by Divya Singh
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I woke up with a start caused perhaps by something being dragged. Two machines, looking like fat robots, standing 4 feet high, rounded at the top making them look like their heads. They were pulling ZA-vi out of the seat which made him fall off, and then they held him by his arms and rest of the body dragging on the ground, facing downwards. It looked shameless to me somehow.
I said: “Why are you taking him away? What happened? Who are you guys?” I quipped.
One robot turned his head all the way towards me and answered-
Robot 1: “Your android is infected with a distant virus. We are taking it away so that our engineers can fix the bug or if it wouldn’t be possible then re-programme him.”
The other one with a red band on his head said-
Robot 2: “Hi! I am Manny A13 and this is Sammy F11. We are from the engineering department. We do what we are doing now, i.e. find and bring machines to the engineers for repair and leave them back at their destined places or erect them where they are required to be. So we help in every way to fix the bugged machines. We’re doing a good job!”
I said: “What? I didn’t get much. Will he be okay and when?”
Sammy F11 (blue band): “We do not really know, so we are taking him like this, our engineers will check him up and then we will know if he will ever recover. But we were informed when he was discovered to be absent on our SAN i.e. Ship Area Network. We do not waste any time in our jobs! Bye!”
I said: “Okay. But…..Bye!” I wanted to ask more, but they left in a hurry without a word. “Machines after all!” I said to myself.
Soon enough KEAH entered my room.
KEAH: “Hello Miss! Sorry to hear about the loss of your android. I arrived here early to be by your side in case you needed someone. I hope you like the replacement.” And she smiled
I said: “Of course I do.” So she got here early? I looked at the clock which struck 8:00 am sharp. “But I don’t think he could be dead, could he? Machines don’t die!”
KEAH: “No they don’t! I have come to fill up the void and help you with anything I can, but I know I can’t be like him; though I will try my possible best.”
I said: “Actually saying, in some ways you are better than him, not denying not as efficient but more humane. One much better feeling is that of relief that you cannot access my thoughts and that I have my privacy secured when you are around.” I smiled, so did she.
KEAH: “Ok, Miss we have today to take samples for the test of your biopsy. We will examine you for any signs of transplant rejection by the body.”
Saying this she pulled out a long big needle from the drawer in front of her. Then she sprayed a liquid to numb over the chest just above the heart. She then inserted the needle deep into my chest, took a little chunk of flesh and blood in it and placed on a little glass tray. It didn’t hurt, but looked a little out of the box to me. Then she closed it and sponged out the blue oozing blood from the wound the needle had made. I was a little engrossed in the procedure that had just happened to me while she took the tray and walked out.
In 10 minutes, SHELLY and KEAH entered in my room. Before they would say a word, I took over and talked to SHELLY
I said: “Could I ever have a better face?” I was a little disappointed as was reflecting from my voice.
SHELLY: “Yes absolutely! We will make your face a beautiful one, with your prior approval. But in a few days when you would have recovered a bit more, i.e. in a few more days.”
I said: “How many?” I was seriously concerned
SHELLY: “2 maybe 3 days, if biopsy and other results are fine.” He had tried to understand my perplexity. “We can transplant hair, will make eyelids, eyebrows, carry out skin grafting for a smoother skin, and we can design much better features that you would wish…….”
I asked again: “what about the blood, blue prominent veins? Can you change that?”
Shelly: “Um, no, we are using blood substitute/ Therapeutic AUSFANK30 for you. We opted for it because we do not have enough blood on this ship. Also, there are not enough human donors these days. There was only one option open to us to use a Group-neutral blood substitute. But this blood will never be like original red blood. It will never make RBC, an essential element which imparts the red color to blood. In simple words, rephrasing; your body does not produce blood on its own like natural human beings produce, but you will have to be transfused with this blue blood in every couple of days. The harsh reality is that in the tough procedure of reanimation ability of your bone marrow has been severely compromised. This will always make you vulnerable to diseases and blood will not be produced in your body naturally. Only one thing can set it right, another natural blood transfusion, but it cannot be done till we are absolutely assured about the safety of the procedure. Also, when we have analyzed your safety, we can transplant the marrow only when we have a donor for you.”
I: “Does it mean that my body will accept any body’s real blood?”
Shelly: “ It is case specific but saying in general, yes.”
“ So…..” The heavy footsteps, made me stop what I was about to say.
“Good Morning Madam!” ZA-vi said.
“Madam?” I said, held by surprise. “Since when have you changed from case to madam?”
One spectacled guy having a grey beard accompanied him into the room. He said, “Hello Madam! I am Dean Worth! An engineer. I have made simple changes to your android. I know you are being tackled shamelessly by him. So from now on I have formatted it with a little more human respect.”
“But what went wrong with him? Why would he fall switched off like that?” I scratched deeper for information.
Worth: “Some source not far away from here is trying to hack him. As soon as we received this indication on our surveillance system we stopped him.”
I baffled: “What? We are on a sea, how could ‘some source’ hack him? Do we have other ships here accompanying us?”
Worth: “I have not known of any such ships accompanying ours. We have never met any other ship for a long time, but the probability is that the source is located either on a ship which we are unable to know about through communication technology, or maybe we are not very far away from land on which this source lies.”
I asked: “Why would anybody want to hack him? He has been storing only my information in his record almost all his life. So it is basically an attempt to interfere coupled with a breach of privacy to my information, some manipulation of it, access it for ‘some purpose’. But why is anyone trying it on me? Why am I important? I don’t even know myself.”
Worth: “Well I am just a robotics engineer, my knowledge goes only this far.”
ZA-vi: “You are a very important person Madam! You will know this with the passage of time and by regaining your memory back.”
I asked: “Now, how hard have you set his protocol compliance cognizance.”
Worth: “His vital programming remains untouched. I have only fixed him for the bug. I have not programmed him.”
I thought, maybe he still remembers the deal we have had about me sneaking out searching for information regarding the outside world and my purpose. But I really fear that he could have forgotten it and gone useless for me. Worth left and ZA-vi behaved as if he was normal. But as the clock ticked 2 am I woke up, checked up on ZA-vi. He sat by my side, working on some screen.
I said: “When do we start again?”
ZA-vi: “Hello Madam! How are you? I am sorry what woke you up at this wee hour? We do not need to start your day so early.”
I knew this would happen: “Stupid! Do you remember what we had talked about; my plans regarding seeking information from exploring outside world?”
ZA-vi: “I do not understand what I am being reminded about. Can you kindly be more specific and explain in detail.”
I reassessed: “You said I was so important that you could break protocols to allow me to go out in
the ship to get the information I seek.”
ZA-vi: “I am extremely sorry Madam! I cannot break protocols because they are made for your good. It defines me.”
I screamed: “You scoundrel!”
ZA-vi: “I do not understand the last word you just said, Madam.”
I turned back and started to try sleeping again. I cannot go into coercing him into letting me go again. It was very disturbing to share my room with a robot short in memory. Two people with the same background in memory in a room; not impressive!
In the next 3 days, various tests and diagnoses were run on me to ensure that I was fine. Dr. Shelly as promised gave me the option to undergo the aesthetic procedures, to which I agreed. On the next day, I was scheduled to undergo skin transplant or grafting of face and neck, but the procedure would end with the fixing of artificial eyelids, made up of tissue culture. For the consent, Shelly took a retinal scan on a form. 10 a.m. was the time fixed the next day for surgery. And the 3rd day from the next day was I scheduled for my hair transplantation. I was happy as I was going to finally have a better and acceptable appearance.
The next day everything and everybody was ready for the clock to strike 10 a.m . As it happened, Kirkrick administered general anesthesia on me.
Kirkrick, “Subject anaesthetized at 10 a.m. prepping up the facial skin for grafting. In 5 minutes we began peeling of the epidermis (first layer). Full depth grafting is being opted for, in the procedure so that skin grows with the body. In the process, the position of the muscles and veins will also be taken care of. After the grafting of the rest of the face is complete eyelids will be placed and sutured with newly grafted skin. Then the grafting of the neck will constitute the second phase of the procedure. There will be attempts made to correct the imperfections of the graft and smoothing of the scars after the procedure of today. Seam smoothening will be done in many phases of subsequent touch ups.”
Time for general anesthesia was up, kicking me in a sleep.”
I woke up after a laborious surgery. My face was bandaged, so was my neck. I couldn’t move its muscles; all above the shoulders was sore and swollen. Drip tubes were inside my nasal passage, running down through my throat. Apparently I was bed ridden again. I thought that I had to get off this room once and forever and pursue my purpose.
Soon enough KEAH entered the room saying-
KEAH: “Miss! The surgery was successful. Tomorrow we take the bandages out and the face will appear swollen first and then it will get back to normal in a week or so, and then you can start eating with the mouth. So the next week on the same day same time you are scheduled for another transplant for hair follicles on head and brows.”
Seeing me trying to speak, she said-
KEAH: “No you can’t speak now and cannot stand up, sit or walk for a while so that we can give time to your face to adjust and be accepted by the body. Try to get as much sleep as possible. If you can’t do that, we will sedate you to help you with that. Now I must go as I have another task to accomplish. Your android guy will take care of you by monitoring your vitals. Also, you can telepathically tell him what you want. I think this connection between you both was made for times such as these. If need be doctors and I will rush back to you instantly. While, we will pay you visits twice a day, every day. Please rest now!”
Then she left me. I turned to look at ZA-vi, who looked back at me in his own brand style and smiled.
ZA-vi: “You must rest madam!”
Sleep must have come to me easy that night.
Chapter 8: My new face