Alex The Inventor-Chapter 12 (Pt.2)
Book 1 of an Illustrated Sci-Fi Trilogy
Chapters 1 - 12 can be found at: Deep Sky Stories
Chapter 12 (Part 2) The Secret Nobility of Miss Vee...
"Dart...oh, Dart", Alex breathed and his heart went out to the poor injured creature. Dart stopped where he was and cocked his head up at Alex as if to say, "I've got a little problem here, do you think you can help me out, kid?"Alex knelt down and patted his ever-present companion on his soccer-ball head which now had a horrible black burn mark slashing up and down on one side and some damage to his right eye. Part of his right foreleg was missing too and his usually bright chrome skin was pock-marked with the black soot of laser burns. The long, elegant rainbow wings had sustained several holes and tears as well and Dart looked like an over-sized moth that had flown too close to a fire. The pounding he took to defend Alex back at his house must have been terrible.
"He is not very smart or careful sometimes", said Rainah quietly as she caught up with him. There was an affectionate tone in her voice though, which Alex felt good about.
"Well, I'm glad he's not so smart or I wouldn't be here right now", he answered as he felt over the robots blackened body for more damage. Dart tensed or shied away sometimes, when a tender spot was touched.As he leaned in closer, Alex felt the now familiar warmth of the shape-changing Luss in his faded coverall pocket as it seemed to anticipate that its help was needed again. The desire to care for Dart's wounds took Alex's mind off his own anxieties and the need to be doing something healing with his hands was a blessed distraction for him.He set to work on Dart's head and eyes which seemed to need the most attention. Dart flinched as Alex held his head and brought the amazing little device up close to his injured eye.Without prompting, a needle-thin replicating tool slid out of the shaft and performed delicate repairs on the robot's compound eye. By analyzing and then replicating the undamaged lenses of Dart’s insect eye, the amazing tool was able to replace the damaged lenses, one-by-one.A relaxed pinkish glow returned to the Dragonfly’s eyes and he chirruped gratefully to the boy. After that, Rainah helped him bring Dart back into the comforting surroundings of the, "Bubble Room", as she liked to call it, and guided the accident-prone Dragonfly over to a repair bench that he seemed very familiar with.Dart shied away from it at first and hid behind Alex's legs like a dog that sensed that a bath was imminent. "It won't hurt him, will it”, Alex asked as he eyed the intimidating robot repair station with concern.
"Trust me, he won't feel a thing", Rainah answered with a trace of dark humor in her voice. Both children took hold of Dart and carefully lifted him up. The bench was actually part of the curved wall and folded down from a hollow recess to the left of the main doorway, between it and the large sphere that Alex had been wondering about earlier.As it turned out, the workbench, itself was a wonder of the latest Nano-robotic technology as sensors on its surface recognized Dart's physical form then suddenly took hold of the little robot in a rather undignified manner.
About the Creator
G.F. Brynn
G. F. Brynn is a self-taught writer & illustrator whose sci-fi stories weave a rich blend of youthful adventurism with ancient myth-fantasy. The characters move in a world in which the divide between dream and reality is thinly shaded.
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Alex The Inventor-Chapter 12
Read Chapters 1 - 11 at: Deep Sky Stories Chapter 12 (Part 1) - Belated Truth and Secret Nobility It was an educational time for Alex during the half hour he spent in Rainah's, "Resting Room", as she liked to call it. It was also a time for healing. Miss Vee gently immersed Alex's burned hands in a basin filled with a cool, healing gel compound. After only a few minutes soaking in the gel, Alex withdrew his hands to discover that the throbbing pain had subsided considerably. Bandages were then wrapped around each hand to prevent infection.After the shock and strangeness wore off, seeing Rainah put her prosthetic legs on was quite fascinating. As Miss Vee put it, "Any challenge or hardship in life can be overcome with a determined mind and a little ingenuity."The legs were very interesting because they not only performed perfectly as replacements for the ones that were lost during her hibernation, they also provided Rainah with several distinct advantages. The first and most obvious was that she could literally run the legs off anybody and barely break a sweat. The legs, which had ‘Fluid-Motion High-Speed Servo-Motors’, were powered by high-powered, rechargeable ‘Tritium-Cell’ Batteries, and had ‘Endo-Nerve Ganglia’ sensors which amplified her normal nervous system's electrical impulses.The resulting normalized feedback from her brain mirrored all the proper movements and reactions that any biological legs would have. But because of the nerve amplification and the extreme power output that Tritium-Cell batteries allowed, short bursts of higher than normal strength and speed were possible. But there was more, much more than Miss Vee or John Faraway had expected when they gave Rainah new life with the new legs. Because of the thinner atmosphere on Mars, Rainah's people not only adapted to it, they also learned telepathy because of it. This eliminated the need to waste precious energy (and breath) talking. Because of the two-way biofeedback connection with her nervous system, the new artificial nerves amplified not only Rainah's physical but also her telepathic abilities. A mind could not just be spoken to, she could also read it like a book.Under ideal conditions, such as a mental exercise (like a geography test) Rainah could even find and mentally pull the appropriate memories to the forefront of a person's mind. It was like opening a facet wide and letting the information spill out of the person so fast, that they would have no comprehension of what was happening until it was finished.The first time it happened, Miss Vee was in her kitchen, trying to remember an old cookie recipe that her mother had taught her years ago. She wanted to make enough for both Rainah and Alex, since she was caring for both of them at that time. Before she knew what was happening, ten minutes had elapsed and a fresh batch of oatmeal-chocolate chip cookies was baking in the oven. Miss Vee was completely befuddled and Rainah had a secretive, mischievous grin on her face. The legs had one more distinction: they grew in perfect unison with Rainah‘s natural growth.With the aid of ‘Omni-Balanced Molecular Silicate Growth Plastics’ the bionic legs constantly mirrored their own growth with Rainah's. They were, for all purposes and appearances, her legs. The only time she had to take them off was during the night or any time she needed some rest in her little room. Her prosthetics were then placed into a specially designed recharging container attached to her bed. All Rainah had to do was shuffle over, drop down onto them and then walk away after opening the small container doors.During their time together, the mood in the little Resting Room had soon changed to an upbeat and happier one. And so, after Rainah had had a short rest to allow her prosthetic legs to recharge, Miss Vee called a brief but serious meeting with both of them. During that time, she discussed important matters with Rainah about the Biosphere. A particular issue they focused on regarded the routine operations in the habitat and how well each successive crop was growing in the artificial Martian environment over the past twelve years.Soon, however, the topic began to shift back to a familiar worry that was always on their minds: how much longer they could remain hidden from the Others. Alex soon was forced to realize that there very little time left at all. But out from that ominous train of discussion flowed another topic from Rainah which immediately captured his attention and left him wanting to know much more. Yet, it was how she said it, how she turned to the subject, as though on cue from previously scripted lines that gave Alex his first hint that all was not quite as it should be.
By G.F. Brynn7 years ago in Futurism
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Ladies and Gentlemen, I am returned. I am envisaging a grand entrance here, a footman perhaps, announcing my arrival, or a both doors flung wide attention grab. That I actually slipped in quietly with an itsy bitsy haiku seems far more in keeping with my actual style. Either way, I am back after an absence of a couple of weeks in which I dedicated myself fully to a family holiday. I could do no different, it has been a very full trip, and a wonderful trip for it. But though I read most of a novel, I took no time to read on Vocal, and no time to write either.
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