by Eli Constant
“I hope that smile means you’ve solved the issue and we can all go home.”
“Only one way to find out, Sir.” I never learned the young man’s name; it didn’t seem important to ask.
By 1800, the K-Max was making its rounds at an altitude of 11,500 feet. The Colonel was thrilled and not at all upset that I’d ignored his order to head home early. I directed his congratulatory back-pats to Michael and the nameless man.
My reward was waiting in the form of a soft bunk and itchy wool blanket. Funny how someone’s idea of heaven can change so drastically with time.
Elise was just headed back to the lab when I came into our room after eating dinner. Both girls were already tucked into bed.
“Guess you didn’t need me after all.”
She smiled. She smiled.
“They were both really tired and I’ve never missed bedtime kisses. Even on date night, I always insisted we be home by 8:30 at the latest. There are just some things that shouldn’t be sacrificed.” She paused, regarding me. “But it was very nice to know that you would fill in if needed.” Another smile.
She blew two kisses over her shoulder before disappearing out the door- one for each sleeping babe. Honoring her tradition, I went to Megan and Kara’s bunk and gave them my own light kisses on the forehead. I even kissed Mr. Grubbykins and tucked him in under the covers next to Kara.
Michael and Allison weren’t in bed. Michael had mentioned wanting to go to the entertainment room. I hoped he and Allison were losing themselves in mindless fun.
The best I could hope for myself was a dreamless slumber. I was man enough to admit that in the dark, when no one could see, I trembled at mental pictures of pointed claws and malformed teeth.
This night though, I drifted to sleep- too tired for nightmares to plague me.
Not a Mouse
“I don’t know if you’ve seen a mouse before, but this, most definitely, is not one.”
I stared down at the bushy tailed rodent in the plexi-glass cage, my small hands gripping the lab table.
“I didn’t sign up for cutting into squirrel skull. These things are too damn cute.”
“You’ll have to get over your aversion, Elise. Our men risked their necks and they found a squirrel. This is what you’ve got. Make it work.” O’Toole paused, reading over something at his desk. He looked at me again. “Shouldn’t be too hard- it’s still in the rodent family.”
I stared down at the mammal rushing back and forth and pushing against the clear walls. It had the cutest circle around its eyes that looked like precisely applied, white eyeliner. Its winter coat was brown and gray. I sucked in a big breath and exhaled it in a quick rush of warm air.
“I’ll do my best.”
I’d stayed at the lab the entire night building the tiny micro transmitter. I’d been surprised they’d gotten my supply list together so quickly- in a matter of hours really.
A control program for an assembler in the hangar bay had been modified, thanks to a computer geek that normally worked in inventory, and it was now loaded into O’Toole’s computer system. I’d asked the inventory guy if he could build programs from scratch, but he’d said no. Too bad. We probably could’ve used him later.
If my memory had served me well, we’d be sending song and dance commands to tiny, furry feet shortly. I knew the process of signal sending, synapse firing, nerve and muscle response, but there was also that little nudging in the back of my head that said: you did it wrong, one of the circuits is crossed, you’ll implant it wrong. I told my brain to shut up. If you can’t say anything nice…
I had relatively steady hands, but I hadn’t been the installer in the original trials. A micro-surgeon had been contracted to come in for that. He’d had baby hands, smaller than mine and so nimble, that seemed to fly across the flesh. He’d had the mouse brain exposed and the tiny equipment in place before we’d had a chance to turn the video recorder on.
“You guys are a hundred percent sure you don’t have a surgeon on hand… a woman who’s really good at putting on eyeliner maybe? You might even have better luck with Private Timmons- the line cook. He seems to know his way around a fish fileting.”
O’Toole sighed, obviously exasperated. “Mrs. Swanson, there is no one else. Please begin.”
Peter’s gave me an encouraging smile, possibly attempting to balance out O’Toole’s jerkiness.
I took another deep breath. Here goes nothing. I looked down at the waiting challenge.
The mechanics verged on Nano-technology, but remained on that borderline within microscopic. The transmitter was large enough to be seen by the naked eye, but too small to be handled by hand.
Sharp nosed, steel forceps rested on the steel counter we were using as a makeshift surgery table. One to pick up the diminutive mass of wires, hardware, and antenna and one to help place the tiny wire clamps onto four points of the cerebrum and three points of the cerebellum. A large magnifying glass sat on my ‘operating’ table; it had several slender, jointed arms- each holding another lens; I could adjust magnification easily. That would help.
I picked up the forceps slowly; my hands tingled in expectation. My left eyelid twitched- a nervous habit.
I’d often been consulted on the anatomy of the human brain as referenced in rodents. We’d made several breakthroughs at Advanced Bioengineering and Tech; one of which was locating the exact areas of the motor cortex that needed to be stimulated to elicit desired responses. I hoped I could remember exactly where the areas were. That worried me. Of course, a lot of things worried me.
Experiments involving impulse reaction were nothing new, but at AB&T, we were taking it a step further.
Leading an untrained, implanted mouse through an unfamiliar labyrinth was a baby step. We wanted to be able to eventually control speech, thought, and the minutest of muscle spasms.
I was about to attempt to re-achieve that baby step after a long night in a lab chair- a baby step that had taken many months to originally achieve.
My eyes were heavy, my body exhausted, my brain spent. I’d begged for an hour or two of rest, but O’Toole and Peters were in such a freaking hurry. Like an hour delay to shut my eyes would have harmed anything. But…
Their precious lab monster needed to be humanized. So, on with the show.
AB&T had gone through 150 mice before a singular mouse had survived the insertion process.
I had one squirrel. One.
I was counting on lady luck and a prayer.
Peter’s helped me prep the squirrel. It didn’t take long, such a tiny creature.
A small IV line ran from the squirrel’s left hind leg now. Its little face was slack and I’d stabilized its head with a rolled up wash cloth.
We’d weighed the furry guy (I’d started calling him ‘Acorn’ in my head) and done our best to dilute the sleep aid from one of the darts used on wild undergrounders. We didn’t have Acorn hooked to a monitor, but I could see his little chest move upwards and then cave back in at regular intervals.
Cutting into Acorn’s brain was a delicate and nerve-racking process.
My first incision created a semi-circle from ear to ear. I used a small suction tube to remove the slight pooling of blood caused by the cut. I set my sharp nosed forceps down in favor of an L-shaped blunt pair. The rounded end was quite thin and angled. It was easy to insert one end under the flap of skin and lift it back from the skull. It was almost like a spatula flipping a flap jack. A very small, brain-goo covered pancake.
Cutting into the actual skull would be the real challenge though. I first used a drill, the teeniest I’d ever seen, to create four holes in the shape of a square.
I had to pause for a moment, waggling my fingers and breathing deeply. The pause was longer than needed… I was an avid practitioner of procrastination.
The tool I picked up now was about a fifth the size of a dental grinding tool. The rotating end had a miniature circular blade attached. It was ridiculously sharp- I’d accidently tested i
t on me and my index finger now donned a khaki colored bandage.
A sweat droplet raced down my forehead, kissed my neck, and pooled in my concave clavicle. I knew the wetness would become annoying, so I wiped it away with the corner of my lab coat before beginning the next pivotal cuts. My hands trembled ever so slightly.
The sound of the miniature saw connecting the four dots on the off-white bone was at once sickening and satisfying. I had to be careful; the small skull was so very fragile.
When I shut the saw off, I knew I’d succeeded. I used a flat, steel pick to wedge in the thin crevice and levy up the section of skull; then I peeled back and pinned the Dura.
Exposed now was the section of the cerebrum I needed for proper insertion. Thankfully, I only needed access to gray matter for basic attachment and subsequent control.
My fingers handled the two sharp forceps deftly, but my hands still shook as I lowered the micro circuit into the brain. Getting the wires clamped in place took over half an hour.
I went slowly, deliberately.
Lowering the skull section back into place felt like the end of a very long and treacherous journey.
I couldn’t use any materials to secure the skull section that might interfere with signal reception so I used a non-toxic, quick-hardening epoxy that Peters had found in the hangar supply closet.
I waited the recommended five minutes. I wasn’t so sure the epoxy was appropriate- not with brain fluid seeping out from the cracks and further wetting the damp compound.
I replaced the Dura and scalp. Then I sewed finite stitches around the entire perimeter of the incision for reattachment.
Acorn looked like a Franken-squirrel, but I had just performed precision neurosurgery at its very grandest. Call me Dr. Franken-squirrel.
“Where do you want him transferred?”
I clenched and unclenched my hands, telling them to relax, telling them that they were all done for the day.
Dr. O’Toole pointed at the plexi-glass cage that had originally held the squirrel.
I removed the IV, applying pressure to the little wound for a moment, and then cradled the furry, limp body in my hands and slowly walked. When I sat Acorn down, I did so lovingly. I willed him to survive and thrive. He’d be doing me a great favor. I didn’t want to repeat this process.
I stood still for a minute, making sure the squirrel’s chest was still rising and falling methodically, and then I put the vented lid on the cage.
Peter’s cleared his throat and spoke. “Mrs. Swanson, thank you. I doubt anyone else could have performed that surgery with such success.”
“Don’t count your chickens yet, Doctor. Let’s see if Acorn survives the day and night first.”
“Acorn?” Peters was confused.
“Um… never mind.” I could not believe I’d said that stupid, pet name out loud. How embarrassing. I willed my checks not to blush red.
“We will observe his recovery today and tomorrow. In 36 hours we will reconvene and test your remote system.” O’Toole was very matter-of-fact, no praise, no smile.
“You do understand, Doctor, that applying this to a humanoid will be quite a bit more difficult. We’ll have to increase the complexity of the neural attachments tenfold and calculate the humanoid’s degree of personality development. We don’t know how these programs will conflict with individual neurology. Our remote system and program may very well cancel out the training progress you’ve made. The undergrounder could become a mindless drone or a violent sociopath. We have no way of testing to be sure.”
“We are well aware of the risks, Mrs. Swanson.” I watched O’Toole’s retreating back and I got the almost irresistible and childish urge to stick out my tongue. God, I was tired.
I ate breakfast alone- having missed the normal serving hours. There was a snack bar always stocked up near the entrance though. I filled up on cornflake protein bars, raw almonds, and washed down the bounty with water.
I peeked into room 42A and saw Megan dutifully reading a book and sporadically writing notes on lined paper. School lasted the first part of the day- plenty of time for a snooze. Before heading to bed, I checked on Kara. I didn’t need to; she was as happy as a clam. I never understood that saying, but if a clam were ever truly happy, Kara would certainly be its human embodiment.
Jason was in our room when I arrived.
“Hey. No busted rotors, broken wings, or dirty filters to fix?”
“Nope.” He was stretched out on a bunk with his arms bent upwards, his hands cradling the rear of his head. “Long night?”
“The longest. Just pray my Franken-squirrel survives.”
“Squirrel, huh? How did the metal bolts look in its furry little neck?”
“Heavy. Acorn was not a happy rodent.”
“Acorn?”
“I might have given my test subject a nauseatingly cute name. And I might have slipped up and called him that name in front of O’Toole and Peters.”
Jason whistled. “Embarrassing.”
“Don’t remind me. All I want to do is lie down and shut my eyes.”
I didn’t bother to go to the bathroom to change; I began to strip off my clothing. I didn’t think about Jason being in the room either though. Maybe sometimes we forget things to facilitate getting what we won’t admit we really want.
My sub-psyche was acknowledging the radiating and rampant pheromones steaming off my body. My conscious mind was trying so very hard to ignore them.
My sweat pants were within reach, but I fell into bed in only a cotton tank and panties. I curled up on my side facing the wall.
To help me fall asleep, I was counting the porous holes in the concrete blocks that made up the room. My eyes were just feeling heavy when I felt a weight push down the opposite end of my bed.
I froze, but not for long.
“Jason?” He was quiet, not responding. “Jason, what the hell?” Still no answer. I shifted my body so I could see over my shoulder. Jason was on his side facing my back. His hand rested on my pillow. “Jason?”
He still didn’t say anything, but he rose up on one elbow and stroked my hair with his free hand. I could have fought. Part of me wanted to. The other part won.
I shifted to face him. We were similarly positioned. His hand still worked lovingly through my hair. When he moved closer, I moved closer. And when his lips grazed mine, I pushed forward those last few centimeters. The kiss was deep and lasted a sweet time.
Not knowing how long the room would be solely ours, everything else lasted a short, but also very sweet, time.
The afterglow did not shine brightly.
It had… been pleasant and… even relatively enjoyable, but the comfort level just wasn’t there. My feelings for Jason were still developing, but I didn’t love him… yet.
Maybe I didn’t need the love. Maybe we could just be content with companionship and occasional physical comfort.
Jason stayed with me for a time after we’d finished. His arm draped around my shoulders, but the rest of our bodies were pushed to our respective sides of the bed. A cotton sheet and heavy blanket prevented our skin from meeting a second time.
He got up after a respectable length of time. Commendable of him not to kiss and run.
When he did get up, I sighed in relief. I needed to process the situation and figure out what our private encounter would mean to our public relationship. Before completely retreating, he bent over and kissed me lightly on the shoulder.
“Hmmm.” I sighed and stretched out my legs.
I’d contemplate later, now I really needed to sleep. My tank and panties were bunched up at the end of the bunk. I pulled the shirt over my head and wiggled back into the boy shorts. I looked at him then.
“Jason?” He was walking away and didn’t turn back to look at me.
“Yeah.”
“Thank you.”
“Same.” He did turn then and flashed me a crooked half-smile. I’d come to think of it as my smile really. Maybe I did love him. I just
wasn’t ready to own up. “Pay you later.” He taunted.
I threw my pillow at him and immediately regretted it. Too lazy to retrieve the cotton covered fluffiness; I curled up, head against the mattress, and closed my eyes.
I slept until noon. When I woke, Jason was gone. The room was empty. My stress level had dropped considerably. Amazing what a bit of physical release will do for a person.
The girls would be at lunch soon; Megan’s first school day finished. I wanted kisses and hugs, but first I had to wash the man stink off.
I didn’t think I’d ever get used to the luxury of having hot, running water at my beck and call. Cleaned and feeling fresh from head to… there, I joined the gang in the Cafeteria.
Allison had already gotten the girls from school and nursery.
Megan talked a mile a minute about her school lessons. The teacher was impressed by her reading level and she’d asked Megan to help a younger child master basic vocabulary. I told her I was very proud and shooed her off to the fun room after she’d finished her meal.
Kara hadn’t finished her mashed potatoes and playing airplane wasn’t working.
“Come on Kara, open up.” She pursed her lips in a straight, hard line. “Kara. I’m done playing. Open your mouth, finish your mashed potatoes or you are headed straight to the bedroom and you are going to stand in the corner until bedtime.” She thought I was bluffing. “One… two…”
Before I could count to three, Kara’s mouth shot open and she dutifully ate spoonful after spoonful. One day I was going to really pine for moments like these- moments when I could easily manipulate my child into doing what I wanted.
After lunch, Kara went back to nursery and I worked up a good sweat at the fitness center. My second shower of the day was just as cleansing as my first.
I towel-dried my hair as I walked back to our room. I didn’t have to report to the lab until the following evening so I decided to do a little exploring. I left the residential section and wandered the halls until I arrived at the science wing. It was the last place I’d wanted to go, but now that I was there, I figured, might as well check out the other labs. I passed laboratories 1 and 2 and paused at the doorway to laboratory 3 where Sheila was housed.