Lifter: Proton Field #2 Read online

  “Don’t worry Mom, we’ve tested these things around all kinds of electronic equipment. They don’t cause trouble. And, remember, it’ll make it easier for Connor to breathe. I think this is a bad time for him to be exhausting himself.” Myr pulled back the covers, put the vest on his chest and passed the straps behind him to click them into place. Keeping her eyes on all the monitors above the bed, she had her AI turn the lifter on.

  Myr didn’t see any big changes in the monitors, but in her lower peripheral vision she saw Connor’s chest lift up out of the bedding a little as he got lighter. Letting out a little moan, Connor said, “That’s better. Have it… help me… breathe too. Please.”

  Myr had her AI start boosting the lift twelve times a minute to help his breathing.

  Connor closed his eyes. “That’s better,” he sighed.

  Myr pulled the covers back up over his lifter vest, carefully keeping her head away from the focal point of the field above him. Turning to her mother, she said, “Where’s his safety ball?”

  Carol looked worried, “If they see that floating over him, they’ll immediately know we’ve disregarded the doctor’s instructions.”

  “They’ll also figure it out if a nurse gets her head stuck in the proton field, but I think they might be even more upset.” Wordlessly, Carol handed her the red ball with the caution labels on it. Myr tossed it up into the proton field hanging over Connor, then sighed, “I’ll talk to them when they come in and find it. Why don’t you go get some rest so you don’t have to deal with it?”

  “Well, I could use a shower,” Carol said, picking up her purse with a sigh of her own, “but, you’re right, mostly I don’t want to be here when you get in a fight with the nurses and doctors.”

  Myr snorted a laugh, “Fair enough.” Once Carol left the room, she turned back to watch Connor’s chest lifting and falling under the influence of his attempts to breathe combined with the pull of the proton field. She wondered if maybe the field hanging over him could be sped up to match the rate of his heart. In her CPR class she’d been taught that the chest compressions that pumped the heart also moved air in and out of the lungs even though the frequency was wrong. Could the one proton field do both? she wondered.

  Myr was still watching the EKG tracing on one of the monitors over Connor’s bed and wondering how it could be hooked up to Connor’s proton field so it could lift his chest in synchronization with his heartbeat when she heard a knock at the door. When Myr turned, she saw one of the nurses who said, “There’s a Dr. Watanabe who’d like to visit. Would that be okay?”

  Myr nodded and the nurse left without seeming to notice the red ball floating over Connor. Myr was wondering whether she just wasn’t very observant, or might have been entirely focused on Myr rather than Connor, or whether having a ball float over someone was so bizarre that her brain simply ignored it.

  Watanabe appeared in the doorway carrying a satchel. “Hi Dr. Watanabe. Come on in.”

  Watanabe stepped into the room and approached the bed. He spoke directly to Connor, saying, “You must be Connor Sevii. I’d ask how you’re doing, but I’m pretty sure that the answer to that’s ‘not well.’ Has your sister explained what she’s hoping she might be able to do for you?”

  Connor shook his head listlessly.

  Watanabe turned to look at Myr who felt a little embarrassed. “Sorry, I’ve been thinking about other stuff and haven’t gotten around to it yet.” She turned to her brother, “Connor, we’d already been working on a special proton field that we hope will support the pumping of the heart in patients with congestive failure like you. We’ve tried it out in the lab and shown that it can squeeze blood without damaging it, and that it doesn’t seem to injure pigs. Would you like us to try it on you?”

  Connor opened one eye and focused it on his sister for a moment. “You’re saying… I’m a pig?”

  Myr blinked. Happy that Connor was able to make a joke, nonetheless, Myr hesitated for a moment about sending one back. But, she decided he’d never liked being handled with kid gloves. With resolve, Myr said, “Evidently you weren’t listening, we’ve already tested it in a pig. Now we’re ready to test it in a monkey. You up for it monkey boy?”

  With a faint grin, Connor said, “Sure.”

  When Myr looked up at Watanabe, she saw that he had a horrified expression on his face. “It’s okay. We talk to each other this way all the time.” She looked down at the bag in his hand, “Can we try it out on me first?”

  Watanabe slowly shook his head. “I can’t try it on anyone without the approval of a protocol. Legally, I should recommend that you not try it on anyone either. However, I’m willing to explain how it works to you?”

  When she nodded, Watanabe got out the relatively thin disk of the heart compressor and showed her how it was supposed to be set up. To her astonishment, it had a substantial AI and was highly automated. He explained how it should be placed on the chest. Once it was in place, electrodes on its surface would pick up the EKG to tell it when to squeeze the blood in the heart’s chamber in order to pull more blood into the ventricle and when to let off the compression in order to force more blood out into the aorta. An ultrasound probe underneath it told it whether the heart’s chamber was in fact located correctly for it to do so. This both allowed the AI to refrain from activating if the disc wasn’t positioned correctly over the heart, and let its AI provide voice instructions regarding which direction and how far it should be moved in order to center it correctly.

  Myr leaned over Connor and said, “You still up for trying this?”

  Connor gave a tiny nod. Keeping her head away from the red ball hanging over him, Myr lifted up the pack for the generator that was creating the proton field above Connor and slid the heart compressor disc underneath the pack.

  Watanabe cleared his throat and, when Myr looked back at him, pointed his finger to Connor’s left. For a moment, Myr was puzzled, then realized that he was trying to tell her which way to move the disc.

  She moved it a couple of times until Watanabe nodded. Next she spoke to the heart compressor’s AI, telling it to run its diagnostics and begin compressing if it was correctly aligned.

  The AI responded, telling her to shift it two centimeters toward Connor’s head. Then it said, “Beginning cardiac support.”

  A voice behind Myr said, “What’re you doing?!”

  Myr turned and found the nurse just inside the room. This time she hadn’t missed the red ball. Her wide eyes were focused on it. Myr said, “We have some new technology that helps Connor breathe. We have some that should support his heart as well.”

  Eyes still wide, the nurse slowly shook her head. “You can’t just come in here and experiment on him with some crazy new technology!”

  Keeping her voice calm, Myr said, “I believe it’s still a free country. If the patient wants to try this, I think it’s his option, isn’t it?”

  The nurse stepped closer to the bed and looked down at Connor. Still looking distraught, she said, “Mr. Sevii, is it true that you’d like to try this… Whatever it is this woman’s brought in here?”

  Connor gave the young nurse a wry grin, “My sister.”

  The nurse leaned a little closer, not understanding, “What?”

  “She’s my sister. It’s already helping me… I’d like it to continue.”

  The nurse frowned and stood back up. Her eyes went to the ball and she developed a look of resolve. She said, “I’ll have to call the doctor.”

  The nurse left the room and Myr turned back to Connor, “Is it really helping you?”

  “Helping me breathe… Yes. My heart?” He gave a weak shrug, “It’ll have to pump some of this excess fluid out of me before I’ll notice it.”

  Myr turned to look at Watanabe, “Excess fluid?”

  Watanabe nodded, “When the heart’s too weak to generate enough pressure, the kidneys can’t filter blood properly. Then fluid accumulates in the tissues, and more problematically, in the lungs.”

>   “Oh, is that why he looks so doughy?”

  “Yes, if you were to press on his legs you’d probably make indentations in his tissue because of all the fluid he’s retained. The fluid retained in his lungs is part of the reason he has difficulty breathing, though his weak respiratory muscles certainly contribute to the problem as well.”

  “Hello,” someone said behind them.

  They turned to see a young woman whose eyes were also focused on the red ball floating above Connor. Myr said, “Hi, are you the doctor?”

  The young woman nodded, “I’m Dr. Fenn.” Indicating the ball with her eyes she said, “What’s that?”

  Myr said, “Connor has a device projecting a proton field above him. Have you heard about them? They’re responsible for the new fusion power plants and the new desalination methods for seawater?”

  The young doctor looked at Myr, “Yes, yes,” she said dismissively. “And the new spaceship they claim to have flown out of Bonner Springs. But proton fields wouldn’t have anything to do with heart failure. And, you haven’t explained how that ball’s floating in the air over him.”

  Myr resisted the temptation to respond dismissively. Instead, she said calmly, “Well, what a proton field actually does is to pull on things like tissue that contain a lot of hydrogen. The field that’s been established above Connor is holding that red ball in place because the ball’s made out of plastic which has a lot of hydrogen in it. The ball’s only there to remind someone not to lean over Connor and get their head too close to the field. The field’s holding it there, but the real role of the field is to lift Connor’s chest. It makes his chest wall lighter so that his muscles don’t have to move so much weight. Also, because it’s lifting intermittently, it helps him take each breath.”

  Frowning, the young woman walked over and started reaching for the ball. Myr said, “I wouldn’t do that…”

  A startled expression exploded across the woman’s face as her hand approached and was suddenly drawn hard to the ball. She jerked the hand back. Her eyes darted to Myr, then back to the ball, “What the hell?!”

  “It pulls harder, the closer you get to it. It’s a moderate lift down at Connor’s chest to help him breathe, but it’ll pull really hard if you get your head or hand near it.”

  The young woman stared wide-eyed at Myr for a moment. Then, Myr had to give her credit, she put her hand up and slowly brought it toward the ball. Myr could see her eyes going back and forth between the ball and Connor’s chest, and then between the ball and her hand. She stopped her hand when it was approximately the same distance from the ball that Connor’s chest was. Rather than denying the evidence of her senses, she calmly said, “It does pull firmly.” She seemed to be concentrating for a moment, then she continued, “And it changes with his respiration?” She looked at Myr.

  Myr just nodded. She didn’t want to try to explain that Connor was breathing with the device rather than vice versa.

  Dr. Fenn’s eyes went down to Connor, “I can understand why having this lifting on your chest would help. You feel like it’s making it easier to breathe?”

  Connor nodded.

  The doctor said, “Just a minute while I see what it’s doing to your vital signs, oxygen saturation, and ejection fraction.” She spoke to her AI, and a lot more numbers and squiggly lines appeared on the big screen above Connor’s head. Dr. Fenn studied them for a while, giving her AI instructions that let her compare the numbers from an hour ago to the present ones. Frowning, she called up numbers from a few hours ago when he was first admitted, then ones from several months ago when Connor had last been in for a doctor visit. “He is better,” she said slowly. Let me see if we’ve made any changes to his meds that might explain it. She gave a number of commands to her AI and inspected the results that appeared on the screen. She shook her head, “Well, he’s better and I don’t see anything we’ve done that should have explained the change. Either he’s recovering spontaneously… which seems unlikely… or, having his chest wall and respiration eased by the…” she glanced up at the ball, “proton field, is helping.” She frowned for a few moments at the screen and called up more information. Speaking as if to herself, she said, “But his heart also seems to be pumping better…” Fenn turned her eyes to Myr questioningly, “I don’t understand why lifting on his chest would help with his heart failure?”

  Myr said, “Um… um, we’re also generating a field that helps his heart pump.”

  Her eyes still on Myr, Dr. Fenn blinked for a moment. Then she looked back at the red ball floating over Connor. Slowly, she said, “Okaay. Rather than say ‘that’s impossible,’ I’m going to ask how that works.”

  Myr started to explain the field that was squeezing the fluid inside of Connor’s heart. Before she got very far, she had to lift up Connor’s gown and show Dr. Fenn the disc that was generating the field.

  Eyes on the disk, Fenn said, “Ah, and it doesn’t have a red ball because the field’s actually inside Mr. Sevii’s chest, not up in the air, correct?”

  Myr nodded. She explained how the disc picked up Connor’s EKG to determine when to contract the blood in his left ventricle and how it used ultrasound to confirm that it was centered correctly.

  Fenn frowned again, “And, do you have an approved protocol for testing this in human beings and approval to use it here in this hospital?”

  Myr lifted her hands helplessly as she shook her head.

  Dr. Fenn looked down at Connor. “Do you want to keep using these devices, even though they aren’t approved and haven’t been shown to be safe or effective?”

  Connor nodded, “I’m feeling better since they put them on.”

  Myr definitely felt better when she noticed that Connor had just strung together an entire sentence without stopping to breathe. She looked at Fenn to see what she’d say.

  Fenn was staring unseeingly out into space. Suddenly she looked around at the rest of them. She said, “I think it’s pretty obvious that these devices are helping Mr. Sevii. Therefore, in good conscience, I don’t feel like I should turn them off. However, by all the rules and regulations, I’m not supposed to allow their use. I’m going to err on the side of doing what I think’s best for the patient and leave them on, but, in the interest of keeping my job, I’m going to have to let the hospital’s legal office know what’s going on.” She looked down at Connor, “They may decide that you can’t continue to use these devices while you’re staying here in the hospital. If you feel that you truly want to—and I think I would if I were you because you were in bad shape when you were admitted—you may need to check yourself out of the hospital. They’d require you to sign papers saying that you were doing it against medical advice, but it’ll be up to you.”

  Connor gave her a wink, “Thanks for the advice. Besides, once I’m out of the hospital, I can go up to space where my heart… won’t have to pump against gravity.”

  Fenn lifted an eyebrow, “Good luck getting a ride out there.” She gave an uncomfortable shrug, “Even if you could, the G-forces at lift off would probably kill someone with a heart as weak as yours.”

  Connor grinned, “My sister can get me a ride… in one of the new spacecraft… They don’t produce any G-forces.”

  Fenn smiled at him, “Does your sister work out at Miller Tech?”

  Connor nodded.

  Fenn made a doubtful little twist of her head and said, “Just because she works there doesn’t mean she’ll be able to swing getting you a ride, you know?”

  Connor grinned and spoke like he was giving away a confidential secret, “She invented the proton fields. She can probably swing it.”

  “Oh, wow!” Fenn said, a light going on. “Your sister’s Myr Sevii?!”

  Connor nodded.

  Fenn said, “Oh, I admire her so much! If she’s ever here when I’m on duty, ask the nurses to let me know so I can try to meet her, okay?”

  Connor crooked a finger at the doctor and waited until she leaned down, warily keeping her head away from th
e proton field. Again, acting like it was very confidential, this time he whispered. “You’ve already met her.”

  Fenn’s eyes widened, “I have?”

  Connor nodded again, “She’s right behind you.”

  Fin stood and turned slowly to look at Myr. “You’re Myr Sevii?”

  Already surprised that the woman had known her name, Myr slowly nodded.

  “Well, I’m completely star-struck! Someday I’ll be telling my children and grandchildren that I met you. May I shake your hand?”

  Myr nodded again and put out her hand. When the woman took it to shake, Myr pulled her close and gave her a hug. “Thanks for being reasonable about…” her voice unexpectedly broke with emotion, “how we’re trying to help Connor.”

  ******

  Arlan’s AI spoke in his ear, “You have a call from Senator Lake.”

  “I’ll take it… Senator? This’s Arlan Miller, how can I help you?”

  The baritone voice of Kansas’s senior Senator came through his ear bud. “I think it’s more of a question of what I can do for you. I hear that your country’s defense establishment’s hassling you about some of your new technology?”

  “Um, yes sir. We’ve worked out how to use some of our new tech to build spacecraft. Space Command and the DIA have been trying to appropriate this technology for the use of the military only. They have a cogent argument in that spacecraft can be weaponized. However, I strongly believe that the ability to easily get into space is a boon that all mankind should enjoy.”

  “And you’re launching these things from right there in Bonner Springs?”

  “Yes sir, although ‘launching’ implies a more dramatic event than it really is. They just fly up to space without any of the massive controlled explosions that power the usual rocket launch.”