Dale Brown - Puppet Master

“Yes.” Doyle nodded. “The explosion came from the right?”

“Yes, as you face Starbucks.”

“How did you get the woman and kid out of the building?” asked Lycum.

Massina hesitated.

“We don’t want any trade secrets,” said Doyle.

“What do you want then?”

“An accurate picture of what happened. So we can figure out where the fire started, why it started. Like that.”

“I have no idea when it started or why. There was a blast. My truck was jerked back and the air bags deployed. I got out. A few minutes later, maybe less, we saw the lady at a window.”

“And you sent the, uh, machine to get her.”

“Yes.”

“What is it?”

“A robotic device. That’s all.”

“It went right through the flames,” said Lycum.

“It’s designed to deal with worse than that. It’s based on a bomb disposal bot, though that’s not its function.”

“We were wondering if maybe there’s a camera attached to it. The images might be useful,” said Doyle.

“We have sensor data,” said Massina, “but I can tell you it’s not going to be of much use.”

“Could we see it?”

“I’ll have one of my people work through it with you.” Massina explained that the data was not video as commonly understood but rather an array of data picked up by a combination of sensors — infrared and sonar as well as optical — that supplied a multidimensional matrix. It needed to be interpreted and translated from its native format; you couldn’t just download it to a Windows machine or your TV.

“Wasn’t there a surveillance camera on the building?” he asked.

“It was damaged by the fire,” said Doyle. “We haven’t been able to recover the video.”

“Maybe we could help with that,” said Beefy. “We have some good technical people.”

“We would appreciate it.”

“No guarantees,” said Massina. “Bill, you can work out the details. Excuse me. I have work.”

“Thank you, Mr. Massina,” said Doyle. “If there’s anything we can do.”

“Sure,” said Massina, hurrying back to Peter’s test.

Many hours later, having concluded the day’s tests and checked things on a multitude of projects at his office downtown, Louis Massina arrived at Grace Sisters’ Hospital. Walking briskly through the front lobby, he aimed for the rehab ward, eyes fixed straight ahead.

A familiar twinge jerked through his shoulder as he neared the oval-shaped threshold of the wing’s reception area. It was a mere flash, yet one that pained him greatly. For in that moment, he felt not the stump or the electrodes or the muscle impulses that worked the relays… but his missing arm.

What came next was memory: the accident.

More pain, this across his entire body.

He was on his motorcycle, a car suddenly in front of him. He was in the air, flying into blackness.

A truck. The front of a building.

Blackness.

No arm.

That was what he had a memory of. What he couldn’t remember, what he had blacked out all these years, was the sensation of his wife clinging to his back behind him.

It was the dark hole he never ventured near.

“It must be Thursday,” said the ward’s official greeter, wheeling out from behind his desk. “How are you, Mr. Massina?”

“Good, Paul,” said Massina. “How are you?”

“Still not scheduled, but I’m hopeful. Then once that’s squared away, we go to the prosthetics.”

“Hopefully it will be worth the wait,” said Massina.

“A step up.” Paul laughed.

Massina knew that was supposed to be a joke — people said something similar all the time — but he had never seen any levity in anything relating to injury.

“We have some fresh-baked pastry tonight,” said Paul. “Still hot.”

“How about coffee?” asked Massina.

“We have cappuccino, you know. Sister’s new machine.”

“Just coffee.”

Paul wheeled himself to the large counter area at the side. Selecting a French Roast from the rainbow of K-Cups, he loaded the single-cup maker. Fresh coffee poured through the coffeemaker at the side of the lounge, its heady, caffeinated scent overwhelming the slightly antiseptic smell of the rest of the hospital.

The lounge was in many ways a pressure lock, a transitional space between the hospital as a whole and the amputee ward. The array of drinks — the automatic espresso maker and coffee machines were well complemented by refrigerators stocked with juices, sodas, and water — was just one of the subtle amenities designed to make the place more welcoming. The ward was unlike any other part of the hospital, and in fact differed greatly from most conventional health-care facilities. The closest parallels could be found at Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio or the handful of units sponsored by the VA or military to rehabilitate stricken soldiers.

Like the military hospitals, Grace Sisters’ had a large residential facility next door where families, as well as patients not needing bed care, could stay for extended periods. But what truly set the ward apart from other rehab centers was the tight-knit community atmosphere. Patients, loved ones, and staff spent considerable time with each other, as if they were one large, extended family.

That, and Massina’s inventions. They were the reason most came here in the first place.

One of the lounge walls was covered with monitoring screens, each of which could be configured to show a different part of the ward. One displayed the exercise pool; another the small lab where Massina’s prosthetics were fine-tuned for patients. Video feeds from the six operating rooms could also be turned on, making it possible for families to follow what was going on.

The ward’s ethos was one of openness; information was freely shared between everyone, doctor, patient, friend alike. That extended all the way to Massina’s prosthetics, to the great consternation of Smart Metal’s corporate counsel, who objected to their lack of trademark protection.

“The goal is to heal,” Massina told the lawyer. “If people take my ideas to help others, even better.”

There had been other words, none too polite, as well. The lawyer wasn’t used to losing many battles and having his advice go unheeded, but it did in this case. He continued to bring the matter up every six months or so for form’s sake, though he had long ago conceded this wasn’t something he would prevail on. Presumably his annual increases in fees provided some consolation.

Massina had just taken his first sip of coffee when a diminutive woman burst into the lounge from the main hallway, arms pumping as if they were piston rods in an internal combustion engine.

“Louis!” she snapped. “And how are you tonight?”

“Very well, Sister. How are you?”

“Blessed.” Sister Rose Marie had given this answer every time Massina had asked, which, given that he had known her for forty-five years, meant he had heard it quite a lot. He’d met her as a boy in grammar school, long before she’d been assigned to the hospital. Sister Rose was the most positive and enthusiastic person he knew when he was seven; she was still that now.

“Come,” she told him, “there are some people I’d like you to meet. Bring your coffee — no cappuccino? You really should try that machine. It was a donation.”

Massina followed the nun as she reversed course and revved down the corridor. Despite the years, Sister Rose seemed the same age she’d been when they met: ancient. The soles of her thick shoes clicked on the freshly waxed floor as she increased her pace. Massina had trouble keeping up.

The Sisters of Perpetual Grace had given up their thick wool habits and long veils even before Massina had encountered them in grammar school. They wore what even the younger nuns called “civilian clothes”—long dresses that came to midcalf and very modest blouses that neither left anything uncovered nor hugged a body part. All wore necklaces of thick beads that signified their membership in the order, as well as a wedding ring that showed they were “brides of Christ.”