November 19. 2009

#

"Father." Nicholas asked.

Kincaid swallowed and glanced over at Gerhardt. The ex-colonel's expression told him that was his call on what to tell the boy. Kincaid wished that the psychologist was here, but he doubted that they could evade the question for that long without Nicholas getting suspicious.

"He's not here," Kincaid told him.

"Where."

Kincaid looked over to Gerhardt again. Gerhardt moved into Nicholas' line of vision.

"He's dead, son." His voice was quiet, yet was heavy was compassion.

There was a brief pause before Nicholas' voice came again.

"No."

Gerhardt nodded. "I'm afraid so."

"No." Nicholas repeated.

Gerhardt's mouth moved uncertainly. Denial was certainly to be expected, he knew. Heaven knows this boy had been through enough already.

"No." Nicholas said again.

"Not."

The pause was slightly longer this time.

"Son."

Gerhardt looked down at Nicholas' expressionless eyes, trying to understand.

"Not. Son." Nicholas repeated.

Realization dawned on Gerhardt. He nodded, his lips drawn into a grim line. "I understand," he said. "I'm sorry. Nicholas."

"Nick."

Gerhardt could not entirely prevent his slight smile from showing. "Okay," he agreed. "Nick." He glanced up at Kincaid and the others with some relief.

An awkward silence followed.

 

#

Nicholas looked down and, with the blanket spread across his lap, he could almost believe his real legs lay beneath it. He could not feel its weight upon his lap, but the visual illusion was nearly convincing. The effect was greatly diminished by the sight of his bare metal forearm and fingers resting on the side control panel. Gerhardt had promised him that they were working on a glove that would hide the mechanical parts. It would also carry a series of sensors that could provide him with limited data about pressure and temperature, giving him a crude sense of "touch".

Gerhardt had hoped that do some preliminary testing on it today as well, but its development team had not made as much progress as they had hoped. They had planned to use the metallic framework of his body to carry the signals, keeping them from having to provide endless kilometers of cabling for the sensor signals to travel along. They had not yet gotten it to work with any reliability, so the testing had been put on hold for now.

His brain had been interfaced directly into the chair's controls for several weeks. It could remain so, but Gerhardt believed that having him manually control his chair would serve two important purposes: it would provide Nicholas with the ability to still operate it should the direct interface ever fail, and it was a good starting point in calibrating his systems for finer motor control. It was the first step into a much broader range of movement.

"Ready, Nick?" Gerhardt gave him a reassuring, confident smile.

"Yes."

Gerhardt turned and nodded to the technician standing behind the car. "Disconnect it from the interface."

Nicholas heard the clicking sounds of switches being pressed from behind him. He did not feel any different. Experimentally, he tried to roll the chair forward. It remained in place. He repeated the instructions, but the chair refused to obey his commands and move.

Gerhardt smiled at him as if he knew what Nicholas was trying to do. He probably did, Nicholas decided, realizing that his brain activity being monitored on the display screen had likely betrayed him.

Stepping down from the raised platform, Gerhardt went to stand beside Nicholas. He quickly checked each of the manual controls.

"You'd be surprised how hard it was to find one of these that still had manual controls," he said, giving Nicholas a quick smile and a wink. "I was almost ready to send people out scouting the antique stores."

Nicholas stared back at him. It was one of those moments when Gerhardt wished that it was possible for Nicholas to show at least a hint of emotion. Then he would know whether the boy was amused or irritated by his attempt at humor.

"Right," Gerhardt finally said, judging that to be a sufficiently neutral response. He stepped back, so his feet were clear of the chair's wheels. "Okay, Nick," he said. "Obey the speed limits."

As before, Nicholas' level of appreciation for his joke was undetectable.

The room grew quiet, except for the soft sounds of the air conditioning and various computer systems. Nicholas stared down at his right hand. Although it was apparent to no one in the room, he was concentrating hard on getting the hand to move. He focused on the idea of it sliding forward, pressing against the joystick, causing the chair to move forward.

For a long time, nothing happened. Some of the technicians began fidgeting, shuffling their feet. A frown formed on Gerhardt's face. He started to step forward.

Nicholas' hand jerked suddenly forward, pushing the maneuvering joystick forward. The chair started moving and then darted forward. Gerhardt reached out and killed its power before it slammed into the opposite wall. The chair quickly slid to a stop with Nicholas' metal knees only a few centimeters from banging against a cabinet.

"Easy there, Speed Racer," Gerhardt chuckled. "You'd better find the brake next."

Nicholas was staring down at his hand, seemingly unaware of how close he had come to a collision with the storage locker. Not that he would have suffered much damage from it, Gerhardt mused silently. The cabinet would likely have fared the worst of the two from the impact.

Gerhart's gaze turned down to the control panel, ready to lift Nicholas' hand away from the joystick. Before he could reach it, though, Nicholas' hand began to slide very slowly backward, away from the control. It came to a stop well away from the joystick.

Nicholas turned to look at Gerhardt. There was little doubt in Gerhardt's mind that if the boy could smile, he would be beaming with triumph at his small victory.

"Very good," he said. "That's very good." He attempted to temper his enthusiasm, concerned that he might sound like he was praising a pet or a small child.

"Yes." came Nicholas' toneless agreement.

Even without emotion in his voice, Gerhardt was certain that the boy was pleased.

"Feel up to trying again?"

There was almost no pause before Nicholas answered. "Yes."

Gerhardt did a quick visual survey of the technicians. None of them raised any objections.

"Okay," Gerhardt said to Nicholas. "I'm going to restore the power. We can see if you do as well in reverse." He gave Nicholas a wink and then reached down and pressed the reset switch for the chair's power supply. The indicator lights began to glow faintly again on the control panel. "Whenever you're ready, Nick," he prompted gently.

Quiet descended on the room again. Gerhardt remained close to the chair, watching Nicholas' hand and arm carefully for any sign of movement.

After several moments, the metal hand began to slide cautiously toward the control joystick. It moved at nearly the same slow pace at which it had originally retreated, but gradually increased its speed. It slowed again as it made contact with the control. It stopped, its metal palm resting on top of the joystick.

With seemingly painstaking slowness, Nicholas' hand began to pull the control stick toward him. It took several moments before the chair recognized the action and then started rolling backward. To Gerhardt, it felt like watching a scene played out in slow motion. Nicholas lifted his hand, freeing the control, and the chair stopped its movement.

There was a breathless moment of silence and then the technicians burst into applause. Gerhardt glanced up at them, uncertain how Nicholas might react to both the sudden, unexpected burst of noise and to the praise.

Nicholas' head turned toward the small group of technicians. He stared at them with his fixed, unblinking eyes for several moments. The applause began to diminish rapidly. His head then turned back to face Gerhardt. His gaze stayed on Gerhardt for a long moment before he spoke.

"Yes."

Gerhardt let himself grin. He patted Nicholas' metal shoulder slowly. His voice was barely above a whisper, but he was certain that Nicholas could hear it.

"Atta boy, Nick," he said. "Atta boy."