Kate Day - In the Quick

I looked for Carla in every class but didn’t see her again. In between classes I took out the equation I still hadn’t solved, pressed the paper against a chilly wall, and wrote out computations, erased them, and tried again. By afternoon, when I walked into classroom 108, a well-lit space that smelled strongly of melted plastic, all I knew was that I was meant to be here for something called MAT YR 1–2.

In the doorway I waited for someone to tell me what to do. Framed drawings and schematics covered the room’s walls. One was an intricate drawing of the agricultural research station on Mars, another a series of sketches of the original Lookout Probe. On the opposite wall I recognized the schematics for the solar fields that stretched in a spiderlike grid across the Pink Planet, fields powered by technology my uncle had developed.

Nearby a group of kids were winding tubing through some sort of plastic bubble; at another table the girl with the yellow tights was operating a whirring sewing machine. In the middle of the room Carla and two boys stood at a table with metal shapes on it. Carla had her hair tied back. She had taken off her shoes and was leaning against the table writing on a pad of paper.

Finally Theresa came into the room. She was still in her blue uniform but now wore a cardigan sweater over it. She asked me, Where are you supposed to be?

I don’t have a group—

She waved at Carla. Did you check June’s equation?

Carla was turning one of the metal shapes over in her hands. She didn’t answer.

Carla, Theresa said again sharply.

I haven’t yet.

Well that works out because she’ll be joining your group.

I thought Carla would be pleased, but she wasn’t.

To observe, Theresa said to me. Her eyebrows pointed. To watch and listen.

Why? I asked.

You’ve arrived in the middle of the year. She appraised me with her small eyes. It’s going to be hard to catch up.

The snow on my shoes was melting. I twisted my cold toes.

So your job is to observe. Don’t get in their way. If the group wants to hear from you, they’ll ask.

I didn’t like it, and she could tell.

Carla’s group is working on something special, she said, and her eyebrows softened a little. Try to listen quietly. Try to learn. All right?

At the table Carla was writing again, and a tall boy with a halo of brown hair stood next to her. His long frame seemed to lean toward Carla like a tree. On the other side of the table a shorter kid crossed his arms over his chest and watched me.

There wasn’t any room at the table and I waited for Carla to acknowledge me. The tall boy turned first.

I’m supposed to join your group, I said. I looked behind me, hoping Theresa was still there. But she had gone.

How old are you? the short boy asked.

I’m twelve.

You look like you’re six.

The other boy reached out his hand and his touch was warm. I’m Lion. Don’t mind Nico. He’s always in a bad mood.

Lion had stepped away from the table to greet me, and now I could see what was on top of it. Hands—like human hands but not exactly. Six of them. They seemed, at first, to be the same, but upon closer look they had variations. One was simply Styrofoam, two were made of plastic, and three were metal. They differed in size, slightly, and in breadth of fingers. The metal ones were numbered four, five, six.

Lion made room for me at the table.

We have to redo the wrist joint, Nico said. It’s catching. He plugged the number-six hand into a battery pack and propped it up on the table.

It was working yesterday, Carla said.

Not really, Lion said. Only for a minute.

Carla flipped a switch on the battery pack and with a soft metal clicking, the hand made a tight fist. Then it stretched its fingers long. But when she moved another switch and the hand rotated to the right, the clicking grew loud and the hand skipped and stuck. It jerked to the right and left but wouldn’t rotate back.

We should go back to number five, change out the thumb, Nico said. It will work—

We’re going to spend hours to find out it won’t, Carla said.

They kept talking. The hands gleamed in the center of the table. I picked one up. It was smooth but not cool to the touch like I thought it would be, like other metal things were—a pair of scissors, a pot, a curtain ring. It was beautiful but seemed oddly weighted.

Why are the fingers so heavy? I asked.

That’s the old prototype, number four, Carla said. We fixed that—

Maybe we should go back to number five, Lion said. Changing out the thumb might work.

Carla turned her head. How?

Lion picked up the number-five hand, plugged in the battery pack, flipped a switch. Its wrist rotated without clicking, without getting stuck, but its grip was weak. When he placed a wrench in its grasp, the tool slipped from its fingers and fell to the table with a thunk. He turned the hand off, picked it up, and worked the tip of its thumb backward and forward.

Tell us what you’re thinking, Carla said.

Let’s just try it, Nico said. See what happens.

Yes let’s, I said.

Carla frowned at me and waited for Lion to answer.

Changing the thumb might not improve the grip strength, Lion said finally. But it will change the angle of the thumb relative to the fingers. And maybe that’s enough.

Great, let’s do it. Nico started to dismantle number five.

Carla pushed the paper and pencil to Lion. Show us what you’re thinking— she looked at Nico —and then we can start.

Nico scowled but he stopped what he was doing. The whir of the sewing machine one table over filled the air.

Lion tapped the pencil to the paper and started to draw.

Nico leaned over him. We’ve been through all that. Skip ahead—

I’m thinking. Is that all right with you?

They argued. Their hands were busy, moving through the air.

My hands rested on the chilly metal table. I wanted to know something—

I have a question, I said.

But nobody was listening.

I grabbed Lion’s pencil and gripped it so he would stop. What does it do? I asked.

We’re able to get good rotation or good finger grip, Carla said. But not both. That’s the problem. Didn’t you see?

I let go of the pencil, even though that wasn’t what I’d asked.

I’m going to take number five apart, Nico announced.

Fine, Carla said.

Lion went back to his drawing, and Carla and Nico began to dismantle the hand. They separated the thumb from the palm, fingertips from fingers. Wrist from hand. There was something awful about it, watching the hand become a pile of plates and screws and wires. As they worked they rehashed number five, each step they had taken, each decision they had made.

I looked at their faces instead of the parts of the hand. I tried to follow their words and gestures, to keep ahold of the through line of their thought. I wanted to stay with them and most of me did. But— Part of my brain caught on something. Some bit of the argument that had already passed. My eyes drifted again to the pieces of metal on the table.

In my mind I turned the parts of the hand this way and that. I made some parts larger, some smaller. I blew them up like balloons and shrunk them down like pieces of desiccated fruit. Then I put the shapes back together again in a wrong way, and again in a slightly less wrong way. I moved the fingers in my mind. It was still wrong. But the wrong was close to right—

All the while Lion drew. He didn’t join in with Carla and Nico’s discussion, but he seemed in a way to be drawing it. Every time their dialogue shifted he added something or erased something or started again. When he was done he had created a hybrid of number five and number six.

Carla and Nico finished dismantling number five, and they pulled Lion’s drawing close. They weren’t happy about it. They picked up pencils of their own and started adding things and erasing things. Lion talked now, defending what he’d done, relenting on some points, holding firm on others. Watching them I felt part of something exciting and important. And yet my own picture wouldn’t go away. My question—What does it do?—wouldn’t go away.