by Mike French
Book 3 of The Dandelion Trilogy
“The story is everything. And everything will become the story.”
TOP SECRET – CONVERGENCE
BRIEFING NOTE
The Convergence Project is a covert military/governmental science project that uses prisoners on death row to explore what happens to people as they die.
The experience of life flashing before your eyes just before death is a process called active retrieval where memories are being recalled and lived out again in the mind. As the amount of time before death decreases, the brain exponentially increases the speed of playback and starts looping: repeating over and over a lifetime’s worth of memories. Each playback makes the memories stronger and retains more detail. Mathematically, the remaining time before death can always be halved – so one second to death becomes half a second to death then a quarter of a second and so on, to a billionth of a second, a trillionth, until finally the memories are being replayed over and over in an infinitesimally small amount of time before death. As the brain exponentially increases the speed of playback at each iteration and there is no end to this process, an infinite playback speed is reached forming a memory singularity called a Convergence Point.†
The question the project asks is: Why does this happen?
Theory
- The consciousness is editing memories to form a memory timeline that is acceptable to the brain before the Convergence Point is reached.
- When, in the last moments, a person is in a Convergence Point, from their perspective that “moment” lasts for ever, as their brain is processing at infinite speed, and they effectively enter an afterlife of their own making.
Test Methodology
Subjects on death row are killed by lethal injection within an enhanced Magnetic Resonance Imaging Core. This brings on active retrieval and the brain activity is imaged moments before the Convergence Point forms.
So far the project has failed to image a Convergence Point itself as it disappears exactly at the moment it comes into being, although the project can get close to it. These ‘near’ Convergence Points are downloaded into neutral clones – this being the most effective way of interacting with the data, as the clone effectively decodes the brain patterns back into memories. These Convergence Clones are subjected to psychoanalysis to try to gain an understanding of the death experience. In particular to investigate how the subject interacted with the memories to form a narrative to their life. It is also noted that this method produces far superior clone matching to the normal memory transfer sequencing method.
The project has the added bonus of extracting information held deep in the subconscious of terrorists by using Convergence on them and then interrogating their Convergence Clone, which is recycled after use and reformed.
______________
† Convergence Point – Definition: a lifetime’s worth of memories contained within an infinitesimally small amount of time.
TOP SECRET – CONVERGENCE

Astronaut: 315 Studio / shutterstock.com
Convergence is the third book of the Dandelion Trilogy. The first book in the trilogy was The Ascent of Isaac Steward, and the second was Blue Friday.
Convergence was published in a digital edition on 25th October 2013 and in paperback on 30th December 2013
ISBN: 978-1-908168-36-8 eBook Typical price £2.99 / €3.49 / $3.99
ISBN: 978-1-908168-26-9 paperback 256pp List price £9.99 / €11.99 / $17.99
Prices online may vary. eBook price includes VAT (where applicable).
Reviews:
- “extremely imaginative and compelling” – review of Convergence on Liz Loves Books
- “It may well tax your brain just a tad” – review of Convergence on Cheryl M-M’s Book Blog
- “a dizzying dystopia” – review of Convergence on Murder Mayhem & More
- “Excellent and imaginative science fiction” – review of Convergence on Risingshadow
Try | Buy |
---|---|
TRAILER NOW ONLINE: SAMPLES AVAILABLE: |
DIGITAL EDITION Find on your favourite retailer Available from all Apple iBookstores Available from Kobobooks Available from Amazon Kindle stores Available from Barnes & Noble Available to buy from Google Play PAPERBACK EDITION Available from all good bookshops. Or BUY DIRECT from the Elsewhen Press Purchasing Portal. |
Advance Information Sheet available here