Chapter 11

To wake up slowly was one of the things he'd forgotten how much he had missed.

The old programs inside his head had always yanked his mind to full alertness, no matter how deep his sleep. It had been jarring at first but as decades went by he got used to it, even if he never had learned to like it.

His sleep had been filled with strangely intense dreams, mostly of the past. Almost as if his brain was making up for lost time, somehow.

Inspector Gadget stretched, on impulse, and was rewarded not by the screech of rusty metal against metal but a barely audible, almost melodic noise of actuators.

He looked down at his arms. Gleaming, freshly chrome coated steel and well oiled joints.

"Oh, this looks rather slick!" He said, impressed and fairly pleased with his new arms.

A regular person might have been unsettled by such radical changes in their form, literally overnight, but by now Inspector Gadget had long since come to accept that the body was not what defined a person, but rather the mind.

As he moved he accidentally jostled a sensor on his chest. The sensor came loose and some sort of monitoring device began to beep.

"Um...oh, err…. Shush now!" Gadget said, startled by the noise. Out of nowhere he suddenly knew how to turn it off and did just that.

Apparently this had set off some sort of alert because a few moments later, Dr. Renton entered with a small entourage of robots in tow.

"Are you alright, Mr. Gadget? The alarm went off."

"Yes, my bad, I'm afraid. I knocked that gizmo loose when I got up." John shrugged sheepishly.

"No harm, no foul." Dr. Renton smiled and reached into his pocket and tossed something towards John, in a fairly high arch. "Catch."

"Go go Gadget Arms!" the bionic inspector called out, from sheer habit and as his new arms extended he caught a tiny chrome plated wrench between his thumb and index finger.

"Very good. Your reflexes are as impressive as ever. Even better than I expected, actually." The doctor smiled and Inspector Gadget allowed himself a moment of smug pride.

"You'll have to get up earlier than that to catch this old bird." John chuckled.

"I apologize for such a cheap trick, but I've found that patients such as yourself give a better display of their status if they're unaware of the test."

John wagged his finger at his doctor and smiled. "That's not quite appropriate behaviour."

"I stand corrected, of course." John and Dr. Renton then walked back to the bed and with some help from the various weird robots ran a few systems checks.

Inspector Gadget eventually found time to ask the doctor about the dreams.

"Hm. That wasn't unexpected, I suppose. Brains are tricky. My wife has a friend who could have been of great help here, but we must work with what we have." He adjusted his tie. "From what I understand that's a side effect of the upload of all your old memories Professor Shlickstien had stored for you. Still, there is only so much I could do. I'm afraid there will be considerable amounts of memory gaps to fill in." His worried face then lit up with a small smile. "The good news are that you'll have plenty of mnemonic capacity from now on, including automatic backups."

"Mnem…?" Gadget began to ask and then, out of nowhere, he suddenly knew what the word meant. "Oh, memory related!" He paused. "How did I even know that?"

"All part of the upgrade. You have an extensive database on all kinds subjects, from astronomy to zoology."

"Wowsers! How about that!"

Dr. Renton stood up.

"Now then, I suppose you want to meet your friends?"

As he spoke he walked towards the door.

"Uh, just hold on a moment there, Doc!"

"Hm? What?"

John pointed to his hospital gown.

"I really would like to put something on that doesn't show off my butt."

Hospital underwear and flip-flops are not very dignified at the best of times, but it was better than being half naked.

Inspector Gadget couldn't resist the temptation to make a showy entrance.

As he stepped out from the ward, he struck a pose.

"Ta-daa!"

He was rewarded with applauds from the two-person crowd that waited to greet him.

"John, you look great" Dr. Director called out and came up to him.

"That you. Ma'am." Gadget saluted smartly and winked at Will Du who was still waiting his turn to greet the bionic inspector. "See, Will? I know how to address a superior now. And I remember your name too!"

As the three Global Justice members began to talk between themselves, Dr. Renton quietly withdrew and ordered his robots to start dismantling the mobile hospital.