End Program

Nodding, Ryan shifted himself until he was sitting upright once more. Then, while he sat on the bed, Betty asked him to do a few tests with his new eye, reading the characters on a distant chart that was projected in the air by the cylindrical machine, identifying colors and observing movement through a spinning device in its trunk. Once she had confirmed the eye was functioning correctly, Betty told Ryan that the eye had extra properties.

“I think I stumbled on one,” Ryan admitted. “I focused my vision and a crosshairs target appeared.”

“Yes,” Betty confirmed. “You can also magnify the image in the left eye, like a longblaster scope. Are you right-or left-handed, Mr. Cawdor?”

“Right,” Ryan said, holding up his right hand.

“Tsk, that’s a shame.” Betty sighed “But it is not a huge loss. Obviously, the targeting facility would have been better in the same eye as your blaster hand but that can’t be helped now.”

“I’ll try to keep that in mind the next time I lose an eye,” Ryan told her sarcastically.

The clinician acknowledged this with a snort before going back to her explanation. “The eye has other properties that feed directly into your optic nerve to be processed by your brain. You now have night vision, including an infrared functionality—which will also allow you to track the heat given off by a subject. You may access the former by blinking twice in quick succession while in darkness or semidarkness.”

Since the room was shaded, Ryan first tried the night vision, blinking rapidly twice. The feed from his left eye switched to a gray-green hue. The feed from the night vision was confused because Ryan also had his real eye open, creating a double image, one normal and one cast in gray-green.

“Whoa,” Ryan said, feeling a wave of nausea run through him.

“You may find it easier to process if you close your other eye,” Betty said.

Ryan did just that. Then he gazed around the room, saw the figures and details of the room picked out vividly in what seemed to be a murky gray fog. He saw Mildred smiling as he experimented, her eyes and teeth a brilliant white lined in neon green, while the bank of lights on the surface of the cylindrical machine seemed brilliant in the gloom. “That’s...working,” Ryan said, blinking again until the feed switched back to normal.

“The infrared requires pressure here.” Betty showed Ryan by touching the bottom left corner of her own eye.

He mimicked the woman’s gesture and, after a moment’s trial and error finding the pressure plate, he activated the infrared function. This time, he had the foresight to close his other eye, ensuring he saw only the feed. Suddenly, the room was cast in a dull gray through Ryan’s left eye, with the two human forms burning a brilliant red-orange as they watched him. The cylindrical machine glowed a faint orange, cold and lifeless despite its ability to move independently. Ryan moved his head, looking around the room at the spots of heat at the desk and, more dully, across the bank of windows.

“Seems dandy,” Ryan said.

When he drew his hand up to touch the pressure plate again, Ryan saw his own body recast in a brilliant swirl of red, yellow and white, as if he were made of fire. He pressed the hidden plate, toggling back to normal vision.

“What else can it do?” Ryan asked.

“You can hold an image for review at a later period,” Betty said. “To do this, focus on the subject for five seconds and squint your eye like so. You may then recall this image at a later date, where it may be shown as its own image or as an overlay to whatever you are looking at for means of comparison.”

“How many images can it store like that?” Ryan checked. “And how do I recall them?”

“Look to your left while holding down the pressure pad to retrieve an image,” Betty told him. “Do the same once the image is visible and hold your eye closed for five seconds to delete.”

“Delete?” Ryan asked, uncertain what the term meant in this context.

“Permanently remove the image from the eye,” Betty elaborated. “You may hold up to twelve images, but that number will be less should you take images while in night-mode or infrared.”

Ryan nodded. “Got it.”

Mildred spoke up from where she was standing close to the now-tinted windows. “Is there anything else Ryan or I need to know, such as how to maintain or service the artificial eye?”

“The eye is self-servicing,” Betty said. “You may detect some deterioration over the very long term—by which I mean decades rather than years—but should that be the case you may return here and we would be able to adjust the eye or replace it.”

“Just one more question,” Ryan said. “How did you find us?”

“This is Progress, California,” Betty said. “The site grew out of the military redoubt you accessed via your mat-trans jump, which is how we found you.”

“You found us?”

Betty smiled. “Not me personally, no. A patrol was sent to investigate when the mat-trans activated. I don’t know how much you know about the mat-trans system, but it’s largely automated, and that automation includes an alert sent to a number of linked monitoring stations when the system powers up to receive someone.”

Ryan said nothing, merely accepting the information without reacting. The mat-trans was his little secret, one kept by himself and his companions. They did not know much about the functionality of the devices, only that they transported them across the continent—and occasionally off the continent—via some kind of hidden pathways and that there was apparently no way to predetermine where a jump would lead. Ryan was hesitant of sharing any information with the locals, even ones who had saved his life. Save your life today, shoot you in the back tomorrow—that’s what Trader used to tell him.

“It’s lucky we did,” Betty continued. “You and your friends were in a terrible state on arrival. I don’t know what you’d been putting yourself through, but it had left you all seriously wounded.”

“The imploding wall of the mat-trans during the jump didn’t help,” Mildred said, deadpan.

“No, I don’t imagine it would have,” Betty agreed. She touched something on the inset screen at her desk and the shaded tint to the window glass seemed to recede as Ryan watched. Nothing moved there that he could see. The opacity merely altered in a gradual manner until the windows were clear once more. He flicked momentarily to magnification mode, staring at the window frame.

“You have some mighty advanced tech here,” Ryan said. “Heck of a lucky find.”

“Oh, we didn’t find it, Mr. Cawdor,” Betty told him, “we built it.”

Chapter Eight

Once the examination with Betty was completed, Ryan felt the need to stretch his legs. “From what I can tell, I’ve been cooped up in a box for two weeks,” he told Krysty as he met her and J.B. outside the examination room. “I need to feel some fresh air, get the wind in my hair.”

“It’s a large ville, Ryan,” Krysty told him. “You’ll be impressed.”

“Yeah, I could see that through the windows,” Ryan agreed.

Krysty led him to an elevator that spiraled through the building. The elevator was cylindrical with a door that slid silently back on a curved tread. Stepping into it was like stepping into an upright pipe. A single overhead light source was obscured by a screen that diffused the illumination into a subtle effect, preventing any glare. Ryan eyed it for a moment as he stepped inside, flicking through the different options with his new cybernetic eye.

Crosshairs.

Magnification.

Night vision.

Infrared.

“Hey, Ryan,” Mildred called as he stood with Krysty in the elevator. “You be careful. You only just woke up—don’t overdo it, okay?”

“Sure,” Ryan agreed, still flicking through his visual options.

“And, Krysty,” Mildred added, “I’m trusting you to keep an eye on the patient.”

Krysty agreed and a moment later the door slid closed and the elevator began its smooth descent to ground level.

Ryan moved close to Krysty, kissing her mouth and then her cheek. As his lips came close to her ear, he whispered, “This place safe? Don’t answer out loud.”

Krysty nodded very definitely against Ryan’s head, moaning once as if in delight at his kisses.

“Will I need my blasters?” Ryan asked, still whispering.