Re: Diner: Michael/Janis
"You try growing an arm, smart guy," he said, laughing a little. "See how easy it is. No, there are people working on that kind of thing, but that always felt further away to me. And who's to say that the work I'm doing on prosthetics won't be useful for a new arm when they do grow one? Unless they can connect the nerves up bing bang boom no problem, there'll probably still be a need at least for an implant in the patient's bran for the forseeable future. And maybe beyond that, we'll build a robot arm with a fleshy exoskeleton. Am I confessing to a desire to build a Terminator? Possibly. Mostly, though, I just like working with motors more than skin cells. Ooh, pancakes."
Yes, the pancakes had arrived, a couple short stacks sliding along the table in front of them. He thanked the waitress profusely and commandeered the syrup, draining a good quarter of the contents of the dispenser over his pancakes.
Why bingo? "It made it real," he said, looking up to meet her eye. He had an intent gaze, clear, dark, steady. When he wasn't thinking about it, which was rare, he had the uncanny ability to lock eyes with someone and hold them there, to draw them in, to involve them in his enthusiasm, to hold court. He didn't have personal charisma, precisely - this was more the single-minded magnetism of passion. Possibly a touch enhanced by something else. "I had already been really intrigued by the possibilities of prosthetics, but when I met the people who would actually put them to use, that changed everything. I could see how not having a part of their body changed their lives, changed their direction and they way they approached everything. The people I work with in my job are some of the most compelling human beings I've ever had the pleasure to get acquainted with. Some of them, it breaks them down, but the ones who push through it? They don't even really need to get the legs back anymore, they'd kick their way through whatever life throws at them either way. They're absolutely tough as nails. Give them those legs back, though, and it still means everything."
He shoveled two forkfuls of pancakes into his mouth in the space of a breath. Personal magnetism officially broken. "Plus," he said, pancakes partially chewed. "There's the other challenges. Like building prosthetics that can be cheaply produced in places with limited access to medical equipment. If we're talking about a village that doesn't have access to a computer, then you need something small and inexpensive that can interface with an app, because practically everybody's got a smart phone now, even in the supposed third world. And on and on. It doesn't end." He grinned. "I like that."
He picked up his coffee again. Oh, pancakes. "Now, what is going to happen now is that I am going to stop talking and you are going to tell me about you. Everything you can think of. And -" He checked his watchless wrist, "Go."