Sigmund Shaw: A Steampunk Adventure (20 page)

As he started to recover from his sleepiness, Sigmund began remembering the reasons for his visit. However, the talk of an apology took a little of the heat out of his motives.

“I should say so.” Sigmund said. “You have made me the most hated man in all England.”

Sutton looked to the floor with what looked like shame on his face. He said, “I did not mean for that. The explosion was not anticipated. It took everyone by surprise.”

Sigmund had previously determined to not talk about that night, he had a better purpose than rehashing the past. “Jamison told me about why all this happened. Why you needed me, or someone like me. But that’s not why I’m here. The explosion destroyed all, there is nothing further to discuss. You are part of the resistance to the war faction in our government, I will not ask you to stop that in order to clear my name.”

Sutton looked at him with a note of astonishment but said nothing. Sigmund continued, “But there is something I will ask of you. The cure for my niece. Jamison believed that you had a way to help Sarah to walk again. I think that I deserve this from you. Can you do it?”

Turning his head to the monkey that had been sitting quietly on his shoulder, Sutton said, “Zachary, go to your spot.” Obediently the monkey jumped down to the floor, climbed a shelf above one of the tables, and sat in a low walled box. Turning back to Sigmund, Sutton said, “The answer to your question is yes and no.”

Frustrated, Sigmund said, “Just speak straight. I have gone through too much to play games.”

“Believe me, it is not my intention to fool you or play any games. But the answer is a little complicated. That said, I will answer you fully, but please, let us sit down.” Sutton walked over behind his desk and sat in his chair.

Sigmund, not sensing anything but a willingness to help from this man, decided to sit. A chair on the near side of Sutton’s desk was the offered spot and Sigmund took it. He volunteered, “It does not surprise me that the answer is complicated. I’ve talked to many doctors over the last several years and they have given me no good answers. I ask this: If there really is no cure, do not try and give me some longwinded answer that in the end means nothing. I would rather a simple ‘no’ than false hope.”

Sutton thought about that for a few moments, then said, “I understand. I will give you all the details, how I came to them, and what I think is the solution. With all the details you can decide for yourself.”

Sigmund nodded slowly – a bit confused – and waited for Sutton to start the explanation.

“My father was a doctor. I thought him the most remarkable man. Healing sick people made him like a hero in my eyes. Not that I saw him practice, but when he came home in the evenings he would tell me the most wonderful stories of surgery and medicine that helped people, that saved lives. He undoubtedly had failures too but he didn’t talk of those with me. When I was nine years old my mother fell and damaged her spine, she never walked again. At first I figured that after some time she would heal as if it was a normal ailment. But as time went on, she didn’t heal. I couldn’t figure out why my father didn’t make her better, he always made things better in his stories. It was then that I learned a disappointing lesson, that medicine, and my father, could only do so much.

“I started looking through his medical books. Now, at nine years of age, I didn’t understand too much, but I kept at it. By fifteen, I had probably as much knowledge as many medical students. No experience, mind you, but I could practically recite the medical books from memory. Obviously, I was looking for some cure for mother’s spine. After primary school, I eagerly attended medical school and excelled in all my classes. But I grew disappointed, frustrated, even angry that all I was being taught was the same things from the tired medical books. There was no innovation and nothing remotely close to a cure for my mother. When I asked about reanimating her legs, the professors laughed at me. They laughed and said I should focus on real medicine, not what was purported in popular German fiction.”

Sigmund asked, “A reference to Frankenstein, I presume?”

A nod, “Yes. You might be surprised how many of the students I met were inspired by that book. Outside of classes I saw some of the most gruesome, most immoral and ghoulish experiments motivated by that story. Some students, you see, viewed the story as real, and that it was fictionalized so as not to concern the public too much. Although I would not sink to the level of some of my classmates, I have to admit that several of their ideas led my thoughts and training in directions that surpassed the classroom.”

“Wait a moment,” interrupted Sigmund, “You are not saying that some achieved the questionable goal of the novel?”

“No, nothing like that. No reanimation of the dead. But the cleverness, the innovation of the attempts, although mostly grisly, were still inspiring to me. This inspiration, achieved outside of the class room, led me to leave medical school before graduating. My parents were greatly disappointed. But my goal was not a piece of paper, it was to help people using science, through established techniques if possible, but also through new techniques. I found that school lacked in the ‘new’.

“I travelled to Germany, the home place of the fictitious Victor Frankenstein. If there was evidence of it being a real account, which I had my doubts, I was sure it would be there that I find it. Sadly, I think, there was no evidence. I talked to many people, some who followed in the footsteps of the novel, but none that were able to duplicate. It was in Germany that I decided that I was only partially on the correct course. Reanimating a dead body was not my goal, I needed to heal the non-responsive limbs of living people. Still, the time there was well spent. I found some excellent mentors that had me expand my knowledge into the mechanism of man and animal. Yes, animal. There is much to be discovered in animal kind that could be adapted to humans.

“From there I continued east to Russia. I found many doctors, but only a few that furthered my goals. Like many of my classmates’ experiments, the use of electricity was common, but in Russia is where I found it being used to stimulate muscles of those who were crippled. Not a cure, but it was the first real hope I had in discovering what I was after.

“After some time in Russia I made my way further east. It was in the Orient that I found the greatest knowledge. Rumors of unorthodox treatment abounded, no doubt you have heard of some, and the Orient did not disappoint. The use of strange herbs and concoctions that yielded fantastic results stunned me. There were those that used only needles to heal pain by interrupting nerve communication. I knew I was on the right track at that point. And then I came across Master Liang. His work with the nervous system was advanced beyond any I had seen.

“You see Sigmund, the nervous system is sort of like strings on a marionette, with the brain being the puppet master. If you want to move your hand, the brain pulls the right strings and your hand moves as desired. Of course that is an oversimplification, but the analogy is sound. Whereas the marionette puppet has a handful of strings, the nervous system has many thousands, perhaps more. Locating them and identifying them is where Master Liang was a true marvel.

“It was under his tutelage that we made a great breakthrough. With Liang’s knowledge of nerves and my background in medicine and the application of electricity, along with our combined, though vastly different knowledge of chemistry we found a compound that allowed us to interact with the nerves on a level never done before. We were able to intercept, so to speak, the nerve signals and use them to activate mechanical replacements.”

Sigmund thought he understood much of what was being said but this last part troubled him. He asked, “What do you mean by ‘activate mechanical replacements?”

Sutton looked up to the shelf behind Sigmund where the monkey had been sitting patiently and said, “Zachary, come.” and waved the creature over. The monkey jumped down to the table below and then from the table to the desk. “Turn around, Zachary.”

When the monkey turned around, Sigmund gasped. The tail of the monkey was mechanical! With little whirring noises, the tail moved in a way that approached natural. While Sigmund stared, Sutton fiddled around with the leather harness and removed it, which unattached the mechanized tail from the monkey. All that was left on Zachary was a little stump.

“You created an artificial tail that he can control?” Sigmund asked in astonishment.

“Precisely. Zachary was the culmination of our research. When I left Master Liang, he gave him to me as a gift. A reminder of the great experience and of the potential of what we found.”

“I haven’t stopped designing and improving on what we’ve done. Take a look at this.” Sutton stood up and opened a cabinet under one of the work tables. Out of it he pulled what looked like a mechanical hand cut off at the wrist. He set it on the table and attached a power wire to the end of the wrist. A second wire he attached near the first one and then took the end of it – a small box – and placed it on the back of his neck. There was a little whishing sound and he winced. “Now watch, Mr. Shaw.” Sutton spread his hand out wide and froze it in position. To Sigmund’s astonishment, the mechanical hand spread itself out wide just like Sutton’s real hand.

Sutton made his hand into a fist and the mechanical hand did also at nearly the same time. Then Sutton started to open and close his hand and the mechanical version mimicked all he did. Sutton asked, “Do you see what is happening?”

Sigmund did. He could hardly believe it but he understood. “You are controlling that hand through intercepted nerve signals.”

“Exactly! Very good! You have a sharp mind. This box at the back of my neck is intercepting the signals that my brain is sending to my real hand and relaying them to corresponding motors in the mechanical hand. I assume that you can see the potential?”

“Yes, clearly. But you have said potential twice now. Why potential? This is amazing! Perhaps not a cure in the truest sense but a great leap forward as a solution!”

“Over time I might agree with you, but for now it is incomplete.”

“How so?”

Sutton went back to his desk where tailless Zachary was still standing, reattached the harness to the monkey’s tail, and gave him a grape from his briefcase. Zachary, with grape in hand, climbed back up to his spot and started to eat. Indicating the monkey, Sutton said, “The communication with the nerves is a chemical process, but the movement of the tail is electrical. Zachary has an electric storage device, a battery, attached to his harness. With limited use the storage device will last a couple of hours. Mind you, this is for a very lightweight mechanism with only a few motors. Now imagine what would be required for an arm, or more to the point, a pair of human legs. Much heavier, many more motors – simply put, a large need for electricity. At that scale there is no electric storage device that can hold enough electricity to power a device that large for more than only a few minutes. That amount of time makes it near worthless.”

Sigmund tried to find a counter-argument, but couldn’t. As amazing as this was, it would be useless without a power source. And that’s when it hit Sigmund. “The German invention. This power problem is why the invention was intrinsic to the cure. That was going to be your replacement for the electric storage device.”

“Precisely. A small electric generator could be attached to a harness and provide all the electricity that is needed. But with the invention’s destruction that is no longer an option. So you see Mr. Shaw, the cure for your niece exists in a fashion, but is not complete. First, I cannot repair the damaged nerves to her legs – that knowledge is still in the future. But a pair of mechanical legs could allow her to walk. But without a small power source there is no way to make them work in any practical fashion.” Both men went silent for several seconds as they contemplated the frustrations of being so close to a cure but unable to grasp it.

Breaking the silence, Sutton asked, “Tell me, Mr. Shaw, was the German invention real?”

“It was. And up until a few moments ago it was one of the most remarkable things I’ve ever seen. It was an amalgam cube that produced amazing amounts of heat and that didn’t burn out for many months, perhaps even years.”

With true astonishment Sutton whispered, “Incredible.”

Sigmund took a moment to reflect on the visit so far. It was one surprising revelation after another – all culminating in the disappointing fact that the purpose for his visit was not realized – there was no help for Sarah.