Brother, Frank

  Brother, Frank

  By Michael Bunker

  “Hugo Material!” ~ Nick Cole

  Praise for Brother, Frank

  “Brother, Frank finally cements Michael Bunker’s position as one of the most interesting and dynamic sci-fi writers emerging from today’s vibrant indie scene. It’s a tense, exciting, often violent actioner that like its protagonist, benefits greatly from a still-beating heart underneath all the technological bells and whistles.” ~ Eamon Ambrose, Eamo the Geek Reviews

  “...white-knuckle reading throughout...” ~ Hank Garner, Host of Author Stories Podcast

  “...The tension between technology and agrarian simplicity runs like a bright thread through the work—those characters on the technology side are affected by the interaction with their (presumed) opposites, and those on the Amish side are changed and tested as well.” ~ Richard Gleaves, author of the bestselling Jason Crane series.

  “I just finished beta reading Michael Bunker's new heartbreakingly awesome novel and I have this to say: Hugo Material.” ~ Nick Cole, bestselling author of Old Man and the Wasteland and Soda Pop Soldier.

  “...an intriguing and suspenseful novel. I instantly rooted for Frank...” ~ Annelie Wendeberg, bestselling author of the Anna Kronberg thrillers.

  “Bunker’s finest fictional creation to date...” ~ David Bruns, author of Weapons of Mass Deception

  “I loved how this fantastic story of escape and rediscovery made me ponder over the awful consequences when men step into the part of the ‘creator’.” ~ E.E. Giorgi, author of CHIMERAS

  Brother, Frank

  A Novel

  © Copyright 2015 by Michael Bunker

  All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form, except for brief quotations in reviews, without the written permission of the author.

  First Edition

  Cover Design by Ben Adams

  http://www.benjadams.com

  Editing by David Gatewood

  http://lonetrout.com

  Formatting by Stewart Stonger

  http://design.nourishingdays.com/

  For information on Michael Bunker or to read his blog, visit: http://www.michaelbunker.com

  To contact Michael Bunker, please write to:

  M. Bunker

  1251 CR 132

  Santa Anna, Texas 76878

  Table of Contents

  Acknowledgements

  Chapter 0

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Epilogue

  About Michael Bunker

  Acknowledgements

  Brother, Frank is the kind of book that just couldn’t have been done right – at least not by me – without a tremendous amount of help. That’s somewhat true of most books, but with Brother, Frank it is especially true. I want to thank my friend author Bob Crosley for helping me to understand autism better. Digging deep into his personal experiences with two autistic sons, Bob was my counselor, advisor, research assistant, beta reader, and conscience. Without him there is no way I would have endeavored to include an autistic character in my book. If I failed to pull it off, that’s on me, but if it worked at any level at all, that is purely thanks to Bob.

  I want to thank my buddy author Nick Cole for his help and advice throughout the conception and writing of Brother, Frank. Even the title came from a suggestion given to me by Nick. Brother, Frank had its genesis in a conversation between Nick and me and Nick helped me and counseled and helped me throughout the whole process. Thanks, Nick, for being a friend.

  I would like to thank David Gatewood for his usual superb editing skills, Debby Stapleton and David Walters for early beta reads, and all of my other beta readers for your input. Your help made this book better, and for that I thank you all. Thanks to my literary agent, Jeff Gerecke, for his input, help, advice, and counsel as I prepared the book for publication. Thanks to Ben Adams for the best Science Fiction cover I’ve seen in a very, very long time – and if the Brother, Frank cover doesn’t win you an award or something, Ben, then something is wrong with whoever gives out those kind of awards. To my friend and neighbor Stewart Stonger, one of my faithful Amish Techno-Mafia buddies, thank you for your help and for the fantastic formatting. As always, I’m so grateful to you for all you do for me.

  To everyone in The AZ (The Amish Zone is the fan-originated and fan-run Michael Bunker readers page on Facebook!) thank you, as always, for your support and friendship! I’ll be seeing you in the AZ!

  As always, to my wonderful family, thank you all for your help, love and support. I love you all.

  Michael Bunker

  March 2015

  CHAPTER 0

  Back then, little Frank Miller held my heart in his hands. Now, it’s the other way around.

  When the Millers first brought their boy, all stunted and crooked, into my clinic in Cleveland, I knew he wasn’t long for this world. A year, maybe more. I was almost exactly right. What can I say? Bad things happen, even to the Amish.

  The clinic was a pro bono service I provided to Amish families who either could not afford, would not use, or found no help from the traditional medical system. I did it, the pro bono work, for myself mostly. For the prestige and the philanthropic credit, and for the research too. And then there were the tax breaks. I could hide a lot of income by running a free clinic. I’m no saint. But for some reason I can’t explain, I loved Frank from the first time I saw him. Or maybe it was pity. I can’t say I know enough about love to know the difference.

  It didn’t take long for me to realize that Jonah and Ellen Miller were losing Frank to a condition caused by disproportionate dwarfism, a surprisingly common trait in some of the Amish communities of Ohio due to the tight and shallow gene pool. But that’s not all. Frank wasn’t just short and bent. He was autistic too. Is autistic. Present tense. It’s not like he’s dead. Only his old body is.

  For now, Frank still has a shot at life. And I’m the only hope he has.

  The boy was only moderately autistic when I met him. Autistic enough that it made treating his other health problems even more difficult. Not that there was ever much hope for Frank. It hurt me to say this then, and it hurts even more now, but... Frank never had a chance in his old body. He was going to die no matter what.

  I was only doing the free doctoring bit part time, and as I said, helping the Amish wasn’t even one of the main reasons I was doing it.

  I’m just trying to be honest here.

  That first day, when Frank came in with his parents, I saw how insurmountable his troubles were.

  His crooked little body.

  His fractured mind.

  Rocking back and forth and gripping two big bolts in his malformed hands, his body already showed signs of the genetic afflictions that would kill him.

  He said prayers when he got worked up or when something riled him. Sometimes in English, the prayers, but usually in Pennsylvania Dutch. And he only communicated to me after I’d been working with him for over six months. Before that he’d submit to examination, but that was all. There was no relationship or communication between Frank and me at the beginning. And at that first meeting, it was like I didn’t exist to him.

  I probably
didn’t.

  But eventually I broke through, and as unbelievable as it might sound, Frank and I became friends. Not that I was doing all of this because I’m some kind of angel. I’m not. I had selfish motives then and I have selfish motives now. I’ve said that already, but it’s true. I try not to lie to myself. But I did love Frank.

  I do.

  The first time he spoke directly to me, he looked me in the eye and asked me if I knew what it was like to die. That question is harder than it seems. I’ve seen men die up close. And I’ve been responsible for deaths, too. I’m a doctor and a scientist, and I work for the government making weapons that kill people and break things. Death is a part of my job. It’s my business.

  It’s why I drink so much. It’s not the genetics. My father was a teetotaler, and so was his father before him. My mom would drink a glass of wine at parties, but I never saw her drunk. Believe me, if I could blame my problems on my parents, I would.

  “Mother says you might be able to save me,” Frank said to me the first time he ever spoke directly to me. Six months into our relationship and I’d been seeing him three or four times a week. Suddenly he talked.

  “I’ll do my best,” I said. But even then I knew.

  His eyes met mine in a moment of clarity. A moment of prophecy. “You’re not God, you know.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “I know.”

  Frank half-smiled then. No one else would have called it a smile. It was just a glint in his eyes and a slight upturn at the corner of his mouth. But I could tell he smiled.

  “I’m going to go to heaven, and when I do I’ll be big,” he said.

  “I know, Frank. You will. But we’re going to try to keep you here a bit longer. Is that okay?”

  Frank shrugged and began to rock back and forth. He gripped his comfort bolts, one in each hand, and looked up at me again.

  “You’re not God, you know.”

  And that was it. The light went out, and I was dead to him again.

  The next time he talked to me, he told me how to milk a cow.

  * * *

  We became friends, Frank and I. Sometimes when he’d see me he’d drop one of his bolts and take my hand in his tiny grip and hug my leg. His head came up to my waist.

  By the end of that year with Frank, I was enamored with him. And it wasn’t easy. He often had his “events” and his fits, but he was the most beautiful soul I’d ever met. And if I’m being totally honest, I have to admit that I was jealous when Frank talked to God. I’m a scientist and a doctor and as far as I was concerned, I was a god too.

  I take life and I can give it. Isn’t that what gods do?

  That mindset was probably the root of my problems, but who knows. I’m no psychiatrist. I was drinking a lot then. I still am, but I was then too.

  Frank was the one beautiful thing in my life. The one shining light that kept me from putting a pistol in my mouth or jumping off a bridge. Everything else was darkness.

  And that was about the time, at the end of that first year, when what I had known since the first day I met him became painfully obvious:

  Frank was going to die, and soon.

  CHAPTER 1

  A heart and mind aren’t all that make us human, but they’re a good start. Oh, we’re made of the incorporeal stuff, too: thoughts, feelings, personality; envy, compassion, anger. A jazzman once said that pain, sorrow, and love are all a man really has. I’m not sure that’s true. Not that I know much about love. I’m just a scientist. I deal with facts and data. Those other things are out of my purview.

  And now I hold a human heart in my hands. It isn’t the first time, but it’s almost certain to be the last. Because in every sense but one, what I’m doing is wrong. Unambiguously wrong. There has been no consent for what is about to take place. The boy, Frank, would never have understood even if I’d asked, and the parents... well, they believe their son is dead and gone. As does everyone else not in this room.

  But I’m saving a life. So there’s that.

  I place Frank’s still, warm heart into the chest cavity of the HADroid robot, then step back to let my medical team go to work. They’ll perform the actual procedure; I’ll observe and supervise. That’s my official duty and obligation. But as I nod my permission for the team to begin the process, the whole world isn’t big enough to contain the fear that floods over me like a baptism.

  A Humanoid Adapted Droid. That’s what Frank is becoming. He will live again. Though for how long... there’s no telling.

  You see, Frank is the second patient to undergo the HADroid procedure, and it would be an understatement to say that the first transplant didn’t end well. The last time we tried this, the donor’s brain and abbreviated cardiovascular system—which initially appeared to have been successfully transplanted—ceased to function within days of the operation.

  Ceased To Function.

  That’s how you say the organs died. The human died.

  A soul left this plane of existence.

  That’s how you say it when you want to avoid the reality of what happened. And I’ve embraced that terminology because I drink a lot and don’t deal well with my problems. But it’s all tougher this time, since this time I know the organ donor and his family. Since the donor is someone I love.

  That first procedure, half a year ago—rushed in order to meet a DARPA funding deadline—is still fresh in my mind as I watch Clarence and William suturing Frank’s heart to the engineered arteries (a hybrid of polymer support structures and human tissue grown in a lab) and the mechanical interfaces that will eventually provide it with sustenance and power. It’s a long, complicated, and painstaking procedure. It feels doubly so when you know your patient will die anyway.

  Naturally, the functionaries in charge at DARPA were unconcerned with the fact that a real, living, and functioning human heart and brain had died. Or with the fact that the death had been a direct result of their meaningless and arbitrary bureaucratic deadlines, which had led to the accelerated schedule for the first transplant attempt.

  Or should I call it an “animation” attempt? After all, what we’re doing is much more than a transplant. We’re trying to bring a robot to life. Or maybe we’re trying to use a robotic body to keep a young boy’s heart and mind alive.

  Which is it?

  I suppose that question is something that will torture my soul for the rest of my life.

  But DARPA... well, DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, is government. There‘s no soul there to be tortured by moral questions. So, rather than being sad about the death of a fellow human being after the first failed HADroid procedure, the ghouls at DARPA, truly heartless and robotic (only without the promise of applications beneficial to humankind), ordered that a second test be initiated within a year.

  That year is only half over, but what else could I do?

  Six months in, just a few weeks ago, was when I became convinced that Frank was dying. His heart and mind are fine, but his body is killing him anyway. If I hadn’t moved quickly, Frank would already be dead. Permanently and irretrievably dead. The kind of dead we used to think of as “dead” before science started to blur the lines.

  At least this way, my little friend has a chance. (I tell myself that whenever I try to convince myself that I’m doing this just for Frank.) A small, almost inconsiderable chance, but a chance nonetheless.

  I look around the lab, a place I’ve treated as home for the last few years, and there is Frank, in the center of it, and I know that whether he lives or dies, everything else I have is gone. The entire program, everything I’ve worked for in the HADroid project, the years I’ve invested—it’s all gone either way. What I’m doing is not something you get forgiven for.

  Sweat runs down my face, and I wipe it off with my sleeve. And maybe there’s a tear there too. But I’m not sure whether the tear is for Frank, or for everything else I’m poised to lose. You see, when I’m forced to face the truth, this is really all about me. Yes, I want to save Frank.
I love the boy, and I always have. Still, my selfish motives fly up and hit me in the face if I think about all this long enough.

  I’m trying to save Frank because that is all I really have in the world.

  This second test was rushed too, just like the first one. Only this time, it wasn’t DARPA that was responsible for the accelerated schedule; it was me. And it will be my sole responsibility if I fail.

  If I fail to animate the first living, breathing, thinking humanoid robotic creature. And even if I succeed... even if Frank lives for a few minutes, or a few days, or a few years, I’m screwed.

  I fast-tracked this second operation the minute I learned that Frank was going to die. How dumb is that? I threw out every protocol, every requirement that I’d established for a donor. I threw out everything, including my career, all so I could save the life of a friend.

  There I go, lying to myself again, as if I did this just to save Frank. I’m shameless. Maybe I’m trying to save myself.

  And that life I’m saving is so tenuous. So precious. It’s not likely to be saved in the long run anyway.

  I guess in the long run, we’re all dead. But that doesn’t change the facts. What I’m doing is stupid. It’s career suicide. I’ll certainly lose my license to practice medicine. And that’s if I don’t go to jail. Or worse.

  * * *

  Maybe you think I did pro bono doctoring among the Amish because I’m really a good person. Nope. I did it because it helped me get grants for my work, and because I got to keep one hundred percent of the data I gathered for my own research. Money and information. That’s why I did free work.

  What I did, it helped people too. The Amish work did. I mean... I do care for these people. I’m not a complete sociopath. And treating the Amish is always interesting. Some plain people have no problem using advanced medicine. Some use it only reluctantly. Some not at all. The Amish are not the monolithic cult of sameness that many people think they are. Every district, every group, every family... they’re all different.