Part Silicon - version 1.0
31 Aug 2017Andrew Linton
For three hours in the operating theatre I scream silently as the surgical team attaches the bionoptic device. The anaesthetic has left me paralysed but sentient. I feel every nerve-severing stroke of the robotic lancet and I try to twist away from the pain. My limp muscles ignore the urgent signals to move. I feel the brutal tug of the surgical separators holding my left eye socket unnaturally wide, and I try to yell at them to stop as tweezers grasp and yank out the remaining fragments of Asp Explorer canopy from my wounds, their jagged edges ripping through more nerve endings on their way out. I feel each stab of the suture needles and I'm desperate to let them know that I'm in agony, but my tongue lies still and I'm locked in to this world of pain until they've finished.*
I'm lying in the recovery room, relieved that the worst pain has subsided, and getting used to the steady, dull ache which has the same intensity as the combat aftermath I've felt many a time in the days following a bar brawl. Tentatively, I run a finger down the line of stitches from my forehead to my new eye, which is hard and cold and feels too big for my face. I continue the exploration down my cheek until I reach the end of the incipient scar. I will soon have what the security services call a 'distinguishing feature or mark'.
I return to examine the new eye. I can't see anything. What's the use of a bionic eye that's totally dark? Before the operation, the torn lens of my left eye delivered an irregular and distorted view of the surroundings which was further obscured by the cloud of congealed blood floating in what remained of my vitreous humour. With eyes closed I could see clearly, like dense undergrowth, the network of veins that ran throughout the retina and, dotted about, there were crystal-like polygons of flickering white light. Any sudden noise would trigger a momentary, total whiteout followed by a constellation of sparks.
Now, it's as black as the deepest cave on Mars.
"Tap it," the man in the next bed says, pointing to his own eye.
I turn slowly to look at him and realise how stiff my neck muscles have become.
"What?" I ask, wondering if he's in his own private world of post-operative delirium. I notice he also has a bionic eye, though it looks old and worn.
"Tap your eye to turn it on. Didn't they tell you that?"
I vaguely remember the surgeon and the doctor from General Bionics Inc. saying something like that. I hadn't paid much attention because it seemed more like a sales pitch than a medical consultation. Besides, when I agreed to the operation I was still in shock from the near-death experience I'd been through and I wasn't really listening to the details of how the new eye would work, and I didn't care, I just wanted it.
I tap the eye in its centre.
"No, not like that," my helpful neighbour insists. "On the side."
He demonstrates what he means and I copy his action. There's a flicker of light and I discover that the eye is also rigged with audio. A short jingle plays which tries to convey the message: "Welcome to our tech! Aren't we clever?"
There's a subtle whirring as the scene comes into focus, but before I can start adapting to my renewed binocular vision an advert pops up with another musical intro and a seductive female voice tells me about the benefits of owning the biggest ship in the Saud Kruger fleet.
"Let's not forget, it's among the top one percent of liners out there," she says as a video plays of a Beluga cruising past Sagittarius A*.
"Okay, so how do I get rid of these annoying ads?" I ask.
The man chuckles, which makes him cough violently. It takes a full minute for his lungs to calm down.
"Double tap brings up the settings menu," he says. "Down at the bottom, 'cause they don't want you to notice it, there's an option to buy an ad-free version of the software."
I immediately bring up the menu and pay the half-million credits to get the upgrade. I watch as the progress bar slowly expands across my field of vision.
"Your eye will now restart," my eye tells me and I wait while it reboots.
The surgeon comes into the ward full of self-congratulatory smiles, happy to recognise her place as the most important person in the room. I want to rip out her eye to give her an idea of the pain I've been through, but I don't.
"Commander Ausland, good to see you awake. Let's take a look, shall we?" she says, examining her handiwork – although much of it was performed by robots. "Can you follow my finger?"
She moves her index finger from side to side and watches the bionic eye automatically follow the motion.
"Very good. Now we'll do some acuity tests."
"Well, I can read the nurse's holophone number that's written on the back of your hand," I say. "Is that part of the test?"
She blushes.
"Oh no, sorry, that's not very professional," she says putting that hand into a pocket. She points to a LogMAR eye-test chart across the room and asks me to read down it as far as I can.
I read easily to the bottom of the chart.
"That's amazing," I say, already beginning in my excitement to forget the pain of the operation. "I couldn't do that before."
"I know," she says enthusiastically. "Some people are so impressed after one eye implant they come back to have the other eye done. I could do yours, if you like."
"Erm, let's leave it for a while, shall we? I think I'd like to get used to this one first."
I say this out of politeness, knowing that there's no way in the Milky Way that I'm going to let someone take out a perfectly good eye.
The surgeon shrugs, clearly disappointed to be losing the commission from General Bionics.
"In that case, we can discharge you immediately," she says abruptly.
I finish her thought in my head: to make room for the next paying patient.