To: 
From: "Jay  P Hailey" 
Reply-To: trekcreative{at}yahoogroups.com


Title: Accidents
Author: Jay P. Hailey (JayPHailey{at}aol.com) Series: Vista City
Part: 6/8
Rating [PG]


The next Sunday, Scott had made his decision. he would put in a days work
on the old bomber and then back out of the group. He felt that he owed it
to Jennifer to minimize his risks whenever possible.

Scott's car was a 1985 Ford Thunderbird. It was brown and somewhat bland
looking. But underneath the bland exterior it was a well maintained machine
and it could really move. Years ago Scott was more apt to really push the
car and use its performance capabilities. They had come in handy during the
disaster of 1988. But these days Scott drove more calmly, with the seat
belt on and less focus on the act of driving itself. His life had changed
in more ways than he was really aware of.

He drove on highway Twenty-Four through northern California between Vista
City and Beauville. The two lane highway was a natural for fast driving.
Once or twice during the last six months Scott had given into temptation
and gone a little too fast on it. Today he was not thinking of having fun
with the ride. Having made his decision he was already into his last day of
work on the old bomber.

The jalopy bombed over the hill at nearly one hundred miles an hour. To
call the eighteen year olds' car a jalopy was really understating the case.
The young man had lovingly rebuilt his Pontiac into a pure bred race car.
After spending months of work and thousands of dollars perfecting his
machine, he naturally wanted to test his work, thoroughly.

Not only that, but only a top notch driver could make the run between Vista
City and Beauville in less than fifteen minutes.

The young man had pushed his limits coming around the turn, and was nearly
sideways when he started to recover from the skid and get back on course.
He noticed Scott's T-Bird down the road ahead of him, and knew that he was
not going to be able avoid the crash.

Scott noticed the oncoming car and quickly glanced left and right. There
were rocks and dirt from a cliff on his left. On his right there was a drop
off that continued down some distance into a rocky ravine.

He hit the brakes and began to slow down quickly. When the T-Bird
threatened to lose traction, he delicately pumped them achieving the best
possible deceleration.

The eighteen year old in the Pontiac also tried desperately to stop. He
locked up the brakes and the tires screamed, leaving a trail of hot rubber
on the road. The young man quickly began to pump his own brakes, not
wanting to lose traction and go randomly sliding along.

At the last minute, Scott could see that there was no way to avoid a bone
shattering collision. The T-Bird was nearly stopped, but the Pontiac was
still sliding along at a good clip.

At the last possible second a part of Scott's mind that he was not clearly
aware of made its own decision. Years of training and fighting had
ingrained in Scott that the normal, every day people of the world were
important, even desperately so.

So he flicked the steering wheel to the right and stomped his accelerator.

With a resounding bang, the two cars struck each other. The Pontiac hit the
left rear quarter panel of the T-Bird with her left forward corner.

Things got a little vague for Scott as the T-Bird tumbled down the
embankment and into ravine.

"Oh man! Oh man! Oh man!" The eighteen year old cried as his
Pontiac came to a stop. He was too adrenalized to feel the soreness and
stiffness in his neck, yet. The front end of his car had been destroyed,
but the impact had taken away enough speed so that he was able to stop
quickly. But it wasn't a solid enough impact to seriously injure him.

He looked around and saw the embankment, but no sign of Scott's T-Bird.
"OH MAN!" He yelled, jumping out of his car.

-*-

Scott lay in his hospital bed and had time to think. The accident had
destroyed his left leg. He had gotten some odd looks from the emergency
crews that had come to free him from the wreckage of his T-Bird. His
concussion blunted the effect of his other injury until later.

After the first day, which Scott had spent sleeping, the doctor had come in
to talk to him.

"Mr. Ashby. I need to talk to you about your leg."

Scott said "Yes?"

"I tried that number you gave me, but it has been disconnected. There
is no one there. Is there someone else that I should call?"

Scott was shocked. The lab that had built his cybernetics were very secret
and carefully guarded but had been there the last time he had called on
them in 1991. Without that contact point, Scott didn't know how to reach
the scientist who had built his arm, legs and left eye back in the 1970's.
He slowly shook his head.

"I am not competent to deal with damage to a prosthetic like yours,
Mr. Ashby. I'm sorry. I have heard of a few experts in the field, but if
they did not build your new limbs then I don't know how they might help
you."

Scott had other contacts for reaching the secret government agency that had
sponsored the construction of his limbs, but he didn't know what the
response might be. He had always gotten the impression that Dr. Randolph
Walsh and his crew of mad scientists who performed the cybernetic operation
in the secret lab were an independent operation.

With that the book on his cybernetic limbs seemed closed. And so did most
of his life. Scott had no doubt that his financial future was reasonably
secure. Between his military pension and the retirement funds of himself
and his wife, they had a livable if not stellar income.  But he would never
be able to fly, drive, run or much else.

All of the things that he could no longer do came back to haunt him. Scott
felt kind of dumb. He should have anticipated this. Damage or cumulative
wear would have eventually destroyed his cybernetics anyway. To his horror,
Scott found that the idea of being crippled had been banished from his
mind. He had never considered the possibility since the cybernetic limbs
had proven themselves, twenty years ago.

It was wishful thinking and self delusion, but Scott had gone for it one
hundred percent. That night while he slept, Scott dreamed of flying in
airplanes whose wings kept falling off.

-*-

"Why didn't you tell me?" Rebecca was angry, but it came out
hurt. Unconsciously, she folded her arms in a defensive posture. The metal
arm curled up against her flesh and blood left arm, and the cold metal
startled her. She stopped and jerked both arms down at her sides, uncertain
of what to do with them.

"At one time, it was supposed to be top secret. I'm sorry if you think
that I should have been open with you about it, but I have a different set
of reflexes."

"It must be nice." She glared at Scott's right arm. "I mean,
at least you had the choice to keep it secret."

Scott sighed. "Did you ever talk to the person who built yours about it?"

"No. It never occurred to me that you could build them.." She
waved her right arm, stopped and continued the gesture with her left.
"...Like that."

"Listen. These old things are probably out dated junk, now. But when
they were first built, I had to be careful that someone wouldn't whisk me
off and dissect me to find out what made them tick. Old habits die hard.
I'm sorry."

"At least... At least you could pretend..."

"Rebecca, touch my right arm."

"What?"

"Just run your fingers along it."

With her left hand Rebecca felt the artificial surface of Scott's right
arm. She seemed a little embarrassed. "Yeah, so?"

"What did it feel like to you?"

"Like latex. What was if supposed to feel like?"

"Do you want to hear about the lady I went on a date with? I forgot to
tell her, too."

"At least you got the date."

"She ran screaming. She thought I was some sort of alien android."

"My heart bleeds." Rebecca's tone was harsh, but Scott knew he had her.

"At least no one that stupid is going to get that close to you."

"No one is going to get that close to me, period."

"My wife will probably disagree with you. But you do have the
advantage of literally wearing it on your sleeve. There's no deception,
there's no hiding. There's no doubt about how someone is going to react if
they ever find out, is there?"

"Your wife..." Rebecca hadn't thought it through. "There's
no way you could hide it from her, is there?"

"No, none at all."

"Maybe you're right." Rebecca was lost in thought. If someone did
want to get close to her, then her arm would have already been dealt with,
wouldn't it?

"Can you help me?" Scott asked.

"I'll make a call and see what happens."


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