Between Master and Slave (Manxman, Mature)

Bad Dreams

I slowly open my eyes. I feel like I have slept forever and I am now just waking up for the first time. I have problems focusing. My entire body is in pain. I remember bits and pieces of what happened, the singing in the park, the ride, the accident. I freak out, then I rationalize, if I am in pain I am alive, if I am in pain my body is still there, those are good things. Now that my instinct for survival is satisfied I start to relax. Then I remember, Frank was driving not me. The truck came on the driver side. Frank must have taken the full impact.
"Frank where are you?" I manage to say in a raspy voice.
"Frank." I try again. I start looking around frantically. I am in an hospital room, I am connected to some machine that beeps at regular intervals. I am in some type of reanimation room. It must have been pretty bad then. It must have been worst for Frank.
"Frank where are you!" I say again not loud. I notice an emergency call button. I manage to get at it even through the excruciating pain I feel in my shoulder.
Soon a nurse makes it through the door running.
"Mr Romano, what in hell do you think you're doing." She is a big African American woman with curly black hair, round face typical of an overweight woman.
"Nurse, ahh..." Is all I manage through the pain. I managed to push the button but I could not support my weight and I fall over the night table knocking out all the contents on it.
"Here, let me put you back in bed before you destroy the room and probably kill yourself in the process."
She picks me up and places me back on the bed slowly. Once I am set and all the probes are back in place she looks at me in the eyes.
"Now, please tell me that there was a reason to this," she melodramatically points at the mess I did, "and you didn't just drag my ass over here so you could say hello." She places both hands on her hips waiting for my reply.
"No, not to say hello." I take a pause, I am still short of breathing,
"Frank, was in the car with me. What happened to him."
"Oh, is he your friend?"
"He is so much more. He is my lover."
"Ohh, Lord." She places a hand in front of her lips, then continues, 'he ain't doing too good. But he is alive. Now rest."
"What do you... What do you mean by not too good."
"Honey, the doctor will see you in the morning. You can ask him. Now rest, ok."
"Ok" not because I want to give in but because I am too drained.
"And no more knocking furniture around, ok honey?"
I just move my head slightly up and down.
"Good."  She leaves.

*****

"Fire it again."
The older man in a white lab coat says to his assistant, a younger man also in a lab coat.
"Doctor Keller, should we give him time to recuperate?"
The man addressed as doctor looks at a series of screens showing the subject's life signs.
"Fine, wait 10 minutes. In the mean time I will look at the recording again."
The doctor starts the playback on the screen. The images recorded by the MRI scan show blinks corresponding to the energized circuits, while the doctor looks at the screen fascinated. The assistant follows the progress of the patient by looking at the machines showing the life signs and taking notes. Once in a while he looks at the patient that is slowly stopping spasming. After sometime, the doctor speaks again.
"Fascinating," the doctor tells himself, then addressing his assistant, "learned anything new post shock."
"Nothing, amazing! There is no post traumas. A slight inflammation at the probes, but I guess it is normal after the amount of shocks we have subjected him to. The probes deliver just enough power to overcharge the nervous system without any damage."
"It's the sequencing of the firing. Just one probe would not make a difference, except maybe a slight tingle, and firing all together would fry him. But there is more to it, the sequence is also important."
"That is the reason for these tests?"
"Yes," he points to the image where the probes inserted between the vertebrae can be seen. "You see, they are placed between the disks here, here and here. Electricity need a full circle to pass. So some of them must be positive, others negative. The firing sequence is too quick, so it is hard to say who fires and who receives what."
They look at the patient strapped to the bed in the MRI. Even at the worst of the spasms the body will not move a millimeter.
"I think we are doing more damage with our straps then the implant." Tells the younger doctor suddenly.
"We tried with less straps and wasted two days of testing due to unclear pictures."
"And we still don't know how to remove the implant."
"If we temper with it, it will explode, the probes are fixed right below the implant. They are inaccessible, without cutting into the spinal chords. Whoever did this is a master surgeon. Even the scars were barely visible to a trained eye."
"I don't get it. How would the ones that put the implant be able to remove it."
"It is not meant to be removed, it is there for life."
"What about maintenance."
"The implant is actually very simple. I had the MRI we took of the circuit checked, there are three identical circuits. My guess they are a back up of each other. My guess is no maintenance is required."
After a brief silence, the younger continues.
"What do you make of his erection? Was it meant as a measure that he would be ready to ... Perform at the touch of a button."
"No, I doubt it. Even if the implant and probes are located between the T2 - T6 range of the spinal cord, one of the probes excites a sympathetic nerve from the T10 region, that controls erection. To place a probe that way on purpose would be impossible. So it is just a coincidence." Without loosing beat he continues, "prepare the machines, we will run another test."