Chapter 48 #2
“With Nancy’s help, Newton and I have been delving into the old records stored here. Most of the data is corrupted and inaccessible, and a lot of what we can access is irrelevant, but we’ve found some information on Warlord that may be pertinent to understanding his state of mind.”
A grainy, pixelated image appeared on the screen, in which a man sat at a table in an office. The image clarified as the recording played.
Lara grasped Ronin’s hand and squeezed.
The man was Warlord.
He was bald, with gaunt cheeks and dark circles cradling his sunken eyes, but he was unmistakably Cheyenne’s tyrannical ruler.
“You understand the risks involved, Mr. Turner?” a female asked from off camera, her voice crackling over the war room’s hidden speakers.
Kevin Turner, the man who would become Warlord, laughed bitterly. “Yeah. But look at me, Doctor Yuan. Death isn’t a risk, it’s an inevitability. If this means a little more time with my family…” He dropped his gaze and ran his tongue over his lips.
“In all honesty, Mr. Turner—”
“Kevin, please. I don’t really have it in me to deal with formalities anymore.”
“Kevin. In all honesty, this procedure has an extremely low chance of success. I need to be certain that you’re aware that by doing this, you may be prematurely ending whatever time you have left with your loved ones.”
He shook his head, sliding a palm over the surface of the table absently. “Maybe. But what more time do I have with them right now? A few weeks for them to watch me die? At least this way, it’s on my terms. And they don’t have to…”
Turning away from the camera, Kevin lifted a trembling hand to his face, covering his eyes as tears welled in them. “Don’t have to see me suffering. Don’t have to watch me become a shell of the man I was, and…and my family won’t have to feel so damned helpless while it all happens.”
When he dropped his hand, moisture glistened in his eyes, and there were splotches of color on his cheeks.
He faced the camera directly, and though the recording was from two hundred years ago, the despair, desperation, and anguish in his expression transcended time.
“I want more time with Diane. I want to see my kids grow up.”
The video flickered, cutting to a high-angle view of an operating room.
Several individuals wearing green scrubs, facemasks, and gloves worked around a table.
A motionless figure lay atop it, draped in a blanket.
One of the surgeons stepped aside, allowing the camera view of the subject’s exposed brain.
“The connections for the implant are complete,” said Doctor Yuan. One of the others wheeled a steel cart to her, and she lifted an electronic device from atop it. “Once this is inserted, we can begin the upload.”
The war room was silent as the recording’s speed increased, moving the surgeons ten times faster. When it slowed to normal, alarms were blaring in the operating room, and the surgeons’ voices were frantic.
“He’s flatlining.”
“We need the paddles—”
“No!” Doctor Yuan shouted. “They’ll damage the implant.”
“We can’t just let him die, Jessica!”
“He was already dead. The implant is what matters now, and it’s the only chance he has of seeing his family again.”
“That’s not how it’s supposed to be, God damn it!”
“If we succeed, it won’t ever have to be like this again.”
“We can at least perform CPR—”
Doctor Yuan shook her head. “The implant is too delicate. We can’t risk disrupting the connection, or we might do irreversible damage to his consciousness.”
“How much damage have we done already?”
“He accepted the risks. You did too, when you joined this project.”
The continuous tone of the heart monitor punctuated her statement for six long seconds before the recording flickered again.
Kevin Turner sat at a table in a nondescript room. A dozen wooden blocks painted different colors lay scattered before him. His cheeks were full, there was short, mussed brown hair atop his head, and his skin had a much healthier color.
“I don’t—” The voice was Kevin’s, but his mouth didn’t move until he repeated the words. “I don’t want to do this anymore.”
“A little at a time, Kevin,” Doctor Yuan said from out of frame.
“It’s perfectly natural that things are difficult for you now.
Though your body looks the same, it’s completely different internally.
It will take time and a lot of hard work, but I assure you, your mind will rewire itself to your new body and all its functions, and all this will be as easy as it was before. Please, try again.”
Frowning, Kevin raised his arm above the table. The movements were wobbly, jerky, imprecise. His brow furrowed as he reached forward, guiding his shaky hand toward one of the red blocks. Tentatively, he pinched the block between his forefinger and thumb and lifted it off the table.
“Good. Would you please stack it atop one of the same color?” the Doctor asked.
Kevin’s eyes flicked down to the other blocks, pupils dilating and contracting. Slowly, he moved his hand, hovering it over first a green block, and then a blue.
“It’s okay if you’re uncertain about the colors, Kevin. It’s not your fault,” a male said from off camera. “We just need to know so we can make the necessary adjustments to get you back to normal.”
“Doctor Anderson is right,” Doctor Yuan agreed. “We’ll take things one step at a time.”
With a slight, unnatural nod, Kevin lowered his hand. Just before the block touched the one beneath it, his arm jerked. The blocks slammed together. The red block flew from his grasp, clattering on the floor.
“Damn it!” Kevin roared through his closed mouth. He swung his arm over the surface of the table, clumsily sweeping all the blocks off. “I told you I don’t want to do this!”
“It’s all right, Kevin,” Doctor Anderson said. “We can be done for today.”
Another flicker, and the scene changed. Kevin paced in a carpeted room. A beige linen couch and two matching accent chairs rested nearby. A blonde woman who looked to be in her early forties sat in one of the chairs, wringing her hands in her lap.
“Kevin, please,” she said.
“Please, Diane?” Kevin stopped abruptly with his back to her, his eyebrows sinking low. “I don’t know what you expect. You tell me that and I’m supposed to be cool and collected after all this time?”
“Just…be patient, please. We knew this would take time, and it’s worked out better than we hoped. You’re still here, Kevin.” She pressed her hands down on her thighs and bowed her head. “We want you to come home, but the psychiatrists say you’re still…adjusting to the changes.”
“They won’t let me see the kids, Diane. My fucking kids! It’s been eight months, and I haven’t seen them since I first woke up. I don’t sleep, I don’t eat, I don’t use the fucking bathroom. All I do is think about the life I’m supposed to be living.”
Diane stood and approached him. She reached out and hesitantly placed a hand on his arm. Kevin jerked away from her, taking several steps away.
Diane’s hand fell, and her face crumpled. “I know it’s hard—”
“You know?” he demanded, whirling on her.
She retreated, nearly tripping when her foot caught on one of the chairs.
Advancing, Kevin grabbed the chair, lifted it overhead, and hurled it against the wall, shattering its frame. “You think you have any fucking idea what this is like?”
Diane held her hands up as though to shield herself. “Kevin, stop! Don’t do this!”
“You, too?” He dug his fingers in his neck and pulled upward, tearing off a chunk of synthetic skin to reveal the metal plates of his jaws and cheek. “This is what I am now. There’s no going back from it, so take a long fucking look!”
“Oh my God,” Diane cried, tears running down her cheeks. “This isn’t you. This isn’t you! My Kevin would never —”
He stared at her, utterly still, his eyes cold. “No, I’m not your Kevin. He died on the operating table.”
He turned and stalked away from her.
The door burst open, and several technicians hurried into the room. Diane, sobbing, was escorted out.
Kevin glanced over his shoulder, the plates of his jaw shifting as though he were clenching his teeth. He closed his eyes. The video went black.
Ten seconds passed, and an image flickered on. A black-haired woman with brown eyes leaned back in her seat, pinching the bridge of her nose. She bore a faint resemblance to Nancy Cooper. The bookshelves behind her marked the room as some sort of office.
“My name is Doctor Jessica Yuan. I’m a neurologist, and I led the team that pioneered the method by which Kevin Randall Turner, age forty-three, had his consciousness transferred into a robotic surrogate body.
The procedure, at its core, was successful.
There are thousands of hours of video documenting both the procedure and our work with Mr. Turner during his recovery. ”
She leaned forward, resting her elbows atop the desk, and raked her fingers through her hair.
“I’m making this recording because the future of this project is uncertain.
The war has spilled onto American soil, and the military has shown increasing interest in our work—particularly that of my colleague, Doctor William Anderson, who has made great advances in robotics and artificial intelligence.
It’s inevitable that they’re going to seize our research, and there’s not a damned thing we can do about it. ”
Sighing, she ran her gaze over the bare desktop.
“We didn’t foresee the consequences. We pushed so hard for this, and…
we should’ve known. I should’ve known. Mr. Turner’s mental state is extremely unstable and volatile.
He often refuses to work with us, demanding to see his wife and children, but his psychiatrists, Doctors Foster and Kuering, are convinced that he’s a danger to his family.
He came close to harming his wife during her last visit six weeks ago. That’s when he tore off his face.”