Revision 7: DNA

by Terry Persun

  Fenny rose up on his legs and rotated his eyes around so that they looked into Dr. Klein’s face. The two of them were the same height. Dr. Klein took on a whole different look from that angle, straight on. His wrinkled face stared back at Fenny. There were bags under his eyes, and his eyes drooped at the corners, and there were stubbles of gray hair around his chin and under his nose. Fenny had seen all that before, but not in the exact same way. This view gave him a whole new set of inputs to work from.

  Although he knew that he should say something in response to now having arms, there was nothing he could say. His mind worked through thank yous and heartfelt statements about how he was overwhelmed, but his aural delivery was blocked by an override coming from his neurogrid circuits. He even started to say something, but the words came out garbled. He wanted to thank the doctor, needed to thank him, but how could he possibly do that? There were no words powerful enough. Then his thoughts shifted to the physical. What could he do? He could hug the doctor. And that was it, the right idea. Yes, the first thing he should use his new arms for was to hug Dr. Klein, even though he had never touched him except to transfer an item from his hand to the doctor’s hand.

  Fenny opened his arms wide enough to accept Dr. Klein into them. He advanced several steps.

  Dr. Klein hesitated a moment, his face turning suddenly serious before returning to a wide smile. He opened his arms to welcome Fenny.

  The sensors all up and down the inside of Fenny’s arms became energized the moment they touched the doctor. The man felt soft under his clothing, which also felt soft, but in a different way. The few times he and Dr. Klein had touched in the past, he had fewer sensors. The massive number of sensors he now possessed threw inputs from thousands of points along his arms and hands into his neurogrid. And besides those data points, there were the interconnections that took place as well.

  For example, there was the understanding that the doctor had been able to feel him all along, but that he had never been able to feel the doctor in return. The pressure sensors on his old arms and hands were there only to let him know when he gripped too tightly or too softly to pick something up. A glass took less pressure than a hammer. The sensors in his arms were present only to literally weigh an object and to translate that information to his digital circuits, checking it against his motors and gear heads to be sure that he wouldn’t burn anything out while lifting.

  He had expected Dr. Klein to feel firmer like the desk or computer rather than soft like the easy chair or pillow Fenny had recently explored using his hands. But he should have known better. It was his perception that told him the old man didn’t quite feel right. Here he was experiencing it for himself. In the physical world. Accept it, his neurogrid mind asserted. This was the real man. It did make sense, after all. Fenny’s new limbs were pliable, why not Dr. Klein’s entire body? “This is the most wonderful day,” Fenny said as he rubbed his hands along Dr. Klein’s back.

  “And it has only begun.” Dr. Klein patted Fenny on his torso where there were no sensors to provide additional inputs. When he pulled away from Fenny he glanced at his watch and said, “The DNA-enhanced circuitry will be here soon. I’m going to have a short breakfast to build my energy.”

  “Revision 7,” Fenny said with a new excitement in his voice.

  “That’s exactly it,” Dr. Klein said. “It’s all happening much faster than I had thought. But I want to finish. I want to get this done before I die.”

  Fenny often made breakfast for Dr. Klein, but this time asked not to. “May I stay in here and touch things?”

  Dr. Klein laughed a heartier laugh than Fenny had ever heard. It made Fenny laugh as well. And the more Fenny laughed the more delighted Dr. Klein appeared to be. “I knew this was the right thing to do,” he said, snapping his fingers.

  After sitting on the stool at the workbench for a long while, Dr. Klein’s back must have gotten tired because his legs became unsteady for a few minutes. The doctor hobbled toward the kitchen. It had happened before, but Dr. Klein always recovered quickly, so Fenny swung around and took in the entire room of furniture, equipment, packaging, tools. It was odd, but he wanted to rub his arms on things; he wanted to grab items and run them across his arms, down to his hands. Oh, goodness, he thought, what a beautiful playground the room looked like. He finally realized that his hands, like his feet when he attached his legs, were integral to the arms. He looked around the room and saw one of his old hands sticking up from an open box, discarded for the new ones. Smudges of dirt still streaked the side of the hand and between some of the fingers and under the plastic fingernails. He had not cleaned them as well as he had thought.

  He rotated his eyes to look at each arm separately and was delighted to see that they were even, as though he had shoulders. He reached up and touched the plate that covered the hole where the one, now his right arm, had been just that morning. His eyes shook back and forth with wonder.

  Like a child at recess, Fenny wandered around the room running his fingers over different items, then bending down or raising on his toes to allow his arms room to hug the computer monitor or an oscilloscope that sat on the top shelf. The hand tools brought a variety of textures in a small space, while the pile of packaging brought larger expanses of particular textures like cardboard and bubble wrap.

  Fenny was sitting, lowered on his legs, when Dr. Klein came into the room and interrupted him. “You’re having fun, aren’t you?” he said.

  Fenny wished he had a face that could smile as broadly as the smile on Dr. Klein’s face, but he had little sensation from his eyes or torso. He rose to his feet and clasped his hands together, interlocking the fingers, sensing the dual feedback and letting the inputs flood his quantum circuits. “I wish you could see how happy I am right now.” He released his grip and spread his arms to take in the room. “All this. I have no words.”

  “I so wanted to see you like this, my boy. I have waited so, so long.”

  Dr. Klein turned his head suddenly. “It’s here,” he said, “I can hear the FedEx truck. Wait in the back room.” His smile slipped off his face as Dr. Klein shooed Fenny away using his hands. “Quickly.”

  Fenny leaned back as though hit or pushed backwards. Strangely, he felt what he thought of as pain even though his sensors hadn’t overloaded. His neurogrid associated Dr. Klein’s actions with physical sensor inputs. Dr. Klein didn’t want to introduce him to the world. He understood why the doctor couldn’t do it, but that didn’t stop him from feeling less important, shoved aside, saddened. He walked into the back room, slapping a stack of empty boxes with his hand as he strolled past them. The boxes flew behind him and scattered over the floor.

  Dr. Klein answered the front door before the delivery woman even arrived.

  Fenny performed a quick inventory of spare parts. He wouldn’t have a spare for the DNA-enhanced circuits. What would he do about that? Were additional components even available? Fenny realized that he knew nothing about what Dr. Klein was up to. He had no idea how any of it worked.

  He lifted his arms and looked them over. They were beautiful. He loved having them, and his legs and feet. He had also become used to the way he thought and how he processed emotion. He didn’t know if he wanted to change any more than he already had in the last few days. What would the new circuitry be like? What would it do that he couldn’t do now? How could it add anything to what he possessed mentally? What he really needed was a face and a body to complete him. Physical things, not a change of mind.

  Fenny heard the doctor talking, then heard the front door close. Footsteps meant that the doctor walked somewhere, probably to the bench. He heard the doctor set a box down and slide it into place. “You can come out now.”

  Fenny closed the fingers of one hand into a fist and slapped it into his other palm. He still hadn’t decided if he wanted the new circuitry. But he knew he had to decide fast if he was going to stop the doctor from installing it.

  Dr. Klein held a pair of scissors in his hand and sc
raped them across the tape at the top of the small box. He ran the scissors across the sides as well, then peeled the flaps open. He removed a container that looked like a test tube with an electrical plug on one end. He held it to the light, up in the air where Fenny could see it from the storeroom doorway. The gray-green colored material inside the tube looked thick, opaque. Yet it appeared to be in motion.

  There was a tear in Dr. Klein’s eye. His lips tightened together as though holding back words that wanted to gush out. A long sigh and he parted his lips to say, “This is something you may never see again in your lifetime, surely mine.”

  Fenny took a few hesitant steps. “How does it work? And where are the integrated circuits?” It didn’t look anything like a circuit board, which is what Fenny had pictured ever since the doctor had called it a DNA-enhanced circuit.

  “The circuit board is already inside you. I installed it earlier.” He twirled the tube. “All anyone knows is that I have thirty tubes of ‘material’ waiting for me to order it and use it.”

  “Material?” Fenny asked. “Is that what you’re calling what is inside the tube? Is that what holds the DNA you talked about? Is it yours?”

  Dr. Klein lowered his hand and set the tube on the bench. “Many questions,” he said. “I called it material so that no one would try to guess what it was. And it doesn’t only hold DNA inside a reagent.” His eyes went to the tube. “This is a small part of Fennimore’s brain.”

  “Who is Fennimore?”

  “My son.”

  “But I am Fenny. That is the shortened name for Fennimore. That is who I am.”

  “Fenny is only part of Fennimore. It’s my way of reminding myself every day that Fennimore will return to me.”

  Fenny’s voice lowered to a near whisper. “You never saw me as whole?”

  “You’ll understand once this engages. This will be the best thing that ever happened to you. It will go beyond what you already feel, what you understand as yourself. This,” he asserted, “will make you feel real. Earlier you said you’d never been happier. Well, you soon will be.” Dr. Klein motioned for Fenny to come closer.

  “I won’t be me any longer though, will I?” Fenny questioned.

  “You’ll be better. More,” the doctor said.

  “What if the material isn’t alive? What if it’s dead inside that tube? What will happen to me?” Fenny spoke while walking slowly toward the doctor. A part of him wanted to run out of the house and another part was compelled to get closer, to see what might happen to him.

  “There is a chemical that was discovered that allows small portions of brain material to remain alive in a sort of stasis. Cells don’t multiply, but they do retain organic functioning. I knew the man who discovered it, a Dr. Richard Manfred. Brilliant. We were good friends before he passed away. The chemical had been used on bovines and lab rats. All except for those thirty tubes. Those were set aside for me.”

  Thirty tubes meant that Fenny would have access to spares. If he were about to change, he wanted to have access to more of them. Even though he wasn’t sure of the change that was coming, he was curious. And if the change did not feel better to him as the doctor had suggested, well then he could always change his mind and remove the tube, now that he had hands to do it.

  Fenny sidled up to Dr. Klein and lowered onto his haunches, his sitting position.

  When Dr. Klein moved to open Fenny’s side access door, Fenny jumped slightly, concerned about his alteration to the main circuit board.

  “Hold still,” Dr Klein said. “And don’t worry. I already know that you bypassed your All Stop. At first it bothered me, but when I thought about it, I would have done the same thing.”

  Fenny settled again. He felt a short burst of cantilevered pressure as Dr. Klein forced the test tube connector into place. Then almost everything went blank.

  CHAPTER 24

  THE TEMPERATURE in the warehouse dropped as night fell over the town. Close quarters held the temperature inside the crate for a while, but eventually after sweating much of the day, the cool air gave Neil the chills. He reached into his duffle and yanked out a jacket. He maneuvered it over his shoulders without slipping his arms through the sleeves. It didn’t take long before he was comfortable enough to relax without shivering. Over the edge of the sofa he grabbed a handful of wheat crackers.

  The warehouse stood completely silent. He knew that inside the crate, each movement he made sounded loud, but that the sound wouldn’t penetrate the wood enough to alert anyone of his whereabouts. And he doubted that the agent occupying the office was making rounds. He was probably sleeping. Neil was relieved to note that, as a low security warehouse, neither cameras nor robots were being used.

  Neil expected to hear from the robots and Mavra only if they felt threatened or followed. Since the night wore on rather tediously, Rogers must have had all his units back off. At one point in the evening, Neil wished he hadn’t confided in Rogers. He worried that the FBI would complicate his rescue plans. But as he mulled it over and considered how little he knew about the robots, combined with Mavra’s original warnings, he decided that having backup might be worthwhile after all.

  Neil dozed off, then woke to voices, some shuffling around, and soon afterward gunshots. He considered the agent who had been left in the office and hoped that he had only been wounded or that the gunshot was a warning, even though that would not be likely.

  Neil’s tools lay organized in the space at the front of the sofa. He picked up a manual screwdriver and backed the two screws out of the side of the crate. They were barely tightened enough to hold the wood into place. As quietly as possible, Neil pushed the panel away and squeezed through the rough opening. He slid his jacket off and set it on the sofa. He had to act fast, before the FBI rushed the robots and put Mavra in danger.

  From a side pocket of the duffle, he removed his G36 safe action Glock and shoved it into his belt under his shirt. He had no idea where he’d shoot a robot to put it down, but that didn’t stop him from feeling safer when armed. What he did know was that the FBI would be heavily armed, which took some of the heat off of him. Mavra was his biggest concern. If he were lucky, they’d be too preoccupied with the time machine to keep an eye on her, and he could steal her away.

  In Neil’s earpiece came the piercing sound of an electric screwdriver. The robots had proceeded to break down the time machine’s crate. He yanked the ear bud out and let it hang over his shoulder. He sneaked down the aisle away from the front of the building and hid behind a row of crates and boxes. At each aisle, he peered around so that he could see the front of the warehouse.

  At the first corner he saw no one and walked into the open to the following row of crates. A few more steps and he stopped behind a crate simply marked as automobile parts. He edged over and glanced down the aisle. Near the front of the building one of the robots was positioned next to Mavra. His heart stopped for a moment, both eyes on his wife. Her hair was messed as though she’d just gotten out of bed. But she didn’t look hurt. Here movements were normal.

  Back to business, Neil saw that her captor held his gun at arm’s length, relaxed and pointing at the ground. The two of them stood casually together, not touching, watching whatever was happening to the time machine’s crate. Neil let his eyes split so that he could watch Mavra for signs of harm he may not have seen at first. What would he ever do without her? He slowly backtracked to the previous aisle and tiptoed all the way down the row. At the end, and behind Mavra and the robot, Neil had a good view of the progress they were making.

  One side of the crate had been removed and a long extension cord had been stretched to an electrical box. One of the robots busily hard-wired the extension cord to the high voltage lines. His pistol lay on top of the electrical box as he worked away using both hands.

  The dark energy balancer sat on the floor next to the time machine where another robot clipped wires from the balancer to other pieces of equipment mounted to the side of the machine. They were all pre
occupied, including Mavra.

  There wasn’t much time to consider his options. The FBI might take a few more minutes to regroup and be on their way, but he had no doubts that they would be right behind him. So with his heart in his throat, Neil advanced on Mavra and her robot guard. He walked into the open as nonchalantly as he could. One eye glanced down the aisle expecting to see Rogers and his men rushing around the corner at any moment, while his other eye remained fixed on Mavra. If any of the robots turned around, he wanted to have time to shove the one robot out of the way and to tackle Mavra so that she wouldn’t get hurt. But he wasn’t as quiet as he thought.

  When the robot with Mavra turned toward him, he stopped dead in his tracks as though that would make him invisible. Placing his hand on the gun handle, Neil got ready to pull it out and start shooting.

  Mavra followed the robot’s gaze. Her eyes met Neil’s. She appeared surprised to see him. Cocking her head, she quickly fell into a run. The robot standing near her didn’t even try to stop her. He didn’t raise the gun, or threaten, or even yell for her to stop, all of which made Neil feel worse about the situation they were in. It wasn’t fear that stopped the robot from reacting; it was because he knew that he had the upper hand. His confidence put Neil off.

  Mavra threw her arms around Neil’s waist and buried her face in his neck. Her lips brushed his skin then parted to whisper, “No guns.”

  This was the moment to trust her. He let go of the Glock and held her against him. His eyes closed for a moment as he breathed in her scent, musty with a trace of strawberry shampoo. They were back together, where they belonged.

  “You must be Neil,” the robot said, which alerted the other two robots working away at hooking up the time machine.