Chapter Five
They both were very close to their mother. In times of stress, and emergency they always called and talked to her. She had an uncanny demeanor that could calm them down no matter what had happened or what the emergency. She had an impartial demeanor when she listened to their problems. Also her being a practicing psychologist for forty years was probably a good reason she was good at that.
“Bruce, I can’t be a robot. I am your brother. I don’t have any answers either. I thought everything that happened to me was a dream. You were at my party last night. I had a little too much to drink, and I thought that this was just a hangover experience. And no mom does not know anything about this and she shouldn’t until we get this figured out. If the x-rays showed me normal, then I'll call mom.” said Jack.
They both had a strained laugh.
“We just need to figure out what’s up!” said Jack.
“We? How are we going to figure this out? You have suddenly become a bio-mechanical being and we have to figure this out. Ok, let me think on this. I have to lock up. I’ll postpone my rounds at the hospital. No, I’ll get doctor Blanke to take my rounds. We need to figure this out.” said Bruce as he wondered around the office a little confused.
“I’ll be right back.”
Bruce left to go lockup, and Jack got up and walked to the x-rays on the view boxes on the wall and studied the x-rays. He touched the x-rays with is fingers and had a grim look. He shook his head in disbelieve and looked down at his arms.
At least he verified what he was afraid to admit. Somehow he is a robot. Or more precisely, an android. A bio-mechanical being. But he knows that he can’t be an android. He has feelings, emotions, and memories of a very human life. He simply has to be human. Maybe he is still on his couch. Maybe one of his sculptures did hit him on the head and he is out cold still dreaming or in a coma or something.
He has had many x-rays and examinations throughout his entire life that proves he is human. How can he suddenly wake up one morning and be an android? His mind went on a rampage just thinking of all of this.
Jack walked back in the room from closing his practice.
Jack came out of his thoughts.
“Liz just left and said to tell you bye. She really likes you, Jack. You should ask her out.”
“Yeah, right. Maybe we could oil my arms together.”
“Jack.”
“Look, let me take blood sample to see if that part of you is human, ah, I mean yours.”
“Sure, go ahead.” said Jack dejectedly.
He led Jack into an examination room and retrieved two Seal-ease heparinized capillary tubes a lancet, alcohol swabs, and some cotton balls from one of the cabinets in the examination room. After he cleaned Jacks finger he pricked it to produce a free flow of blood. After having wiped away the first few drops he held the red-line-marked end of the capillary tube to the blood drop, and allowed the tube to fill at least three-fourths full by capillary action before he pressed it into the Seal-ease to plug the blood-containing end, and then prepared a second tube in the same manner
“Come on Jack, let’s go into my lab”
The prepared tubes were placed opposite one another in the radial grooves of the micro-hematocrit centrifuge with the sealed ends abutting the rubber gasket at the centrifuge periphery. After assuring the centrifuge cover was secured, he turned the centrifuge on, and set the timer for 4 minutes.
They both sat silently just watching the centrifuge spin.
When the centrifuge stopped, he removed the tubes from the centrifuge, and used a millimeter ruler to measure the length of the filled capillary tube occupied by the of red blood cells, white blood cells, and plasma. The red blood cells are the bottom layer, the plasma is the top layer, and the white blood cells are the buff-colored layer between the two. Bruce computed the percentages of each blood component. Usually white blood cells constitute 1% of the total blood volume.
“Well your blood certainly seems normal and human. We can do a type test to see if this blood is actually the same type as yours.”
“No just knowing the blood is human is a good enough test for me, and I would be surprised if the blood wasn’t the same type as mine. Now what do we do?”
“I, I don’t really know. Let me think about this for a minute.” said Bruce as he cleaned up his lab.
“But if I am an android, how come I can’t hear whirling, and motors, and such when I put my ear next to my arm?”
“Well, I don’t know, but I have a theory. Based on one of those science channel magazines I’ve read.”
“Let’s go back to my office.”
They walked out of the lab down the hall and into the office, Jack sat on the couch and Bruce walked over to the x-rays on the wall and picked up a pencil.
“I have read that they are making artificial muscles. These muscles don’t use motors or any moving mechanical device. They use dissimilar metals that are laminated together. When heat in the form a current is applied to the laminated metal, one of the metals begins to curl. The action is great enough to curl the stronger metal laminated to it. It’s the same principle the old manual thermostats used to use but on a much bigger scale.”
“As the current diminishes it reduces the heat and the metal cools and uncurls; uncurling the stronger metal with it. So maybe, this is a more advanced design of that concept. That can act more quickly. If you look at the x-ray here, of your arm, these bundles of strings that look like muscles may react in much the same way. If so, then there wouldn’t be any mechanical sounds when you move.” concluded Bruce.
“Well that’s just great, Bruce, but I’m still a robot. Now what do we do?” Jack unconsciously made and opened his fist as he flexed his arm.
“I don’t know. But maybe the best thing for us to do now is to go back to your place. Maybe there are clues there that will give us an idea of why you are a robot. I mean that’s where all this started. There has to be something, some evidence of why you are what you are. Mom always said to start at the beginning when you’re facing a problem.”
“Yeah, ok I’ll go for that. We have nothing else to go on. Let’s go.”
They climbed into Jack’s jeep and drove the ten minute or so trek to Jack’s seaside home on a mostly empty highway.
During the ride they were strangely quiet. Usually when these two were together they were chattering away about Bruce’s work or Jack’s art, or how proud their mother is of both of them. But now they both just sat in silent. The radio played oldie tunes softly in the background.
Jack turned up the dirt road that lead to his property. He drove through the beach landscape until he reached the plateau below his house where he usually parked. Bruce got out first and Jack followed.
Bruce shielded his eyes, tilted his head back, and looked at the top of the stairs.
“Jack, are you expecting company?”
“No just the shipping company that’s supposed to pick up three sculptures. They probably came and left when they saw that nobody was home. Why? What do you see?”
“Well I can see movement in or by the window. Somebody’s in your house.”
Jack shielded his eyes from the sun and look up where Bruce was pointing.
"Are you sure Bruce? I really don't see…."
He broke off and said, "Shit, somebody is in my house. Let's go."
They both broke off into a run up the wooden stairs, and before they got to the first landing, someone stepped out onto the front porch on the level above them. The figure just stood there near the front door, in the shadow of the overhang, waiting.
“Who is that?” asked Bruce.
“I don’t know. I can’t see, the sun’s reflecting off the glass and he’s standing under the overhang in the shadows.”
They ran up the last set of stairs, and reached the top of the stairs and turned onto the porch, the opposite end from the entry to Jack's studio/home.
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They both stop dead in their tracks. Both their eyes were like saucers as to what they saw.
Before them, standing in the doorway, with the sun low in the sky shining on his face was Jack.
“Well who the hell are you?” Jack the robot asked the other Jack.
“You need to come inside, both of you.” said the other Jack.
“Man mom’s not gonna believe this.” said Bruce his eyes as wide as saucers.