8
6 – The reconstruction
When the two men returned, Nicolas' decision was taken. He had no family, nobody to worry about him. He accepted, whatever were the risks.
On the dozen wounded persons, only two refused to try the
adventure.
Others were evacuated quickly by air towards the American hospital of Dubai, a very modern establishment. It would be the first stage.
Afterward, they would be transported towards the United States, whatever was their nationality, and they would be incorporated into units in connection with their military speciality of origin.
For the moment, every sick person had her own room and her own nurse.
Then began, for each of them, the long walking towards the reconstruction.
Surgical operations after surgical operations, the missing pieces were replaced by electronic prostheses.
As regards Nicolas, the scientists began by the leg.
It was the easiest. It was enough to connect microcables with the nerves for the ankle and foot to work coorectly. Despite all the efforts, the frenchman would keep a slight limp, barely visible. On the other hand, i twill be impossible to make exercises asking for a steady effort of the basis of the member like running fast, jumping, …
Subsequently, the specialists were interested in the face. The situation was much more complicated. They began by reconstructing the missing parts of the bone. They were made with osteo-compatible titanium. The natural skeleton could gradually mend on the prosthesis, insuring the continuity.
The synthetic skin had the same characteristics : beside its capacity to protect tissues of the extreme, cold or hot temperatures, it also had the possibility of merging with the alive skin. There only would be later a long scar between both. On the other hand, no way of pilosity, beard or hair. Nicolas would have to be always shaved well or he would have to dissimulate the artificial part under long hair.
Then came the moment to repair the eye. It was impossible to envisage a transplant because the technologies did not allow it. The found solution was to set up a camera connected directly with the brain. Equipped with a powerful zoom, she would even allow the wounded person to see farther and more clearly than a normal man.
The reconstruction of the ear followed the same plan. The surgeons implanted an acoustic system with an adjustable amplifier which had to allow, if the patient wanted it, to listen whispering a great distance away.
To end, the scientists implanted a new left arm, equipped with electric engines in the articulations and linked directly with the nerves of the shoulder.
All these interventions were long and tiring for Nicolas who did not still understand very well what they made him.
The explanations came, a little later, by the mouth of Jefferson Whitney, the neurosurgeon who had overseen all the works.
- Mister Randanne, he said a morning, do you know television series entitled " The six million dollars man " or " the bionic woman " ? »
- I saw some episodes, a few years ago, answered Nicolas. »
- It was science-fiction. Nevertheless, we made you more or less the same thing. If your leg has nothing particular, your left hand has from now on a strength superior to the normal. It is besides capable of accumulating some static electricity. Your new eye is a high-definition camera with a powerful zoom, and your ear is a high-performance sensor.
« As you took care of animals, we also transplanted you an implant in the cranium which will allow you to communicate directly and effectively with them, and this regardless of the degree of intelligence of your "interlocutor".
« You are a new man today, and all your prostheses work marvelously. We are here to make sure of it.
« But do not be delighted too fast ! You go to be repatriated in the United States and it is over there that a very difficult learning will begin. You go to have to learn to serve you of your new accessories and it will not be simple. You also go to need to reconstitute you a sufficient muscle mass, for the alive parts, and to coordinate them with the prostheses.
« But, for now, rest. You leave only in a week. And, especially, do not remove the bandages which recover your new eye and your new ear. As things stand, you would not tolerate them. »
Eight days later, about ten "miraculously cured persons", sat in wheelchairs, embarked on a military plane.
Destination Fort Bliss, in Texas, away from prying eyes.
The learning was long and difficult.
He lasted, for Nicolas, almost 5 years.
Of course, he started using his new organs sooner.
Nevertheless, it is the time which was necessary so that his control was completed.
The beginning, in particular, were particularly difficult.
The frenchman did not control either its eye, or its ear and did not succeed, when they rested, to maintain them in "neutral" position, that is to say the position where their performances were strictly identical to that of the ear and the eye alive.
It is the reason why he was one of the last bionic creature to leave the training center.
Indeed, as soon as one of the "guinea pigs" was ready, he or she was sent to California. Those of the land forces went to Presidio de Monterey, those of the air forces were sent to Edwards Air Force base, and the "sailors" finished in Naval Amphibious base Coronado.
Nicolas lived on long years in the latter and it is there that he got acquainted with Owen Grady. Although a big age difference separated them, they became friends.
The frenchman had imagined to stay there until his retirement.
After what, he would go back to his country.
But the fate decided on it otherwise.
Indeed, far from there, one of the "guinea pigs", a woman, had an accident. While she walked in the street, she was struck violently by a vehicle which threw her on the ground.
She died instantly, but the shock had revealed the metallic prostheses which she wore on different parts of her body.
Logically, it should have had no incidence, the army having quickly evacuated the corpse. The misfortune was that a young "penpusher", without much talent but very hungry, was on the scene.
He hurried to take photos, under angles which highlighted the artificial parts, then he drafted an alarmist article on the intervention of robots, so waking the popular fears in the purest style " Terminator ".
« Robots are among us ! »
« They invade us ! »
« They are going to take the power ! »
« They will soon try to eliminate us ! »
Such were the big slogans which he developed, under the shape of a serial with episodes, which had the effect of creating a real psychosis within the population.
And fate came into play, for his profit, unfortunately !
Indeed, a second accident arose, a few months later, on other one of the "guinea pigs". In spite of the fast intervention of the military police to evacuate the wounded person, witnesses saw the metallic implants and, worse than everything, the artificial eye.
To end the anger which began to swell, the army decided to confine all its experimental subjects in its barracks, without time limit.
Fortunately for him, Nicolas was on vacation at the time of the facts and had left making some ride near the park of Yellowstone, without having informed whoever about it.
He was called on his mobile by one of his counterparts who alerted him.
- Go away, Frenchie, he told him ! If you want to live free, do not let you catch up. The army decided to lock the monsters whom we are in its camps, maybe for ever. So, let me give you some good advice, man, get out of here fast and try to make you forget ! »
The communication was brutally interrupted, even before Nicolas had said a word.
The message was as clear as it can be.
No way to go back to his residence ! He should make with what he had on him at this moment, at least at first.
And then, it would be better for him to find quickly a way to leave the country.
But where to go ?
Not in France, anyway, because it is certainly there that they would look for him first.
Then began for him an endless running away, which was to last several years.
All the while, he struggled to escape those who pursued him, with the military police and the CIA in the lead.
He managed first of all to join the North of Mexico. But he had to run away non-stop, even if he sometimes succeeded in being forgotten for a little while.
Every time came the moment when he had to leave. He came down so always further south, until reach the borders of the Yucatan.
He did not understand the reasons of this doggedness to get back him, even if he knew that he was considered as a desertor. He was now far from the United States and tended to think he was finally forgotten.
When Owen, on the occasion of a vacation, went in California to meet his friend, he learnt all his story, as well as his leak.
He also discovered the reasons of this wild will to find him.
An unknown group was interested in him, with for objective to discover the technological secrets of his reconstruction, doubtless in a mercantile objective.
And that was unacceptable. The army thus had to re-find him first.
When time came to leave for Isla Nublar, Owen remembered that Nicolas had friends in Guiana. No doubt he would try, by confusing the tracks, to join them. Formerly, he had the opportunity, on several occasions, to accompany him at their home. He had their address and their phone number. He would thus try, from his return, to contact them.
And he did it, from a public phone box, so as not to risk being listened to.
The frenchman had just arrived and was already preparing to leave because he had a lot of people behind him.
At first, he went full west, towards Brazil, to mask his real intentions, then, by complicated and tortuous ways, he went back up slowly towards Costa Rica.
Apparently he did not have anyone behind him anymore. He managed to escape everyone.
His prolonged work in the coffee plantations gave him proof that he was no longer being followed. He hoped even secretly that the pursuit had been given up.