Machine Man - Max Barry [96]
“Hold it,” said Carl. “No closer.”
This was pretty stupid. Carl had clearly not thought through our relative strengths and weaknesses. If anything, he should be trying to lure me closer. This was why I was going to beat him: the intelligence differential. I raised my arm. He didn’t even know I had a gun. This was going to end really quickly.
I thought, Is Carl such a bad guy? Maybe he wasn’t. Maybe I could talk him into releasing Lola and he could get the psychiatric help he needed. Now I had him at my mercy, I felt a little bad. He had only wanted new arms. You couldn’t blame him for that.
“Charlie,” said Lola. “Please listen to Carl.”
Her tone was odd. She didn’t sound terrified. And why would Lola say that? Was she confused? I realized the way Carl’s hands were hovering near Lola’s shoulders, that wasn’t to hold her. That was protective.
“Carl wants to help,” said Lola. “He didn’t kidnap me. He rescued me.”
I said, “What?”
Carl cleared his throat. “Dr. Neumann, this might be hard to hear.”
I thought, Just shoot him. A part answered, Yes.
“I thought I wanted to be strong. I knew I couldn’t go back. You know. For my fiancée. But I wanted to be prepared. In case I needed to be strong again. So I wanted the arms. You understand.”
Stockholm syndrome? That was when kidnap victims sympathized with their abductors. It was a psychological condition.
“The thing is, after I got the arms, they started talking. Took me a while to believe it. Thought I was going crazy.”
I hoped Lola was hearing this. And drawing the logical conclusion: that Carl was insane.
“They wanted to crush things. To smash. I tried to tell people. But no one would listen. Not management, not the scientists, those kids. They only cared about the arms. I started sleeping with them, because it hurt to take them off, and one time I woke up and they were bending the bed in half. When I got irritated, they grabbed things. Then they threw a guy against a wall. I thought I’d killed him. That was when I knew I had to take off. I had to find you, and warn you.” His eyes moved to Lola. She tilted her head to look up at him. I did not like that. I didn’t like either of them. “Sorry about leaving you behind. I thought you were dead.”
“Lola,” I said. “Come. Here. A minute.”
“I hoped Lola could help me figure out what was going on. That’s why I saved her. I carried her right out through the flames. I was strong enough this time. And I was right. She’s helped a lot.”
“Lola,” I said. “Really. Come here.”
She said, “Charlie, can you talk to your parts?”
This was irrelevant. “Carl. This is a gun. This arm. It shoots. So let go. Of Lola.”
“Oh, Charlie,” said Lola. “Charlie, no.”
“It’s all right. Just. Ahead. Of schedule.”
“We have to get rid of your parts.”
I said, “Pardon?”
“You told me once you don’t need to think about where you step: that the legs figure it out. That’s clever, Charlie, that’s the kind of thing you do, but it created a problem. Because brains are plastic. They adapt. When you lose a limb, the parts of your brain in charge of it, the neurons, they don’t just sit there. They look for new jobs. There was a woman with a transtibial earlier this year, and I know how this sounds, but her eyesight improved. One man got better at math. We try to get people into prosthetics quickly so that we can capture those neurons for motor function before they wind up somewhere else. And what I think, Charlie, is your machine parts are too easy. They didn’t give your neurons anything to do. So they wound up all over. Can you talk to your parts, Charlie? Do they have a mind of their own? Because I think that’s you. Your subconscious, being no longer so sub. But it’s okay. Over time, we can retrain your brain. With physical therapy, we can move your neurons elsewhere. We can—”
“Let me. Stop you. There.” I drew in breath for an entire sentence. “I’m not sure you appreciate that at this point I am a head.”
“Charlie—”
“There is no. Getting rid of. The parts. I am the parts. Look. I passed that point. I sawed off.