Nanonots
“It’s broken,” Doc Robbins said, and Barry Voss felt his spirits sink. He’d known as much since he'd fall on the leg earlier that afternoon – it was more than just a simple sprain or twist – but he’d been hoping that his instincts had been wrong. He couldn’t take any more time off from work.
“Dammit.” There was no point in saying anything else. It wasn’t going to change matters to complain, but he felt the situation warranted at least a single swearword. From his expression, Robbins didn’t agree but let it go – the Doc could be a prude, sometimes.
“So what does that mean for me, Doc?” He said once the worst of his anger had passed. “How long are we talking about?”
The older man sighed, then looked down at the clipboard he was carrying. “Ordinarily, I’d say four to five weeks, minimum, followed by a full course of physio.”
“Ordinarily?” That piqued Barry’s interest. Robbins knew that money was no issue when it came to his “favorite patient” – Barry only worked to keep up appearances. A life of crime lived in his youth had resulted in large piles of laundered money, and he didn’t feel so bad about what he’d done over the years to give it back or donate it to charity.
“Yeah – look, Barry,” Robbins said, moving to the door of the exam room to make sure it was tightly closed, “there isn’t a whole lot I can tell you about this, except to say it’s purely experimental. They’re just past the animal testing stage, but I know the guy that’s running the trials. For the right…contribution to their work, I can get you in on some of the most cutting-edge advancements to hit bone regeneration in two decades!” Excitement was plain on the doctor’s face – he liked the occasional payoff, but he loved medical advancements.
“That’s great, Doc,” he said flatly, “but what does it mean to me? What kind of improvement am I looking at here?”
Robbins moved a step closer and lowered his voice. “I can’t be exactly sure – this is brand-new stuff – but from what I’ve been told, you’d been looking at two weeks, tops, for a full recovery.”
“Two weeks!” He could feel his excitement rising. “For a full recovery, no phyiso?”
The other man nodded. “It’s an injection-based treatment, starting with –“
Barry cut him off. “I don’t care, doc. I’ll get you the money, you get me the shots, and my leg heals. It doesn’t matter to me how it works. What matters is how much it costs.” He held up his thumb and forefingers and rubbed them together.
“It’s not cheap,” Robbins said. “Fifty thousand, to start, and if you need another shot, it’ll be that much again, at least.”
He shrugged. He’d expected worse, and his rainy-day fund could afford to have another small slice cut out of it. “Three days work for you, Doc? Cast me up in the meantime.”
Robbins nodded, and Barry allowed himself a smile. This might not be so bad.
***
Two weeks later, his opinion had changed.
“What the hell, Doc?” He screamed, grabbing at his leg in its cast. He’d managed to hold it in until the door was closed behind him, but the pain that had been building for the last few days couldn’t be ignored any longer. “What did this stuff do to me?”
“Hang on!” Robbins bellowed, moving toward him, a cutting tool in hand, and Barry swung his leg away.
“Get away, you psycho!”
“Hold still, moron!” Robbins smacked him hard across the face. “I’ve got to cut the cast off if I’m going to figure out what’s wrong!”
Barry relaxed, and let the doctor run his metal device along the cast length. It split open with no additional pain, but he could see Robbins struggling to remove it.
“What’s wrong now?” Real panic was creeping into his voice. Everything had been going exactly as planned until a week ago, and suddenly he’d been itchy beyond belief – drinking himself into a stupor seemed to take most of the edge off that problem – but then the pain had started.
“I don’t know, Barry! I told you this was a new technology. What symptoms have you had besides pain?”
“Itching!” He bellowed. “And the damn thing’s been twitchy, too!” It hadn’t even felt like his own leg for the better part of the last four days, and it kept moving when he wasn’t looking, making him trip up stairs and have trouble navigating corners.
Robbins frowned. “This isn’t out of the realm of the normal, but the bots they injected you with are untested, for the most part.”
“Bots!” Barry was losing his grip on it now. “What?”
“You didn’t want to listen,” the doctor grunted, still struggling to remove the cast. “You wanted the treatment, without any questions. I tried to tell you what you were getting into, tried to let you know that nanobots were the focus of my colleague’s research, but you don’t care about progress, or about science, just about your convenience!”
That was enough. “I pay you well for that ‘convenience’, Doc, and now, I’m – I don’t know what the hell I am! Get that damn thing off!”
“I’m trying!” Robbins roared, finally managing to tear the cast free and missing a step as he stumbled across the room. Silence fell as they both looked at his leg – what had been his leg – and Barry felt his stomach roll.
Twice as large as what had been its twin, his new leg was bulging with muscle and veins pulsing with each beat of his heart, jumping slightly even as he tried to hold it still.
He hopped off the bed and took an experimental step forward. Even under his bare foot, he could feel the tile underneath him flex and then crack as he put down his full weight.
“Look at me!” He pointed to his bulging limb. “You’d better fix this, doc, and right damn quick!”
- D
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