by Cliff Hedley
Chase was looking at her, so he wasn’t sure if there was a double entendre hidden in her question. Either way, he went with it. “Sexy was the word I used.”
She flashed a grin.
Changing subject, he said, “You both knew about these and you both managed to hide them from me.”
“We’ve hardly seen you over the past couple of days,” Carlton replied. “But we need you now if you’re up for running some diagnostics for us.”
“Absolutely.”
Chase was grinning from ear to ear. He couldn’t wait to put them on and was looking forward to seeing if the articulation he’d asked for had been added. He couldn’t believe how much more streamlined they were. His originals laid out next to them looked clunky and heavy by comparison.
Jane went about connecting wires to the new arms while Carlton busied himself at the computer terminal connected to them. Chase’s right leg was jiggling up and down involuntarily with nervous anticipation.
“These work the same way as the Mark Ones,” Carlton began. “You just push into them to activate and they should tighten comfortably into place. We used the same mould of your arms, so they should feel comfortable for you.”
Chase pushed his right arm into the first prosthetic being held up for him by Jane. With a little whirr it tightened itself onto his arm and made some more faint noise as the internal systems began booting themselves up.
“Same delay with starting up,” Carlton said, as if reading his mind. “The weave and software are the same, so we’ve transferred the nerve mapping that the software has learned from you already. Really, it’s just the hardware that’s changed, so it’ll need time to adapt to that and to map new responses to the extra mobility in these.”
Jane held up the second arm and Chase pushed his left into it. Again it whirred to life and began booting up. She pushed a small rolling tray table in front of him, so he could rest the arms on it.
“They feel lighter.”
“A little,” Carlton responded. “But mainly I just wanted to take some of the bulk out of the joints and humanise them. Less Robocop and more Luke Skywalker, as far as the look goes. We replaced some of the exposed titanium with carbon fibre and I’ve designed it to seal everything, so they should be shower-proof.”
“Damn. I was starting to get used to having the nurses help me with that.”
Jane rolled her eyes.
“Seriously, though. Are you saying I can shower, clean my teeth, use the bathroom — all by myself now?”
“Yes. Hey — catch!”
Carlton threw a tennis ball and Chase effortlessly plucked it out of the air with his right hand.
“Whoah! Couldn’t do that before.”
He thought for a moment and raised his left hand, palm towards Carlton, forming a V between the ring and middle fingers.
“Or that.”
He threw the ball back to Carlton, then brought his fists together, right in front of left, twisting the wrists together so the knuckles rotated outwards, as if he was gripping his bokken. The articulation worked beautifully.
He sat in silence for a moment, unsure whether to cry, hug Carlton and Jane, or just stare in wonder at his new arms and hands. He took a deep breath, then looked up at Carlton, still smiling. “I gotta ask. Mark Ones and Mark Twos. It sounds a little Iron Man, doesn’t it?”
Carlton reddened. “What can I say? I’m a fan. And it seemed appropriate.”
“Apart from the fact that I’m the opposite of a superhero. Vulnerable. Helpless. Captain Can’t-tie-my-own-shoe-laces maybe. I’d be happy with regular functional human.”
“Says the guy who’s always in the middle of the fight. Helpless, my ass,” Jane laughed.
Chase felt a welling of emotion. He was happy, thankful, relieved and probably a whole lot of other things all at once, that he couldn’t quite grasp right now. As the laughter died away, he looked them both square in the eye. First Carlton, then Jane.
“Thank you. Both of you. This is amazing. I just want you to know how grateful I am for this.”
“We appreciate you too,” said Carlton. “You’ve been an immense help to us and the work here, so don’t forget that. This is not a one-way street.”
Chase nodded, letting Carlton’s words sink in.
“Now,” Carlton continued, “shut up and move your hands for me, guinea pig.”
Any solemnity was lost from that point onwards.
***
The team continued to test for another good hour before the phone rang. It was Grange, who had tracked down Chase through the main reception desk. Chase was still wired up, so Jane held the phone to his ear rather than switching to the hands-free headset.
“Morning, Lieutenant. You want me back in?”
“I do. In fact, I’d like to swing by in an hour or so, then head up to run another session for some of the NYPD regulars. We’re going to do as much as we can to school the local force up. More eyes that way. And you seem to have a knack for anticipating this stuff.”
“Makes sense to me. Hold on a second.”
He turned his head away from the phone to Carlton. “Do you two have enough from me for today? Grange is asking if I can go back to run more briefings with him in about an hour. I’ll try to stay out of trouble.”
Carlton nodded. “Sure. We’re almost done here.”
Chase turned back to the phone. “I’ll be at the rear entrance in an hour.”
“Thanks. See you then.”
Grange clicked off the line and Jane put the phone back in its cradle.
“Are you sure it’s OK to go, Doc?”
“Yeah. I’ll have plenty of data to go over. But,” he added sternly “bring these ones back in one piece.”
Chase’s jaw dropped. He had assumed he’d have to give them back until they’d done more testing. “Seriously? I can keep using these ones?”
“Yup. That’s the beauty of the software. Once it has learned your patterns of nerve impulses and started mapping them, it will adapt to any new prosthetics we give you, provided I make the same interface to the hardware. I do want to see you tomorrow morning, though, so we can run more diagnostics. The basic movements will be the same but it’s the extra articulation that you’ll need to get used to. I think I know how you could start on that now,” he added, looking at his watch. “You’ve got some time still.”
Jane unhooked the little wires and closed the ports in his forearms where they attached. Chase held them in front of himself and opened and closed his fists, marvelling at his new hands. He rolled his wrists around, amazed that he had a whole new dimension of movement back, just like his real hands. The indicator bars on these ones were in the same place in the forearms and were fully lit up.
“I’ll be in the gym,” Chase said, grinning.
As he opened the lab door and headed out, Jane called, “Have fun with your little sword.”
He stopped in his room to call his father with an update.
“You OK?”
“Yeah, got in a little tussle last night helping the cops out but turns out the new arms are kinda handy.”
“What kind of tussle?”
“Nothing to worry about.”
“Nothing to do with the shooting that’s all over the news?”
“What?”
“Two cops shot by an unidentified assailant.”
“Uh, yeah. I fought him but he got away. I ran out of juice in the arms but I think I clipped him. Maybe broke his arm.”
Silence on the other end from Frank.
“How are you doing, Dad?”
“Bored. Frustrated. Sick of sitting on my ass. What do you expect?”
“Better than being a target.”
Frank sighed. “You’re not wrong there. Will you keep me posted?”
“Yeah. I’m heading out with the
NYPD again today. Teaching the regulars some patrol techniques.”
“Well, stay safe.”
“You too. Promise me you’ll stay out of town until we get them.”
Another pause and sigh. “Yeah.”
They clicked off the call and Chase was glad that his father would be safe. One less thing to worry about.
What seemed like an age but was probably only a few minutes later, Chase had his bokken in his hands. The gym floor was clear, so he went through one of his usual routines with it. Amazingly, he was able to do more or less everything he could before losing his hands. He could rotate his wrists as he needed them, while still gripping the handle securely. He squeezed it tighter and got pressure feedback through his arms in response.
“Holy crap,” he said aloud. He looked around, quietly relieved that nobody had heard him. Carlton had added the pressure feedback as promised and had let him find out for himself. Thank you, Doctor Carlton.
He continued with his routines, happy with being able to at least grip the sword properly. He could rotate his wrists in together and roll them into blocks and strikes, without losing control. Glancing up at the large clock mounted on the wall, he realised it was about time to finish up and go meet Grange. With a gleeful chuckle, he made a couple more arcing swoops in the air, before putting the bokken back in the corner. This time, there was no dust settled on it.
After heading back to his room for shoes, Chase bounded down the steps to meet Grange. He was a few minutes early and stood in a sunny spot, pulling in the crisp fresh air as he waited. It was a fine day and the usual noises of traffic and general hum of city life went on all around him. He couldn’t sense from here if there was the same level of tension that had weighed on the city’s collective shoulders but he would know it if he saw it in passers-by on the sidewalk. For now, there were none.
Grange pulled up after Chase had spent a little time watching the world go by. The big diesel engine of the Bomb Squad van announced his arrival. “Hey, Chase. New set of hands today?”
“Yes, sir. They work pretty damn well too.”
“They bullet-proof like the last ones?”
“I’m hoping not to have to find out. How are the guys? Duke, Brannigan. Any more word?”
“Both stable. They should make a full recovery, thanks to you. If you hadn’t called the medics in so soon, they might not have been so lucky.”
“Just doing what I’d do for any of my team.”
“Well, if it’s all the same to you, I’d like to make that official.”
“What?”
“I’ve put in paperwork to request you become an official consultant to the NYPD Bomb Squad. I want you to stick around, if you’re OK with the arrangement.”
“Uh. I don’t know what to say.”
“How about yes?”
“Yes, sir.”
Grange offered his hand and Chase shook it. He got a light sense of feedback behind the weave, from the pressure of Grange’s handshake. The new touch sensitivity thing was going to take some getting used to.
“Shall we hit the road and go stop this son of a bitch — or bitches?”
“Hell, yes.”
The big diesel van roared forward and Grange pulled away from the hospital.
“Any more leads on this?” Chase asked. “From the Feds or anyone? Are we dealing with one or many here?”
“I don’t know. The lab is expediting the blood sample and bullet fragment you collected for us.” He put emphasis on the word collected, with a wry smile. “They haven’t turned up anything yet but that’s not our job. Ours is to stop anything else going boom. You up for that?”
“It’s what I do.”
Chapter 21
Chase had a sense of déjà vu as he stood in front of a crowded room full of NYPD officers. They had gathered from precincts all over the city and he had been asked to more or less repeat the same introduction he had given to the Bomb Squad. In his mind he had it fairly clear on the format — how to scan the road and run patrols, where devices would be set up, getting into the mind of the guy who planted it, anticipating how to avoid likely ambush points, watching the scene immediately around any suspected device for anyone filming it. They were either the bomber collecting a video trophy or, if not, they might have caught evidence.
It all went fairly well. He was used to giving briefings and this was no different. He was getting set to wrap it up and hand back to Grange but the lieutenant was frowning at his phone, seemingly distracted.
“All right,” he said, looking up after an awkward silence. “I’ve just got word that one of the video-upload sites Chase mentioned has been pushed to social media. Apparently the Feds have been working with the various internet providers and social media outlets to shut it down but it’s gone viral quickly. It comes across as a mix of how-to guide advising on targeting attacks, footage of previous trophy kills.” He paused. “A warning. The last part is clear. It explicitly names New York City as the target and is calling on anyone watching it to join the fight. Presumably the intention is to spread as much fear as possible, regardless of the success of any more attacks. This is all the more reason to watch for anyone filming. Cameras, mobile phones, whatever. Look for people on the street, in windows and on rooftops. If we can catch one of these bastards, we might be able to get to the source.”
Suddenly, half the phones in the room started vibrating and officers started looking down.
“What is it?” Grange demanded.
A young woman sitting near the front spoke. “It’s the site, sir. It looks like it’s been sent to all of us.”
Grange was visibly fuming. Chase scanned the room as it descended into a distracted hubbub of voices and spotted a pull-down projector screen. There was a roof-mounted projector and what looked like a terminal that might connect to it at a small rolling desk at the side of the room. “Can we use that to bring up the site?” he asked.
Grange went over and mumbled something to one of the officers sitting near the desk at the side of the room and they set about logging in to the terminal. The bulb lit up on the projector overhead as Grange walked back and pulled down the screen.
“All right, people, listen up. Phones down. We’re going to bring up the site and look at what we’re dealing with. Chase, you mind walking us through it?”
The room returned to silence as Chase stood to the side of the screen. As the projector warmed up and the officer brought the site up, it occurred to Chase that just as he was teaching the police how to spot the latest insurgent tactics, the other side was teaching anyone who would listen how to implement them. There was the usual anti-American rhetoric before it quickly got to a bullet-point list of tactics. Most of them looked very familiar:
Never use the same device twice. Keep them guessing.
Take out Bomb Squad resources such as robots, so humans will be forced to intervene directly.
Multiple triggers.
Distraction.
Remote detonation as a backup.
Film it.
“What worries me most,” Chase began, “is that the site is published in English. There’s nothing hinting at any of the usual terrorist groups. No mention of Islamic State, Al Qaeda, or any of their affiliates. It’s like an instruction manual for any down-and-out, disenfranchised American kid to go out and wreak havoc.”
His comments were met with nods of agreement.
“OK. This is pretty much the recipe I’ve been giving you. This only confirms for us the way these people think. They’re looking for maximum guaranteed casualties and they want to take out anyone that tries to get near or disarm the devices, however they can. If they take out the bomb-disposal teams, they can plant more devices without interference. I hate to say it folks but we are at war here. Everything I’ve told you about scanning for these devices and avoiding obvious choke points holds true. They will
try to set a device or multiple devices off so as to herd the public, running scared, into more devices. They will be filming it. They want maximum fear, maximum casualties. The only way we can stay ahead of this thing is to be hyper-vigilant and stay alive. This looks like it could be a war of attrition, so just remember — we are stronger and we have the numbers on our side. We just need to play it smart.”
Grange motioned for the officer to flick to the next tab, which was all how-to information on making bombs of every kind. There was some military-grade stuff in there which Chase knew would be well out of reach of the average member of the public. There were also other instructions for common chemical and accelerant use which he could make himself in ten minutes. The voices in the room were beginning to murmur again.
“All this stuff here ranks from impossible-to-get through to the kind of thing I could whip up in a kitchen or garage with some household chemicals and Walmart electronics. I think the variety here is as much to keep us on our toes as anything. It’s a distraction for us, as well as a how-to for them. There’s no way that the military-grade gear will be in the hands of the public, unless someone already has access to it. I’d suggest we contact any local bases and make sure any ordinance like that is locked up extra tight.”
“Already done,” Grange said.
“Good. OK, the next tab looks like trophy videos.”
The officer at the terminal clicked on cue and brought the next page up. It looked like a single video, with a play button in the middle.
“These can highlight better than I can tell you the kinds of attacks that will be used, and the kind of damage they can inflict. It will also give you a good idea of the kind of range that anyone filming needs to be at in order to get the shots. It’s not going to be pretty to watch. Remember, these are real people. You may not have seen this kind of thing before but there are a whole bunch of these videos out there. They’re usually attacks on military vehicles or bases. There are real soldiers inside losing their lives.”
A few people were squirming awkwardly in their seats but Chase gave the nod to the officer at the terminal to click play all the same. The first few clips started exactly as he expected. They were the usual images that he had seen himself many times, of roadside IEDs and other remote attacks on convoys. Big, percussive explosions taking out Humvees. Large explosions within military bases. Most likely, people dying.
