Shadow Creatures

by Andrew Lane

‘That’s fine.’ Dr Kircher glanced at the technicians, who were watching the fluctuating graphs on their computer screens intently. ‘Everything OK with you people?’

  A chorus of ‘Yes, sirs!’ echoed around the lab.

  ‘Let’s spend a while consolidating what we’ve achieved, shall we?’ Dr Kircher patted Calum on the shoulder. ‘You’re doing fine, Calum. I know this is an emotional moment for you, and I know you want to rush through it and try walking by yourself, but we have to take it literally one step at a time. You really do have to learn to walk before you can run, and you need to learn how to step before you can walk.’

  For the next half-hour, Dr Kircher took Calum through a series of movements: bending his knees again; flexing his feet; raising his right leg and left leg up without bending his knees, like a clockwork soldier; moving his legs away from each other, out to the sides; moving them backwards as well as forwards . . . all the movements that ordinary people took for granted. Calum felt a bit like a ballet dancer doing stretching exercises, except that he wasn’t holding a barre or standing next to a mirror. All the time Kircher made sure that his technicians were getting the feedback they expected from the sensors embedded all over the bionic leg braces. Where the movements were too fast, or too extreme, the technicians fine-tuned the electronics and the computerized “brain” until the movements that Calum imagined were the movements that occurred. And then they started adding movements together into sequences – bend the right knee, shift the weight of the body forward by bending slightly at the hips, extend the right leg and so on. Calum was having to deconstruct the whole intuitive process of walking into single logical steps, and then follow them one after the other in a smooth set of actions.

  ‘The thing to remember,’ Dr Kircher said, ‘is that walking for bipeds such as us is really just a form of controlled falling. You lift one leg off the ground, start falling forward, and then stop yourself from falling with the same leg. That’s the way it works.’

  Three hours from the point at which Calum had been lowered to the ground, he took five steps in a row, supported by the wires but not needing them. The feeling of actually being able to walk was . . . incredible. Calum couldn’t really equate it to anything else in his life. An hour later, Dr Kircher ordered the wires and the corset to be removed, and Calum stood, unsupported, and walked by himself for the first time since the accident. He could feel tears running down his face, but he didn’t care. The technicians applauded.

  ‘I think,’ Dr Kircher said, ‘that we can judiciously consider this a success.’

  They took a break, with coffee and cake. Calum sat down carefully on one of the stools that were placed around the lab. ‘I can’t thank you enough –’ he said haltingly.

  Kircher raised a hand to stop him. ‘Say no more. We’re learning just as much from you as you are learning from us. This is a process of discovery for all concerned.’

  ‘Can I ask a question?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘The legs are operated by my thoughts, yes? What’s to stop them suddenly moving if I happen to randomly think about moving my legs without actually intending to do so? Maybe if I was remembering something, or imagining it?’

  ‘Good question.’ He thought for a moment. ‘The brain is quite an incredible thing, and we’re really only now beginning to appreciate the way it works. There are thoughts, which, as you indicate, are really just imaginary rehearsals for things that might happen – little daydreams, if you like. They activate the same regions in the brain that are activated when you actually intend to move. The difference is that when you intend to move, there’s another part of your brain that also activates – a part that has to do with decision-making. That activity is necessary in order for the signal to actually be sent to your legs. The sensors on your scalp have to detect both sets of activity before they will activate the motors on the leg braces. That way we can screen out all those daydreams, memories, odd ideas about moving, and so on.’ He smiled. ‘Have you ever sat in a chair and thought about reaching out for something – maybe a cup of tea – but not actually done it? And then, a few minutes later, you find your hand is actually reaching out without you consciously thinking about it? That’s the difference between a stray thought and a thought with intention behind it.’

  Calum nodded. ‘OK – I understand that.’

  Kircher frowned. ‘I know that Gillian Livingstone broached the subject of heading to our parent laboratory in the USA to have some more detailed tests run. How do you feel about that?’

  ‘I’d rather not; not now, anyway. There’s a lot going on in my life.’

  ‘So I can’t talk you into it?’

  ‘I’m afraid not.’

  ‘In that case, I think that the best thing is for you to stay here for a few days while we run a comprehensive battery of tests. They won’t be as detailed as the tests we can run in America, but it will give us some extra data. I’ll have your chauffeur fetch some clothes for you and bring them here.’

  Somewhere in the back of Calum’s mind, a little alarm bell started to ring. It was muffled, almost inaudible, but it was definitely there.

  ‘Actually,’ he said, ‘I would rather go back to my apartment. I feel safer there.’

  ‘I don’t think that’s a good idea . . .’ Kircher started to say.

  ‘It’s what’s going to happen,’ Calum insisted. ‘I can always get Mr Macfarlane to drive me here tomorrow, and the day after, and whenever you want, but I’m not going to stay.’

  Kircher grimaced, but said nothing.

  ‘The only question,’ Calum went on, ‘is whether I take the legs with me and bring them back, or whether they stay here.’

  Kircher stared at Calum for a few moments, and then said, ‘It would be best if you got as much practice with the legs as possible, and they are perfectly safe now that your brain patterns have been properly characterized. The charge in the fuel cells will last for a week or more of normal use. Is there anyone who can check on you regularly, to make sure you’re all right?’

  ‘My friend Tara. She can stay with me for a few days.’

  Kircher shrugged. ‘OK, then. Home it is. I’ll call you tomorrow to arrange our next session.’ He reached inside his white lab coat and pulled a card from an inside pocket. Handing it over to Calum, he said, ‘My office number and mobile numbers are both on the card. If you have any problems – day or night – give me a call immediately. Some of the technicians here are on twenty-four-hour call-out. We have a number of clients who require mobility in their daily lives, and need to be back on their feet immediately if they have a problem. Call us if you need us.’

  He handed the card to Calum. Calum took it, and turned it over to see the front.

  DR THEO KIRCHER

  HEAD OF MOBILITY

  ROBLEDO MOUNTAINS TECHNOLOGY

  There was also an address and several phone numbers, but Calum noticed that a line of small text underneath the ‘Robledo Mountains Technology’ had been blacked out with a felt-tip pen.

  ‘What did that say?’ he asked, intrigued.

  Dr Kircher looked away. ‘Just some corporate stuff,’ he said. ‘You know the kind of thing – companies get taken over, sold, bought or traded all the time. It’s greener to keep the same business cards and just cross out the stuff that doesn’t apply any more.’ He raised a finger warningly, looking back at Calum. ‘No running though. And don’t climb any stairs – we need to rehearse those movements thoroughly with you in our next session.’

  ‘I promise,’ Calum said, ‘no running or climbing stairs.’ He hoped that Dr Kircher couldn’t see his fingers, crossed beneath the table.

  Natalie had spent the long flight to Hong Kong partly reading a trashy novel on her e-reader, partly looking at the pictures of duty-free items she could buy on-board, partly watching a vacuous comedy about rich Californian girls who spent every day shopping and bitching about boys, and partly asleep. Between this journey and the one she’d only just done from New York to Lon
don, she was fed up with long-haul.

  Rhino had had his head buried in a book – a real book, not an electronic one – for most of the flight. Gecko had slept a lot, and eaten whenever any food was going. Natalie supposed his free-running activities meant that he needed all the nutrition and all the rest that he could get. It must be nice not to put on weight just by looking at food.

  At least they were in First Class, which meant that the seats had little barriers around them to make them more private, and they could be laid flat to turn into small but functional beds. That was a boon. Calum had booked the tickets without complaint, saying that there was no point in them getting to Hong Kong and needing three days to recover from the flight. There were even sets of pyjamas in cotton bags in the overhead lockers that people could wear, if they chose, along with a neat little blindfold to block out the aircraft’s interior lights. Natalie decided not to take advantage of them. The toilets were still small, despite the fact that it was First Class, and she didn’t want to have to bash her elbows and knees while struggling to get changed into the pyjamas, only to have to do the same thing in reverse a few hours later. Sleeping in her own clothes was icky, but she could manage. She had slummed it before.

  The captain came on the tannoy to say that they were preparing to land, and everyone should go back to their seats and fasten their seatbelts. Natalie glanced across to see that Rhino had looked up from his book.

  ‘Have you ever flown into Hong Kong before?’ he asked.

  ‘No. What about you?’

  He nodded. ‘When I was in the military, I came in and out a few times. That was when Hong Kong was owned by the British, of course. They’ve built a new airport since I was here, Chek Lap Kok Airport, which has to be an improvement.’

  Natalie was intrigued. ‘Why’s that? Was the old one not very good?’

  He shook his head. ‘It’s not that, it’s just that the approach to landing at the old one – Kai Tak Airport – was quite –’ he hesitated for a moment, trying to choose the appropriate word – ‘dramatic. Especially on runway thirteen. It was ranked by some TV programme a few years back as the sixth most dangerous airport in the world for landings.’

  ‘So what was so bad about runway thirteen?’

  Rhino smiled, obviously remembering. ‘The problem was that there was no direct line in. Pilots had to come in over the harbour and the populated area of Kowloon, descending all the time, and watch out for a particular hill with an orange-and-white checkerboard-pattern sign on the top. The moment they saw that hill they had to make a sudden forty-seven-degree turn to the right and lose height rapidly while lining up on the runway, and they had to make that line-up visually, rather than using instruments. The plane would enter the final right turn at a height of about two hundred metres and come out of it at about forty-three metres. At that stage the plane would be flying with tower blocks just a few hundred metres to either side, and I distinctly remember looking out of the window on one occasion and staring straight into someone’s kitchen, watching them drain some noodles in a sieve – we were that close. And then seconds later we were hitting the ground – hard – and braking really sharply so we didn’t go off the end of the runway and into the waters of the harbour.’ He thought for a moment. ‘And that was on a good day. On a bad day the winds coming down off the mountains would try to push the aircraft sideways, into the tower blocks. That was fun.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Natalie said slowly, ‘it sounds like fun. But this new airport – nothing like as bad as the old one, right?’

  ‘Right.’ He nodded. ‘Except that they did build it on reclaimed marshland, but I’m sure it’s stable.’

  ‘Great – thanks for that.’ Natalie settled back in her seat, grabbed the blindfold and slipped it over her eyes. She was only going to take it off once they had actually, definitively landed.

  Calum phoned Tara as soon as Macfarlane dropped him back home. It sounded as if she was in a coffee shop, but she said she would come straight over.

  When she arrived, she stood in the doorway of his apartment, looking at him as he stood, without using the overhead straps, in the centre of the room, looking back at her.

  ‘Wow,’ she said.

  He held his arms out to either side and shrugged. ‘Look, Ma – no hands!’

  ‘Are you actually wearing the bionic legs now?’

  He tapped his jeans. He could feel the metal braces beneath the denim. ‘I actually am.’

  She glanced up at the straps that hung from the ceiling. ‘Are you going to take those things down, then?’

  ‘Not just yet.’ He gently touched the metal frame that encased his right leg. ‘I want to be absolutely sure that these things work properly and won’t suddenly fail on me before I start doing something drastic. Which is why you’re here.’

  She put her hands on her hips and tilted her head to one side. ‘You mean this isn’t just a social visit?’

  ‘You know I’m always glad to see you, and the others,’ he said, suddenly aware that he might have been a little too . . . honest.

  ‘Yeah, I remember how grateful you were that Gecko and I had drunk all of that Mexican cola that you have imported.’

  ‘But that’s my special cola!’ he protested, aware even as he said the words of how petty they sounded.

  ‘Calum, there’s no point having really tasty drinks around, and then boasting to your friends that you have really tasty drinks around, and then not letting your friends actually drink those really tasty drinks.’

  ‘Point taken,’ he said. ‘Anyway – back to me.’

  She smiled tolerantly.

  Calum took a deep breath. ‘I want to go outside,’ he said.

  A long pause, then: ‘Are you sure about that? Shouldn’t you test those bionic things around the apartment for a while, just to iron out any glitches? Because if there’s one thing I know about complicated electronics and computerized systems, it’s that there’re always glitches.’

  He shook his head. ‘Look, apart from being up on the roof with Gecko a few days ago, I haven’t felt the sun on my face or the breeze on my skin for . . . for as long as I can remember.’

  ‘You went for a drive only this morning,’ she pointed out with the kind of remorseless logic that Calum usually used on people. ‘You could feel the sun and the breeze then.’

  ‘It wasn’t the same.’ He took a breath. This was important to him. ‘Then, I was out in the open for about ten seconds between the door to the apartment and the car, and I was in a wheelchair. The same at the other end. I want to be able to walk there, in the open air, somewhere with grass around me, and just . . . soak it in. Be in the moment.’

  Tara stared at him for a few seconds. ‘OK, then – let’s go and get an ice cream. There’s a community park a little way down the road.’

  ‘I didn’t know that,’ Calum said in a small voice, and it was true – he hadn’t known. He’d moved in here after his parents died. He didn’t know the area. He’d chosen it because the warehouse had belonged to his great-grandfather. In fact, his great-grandfather’s stuff was still stored in the basement, along with ARLENE. But he would have known that if he’d been able to go out.

  Shutting the apartment door behind him and activating the security systems, Calum turned and headed for the stairs.

  ‘Don’t you want to use the lift?’ Tara asked, standing by the lift doors.

  ‘I’ve got legs and I’m going to use them,’ he said stubbornly.

  Tara frowned. ‘That sounds like an old ZZ Top song,’ she mused. She looked up at him. ‘Are you sure you’re allowed to use those legs on stairs? Have they been cleared as safe?’

  He nodded. ‘I’m meant to use them whenever and however I can,’ he said, fingers crossed behind his back again.

  She looked dubious. ‘OK, then.

  He took the stairs carefully, with Tara in front of him in case he fell forward. The steps were concrete, and had eroded edges, and cracks running through them. They dated from the time the w
arehouse was built, back when his great-grandfather was exploring the world. He moved gingerly, but the legs coped well with the challenge. He was amazed at how natural it felt to be walking again.

  Outside, he luxuriated in the feel of the sun on his skin. He looked left and right along the narrow road where the warehouse and apartment were located. ‘Which way now?’

  Tara pointed left. ‘That way.’

  They walked along the road, to all intents and purposes like a couple of ordinary teenagers wandering around London. Tara led Calum to the park, and while he stood there and watched the pigeons pecking for food, the grey squirrels eyeing up the sunbathers cautiously and the dogs jumping in the fountains she bought two ice-cream cones from the cafe.

  They sat on a park bench and ate their ice creams. Calum couldn’t remember anything ever tasting as delicious.

  ‘This,’ he said quietly, ‘is paradise.’

  Tara was distracted. ‘Sorry?’

  ‘I said, this is paradise.’

  ‘Oh.’

  He glanced at her. She was looking off to one side. He followed her gaze, to see two men with close-cropped hair wearing leather jackets leaving the park through a different gate to the one he and Tara had used. ‘Seen someone you recognize?’ he asked.

  ‘Kind of,’ she said, frowning. ‘I think I’ve seen those two men before. I just can’t remember where or when.’

  Calum felt a sudden chill run through him. ‘Nemor Incorporated?’ he asked quietly.

  ‘It could be,’ she said, just as quietly, ‘but which one of us are they interested in?’

  CHAPTER six

  With Rhino, Gecko and Natalie on their way to Hong Kong, and Calum in his apartment resting after the strain of trying out his new legs, Tara found herself at a loose end once she’d seen him home. She drifted from coffee shop to bookshop and bookshop to coffee shop, wasting time. She realized now that she had thought that suddenly having so many friends would mean she’d never be lonely again, but that wasn’t the case. Ultimately, she was still by herself.