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Seven
“Idon’t understand why I have to wear makeup at all.” Michael Wu flinched away from Suzan the makeup artist’s bronzer brush. “It tickles, and it smells funny.”
“The lights will wash you out, Michael,” Jenna explained patiently, for the umpteenth time. “You’ll look like a ghost.”
“So lemme be a ghost, then. I’m fine with that,” Michael shot back, rebellious.
Ava swept in to the rescue, perching on the chair next to him and giving him a coaxing smile. “Come on, Michael,” she wheedled. “This video’s going to be seen by a lot of people. You’ve got to look good.”
Yay, Ava. Jenna left her to it. Thirteen-year-old Michael had a huge crush on her glamorous friend. It came in handy at times like these.
She glanced back when she heard Michael laughing. He was already getting his cheeks bronzed by Suzan, talking animatedly to Ava. Damn, she loved that kid.
Today, she had her three most experimental cases on display, all of whom had benefited from the expensive preparatory surgeries that had been funded by the AI and Robotics International Award. Michael had lost both arms to meningitis septicemia, one above the elbow and one below, but with the sensory reinnervation surgery, which had rerouted the nerves that had originally run down to his fingers onto the skin above his stumps, Michael now had nervous impulses running both ways. He could command the prostheses at will, and get actual sensory feedback from the sensors. Pressure, texture, grip force, heat and cold. With ferocious practice, he’d achieved remarkable motor control.
Roddy Hepner and Cherise Kurtz were the other two featured in Ava’s video. Roddy was a Marine who had lost an arm in an IED blast in Afghanistan. Right now, he was seated on one of the couches by the wall talking with Drew, having already submitted, if reluctantly, to Suzan’s bronzing and shading.
Drew was speaking as she approached. “...in Fallujah. First Infantry Battalion. I was the squad leader of an M252 mortar platoon.”
Roddy nodded sagely. “You got wounded during Operation Phantom Fury, then?”
“No, that happened later, in Ramadi. I took a couple bullets to the back. One of them fractured my L-5 vertebra and lodged in the spinal canal, so I spent the next few months at Walter Reed. I’m lucky I can walk.” Drew paused. “And that I’m alive.”
“Me, too. I started out in Landstuhl and then got shipped to San Antonio.” Roddy noticed her, and a huge smile split his bushy dark beard. “Hey, Prof! They tell me you’re engaged to this dude. Who knew? You’re breaking my heart!”
“Sorry about your heart,” Jenna told him. “Word travels fast.”
“Well, if it can’t be me, at least you picked a Marine,” Roddy said philosophically. “Way better than that last guy you had. That dude had no discernible balls at all.”
She laughed at him. “Did you tell Drew about your music?”
“Yeah, I was telling him how the team here worked out some extra attachments for my arm for the drumsticks, and we’re working on more bounce and flex for drumming. I’ve been practicing like a maniac. My roommates wanna kill me, but I can do crazy polyrhythms now that two-handed drummers can’t even dream of doing.” His grin flashed again. “First, the Seattle music scene. Then, world domination.”
“Roddy writes his own music,” Jenna told Drew. “He gave me a demo with some of his original songs, and they’re gorgeous.”
Roddy’s smile faded a notch. “Yeah, well. That demo was recorded back when I could still play bass, guitar and keyboards. I laid down all those tracks myself. But I can still write songs, and sing ’em, even if I can’t play the chords. Say, Prof, if you invite me to your wedding, I’ll play your favorite song for your first dance. What’s the one you liked so much? It was ‘Thirsting for You,’ right?”
There was a brief, embarrassed silence, during which Jenna couldn’t look at Drew.
Roddy chuckled and waved his prosthetic arm at her. “Aw, don’t sweat it. Cherise said your guy is, like, a rich famous architect, so it’ll probably be a string-quartet-playing-Mozart kind of wedding, right? That’s cool. I don’t judge you. And I dig Mozart.”
By now, Jenna had reordered her wits. “No, Roddy, not at all. There is nothing I would rather have for my first dance than you performing ‘Thirsting for You,’” she said, with absolute sincerity. “We’re on, buddy. Whenever and wherever it happens.”
“Aw, shucks.” Roddy grinned, but his gaze flicked speculatively from her to Drew and back again. “Maybe you should play my demo for your guy first,” he advised. “He might not groove to my gritty country-rock vibe. It’s all good, either way, got it?”
“I like gritty country rock,” Drew told them. “I’d love to hear your stuff.”
“Awesome, then. Jenna has the audio files,” Roddy told him. “She can set you up.”
“Great,” Drew said. “I’d like to hear you. Do you play anywhere around town?”
Roddy’s face fell. “Not yet,” he admitted. “Haven’t had much luck getting gigs since I came back without my arm. I did better when I could play four different instruments. Now I just got drums and vocals. And with only one arm, well... It’s hard. Club owners, well. They don’t look past that. I can’t catch a break. Not yet.”
“Tell me about it, man.”
They all turned to see Cherise Kurtz, the third star in Ava’s video series. Her makeup was gloriously done, as she was the only one to give Suzan full rein. In the last video, her hair had been teal green. This time, it was shaved tight on the sides with a long forelock dangling over her eye that shaded from pink to a deep purple.
“Love the hair,” Roddy said admiringly. “You’re the baddest babe, Cher.”
