by Cliff Hedley
“Uh, maybe but this is already a damn sight better than what I had. Thank you, Doc. You too, Jane.”
“You’re very welcome,” Carlton waved, as if it was nothing.
“I second that,” added Jane.
“So how do I take them off? Can I do that by myself as well?”
“You can. The same thing will happen in reverse. The loops will release and you just need to slip your arms out. See that little button on the inside of your elbow hinge?”
Chase rolled his left arm over to see. “Got it.”
“Hold it in for five seconds.”
Chase pushed the button with his new right index finger and the left arm released its loops. He slipped it off onto the table it had come from.
“You’ve got it. To do the reverse, just push back in like you did before. I’ve designed it so you can hold it between your knees and use any hard surface to push the button in.”
“Cool.” Chase pushed his left arm back into the moulding and it started up again with a whirr. This time he took notice of how long it needed to start working properly, around twenty seconds.
“What if it doesn’t have enough power to release?”
“It will. There’s a little back-up battery — like a watch battery — which will give you enough power to release the arms, even if they’ve gone into hibernation. So if you see them form into a fist and that last red light is blinking, you’ll know you need to get to your proximity chargers.”
Chase nodded, then a grin spread across his face. “I’ve got a test I’d like to try out, if it’s OK with you.”
“What’s that?”
“Drinking from a coffee cup without a straw.”
Carlton laughed. “Sounds good. You want to come this time, Jane?”
“Definitely. This, I have to see.”
“Let’s finish up here, then we can unplug you and set you loose upon the world.”
Carlton tapped away at the keyboard of his workstation, then gave Jane the thumbs-up, when it was OK to disconnect Chase from the wiring harness. Chase kept perfectly still as she carefully unplugged the arms and tucked the wire harnesses away. As she set about shutting down the machines, Chase stood up, filled with a new sense of freedom. While he waited for Jane and Carlton, he moved into the open space near the door and started to perform a kata. He was mesmerised, watching his hands as he moved. They weren’t perfect but the mere fact that he had something he could really use was incredible.
“OK, all done here. Let’s go.”
Carlton wheeled his way towards the door, followed by Jane. Chase pushed it open, holding it for them. A little mechanical whine came from his right hand as he gripped the handle. “Please,’ he said with a wide smile. “Allow me.”
On the way to the coffee shop they passed a mother and her young son. This time, instead of the child staring at Chase with a look of uncertainty and fear, as the little girl had on his first outing, the kid’s mouth dropped open as he breathed, “Cool!”
Chase couldn’t help but smile. It was a good day, and even better when they took their usual seat at the diner.
Dennis came across with two long blacks for Carlton and Chase, and a latté for Jane.
“Hey, folks. How are we all doing today?”
“Hey, Dennis,” they replied in unison.
“I’m very well,” Chase added. “I may not need the straw today.” He took his hands from under the table, where they had been resting on his knees.
“Wow, I’ll be! That your work, Rob?” Dennis asked.
“Sure is. Chase here is Jane’s and my favourite guinea pig.”
“Don’t get too excited, guys,” Chase cut in. “Dennis, I apologise in advance if I end up making a mess.”
He carefully reached out with a little whirr of his right hand and took the straw out of his coffee. He laid it carefully on the table in front of him. Next, he slowly squeezed his fingers around the cup. He was cradling it awkwardly but managed to very gradually lift it to his lips and take a sip. He moved it back down and placed it back on the table, at which point he realised that Jane, Carlton and Dennis were all watching him intently. They collectively let out their breaths once the cup was back on the table.
“Wow. That’s great, Chase. You can make a mess in here any time you want but I’ll remember to serve you without a straw from now on.” Dennis clapped him on the shoulder, then went back to the counter.
Chase thought for a moment in silence.
“What is it?” Jane asked.
“Well, a couple of things. I think maybe that rubber grip would help with solid objects like this mug.”
“And?” Carlton asked.
“Maybe when you look at future upgrades, some kind of feedback that tells me how hard I’m squeezing. Maybe something like those PlayStation game controllers that rumble? I just don’t want to end up breaking stuff.”
“Good idea. I had wondered about how to do that. Force feedback is an excellent idea. I can put little receptors on the inside of your fingers which vibrate lightly or more violently depending on how hard you squeeze.”
“That would be good, thanks.”
Chase asked with a wry grin, “Just how strong are these arms? I mean, do they give me superhuman strength or anything?”
Carlton chuckled. “They’ll give you about human strength. Not superhuman, I’m afraid. The best we can do is get you as close to your original condition as possible — for as long as the batteries last.”
“I can live with that.”
***
The following day, Chase began his normal routine. This time, though, he put his new prosthetics on. One at a time he locked them into place and waited a few moments before he could clench and unclench his fists to test that they were working. They whirred in response. Satisfied that everything was functioning as expected, he headed for the door, intent on a gym workout. He had almost made it out when he spotted the bokken standing against the wall in the corner. He gripped it with his new titanium hands. It was a little cumbersome, the grip not as smooth and giving as human flesh. Still, he was able to hold it. He gave a little shrug and decided what the hell. He went straight to the open floor section of the gym to see if he could still move with it.
“Whew!” An impressed whistle came from Frank Chase as he pushed through the gym doors. “Those must be the new gizmos that I came to see.”
“And your son too, of course.”
“Yeah. Sure.” Frank deliberately sounded unconvincing.
“Hey, did you shave?! You look slightly less like a grizzly bear today.”
Chase senior scratched his chin, where he had trimmed back his wild beard to a respectable length. “It’s this big-city living. Making me civilised.” He nodded towards Chase’s bokken. “Don’t let me stop you.”
Once Chase was in his usual kata spot on the gym’s hardwood floor, he started out with the basics, trying to adjust his grip. The wrists didn’t quite articulate the way human ones did, so he made a mental note to share that with Carlton later. After starting out with a series of slow movements, he increased the tempo. After a few failed attempts, he was able to make the wooden sword whoosh through the air at full force. Once he had achieved that sound, he knew he had made some progress. His father watched on with interest from the sidelines, leaning on a stretching rail.
Chase bowed straight ahead, holding the bokken at his side with one hand, with the other resting across the end of the grip. He smiled at his new appendages. He had felt them getting slightly more accurate as he had worked, as if the software was learning, or he was adjusting to the way the new joints moved, in their not-quite-human rigidity. He figured it might be a mix of both. Either way, he was able to give more subtle commands to them and they were responding faster.
“Not bad, son. What else can they do?”
Chase leaned the bok
ken back against the wall and headed over to a rack of light dumbbells, taking a small one from near the top. He curled it up with his right arm, raising it up and lowering it effortlessly by his side. He was surprised at how comfortable the arm stayed while it was loaded up, so he upped the weight with a pair of heavier dumbbells. This time he felt a little more strain in his biceps, which he enjoyed. It was approaching a proper workout but still not the level he had been at. He upped the weights again and this time felt a decent amount of strain after ten reps on each side. They were thirty pounds each, and while he had used much heavier in the past, he was pretty pleased that he could lift them.
He spent the rest of the morning working his way around the gym, with help from Frank. It reminded him of when they worked out together in younger days. His father had taught him the basics of weight training and usually took him along to the on-base gym wherever the Air Force had them stationed.
Done with the weights, he finished back with his bokken. He had the same issues as before, mainly around how well his hard metallic fingers could grip the wooden handle and the way his wrists were more rigid than a natural human hand. Then he realised that he hadn’t tried the bag today. He headed over to it, wondering if he should punch it.
“What do you think?”
His father shrugged. “Only one way to find out.”
The LED indicators on the inside of the arms had both red bars remaining but obviously the morning’s exercise had taken its toll on the batteries. The remainder should be more than enough for the little test he had in mind.
He stepped up to the bag and raised his hands up to his face, forming fists. He pushed a jab out first with his left hand, careful to be gentle. He didn’t want to damage the hand, or injure his own arm inside the prosthetic. The hand landed against the bag, and there was no issue, so he tried again. He added in a cross so that he was punching a quick left-right to the bag at head-height. As he continued, he gradually increased the power of the hit, until he was at about eighty per cent of what he thought he could do with his own hands. Still the prosthetics didn’t give and his arms didn’t hurt. The padding inside them absorbed some of the impact, much like a sports shoe does for a runner.
He stepped to the side, delivering a hook, then uppercut. Then an overhand. Then a five-hit combination of jab-cross-hook-uppercut-overhand. He moved again, this time trying a combination with his feet and hands together. A simple jab-cross then right-leg roundhouse. He continued on with combinations of kicking, knees, elbows and fists until he had built a good sweat up.
Deciding not to overdo it any further and realising that the batteries would need a charge before his afternoon appointment with Carlton, Chase picked up his bokken and headed for the door. He stopped to take a few gulps from the water fountain, careful to keep his prosthetics away from the stream. He wasn’t sure what he felt but it was a kind of bewilderment and amazement.
Frank was smiling. “That seemed to go OK.”
“Yeah. Better than I thought. The hands are a little bit clunky but still far better than anything I could have imagined.”
Frank held the door for his son and Chase padded barefoot alongside him back to his room. He sat in the armchair beside his bed where Jane had set up the proximity chargers. Moments after he had sat down and rested his arms, the power indicator flashed briefly to show that charging had begun. He looked up at the TV: he was just in time for Star Trek, the original series. He made a mental note to see if he could try out his typing skills by sending Freeman and Collins each an email.
Frank gave him a wave as he stood at the door. “I’ll leave you to it. That looked pretty good today. I reckon you’re on to something here.”
***
“I’ve got to come clean, Doc.” Chase was sitting in his usual spot on the edge of a hospital bed in Carlton’s lab.
“What did you do?” Carlton peered back at him suspiciously, suddenly concerned for his creations.
“I gave them a little extra test. I have to say, these things are phenomenal.”
Carlton looked unsure whether to be pleased or worried. “What was the extra test?”
“I’ve had a couple of trials with using my bokken — my wooden training sword — and I could do some basic stuff. It missed the finesse of human hands but I have some ideas about that for you. I also tried a couple of punches on the bag in the gym. They held up pretty well.”
The mention of the bokken didn’t seem to bother Carlton but he visibly cringed at the thought of Chase bashing his creations. Then his expression changed. “You mean you were hitting the bag at full force and didn’t hurt yourself or the prosthetics?”
“Pretty close to full force. After a morning in the gym, the batteries were a bit run down but I gave them a charge before coming down to see you. That was the only issue I had, and I would expect that. I was amazed at how I could lift a dumbbell as well. No real issues there.”
“Let’s take a look.” Carlton and Jane fired up their array of monitors and machines. She plugged the wiring harness into each arm via its tiny plug. Carlton waited for the data to appear on his monitor and seemed to be nodding, somewhat impressed.
“So everything went pretty well?”
“Better than I would have thought.”
“Any feedback?”
“Yeah. Like I said before, I think a rubber coating would help, especially when gripping hard objects. What I noticed more today, though, was that the wrists are fairly rigid. They don’t articulate the same way a human wrist would.”
“Hmmm. I had wondered about that. Maybe some lateral control would help. Right now, you’ve just got up and down.” He scribbled some notes down. “Anything else?”
“I was hoping to borrow a computer somewhere if I may. I’d like to send a couple of emails and I thought the typing would be a useful test of fine motor control in the fingers.”
“Absolutely. That would be a real test. Jane, would you mind unplugging Chase and showing him to a workstation?”
“Sure. Over here. You can use my desk.”
She logged herself in, then opened a web browser for Chase. He opened up a fresh page and entered his Army user name and password into the boxes that popped up. He was pleased to see that they hadn’t disabled his account, given his change in active duty. All his contacts were still there.
He discovered right away that typing wasn’t easy. Neither was using the mouse. He could touch-type with his old hands but now he was slowly lifting each finger to hit the keys. He found it quicker to leave only his index fingers extended and tap at the keys slowly that way, watching where he was typing. He had to grip the mouse carefully, moving his whole arm to aim the pointer on screen. It was the fine motor movements where his new hands struggled the most. He could no longer do this by feel.
“This is a little harder than I thought,” he said.
“Yes, I thought as much,” said Carlton. “You’ll find some of the fine control stuff takes longer to master. We’ll keep working on it, though. You practise and I’ll try to make the tech as good as I can.”
Chase started opening his emails. He already had one from Freeman. It was brief but to the point and had been sitting there for a week already:
Hey Chase. Thought I’d drop you a line but figure I won’t get a response until you have something to type with. Hope you are recovering and those new robot hands are working out for you. I’ve got a nice new titanium leg. It’s a temporary until I get something better but I’ve figured out how to get around on it if I use a walking stick. Ditched the wheelchair too. Turns out the TV is just as bad here as Bagram.
Freeman.
Slowly, Chase typed a response:
Hey Freeman. Thanks for the note. I just got some new titanium fingers, which are not a whole lot of use to touch type with. They are good for punching a bag and picking up weights though, so there’s hope I get some thug work somewher
e down the track. TV is just as bad here too — but they do have Star Trek re-runs. Hang in there, and when they let me off the leash I might be allowed to visit.
Chase.
Next, Chase opened up a new email and addressed it to Collins:
“Hi Sensei,
Hope you are doing well. Thanks for the care package you sent me. I’ve just been able to start using it, though I think my best days of swordplay may be behind me. Turns out I can still punch with these new titanium hands, though. I trust you are keeping up the practice and I look forward to seeing you grade up when you get back home.
Please give my best to the Roadrunners as well.
Renshi Will.
Chapter 10
He had found a way to keep his badly scarred face hidden from prying eyes. Not that he minded people looking on him and experiencing a horrific recoil. He wanted them to understand, to see the bigger picture and the imperfection in the world. Still, it was best not to draw attention. It was easy to pick up a hooded sweatshirt with front pockets where his hands could meet yet remain concealed as they worked.
The first step in his new campaign was already set in motion. He was there to observe and record, and to activate his plan so that it had the maximum potential impact. As always, he was a safe distance away.
When he felt the time was right, he flipped the switch in his pocket.
Chapter 11
After another three weeks, Chase had a new routine in place and was growing to enjoy it. He would spend time with the physiotherapists working through his new, much more complex gym programme. His father often joined him in the gym and he was glad of both the company and support.
For the first time, he was starting to feel that he was getting a decent workout. He would always finish off with some kata, bokken and bag work. Carlton didn’t seem to mind him throwing punches with his new and no doubt very expensive hands. After some initial hesitation, he had realised that Chase would push the limits and was now as curious as Chase to find out what they were.