THE ULTIMATE PROBLEM

Episode #498 · Written by Victor Rousseau · Narrated by Scott Miller

Dr. Ivan Brodsky is certain that death is not destruction but transition, and he has built a machine to prove it. In a sealed laboratory, he prepares to drive both himself and a soulless child across the border of life using a controlled surge of electricity. The risk is absolute. The return is not guaranteed.

When the current surges and two luminous shapes whirl inside a glass globe, the spectacle feels almost beautiful. Then one flame weakens. One body fails to rise. The assistant who witnesses it must follow instructions written in advance, even as fear grips him. The experiment was never merely about revival. It was about continuation.

What remains afterward is more troubling than a death. A letter reveals that Brodsky expected not to return at all. He intended to abandon his worn identity and begin again in a younger body, leaving his assistant as guardian of a secret capable of reshaping civilization. As the boy grows and begins to show flashes of strange recollection, the question is no longer whether the experiment worked—but whether its consequences should be allowed to unfold.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Victor Rousseau (1879–1960) was born in Belgium and later became a prominent contributor to early American pulp magazines. His work appeared regularly in Argosy, Adventure, and Weird Tales, where he blended speculative science, mysticism, and high adventure. Rousseau authored numerous novels, including The Messiah of the Cylinder and The Surgeon of Souls, and often explored psychic research, reincarnation, and fringe scientific theory in dramatic narrative form. The Ultimate Problem reflects his enduring interest in the intersection of electrical science and spiritual speculation, themes that marked much of his pulp-era fiction.

LISTEN TO THE STORY

Listen to The Ultimate Problem by Victor Rousseau — a vintage science fiction story in which a brilliant doctor risks everything to begin life again in another body—and leaves behind a secret that may not stay buried.

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• The Eater of Souls by Henry Kuttner
• Beyond Annihilation by Henry Kuttner

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