Extinction (2 page)

Henry couldn’t take his eyes off the arm. “How much does it weigh, Mr. Pierce?”

“Just a couple of pounds more than an ordinary arm. I use lightweight, high-strength alloys for the joints and structural components. And I put in high-torque motors that efficiently convert the battery charge into mechanical energy. Here, let me show you.”

Jim got up from the table and went to the workbench that ran along the walls of his basement office. The bench held his machine tools—his lathe, vise, laser cutter, and 3D printer—as well as stacks of spare parts and circuit boards. He reached behind one of the stacks and picked up an incongruous item he’d placed there just before the Dugans arrived. It was a fifteen-ounce can of sliced peaches. Holding it in his prosthetic hand, he returned to the table.

“Okay, I got some Del Monte peaches here, packed in syrup,” he said. “The can is made of aluminum and you can dent it pretty easily, but it’s a lot harder to bust it open.” Jim tossed the can in the air, then caught it. Then he wrapped his mechanical fingers around the can and crushed it. Yellowish syrup spurted out of a split seam in the aluminum.

“Whoa!” Steve yelled. “Nice.”

His father laughed. “Hey, you got syrup on my shirt!”

Jim laughed, too. Although he’d done this demonstration many times before, it never failed to amuse him. “I busted the can, but I still can’t get the peaches out. I need to make the hole a little bigger.” He transferred the crushed and leaking can to his left hand and pointed his prosthesis at the thing as if he was going to punch it. But instead he extended the retractable knife he’d built into the hand. With a loud click, the blade emerged from a slot hidden between the middle and ring fingers.

Steve whistled. “Excellent.”

Jim plunged the knife into the already battered can and made a V-shaped cut in the aluminum. Then he retracted the knife and grasped the tip of the V with his mechanical fingers. “I wouldn’t do this with my left hand,” he said as he peeled back a triangular strip. “The edges of the aluminum are pretty sharp. But my right hand is covered with a skin of polyimide. That’s a lightweight, flexible material that’s resistant to heat and incredibly strong.”

He kept peeling until the can was torn in half. Syrup and peach slices glopped on the floor. Then he let go of the aluminum strip, stuck his fingers into the can, and gripped one of the remaining slices between his mechanical thumb and forefinger. He held the slippery piece of fruit up to the light. “But this is the most amazing thing right here. Did you ever think about how difficult it is to grasp a slice of peach without dropping or crushing it? The nerves in your fingers have to tell you how soft and slippery it is, and then your brain has to calculate exactly how much pressure to apply. It’s ridiculously complicated. I spent years trying to figure out how to simulate the process.”

He glanced at the Dugans. Their faces were rapt.

Jim threw the peach slice and the can into his wastepaper basket. Then he raised his prosthetic hand and rubbed the wet fingers together. “I decided to use a combination of pressure, temperature, and moisture sensors. I put hundreds of these tiny devices under the polyimide skin of the fingers. When I touch an object, the sensors collect the data and send it to this wire.” He pointed with his left hand at a cable running up the arm. Then he pulled his shirt sleeve all the way up and pointed at a metal base strapped snugly over his right shoulder. “The wire goes to this thing, which I call the neural control unit. Inside this unit is a wireless transmitter that sends the sensory data to a microchip implanted just below the skin of my shoulder. We do it wirelessly because you can’t have wires going through the skin. That can cause infection.”

Henry rose from his stool to get a better look at the electronics. “So what does the microchip inside your shoulder do?”

“It transfers the sensory information to my nervous system. The chip is connected to the sensory nerves that were severed when I lost my arm. Those are the nerves that used to feel the heat and pain and pressure applied to my skin. Now my sensors collect the same information and the microchip delivers it to the severed ends of my sensory nerves. And those nerves carry the information up to my brain.” Jim pointed to his head. “My brain analyzes the signals. It figures out the shape and texture of the object I’m touching and determines how to hold it. Then it sends its commands down to my shoulder via a different set of nerves, the motor neurons. I have another implanted microchip that’s connected to the severed ends of those nerves. This chip takes the commands from my brain and transmits them wirelessly to my neural control unit. Then the unit runs the motors in my prosthesis, making it move the way I want it to.”

Jim stopped himself. Because this was his life’s work, he loved to talk about it. He had to remind himself to slow down. He returned to his place at the table and focused on Private Dugan. “So, Steve, any questions so far?”

The kid chuckled. “Yeah, how fast can you build ’em?”

“Hold on, let me show you the prototype first.” Jim went to his workbench and picked up another prosthetic arm. This one was entirely covered in polyimide skin. He placed it on the table in front of Steve. “I designed this prototype to fit me, so I could test it, but when I build
your
arms I’ll adjust them to match your size and skin color.” Jim used his left hand to detach the Terminator prosthesis from the neural control unit on his shoulder. Then he grasped the prototype arm and inserted it into the unit. After locking the arm into place, he tested it by wiggling the fingers. “Now, Steve, the big difference between you and me is that you need two prostheses instead of one. And that complicates the process of attaching and detaching the arms. If you want to do it by yourself, you’d have to sleep with at least one of the arms attached, and I know from experience that’s not so comfortable. So I designed a solution. Watch this.”

He unclamped the prototype arm from his shoulder and placed it on the linoleum floor. Then he stepped back and stared at the detached arm. After a moment, it bent at the elbow and snapped its fingers.

Henry nearly fell off his stool. “God Almighty! How did you do that?”

“I boosted the power of the radio transmitter in my neural control unit. Now it can send my nervous system’s commands to the arm even if it’s across the room. And I put some adhesive material on the fingertips, so the arm can pull itself along the floor. Here, take a look.”

Jim lay down on the floor, face-up, about six feet from the prosthesis. He mentally sent the command to straighten the arm, which was just as easy to do as when the prosthesis was attached. Then he pressed the mechanical fingers to the linoleum and bent the elbow, dragging the upper part of the arm across the floor. “It works on carpets, too,” he said. “You just have to dig the fingernails into the weave.” He straightened the arm again, moving the prosthetic hand closer to his body. Then he wrapped its fingers around his right hip, grasping it firmly, and swung the upper part of the arm toward his shoulder. Once the prosthesis got close enough to the neural control unit, a self-locking mechanism clamped the arm into place. Jim ended the demonstration by standing up, raising the prototype arm in the air and extending its retractable knife. “If you want, I’ll put knives in your arms, too,” he said. “They’re great for chopping vegetables.”

He turned to the Dugans to gauge their reaction. Both were silent for a couple of seconds. Then Henry shook his head. “Jumping Jesus on a pogo stick,” he drawled. “That’s the damnedest thing I ever saw.”

Steve didn’t say a word. He just looked at Jim and beamed.

Satisfied, Jim detached the prototype and put it back on the workbench. Then he came back to the table and reattached his Terminator prosthesis. “I told you you’d be pleased.”

“So when can I get them?” Steve asked.

“Once you give me the go-ahead I can build your prostheses in a month. But the adjustment process takes a little longer.” Jim put a serious expression on his face. “First, the doctors at Walter Reed will implant the microchips in your shoulders. Then you’ll start the biofeedback training with the arms. Your brain has to learn how to use the new connections. It’ll take at least three months to gain control over the prostheses and read their signals correctly. But I’ll be there to help you, every step of the way.”

Steve nodded. “You got my go-ahead, Mr. Pierce. Let’s get it started.”

*   *   *

The rest of the consultation was routine. Jim took measurements of Steve’s torso and made clay molds of his shoulders. Then Henry signed the authorization papers on behalf of his son, and they scheduled their next appointment. The only notable thing happened at the very end, after the Dugans said goodbye to Jim on the doorstep of his home. While Steve walked toward their car, his father suddenly turned around and clasped Jim in a bear hug. “Thank you,” he whispered in Jim’s ear. “You saved my son.”

Then Henry let go and followed Steve to the car. The whole thing happened so quickly that the kid didn’t notice.

After they drove off, Jim returned to his workshop. He figured this would be a good time to work on Dugan’s prostheses. The consultation had gone well, and that usually inspired him. He loved to see those flabbergasted looks on the faces of his customers. But as he stood beside his workbench and stared at the prototype arm lying there, he got a sinking feeling in his stomach. At first he wasn’t sure why. Then he realized it had something to do with what happened at the end, what Henry Dugan had whispered to him.
You saved my son.

Jim turned away from the workbench and busied himself with clearing the coffee mugs off the table. It didn’t make sense. He should’ve been gratified and touched by the older man’s words, but instead he felt awful. He recalled the sight of Henry Dugan holding the coffee mug to his son’s lips, but the thought of this loving, wonderful father just made him feel like a failure. Because Jim wasn’t a good father. He’d bungled the job.

He looked down at the table where he’d talked with the Dugans. Only an hour ago he’d told them that raising his daughter had been the best thing he’d ever done, but he’d neglected to mention an important detail. Two years ago, his daughter Layla had dropped out of college and broken off all contact with him. He didn’t even know where she was living now.

Jim frowned. He didn’t want to think about Layla. Returning to his workbench, he turned on his computer and started reviewing the circuit diagrams for Dugan’s prostheses. But he couldn’t focus. He was too agitated to think straight. And he was tired. It was past 4:00
P.M.,
which was late for him, and he hadn’t slept well the night before. Time to call it a day.

He crossed the room and opened one of the cabinets above his workbench. Reaching past the coffee mugs, he pulled out a shot glass and a bottle of Jack Daniel’s. This was his end-of-the-workday ritual, a single shot of whiskey. But today he drank two shots, downing them quickly as he stood by the bench, and while the liquor seared his throat and pooled in his stomach he realized there was another reason why he felt so agitated. Without meaning to, Henry Dugan had reminded him of something he’d tried hard to forget. Jim had once had a son, too. A wife and a son.

He was about to pour a third shot when the doorbell rang.
That’s odd.
He didn’t have any more appointments scheduled. He supposed it could be one of the neighbors. There was a divorced woman across the street who liked to visit him and drop hints. But when he went upstairs to his foyer and looked through the window by the front door, he saw a tall Asian-American man in a brigadier general’s uniform. The nametag on his uniform said
YIN
, and on his left shoulder was the patch of the United States Cyber Command.

Jim was puzzled. He knew the generals who ran Walter Reed, but this guy was from an entirely different branch of the army. Cyber Command was in charge of defending the U.S. military’s data networks. It worked closely with the National Security Agency, which was responsible for intercepting and analyzing foreign communications. Jim had spent the last five years of his military career on a special assignment with the NSA, but that was nearly two decades ago. He couldn’t imagine why any of the new Information Warriors would want to talk to him now.

After checking his breath to make sure it didn’t smell of whiskey, Jim opened his front door. “Can I help you?”

The general held out his right hand. “Good afternoon, Colonel Pierce. My name is Duncan Yin and I’m with Cyber Command’s headquarters staff at Fort Meade.”

Yin was in his early forties, maybe five years younger than Jim. He was handsome and in great shape and had a Midwestern accent. One of the bright young stars of the modern army, Jim thought. But he still couldn’t figure out why the guy was here.

“Pleased to meet you,” Jim said, shaking the man’s hand with his prosthesis. He still wore the Terminator arm, and the right sleeve was still rolled up, exposing all the electronics. But General Yin didn’t seem fazed.

“I apologize for coming here without calling first,” he said. “This is a delicate matter, so I thought it would be best to talk face-to-face. Can I come in?”

Jim considered the possibilities. Cyber Command was always on the lookout for breaches in military security. Especially breaches perpetrated by unhappy soldiers. Maybe General Yin was snooping for information on one of Jim’s customers at Walter Reed. In which case, Jim had to be very careful. “I’m sorry, General, but can you give me some idea what this is about?”

Yin nodded. “It’s about your daughter. I’m afraid she’s in a great deal of trouble.”

*   *   *

They went downstairs to the basement workshop. General Yin sat down at the square table while Jim perched on one of the stools, too anxious to sit still. Both his hands trembled. Because his prosthesis was connected to his nervous system, it was equally subject to the jitters.

“I don’t normally do this,” Yin started. “We usually rely on the FBI to track down the people we’re looking for. But when I saw your daughter’s name on the list of cases, I decided to get involved. I work closely with the officials at NSA, and they remember you well over there. I’ve heard great things about the work you did in Africa in the nineties.”