In the Quick

by Kate Hope Day

  I wanted to look more closely at a machine that resembled a mechanical butterfly, but Lion said, Come on, let’s get started. He waved me to a tall black metal frame with weights threaded onto cables that hung down to the floor. He removed all but one of the weights and showed me how to stand, face toward the metal frame, legs apart, and leaning like a stiff wind blew at my back. And how to hold the handles on the ends of the cables down by my sides.

  My eyes strayed to the butterfly machine nearby; it had a panel at its back secured with a line of tiny screws, and I had a small screwdriver in my pocket. I pressed my thumb to its tip and thought of James and Theresa on the track, their cheeks flushed from the cold, and about NSP’s two explorers, Inquiry and Endurance—

  Are you paying attention? Lion was pulling the handles up and his arm muscles flexed.

  I let go of the screwdriver. Yes.

  His face was solemn. He looked like he was concentrating hard, but not in his mind. In his body. Like his brain had left his head, had migrated down his shoulder and into his biceps.

  He switched positions, held the cables behind his back with very straight arms, and lifted them behind him up, up. The flex of the muscles in the backs of his arms was slight, but I could still see it. He repositioned himself, moving his feet slightly, tilting his chest an inch forward. He started the movement again, and I could see it more—the bunching up of the muscles under his skin.

  It made me think about the hand we were building in Materials lab and how it needed to be like Lion’s arm muscles. I saw it in my mind. It curved its fingers; it made a fist. But Lion’s muscles were soft, and the hand was hard—

  Lion, I’ve been thinking about the hand.

  He stood aside and held out the handles for me. We’re not doing that right now, he said. We’re doing this.

  I took the handles and slowly and shakily brought them to my chest. They had stayed perfectly still and smooth for Lion, as if the cables, his body, and the movement were all part of the same thing. But when I pulled them to my chest, they quivered. They seemed to have a life of their own, and the more I pulled, the more they shook.

  Keep going, Lion said. Three more.

  The vibrating inside my body got worse. My face was hot, my feet inside my sneakers hotter. I tried to quiet my limbs but I couldn’t. I told my muscles to stop shaking, but they wouldn’t.

  That’s what you want, he said. That shaking’s good.

  I stopped. You didn’t shake.

  With a heavier weight I would have. That’s how you know it’s working. The shaking tells you your muscles are learning.

  I let the cables fall. My arms felt unsettlingly light. Wobbly, like the bones had turned soft inside them. Lion pointed at another machine, one that worked the leg muscles. He showed me how to sit reclined on its cracked padded seat and push a weighted bar out, out, out with flat feet. Finally we both did twenty squats and twenty lunges. By the time we were done my thighs and bottom ached and I felt unsteady all over. I asked if we were finished lifting, at least for now, and he said it would get easier and we would come back tomorrow.

  16

  It turned even colder, and the snowdrifts grew tall in the yard. Someone shoveled the walkway between the dormitory and the schoolrooms each day, and as the snow accumulated, the path became an icy tunnel with walls of snow on either side. One night the wind battered the metal walls of the dormitory so brutally it seemed it would knock them down. But I had more blankets now—I had traded my extra socks for them—and Carla beside me who always slept through the noise.

  Most days before Materials, Lion and I lifted weights. I learned all the machines and got better. Every few days he added more weight. Most mornings before everyone was up Lion and I ran, sometimes on the track outside the dormitories, if the snow was cleared, and sometimes on the Candidate track. We usually saw one or two Explorer program trainees and sometimes caught a glimpse of Theresa and James and Simon.

  I got better—slowly. Sometimes Lion would stop and watch me run.

  That’s skipping! Not running!

  I knew what he meant but didn’t know how to fix it.

  Move your arms! he yelled the next time I came around. They should move with your legs.

  I tried and it was a little better. Less of a shock, less of a PAM PAM every time. I moved my arms and moved my legs and moved my arms.

  Better! But elbows in! he yelled. You look like a—

  But I was too far away to hear what I looked like. I pulled my elbows in.

  I look like a what? I asked, breathing hard, the next time around.

  Like a chicken.

  I pulled my elbows in more.

  He got up and ran after me. He had his hood up and his puff of hair underneath made it look like he was even taller than he actually was. Hey, it’s a joke. He smiled and pumped his arms. Just try to match your stride to mine.

  But his legs were so long. I couldn’t make my short legs go so far, but I tried. I made my stride as long as I could—so long it felt like leaping, so long my legs felt like they might come out of my hip sockets. My legs burned with the effort, and my nose ran, but it worked. My leaps fit just inside his stride.

  There you go, Lion said. Now let’s speed up!

  * * *

  —

  I was doing well in my classes. In math I was able to follow everything written on the whiteboard. I even went up to the board when prompted by Theresa, and what I wrote didn’t get erased. She started giving me extra problem sets so I could catch up on what I’d missed before I arrived at Peter Reed, and I brought the finished work to her office after classes were over. I liked her office. It was a small corner room she shared with James in the faculty building. There were two desks that faced each other and two chairs and a space heater on the floor. Notes and diagrams and schematics covered the walls.

  Usually when I showed up Theresa was alone, and she would check my work while I sat in James’s chair. She took her time, and afterward she would ask me questions in an exacting way. About why I chose the method I did and the different ways I could have gone about solving the problem. Sometimes I would talk to her about Materials lab and the improvements Carla and Lion and Nico and I were making with the hand. But if our conversation strayed beyond the topic of school—if I tried to ask her about the fuel cell or about Inquiry and Endurance—she’d gather up my work, hand it back, and tell me she had other things to do.

  Sometimes when I arrived I heard two voices behind the door when I knocked. On those days Theresa opened the door by just a crack—through it I could see James leaning over his desk on his elbows, a mess of papers in front of him—and she would ask me to come back another time. One evening I showed up after Materials lab and heard them arguing. Theresa’s voice was more insistent than James’s, but her words were muddled by what sounded like tears. I was surprised and stepped back from the door. Then I heard my uncle’s name, Peter.

  We’re never going to figure it out without Peter, Theresa said, and her voice cracked.

  We’ll just keep working, James said. Okay?

  * * *

  —

  At lunch I stayed quiet. I watched Lion and Carla, how they talked to each other and to the other kids at the table. What they laughed at. They laughed at Nico, mostly, who was always doing something weird to his food or making faces or arguing with other kids. But he didn’t seem to mind them laughing; he liked it. I tried laughing too, but it felt strange.

  In Materials I did what Carla asked me to do. A long line always formed to use the 3D printers, and sometimes we had to wait until the very end of lab to get on a machine. Teams with four or five members would send someone to hold a place in line, and that became my job. I spent so much time in line I got to know the printers, and when they broke down I figured out how to fix them. Eventually, even when I wasn’t waiting for a printer, I got called over when o
ne broke down. At first this annoyed Carla, but then Lion figured out we could broker this for more time on the printers for our team, or for spare parts, and then she was pleased.

  When I wasn’t in line I stood with Carla and Lion and Nico at the table and listened. I was allowed to do small tasks, like searching through the hardware bin for tiny screws and washers or cutting down pieces of metal mesh.

  Lion and Nico decided changing the thumb on number five would improve its grip after all, and eventually they convinced Carla to let them try it. They left me at the table while they went to go trade with another team for the materials they needed, and I picked up the hand. The metal was warm from Carla and Lion and Nico moving its digits and rotating its thumb. I wrapped its fingers and thumb around my own wrist, squeezed, and felt the give of my skin against the hard metal.

  What does a hand do? I thought.

  I repeated the actions. Open, shut. Unsqueeze, squeeze. Hands are soft, I thought. They change shape based on what we want to do, from one moment to the next. But that kind of softness can’t survive in space—

  How do you make a metal hand soft?

  Melt it. In my mind I softened an imaginary titanium hand. But it was too soft. The hand in my mind turned to liquid, became a puddle.

  Cut it so thin it gives to pressure. No, too hard. My imagined hand bent and cracked down the middle.

  What then? I said this out loud, and the group at the table next to mine stared.

  I squeezed the fingers of the hand around my wrist again, tighter this time. Tight enough that it hurt. Again I saw the hand in my mind blown up large, like a balloon, and then shrunk down small, like a piece of desiccated fruit. Its shriveled fingers made a fist.

  What if—

  Everyone came back to the table, talking loudly, and Carla asked me to find the hardware they needed to redo the thumb. Go look in the bin, would you?

  I still had number five wrapped around my wrist, and the desiccated fist hung in my mind.

  Carla’s face was impatient.

  Lion put his hand on my shoulder. His fingers were warm and firm. June? Did you hear?

  Right, I said, and I went to the hardware bin and began digging through it. I didn’t know the answer to my question—how do you make a metal hand soft? But I knew there was one. And I knew changing the thumb on number five wasn’t it.

  I found two of the six washers we needed. Then I went to the supply closet and got a latex glove.

  Back at the table Carla and Nico were arguing again.

  We’re going about it all wrong, I said, and I held up the rubber glove.

  Carla raised her eyebrows. Lion cocked his head to one side.

  This is the answer. I took the glove and blew air into it and tied it at the wrist. I held it out to Carla, as if to shake hands with her.

  It looked silly. I knew that. But I was trying to show them about the blown-up and shrunk-down hand—

  Nico started to laugh. And then Carla laughed, and Lion too.

  Their laughter wasn’t mean.

  Lion shook hands with the glove. Nico actually had tears in his eyes. You are a weird one, you know that? he said. But you’re all right June. He wiped his eyes.

  Carla shook hands with the glove too. When she did that it felt good, like I was wrapped up in something warm. So good I pushed the imaginary hand from my mind.

  Now we’ve had our fun, Carla said, where are my washers?

  17

  The season slowly changed. Our classrooms were slightly warmer now, and some days the sun shifted between the clouds outside the windows. The snow started to melt and turn to slush, and when Lion and I met during free period to run, it soaked our sneakers. I was able to jog around the track five times without getting winded now.

  But I still wasn’t very fast, and my stride was still awkward compared to Lion’s. One day I said I wanted to watch him and I leaned against a wall. Rockets flared through the sky overhead as I waited for him to come back around the track. When he did there was a rhythm in his stride. 1, 2, 3, 4. 1, 2, 3, 4. The rhythm seemed to match him—the length of his legs and arms, the bob of his head. I started running again and in my mind I tried to find a beat that matched my legs and arms. Lion’s beat was steady like a clock. 1, 2, 3, 4. Mine was quicker, a scurrying backbeat. 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2. I moved my arms and legs to the numbers, and two of my strides fit inside Lion’s one.

  Lion turned his head and smiled. You don’t look like a chicken anymore, he called.

  * * *

  —

  That night in my dormitory bed, with the sounds of other girls’ sighs and sniffles and snores surrounding me, I thought about the hand and my uncle’s question, What does it do? I thought about how different things moved different ways and had certain natural rhythms to them. Lion did when he ran. I did too. The hand had a natural way of moving—or it ought to. The group was trying to make the hand move like our hands do, I thought. But it needs to move how it wants to move.

  Carla turned over on her side in the bed next to me. Her breathing was soft and slow.

  How can a chunk of metal want? I asked myself. I recalled my first night at Peter Reed. How Carla reached across our two beds and squeezed my hand. I remembered how I felt the small bones underneath the pads of her fingers, and I thought, It can.

  * * *

  —

  The next morning I went to Theresa’s office to talk to her about my idea for the hand. I knocked; the door was ajar and it swung open. James was asleep at his paper-strewn desk, his head in the crook of his arm.

  He started and sat up. His curly hair was wild and there were dark circles under his eyes.

  What do you want? His voice was gruff; the space heater was on and the room was warm and close.

  I’m not here about homework, I said.

  I had some sheets of paper I’d drawn on and I held them out.

  He didn’t take them, so I sat in Theresa’s chair and spread them out on top of his desk. I’m trying to figure out how—I paused, but this time the words came easier. How to create adaptive grip in a robotic hand. I kept talking and pointed to my drawings and tried to describe what was in my mind.

  He listened and looked at the sheets of paper. He asked me a question and I answered it. He drew on one of my drawings. Like this? he asked.

  Yes but— I took the pen from him and drew again.

  We went back and forth like this for a minute or two, and then he put the pen down and rubbed his eyes. It’s an interesting idea, he said.

  I beamed.

  There’s only one way to find out if it will actually work.

  Build it.

  Exactly.

  I can’t do that without permission.

  Why not?

  Because it’s a group project. Because Theresa said I was supposed to watch and learn.

  He snorted. It’s your idea. Do what you want.

  * * *

  —

  The next day I made a model. I did it alone after everyone from Materials lab had gone. It was a latex glove attached to a simple vacuum pump, and when you squeezed the pump the glove filled with water. The next night I cut up a bunch of silicone-coated gloves and sewed little open compartments inside the fingers. I found a better pump in the supply closet, with a dial that measured the amount of water in milligrams. I filled and emptied the glove, filled and emptied.

  My next model was another silicone glove, constructed in the same way but filled with tiny plastic beads I’d found at the back of one of the supply cabinets. They were about the size of a poppy seed and kept spilling. But I managed to fill the pump with them and then watched the beads move into the glove, increasing its volume slowly, slowly. I put a ball into the palm of the glove and watched the glove gently hug it.

  It felt good, like I was making the idea I had seen in my mind, turnin
g the blown-up and shrunk-down hand into a solid thing. But the materials I was using wouldn’t hold up in the vacuum of open space. And the glove couldn’t actually hold the ball—it could only sort of squeeze it. Over the next few days I drew more pictures and dug through the parts bin in Materials lab; I thought about the hand every free second I had.

  I went back to James and Theresa’s office early in the morning hoping to see James alone. I brought my prototype wrapped carefully in paper under my arm. The door was open, but no one was there. The space heater was off and the room was chilly. I sat down in James’s chair, unwrapped my model, and set it in the center of his desk.

  That day we had a substitute in math class, a short man with a tie and a beard who wanted us to raise our hands before going up to the board. Theresa was absent the next day too, and Lion and I didn’t see her on the Candidate track. We didn’t see James or Simon running either. I checked James and Theresa’s office again and this time it was locked. I wished I hadn’t left my model inside. But I hoped their absence was a good sign and meant the task force had approved the Inquiry rescue mission.

  * * *

  —

  I hadn’t seen any of them—Theresa, James, or Simon—for two weeks when we got on the bus for our dive time at the pool on a rainy Wednesday. I sat next to Nico on the way and told him my theory about Theresa being gone from class. I wasn’t the only one—lots of kids were talking about it, wondering what it meant and hoping it was good news. I asked him what he thought as rain flecked the window, and he actually smiled and said, Maybe.

  At the pool I crowded with the other kids around the equipment cage, found a wet suit in my size, and began to pull it on, folding the fabric before pushing my limbs inside. Then I walked to the edge of the pool. Carla and Lion and Nico were already there, and we did our safety checks together, put our regulators in our mouths, and began our descent. Once we reached the bottom I joined a group that was performing the box exercise I’d seen Nico doing during my first dive. I worked with two other kids—a girl whose bed was near mine and a boy who sat next to me in physics—to untie the box from its first location, drag it across the pool floor, and resecure it in a new location. We had some trouble at first; the thick rope wouldn’t come loose from the metal rings holding it to the pool floor. Finally we were able to unhook it and begin dragging the box across the slippery floor. We reached the second location and quickly figured out how to retie it. I secured the last restraint and felt a sense of satisfaction as I locked it in place.