Chapter 20: Operating Room #1
Lieutenant Dan, guided by structure-specific GPS and advanced motion sensors working in conjunction with the wireless cameras Martin had installed, reached his top speed of barely ten miles per hour. The dented, maligned server-class robot was programmed to collide with Guard-28.
As the more agile Guard-28 rounded a corner, the heavy server-bot slammed into it with the force of two NFL linemen, sending it reeling. The android’s head exploded against the outside corner of intersecting walls, creating a miniature fireworks display as tiny hydraulic vessels leaked blood-red liquid from ruptured artificial muscles. Within seconds, the sealed concrete floor was a shiny crimson of coolants and refined hydraulics and the machine lay quivering, smoke rising from its batteries and circuits.
“You’re Guard-28, I sensed that massive ego from fifty yards away,” snipped Lieutenant Dan. “You don’t look so tough now,” he added.
Martin and Jessica, weapons drawn, stepped cautiously around the smoking guard’s carcass and caught up to Lieutenant Dan. Now that they were on the inside, Martin expected a fight and had left the briefcase and backpack of tools behind, preferring to travel light, carrying only his Glock, two spare magazines of ammunition and a seven-inch hunting knife.
“This way,” he instructed Lieutenant Dan, pointing down a corridor with signage indicating operating rooms one and two. Less than twenty yards down the hall, the trio entered OR-1.
“Is this where they operated?” whispered Jessica.
“Yes,” said Martin, whose face was so contorted with anger it seemed he not only remembered the room but had been awake for the procedure. “I don’t remember my life prior to being wheeled into this room,” he lamented.
The sizable operating room contained a separate, glass-partitioned scrub-area with a deep sink and an attendant’s desk, and inside the main room were an array of medical devices, a laptop computer and assorted electronics that lined the walls and shelves. In the middle was a gurney with tucked, white sheets. A sign at the entry designated the spacious, glass-front enclosure off-limits to unauthorized personnel.
“I’m going to upload some files from their laptop,” said Martin.
“You can do that?” asked Jessica?
“We’ll know soon enough,” he replied.
“Keep watch while I search for my case files,” said Martin. He stuck the gun back in his waistband, woke the computer and ordered Lieutenant Dan to stand guard outside the entry.
Jessica took in the complex blend of life-support apparatuses that surrounding the room’s interior. A replica of half-a-human skull containing a translucent essence that resembled a small, sparkling galaxy cased in clear gel where the brain should be caught her attention. After a few minutes, she noticed Martin had stopped working the laptop and had locked a blank stare on the skull display.
“Martin, what is it, darling? What’s wrong?”
Suddenly, Lieutenant Dan appeared. “We have visitors,” he announced in the tone of a fast-food restaurant’s drive-through speaker.
Jessica screamed when she peered through the operating room’s glass wall. Eight armed guard-droids were in the hall, led by Luther and Fererra, both of whom stood inside the entry pointing assault rifles at Martin.
“We finally meet,” said Fererra.
“It wasn’t part of my plan, but as long as you’ve stopped by, make yourself at home.” said Martin. “I kidnapped the woman; she has nothing to do with this.”
Jessica covered her ears to muffle the horrifying crack of bullets exploding from their automatically ejected cartridges. When the firing finally stopped, she could smell the burned gunpowder and figured Martin was dead. No one could survive so many bullet wounds fired from six feet away.
In shock, at first, she wasn’t sure if she had taken one of the many rounds, but it soon occurred to her that she was unhurt. Surprised to see Martin was still alive and conscious, she flung herself on his quivering, crimson body when the smoked had cleared and desperately patted his hemorrhaging torso with surgical towels tossed to her by Luther.
“Darling, I’m so sorry,” she said as tears streamed down her cheeks, mixing with his blood.
“There’s no pain, Jessica. Listen, I have to tell you something before I go,” said Martin, his voice devoid of the physical agony he should have felt.
“What, Martin... what is it?”
“They managed to keep it a secret, even from me.”
“I don’t understand.”
Jessica’s eyes followed his as they slowly shifted their focus to the half-skull with its translucent gel.
“That exhibit is a true representation of me, of my essence. It’s why I can’t feel pain, even as I die.”
“Oh God! That’s why you have no biological memory” - Jessica swallowed hard and did a double take of the skull display - “you’re a computer?”
“Yes, but a lot more sophisticated than the dead, naked thing down the hall. Unfortunately, my body is human and his is one-hundred-percent artificial - and repairable.”
Jessica stared at him with outright disbelief for a moment before his words took root in her consciousness.
“Martin. I had no idea.”
His sight growing dim, Martin struggled to refocus on Jessica’s face.
“I didn’t know, either. It was the real Martin’s secret; it’s all confirmed in the files.”
“It doesn’t change what we had, what we shared,” said Jessica, as tears washed down her cheeks.
“I love you,” said Martin. “I had to be the one to tell you....”
Suddenly his eyes stared vacantly at the ceiling tiles as his pulse disappeared.
“You bastards!” You perverted bastards!” screamed Jessica.
“I’ll excuse your ill manners, but just this once, Ms. Blake,” said Fererra. “You see, Martin’s secret was only a secret to this hybrid. The real Martin knew, but I suppose he preferred life over death - even life as a hybrid with artificial intelligence.”
“Why?” pleaded Jessica. “Why did you do it?”
“You see, sometimes, even our own agents see and hear things that simply can’t be unseen or unheard, things that simply can’t be entrusted to them. But the Board isn’t an execution panel, so they decided to create the first true hybrid, a man’s body with the intelligence of a super computer. Martin actually preferred that to languishing in a foreign prison on bogus charges.”
Jessica rose slowly then slapped Fererra’s face so hard as to dishevel his thin, greasy hair and send beads of sweat flying through the air.
“Take her to Martin’s former quarters and make her comfortable,” ordered Ferrera after recovering his wits. “I’m sure she’s famished and would like a shower.”
“My pleasure,” said Luther. “I’ll hang a do not disturb sign on the door while I take my first payment.”
Jessica pulled the handgun from between her backside and belt and the first round hit Luther Williams between the eyes, splattering bloody skull fragments against the bullet-proof, plate-glass window. Before Fererra could react, the next round pierced his thick torso and lodged in his spine, instantly paralyzing him. Jessica managed to incapacitate three of the guard-droids before succumbing to a fourth.
One year later...
Jessica’s nude body was strapped face up on the gurney in Operating Room #1 where a team of ACR surgeons and specialists milled around and two nurses scrubbed.
“She is in magnificent health, the perfect patient for our second full fusion project,” said the lead surgeon. “Let’s keep it that way this time,” she added.
“I only hope they reprogrammed the gender nuances appropriately. I heard sexual preference was one thing Martin kept straight,” joked an assisting surgeon.
By now, the whirs and squeaks of Fererra’s electric wheelchair were a daily irritant that wracked the nerves of Renfroe and his researchers and surgeons at the underground Tampa facility. Especially today, when they faced twelve or more hours of surgery removing Jessica’s brain and fusing Martin’s renovated AI implant in its place. The Board had decided to transfer Fererra and now he shared a rather mundane office with Mohauffer at a fraction of his former pay.
“You bone-cutters better make sure Mohauffer’s new tracking software is installed in her and tuned to my office,” grouched Fererra. “I can’t afford another rogue agent,” he lamented, bouncing his wheelchair off a door jamb on his way out.
“What a vegetable,” whispered a nurse. “He still doesn’t get that Mohauffer is his boss now and Jessica’s only connection will be the CEO and Board members.”
“Yeah, too bad he lost so much mental function. I guess we should have hurried before he bled out,” said another doctor, her eyes smiling above a surgical mask. “But who knew they’d reassign him to Tampa?”