Sleeping Giants (Themis Files #1)(22)
I know that wouldn’t explain why the other helmet doesn’t work, but like Dr. Franklin always says: one thing at a time. You can’t solve every problem at once. You see, Dr. Franklin: I was listening. Now I’m trying to solve one problem. I know what you’re gonna say: I haven’t even been discharged from the hospital yet. You and the doctors told me to stay put and get some rest. Well, I can’t rest if everything’s stopped because of me; and I don’t want to worry about that helmet knocking me out every time I put it on. This is me finding some peace of mind, so don’t get too mad when you find out what I’ve done. Unless I die in the next ten minutes. Then you can get mad all you want.
Also, don’t get mad at the hospital staff either. They probably thought I was going to the cafeteria, considering I told them I was going to the cafeteria.
I’m at the top of the stairs now. I think next time, if there’s a next time, I’ll bring two barstools with me, just for the satisfaction of throwing one down as hard as I can. I hate these things now. From now on, I’ll stand when I go to a bar.
You know what I’m doing, so I’m sparing you the play-by-play. Crouching, crouching. Opening the inner hatch…
I’m inside the sphere, going to brace myself in. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little nervous. This seemed like a much better idea an hour ago. Then again, I get sweaty palms when I wanna ask a guy out, so, par for the course.
I have the helmet in my hands. I’ll put it on now, before I chicken out. Be nice, little fellow, Mommy’s here…
AAAAAAAHHHHHRRRRR!
Son of a…Helmet’s off! Come on! What is it with this thing?! It burned like hell. I couldn’t even keep my eyes open. Mommy’s pissed! Obviously, it wasn’t as bad as the last time if I’m still talking, but that thing really hates…
I…
I’ll be damned. I can’t feel much with these gloves on, but I think the cut on my forehead is gone. I can tell you the stitches are gone for sure.
OK, I must be crazy, because I’m putting it on again. I don’t see what else it could fix, except maybe some self-esteem issues. I wanna see what it does when it’s not healing things.
…
Whoa. This is just amazing!…Ha-ha! I don’t even know where to start. As soon as I put it on, the visor went from dark to clear and suddenly I could see everywhere. I mean, I can see everywhere, not just inside the chamber. I can see through the metal outside the torso, I can see the lab.
I can still see the sphere, the liquid around it, but all of it is translucent. In fact, if I focus on something outside, I can see it clear as day. If I look at something inside, then what’s outside gets dimmer. It gives a bronze hue to everything, like an old photograph.
Let me look around for a while. This is awesome. I know I sound like a complete moron, but I can’t find the words. What…is…this?
There’s a hologram, a miniature of the robot—about one foot tall—projecting out of the small column in front of me. It’s really cute. Dr. Franklin, I wish you could see how cool that thing is. I mean, I know what it’ll look like when we have all the pieces. It’s…out of this world. No pun intended. Other than the legs being weird, she looks like a normal badass-warrior human being. The head looks human, and there’s only one. Nice. The hologram is moving its head when I move mine. When I move my arms, it does exactly the same thing. It mimics every movement of my upper body. I suppose it will also move its legs as well once we get the other station working.
I’m flailing my arms around like a madwoman. The actual robot arm isn’t moving an inch. That’s probably a good thing because I’d have destroyed everything in the lab, but the hologram has no problem moving at all.
Dr. Franklin, I just realized you’ll probably never experience any of this firsthand, if the helmet won’t work for anyone but me. It breaks my heart that you can’t see what I’m seeing after all you did. But it works! You were right, Dr. Franklin! And you see there’s no reason to wait. Everything’s fine. Oh, and you’re stuck with me, for good.
Don’t worry about the arm not moving. It will probably work when we connect all the pieces, like those old Christmas lights from when I was a kid. If a single tiny light was missing, none of them would work.
I wish I could try the other station. I know, baby ducks. There’s only one of me and I can’t be at both stations at the same time. Still, it’d be nice to know if it works…
FILE NO. 047
INTERVIEW WITH VINCENT COUTURE, GRADUATE STUDENT
Location: Underground Complex, Denver, CO
—Dr. Franklin said you had a breakthrough.
—I did. It’s not language!
—Already you lost me.
—I couldn’t figure out the meaning of the symbols. The more I thought about it, the more I realized I wasn’t supposed to.
—Now you have really lost me. Please say something, anything, that will make sense to me.
—The people that looked at this before me, they couldn’t come up with an interpretation because they lacked a…a frame of reference. They didn’t know the grammar of that language. They didn’t know the vocabulary. They didn’t even know what this was about. They needed something to compare it to. Do you know what the Rosetta Stone is?