Machine Man - Max Barry [10]
I looked at the pile of legs. “What else?” I could see something black and silver poking out from behind her. That looked interesting.
She smiled. “You’re spoiling it. I was trying to build up some suspense before we went to the top of the line. But before we go there, let me warn you: these don’t give you a natural look. We’re now trading off cosmetics for function.”
“I don’t care about a natural look.”
Lola’s breath caught. “Really. Well, that’s good. I feel the same way. Real beauty follows function. That’s why we find things attractive: because they work. Like teeth. We don’t just like them straight and white for no reason. It’s because they’re good at biting. This leg, it’s good at walking.” She reached behind her. What she produced was not like a leg. It was like a machine. The foot was two arched prongs, almost skis. From a hydraulic ankle rose twin black pylons, which disappeared into an aluminum knee. Judging from the battery casing, there was a microprocessor in there. “It’s an Exegesis Archion foot on a computer-controlled adaptive knee. Multiaxis rotation, polycentric swing. That heel, that’s carbon polymer. The Olympics banned it because it provided an unfair advantage over regular legs. Too much energy return. The knee is programmable. We teach it your precise gait. What it does is take the thinking out of walking. You get to stop worrying about how you’re going to swing your foot and just walk.”
I took the leg and turned it over. It was light. Interesting design. Nothing groundbreaking. At the top was a bucket, another one of those translucent plastic sockets. I looked inside, in case there was anything innovative in there, but there wasn’t.
“You don’t seem very excited,” said Lola.
“Is this the best?”
“It’s … well … honestly, Charlie, it’s pretty great.”
“This is state-of-the-art?”
“Cutting-edge,” said Lola, and grinned. I realized this was a joke. People in medicine have dark senses of humor. To them, no joke is complete until there’s a defiled corpse or spray of blood. “No. Seriously. This is the best.”
I gave her back the leg. “Okay.”
“It’s not a meat leg. I can’t give you that. But once you get familiar with this, it’ll be almost as good as the real thing.”
“Okay.”
She gathered up her legs. I shuffled down in the bed. It was nothing against Lola Shanks. She just didn’t have anything I wanted.
THAT NIGHT I woke to discover I was pulling at the stitches, digging in my fingernails. I scrambled upright and flicked on the light, expecting the worst. But I seemed intact. A little clear fluid oozed out. I mopped it with a wet wipe from the drawer, switched off the light, and lay down. But it took a long time to get back to sleep, because that was really disturbing.
THERE WAS a room with two wooden rails. The rails were for holding on to. They were three meters long and one meter apart, waist high. Aside from a few chairs, a desk, and a potted plant, they were the only objects in the room. It was not a place for things. It was a place for movement.
Lola Shanks parked me beside a plastic chair, set down the Exegesis legs, and rolled up my pajama pants. I wasn’t happy about this, about these rails.
“I notice you’re not much of a talker.” She clipped my pants, so they looked like shorts. I had not worn shorts for eleven years. It was another example of how I was being turned into someone I did not want to be. “That’s a problem.”
“Why?”
“Because you need to be social.” She rolled a stocking over my stump. “Some people will be reluctant to talk to you. Afraid of saying the wrong thing. You need to break the ice.” She tucked the foot under one arm and fed the end of the stocking through a hole in its socket. She pulled. I felt a terrible pressure, like my stitches were about to burst. My stump was sucked into the socket. “How’s that?”
“Tight. Tight.”
“Tight is good.” She reached around my hips, feeding the strap. “You’re not seeing the problem, are you?”
“What?”
“The social