How to Lose an Arm and Find a Heart - Part II

The problem with Engineer Doctor David Agom was that he did not like to depend on others. Beep, went the detector as he brought his hand in range of the ultrasonic sensor. He never asked for favours as much as he could, always brute-forcing his way through tasks that would have been easier managed by a team. He lived his life cloaked in the solitude of self-sufficiency. Beep. He gestured an open palm towards the sensor. The robotic arm spread open, imitating his. Good. He nodded before soldering another wire in place. It wasn't that David never needed help, and it definitely wasn't that he didn't want to ask for help. He simply did not know how. David's biggest strength was also his biggest weakness. He was brilliant. He was competent. He owed no debt. From secondary school all the way to his COREN registration, he had always been Mr. DIY. Do it yourself. He studied alone, read alone, worked alone. His MSc was no different. He built a robotic manipulator, modelled its motion, wrote its control algorithms, and spent many a sleepless night arguing with motors that refused to obey their own mathematical models. His supervisor scarcely saw him. By the time they met, David usually had more results to present than questions to ask. His PhD was worse. Sensors, actuators, control loops, circuit boards. He soldered, programmed, simulated, tested, failed, and tested again. Once, a persistent oscillation in his robotic hand kept him awake for three nights. He eventually traced it to a poorly tuned controller. His supervisor never heard about it. In fact, the man barely heard from David at all. David had practically conducted his doctoral research himself, emerging occasionally with a chapter, a prototype, or some experimental results requiring a signature. It wasn't always smooth sailing. He had failed exams, missed deadlines, and submitted incomplete reports. He fell sick, recovered, fell sick again, cried, faltered, lifted himself up alone, without offering his hand for a shoulder. He bore it all on his own. Self-sufficiency became second nature to him because he always seemed to pull through somehow. So naturally, David wore competence as a coat and believed himself all-capable. Yet he remembered how he shivered, how he cried, and the heat of fluid running down his shoulders when he learned of their circumstances, stranded in the tetrium processing plant, surrounded by approaching swarms of bloodthirsty insurgents who might probably behead him on camera. He still remembered the fear, but strangely, he smiled. Liang Wei was restlessly pacing about the hall, while Matteo Ricci tried his best to keep calmness from fleeing the plant. David stood there, petrified, pants drenched, but unwilling to display his anguish to his colleagues in the plant. The news of incoming rescue arrived one evening. The plant breathed slightly, but the wait lingered. Then gunfire. It was close. Rescue team. David never liked to be indebted to people, but little did he know that he was about to incur a debt he could never quite repay.

How To Lose And Arm And Find A Heart

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