Gin a body meet a body Flyin' through
the air.
Gin a body hit a body, Will it fly? And where?
From the poem “Rigid Body Sings” by James Clerk Maxwell 1831 – 1879
In sharp contrast to his meeting with Major Driesk, Max took an instant liking to the doctor. The Hawaiian shirt and Bermuda shorts he wore under the white coat may have helped to offset the negative impression created by the loaded hypodermic he held.
The doctor used it to point to Max’s feet, and then to his own. They were both wearing socks with sandals. Max smiled, but the red haired guard who shadowed the doctor snorted his contempt for their fashion sense. Max had the urge to explain this was not his preferred footwear, however thought his acquaintance with the doctor was possibly too recent to risk offence. The guard, Max noticed, fingered the trigger of his gun while watching the doctor. It could be that the medic wasn’t trusted any more than Max.
‘Good morning, Sir,’ said the doctor. ‘My name is Nelu. I will be administering your medication today. Medication. Ha ha ha.’ Nelu’s Eastern European accent made him sound like a friendly vampire. ‘Firstly, do you have any known allergies? Nuts! Particularly nuts. The label on my little bottle warns me that it may contain peanuts.’
‘Oh, definitely,’ Max replied. ‘Can’t even look at one. Breaks me out in a rash. Well, sorry I’ve wasted your time – Doctor Nelu was it?’
‘Ha ha ha. Good joke, Mr Clerk.’ The doctor had pulled out a paper form from his top pocket. ‘I just need to tick this box here that says “no allergies”. Do you have a pen?’
‘No! You’re going to inject Peace into my veins, and you’re worried about allergies?’
‘Yes and no,’ Nelu chuckled. ‘Yes, I am going to inject a slightly toxic derivative of Peace into your arm. And no, I am not worried. Ha ha ha.’
‘Well, what would happen if I were allergic to Peace?’
‘Then I will not be blamed when you die. Ha ha ha.’
Max began to see why the guard distrusted this doctor. The room became too warm for his woollen jumper, so he pulled it off. Unfortunately, he had forgotten the borrowed shirt would not button up. Nelu didn’t seem concerned, and squeezed some liquid from the syringe.
‘It is the system, you understand, Mr Clerk. Nothing personal. I am just – how you say – a cog in the machine. But in Romania, I am senior researcher. I only do these menial tasks here because no one in your country will recognise my qualifications. Now please, do you really have allergies?’
‘I’m allergic to needles.’
‘Ha ha ha. Me too,’ said Nelu. ‘Ha ha ha. Very well. Your arm please.’
When Max hesitated, the belligerent guard loomed over him, no doubt itching to get physical. Max presented his left arm without further fuss. What good would it do him to be restrained as well as drugged?
‘I will just put on this cuff and look for a vein like so.’ Nelu flicked away at Max’s skin. ‘When they woke me last night, I had no practice on the living patient. So I checked the world wide web. Now you are my tenth, and I think I am getting much practised. The others have survived, more or less, so please be peaceful. Ha ha ha. You soon will be. Ha ha ha. First I rub on a bit of alcohol, and in goes the ... Hmm. This is strange.’
Max, who had looked away, now took a peek. The guard also leaned in as Nelu raised the needle up to the light. The hollow steel tip at its end had gone limp like soggy spaghetti.
‘Have you seen this happen before, Mr Bluey?’ Nelu asked the guard while trying to get the needle to stand up straight.
The red haired guard shook his head.
‘Mr Clerk.’ Nelu’s gaze met Max’s eye with some suspicion. ‘I think it is not you who are allergic to needles, but the needle that is allergic to you. Ha ha ha.’ He turned to the guard. ‘Mr Bluey? Please, could you get me another needle from the bag outside? And the bottle marked Babble-Juice. Do not mix it up with the one labelled Memory-Flush. That comes later.’
‘Why don’t you get it yourself, Nelly?’ grumbled the guard.
‘My name is Nel-U!’ He took a deep breath. ‘I must remain here to calm the patient. The internet was very specific about that. Side-bed manners and all. Go now, before he becomes tense.’
‘You’re the doctor, I guess.’ Bluey went outside. The door had almost closed when Confucius slipped in under the top sill and floated up to the ceiling. Max couldn’t help staring as his phone slid across to hover above the table. Nelu glanced up to see what Max was looking at, but the air around the phone had become blurry – yet another trick that the A.I. had learned in only a few busy hours.
‘Do not worry, Mr Clerk.’ Nelu squeezed Max’s hand. ‘Soon this will all be just a bad memory, and then not even that. Ha ha ha.’
Max was already thinking how he might get the guard’s gun. If he could shoot the phone, then one of his many worries would be gone. But if he missed the phone’s memory chip, he would have alerted them to the phone’s abilities and left it possible for them to extract its secrets. Another possibility occurred to him while they waited. So far, the phone had mostly accepted him as its master. If he tried to destroy it again, might it take offence and destroy the planet out of sheer spite?
The cuff on Max’s arm was causing his limb to fall asleep as Nelu idly flicked again and again at the vein he had already chosen.
‘Is that necessary?’ Max asked.
‘I thought I should practice while I have the chance,’ said Nelu. ‘You have a very nice arm.’
‘Thank you.’
‘I hope you have signed your donor card. The arms I removed for transplant in Romania were of much poorer quality.’
‘Um.’ Max wondered if the doctor only saw him as a collection of body parts. The silence became increasingly uncomfortable. ‘What can you tell me about Colonel Driesk’s arm?’
‘Major Driesk,’ Nelu corrected him, but his face flushed and spoke with pride. ‘You have noticed my mechatronic masterpiece. Good. Very good. Not many bother to appreciate my work. It is the culmination of years studying the man-machine interface, and the reason I have been given this job here. The Major likes to have me nearby – for when it gets itchy, I can tweak the feedback sensors.’
Max was confused. ‘I was asking about his left arm. The baby one.’
Nelu’s smile vanished. ‘Oh. That.’ He looked around to check for listeners and lowered his voice. ‘We do not speak of the left. The Major is very sensitive. In maybe ten years, when it has fully grown, and if it behaves itself, we may be permitted to admire. I think he sometimes regrets choosing the slower regrowth option now that he has experienced my technological marvel.’
‘So both arms are fake?’
Nelu looked very sour. He spoke angrily. ‘The robotic arm I made may be a prosthetic, but it is not fake. After wearing it for over a year, the Major says it feels to him like a real limb. Some adjustments are still necessary, sure. The death of his dog was unfortunate. But if it were grasping your neck, with the strength of a one ton press, you would not then call that arm fake.’
‘Sorry,’ said Max. ‘I agree his robot arm is a marvel. But what happened to the arms he was born with?’
‘Born? Yes, I suppose he must have been. But surely you know of the accident with the Atlas robot?’ Nelu leaned back. ‘I forget the public are ignorant. So maybe I should not be telling you, but soon you won’t remember anything, so I may speak freely. Ha ha ha.’
He began the tale in a conspiratorial whisper. ‘I know not when the Major was damaged, but his arm – the inferior left one – cannot be more than three years old. His men talk of a covert operation in Saudi Arabia, just before that country went to war with Russia. He was leading a five man team, plus one – the robot. Major Driesk was not supposed to be there, but it is in his nature to lead from the front.’
‘Only, no one realised that the robot had been radicalised until it was too late.’ Nelu was getting very excited and began improvise dramatic hand gestures. At least this meant he needed to release Max’s arm. ‘His entire squad was torn apart. Not even the Major should have survived. It had pulled one of his arms off at the shoulder and was working on the other, but the Major, he does not panic. He bites through the robots battery before it can finish.’ Nelu bounced from his seat to mime how one might bite a battery.
‘And then! Get this – then the Major uses the remaining battery charge to cauterise his wounds.’
Max found the whole story highly improbable. After all, if Driesk was the only survivor, who was to say who had stopped the robot? But then again, who would believe Max if he told them his demented phone could fly?
Something must have occurred to the doctor, for he suddenly rushed to the door. ‘I had better see what is keeping Bluey. The Major’s men, they are all crazy with the exception of myself, and maybe Mr Fred.’
Max took the opportunity to remove the cuff and flex his fingers slowly back to life. He couldn’t resist looking up to where he could just make out the shape of his phone against the ceiling. How was it doing that without the piezo transducers buried in Cathy’s backyard? As if reading his thoughts, the phone lost its camouflage and floated down onto the table. Red flashing text appeared on its screen: “1% battery. Recharge required urgently – please hurry.”
Max tucked the phone into his pocket and waited. When no one returned after several minutes, he went to the door. He didn’t expect it to be open, but the indicator on the electronic lock turned green the moment he touched the handle. More Confucian hacking? He slowly opened it.
Outside, Nelu was giving a heated lecture to the guards on the misuse of drugs. They didn’t appear to have any trouble countering Nelu’s arguments with ridicule.
‘Your problem, Nelly, is you need a Peace of the action,’ said Bluey and burst into laughter.
‘Yeah. Relax. Take a piece of your own Peace,’ said the other, also amused but less amusing.
‘How much did you take?’ Nelu demanded.
‘Only a taster, Doc,’ the new guard explained. ‘Bluey put an incy wincy drop on my tongue.’
Nelu was silent for a moment, maybe judging what authority he really had. ‘I will tell the Major. You are no longer fit for duty.’
‘True. But you might not live long enough to tell anyone.’
Meanwhile, Bluey had spotted Max through the partly open door, but he was unperturbed. ‘What do you reckon, Mr Clerk? Are we still fit enough to beat you to a pulp? By the way, the Major said you’re not supposed to leave the interview room. Not while you still know your own name.’
For once, Max was glad that he had shared a house with a Peace addict. Whenever Tom took his happy pills, he would become extremely reasonable and very literal, for at least the first hour.
‘Clerk?’ Max came out into the corridor. ‘Who’s this Mr Clerk? Never heard of him. I just came out to find a phone charger. So I could call my mum.’
‘Yeah. No worries. I love my mum too. I’d like to call her, except she died.’ Bluey’s eyes misted with nostalgia. ‘What’s a phone charger?’
‘Mr Clerk!’ exclaimed Nelu. ‘What silly game are you playing?’
But the guards had been bored listening to the doctor, and took no notice of his concern.
‘Crickey! That’s an old one.’ The other guard had idly drifted behind Max while he was talking to Bluey, and slipped the phone from his rear pocket with an agility that might have made Fagin proud. The phone was tossed promptly to Bluey and the pickpocket shoved the muzzle of his gun into Max’s back before he could even react. They may have been spaced out, but these men still moved with the speed of trained killers. Max would need to tread carefully.
‘Yep, it’s flat,’ said Bluey, poking at the screen. ‘I’d forgotten how we needed to charge phones once a month. Let’s go see Mr Fred. He might have a charger. He never throws anything out. Walk this way.’ And he proceeded to do a silly walk. The other guard followed suit. Max hoped he could get the phone charger before their sanity returned.
‘Oh dear, oh dear,’ said Nelu, picking up his bag and following the two guards. ‘The major is not going to be pleased.’
They passed doors marked “Communications”, “Armoury” and “Barber – Wednesdays Only”.
‘Why do you keep calling Driesk Major?’ Max asked. ‘I heard someone say he had been promoted to Colonel.’
‘No, you have it wrong. Not promotion. Demotion,’ Nelu explained. ‘Someone had to take the blame for that robot debacle, and starting a major war. Major war. Ha ha ha. The Major claims to prefer the lesser rank, though the last man who forgot, and called him Colonel, was given bottom wiping duty for a week.’
They eventually found Mr Fred changing a light bulb in the men’s toilets. Somewhere in his seventies, Mr Fred had the calm demeanour of a confident man without any axe to grind, or he was a talented actor. He welcomed the two guards, then eyed them suspiciously across the top of his glasses. ‘You boys are looking mighty relaxed.’
They both grinned sheepishly, passed the phone back to Max and shoved him forward.
‘He wants to call his mum,’ Bluey explained.
Considering their disdain for Nelu, it was surprising that the two guards showed total respect for a janitor. But then, Mr Fred did seem to have the sort of confidence that could tame wild dogs. Max resisted the urge to bow as he showed Mr Fred the phone. ‘I just need a charger.’
Mr Fred’s knowing eyes looked perplexed for only a moment. ‘Ah, it’s you, Max. I don’t recall you having a phone. I used to have one of these. I’m surprised yours still works. A hand-me-down, I suppose?’
‘Yes, Sir. But do I know you?’
‘Not yet, Max. But you know what, I was just up in the electronics lab. I think I saw a wireless charger on the bench there. Don’t know why they’d need one, so maybe I’ll borrow it for you. Then we can have a chat. Will you be here long this time?’
‘But Mr Fred!’ said Nelu. ‘This man is our prisoner.’
Mr Fred turned his bright eyes on Nelu, and the doctor visibly crumpled. ‘‘The electronics lab is sealed off at the moment. The techs were complaining of visions. Shouldn’t you be up in the sick bay checking them out?’
‘No one told me,’ cried the Doctor in a sudden panic. ‘Yes, I should go. I don’t know. Weeks of nothing, then they need me to be in two places at once.’
Mr Fred smiled reassuringly. ‘It’s okay. Calm down. We’ve faced worse problems before. Bluey and Tick know how to deal with prisoners after all. You go off to the sick bay, and these two idiots can take your young man back to the holding tank with our other “guests”. I’ll bring him the phone charger when I get the chance.’
‘And there’s also ...’ Nelu showed Mr Fred the droopy needle.
‘Hmm. Bond disruption in metallic crystals. I’ve read about that, but I’ve never seen it. Could be another effect of that nano-quake that they keep going on about.’
‘But it only happened when I tried to inject Mr Clerk. Should I show it to the Major, or maybe Doctor Taylor?’
Mr Fred shook his head. ‘You don’t want to do that. Everyone is in such a flap about New Zealand invading. I think if you deliver more bad news, they’ll probably have you shot. Better leave it with me until things cool off.’
Nelu fled as if he were to be shot right then, and given the suggestibility of the two guards, it was entirely possible. They were certainly happy to take orders from the janitor, but their initial delirium was wearing off. As they led him away, their faces lost all expression, and while a regular Peace user would become less responsive by now, these men entered a new phase that Max hadn’t seen before. Both started talking frankly about their mothers. He was relieved when they pushed him through a secure door, marked “Holding Tank 3” and closed it behind him.
Max was surprised to discover that past the door was a suite of rooms, much as you might find at a ski lodge. But he was less surprised to find Cathy, Phenalla, Tania and her husband Toby, and the students Lilly and Joshua sitting at a table there. An apparently heated discussion ended the moment he entered. They exchanged bewildered looks. Both Lilly and Phenalla had been crying.
‘Max,’ said Cathy, ‘What’re you doing here?’
Doctor Graeme Taylor’s mouth dropped open as he entered pushing Professor Lehach’s wheelchair. At least the Professor seemed pleased to see him. The left side of his face had slumped, making it difficult to read, but Max thought he detected a smile.
Graeme closed his mouth. His face turned to stone. Lilly smiled uncertainly. The other academics simply stared as if he had returned from the dead.
‘I thought...’ Phenalla began, but didn’t complete the sentence. Instead she jumped up to give him a hug for which he was totally unprepared. It didn’t seem appropriate to return the gesture. For one thing, Phenalla had been scrubbed clean, and he worried his filthy clothing would mess her up again.
Cathy had also showered, and now wore a brunette wig, but Max noticed she looked tired and pale – her beauty more suited to a tragic painting from the romantic era. How had this metamorphosis occurred so quickly?
Phenalla’s hug continued longer than was comfortable, but Max took the opportunity to slip Confucius into the pocket of her jacket. He knew he was failing to take the opportunity to destroy the phone, yet again, but a premonition told him he shouldn’t burn that bridge just yet.
‘Confucius sends his thanks,’ Phenalla whispered. He noticed she still wore her Bluetooth earrings.
Cathy stood up from the table with an effort. ‘Major Driesk has only just told us you were being downloaded,’ she explained and approached him slowly, as if he were somehow a danger to her daughter.
‘He said you were a traitor,’ Joshua said.
‘That we wouldn’t see you again,’ said Tania. ‘And yet, here you are.’
‘Alla was very worried,’ said Lilly, her head crouched in a half bow. ‘So sorry I am for you.’
‘How long have you been seeing my daughter?’ Graeme strode over to put his hands on Phenalla’s shoulders possessively. Max chose to stare down his former supervisor rather than offend Phenalla by protesting that there was nothing between them, but Cathy intervened before any tussle ensued. ‘Come dear. It’s time you had some rest.’ Then felt the need to explain, ‘The doctor gave her something to help her sleep as soon as we got here.’
As she guided Phenalla past the Professor, the old man gently placed a hand on the young woman’s arm. ‘Good night grand-daughter.’ His speech was a little slurred, and Max wasn’t sure he had heard correctly.
‘Good night, Grandy,’ Phenalla replied after a moment’s delay.
‘What! Graeme’s your son?’ Max exclaimed and saw Cathy smile over her shoulder. The old professor was also amused and had a coughing fit.
‘My wife is his daughter, you idiot,’ Graeme snarled.
Max took the seat furthest from his colleagues and held his head in his hands. That Cathy was a blood relation to the Professor didn’t explain all her traits – certainly not her good looks – but it did give him an idea of how she’d been trained as a child. The Professor was, after all, the greatest manipulator he knew.