Nik
17 Oct 2023Eeka
Welcome to the second part of our history. In means to protect the communities that were part of it, i'll not disclose any specific names for systems, planets or cities, up to a point. Readers of the first part should be familiar with this by now.A few more years have passed and little Nikola Benitez was growing healthy and well adapted to the robotic limbs his father managed to develop from his already ongoing, now for almost a decade, protestic research for the imperial military.
Dark brown skin inherited from his mother and pale blue eyes from his father made Nik, as called by his close friends, a very unique looking child in the almost homogeneous imperial race community he and his father were part of. Not to mention the metallic end of his arms and legs, something he was used of since birth but not everyone would witness during their rich and stable course of life.
Dr. Benitez was the lead researcher in a project which aimed to restore quality of life for those who lost part of their bodies in accidents and military conflicts. As such, he had an extensive knowledge about how the human nervous system works and interacts with its extremities in order to restore fluid and natural movement with highly technological and complex prostetic devices.
Though adults could receive permanent implants which would be almost indistinguishable, the constant growth of a child would not be in the scope of this project thus everything Nik received were classified as prototypes, personally (and mostly discreetly) developed by his father.
In the past few years, colleagues have already noticed how Benitez' focus in the project had intensified, leading to additional spending in research despite the maturity of industrial versions of the devices, which were produced and commercialized as the only premium market option, requiring the team mostly for safety reviews and improvements of upcoming versions.
His formal justification was the vision of how the prostetic technology could evolve beyond artificial replacement limbs. Specific applications could enhance human workforce's productivity such as robotic exoskeletons, allowing men to carry substantially more weight, perform unimagined procedures, with safety and at significantly less cost than heavy machinery currently in use.
Further in time, the development of this technology could allow innovative military hardware in the form of robotic exosuits, providing strong protection, increased firepower, flight ability and improved situational awareness for the operators. Perhaps even in space, replacing starships and their maneuvering limitations at small scales.
As a respected researcher in the field, his ideas were taken seriously by the ever money hungry businessmen currently profitting from the prostetics, not for the potential of being a disruptive technology for human kind but for the exclusive opportunities opened in the highly profitable civil construction, logistics and of course military segments. No other place in the galaxy had their minds where Dr. Benitez was prepared to go.
The truth behind his motivation was very personal and far from the ambition of becoming a successful scientist.
A dark dart of guilt would pierce through his heart every time he had free schedule to visit his son, even though Nik was living a relatively normal life thanks to his technological craft expertise, the man would unconsciously drift back to that road and lose himself among what if's...
Trauma had not properly healed inside Dr. Benitez' core yet, both the event and its minutiae remained unsolved, undiscussed. He would spend days non-stop on work, trying to get his head away from the hollowness left by that day. It was usual to fall asleep in his lab. He would be waken by nightmares in the middle of the night to cry and feed a strong feeling of self hatred for not being able to react on time in the car or reach his wife for the last time. Deep inside, the fragility of his flesh and bones have been deemed the root cause of his everlasting anguish.
Yet, in the generous heart of a true scientist, all the struggle only pushed his ideas further towards the progress of humanity.