did you get my faceplate active? You must know something about nanotechnology and neural connectivity.”
Mara shook her head. “Yeah, not so much.”
“So, who got the faceplate going?”
“I suspect it might have been me, but I don’t know anything about nanoneural whatever.”
“Then how did you do it?”
“Well, that too will take some time to explain,” Mara said. “Let’s just say I have a knack for fixing mechanical devices.”
“If that’s the case, what’s keeping you from finishing the job?” the voice from the phone said.
Mara leaned into the phone. “I’m sorry? Finish what job?”
“Finish fixing me. I can’t spend the rest of my life being a bodiless face sending pulses to a cell phone via Wi-Fi.”
Mara raised a finger and said, “Hold that thought. I need to confer with the detective here.” She tapped the End icon on her phone screen and turned to Bohannon. He had an exasperated look on his face. Mara said, “What?”
“Just how are you going to reconnect with him? You don’t have his number or log-in rights to whatever Wi-Fi signal he’s beaming from his nose. Also, if you don’t understand how he can see out of those eyes, how do you know he can’t hear us?” Bohannon stared at the face on the gurney. Its eyes were moving back and forth between the two of them.
“Oh, you’re right. I guess I’m a little more flustered by all this than I thought. He’ll have to figure out how to reconnect.” She paused to take a deep breath. “Now I’m not sure it’s a good idea to be repairing a robot from another realm. For all we know, he’s going to run around injecting people with little nanoviruses and turning everyone else into robots. We could all end up going to Jiffy Lube for our annual checkups.”
“You’re just going to leave that face on the gurney? He’s eventually going to tap into someone else’s phone.”
“Yeah, but I don’t think anyone else will be able to fix him. The technology is just too far out there. To be honest with you, I’m not sure I can fix him, certainly not without some tools.”
Mara’s phone rang, and she answered it.
“First of all, I am not a robot. Stop calling me that. I’m as human as you. Second, you are not to touch me with any of those archaic doodads you people call tools. I’d rather have a monkey clean my ears with a stick. I can talk you through the procedures to enable my body to repair itself, assuming the structural damage is not too severe.”
“So you can hear,” she said, turning to look at the face. “How do you do that without being connected to your ears?”
“My skin gathers most of the sensory data I need to perceive the world around me, including sight, sound, smell and touch. My ears, eyes and nose are largely aesthetic, to make me look and feel more human.”
“How do I know you’re not some megalomaniac bent on enslaving the human race?”
“You must have had a very disturbing childhood.”
“No, just the last few months.”
“Look, your phone’s charge will run out in about five minutes. Has my head been damaged? Is it misshapen?”
Mara stepped up to the side of the gurney and leaned over the body. “I don’t think so.”
“Let me see.”
“How can you do that?”
“Pick up my face and turn it toward my head.”
Mara grimaced a little and handed her phone to Bohannon. “This is so weird.”
“Try seeing it from his perspective.”
Mara grasped the faceplate and lifted it above the body.
“How’s that?” she asked, turning it downward to face the body’s head.
“Okay. The shape of my head looks good. All you have to do is lay the plate over the opening. Then you will need to place a finger behind each of my earlobes. You’ll feel little bumps back there, like those buttons on a remote control with a flat surface. Press both simultaneously and the plate should integrate with the rest of my cranium. It will sort of meld into it. Understand?”
“I think so.” Mara turned the faceplate upward and aligned it with the opening.
“One more thing.”
Mara stopped lowering it.
“If, once the plate is in place, I don’t become conscious, I’ll need you to remove my entire head.”
“Remove your head? You mean from the rest of your body?”
“Yes. It’s possible that damage to my torso or even my lower extremities might have caused a—What would be the best way to put it?—a short circuit of sorts. It could prevent my cranium from activating,