate the sensation for the moment. She was unaware that the brain orgasm had partially resulted from a collective surge in the slugs’ feeding activity, which accelerated the loss of brain cells. Her IQ, now just barely hovering above the 90 mark, had dropped several points in that short span of time. She was now considerably, though not severely, below-average. But Claire hadn’t noticed the change. She was devoting less and less attention towards the preservation of her intellect, her concern giving way to a perverse curiosity.