Cyborg 01 - Cyborg

by Martin Caidin

  Killian probed. “Nothing shows,” he said finally. “That’s a good sign.” He half turned. “Miss Manners, was there any anomaly in the readings at that time?”

  She scanned the readouts, nodded. “Yes, Doctor, it appeared to be a current surge.”

  Killian went to the monitoring console, Wells at his side. He returned several minutes later.

  “It appears,” he said carefully, “to be in the electrical flow. You are picking up a mild shock in your leg. Not the bionics limb, Steve. Something is feeding back out of control and giving you electrical shock.”

  Steve nodded. “That shouldn’t take much of a fix.”

  “No, but we will have to study the correlations. It will take some time.”

  “Still got to try to walk.”

  “That would be foolish now,” Killian argued. “It could become much more severe.”

  “Only one way to find out.”

  He did. Violently. He leaned forward slightly, lifted his left leg, poised the limb above the floor, feeling the sensations, then brought it down very slowly, easing pressure onto the limb. It held.

  The right foot came up, a leg seeming to move in snow, the movement deliberately exaggerated. The knee hinged, and Steve brought the leg forward and down, going for the same careful contact with the floor.

  “That’s one,” he said through clenched teeth.

  They could hardly breathe. He went through a dozen steps the same way, a miracle before their eyes, the joining of man and machine into a single living system. He walked twenty feet, then thirty.

  “Doctor!” Jean Manners, calling to Wells. He hurried to her side, saw the needle oscillating wildly.

  “Steve! Hold it! Don’t—”

  Too late. A sudden spasm of electricity slashed through the left leg. The limb snapped straight out, the knee locking, the signals mixing wildly. Steve spun sideways, his body helpless from the sudden upthrusting of the leg. Then he went limp, sagging in the harness.

  “He’s unconscious,” Killian said. “Fanier, fifty percent. At once. Take the pressure from him.”

  The harness lifted slightly. Moments later they strapped him to a stretcher, started back for his room.

  CHAPTER 13

  “You’re expecting too much too quickly,” Wells said for the tenth time that same morning. “You’re pushing too hard. It’s understandable, I admit, but—”

  “But what?” Steve interrupted him. “The arm is coming along fine, isn’t it? Then what the hell’s the matter with the legs? Why can’t they work out that feedback problem?”

  “They are solving the problems,” Wells said patiently. “They’re not doing it fast enough to suit you, that’s all. You’re forgetting the experimental nature of all this. But even more, you’re forgetting just how much progress you have made.”

  “Damned little.”

  “That’s unfair and untrue. Look at your performance on the treadmill yesterday. You ran the equivalent of five miles. Perfect pacing. Your entire system worked like a charm. You did five miles and—”

  “And then fell on my ass because that damned feedback went haywire again. I was like a clumsy kid who—”

  “You are a clumsy kid. Can’t you understand that? Biologically, that happens to be the fact. Oh, for God’s sake, Steve, you know the score. Physiologically, much of your body is that of an adult child. Your system is learning things all over again at superspeed. But it’s still confused. The problem isn’t in the bionics limbs. It’s in your own nerve network. If it was a matter of modifying the limbs, we could do that. You’re an engineer; you understand remote sensing. But the controls don’t exist in the bionics systems, and your body has got to build up its own memory banks of the new data feeds. That’s what takes time.” Wells gestured with barely controlled anger of his own. “You’ve been off the harness now for three weeks. We didn’t think that would be possible yet for another month. Can’t you consider just how fast you have come along?”

  Steve looked at him. “Are you patronizing me, Doc?”

  “No, you son of a bitch, I am not.”

  “Well, you damn well are acting like it!” In a sudden burst of rage he swept the table clean of all objects; ashtrays, manuals, coffee cups went crashing to the floor. “I just wish to hell,” he grated, “we could stop all this damned testing and testing . . . it’s driving me up a wall, Rudy. All those people hovering around like moths and I’m the damned candle. I am damned sick of it!” He curled his fingers into fists and his left hand slammed against the table.

  Wood splintered as his fist crashed through the top. For an instant the table remained where it was, then collapsed with a bang against the floor. There was shocked silence as they stared at one another.

  “Oh, hell. I didn’t mean to do that, Doc.”

  Wells rose to his feet. “I know,” he said finally. He forced a smile to his face. “Feel better?”

  “Not really,” Steve said. “But I would like to try the maze again. How about it?”

  Wells shrugged. “It’s your ass you fall on. Do you know you’ve got bruises there that have bruises?”

  Steve rubbed his buttocks. “Don’t I ever. C’mon, Doc, nothing ventured, nothing gained, and so forth.”

  The test room showed the signs of progress. The suspension harness was gone. Steve insisted on taking his bruises as payment for progress, and the room had been modified to his requests. Much of it was now a specially designed maze with winding pathways, steps, undulating surfaces, chairs, and ladders, artificial pathways with gravel and rocks, all to test the legs under a wide variety of conditions.

  Rudy Wells took a chair high above the running area for a clear field of vision as Steve went through his paces. For more than an hour he hammered through the obstacles, his body working flawlessly, the bionics limbs no less so. Then the erratic pattern began. It came only in moments, but it threw him off stride. Steve ran and dodged with deft agility when, suddenly, rounding through a sharp turn, he stumbled and fell headlong to the surface.

  Wells started forward to assist the fallen man, thought better of the instinctive move. He gripped the chair with his hand, waiting. Steve lay in a heap, his right fist beating slowly against the floor in barely controlled anger. Moments later he rolled about and moved to a sitting position, looking up at Wells. Technicians in the testing chamber, always present, took their cue from Wells and made no move to interfere.

  “Rudy, it’s got to be the potential,” Steve said angrily. He struggled to his feet, working his left leg carefully. “Look at this thing,” he complained. “It’s like you said. The signals go into the leg,” his hand slammed with a wallop against the bionics limb, “but they’re all messed up coming back. I can almost feel it happening.”

  Wells kept his silence. Steve was groping. He turned suddenly, started moving at a trot, working his way through the course. Several times he stumbled, fought for and regained his balance. Steve wasn’t aware of what was becoming clear to Wells and the others. The legs were improving, and rapidly. He could punish the bionics limbs now for more than an hour without difficulty. It was as if a time block existed for operation without fault. At that time his system began to tire, as would any man’s, and a flow of erratic nerve messages was the result. According to their own calculations, in several weeks Steve would be through the worst of it, and his endurance would be measured not by the feedback of signals through the bionics limbs and his own system, but by his own ability to endure. The bionics limbs would have nothing to do with it. They were dealing with a superb athlete who knew better than any of them the extent to which he might abuse his own body.

  Their superb athlete, unfortunately, also suffered a hair-trigger temper, considerably aggravated at this point by his frustrations. During one run through the testing maze, Steve was pressing hard ahead with fifty pounds strapped to his back. The bionics limbs did not fail but Steve, operating now under an altered center of gravity, stubbed a toe and sprawled helplessly. He clambered to his feet wi
th an expression of anger and disgust and let fly with a well-aimed kick at the rock that had caused his tumble.

  The rock took off like a rifle bullet, tore through a plate-glass viewing window, scattering observers in all directions, went on to penetrate a wall, and came to a stop in the next wall beyond. A sheepish, slightly stunned Steve Austin balanced himself on one foot, lowered his body carefully to the floor, and stared ruefully at the mangled end of his right “toe.” The toes were crushed inward, and the sudden heat of compression had fused the material.

  Rudy Wells sat down beside him and they watched Art Fanier leaping obstacles through the maze to reach their side in his own record time. “How,” Fanier asked, pointing at the battered foot, “does it feel?”

  Steve looked up. “You’re kidding.”

  “Hell, no, I’m not kidding. How does it feel?”

  “It’s not my leg, dammit. You guys built this thing here in your candy factory.”

  Fanier shook his head. “You’re wrong,” he insisted. “It is your leg. And you’d better start thinking about it that way, because you sure can’t keep on doing that.”

  Steve glanced up at Rudy. “Maybe Art’s got something there. It does feel sort of strange, at that.”

  Wells raised an eyebrow. “Well, it does, dammit,” Steve said.

  “How? Any pain?”

  “Not pain. It’s more like a tingling sensation. It doesn’t hurt, but it’s annoying. If I look away from the foot, it reminds me something’s wrong. It feels like that, anyway.”

  “You mean that?” Fanier asked.

  “Yeah.” Steve looked at the other man. “What the hell is the matter with you?”

  Fanier pointed again to the leg. “What you just said . . . we had theories about it, but this, well, I mean . . . it’s more than I ever really hoped for. It’s compensation,” he said with near awe in his voice. “Compensation beyond any level we ever thought possible.” A rising tone of excitement came into his voice. “Do you know what this means? Good God, the two systems, the bionics and the physiological, are proving their total compatibility. And I mean total.” He rubbed his hands briskly together. “The body, Steve . . . it can’t provide a pain sensation because you haven’t those types of nerve endings any more, so it’s compensating. It’s substituting a new feeling, a new sensation as a warning. It’s a pain indicator without pain!”

  Fanier gestured to Wells. “We’ve got to get him back in the lab, check out the readings. If I understand what’s going on here, the end is in sight.”

  Steve’s arm shot out like a piston, grabbed Fanier’s wrist. He had a scowl on his face. “Explain that.”

  Fanier squirmed. “Hey . . . you’re hurting . . .” His face had gone white.

  “Steve!” Wells shouted. “You’re going to break his arm. Let go, man!”

  Steve withdrew his hand. “Oh, hell,” he said softly, his words almost a moan. “I’m sorry, Art. I didn’t know . . .” It had been his left arm. The bionics limb. Steve stared at it as if he were seeing it for the first time.

  “No . . . no sweat,” Art Fanier gasped. “What I meant, Steve, was that compensation on this order means another month, maybe two and no problems anymore . . . I—” He was white. He turned to Wells. “Doc . . . I think it’s broken.” He cradled the arm against the other.

  Steve stared at him, his own face white.

  “Just when everything is going so beautifully with the project, too.” Art Fanier used his left hand in a clumsy effort to handle his coffee cup. He spilled some, put it back to the table. “The bionics part is more than we could have hoped for. What’s gone wrong with Steve?”

  Wells looked at Fanier and the others in the room.

  “He thinks he’s becoming a Frankenstein. You can’t argue him out of it. We know it’s not true. He doesn’t.” Wells rose to his feet. “We’ll just have to see who has the last word.”

  “You may feel cosmetics is hardly the word for what you have in mind, but it is as necessary as the other surgery that has been performed. Yes, cosmetic surgery is as vital to—”

  “Shut up and get on with it.” Steve made no attempt to disguise his impatience with the fluttering, talkative man.

  Arnold Dupre was his name and he was the walking revival of Ichabod Crane, a gaunt, spare giant who bent strangely at all angles through his knobby frame.

  “He operates a rather special kind of beauty parlor,” Wells said with a laugh. “No advertising, and the price is right. He’s an expert. Not a surgeon, of course, but he might as well be one.”

  “Where’s he from?” Steve growled.

  “CIA.”

  “What?”

  “That’s right. They think he’s the best in the business. And it is important.”

  When Dupre got down to business, even Steve was impressed. “They made a mistake with your new arm and your left leg,” Dupre announced without preamble, managing to astonish everyone in the room. Steve, Rudy Wells and Art Fanier stared at one another and turned their attention back to the knobby figure. “Notice,” Dupre said imperiously. “The left arm is now of the same dimensions as the right. That does not occur as a natural growth, so? This man is right-handed. So his right biceps, his forearm, his wrist, would all be better developed than his left. But the, ah, replacement? Aha, the replacement matches the dimensions of the right arm.” He grasped Steve’s wrist suddenly in bony fingers. Astonished, Steve offered no resistance. “See here? The mark of a fighter pilot. Even if I did not know of Colonel Austin this is clear to me. The musculature, eh? See? Where he has spent years gripping a control stick. Fighter pilots have this characteristic.”

  Steve pulled his arm free. “How the hell do you know all this? You hardly seem the type, I mean, you—”

  “Tut, tut, Colonel,” Dupre said, “you of all people should not make assumptions. Perhaps you should have looked at my wrist.”

  They did, and Steve saw what had missed him before. The right wrist of Dupre was more heavily developed. “Are you telling me,” Steve said in open disbelief, “that you—”

  “Thunderbolts, Fifteenth Air Force. Four thousand hours, single-engine fighters, Colonel. I also shot down eight German fighters.”

  Steve sat in silence through the rest. “I imagine you had some difficulty becoming accustomed to your legs, so?” Dupre swept on. “Obvious. The weight is the same, approximately, I imagine, as your own legs. But the mass balance? All wrong. That changes the inertia, so? The body mixes up the signals. It takes time to adapt. No, no, Colonel Austin, no need to answer. I am familiar with such problems.” They stared at the gaunt figure who had just stated in a few words what had escaped them all. Fanier’s mouth was open in disbelief.

  “But,” Dupre shrugged, “other factors, right? Here, see where the flesh joins the plastiskin. We need a permanent dye. More hairs. Oh, yes, much more hairs. If the skin is exposed to the sun, the skin will darken, but not the plastiskin. We will create some scars along the limb. It will cover the junction, right? And the hairs will make pigmentation differences more difficult to see. Yes, it must have water resistance. Salinity must be considered. We can also supply you with a dye, a lotion, that will closely match any change. It will function for both legs and the arm. Now, are we ready for the tests?”

  Steve was frozen, baked, and immersed for hours at a time while Dupre fussed about him like an old maid. The specialist recommended injections to darken the skin, were that necessary, and Steve wondered at such attention to matching the plastiskin with his own. But finally Dupre ended his sessions.

  “What now?” he demanded of Rudy Wells.

  “Your eye,” the doctor told him. “You’re getting to look too much like Moshe Dayan. Time we changed that.”

  “A glass eye? I might as well—”

  “No, not a glass eye. Something better. Tomorrow morning. You’ll see.”

  Steve felt uncomfortable in his presence. The man with the balding head waited patiently in the optical chamber, wearing a white tunic,
standing behind a wide table cluttered with plastic models of skulls and eyeballs. He extended his hand as Steve entered with Wells and Jean Manners.

  “Oscar Goldman,” he said to Steve. “My pleasure, Colonel Austin.”

  Steve shook hands cautiously. “Did you say Doctor Goldman?” Steve asked.

  “No. Not doctor.” He nodded to Wells. “That’s his department. I’m a specialist in ceramics and plastics. Also, some familiarity with electronics.” He gestured to a leather chair. “Would you sit there, please?”

  “Maybe I should have explained more, Steve,” Wells told him. “Mr. Goldman is a specialist in his, well, his field. He’ll help you decide on types of equipment.”

  Still suspicious, Steve took the seat. Centered in the table, directly before him, was an exact replica of his own head. Only this model was of lucite, plastic, and other materials, was transparent, and came apart in sections. There were also oversized sections of the eye, the socket, and the optical system. Steve studied the display, turned to Goldman.

  “My business extends somewhat beyond the cosmetic,” Goldman said abruptly. “We both know your vision cannot be restored. There are different methods, however, for a replacement eye to function. It can be glass or plastic, and it simply fills the socket. Its effect as a cosmetic is illusory, for the eye does not move with the eye muscles. The so-called vacant stare straight ahead is its fault.”

  Steve did not make a sound, and Goldman paused long enough to pick up a large eyeball. “This is what we propose for you,” he continued. “The weight, the weight distribution, match your eye. Color is the same, but this has added properties. We have developed a refractory ceramic that not only matches the cornea of your right eye, but will shift color depending upon light intensity and angle. More than that, it contains light-sensitive materials that will enlarge and decrease corneal size, again matching your right eye. The pupils will approximate one another as they change. Dr. Wells, here, and Dr. Killian will explain to you how the eye will be placed in your socket so that it moves when you alter your point of visual reference. As your right eye moves up or down or to the side this eye will do the same.” He placed the model back on the table.