When the last truck had lumbered past, I released my grip, unaware until that moment how tightly I’d been clutching her. I hated the war. Hated how it touched our lives, but I kept my mouth shut and my head down. I had responsibilities as a single father. “There now,” I whispered in Caitlin’s ear. “The University gave me the day off. We’ll take a walk by the river.”
Caitlin shot forward into the street, laughing. She looked back towards me. Tires squealed on pavement. A horn blared. She turned. A frown pulled her brows together. I heard a meaty thump, like someone had dropped a side of beef on the cement. A van slewed sideways in front of me. A woman leaped from the driver-side door, hands over her mouth.
I wondered where Caitlin was and who was screaming. Traffic halted. I felt slow, stupid. The woman from the van ran past me and kneeled in the street. I took a step and peered over her shoulder. I couldn’t understand why the girl lying on the pavement was wearing Caitlin’s clothes.
¤
At the hospital, a team of doctors swept Caitlin through a pair of swinging doors, leaving me behind. Shiny linoleum squeaked under my shoes as I walked to the emergency room desk.
The clerk ran my thumb over a scanner and seemed pleased that I had insurance. Her tongue clicked on the roof of her mouth. She made me initial a stack of forms.
After an interminable stretch of time, a doctor pushed through the doors, his deep black skin almost purple in the fluorescent lights. He talked to the clerk in hushed tones, and then approached me. “Are you Caitlin’s father?”
I stood and nodded, opening my mouth to say something, but no words came out.
“She’s had a serious accident.” His warm, dark eyes met mine. “She’s hurt. Badly.”
Each word felt like a punch in the stomach. Accident. Hurt. Badly. “But she’s still alive?” I flailed, searching for any morsel of hope, any path forward.
He nodded, sitting and motioning for me to sit beside him. His smile seemed kind. “She broke three ribs and her femur, banged up her internal organs, but it’s her brain we’re concerned about.”
“Her brain?” I had visions of drooling, spastic freaks in wheelchairs, and then forced the picture from my brain. As long as she’s still alive.
“As part of the trauma, her brain collided against her skull. Blood vessels ruptured, neurons ripped apart.” He pulled his hands away from each other. “And in response, her brain swelled. We’re drilling to relieve pressure.”
I shivered and wished I believed in God or the Devil. I’d cut a deal. Me for her. In a heartbeat.
¤
Tubes: a feeding tube that went into her stomach through her nose, another tube in her stomach that sucked blood out, a large tube connected to a respirator which pushed air into her lungs and removed bits of dead tissue, a tube in her arm that dripped sedatives into her bloodstream, a PICC line that delivered a constant stream of water and electrolytes, a Foley catheter that drained urine, and lastly, a spinal tap that drained cerebrospinal fluid to relieve pressure on her brain.
Machines hummed and beeped, their displays casting a cold white light over the room even in the depths of night.
The next morning, they stopped the Fentanyl drip for two hours to see if Caitlin would come out of her coma. She didn’t flinch or react at all when I called her name. I screamed into her ear, willing her to wake up, to blink, to do something—anything.
The neurologist pinched Caitlin’s arm and twisted, his thick fingers digging into her skin. I wanted to punch him for hurting my daughter, but Caitlin lay unmoving save for the slight rise and fall of her chest. He shrugged. “Nothing is certain. She’s got plenty of good brain left.”
I thought I saw censure in the nurses’ eyes, an unspoken certainty that if they’d been the parent, none of this would have happened. I agreed. This was entirely my fault. If I’d never suggested a walk, if I’d held onto Caitlin’s hand, if only—if only.
That afternoon, a man poked his head into the ICU and asked for me. His tanned skin and wavy blond hair, slicked back in a part over his left temple, reminded me of an up-and-coming televangelist. “Can we take a walk?” He gripped my hand with confidence.
I let him lead me down the hall to a padded bench next to a bank of floor-to-ceiling windows. “What do you want?” I collapsed onto the seat, exhaustion sapping my strength.
The man smiled and sat beside me. “My name’s Roy. Roy Morris. I’m from the government.”
“And you’re here to help.” I snorted and looked out the windows. Downtown skyscrapers flashed in the sunlight. A train snaked along the river. I imagined I heard a lonesome whistle.
“Yes, Ben.” Roy popped open a sleek black laptop and color holograms blinked into place in the rectangle of air defined by the computer. A spurt of envy spiked through my emotional fog. No one I knew had a system anywhere near that nice.
Roy’s fingers danced through the icons, pinching and stretching, flipping through sheet after sheet of figures and photos. “We’re perfecting neuronal-silicon interfaces. We build a scaffolding to regrow brain tissue, fostering new connections. Experimental, but your daughter won’t be the first. The ICU here is twenty years behind the times.”
Roy showed me charts of increased brain function, videos of rats opening electric food trays without touching them, cats steering remote-controlled cars, and holos of smiling children wearing matte-black skullcaps like high-tech yarmulkes. “We have a center in Massachusetts. Children have the best chance of regrowing useful brain tissue.”
Hope surged through me, but I tamped it down, afraid it was premature. “How did you find out about Caitlin?”
Roy waved his hand. “The hospital notified us. Security resolution 403b. We are at war.” He shifted forward in his seat. “But you’re missing the real point: your daughter’s health.”
“I can’t afford anything fancy.” But I was already hanging my hopes on Roy’s smiling assurances like a drowning man clutching a line.
“We pay one-hundred percent. We help your daughter, she helps her country. Win-win.” He smiled with the confidence of an angler setting the hook, but I didn’t care. None of my misgivings about Roy’s program made a whit of difference when stacked up against the smallest hope of Caitlin’s recovery.
¤
I got my first view of Happy Valley through the oval windows of a sleek government jet. A riot of orange, red, and yellow trees covered the hills. The sharp line of the runway slashed through a meandering river valley. For a moment, hope blossomed in my heart.
Roy met us on the jetway, along with a team of white-clad medical workers who gathered around Caitlin’s stretcher and whisked her towards an ambulance waiting in a parking garage. Roy took my hand. “Welcome to Happy Valley.”
“How is Caitlin?”
“Excellent prognosis for useful regrowth. Children are incredibly resilient. Tele-operation therapy would be pointless if she were an adult.” Roy turned and strode through the deserted corridor. “The shuttle is this way.”
We boarded an automated electric bus. Ducks and geese floated on a nearby pond. The bus started with a low hum, turning onto a winding country road. Sparrows flitted over a meadow bursting with purple wildflowers. Copses of stately trees in full autumn foliage dotted the lowlands.
I pointed at a figure running behind us in the meadow. “What’s that? A warbot?”
Roy chuckled. “Yes, that’s Ajax. Quite a sight, isn’t he?”
Sunlight sparkled off Ajax’s shining metal body. He came closer and closer, running cross-country through the flowers, leaping over downed trees like a clockwork gazelle. He drew level with the bus and raised an arm, waving a greeting.
“Bus, stop.” Roy turned to me as the bus lost speed, humming to a standstill at the shoulder of the road. The doors hissed open. Ajax leapt across the drainage ditch, landing dead center on the stairs. His feet slammed into the floor, and the bus rocked from his weight. He seemed much bigger, hunched over in the confines of the vehicle, than when
he’d been running outside.
Red and green lights blinked on Ajax’s head and his body looked like a robot in a classic Twentieth-Century science fiction movie. His bullet-shaped head swiveled, glass lenses poking out the front like binocular eyes. “Welcome to Happy Valley,” he thundered.
“Good afternoon, Ajax.” Roy smiled. “I didn’t know you were back.”
“Yeah, the mission got aborted. I had this ‘ bot taken out of mothballs. I thought I’d pay a visit home.”
“Too bad about the mission.” Roy turned to us. “Ajax was one of the first. A pioneer. He runs salvage operations in Baghdad and Tehran, now.”
“Too radioactive for most people,” Ajax rumbled. Lights flickered faster, and I had the crazy idea he was laughing. The bus started again at Roy’s murmured command. Ajax’s legs flexed and moved with the motion, keeping his head level.
Happy Valley looked like a New England village from three centuries ago. A church shared town square frontage with a city hall and a general store. Rows of oaks lined the quiet streets, shading modest white colonial houses set back in generous lots.
Roy waved at a man my age who raked leaves into a pile at the curb. A group of muddy pre-teens played football in a neighborhood park. A woman drove towards us in an electric cart loaded with grocery bags. Roy pointed out the house that had been set aside for us. “Your old furniture should arrive next week. There’s some there now, use what you like.”
I broke in and blurted a question to Ajax. “Where are you now?”
“What do you mean? Right here.” Ajax thumped his chest, making a sound like a sledgehammer on pig iron.
Roy leaned forward. “I think Ben is asking where your human body is.”
“Oh.” Ajax sank into himself, becoming inhumanly still for a few seconds. “The meat’s in bed, at home.”
¤
A week later, Caitlin opened her eyes for the first time since the accident. She tried to say something around the tube in her mouth, and then started thrashing back and forth, releasing a torrent of grunts. Two nurses ran in and held her down. Roy followed close behind, carrying an open laptop whose holograms flashed in time with Caitlin’s cries.
Roy barked orders to the nurses, and they added a sedative to Caitlin’s IV line that knocked her out in seconds. My heart raced, excitement at seeing Caitlin wake up warring with the appalling extent of her injuries.
Roy sat next to me, tipping the laptop so I could see the blink of icons. “She established a working connection.” Glee filled his voice. “Your daughter will be the first to have direct mental control of software.”
I frowned. “I thought she was going to tele-operate one of the robots. Do rescue missions like the other kids.” Outside, a squirrel raced across the lawn, cheeks full of bounty.
Roy waved his hands. “The robots are toys. No, your daughter will be software, able to filter terabytes of data every second, making connections, seeing patterns. The things humans excel at married to the raw processing power of computers.” He stood up. “We’re on the brink, Ben. The brink.” He strode out the door, leaving me with the rhythmic whoosh and suck of the breathing machine.
¤
I met our neighbors, Mike and Linda, proud parents of a boy who tele-operated a six-legged all-terrain ‘ bot as big as a bus. They left me alone, for the most part, as I settled in. I spent every waking moment at the ICU with Caitlin, collapsing into bed only when the nurses kicked me out.
My new home was much larger than I needed, but Roy assured me I’d appreciate the space when Caitlin moved in. I wanted more than anything for that day to happen, but I didn’t let myself think about it too much. I could only exist in the needs of the moment.
The counselors recommended work, and Roy found me a part-time tutoring gig at the community college. At home, books filled the dark-paneled study walls. The shiny kitchen appliances sparkled under track lighting. I paced through the rooms of the house. Kitchen to vaulted-ceiling living room. Buttery-soft beige leather couches. Dining nook with bay windows. The garage, handy to both kitchen and back yard.
I couldn’t stand staying home by myself and took to the paths and trails around Happy Valley, falling in with subdued groups of other parents on long, mostly silent walks.
Linda joined me a handful of times. We shared stories of small victories, signs of hope. She seemed flattened by grief, eyes red and puffy, hair hacked short. A few tenacious leaves hung on otherwise bare branches, and long vees of geese flew southward under cloudy skies.
The first snow came the day Caitlin left the ICU, dusting the bare tree branches with ethereal whiteness. The neighbors threw her a party in the rec center. I walked beside Caitlin’s mobility cart from the hospital through an underground tunnel to the gym. The cart hummed. A port at the base of her skull, red and raw and surrounded by shaved skin, connected her to the cart’s computer.
Caitlin grunted and jerked her hands when we arrived. Her eyes bugged out from higher-than-normal inter-cranial pressure, and her body seemed sunken in on itself. A screen on the side of the cart blinked and scrolled numbers and letters that I parsed for hidden meaning. I had the conviction that this injured, shrunken creature wasn’t my daughter at all, that a mannequin sat in the cart in front of me.
Three other kids in carts had been parked to one side next to a nurse. I guided Caitlin towards them. Mike popped the cork on a bottle of champagne and offered me a half-filled plastic cup. “Congratulations.”
I tried to smile. “Is your boy here?”
Mike nodded and pointed at the child next to Caitlin. “Yes, sir. Right there.” He leaned over and joggled the boy’s shoulder. “Sammy? Hey, Sammy. Say something to our neighbor.”
Sammy, a stick-thin, pale boy who looked no more than six years old, lolled his skull from side to side in his headrest. A tiny stream of spittle dripped from the left corner of his mouth. He grunted and twitched, opening his eyes and looking at us. “Hello.” He stared at a spot over my shoulder, and then spoke to his dad in a slurred voice. “I should go. Insurgents are sniping at the squad.” He closed his eyes, and within seconds had resumed twitching.
The hair on the back of my neck stood straight out from my body, and a shiver slid down my spine like an ice-cold scalpel. “Pleased to meet you.” I shot a glance at Mike.
“They keep them busy. It’s like playing video games.” Mike shook his head. “My boy has twenty-three confirmed kills this year alone.” Pride glittered in his face like shiny gold plating.
Sammy’s tongue flicked out of his mouth. I couldn’t imagine being proud of twenty-three kills, but Mike’s bright chatter held no trace of sarcasm.
Two other families I’d seen around hadn’t shown up. When I asked after them, Mike frowned and shook his head. “Terrible tragedy. Some kids just don’t make it.” He lowered his voice. “There are losses. The process isn’t perfect. And of course, afterwards you’re not able to stay here.”
I drank another glass of champagne. Bubbles made my nose itch. The other parents seemed cheerful without any depth, offering good wishes like scattered treats.
My head felt woozy, so I excused myself and went outside. A cold wind blew snow in my face. I walked around the corner of the building and bumped into Linda, knocking her glasses into the snow. “Sorry. I’m such a klutz.”
Linda squatted on her haunches, hands patting the ground. Her hat perched askew on her head, blond hair escaping into the wind. “No problem.”
“Here you go.” I rescued her glasses and slipped them over her ears onto her nose.
“Thanks.” Her eyes swam into focus. She blinked.
“What are you doing outside?” Security cameras moved in arcs on the roof, recording the vast expanse of snow around us.
She waved her arm in the air and looked around. “Oh, nothing,” she said, and then took me in a bear hug, thrusting her face in my chest and crying like her heart had been ripped out.
I held her and patted her head, mumbling soothing nonsense. I
don’t know exactly when the moment shifted, but one second, she was a crying neighbor in need of comfort, and the next she was a tender, beautiful woman pressing her body tight against me. I shifted my feet. “I shouldn’t—”
She moved with me and turned her face to mine. “Don’t talk.” Her lips scrabbled for me. After a second, I kissed her back.
¤
As the winter wore on, Roy became more and more excited. Caitlin could make computers sit up and do back flips. She could compose and send email with a thought and analyze vast quantities of data in a millisecond.
Caitlin’s eyes didn’t track right. She couldn’t read anything but the largest letters. Her speech emerged slow and mushy like she had a mouthful of cold oatmeal. As Roy grew ever more thrilled, I saw less and less of the laughing girl I remembered.
The screen on Caitlin’s cart showed her stats but also became her primary method of communication. Somehow she’d hacked the software and she now displayed big blocks of text, jumbled sentences that sounded more like national security gobbledy-gook than things a young girl would say.
I’d decorated Caitlin’s room with all her posters and pictures from back home, though I didn’t think it made any difference. Her window looked over a ravine with a tiny creek at the bottom. The cart folded down, doubling as a bed. Ice sparkled like diamonds in the creek, but she never looked outside.
One evening, I set Tango Charlie in her lap while I unloaded the box of comics. I started reading to her. A momma rabbit wanted Tango Charlie to teach her son the hop. Caitlin’s eyes rolled in their sockets and she grunted. Tango Charlie fell unheeded to the ground. Her screen flashed. “Stop. Extraneous information. Risk correlation procedures continuing.”
Stupefying Stories: August 2014 Page 10
