Fusion
Everything was bright in those first few moments. Lights that bloomed out the vision, sounds that penetrated all obstacles and washed out the hearing, smells that almost stung with a sharp clarity. Every sense was useless because they only knew one thing; saturation.
Creeping in from the periphery of awareness came the semblances of a greater reality than the blanket, uniform brightness. They didn’t overpower what was there, but seeped in underneath its notice, too small and too faint to be picked up and stamped out. There was the feeling of warm fabrics, the sensation of pressure on the back, and a gentle breeze across the face. Life persisted.
Far down the spectrum of even those peripheral sensations was a tiny tickling against the fabric of a surgical gown. Six angular, triple-articulated legs crept and pattered across the turquoise surface, exploring the hills and valleys of a ruffled garment without any particular agenda. Beetle agendas, it would come to light many years later, are some of the most benign and friendly agendas in the whole invertebrate kingdom. They have no desire for power or agency over the other members of their domain. There is no innate will to accumulate the material wealth of detritus and smaller insects on which to feed, nor is there a biologically driven impulsion to gain fame or renown among their peers. Entrepreneurial spirit is right out of the question. Instead they are contented to simply crawl around on whatever the world presents to them, trundling here and there on a happy little mission to just see what's about the place. They don't judge who or what they find, nor feel the pull of envy about it. They just feed when they're hungry and then go about their day a little wiser & more travelled than when they started.
Black and green shell on the back and honest mandibles in the front, the beetle explored the new landscape that had appeared in the meadow and allowed her horizons to expand.
Seconds passed and so did the intensity of the brightness. It faded down into normalcy by the action of senses that adjusted themselves to that in which they were submerged. Unfortunately, that also brought about an awareness of pain; suspiciously surgical pain. It wrapped itself in lines around the abdomen, curled past the groin and then encircled each leg like the least pleasant of Christmas ribbons. There were further painful strands looped around Hector’s body elsewhere; each ankle had a searing quality, the little finger of either hand throbbed, and a couple of ribs just felt wrong.
Hector blinked a few times. Whilst it offered no anaesthesia, the act did at least give his eyes a reminder to start focusing on things in the absence of optical saturation. They saw a blue sky marred by smeared clouds. Against each ear there was a gentle brushing that tickled without irritating, except for those moments when the breeze pushed something inside. With one of his sore hands he gripped at the ground, which was apparently a sufficiently surprising turn of events to make somebody unseen gasp.
“He’s awake!” Said the unseen gasper. Hector recognised the voice as that of the surgeon to whom he’d spoken earlier in the day, Dr Shimi. Through some fogginess of recollection Hector remembered that he’d been in the hospital for something; a reasonably important something that required surgery. Re-alignment of a broken pelvis from a devastating, and devastatingly unlikely, tomato-browsing accident at his local supermarket. In a flood the memory of agony emanating from his pelvis filled his mind and drowned out every other concern.
“Really? That was quick.” Someone else agreed.
If he’d just come through pelvic surgery then that probably explained the odd hip pains, Hector reasoned, and with a flash of excited relief he realised that the agony of broken bone was entirely gone. Whatever the surgeon had done to him had clearly been a success. The other pains around his body were probably just his mind playing tricks, he hoped.
The sounds of footsteps through grass started to approach Hector, and he could feel each one vibrating gently through the ground. His mind, now much more awake, began to tick.
‘If I can feel footsteps through grass,’ he thought ‘and I can see the sky,’ he continued ‘and there’s something tickling my ear, and I’m lying on something vaguely cold and soft, and I can feel a breeze across my face, then… surely there would be no way…’
With a tentative apprehension, Hector slowly turned his head to one side and felt a blade of grass take a bold journey into his ear canal, while his eyes confronted a sea of greenery. He was lying on his back in a meadow.
“Try not to move!” Dr Shimi uttered urgently. “You’re recovering from some serious operations!”
‘An operation.’ Hector thought. ‘Surely, just an operation.’
Rolling hills of slightly shiny turquoise, like a soft, malleable rock, rose and fell in ever more rapid succession, until she could step from peak to peak without ever entering the shallow valleys. With her inquisitive mandibles she gently squeezed and picked at the surface here and there, testing it for potential edibility. None of it came away readily or tasted particularly nice, which was often the way with new shiny things in the meadow, but that didn’t matter to her. She was just glad to be experiencing something new.
Six ambulating legs scuttled onwards across the hill crests, and eventually brought the beetle explorer to a new landscape of small caves and round, white slabs of some description. Disappearing underneath the undulating turquoise, each cave mouth rose up from a fault line between two layers of turquoise. They were all floored with something dark and squashy. The round white slabs sat at odd angles in between the cave mouths and apparently pinned the two layers of turquoise together. In all her time walking the meadow, the beetle had never seen anything like it.
Gently she trundled towards one of the cave mouths and stopped at the edge of the lower turquoise layer, sniffing at the warm air which trickled outwards. Her antennae probed at the squashy surface and found it to be warmer even than their air of the cave, and further detected that the turquoise on which she stood was but a thin membrane that overlaid yet more of the squashy something. Everything about this alien landscape was new and confusing, and it thrilled the little beetle to know more.
With an excitement unrivalled by the adventures of recent days, the beetle stepped into the darkness.
Two surgeons in long, white lab coats appeared to Hector’s side, standing close by. Dr Shimi was wearing a look of elation, and her colleague, who Hector now remembered to be Dr Tumnus, seemed more appraising.
“Can you hear us, Hector?” Dr Tumnus asked.
“Of course he can hear us, we didn’t cut his ears off!” Dr Shimi answered for Hector.
“Yeah. I can.” Hector added, for himself. His dry throat croaked out the words.
“It’s always worth checking whether the patient can still hear! Things have gone wrong under anaesthetic in such long operations before.”
“How are you feeling Hec?”
“Erm… alright, I think. I’ve got pains around my hips, and my ankles and little fingers.” He said. Each word became a little easier.
“Sounds about right after what you’ve been through.”
“Nothing around either side of your torso? Around the ribs here and here?” Dr Tumnus enquired with obvious curiosity, pointing at either side of his own ribcage.
“Yeah, actually.”
Dr Shimi shrugged at her colleague.
“Why am I outside?”
The two doctors looked at one another with a confidence that somehow didn’t fill Hector with optimism.
“We thought that you might find this to be a more pleasant location to wake up, rather than a cold, white hospital bed. A bit of sunshine and fresh air is good for morale, and high morale does wonders for recovery.” Dr Tumnus explained, puffing his chest out with pride.
“It’d be a shame for you to miss such a lovely day just because you’re a post-op.” Dr Shimi added.
“But what about the equipment? Monitors and stuff? Don’t I need to be… you know… monitored?”
“We’re here, it’s fine.” She said, waving a dismissive hand. “Your surgery was pretty invasive and major, but not what you’d call majorly major.”
“But the risk of infection from lying on the ground with recently closed surgical wounds must be a concern.”
There was silence from the doctors as they looked askance at one another.
“Well... it wasn’t a concern until now…” Dr Tumnus muttered, staring down into middle distance.
“The gown’ll keep the worst off you. Don’t even worry about it.”
“We should at least have wiped the grass down with some sterilising cloths, in hindsight. Anything could have been urinating on this ground as far as we know.” Tumnus muttered to Shimi. She shrugged.
“I think I’m going to get up then.” Hector decided. Risk of badger-urine infection around his pelvic bones felt like something he’d decline if offered. Both doctors started forwards at him and tensed up.
“No!”
Hector stared up at them, feeling even less comfortable.
“Well, probably yes in a bit, but no at the moment.” Dr Shimi clarified. “You need to be careful about getting up because there could be… you know… lingering effects from the surgery. And your body has a lot of new things to get used to now.”
Dr Tumnus slapped a hand against Dr Shimi’s arm and shh’d her severely.
“What do you mean by that?” Hector demanded. The ribbons of pain flared slightly.
“Dr Shimi simply meant that your body needs to get used to having a correctly aligned pelvis again, after such a long few hours of broken misalignment. It gets used to these things incredibly rapidly under stressful conditions.
Hector felt a sharp pinching pain nearby to his belly-button that made him flinch. As he did so the ribbons of pain around his ribs and pelvis throbbed, muscles pulling against stitches that didn’t want to be put under any further strain. Hector was distracted from the pain, however, and more focused on the electrical buzz that came from his hips.
Dr Tumnus looked nervously down at the wide-eyed expression on Hector’s face, while Dr Shimi grinned excitedly. The jig was up.
A sudden and rapid movement had startled the beetle in her dark cave. She wasn’t a spiritual insect, mostly because the abstraction of unexplained phenomena to a super-insectoid being wasn’t something that really happened in her community, but it certainly seemed that a little test of the squashy stuff with her mandibles had caused the subsequent quaking of the cave. So violent had it been, in fact, that the cave mouths themselves had distorted with the motion and allowed a brief flash of further light into her surroundings.
When the momentary movement had subsided, she remained still. She’d experienced other self-moving creatures before. It hadn’t been entirely unlike the time she climbed onto a large, hairy beast that later started to hop through the long grasses, except for the fact that the hairy beast hadn’t featured any caves. To think that this creature, whatever it was, supported not only its own life but also a full cave network was completely mind-blowing. From the squashy surface and up to the thin membrane on which she’d previously travelled, twisted and curving, rose narrow filaments. When she brushed against them they gently yielded to her pressure, before softly returning to their place when she moved past. It reminded her of the hairy beast, but on a much sparser scale. Thrilled with her discovery, the beetle pressed on.
“What was that?!” Hector pleaded in a growing panic.
“It’s nothing to be alarmed over, Hector. It was just your new hips powering up for the first time since the operation. They can take a few movements to get going properly, but after that they should run silent.” Dr Tumnus explained, not making anything any clearer.
“What do you mean my new hips? Did you give me hip replacements?”
“Please, Hector, we’re not quacks. What you’ve got is so much more than just a paltry hip replacement.” Dr Shimi told him, almost offended at the insinuation. “You’ve got the pinnacle of human pelvis technology embedded into your very own skeleton.”
Hector tried to parse what Dr Shimi had said. He didn’t do very well.
“When we opened you up to look at your pelvis and realign it, we took the decision that it would be best to replace it instead. There was a very real chance of it failing to ever sit in the correct place again, which might have left you in discomfort for the rest of your life.”
“It was a real horror show in there. So we made a couple of chops here and there, got rid of that bony nonsense and fitted you with something far better.” Shimi beamed.
“But… but... the x-rays made it look like it was just a break. You all said it would be easy to put back.”
“We took an executive decision that…”
“Robo-pelvis is better than human pelvis every time.” Dr Shimi interrupted. “Hips are passive components that need muscles to push them around and stuff. Robo-pelvis can provide all that thrust itself, and offers a far greater range of motion. And that’s just the start of it.”
“That’s it. I’m getting up.” Hector decided. Ignoring further protests from the doctors he pushed up from the ground, hearing another electrical buzz from each little finger and from his ankles. Before he knew it, his little fingers had dug themselves into the earth, and his ankles were actively pulling the rest of his body upwards like an aggressive, workaholic hinge. From lying flat on his back, Hector was pitched over onto his front within a few seconds.
“Told you that might happen.”
“You’ll need to get used to using your new ankles, because they’re a lot more powerful than your old ankle system was. Again, actuators inside the joint can provide the power rather than relying on muscle and tendon from the outside. It’s a lot more efficient.” Dr Tumnus explained.
“You cut out my ankles too?!” Hector shouted into the grass, a little worried about trying to stand up again.
“Well if you’re doing the pelvis you might as well hit some other key areas too.” Dr Shimi said, as if that justified it. “We thought you’d be pleased about ending up better than when you started, and it saved having to anaesthetise you twice.”
“Not just twice, even. Four times it would have been, so this was the far safer alternative.”
“I rather think that not carving my bones up would have been the safest choice though.”
"Alright, alright.” Dr Shimi said, raising her palms in submission. “I know what you're thinking and what you’re getting at but it's OK. You don't owe us a penny. This was a service for your wellbeing."
Gingerly Hector pressed up to his hands and knees. Once again the fierce actuation of his little fingers drove them cleanly into the dirt like blades and he shuddered. With only the most delicate of motions, he shifted backwards into a kneeling position.
“A service, you say?”
“Yes! Look at you! You’ve got the hip and ankle strength of twenty men and women, just like anyone would have dreamed.”
“With existing damage to your pelvis, and a lifestyle that clearly opened you up to such dangers in the first place, it’s only reasonable to assume that your pelvis would have broken again in the short to medium term.” Dr Tumnus explained.
“Or the very-short to quite-short term.”
“Or after another thirty-five years.” Hector snapped.
“Or the very-very-short term.” Dr Shimi countered.
“In the last year the incidences of you breaking your pelvis spiked by an enormous proportion, Mr Enkolo. It’s important that we, as caregivers, not only react to existing problems but take steps to proactively prevent further issues.”
Hector stared at the butchers who had replaced parts of his skeleton, and lost a significant amount of faith in the medical profession. He couldn’t tell if they really believed their own reasoning or were simply hoping that he could be fooled, but either way it seemed like arguing would get him nowhere. Making a concerted effort not to put any force into his movements, Hector took a stab at the volatile act of standing up. As predicted by the pair of walking malpracticers the electrical buzz from his ankles and hips didn’t resurge this time; that did nothing to grant him more nuance with the force that his new bodyparts provided, however. More jerkily than a plane made entirely of improperly engaged clutches during near-legendary turbulence, Hector made his way from kneeling to squatting, and then from squatting back to kneeling briefly, before a push up to standing. It left him distinctly out of breath.
Flashes of panic crackled through the beetle’s mind, as the squashy surface beneath her many feet shifted and tilted, rocking violently this way and that in stark, ungainly contrast to the elegant long-grass hopper she’d previously ridden. After coming closer than ever before to being crushed when the creature inverted itself onto the ground, she scurried her way into a natural divot which was surrounded by a ring of the soft stalagmites. Hunkering for safety she pondered that no normal living being moved in such a frantic and unsteady fashion. It was obviously rocking in desperation to cling to its barely-maintained balance. There must have been something wrong with it; perhaps that was why it had been lying in the meadow.
Safe in her dug-out, the beetle rode out the frenzy of activity around herself and wondered what it could all really mean.
“You made it up!” Dr Shimi announced, sounding impressed enough to make Hector worry that his ability to stand had been at risk. “I knew you’d get used to your new joints in no time.”
Hector rubbed at his face where he’d pitched himself into the ground moments before and failed to agree with her. His robotic finger felt distractingly cold against his skin.
“Your faith in me is much appreciated.” He grumbled. Lowering his hand he saw that both of the doctors had taken a small step away from him, but kept up their hungrily intrigued appraisal of his movements.
“It’s more my faith in the stitches and flesh-to-metal fusion that I’m worried about.” Dr Shimi said, peering at each of the new joints in turn. “Wouldn’t want to rupture them so soon after getting it all put in place, but it looks like they’ve held.”
Hector tried not to think about what it would be like to have his pelvis fall off. He could barely work out the logistics of what was passing through or around it to know where it would dangle or what it would pull, but in any case it didn’t seem like the most pleasant image or experience. A part of him wanted to take a swing at the doctors for putting him into this situation, but the rest was so concerned with avoiding the haemorrhaging image that the punch never arose. He settled with audibly tutting instead, which seemed like a good compromise.
“Whoa there, Hector. We know this is overwhelming news but let’s all calm down before the tuts turn into sighs.” Dr Shimi said, with all the calming severity that a medical education could provide. “Your new seams won’t rupture if you take a bit of care and avoiding slamming your face into the floor again.”
“There are some exercises we’ll need you to do for us now as well. They’ll help you get used to the robotic parts and to therefore avoid any further rapid face-descents. That’s the medically correct term for it that I invented just now.”
Desperately, Hector wanted to cover his face with both hands and rub at his cheeks, hoping that everything would go away in the process. The fear of what his untamed mechanical fingers might do in the process, however, gave him cause not to. Instead he looked away from the doctors and examined his surroundings in an attempt to calm down. The meadow in which the medical unprofessionals had deposited him wasn’t anywhere that he recognised. Coarse and rugged ground was covered in a mass of long-stalked grass and interspersed with weeds. Woody stalks spired upwards with small flowers, broad leaves and other botanical features besides that Hector didn’t know enough plant biology to describe. Beyond the pale yellow carpet of grasses, at the bottom of the hill on which the meadow was situated, was a row of trees that delineated one field from the next. Their shadowed bases disappeared into the undergrowth, but must, logically, have been there. Hector had never seen a hovering tree before and he was damned if he’d start believing in their existence now.
All around him, now that he’d come to pay attention to it, he saw more fields, more trees, and the occasional drystone wall. There was evidence that some kind of heavy farming equipment, or a pair of adventurous tyres on their way to a better life, had passed over the fields in serpentine patterns at some time in the past, but no other evidence of recent activity. In fact, there was no evidence of an ambulance having brought him here, nor any place where such an emergency vehicle would have been able to access the field at all.
“Looking from side-to-side with your neck wasn’t one of the exercises.” Dr Tumnus observed, irritably. “You need to wait for our instructions otherwise you might get hurt.”
“Yes, I imagine something terrible could happen. Like somebody carving out my perfectly functional ankles.” Hector growled. There were no robotics involved, but it was still an impressive vocal effort.
“No, you’re off the mark there. It’ll be more like muscle strain or a ruptured seam. This is another example of why you need to let us explain things first.” Dr Shimi corrected.
“Right. So, we’ll need you to very carefully try to bend at the hips and put your hands on your knees.”
Silently, darkly, and statically, Hector stared at Dr Tumnus. He was standing expectantly and watching Hector’s hips carefully.
“Whenever you’re ready.”
Ready. That was what Hector wanted to be. Ideally, ready to slap the cheeks clean off Dr Tumnus’ face and have the pair of them struck off for malpractice. But that required being able to use his body properly.
An almost imperceptible vibration from the actuators of Hector’s new pelvis was the first sign of activity. As subtly as he could manage he tried to pivot his torso forwards, suddenly struggling to remember exactly how it was normally achieved. Bending in the middle, in all but one of the years of his life, had been something he didn’t need to think about. There was, of course, the short period of time after his pelvic accident that had involved very little bending, however that was not as a result of failing to understand how.
In the minute that followed, Hector progressed by over three inches.
“You can probably go faster than this, Mr Enkolo. We’re all eager to wrap this up and get you home.” Dr Shimi encouraged.
Scrunching his eyes closed, he pushed himself to bend a little faster. With a lurching tug at the base of his spine his torso was yanked downwards by the bottom of the abdomen, and he came closer to headbutting his own knees than he had ever thought possible.
“Not that fast, Mr Enkolo. There are some shades of grey in the middle there.” Dr Tumnus lamented.
Creeping her head out of the recess, the beetle wondered if the best course of action would be to push onwards. The slow seismic activity was growing in intensity, no longer gentle, and the sudden folding had been a shock to say the least. Safe though it may have seemed at first, she no longer trusted the cavity in which she had taken shelter.
Explorative antennae felt the way ahead and searched for a path between the soft surface and the overhead membrane, eventually settling on the best direction for further adventure. With an urgency seldom employed in the absence of a proximate hungry bird, the beetle dashed out of her cubby and made for deeper recesses. Every now and again the floor of the cave would vibrate in a low, rumbling frequency that accompanied sounds from the world outside, but it was nothing that could upset the grip of her experienced feet.
Away from the false haven she scuttled, pressing forwards, until she came across a clean hewn rupture in the cave’s squashy surface that stood starkly against the curves and organic undulations she’d otherwise seen. In the scant light she peered and her antennae probed, scouring it for any clues as to what it might have meant. Running across the rupture, she found, were yet more thick strands that pierced the squashy layer. Rather than spiralling upwards like the others, however, these ones were lying flat and taut across the surface, pulling the precipice of the rupture tight against something else entirely.
Testing the ground ahead of her, lest there be another unexpected split in the cave floor, the beetle edged forwards and caressed whatever it was that the rupture was touching. This new terrain was made of hard, clean, and unyielding edges. There was nothing of softness of the squashy surface, nor of the delicate membrane overhead; just rigid bars and chunks that were bound to the cave’s natural floor. The beetle had never seen anything like it. Exhilaration began to gestate in her thorax; this was the greatest gift that any curious beetle could hope for. One cautious step at a time, she continued to explore.
Hector rotated his torso back upright and glared at the doctors. Learning how to articulate his body again had obviously been something he’d expected for the time following major surgery, but doing it to this degree was definitely outside of the norm. At least, he hoped it was. Otherwise these butcher surgeons were doing an impressive job of hiding cyborgs among the population.
“One rep of bending forwards and then straightening again in only four minutes? What an achievement!” Dr Shimi said, stifling laughter. Bedside manner clearly wasn’t her strong suit. “We would rather like you to do a few more though. Prove it wasn’t an enormously tedious fluke.”
“Dr Shimi is correct. If you don’t do this we won’t know if your new motor joints will pull the stitches out. I don’t want to have to repair those again.”
“Right. It took friggin’ ages. I was so bored by the end.” Dr Shimi added.
“Should I be sorry for wasting your time?” Hector snapped, taking an angry involuntary step towards the surgeons. The unstable power profile from his ankles gave his gait a jerky lurch that forced him to end with a stamp. Both of the doctors took a pace backwards.
“Why do you keep walking away from me?!”
“Well…” Dr Tumnus started, guiltily.
“You know what happens with these sorts of things. Well-meaning and revolutionary scientists try to help humankind by making a cyborg, and that cyborg then goes on an angry rampage, starting with the innocent scientists themselves.” Dr Shimi summarised neatly. “We’re acutely aware of it.”
“Have you, by any means, considered that perhaps these cyborgs are angry because they were dissected without consent?”
“Not even slightly, and I refuse to do it now.” Defied Shimi.
“We gain nothing by talking about hindsight, Mr Enkolo. If cyborgs are ungrateful at being upgraded then that’s not the fault of those who seek only to improve humanity’s lot in life.”
Hector stared, still frowning but open-mouthed, at the surgeons who seemed to be deadly serious in their testimony. If Dr Shimi alone had told him that story then he’d have been dubious, but Dr Tumnus had made it perfectly clear that a sense of humour had absolutely no place in his being. Rage at being non-consensually augmented and confusion at why he was in a field had been rushing like a geyser through his head for the whole conversation, but now someone had opened a small overflow of doubt. Maybe they genuinely thought that they’d been acting in the interests of humanity. Maybe their malpractice wasn’t just negligence, but also lunacy. Shouting at the infirm had never got Hector anywhere to date, and he was starting to go off the idea entirely.
“So this was for the advancement of humanity was it? Cutting my pelvis out was the most pressing blocker in the progress of our species and I had to be sacrificed to that end?”
“He’s starting to get it now.”
“Yes, in a manner of speaking I suppose that’s true. But it was also our professional opinion that joint replacement surgery was the best thing for you at the time.”
“Everyone’s better off when they become a superhero.”
Hector tipped his head to one side, because that didn’t involve any of the risky new joints, and stared at Dr Shimi. She was grinning inanely while Dr Tumnus sighed heavily.
“Why are you like this?” He muttered.
“You… were trying to make me into a superhero?”
“Hey, less of the trying. You’ve got robot joints! You’re a real superhero now.” She beamed.
“This really isn’t a helpful thing to be saying. We did this to prove that human-robotic fusion is not only possible but desirable now.”
“Maybe that’s why you did it, but I was gunning for superheroes. I just told you that rubbish about humanity’s progress to make sure you didn’t cancel the whole thing.” Dr Shimi said with a wink.
“How is having a motorised little bloody finger a superpower?”
“It’s more powerful than a normal little finger, duh.”
“No! This was a serious medical procedure to turn Mr Enkolo’s previously fleshy and disgusting body into a beautiful work of unified nature and robotics.” Dr Tumnus seethed. “I won’t have you endangering the implications of this revolutionary treatment by selling it as the fever-dream of some comic-book nerd.”
“Calm it, Tumnus. We both got what we wanted. I don’t see what else improved-humanity could possibly be but a superhero. He’s human-plus.”
“Human-plus can’t currently walk properly, so nice one there.” Hector counterpointed. Each step reminded him that his legs now felt heavier than they used to. It took several of them before he realised that robotic ankles probably weighed more than bone, and it only made him more annoyed.
“Be quiet for a minute, Mr Enkolo. This is important.” Dr Tumnus instructed dismissively.
A snap reflex brought Hector’s right hand into a fist. His little finger pressed itself painfully into his palm and until he focused intently on straightening it. Fist-clenched with one pinky out, he lumbered towards Dr Tumnus at a rate which could be generously described as casual.
“That’s the spirit, Hector! Practice makes perfect. Strike down this source of dissent in our world!” Dr Shimi encouraged.
“Sharon you stop telling him to do that right now!”
“I don’t take orders from either of you, by the way. If I strike anyone, and believe me I would love to, it will be my own decision.” Hector interjected, his steps becoming gradually smoother and more controlled. The two surgeons continued to back away as he approached, one grinning and the other clearly infuriated.
“A little emotional instability is understandable after such a major operation, Mr Enkolo, but we will have to remind you that this is our workplace and we must be treated with respect.”
“Pretty sure this is just some farmer’s field, not a hospital.”
“I guess it’s a field hospital!” Dr Shimi announced, looking undeservingly proud of herself.
“You’re definitely getting a slap for that.”
“Quite so, Mr Enkolo. But the matter remains that your hostility towards us is unfounded, and we have a right to feel safe at work.”
“Rights?! What about my right not to have my bones replaced against my will? What about my right to be allowed to recover from major surgery in a sterile bed rather than a field?” Hector demanded. His paces were approaching normal.
Dr Shimi rolled her eyes.
“You need to get over that one. It’s far nicer to be out here than a stuffy ward. And superheroes never get the easy hospital treatment anyway; they have strange clandestine origins that need to be discovered over the course of at least three-films-too-many.”
“That has never been, and never will be, sufficient justification for throwing my unconscious, incision-riddled body into a muddy field.”
Both Dr Tumnus and Dr Shimi watched with interest how quickly Hector grew accustomed to his new joints. They were both now walking backwards at full pace to maintain a distance between themselves and their new cyborg, but he was still accelerating.
“Nobody wants to be hoisted by their own petard today, Mr Enkolo. You need to listen to us and stay calm. Besides which there are still a series of exercises you’ll need to do for your recovery, and there’s maintenance to perform on your joints too. You need us.” Dr Tumnus cautioned, attempting to sound calm and commanding but not really doing a good job of it. Authority rarely coincides with jogging backwards towards a drystone wall.
“I didn’t want to have to need you!”
Within the strange, solid landscape of the deeper reaches of the cave the beetle scurried over struts and flat planes, feeling with her antennae the curious vibrations from within the structure. The whole cave system, by her estimation, now seemed to be in motion at an increasing pace, and the vibrations she felt from the structure were definitely related to that motion. The more she explored it, the more she felt that the structure must not have been a natural part of the cave; the warmth of the squashy region had quickly faded away on the hard region, and everything smelled and tasted different. There was no way to wrap her head around what that implied, however.
Between two pillars wrapped in the strands that had emerged from the rupture, there was a cavity. The beetle leaned her head in. Forming an auditorium of sorts, the cavity echoed the sounds of vibrations that emanated from below, and the beetle peered down to see that there was a narrow crawlspace into which her body would fit. There was absolutely no hesitation when she scuttled forwards and flattened herself down to begin the crawl.
A total absence of light filled the crawlspace. Hard cave walls pressed against her from every angle. The sounds of vibration grew louder with every step and reverberated through the narrow passage, as if she were descending into the heart of some great monster, but for twenty, thirty, forty steps there was no end in sight. Beetle steps are, however, incredibly short. Several steps are required to cover the length of their body alone, so she didn’t worry. She just kept pressing onwards, feeling the now characteristically regular rocking of the cave system around her.
There was no great chamber or cavern at the end of the crawlspace. No huge illuminated canyon or beating heart greeted her. Just more darkness and another, wholly different kind of strand that ran perpendicular to the crawlspace and hummed ever-so-slightly. It wasn’t easy to pick the hum out from the all-encompassing vibrations around her, but her sensitive antennae could not be fooled up close.
The strand was peculiar in its humming. The other strands that emerged from the squashy surface, even the flattened ones at the rupture, had been perfectly silent and soft. This one was somehow sturdier and more sterile, like everything in this harder region. The beetle’s natural curiosity could not be denied, and she needed to learn more about what this could be. With tentative mandibles she gently grasped it.
There was a small fizz, and then the humming continued.
From Hector’s pelvis, there was a spark and a jolt. He stopped dead, eyes blank and mouth dropping open.
Drs Shimi and Tumnus kept retreating for a few more steps, and then slowed to a suspicious halt as well. Critically appraising eyes ran over Hector, looking for signs of subterfuge or ulterior motives but finding nothing except unnerving serenity.
“Mr Enkolo? Have you taken our advice and calmed down?”
There was silence.
“Thank you if you have.”
“Maybe he’s having an epiphany. Some kind of harrowing call-to-arms to save the world.” Dr Shimi hoped out loud.
“Unless epiphanies render people insensible I don’t think that’s the case.”
“It might be a wave of remorse for trying to hit us. It’s not very heroic behaviour and his new nature is probably catching up with him about that.”
“Please drop it with the hero nonsense, Dr Shimi. We might have to get Mr Enkolo back to the hospital to work out why his brain isn’t working.” Dr Tumnus said, pacing back to Hector. “I thought our neurological grafting was the safe bit. It’s proven and fine.”
“Maybe there just wasn’t enough neurological activity in the first place for the joints to use. Might have basically drained all the current from his head into capacitances in the robotics. Probably something we should look into.” Dr Shimi speculated with vague professional interest.
Taking a small torch from his lab-coat pocket, Dr Tumnus shone a beam into each of Hector’s eyes in turn.
“Pupils are still reactive to light. There’s something going on in there.”
“We’ll just stick him back on the ward and blame it on reality television or something while we conduct some more tests.” Opening a small spanner and screwdriver set, Dr Shimi joined Dr Tumnus at Hector’s side. “Want me to whip those little fingers off while we’re here?”
“Good Lord, give him a chance, Sharon.”
Dr Shimi shrugged.
“Hector wouldn’t mind. He seemed miffed at having them in the first place, didn’t you Hec?” She said, slapping him on the shoulder.
Slowly, Hector’s head swivelled to face hers. All of the animosity was gone, and in its place a quiet curiosity.
“Everything alright there, Hector?” Dr Shimi asked, surreptitiously re-pocketing the screwdrivers. She didn’t really think that obvious attempts to deconstruct his hands would improve his mood, even if he was annoyed about the surgery in the first place.
“Yes. Yes I think so.” Hector said earnestly. Patiently he watched Dr Shimi’s face and looked forward to learning what it was that she was doing.
“You’re not feeling as angry anymore?” Dr Tumnus asked. Hector turned to face him.
“No.” Hector replied simply. Both of the doctors were familiar to him, but he realised that he’d never really studied how they looked or behaved before. For some reason there’d always been something else on his mind that had seemed more important than learning about his environment. He couldn’t fathom it.
“Well… that must be a good thing, realistically speaking…” Dr Tumnus muttered, frowning in confusion as he looked into Hector’s passive face.
All three of them stood in silence for a few moments. Dr Shimi and Dr Tumnus tried to assess what could have happened, while Hector casually looked around himself and studied the meadow. Again, although he’d looked over it before, he hadn’t really appreciated it. He also somehow knew how it looked from an impossibly tiny perspective, climbing up single blades of grass and exploring the back of a rabbit.
“Shall we… er… continue with the exercises?” Dr Tumnus suggested, at something of a loss.
“Yes, that sounds fine. Bending at the middle wasn’t it? I’m curious as to how this will work out.” Hector said, bending without hesitation and placing both hands on his knees. He got the strange feeling that he could picture the inside of his robotic pelvis, and was overcome by the sensation that he didn’t know how to work his antennae anymore.
“Very good. I see all that storming and rampaging practice helped you to no end.” Dr Shimi observed. “Keep going for a few more reps.”
“Definitely.” Hector agreed, intrigued as to how events would pan out. “Say, am I supposed to have cyborg antennae as well? Or a few more legs than this?”
The doctors looked at one another, one with mounting concern and the other with growing excitement.
“Human-plus would definitely have more legs.” Dr Shimi said, lunging to press Dr Tumnus’ professional buttons.
“And superheroes?” He sneered.
His colleague shrugged with a smirk.
“How many legs were you thinking?”
“I just feel like I used to have 6. Or should have 6. Or it would just be more natural for me. And I seem to be missing a thorax.”
“6 legs… thorax… antennae…” Dr Tumnus mumbled. “Mr Enkolo, you’re not an insect. You’re a cyborg human.”
“But there’s nothing to stop that cyborg from being more insectoid is there? Think of the benefits!” Dr Shimi encouraged, grinning and rubbing her hands excitedly.
“Which are what, exactly? Aside from fighting crime?”
“I don’t know. I told you to think of them, not to ask me about them. Do your own dirty work Tumnus.” Sharon snapped.
“I think I would like them if you’re willing. It would help all of us learn a lot more.”
The three of them shared a contemplative silence.
Creeping in from the periphery of awareness came the semblances of a greater reality than the blanket, uniform brightness. They didn’t overpower what was there, but seeped in underneath its notice, too small and too faint to be picked up and stamped out. There was the feeling of warm fabrics, the sensation of pressure on the back, and a gentle breeze across the face. Life persisted.
Far down the spectrum of even those peripheral sensations was a tiny tickling against the fabric of a surgical gown. Six angular, triple-articulated legs crept and pattered across the turquoise surface, exploring the hills and valleys of a ruffled garment without any particular agenda. Beetle agendas, it would come to light many years later, are some of the most benign and friendly agendas in the whole invertebrate kingdom. They have no desire for power or agency over the other members of their domain. There is no innate will to accumulate the material wealth of detritus and smaller insects on which to feed, nor is there a biologically driven impulsion to gain fame or renown among their peers. Entrepreneurial spirit is right out of the question. Instead they are contented to simply crawl around on whatever the world presents to them, trundling here and there on a happy little mission to just see what's about the place. They don't judge who or what they find, nor feel the pull of envy about it. They just feed when they're hungry and then go about their day a little wiser & more travelled than when they started.
Black and green shell on the back and honest mandibles in the front, the beetle explored the new landscape that had appeared in the meadow and allowed her horizons to expand.
Seconds passed and so did the intensity of the brightness. It faded down into normalcy by the action of senses that adjusted themselves to that in which they were submerged. Unfortunately, that also brought about an awareness of pain; suspiciously surgical pain. It wrapped itself in lines around the abdomen, curled past the groin and then encircled each leg like the least pleasant of Christmas ribbons. There were further painful strands looped around Hector’s body elsewhere; each ankle had a searing quality, the little finger of either hand throbbed, and a couple of ribs just felt wrong.
Hector blinked a few times. Whilst it offered no anaesthesia, the act did at least give his eyes a reminder to start focusing on things in the absence of optical saturation. They saw a blue sky marred by smeared clouds. Against each ear there was a gentle brushing that tickled without irritating, except for those moments when the breeze pushed something inside. With one of his sore hands he gripped at the ground, which was apparently a sufficiently surprising turn of events to make somebody unseen gasp.
“He’s awake!” Said the unseen gasper. Hector recognised the voice as that of the surgeon to whom he’d spoken earlier in the day, Dr Shimi. Through some fogginess of recollection Hector remembered that he’d been in the hospital for something; a reasonably important something that required surgery. Re-alignment of a broken pelvis from a devastating, and devastatingly unlikely, tomato-browsing accident at his local supermarket. In a flood the memory of agony emanating from his pelvis filled his mind and drowned out every other concern.
“Really? That was quick.” Someone else agreed.
If he’d just come through pelvic surgery then that probably explained the odd hip pains, Hector reasoned, and with a flash of excited relief he realised that the agony of broken bone was entirely gone. Whatever the surgeon had done to him had clearly been a success. The other pains around his body were probably just his mind playing tricks, he hoped.
The sounds of footsteps through grass started to approach Hector, and he could feel each one vibrating gently through the ground. His mind, now much more awake, began to tick.
‘If I can feel footsteps through grass,’ he thought ‘and I can see the sky,’ he continued ‘and there’s something tickling my ear, and I’m lying on something vaguely cold and soft, and I can feel a breeze across my face, then… surely there would be no way…’
With a tentative apprehension, Hector slowly turned his head to one side and felt a blade of grass take a bold journey into his ear canal, while his eyes confronted a sea of greenery. He was lying on his back in a meadow.
“Try not to move!” Dr Shimi uttered urgently. “You’re recovering from some serious operations!”
‘An operation.’ Hector thought. ‘Surely, just an operation.’
Rolling hills of slightly shiny turquoise, like a soft, malleable rock, rose and fell in ever more rapid succession, until she could step from peak to peak without ever entering the shallow valleys. With her inquisitive mandibles she gently squeezed and picked at the surface here and there, testing it for potential edibility. None of it came away readily or tasted particularly nice, which was often the way with new shiny things in the meadow, but that didn’t matter to her. She was just glad to be experiencing something new.
Six ambulating legs scuttled onwards across the hill crests, and eventually brought the beetle explorer to a new landscape of small caves and round, white slabs of some description. Disappearing underneath the undulating turquoise, each cave mouth rose up from a fault line between two layers of turquoise. They were all floored with something dark and squashy. The round white slabs sat at odd angles in between the cave mouths and apparently pinned the two layers of turquoise together. In all her time walking the meadow, the beetle had never seen anything like it.
Gently she trundled towards one of the cave mouths and stopped at the edge of the lower turquoise layer, sniffing at the warm air which trickled outwards. Her antennae probed at the squashy surface and found it to be warmer even than their air of the cave, and further detected that the turquoise on which she stood was but a thin membrane that overlaid yet more of the squashy something. Everything about this alien landscape was new and confusing, and it thrilled the little beetle to know more.
With an excitement unrivalled by the adventures of recent days, the beetle stepped into the darkness.
Two surgeons in long, white lab coats appeared to Hector’s side, standing close by. Dr Shimi was wearing a look of elation, and her colleague, who Hector now remembered to be Dr Tumnus, seemed more appraising.
“Can you hear us, Hector?” Dr Tumnus asked.
“Of course he can hear us, we didn’t cut his ears off!” Dr Shimi answered for Hector.
“Yeah. I can.” Hector added, for himself. His dry throat croaked out the words.
“It’s always worth checking whether the patient can still hear! Things have gone wrong under anaesthetic in such long operations before.”
“How are you feeling Hec?”
“Erm… alright, I think. I’ve got pains around my hips, and my ankles and little fingers.” He said. Each word became a little easier.
“Sounds about right after what you’ve been through.”
“Nothing around either side of your torso? Around the ribs here and here?” Dr Tumnus enquired with obvious curiosity, pointing at either side of his own ribcage.
“Yeah, actually.”
Dr Shimi shrugged at her colleague.
“Why am I outside?”
The two doctors looked at one another with a confidence that somehow didn’t fill Hector with optimism.
“We thought that you might find this to be a more pleasant location to wake up, rather than a cold, white hospital bed. A bit of sunshine and fresh air is good for morale, and high morale does wonders for recovery.” Dr Tumnus explained, puffing his chest out with pride.
“It’d be a shame for you to miss such a lovely day just because you’re a post-op.” Dr Shimi added.
“But what about the equipment? Monitors and stuff? Don’t I need to be… you know… monitored?”
“We’re here, it’s fine.” She said, waving a dismissive hand. “Your surgery was pretty invasive and major, but not what you’d call majorly major.”
“But the risk of infection from lying on the ground with recently closed surgical wounds must be a concern.”
There was silence from the doctors as they looked askance at one another.
“Well... it wasn’t a concern until now…” Dr Tumnus muttered, staring down into middle distance.
“The gown’ll keep the worst off you. Don’t even worry about it.”
“We should at least have wiped the grass down with some sterilising cloths, in hindsight. Anything could have been urinating on this ground as far as we know.” Tumnus muttered to Shimi. She shrugged.
“I think I’m going to get up then.” Hector decided. Risk of badger-urine infection around his pelvic bones felt like something he’d decline if offered. Both doctors started forwards at him and tensed up.
“No!”
Hector stared up at them, feeling even less comfortable.
“Well, probably yes in a bit, but no at the moment.” Dr Shimi clarified. “You need to be careful about getting up because there could be… you know… lingering effects from the surgery. And your body has a lot of new things to get used to now.”
Dr Tumnus slapped a hand against Dr Shimi’s arm and shh’d her severely.
“What do you mean by that?” Hector demanded. The ribbons of pain flared slightly.
“Dr Shimi simply meant that your body needs to get used to having a correctly aligned pelvis again, after such a long few hours of broken misalignment. It gets used to these things incredibly rapidly under stressful conditions.
Hector felt a sharp pinching pain nearby to his belly-button that made him flinch. As he did so the ribbons of pain around his ribs and pelvis throbbed, muscles pulling against stitches that didn’t want to be put under any further strain. Hector was distracted from the pain, however, and more focused on the electrical buzz that came from his hips.
Dr Tumnus looked nervously down at the wide-eyed expression on Hector’s face, while Dr Shimi grinned excitedly. The jig was up.
A sudden and rapid movement had startled the beetle in her dark cave. She wasn’t a spiritual insect, mostly because the abstraction of unexplained phenomena to a super-insectoid being wasn’t something that really happened in her community, but it certainly seemed that a little test of the squashy stuff with her mandibles had caused the subsequent quaking of the cave. So violent had it been, in fact, that the cave mouths themselves had distorted with the motion and allowed a brief flash of further light into her surroundings.
When the momentary movement had subsided, she remained still. She’d experienced other self-moving creatures before. It hadn’t been entirely unlike the time she climbed onto a large, hairy beast that later started to hop through the long grasses, except for the fact that the hairy beast hadn’t featured any caves. To think that this creature, whatever it was, supported not only its own life but also a full cave network was completely mind-blowing. From the squashy surface and up to the thin membrane on which she’d previously travelled, twisted and curving, rose narrow filaments. When she brushed against them they gently yielded to her pressure, before softly returning to their place when she moved past. It reminded her of the hairy beast, but on a much sparser scale. Thrilled with her discovery, the beetle pressed on.
“What was that?!” Hector pleaded in a growing panic.
“It’s nothing to be alarmed over, Hector. It was just your new hips powering up for the first time since the operation. They can take a few movements to get going properly, but after that they should run silent.” Dr Tumnus explained, not making anything any clearer.
“What do you mean my new hips? Did you give me hip replacements?”
“Please, Hector, we’re not quacks. What you’ve got is so much more than just a paltry hip replacement.” Dr Shimi told him, almost offended at the insinuation. “You’ve got the pinnacle of human pelvis technology embedded into your very own skeleton.”
Hector tried to parse what Dr Shimi had said. He didn’t do very well.
“When we opened you up to look at your pelvis and realign it, we took the decision that it would be best to replace it instead. There was a very real chance of it failing to ever sit in the correct place again, which might have left you in discomfort for the rest of your life.”
“It was a real horror show in there. So we made a couple of chops here and there, got rid of that bony nonsense and fitted you with something far better.” Shimi beamed.
“But… but... the x-rays made it look like it was just a break. You all said it would be easy to put back.”
“We took an executive decision that…”
“Robo-pelvis is better than human pelvis every time.” Dr Shimi interrupted. “Hips are passive components that need muscles to push them around and stuff. Robo-pelvis can provide all that thrust itself, and offers a far greater range of motion. And that’s just the start of it.”
“That’s it. I’m getting up.” Hector decided. Ignoring further protests from the doctors he pushed up from the ground, hearing another electrical buzz from each little finger and from his ankles. Before he knew it, his little fingers had dug themselves into the earth, and his ankles were actively pulling the rest of his body upwards like an aggressive, workaholic hinge. From lying flat on his back, Hector was pitched over onto his front within a few seconds.
“Told you that might happen.”
“You’ll need to get used to using your new ankles, because they’re a lot more powerful than your old ankle system was. Again, actuators inside the joint can provide the power rather than relying on muscle and tendon from the outside. It’s a lot more efficient.” Dr Tumnus explained.
“You cut out my ankles too?!” Hector shouted into the grass, a little worried about trying to stand up again.
“Well if you’re doing the pelvis you might as well hit some other key areas too.” Dr Shimi said, as if that justified it. “We thought you’d be pleased about ending up better than when you started, and it saved having to anaesthetise you twice.”
“Not just twice, even. Four times it would have been, so this was the far safer alternative.”
“I rather think that not carving my bones up would have been the safest choice though.”
"Alright, alright.” Dr Shimi said, raising her palms in submission. “I know what you're thinking and what you’re getting at but it's OK. You don't owe us a penny. This was a service for your wellbeing."
Gingerly Hector pressed up to his hands and knees. Once again the fierce actuation of his little fingers drove them cleanly into the dirt like blades and he shuddered. With only the most delicate of motions, he shifted backwards into a kneeling position.
“A service, you say?”
“Yes! Look at you! You’ve got the hip and ankle strength of twenty men and women, just like anyone would have dreamed.”
“With existing damage to your pelvis, and a lifestyle that clearly opened you up to such dangers in the first place, it’s only reasonable to assume that your pelvis would have broken again in the short to medium term.” Dr Tumnus explained.
“Or the very-short to quite-short term.”
“Or after another thirty-five years.” Hector snapped.
“Or the very-very-short term.” Dr Shimi countered.
“In the last year the incidences of you breaking your pelvis spiked by an enormous proportion, Mr Enkolo. It’s important that we, as caregivers, not only react to existing problems but take steps to proactively prevent further issues.”
Hector stared at the butchers who had replaced parts of his skeleton, and lost a significant amount of faith in the medical profession. He couldn’t tell if they really believed their own reasoning or were simply hoping that he could be fooled, but either way it seemed like arguing would get him nowhere. Making a concerted effort not to put any force into his movements, Hector took a stab at the volatile act of standing up. As predicted by the pair of walking malpracticers the electrical buzz from his ankles and hips didn’t resurge this time; that did nothing to grant him more nuance with the force that his new bodyparts provided, however. More jerkily than a plane made entirely of improperly engaged clutches during near-legendary turbulence, Hector made his way from kneeling to squatting, and then from squatting back to kneeling briefly, before a push up to standing. It left him distinctly out of breath.
Flashes of panic crackled through the beetle’s mind, as the squashy surface beneath her many feet shifted and tilted, rocking violently this way and that in stark, ungainly contrast to the elegant long-grass hopper she’d previously ridden. After coming closer than ever before to being crushed when the creature inverted itself onto the ground, she scurried her way into a natural divot which was surrounded by a ring of the soft stalagmites. Hunkering for safety she pondered that no normal living being moved in such a frantic and unsteady fashion. It was obviously rocking in desperation to cling to its barely-maintained balance. There must have been something wrong with it; perhaps that was why it had been lying in the meadow.
Safe in her dug-out, the beetle rode out the frenzy of activity around herself and wondered what it could all really mean.
“You made it up!” Dr Shimi announced, sounding impressed enough to make Hector worry that his ability to stand had been at risk. “I knew you’d get used to your new joints in no time.”
Hector rubbed at his face where he’d pitched himself into the ground moments before and failed to agree with her. His robotic finger felt distractingly cold against his skin.
“Your faith in me is much appreciated.” He grumbled. Lowering his hand he saw that both of the doctors had taken a small step away from him, but kept up their hungrily intrigued appraisal of his movements.
“It’s more my faith in the stitches and flesh-to-metal fusion that I’m worried about.” Dr Shimi said, peering at each of the new joints in turn. “Wouldn’t want to rupture them so soon after getting it all put in place, but it looks like they’ve held.”
Hector tried not to think about what it would be like to have his pelvis fall off. He could barely work out the logistics of what was passing through or around it to know where it would dangle or what it would pull, but in any case it didn’t seem like the most pleasant image or experience. A part of him wanted to take a swing at the doctors for putting him into this situation, but the rest was so concerned with avoiding the haemorrhaging image that the punch never arose. He settled with audibly tutting instead, which seemed like a good compromise.
“Whoa there, Hector. We know this is overwhelming news but let’s all calm down before the tuts turn into sighs.” Dr Shimi said, with all the calming severity that a medical education could provide. “Your new seams won’t rupture if you take a bit of care and avoiding slamming your face into the floor again.”
“There are some exercises we’ll need you to do for us now as well. They’ll help you get used to the robotic parts and to therefore avoid any further rapid face-descents. That’s the medically correct term for it that I invented just now.”
Desperately, Hector wanted to cover his face with both hands and rub at his cheeks, hoping that everything would go away in the process. The fear of what his untamed mechanical fingers might do in the process, however, gave him cause not to. Instead he looked away from the doctors and examined his surroundings in an attempt to calm down. The meadow in which the medical unprofessionals had deposited him wasn’t anywhere that he recognised. Coarse and rugged ground was covered in a mass of long-stalked grass and interspersed with weeds. Woody stalks spired upwards with small flowers, broad leaves and other botanical features besides that Hector didn’t know enough plant biology to describe. Beyond the pale yellow carpet of grasses, at the bottom of the hill on which the meadow was situated, was a row of trees that delineated one field from the next. Their shadowed bases disappeared into the undergrowth, but must, logically, have been there. Hector had never seen a hovering tree before and he was damned if he’d start believing in their existence now.
All around him, now that he’d come to pay attention to it, he saw more fields, more trees, and the occasional drystone wall. There was evidence that some kind of heavy farming equipment, or a pair of adventurous tyres on their way to a better life, had passed over the fields in serpentine patterns at some time in the past, but no other evidence of recent activity. In fact, there was no evidence of an ambulance having brought him here, nor any place where such an emergency vehicle would have been able to access the field at all.
“Looking from side-to-side with your neck wasn’t one of the exercises.” Dr Tumnus observed, irritably. “You need to wait for our instructions otherwise you might get hurt.”
“Yes, I imagine something terrible could happen. Like somebody carving out my perfectly functional ankles.” Hector growled. There were no robotics involved, but it was still an impressive vocal effort.
“No, you’re off the mark there. It’ll be more like muscle strain or a ruptured seam. This is another example of why you need to let us explain things first.” Dr Shimi corrected.
“Right. So, we’ll need you to very carefully try to bend at the hips and put your hands on your knees.”
Silently, darkly, and statically, Hector stared at Dr Tumnus. He was standing expectantly and watching Hector’s hips carefully.
“Whenever you’re ready.”
Ready. That was what Hector wanted to be. Ideally, ready to slap the cheeks clean off Dr Tumnus’ face and have the pair of them struck off for malpractice. But that required being able to use his body properly.
An almost imperceptible vibration from the actuators of Hector’s new pelvis was the first sign of activity. As subtly as he could manage he tried to pivot his torso forwards, suddenly struggling to remember exactly how it was normally achieved. Bending in the middle, in all but one of the years of his life, had been something he didn’t need to think about. There was, of course, the short period of time after his pelvic accident that had involved very little bending, however that was not as a result of failing to understand how.
In the minute that followed, Hector progressed by over three inches.
“You can probably go faster than this, Mr Enkolo. We’re all eager to wrap this up and get you home.” Dr Shimi encouraged.
Scrunching his eyes closed, he pushed himself to bend a little faster. With a lurching tug at the base of his spine his torso was yanked downwards by the bottom of the abdomen, and he came closer to headbutting his own knees than he had ever thought possible.
“Not that fast, Mr Enkolo. There are some shades of grey in the middle there.” Dr Tumnus lamented.
Creeping her head out of the recess, the beetle wondered if the best course of action would be to push onwards. The slow seismic activity was growing in intensity, no longer gentle, and the sudden folding had been a shock to say the least. Safe though it may have seemed at first, she no longer trusted the cavity in which she had taken shelter.
Explorative antennae felt the way ahead and searched for a path between the soft surface and the overhead membrane, eventually settling on the best direction for further adventure. With an urgency seldom employed in the absence of a proximate hungry bird, the beetle dashed out of her cubby and made for deeper recesses. Every now and again the floor of the cave would vibrate in a low, rumbling frequency that accompanied sounds from the world outside, but it was nothing that could upset the grip of her experienced feet.
Away from the false haven she scuttled, pressing forwards, until she came across a clean hewn rupture in the cave’s squashy surface that stood starkly against the curves and organic undulations she’d otherwise seen. In the scant light she peered and her antennae probed, scouring it for any clues as to what it might have meant. Running across the rupture, she found, were yet more thick strands that pierced the squashy layer. Rather than spiralling upwards like the others, however, these ones were lying flat and taut across the surface, pulling the precipice of the rupture tight against something else entirely.
Testing the ground ahead of her, lest there be another unexpected split in the cave floor, the beetle edged forwards and caressed whatever it was that the rupture was touching. This new terrain was made of hard, clean, and unyielding edges. There was nothing of softness of the squashy surface, nor of the delicate membrane overhead; just rigid bars and chunks that were bound to the cave’s natural floor. The beetle had never seen anything like it. Exhilaration began to gestate in her thorax; this was the greatest gift that any curious beetle could hope for. One cautious step at a time, she continued to explore.
Hector rotated his torso back upright and glared at the doctors. Learning how to articulate his body again had obviously been something he’d expected for the time following major surgery, but doing it to this degree was definitely outside of the norm. At least, he hoped it was. Otherwise these butcher surgeons were doing an impressive job of hiding cyborgs among the population.
“One rep of bending forwards and then straightening again in only four minutes? What an achievement!” Dr Shimi said, stifling laughter. Bedside manner clearly wasn’t her strong suit. “We would rather like you to do a few more though. Prove it wasn’t an enormously tedious fluke.”
“Dr Shimi is correct. If you don’t do this we won’t know if your new motor joints will pull the stitches out. I don’t want to have to repair those again.”
“Right. It took friggin’ ages. I was so bored by the end.” Dr Shimi added.
“Should I be sorry for wasting your time?” Hector snapped, taking an angry involuntary step towards the surgeons. The unstable power profile from his ankles gave his gait a jerky lurch that forced him to end with a stamp. Both of the doctors took a pace backwards.
“Why do you keep walking away from me?!”
“Well…” Dr Tumnus started, guiltily.
“You know what happens with these sorts of things. Well-meaning and revolutionary scientists try to help humankind by making a cyborg, and that cyborg then goes on an angry rampage, starting with the innocent scientists themselves.” Dr Shimi summarised neatly. “We’re acutely aware of it.”
“Have you, by any means, considered that perhaps these cyborgs are angry because they were dissected without consent?”
“Not even slightly, and I refuse to do it now.” Defied Shimi.
“We gain nothing by talking about hindsight, Mr Enkolo. If cyborgs are ungrateful at being upgraded then that’s not the fault of those who seek only to improve humanity’s lot in life.”
Hector stared, still frowning but open-mouthed, at the surgeons who seemed to be deadly serious in their testimony. If Dr Shimi alone had told him that story then he’d have been dubious, but Dr Tumnus had made it perfectly clear that a sense of humour had absolutely no place in his being. Rage at being non-consensually augmented and confusion at why he was in a field had been rushing like a geyser through his head for the whole conversation, but now someone had opened a small overflow of doubt. Maybe they genuinely thought that they’d been acting in the interests of humanity. Maybe their malpractice wasn’t just negligence, but also lunacy. Shouting at the infirm had never got Hector anywhere to date, and he was starting to go off the idea entirely.
“So this was for the advancement of humanity was it? Cutting my pelvis out was the most pressing blocker in the progress of our species and I had to be sacrificed to that end?”
“He’s starting to get it now.”
“Yes, in a manner of speaking I suppose that’s true. But it was also our professional opinion that joint replacement surgery was the best thing for you at the time.”
“Everyone’s better off when they become a superhero.”
Hector tipped his head to one side, because that didn’t involve any of the risky new joints, and stared at Dr Shimi. She was grinning inanely while Dr Tumnus sighed heavily.
“Why are you like this?” He muttered.
“You… were trying to make me into a superhero?”
“Hey, less of the trying. You’ve got robot joints! You’re a real superhero now.” She beamed.
“This really isn’t a helpful thing to be saying. We did this to prove that human-robotic fusion is not only possible but desirable now.”
“Maybe that’s why you did it, but I was gunning for superheroes. I just told you that rubbish about humanity’s progress to make sure you didn’t cancel the whole thing.” Dr Shimi said with a wink.
“How is having a motorised little bloody finger a superpower?”
“It’s more powerful than a normal little finger, duh.”
“No! This was a serious medical procedure to turn Mr Enkolo’s previously fleshy and disgusting body into a beautiful work of unified nature and robotics.” Dr Tumnus seethed. “I won’t have you endangering the implications of this revolutionary treatment by selling it as the fever-dream of some comic-book nerd.”
“Calm it, Tumnus. We both got what we wanted. I don’t see what else improved-humanity could possibly be but a superhero. He’s human-plus.”
“Human-plus can’t currently walk properly, so nice one there.” Hector counterpointed. Each step reminded him that his legs now felt heavier than they used to. It took several of them before he realised that robotic ankles probably weighed more than bone, and it only made him more annoyed.
“Be quiet for a minute, Mr Enkolo. This is important.” Dr Tumnus instructed dismissively.
A snap reflex brought Hector’s right hand into a fist. His little finger pressed itself painfully into his palm and until he focused intently on straightening it. Fist-clenched with one pinky out, he lumbered towards Dr Tumnus at a rate which could be generously described as casual.
“That’s the spirit, Hector! Practice makes perfect. Strike down this source of dissent in our world!” Dr Shimi encouraged.
“Sharon you stop telling him to do that right now!”
“I don’t take orders from either of you, by the way. If I strike anyone, and believe me I would love to, it will be my own decision.” Hector interjected, his steps becoming gradually smoother and more controlled. The two surgeons continued to back away as he approached, one grinning and the other clearly infuriated.
“A little emotional instability is understandable after such a major operation, Mr Enkolo, but we will have to remind you that this is our workplace and we must be treated with respect.”
“Pretty sure this is just some farmer’s field, not a hospital.”
“I guess it’s a field hospital!” Dr Shimi announced, looking undeservingly proud of herself.
“You’re definitely getting a slap for that.”
“Quite so, Mr Enkolo. But the matter remains that your hostility towards us is unfounded, and we have a right to feel safe at work.”
“Rights?! What about my right not to have my bones replaced against my will? What about my right to be allowed to recover from major surgery in a sterile bed rather than a field?” Hector demanded. His paces were approaching normal.
Dr Shimi rolled her eyes.
“You need to get over that one. It’s far nicer to be out here than a stuffy ward. And superheroes never get the easy hospital treatment anyway; they have strange clandestine origins that need to be discovered over the course of at least three-films-too-many.”
“That has never been, and never will be, sufficient justification for throwing my unconscious, incision-riddled body into a muddy field.”
Both Dr Tumnus and Dr Shimi watched with interest how quickly Hector grew accustomed to his new joints. They were both now walking backwards at full pace to maintain a distance between themselves and their new cyborg, but he was still accelerating.
“Nobody wants to be hoisted by their own petard today, Mr Enkolo. You need to listen to us and stay calm. Besides which there are still a series of exercises you’ll need to do for your recovery, and there’s maintenance to perform on your joints too. You need us.” Dr Tumnus cautioned, attempting to sound calm and commanding but not really doing a good job of it. Authority rarely coincides with jogging backwards towards a drystone wall.
“I didn’t want to have to need you!”
Within the strange, solid landscape of the deeper reaches of the cave the beetle scurried over struts and flat planes, feeling with her antennae the curious vibrations from within the structure. The whole cave system, by her estimation, now seemed to be in motion at an increasing pace, and the vibrations she felt from the structure were definitely related to that motion. The more she explored it, the more she felt that the structure must not have been a natural part of the cave; the warmth of the squashy region had quickly faded away on the hard region, and everything smelled and tasted different. There was no way to wrap her head around what that implied, however.
Between two pillars wrapped in the strands that had emerged from the rupture, there was a cavity. The beetle leaned her head in. Forming an auditorium of sorts, the cavity echoed the sounds of vibrations that emanated from below, and the beetle peered down to see that there was a narrow crawlspace into which her body would fit. There was absolutely no hesitation when she scuttled forwards and flattened herself down to begin the crawl.
A total absence of light filled the crawlspace. Hard cave walls pressed against her from every angle. The sounds of vibration grew louder with every step and reverberated through the narrow passage, as if she were descending into the heart of some great monster, but for twenty, thirty, forty steps there was no end in sight. Beetle steps are, however, incredibly short. Several steps are required to cover the length of their body alone, so she didn’t worry. She just kept pressing onwards, feeling the now characteristically regular rocking of the cave system around her.
There was no great chamber or cavern at the end of the crawlspace. No huge illuminated canyon or beating heart greeted her. Just more darkness and another, wholly different kind of strand that ran perpendicular to the crawlspace and hummed ever-so-slightly. It wasn’t easy to pick the hum out from the all-encompassing vibrations around her, but her sensitive antennae could not be fooled up close.
The strand was peculiar in its humming. The other strands that emerged from the squashy surface, even the flattened ones at the rupture, had been perfectly silent and soft. This one was somehow sturdier and more sterile, like everything in this harder region. The beetle’s natural curiosity could not be denied, and she needed to learn more about what this could be. With tentative mandibles she gently grasped it.
There was a small fizz, and then the humming continued.
From Hector’s pelvis, there was a spark and a jolt. He stopped dead, eyes blank and mouth dropping open.
Drs Shimi and Tumnus kept retreating for a few more steps, and then slowed to a suspicious halt as well. Critically appraising eyes ran over Hector, looking for signs of subterfuge or ulterior motives but finding nothing except unnerving serenity.
“Mr Enkolo? Have you taken our advice and calmed down?”
There was silence.
“Thank you if you have.”
“Maybe he’s having an epiphany. Some kind of harrowing call-to-arms to save the world.” Dr Shimi hoped out loud.
“Unless epiphanies render people insensible I don’t think that’s the case.”
“It might be a wave of remorse for trying to hit us. It’s not very heroic behaviour and his new nature is probably catching up with him about that.”
“Please drop it with the hero nonsense, Dr Shimi. We might have to get Mr Enkolo back to the hospital to work out why his brain isn’t working.” Dr Tumnus said, pacing back to Hector. “I thought our neurological grafting was the safe bit. It’s proven and fine.”
“Maybe there just wasn’t enough neurological activity in the first place for the joints to use. Might have basically drained all the current from his head into capacitances in the robotics. Probably something we should look into.” Dr Shimi speculated with vague professional interest.
Taking a small torch from his lab-coat pocket, Dr Tumnus shone a beam into each of Hector’s eyes in turn.
“Pupils are still reactive to light. There’s something going on in there.”
“We’ll just stick him back on the ward and blame it on reality television or something while we conduct some more tests.” Opening a small spanner and screwdriver set, Dr Shimi joined Dr Tumnus at Hector’s side. “Want me to whip those little fingers off while we’re here?”
“Good Lord, give him a chance, Sharon.”
Dr Shimi shrugged.
“Hector wouldn’t mind. He seemed miffed at having them in the first place, didn’t you Hec?” She said, slapping him on the shoulder.
Slowly, Hector’s head swivelled to face hers. All of the animosity was gone, and in its place a quiet curiosity.
“Everything alright there, Hector?” Dr Shimi asked, surreptitiously re-pocketing the screwdrivers. She didn’t really think that obvious attempts to deconstruct his hands would improve his mood, even if he was annoyed about the surgery in the first place.
“Yes. Yes I think so.” Hector said earnestly. Patiently he watched Dr Shimi’s face and looked forward to learning what it was that she was doing.
“You’re not feeling as angry anymore?” Dr Tumnus asked. Hector turned to face him.
“No.” Hector replied simply. Both of the doctors were familiar to him, but he realised that he’d never really studied how they looked or behaved before. For some reason there’d always been something else on his mind that had seemed more important than learning about his environment. He couldn’t fathom it.
“Well… that must be a good thing, realistically speaking…” Dr Tumnus muttered, frowning in confusion as he looked into Hector’s passive face.
All three of them stood in silence for a few moments. Dr Shimi and Dr Tumnus tried to assess what could have happened, while Hector casually looked around himself and studied the meadow. Again, although he’d looked over it before, he hadn’t really appreciated it. He also somehow knew how it looked from an impossibly tiny perspective, climbing up single blades of grass and exploring the back of a rabbit.
“Shall we… er… continue with the exercises?” Dr Tumnus suggested, at something of a loss.
“Yes, that sounds fine. Bending at the middle wasn’t it? I’m curious as to how this will work out.” Hector said, bending without hesitation and placing both hands on his knees. He got the strange feeling that he could picture the inside of his robotic pelvis, and was overcome by the sensation that he didn’t know how to work his antennae anymore.
“Very good. I see all that storming and rampaging practice helped you to no end.” Dr Shimi observed. “Keep going for a few more reps.”
“Definitely.” Hector agreed, intrigued as to how events would pan out. “Say, am I supposed to have cyborg antennae as well? Or a few more legs than this?”
The doctors looked at one another, one with mounting concern and the other with growing excitement.
“Human-plus would definitely have more legs.” Dr Shimi said, lunging to press Dr Tumnus’ professional buttons.
“And superheroes?” He sneered.
His colleague shrugged with a smirk.
“How many legs were you thinking?”
“I just feel like I used to have 6. Or should have 6. Or it would just be more natural for me. And I seem to be missing a thorax.”
“6 legs… thorax… antennae…” Dr Tumnus mumbled. “Mr Enkolo, you’re not an insect. You’re a cyborg human.”
“But there’s nothing to stop that cyborg from being more insectoid is there? Think of the benefits!” Dr Shimi encouraged, grinning and rubbing her hands excitedly.
“Which are what, exactly? Aside from fighting crime?”
“I don’t know. I told you to think of them, not to ask me about them. Do your own dirty work Tumnus.” Sharon snapped.
“I think I would like them if you’re willing. It would help all of us learn a lot more.”
The three of them shared a contemplative silence.