Chapter Twenty-Six: The End of a Political Career

The masses will not vote for a man in a wheelchair, Toby thought, which is why, a hundred and seventy years ago, Franklin Roosevelt kept his disability a secret. The press was accommodating in those days—and could afford to be when there wasn’t a TC in every brain—but no longer. There was no way he could hide his paralysis.

His political career was through. It was as simple as that.

He remembered Dr. Heilig’s last words to him before firing the stunner. “Your life as you knew it is now over.” He wanted to lash out at her, put his hands on her throat, but he couldn’t even roll over. “You will live as we live,” she’d said, “and suffer as we suffer. Welcome to our world.”

Because of the attack, and despite her age and infirmities, Heilig would be back in prison, though Toby doubted if she would be in the general population. No, not Dr. Heilig, Canadian hero. She was probably in some luxury cell with full TC privileges. Of course, she was nearly as incapacitated as Toby, but she could at least sit up and move around some.

He stared at the sailing ship in the picture on the wall, watching the men in mid-air as they leaped into the stormy waters. Like the members of his campaign when they learned what had happened to him.

“Toby!” It was Bruce.

“About time you showed up.” It hurt his eyes trying to follow Bruce as he walked over from the door.

“They didn’t exaggerate about you,” Bruce said. “You’ve got more things coming out of you than an octopus.” He began pacing back and forth, tossing the ever-present ping-pong ball back and forth between his hands.

“I know that pacing, ball-tossing thing of yours,” Toby said. A stab of pain forced him to look up and stare vacantly at the ceiling. “You’re planning strategy. As if I’m going to walk out of here and run for president.”

Bruce laughed. “Okay, you aren’t going to run for president, but you can still wheel for it.”

“Even Twenty-two could tell you that makes no grammatical sense.” Mentally, Toby was shaking his head; he could even feel the non-working muscles working. “It’s over.”

Bruce leaned over Toby. “Franklin Roosevelt did it.” His eyes were bloodshot; Toby had an idea of what he’d been doing, or not doing, the last few days.

“Roosevelt hid it from the voters. I don’t think you can do that these days.”

“Then run as a cripple. You’ll get the cripple vote, the victims vote, the anti-crime vote, the bleeding heart vote, and Canada.”

“And how about the average mainstream voter? You think they’re going to vote for a guy to lead the world who can’t even move his head? What are you going to do, get a hospital bed with wheels and wheel me from campaign spot to campaign spot? Have a designated hand shaker for me? And a designated head mover so I can look at the people who come up to shake my designated hand shaker? Oh, and let’s not talk about what happens when I need to go to the bathroom.” He wanted to shake the tubes sprouting out of him, but all he could do was blink a few times.

“So you’re quitting?”

“No, I’m getting out with grace. As much grace as I can while lying on my back like a disembodied head. And yet…it’s all I know.”

The two were silent for a time, something that was rare when Bruce was in the room. Bruce went back to pacing. Toby could only hear it as he stared at the ceiling. He only heard the sound of Bruce breaking the ping-pong ball in his hand. Toby thought about his family, his son and wife in Maryland, and as bad as he felt now, managed to feel worse for not thinking about them sooner. Had they been contacted yet? Did they know what had happened to him or was Bruce keeping a lid on it?

“There is something else,” Bruce said.

“There always is when you’re around.”

“I’ve spoken to Dr. Heilig. She says they can put you into full-sensory virtual reality. It’ll seem as if you were never injured.”

“So you want me to be a criminal as well as a cripple?”

“We can use the Full VR images from the system to campaign direct to TC. Nobody will be able to tell the difference.”

“Not until Dubois sends the army in to arrest me for illegal use of Full VR. You’ll be my accomplice. We can go to jail together, and run for prison president.”

“Maybe you should consider Full VR,” Bruce said. “It might not be good for the average person, but for the old and infirm, and the disabled, it might not be a bad idea.”

“You’re starting to sound like Dr. Heilig. Didn’t you tell me not to touch this issue with a ten-foot set of crutches? And now I’ve got this nasty case of conflict of interest.”

Bruce began to laugh.

“What’s so funny?”

“Your gallows humor. I’m supposed to be the sarcastic one, and you the straight man.”

“I like gallows humor. It’s liberating.”

“I meant that metaphorically. It’s not really gallows humor, you’re not going to die.”

“Oh? Check back with me in fifty years. I’ll just lie here and wait.

“You’re supposed to be the straight man to my sarcasm and jokes!”

“I guess I’m lying down on the job.” Toby started to laugh, but it quickly turned into a coughing fit.

“You okay?” Bruce asked as the coughs began to subside.

“I’m perfect,” Toby said. “In fact, forget everything I said. Let’s run and win.”

“Are you serious?”

“Why not? Can I win?”

“Not a chance. But we never had a chance. I thought you knew that.”

“No chance? Not even with Full VR, the cripple and bleeding heart vote, and the greatest campaign director in the world?”

“No chance, not even with me. But we can still run and have fun.”

“Run and have fun? I want to win!”

“Forget winning. Have you considered becoming a champion of the old and infirm, and the disabled, and argue the case for bringing back full-sensory virtual reality for those who really need it?”

Once again there was silence. Then Toby broke it.

“Get out of here, and don’t ever come back.” A moment later Toby listened as his friend walked slowly to the door, even heard the smack of a ping-pong ball in his hand—had he gotten a new one out after smashing the previous one? Then he was gone.

* * *

They started Toby on rehabilitation. At first he’d approached those sessions with some enthusiasm. However, his enthusiasm dimmed when he realized that all these sessions entailed was for a nameless physical therapist—who seemed no more than a muscular teenager with a lopsided grin on his face—to call out a body part for Toby to try to move. The sessions were futile.

“You said I’ll never regain movement from the neck down, right?” he asked Dr. Artaud.

“Right,” she said.

“Then what’s the point of the rehab sessions?”

“It’s better than not trying at all.” She quickly left the room.

The next time the therapist came in, Toby told him to get lost.

The stun blast had destroyed both his TC and the brain tissues it connected to. Dr. Artaud explained to him that someday he might be fitted with another TC, but his brain would have to learn to use it. “It’ll be like learning a new language,” she said.

Toby was horrible on foreign languages. He began to groan, but like the laughter before, it ended in a coughing fit.

“Are you okay, Mr. Platt?”

“Of course I’m not okay!” he cried when the coughs subsided. “Just go away!” He was surprised at his own anger. They could beat Dubois. There had to be a way.

Wayne Wallace won re-election in 2055 despite losing a leg to a would-be assassin. Would they consider a man who couldn’t move his arms or legs? What’s important in a president is what’s above the neck, not below. Were humans so superficial they couldn’t see past his disability? He had to make them see.

He stared at his faded purple scarf, still hanging accusingly over the chair by his bed. He thought back to the days of Vinny, when politics was fun and simple.

The world was stuck in this cycle of left and right, like a pendulum that shot back and forth, only stopping at the extremes. Left, with President Xu. Right, with President Dubois. Ajala wanted it to swing left again; Dubois wanted to keep it right a little longer. Only one person had an opportunity to break the cycle, to bring the presidency to the middle, and change Earth politics forever. Only one person. He had a responsibility.

Paralyzed or not, the campaign must go on. He had to talk to Bruce.

* * *

“I need an external TC,” he repeated for at least the tenth time. Dr. Artaud had brought him one, but it wasn’t working.

“I’ll try to get another for you,” she said.

“I can’t run for president from a hospital bed without a TC,” he said.

“I really don’t think you should be running for president at all, in your condition,” she pointed out. She had a nasty habit of clicking her tongue when she disapproved of something, and it was irritating.

“If Bruce were here, he’d have a portable TC for me inside an hour,” he said. “Can you get a message to him?”

“You need to rest, Mr. Platt.” She left.

He considered his options, but there really weren’t any. He was a prisoner until he got a TC or Bruce returned. And he’d told Bruce to never come back.

He stared at the scarf for hours. His eyes hurt from the strain.

Over the next few days, Dr. Artaud brought several portable TCs, but none worked for him. They finally concluded that his brain damage caused this. He’d never use a TC again.

Several long weeks passed. Bruce did not visit.

* * *

“Bruce is never coming back.”

Startled, Toby pulled his eyes away from the scarf to see Dr. Heilig standing on the other side of the bed, a grim smile on her face. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m here to save you,” she said.

“Save me?” he exclaimed, though his voice was still whispery. “You put me here!”

“That I did.”

“Shouldn’t you be in prison?” he asked. “How’d you get here?”

“I have connections.”

“I’m calling the nurse.”

“Please don’t, at least until you hear me out. I disconnected your call button anyway.”

She seemed in much better shape than before, when she’d been the one lying in bed, with tubes and wires coming out of her body. Prison had somehow been good for her.

“What do you want?” he asked.

“Do you remember the last thing I told you before I stunned you?”

“How could I forget?” he said, irritated. “You said my life as I knew it was over. It was.”

“No. After that, the very last thing I said. I said, ‘Welcome to our world.’ Do you remember?”

Why was she parsing what she’d said? How could that be of any possible importance? It was time to call security, get her back where she belonged. She had a way with security—first Turk and Crowbar, and now she’d escaped from a prison cell. They’d probably put her in maximum security this time.

“Now you know what it’s like to be old and infirm, and disabled,” she continued. “It was at a terrible cost for you, but it had to be done. Now you can see what our government took away from us.”

“What do you mean?”

She held up the pen stunner she’d used before.

He started to yell as loudly as he could whisper, but she put her hand over his mouth. “I’m not going to hurt you again. I’m going to free you.”

Toby stopped trying to yell, and she removed her hand.

“You can spend the rest of your life lying in bed, a cripple relying on others to take care of you, with all the pain and boredom from that. Or you can become a criminal, and enter Full VR, and be free.”

She aimed the stunner at him. He cringed, but there was nothing he could do as it flashed.

It hurt his eyes, but otherwise nothing seemed to happen.

“Now get up,” she ordered.

“Huh?”

“I said get up!” She slapped him on his chest. He felt it!

He rolled out of bed and stood up. “This is virtual reality?”

“To be specific, 3-D full-sensory virtual reality. Full VR.”

Toby stretched his arms and legs for the first time in weeks. He’d lost track of time. “So none of this is real?”

“Not in the least,” she said. “You are still lying in bed, paralyzed. Would you rather live in that world? Or this one?”

It felt so real. He examined his hands, and then the room, as Dr. Heilig watched. It was hard to believe, and yet here it was.

Which reality should he choose?

“Have you had enough?” she asked.

“No,” he said. “It’s not real, but a life lying in bed—that’s not real either.”

“Do you see what the government has done?” she said. “There are hundreds of millions of people on this world who are in the same situation you and I are in. Under our laws, they are made to suffer. Change the law, and they can live out their lives without pain or disability, and in perfect health.”

“There should be an exception to the law,” Toby said.

“You may get my endorsement yet.” She patted him on the head lightly. “Oh, I don’t think you’ve had a chance to consider all the implications yet of Full VR yet. Here’s one.” As he watched, Dr. Heilig morphed into Dr. Artaud.

“So you can be anyone you want in Full VR?”

“Yes,” Dr. Heilig/Artaud said. “You can be anyone.” She morphed into Bruce, then Dubois, then Ajala, and then back into Dr. Heilig. “Pretty neat?”

She held up the stunner. “This isn’t real, not here in virtual reality, but it’s a handy way to control things. I’m returning you back to reality.”

“Not yet—” But he was too late. He was back in the hospital bed, but with his eyes closed. He opened them.

“He’s awake!” Bruce’s voice said. Toby turned his head, and there was Bruce, sitting in the chair that previously had held his scarf.

He had turned his head—but that was impossible, now that he was back to reality. He was paralyzed for life, so he must still be in Full VR. What type of game was Dr. Heilig playing?

He sat up. “You’re not real, are you?”

Bruce stared at him as if he were a rotting pile of meat. “If I listed all the things I thought you might say when you came out of that coma, that wouldn’t make the top ten thousand.”

“A coma?”

“You’ve been in a coma for three days, from a stunner Dr. Heilig had hidden.”

Only three days? He was sure it had been weeks. But this Bruce couldn’t be real anyway. Or could he?

There was a way to check. “Remember when we decided to create PUFF, the Provisional Universal Food Foundation? What were the other two options we considered?”

“Okay, that wouldn’t be in my top fifty thousand list of things you’d say. Have you been dreaming in your coma? The doctor said it was possible, but—”

“You’re evading the question, so you must not be real.” No matter how real Full VR might seem, the computer that ran it would have no way of knowing what they’d discussed in private.

“You wanted to call it Triple F, for Free Food Foundation,” he said. “We also considered STUFF, for Short-Term Universal Free Food.”

He stared at Bruce, stunned. This was reality. But he was paralyzed for life, and yet he was moving about. It wasn’t possible!

“Where’s Dr. Heilig?”

“She was taken to prison right after she stunned you, three days ago,” Bruce said. “Why?”

He ignored Bruce as he thought furiously. There was only one solution to the puzzle. An unbelievable one.

“We need to see Dr. Heilig.”