She sobbed and nodded, uncertainly. He gave her hand a slight squeeze.
“There’s something more you have to know, then we’ll leave you alone if you want. Your heart was badly damaged in the accident. We had to give you an artificial heart.”
She looked at her chest, confused, then horrified. “I don’t feel different.”
“It’s a good one, but you’ll have to be careful with it. The first rule is to try not to let yourself get too emotional, or exercise too strenuously. It can follow you a little way, but not what you were used to. The second rule is that you’ll need to eat a fair amount of sugar. It isn’t like the old ones, with wires and batteries; it pretty much runs off the same fuel the rest of your body uses. But it’s not as efficient as a real one, so you’ll need to eat and drink more. Except for salt—that’s a no-no. The third rule is that you’ll have to be very careful about cuts and things. You’ll need to take a blood thinning medication as long as you have it, because clots tend to form and break off inside it, and they can block the flow of blood to your brain.
“But that’s the worst. Otherwise, you should be able to lead a fairly normal life until we find a donor. Then you’ll get a brand new heart that will work just as well as your old one.” He smiled reassuringly, but wondered how much of this was really getting through to her.
“After you get it, you’ll have to take medicine for the rest of your life, but there’s no reason you shouldn’t live as long as you would have if this hadn’t happened. Back in the Dark Ages, when I was a medical student, the only drugs they had to prevent the body from rejecting a new heart didn’t work all the time, and weakened a person’s resistance so much that a lot of them died from terrible infections even though the heart itself was still OK. The medicines we use now are ‘customized’ for each person’s new heart. They’re nearly perfect at fooling the body into thinking that you still have your original one, and they don’t have any of the bad side effects like infections that the old ones…” He trailed off. He was babbling like an old fool, he realized, and Linda’s mind was somewhere else.
Linda’s eyes suddenly got wider. “I remember it now. We were coming home from his parents’ place. Someone crossed over the median. I screamed, Terry hit the brakes, then we skidded and hit the rail and the airbags went off. We skidded around and around, it seemed like forever. Then the other car just slammed right into Terry’s door. I slammed into the door and bounced into the steering wheel. Terry’s head… I…” She was sobbing again. “It’s all over. Everything’s gone.”
Thorny put a hand on her shoulder, like he had when she was twelve and had to convince her that acne was not the end of her life, either. “Not for you, Linda. With luck, you’ll have a long full life ahead of you.”
“Life? It’s all gone.” Linda’s tear-streaked face hardened, and she took a breath and looked at her chest. “Doctor Thorny?”
“Yes?”
“Can you just turn it oil? Please?”
No! he thought, Linda, don’t do that to me.
“Please. I want to be with Terry and my baby. Not be some kind of ghoul or cyborg. I’m sorry to have been all this expense and trouble but I don’t want to live this way. I shouldn’t have survived. It’s not fair. I don’t want to have to deal with this. Please don’t do this to me, Dr. Thorny, just put me back to sleep, forever.” Linda shut her eyes, turned her head on the pillow, and sobbed.
“Linda… Linda, I can’t do that. You can go on. Everyone does, even though they feel like there’s no point. And then they find something else. You’ll do that. You have to.” He motioned to Angel, and she restarted the intravenous sedative at its lowest dose.
Linda shook her head and didn’t say anything. Thorny, you old idiot, he told himself, you’ve been down this road one way or another, often a dozen times a year, for forty years of practice. If you can’t make it better, at least stop screwing it up!
“Look, Linda, I need to talk to the nurses taking care of you. Could you put off any drastic decisions until I get back? Give old Dr. Thorny that much?”
Linda nodded her head on the pillow. He blinked and she looked like she was five, not twenty-five, when he’d helped her get through an earache and she’d told him he was called Thorny because he was always sticking people. He and Ellie had never had any children of their own; too poor, then too busy, then too old. But he’d had a thousand little girls and boys come through his offices. He patted her on the shoulder again, possibly as much for his own comfort as for hers.
“I’d like you to meet someone. This is Angel. She’s a doctor, and a robot. The first. I’m her teacher. She knows just about everything, and she’s been working with me. We were in the hospital when you came to the Emergency Room after the accident, and as part of her training she helped to treat you. I wish to God it hadn’t been you, but we can’t do anything about that now.”
Linda’s eyes opened and she turned to Angel as if looking at her for the first time.
“Hi.” Angel said.
“Hello.” Linda’s voice was lifeless, but her eyes held a spark of wonder. “You’re a robot?”
“Uh, huh. They finished me five weeks ago and I’ve—”
“Excuse me ladies,” Thorny interrupted. “I should be back in a little while.”
As he left the room, he heard Angel say; “I’d like to be your friend. Do you knit?”
He smiled. The folks at the consortium said they’d been going for independent judgment.
“Well, how are we this morning!” Dr. Creighton beamed at Linda, throwing his not inconsiderable charisma at Thomy’s patient, in for her bi-weekly. They stood amid the light wood of Dr. Creighton’s spacious ninth floor Danish Revival anteroom, looking out over the fresh and flowered spring green of the medical center’s spacious suburban grounds. Linda seemed to be reasonably cheerful for an outpatient waiting on a heart transplant, but Thorny felt rumpled, out of place, and out of sorts. He had asked Creighton if Angel could be present, but after the third sarcastically condescending demurral couched in elegantly gross innuendo concerning his relationship with Angel, Thorny got the point. Further argument would have only upset Linda.
“Oh, hmmm. That looks good!” Dr. Creighton continued, grinning at Linda.
“What looks good?” She asked, smiling back.
“I see you’ve been sticking to that high energy diet, maybe even a little too well? Heh, heh.”
Linda blushed. She had, Thorny realized, put on a few pounds.
“Feeling good?”
Linda nodded, then hesitated. “I’ve been getting a little stomach ache every now and then. And I’m a little out of shape—.”
“Oh? Probably too much rich food. And according to the tests we did just before you left the hospital, your circulation’s fine. Rockwell’s making a good product these days, not to worry. But we can’t keep it forever, can we? Well, no rush. You’re moving up the donor list; I’d say in a month.”
“If this heart’s doing so well, why can’t I keep it?”
“Oh, everything wears out eventually. We’ll see you in another week. See that she gets some exercise, Thorny. I want her fit for the transplant. Speaking of exercise, I’m due for some of my own; a quick nine at Bellewood. Make yourselves at home!” With that, Creighton breezed out.
Thorny had to deliberately unclench his teeth before he could talk.
“Where’s Angel?” Linda asked.
“Children’s wing, probably,” he replied. “They aren’t as prejudiced—a robot doctor doesn’t bother them at all.”