“The next morning, you called me in. You said it was because of my ground level contacts, but that wasn’t the whole truth. I think you knew even then that Tsai’s lackey was going to try to sell it to Marshall. You hoped your investigator could catch up before the deal went through, but just in case she didn’t, you wanted someone on hand that knew the inside of Marshall Engineering, someone that could get your agent in and out, and frankly you chose well.
“But, the problem with hiring someone like me is that I don’t close my eyes when it’s convenient. I take my job seriously, and I don’t like being lied to.”
“Mr. Bell,” Wright interjected, “your familiarity with Marshall Engineering was just a bonus, not a deception.”
“That’s not what I’m talking about.” I took a seat in front of his desk, still not quite recovered. “You see, something about this whole thing never quite added up.”
“What’s that?”
“The buyer. This prototype is a highly specialized piece of tech. Only three, maybe four companies in the world would have any use for it, but only the company that designed it would truly know its value. Agents in the Combine, they’re professionals. Maybe they don’t always make the best decisions, but there are established methods for these kinds of thefts of specialized items.”
“What exactly are you getting at?”
“I’m saying that from the very beginning this was never a sale. It was a ransom.” Wright leaned forward, setting elbows on the desk and knitting his artificial fingers in front of his mouth. “Your company has always been ahead of the curve. Ever since you first designed the nerve interface, everyone else has been playing catch up. You farmed out the manufacture of the interface’s components so you could focus your own company on improving the hardware, but Dr. Marshall has been working his tail off for years trying to reproduce that first invention that set your designs apart from the rest.
“At some point, Marshall’s research team hit on something truly special, the Holy Grail of bionics, a direct brain interface through an artificial spinal column. A discovery like that would make your tech obsolete. Over night, you’d be the one falling behind, scrambling to catch up to Marshall Engineering’s lead, but we both know that wouldn’t be good enough for Dr. Marshall. He doesn’t like competition.
“So, you bided your time. Your spies kept you informed so that when a viable prototype was finally produced, you could just pay off the right people, have an exchange made in transit, and put the product out as your own. Unfortunately, someone else got to it first.
“Marshall doesn’t run as tight a ship as he thinks he does. Two of his security officers were running double duty with the Combine. They knew something big was being shipped in, but they had no idea how big until Cassdan opened the case for them.” I allowed myself a small smile. “Before they got it open, they probably thought it was next year’s ME-Limb designs. I imagine they increased their asking price once they realized what it was. It really didn’t matter, though. I doubt Marshall had any intention of leaving anyone alive, and once his people realized we were tailing them, we were added to the list. He scheduled separate teams to hit us, Cassdan, and Rossi at the same time, making it easy for his bionic commandos show up for the rescheduled meeting without any risk of them being followed or interrupted.
“It all worked, too. By the time we showed up, Marshall’s people were long gone, thinking they had won the game, but thankfully, your investigator doesn’t give up that easily. It was just a process of elimination for us to figure where the prototype was, but it wasn’t until we were inside the building that I discovered the years of research the real owner of the prototype had conducted. Lucky for you, our noisy exit resulted in the destruction of all that off-network supercomputer data, otherwise Marshall may have actually had enough evidence to stop you from patenting the prototype’s design.
“In fact, it looks like everything has turned out quite well for you. You have the prototype with no paper trail. You’ve stopped Marshall’s monopoly. You’re completely insulated, and I truly hope it was worth it.”
I waited for a response, maybe a commentary or an apology, but what he gave me wasn’t really either. “When I first started up, all I wanted to do was make a difference in the world. Profit off of the nerve interfaces was plenty enough for me to stay in business, which gave me all the time I wanted to keep making newer, more efficient limbs, and I didn’t patent any of them. I published the designs and kept everything open source. I just wanted people to walk again.
“And then Dr. Marshall got into the business, and all he wanted was profit. All the smaller companies using my design were either bought up or run out of business. My choices were to either grow big enough to fend him off, or let my company be crushed and watch him steal my nerve interface design right out from under me.
“I’ve tried my best to run an ethical business. I’ve done my best to help people. If you want me to apologize for that, I’m afraid you’re out of luck.”
Big business, that’s how it’s done, great kingdoms waging quiet wars. “I only have one question,” I added. “There’s something I haven’t quite been able to figure out.”
“What’s that?” he asked.
“Fifteen years of research, and you never figured out how to make an artificial spine. What was the big secret? What was the key to the Holy Grail of bionics?”
He let out a small, singular laugh. “Buckypaper,” he said, as if I had any idea what he was talking about.
I stared blankly for a moment, before asking, “And what the hell is buckypaper?”
“Carbon nanotubes, arranged into a sheet, paper thin. Buckypaper is roughly two hundred and fifty times stronger than steel, nearly unbreakable, and able to absorb impact damage like nothing else. It can be difficult to make, and expensive, but when manufactured to a high enough standard and woven through with the right material…” He gestured toward my chest. “...it makes for a damn decent bulletproof cloth.”
“You never tried using it before?”
“Oh, we certainly did, a hundred different ways. For two years, our best lab was producing every possible variation of pattern and design we could think of, but none produced any quality results. As it turns out, the buckypaper used in this prototype was of such incredibly poor quality that half the nanotubes were sticking out away from the main body of the sheet, many even crooked or hooked. It ends up operating like tiny fish hooks when wrapped around the spinal cord, stabbing in and latching on. The tiny hooks anchor it, and they’re so small that no healing is necessary. Not even a need for schwann cells. From there, it’s just a matter of deciphering the signals transmitted to the buckypaper from the spinal cord. The whole system still needs quite a bit of work, but now that my people are on the right track, the technology will move forward quickly.”
Never once had he spoken a word that could be mistaken for an admission of guilt or wrongdoing. In a way, I respected his restraint. A person in his position simply couldn’t take those kinds of risks, not when the future was at stake.
Shaking his hand, I thanked him again for the replacement arm and for letting me say my piece. As I reached the elevator, Ms. Nadee caught up to me. She directed the elevator to the ground floor and fell silent, staring at the wall.
Twenty floors passed before I said, “I don’t blame you.”
“I was as much a part of it as he was,” she answered. “We couldn’t risk you backing out.”
“I know.”
Twelve more floors passed.
“I don’t think I would have done it any different,” she added.
Five floors passed.
“I probably wouldn’t have, either,” I said.
The remaining floors passed in silence. When the door opened again, we said our goodbyes. She reminded me that my new arm was a prototype, so I should check in often. I told her to take care of herself.
I stepped out, back into my world and breathed the air. It was wet, dirty, and real. I was glad to b
e back here, with the ground under my feet and the distant neon my only light in the dark. The rain had slacked off, but a heavy drizzle continued to pour down from the Skyway. I unzipped the hood from my new jacket’s collar and pulled it up. There was a long walk ahead of me, but my mind was busy thinking about finding somewhere along the way to stop for gyudon.
I woke around seven in the morning with Nikie snuggled between my ribs and arm. Her purrs told me she had already been awake for a while, but hadn’t wanted to disturb me. It had taken her nearly a week to get used to the new arm, but once she had gotten enough of her scent on it, she decided she liked it pretty well. I was beginning to like it, too. It moved well, and the weight of it make it feel more real.
“Computer,” I called out to the dark room, “good morning.”
The lights came up to thirty percent. “Good morning, Jackson,” the little voice box on the wall said. “It is October fourteenth, seven-oh-nine AM. It is forty-one degrees outside with an expected high of fifty-three. You have two new messages.”
I gave Nikie a few scratches on the head before sitting up. “Computer, read first message.”
“Hey, Jackson,” came Rossi’s words in the computer’s voice. “I thought you might like to know that the hotel’s renovation is going well, thanks to my new investor, one Mr. David Wright. I don’t suppose you had anything to do with that little blessing?” The computer spoke the question mark. “Well, we should be reopening next month. I’ll send you an invitation when we finalize the date. Take care of yourself.”
I slipped on a pair of pants and went to the kitchen to warm up the food printer. Morning light spilled in through new glass in the living room, shining off of the fresh steel of my new door. While I had been in surgery, Wright had sent over a clean up team. The contract had included expenses and damages, but the promptness was nonetheless appreciated.
“Computer, reply to message. I look forward to it.”
After a moment, the computer said, “Message sent.”
“Computer, read next message.”
“Hi, Jackson. It’s Jenn. I just wanted to check up on you, see how the new arm is doing. It’s still in kind of a beta test, so I was wondering if you had any input or ideas to improve it. Maybe we could discuss it over dinner? Let me know.” There was a brief pause in the message. “Oh, also I’ve never had a cat before, so if you could give me a few pointers on how to get George and Laney used to their new place, I’d appreciate it.”
I thought that over for a moment, both the dinner offer and what advice I could give her. Eventually, I just said, “Computer, mark message unread. Remind me of it later today.”
“Message marked unread. Reminder set.”
I looked down at my little ginger girl as she gently pawed the floor. “What do you think, girl? You want pancakes? Maybe bacon?”
“Me’eh,” she responded.
“Again?”
She just purred in response.
“Alright,” I said, pecking the buttons for scrambled eggs and two biscuits. “Computer, read me the headlines.”
“Investigators still have no suspects for the bombings of the Marshall Engineering tower or the Skyway entrance located at the Hamilton Towers hotel. Police maintain that the two incidents are related.”
“Computer, next headline.”
“With a narrow vote, the Bionic Choice Bill has passed, allowing for non medically necessary bionics. David Wright, Owner and Founder of AlterBionics has taken this moment to unveil his latest innovation in neural interface.”
“Computer, show me.”
The living room television came on, displaying a video recorded in Wright’s top floor office. A throng of reporters politely sat in folding chairs, taking notes as Wright spoke in front of the frosted glass partition. On a rotating platform to his left sat a black polyethylene spine with carbon nanotube nerves. It wasn’t the silvery-steel one we had retrieved, but rather his own redesign.
“Here, today,” he spoke, “we have achieved the next step, some even say the Holy Grail of bionics. It has taken us years of research and development, but with this new artificial spine, paralysis and motorized back braces will be a thing of the past.”
“Computer, next.”
Another video automatically loaded on the screen. “With all the unrest brewing in the city,” Janet Burgess spoke, “some are concerned that the passing of the Bionic Choice Bill will just put more weapons on the streets.”
The camera cut to Dr. Marshall. “Not to worry, Janet. Marshall Engineering has formed a new partnership with the city police. Within days, every officer on the street will be outfitted in one of our new ME-Slim suits.”
“Please, tell us more about this new type of police-oriented power armor.”
“Well, it’s roughly half as powerful as a full sized suit of our military design suits of power armor, the ones keeping our boys safe on the front lines, but it’s infinitely more flexible and agile. No larger than basic body armor, it can’t take the punishment that a full sized suit can take, but it will make every officer on the street a solid match for even the most bionically enhanced criminal.”
“Computer,” I interrupted, “play Bionic Six.”
I removed my breakfast from the machine and doled out Nikie’s portion. Having a seat on my couch, I enjoyed my breakfast as the old show played. Occasionally, I got distracted, staring out the window. Across the road, broken boards left a gaping hole in the window of the old burned out building.
Before long, I heard light footfalls coming up the stairs outside my apartment. I took my plate to the kitchen and wrapped the untouched biscuit in a napkin, before running back to the bedroom to throw on a shirt. The door still stuck a bit as I opened it, but it was hardly a match for my new arm.
“Good morning,” I said to Ani Ngawang as she approached.
“And good morning to you,” she said with a smile and a gentle nod.
I lifted the lid of her alms bowl and placed the wrapped biscuit inside. “Ani, I sent a donation to the temple last night. Would you mind checking to make sure the transfer went through.”
From the money Wright had paid me, I paid up my bills through the end of the year, put a little into savings, and kept enough for spending money. The rest, I had transferred into the temple’s credit union account. It seemed safer than handing Ani Ngawang a fist sized roll of hundred dollar bills to carry all the way home.
I hadn’t wanted or expected any overt gratitude, so the tears that began streaming down her smiling cheeks took me by surprise. I really wasn’t sure how to react to that, nor what to do when she reached out her hand to grasp my left forearm as she shifted the weight of the large alms bowl into her other hand. I laid my right hand atop hers and gave her a moment.
“You have the heart of a buddha,” she said, finally. “You have helped so many.”
I was no expert in the history of Buddhism, but I couldn’t recall any buddhas who had taken payment for killing and stealing. “Thank you,” I said anyway.
She excused herself, and I stepped back inside my apartment, pressing the door closed behind me. I grabbed a drink from the fridge and sat myself back on the couch, instantly realizing I had forgotten to pause the episode. Halfway through rewinding it, I heard a faint chirping noise from the bedroom.
In the closet, I reached into my jacket’s pocket and pulled out the old brick phone. The worn rubber buttons were lit up in lime green as the little two inch information display flashed the word “Roam” over and over. I found and pressed the only red button and held the device to my ear.
“You survived,” I spoke into the device.
“Barely,” came Cassdan’s voice through the static. “A friend of mine is dead and I need a bodyguard.”
Without hesitation, I asked, “Where do you want to meet?”
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Under the Skyway (Skyway Series Book 1) Page 16