Oxygen Level Zero Mission 1

by Sigmund Brouwer

  I stared at her. I didn’t understand.

  “It happened during the operation,” she finished. “When the neurosurgeon inserted the rod into your spine, he accidentally cut some of the nerves that go to your legs.”

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  When Mom asked me to write this Mars diary, I

  thought it was going to be about living and dying

  under the dome. Instead, it has become learning

  about myself.

  First of all, I’m scared. And it’s been that

  way ever since two days ago, when I learned the

  truth about my handicap. At first I was excited

  about the thought of zooming around in a robot’s

  body. But then reality settled in. This afternoon

  I’m going to be hooked up to the computer drive

  of a robot through the nerves of my spinal

  column. Rawling says it should work, but no one

  has ever tried it before. He says something might

  go wrong. It could do something to my brain if

  the electrical circuits haven’t fused properly to

  my body with the biological plastic connections.

  I say, what does it matter since I might die

  anyway from the oxygen problem in this dome?

  I’ve also learned I’m crippled not from birth,

  as I’ve thought all these years, but because an

  experimental operation went wrong when I was a

  baby.

  I don’t know whether to be mad or sad about

  this. Or happy that I’ve got a chance to do

  something in space that no other person in

  history has been able to try.

  Either way, it won’t change the fact that my

  legs are useless.

  I stopped typing at the keyboard. I reached for my red juggling balls from my wheelchair pouch and tossed them in the air. My hands automatically juggled while my brain thought.

  I needed to comfort myself with juggling because if I let myself think about what I didn’t want to think about, I’d go crazy.

  But here I was, beginning to think about what had made me cry all last night. I told myself to think about the operation that crippled me instead.

  In a way, I felt more sorry for Mom than I did for myself.

  She’s the one who feels guilty over what happened because of the operation, although it isn’t her fault. She didn’t have much of a choice: Either she had to send me off to certain death on the spaceship or allow me to stay and become part of an experimental procedure. And she’d only had a short time to make the

  decision—and all when my dad was out of communication range, so she had to make the choice on her own.

  Maybe I should be mad at Director Steven, who forced Mom to make the choice. But he didn’t plan on the operation going wrong.

  It did explain, though, why he always seemed to dislike me.

  Now I knew I reminded him of his terrible mistake in forcing me to be an experiment without any choice. At least that’s what Rawling says.

  It wouldn’t do much good to get mad at Director Steven

  anyway, since it wouldn’t change my situation.

  And I knew Director Steven had plenty of other problems now.

  I stopped juggling and went back to writing.

  Late the night I’d found out the real truth about

  my legs, one of the scientists went to Rawling

  with a committee’s decisions—the committee

  Rawling had refused to join.

  They call themselves the “Life Group.” They

  now have seventy-five people, too many for

  security to arrest or fight. This means they now

  have enough power to rule the dome. They say that

  unless Director Steven agrees to help them, they

  will do it themselves. They are trying to force

  him to make sure that twenty people die early so that the other 180 will live. If Director Steven

  doesn’t help them, they’ll find a way to pick

  those twenty people themselves.

  Then yesterday morning, Director Steven called

  another meeting for everyone under the dome. He

  said he didn’t agree with the Life Group but was

  afraid a war would start if he didn’t try to do

  something.

  Director Steven said we had three days to

  figure out what was wrong with the generators.

  After that there would only be enough oxygen left

  for 180 people to survive until the ship arrived.

  He said at this point he felt he should see if

  any volunteers would give up their lives to help

  save the others if the generators did not get

  fixed.

  It was very quiet when he asked for those

  volunteers.

  I felt tears begin to roll down my cheeks

  again.

  I mean, what would you do in the same

  situation? If you were going to die anyway when

  the oxygen was gone, would you volunteer to die

  early so that you could save others? Or would you

  hope that others volunteered to die early so you

  could be saved?

  I wish I could tell you what I decided about

  volunteering. But I wasn’t given a chance. So

  I’ll never know for sure, no matter what I tell

  myself.

  Director Steven said some people wouldn’t be

  allowed to be volunteers because of what they

  contributed to the long-term project. I was one

  of those people. He had learned through Rawling

  that I’d said “yes” to the experiment where the

  nerves of my spinal column would be attached to a robot’s computer drive.

  I forced myself to write in my diary what happened next.

  Altogether, there were about a hundred people who

  would be allowed to volunteer to save the others.

  When he asked again for twenty, nobody looked at

  anybody.

  Then I heard a movement as some people stepped

  out of the back of the group.

  Director Steven had asked for twenty

  volunteers, and three decided to give up their

  lives if the generator wasn’t fixed in time.

  I cried all last night. I haven’t cried in

  years. But I couldn’t help myself.

  One of those volunteers was my mom.

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  “Tyce, you know I’m a Christian. I believe God created humans with a body, a mind, and a soul. I know you can’t prove the existence of a soul. You tell me that all the time. But you can’t prove it doesn’t exist, either.”

  Mom stood beside my wheelchair in the part of the dome that overlooked the ferns and trees planted in straight rows. She had a hand on my shoulder.

  “You are correct. No scientific instrument will measure or prove the existence of God or the soul,” she continued. “But no scientific instrument can prove the existence of love or loneliness either. But love exists. So does loneliness. You can feel it. And I believe your soul will be filled with one or the other.”

  “Please,” I begged, “please change your mind about being one of the twenty.”

  I fought hard not to cry in front of her. It was bad enough when I did it alone.

  “I know we’ve had these talks before,” she stated. “But listen to me again. If we have souls—and the Bible says we do—then there is more to this life than what we see with our human eyes.

  And there is someone beyond, waiting: God, who created us and this universe.”

  “Mom . . .” I couldn’t help it. I began to cry.

  She squatted beside me and stared into my face. She

  smoothed my hair as she spoke. “Tyce,” she continued, “I love you. I love you so much it
breaks my heart to think of leaving you behind. But my faith would be worth nothing if I could not face death bravely because of it. Our human lives are just a blink in eternity compared to God’s promise of where my soul will fly after it leaves my body.”

  “No . . . ,” I blubbered. “You can’t. I don’t want you to leave me behind.”

  She spoke very quietly. “Tyce, I can’t make you believe what I believe. But I hope that when you see how strongly I believe in

  God—even accepting death because of it—that my faith might lead you to believe in God, too. If my sacrifice brings you home to God, then it’ll be worth it. And I’ve already asked Rawling to take care of you when your father isn’t here.”

  “All right,” I said, tasting the salt of my tears. “I’ll believe.

  I’ll believe. If that’s what it takes to save you, I’ll believe anything. Just tell Director Steven you’ve changed your mind.”

  She stood again and stared out at the plants. “You know I can’t do that,” she said. “But don’t give up so fast. We still have two days to find a way to fix the generators.”

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  “Your upper back giving you much pain?” Rawling asked.

  “No,” I said. “Can’t feel a thing.”

  We were in the computer lab room. I was on my back on a narrow medical bed in the computer laboratory. I wore a snug, navy-blue jumpsuit. My head was propped on a large pillow so that the plug at the bottom of my neck didn’t press on the bed.

  This plug was wired to an antenna that was sewn into the jumpsuit. Across the room was a receiver that would transmit signals between the body suit antenna and the computer drive of the robot. It worked just like the remote control of a television set, with two differences. Television remotes used infrared and were limited in distance. This receiver used X-ray waves and had a hundred-mile range.

  A half-hour earlier, Rawling had frozen the area of skin below my neck with a needle injection. It had taken Rawling less than five minutes to find the rod in my spine and attach a computer plug to the end of it. With the plug sticking out, Rawling had stitched the small opening of my skin around the plug with careful, tight loops, explaining that if we weren’t so short on time, we’d have waited a week for the skin to heal.

  I didn’t care about a few stitches that I couldn’t feel anyway. I wanted to get started as soon as possible to see if this would work. My wheelchair was empty in the corner, and I hoped to keep the wheelchair empty for as long as possible. I’d dreamed my whole life about walking, and if it took my brain and a robot’s body to do it, I was ready.

  “I’ve got to go over this one more time,” Rawling said. “I can’t tell you enough how important this is.”

  “No problem. I’m ready,” I said.

  “Tyce . . . ,” Rawling warned.

  “Um, ready to listen just one more time,” I quickly finished.

  “Good,” Rawling said.

  Rawling began pulling straps tight across my legs to hold me snugly to the bed.

  “First,” Rawling said, “it won’t be good if you move and break the connection. I doubt it will happen, since only your brain will be responding, and your brain, of course, cannot move. But this will be the first time anyone has ever done this, and I’d rather be safe than sorry.”

  Rawling tightened down the straps across my stomach and chest.

  “Second, don’t allow the robot to have contact with any electrical sources. Ever. Your spinal nerves are attached to the plug. Any electrical current going into or through the robot will scramble the X-ray waves so badly that the signals reaching your brain may do serious damage.”

  Rawling placed a blindfold over my eyes and strapped my head in position. Immediately, it began to itch under my chin.

  “Lastly,” Rawling directed, “disengage instantly at the first warning of any damage to the robot’s computer drive. Your brain circuits are working so closely with the computer circuits that any harm to the computer may spill over to harm your brain.”

  “Understood, understood, and understood,” I said. I wanted to scratch myself under my chin. “I’m ready.”

  “No, you’re not,” Rawling answered. “Tell me how you’re going to control the movements of the robot for me.”

  I spoke directly to the ceiling. My eyes were shut beneath the blindfold. “From all my years of training in a computer simulation program, my mind knows all the muscle moves I make to handle the virtual-reality controls. This is no different, except instead of actually moving my muscles, I imagine I’m moving the muscles. My brain will send the proper nerve impulses to the robot. It will move the way I made the robot move in the virtual-reality computer program.”

  “Correct,” Rawling said, sounding pleased. “It may feel strange at first, sending brain impulses in this way. Don’t panic if it takes you some time to figure this out. Now, tell me when and how you disengage your mind from the robot controls.”

  My chin was driving me crazy. “If I see any object about to strike the robot’s computer drive or if I feel the robot begin to fall or otherwise get close to danger, in my mind I shout Stop! The combination of throat and neck muscle movement from my brain impulses, plus the sound of that one single word, triggers the computer drive to disengage me instantly, and my brain

  awareness returns to my body here on the bed.”

  “Excellent,” Rawling said. “Remember, this afternoon is just a test run back and forth in this laboratory. Nothing fancy or dangerous. Right?”

  “Right.”

  “You know the blindfold is here to protect your real eyes from visual distractions. I also need to make sure your real ears can’t hear anything. Any questions before I put the headphones over your ears?”

  “Just one,” I said.

  “Yes?”

  “Could you please, please scratch under my chin?”

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  In motionless darkness and silence, I had no sense of time. I knew Rawling would need to download the virtual-reality program into the robot’s computer drive. But I couldn’t guess exactly when this might happen.

  As I waited, I pictured the robot.

  Its lower body was much like my wheelchair. Instead of a pair of legs, an axle connected two wheels. Just like a wheelchair, it turned by moving one wheel forward while the other remained motionless or moved backward.

  I knew I could handle direction changes easily. After all, in my real body, the use of spinning wheels was the only way I’d ever moved through the dome.

  The robot’s upper body was a short, thick hollow pole that stuck through the axle, with a heavy weight to counterbalance the arms and head. Within this weight was the battery that powered the robot, with wires running up inside the hollow pole.

  At the upper end of the pole was a crosspiece to which arms were attached. They were able to swing freely without hitting the wheels. Like the rest of the robot, the arms and hands were made of titanium and jointed like human arms, with one difference. All the joints swiveled. The hands, elbows, and shoulder joints of the robot could rotate in a full circle, as well as move up and down.

  The hands, too, were like human hands, but with only three fingers and a thumb instead of four fingers and a thumb.

  Four video lenses at the top of the pole served as eyes. One faced forward, one backward, and one to each side.

  Three tiny speakers, attached to the underside of the video lenses, played the role of ears, taking sound in. The fourth speaker, on the underside of the video lens that faced forward, produced sound. This was the speaker that would allow me to make my voice heard.

  The computer drive of the robot was well protected within the hollow titanium pole that served as the robot’s upper body. Since

  it was mounted on shock absorbers, the robot could fall ten feet without shaking the computer drive. This computer drive had a short antenna plug-in at the back of the pole, to give and take X-ray signals.

  I felt my heart beating fast in suspense. When was it going to h
appen? When was the computer drive going to be ready? What would it be like? Would it work?

  It seemed I waited forever in the darkness and silence of the blindfold and soundproof headphones.

  I was just about to open my mouth and ask Rawling if there was a problem.

  Then it happened.

  I began to fall off a high, invisible cliff into a deep, invisible hole.

  I kept falling and falling and falling. . . .

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  “Tyce! Tyce! Tyce!”

  In the blackness, my name echoed weirdly around me, as if I were trapped in a metal barrel.

  “Tyce! Tyce! Tyce!” My name was so loud, it hurt.

  I lifted my hands to my head to cover my ears. That

  movement seemed to rip the darkness off my eyes. I saw three pairs of titanium hands waving wildly, fuzzy and blurry.

  “Not so loud,” I complained.

  Except my words came out slow and deep and warbly.

  The three pairs of hands still waved wildly.

  Then I realized I saw three pairs because I was using three eyes—the video lenses on each side and the forward lens.

  I blinked a few times and concentrated straight ahead.

  Much better. Now it was only one pair of wildly waving

  hands, fuzzy and blurry.

  “Tyce!”

  “Not so loud,” I complained again in my robot voice.

  I stared at my hands.

  Oops. My video lens zoomed in too close. A giant titanium knuckle filled my view.

  I zoomed back. I saw the wall and bed and my body strapped on the bed.

  Weird!

  My hands still waved. Finally I managed to get the focus right.

  Then I asked myself why I was doing something dumb like watching my hands work. Was I a little baby who had never seen fingers work before?

  I thought about dropping my hands to my side and letting them rest there. Instantly, they moved where I wanted.

  This was great!

  “Tyce!”

  It was Rawling. He had moved directly in front of me. My front lens saw his stomach.

  Up, I mentally commanded myself.

  The video lens tilted up.

  I saw his face looking down on me. Blinking a few times to focus better, I saw his nose hairs. Too close. I backed out a bit.