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By Root 293 0

Cautery informing me that a car would take me home whenever I wanted. I just had to call a number. I recorded this in my phone and kept working. After everybody left, I caught the elevator to the AV Center, where vending machines offered energy bars, fruit, and cola outside darkened presentation rooms. It was free, so that engineers wouldn’t wander around trying to find the most efficient sources of calories per dollar. I chose some snack bars and apples and returned to the Glass Room. I had nothing to do. Most of my work had been reassigned while I was away, the remainder had no deadline. I ate my snacks and played with some programs but was not inspired. I read a sensationalist article about the future of embedded operating systems. Around ten, I picked up my phone. The driver said he would be ten minutes. I waited five, pulled on my jacket, and left the Glass Room. When I stepped out on the ground floor, the corridor lights glowed a dim yellow and the lobby was empty. My footsteps echoed, a soft scuff from my shoe followed by a scrape of carbon polymer, like some kind of machine process.

I DISCOVERED Building A had bunks. They were small, featureless rooms with barely enough space for a bed, but anyone could use them. If you had two hours before the catalytic cracker finished, you could get some downtime. There were also showers and a twenty-four-hour kitchen. I half-expected to find it populated by a loud, jokey community of scientists, like island shipwreck survivors, but it was empty. I called my driver and asked if he could collect some things from my house. That night I microwaved a shrink-wrapped meal and slept in a bunk. When I woke, I showered and dressed and caught the elevator back and this entire time I didn’t see a single other person. I wished I had thought of this earlier.

IT BECAME annoying to sit. To transit, from standing. The Exegesis was good for movement but gave me nothing when I went to lower myself into a chair. It was all up to my biological leg, which was thin and weak and complained at the effort. At the hospital, when I’d been doing physical therapy, it had bulked up a little, but since then it had shrunk back to default size. So now I accelerated into chairs, making a whoof upon impact. It wasn’t a huge problem. But it was not ideal.

When the assistants left, I removed my leg, clamped it to a workbench, and swung over some lighting. I studied the knee. Then I disassembled it. By midnight I had built a governor. It looked like a tin of peaches, affixed below the knee. When I flicked a little metal switch on the side, it limited the speed at which the knee could flex. I strapped it on and tried sitting. It worked. I could lower myself into a chair at normal speed with no effort. But I felt unsatisfied. Now that I thought about it, it was very primitive to have to flick a switch. The knee should figure out when to engage itself.

At three in the morning I gave up on the governor idea and connected the knee’s microprocessor to a computer so I could unpick its code. I figured I could modify this and flash new instructions. This took eight hours. In the meantime Jason and Katherine arrived and asked through the speaker if I needed help. I had them bring me snacks. Finally I loaded new code onto the chip and powered it on. The capacitor popped and died.

I stared at it. I needed sleep. With a clear head I could figure this out. I pulled on the leg, smelling stale sweat, and hobbled out. Without a functional microprocessor, the leg swung like a garden gate. The ski foot flew out in front. I made my way to the elevators with one hand touching the wall. When I reached my bunk, I pulled off the straps and threw the whole thing on the floor.

I WANTED Elaine to fetch me a cadmium battery but she was nowhere to be found. “Have you seen Elaine?” I asked Jason.

He swiveled to face me. His glasses reflected my halogen workbench light. “I thought …” He looked at Elaine’s desk. It was very clean. “Didn’t you get an e-mail?”

I rolled to my keyboard. I had lots of e-mails. I read few. I looked at the forty-character