“Stand up,” he said. His voice quivered again. Lux realized he didn’t have the use of either arm: his right arm was not under his control; it was wrapped behind his back, it’s cybernetic grip holding his left wrist in place. “An elegant restraint, no?” said McDonald as Lux struggled to his feet. He took Lux by the arm and shoved him toward the back of the room, toward a doorway.
“Why did you come here?” McDonald said.
“Looking for a friend.”
“You’ve nearly found him. What’s his name?”
“Hansson. Horace Hansson.”
The doctor paused. “A unique specimen,” he said. “My nephew. The authorities provided me access for free. Addled, slightly, as they all are. But he was useful for my work.”
“Your work?”
“You are half machine, so you’ll appreciate what I’m doing here. A hundred-fifty years ago, a computer the size of a warehouse had a fraction of the power of what today fits on the tip of your finger. Yet with all that power, that raw muscle, that remarkable speed and calculation, we’ve never even approximated those less quantifiable, human elements: emotion, empathy, intuition. It’s not all math, they tell me.”
He pulled back the sliding doors, revealing the room behind with an understated flourish. Lux saw boxes. Perhaps two dozen, by his quick count. A wall stacked high with metal compartments, a tangle of wires emerging and twisting and running together to a port in the floor.