Amber distributed a few Swiss Armies to the front row, Paul some to the back.
“Based on the software, Delores selects the specific instrument needed and deploys that instrument from the arm—similar to choosing an individual tool from the handle of a Swiss Army knife.”
“I had a Swiss Army knife when I was a girl,” the university chancellor, a former engineering professor, cracked. “There’s not a corkscrew on one of those things, is there, Chase? Or a toothpick?”
“No, ma’am,” Montgomery said through his grin. “No corkscrew or toothpick. But everything a typical surgeon needs. Medical-grade scalpel. Scissors, with built-in electrocautery, to stop bleeding. Needle drivers, for sewing tissue together. The suture—the thread for sewing—automatically feeds into the needle driver, another unique innovation.
“Having all of these different instruments combined together into a single package increases efficiency. Each instrument is instantly available whenever needed. It takes only a few seconds to flip from one to another—much faster than deploying one manually. In some cases, it could mean the difference between life and death.”
“Chase, what’s this for?” the CEO asked. He was holding one of the Swiss Armies, which had been rigged to display several of its surgical instruments at once. He pointed to one of them: a turquoise, flyswatter-shaped object, composed of soft, interlacing meshed fibers.
Montgomery smiled. “That’s an extendable retractor, for holding organs and tissues out of the way during surgery. We call it a fan because it resembles a hand fan.”
The thin, bespectacled man next to Sebastian handed him one of the Swiss Armies. This one displayed a scalpel, its surface dulled to prevent injury. The Swiss Army was light. Sebastian knew that the composition of its ceramic alloy was similar to that of advanced body armor.
Sebastian touched the tip of the dulled scalpel.
He thought about what would soon transpire and felt sorry for Wu.
Not to mention, a guilty corner of his conscience confessed, her patient.
Paul the PR man’s cell phone chirped an electronic variation of “Ode to Joy.” He signaled Montgomery.
“Okay,” Montgomery said. “They’re ready for us over in the OR. Any more questions?”
There were none.
Montgomery clapped his hands once and smiled a shark’s grin. He looked hungry. “Okay, then! Let’s head over to the OR and the future of surgery!”
The audience rose as one and shuffled toward the exits.
RITA
Rita heard them before she saw them: the murmur of many voices, Chase’s radio-deejay rumble rising above the rest.
With the help of Thomas and Lisa, she’d already prepared everything for the big show: had slid Mrs. Sanchez into proper position on the table and inflated her abdomen with carbon dioxide, pumped through a hollow needle stuck in the skin, until she’d resembled a fat Buddha, the normal contours of her body flattened into soft, convex curves.
She’d made four incisions across her shaved, sterilized abdomen, and sunk through each incision an object shaped like a large screw, with a flat circular head on one side and sharp-tipped cone on the other. Finally, through one of the screws (or ports), she’d inserted Delores’s camera, which was beaming a live image of Mrs. Sanchez’s internal organs to the operating-room Jumbotron.
Rita was now sitting next to Mrs. Sanchez, in sterile gown and gloves, her hands resting lightly on a table covered with sterile instruments, Lisa sitting next to her. Thomas, who wasn’t scrubbed, hovered in the back of the room, ready to help on a moment’s notice. Nikhil and Dr. Chow were in position at the anesthesia station. The med students had been dispatched to other operating rooms.
Finney had again lapsed into silence.
Rita gazed up at Delores. The young project engineers who had helped design Delores used words like cool and retro to describe the metallic curves and jointed arms. But to Rita, Delores was … unnerving. Even a little sinister. A gigantic metallic insect, straddling Mrs. Sanchez, a leg secured to each side of the table, with the camera and three-jointed arms pointed at her abdomen like four enormous stingers.
The protuberance from the central cylinder looked like a misshapen head, complete with colored dials for beady eyes, and a panel that could pass for an ogling mouth. She hoped the next version, Delores 2.0, would be less intimidating. Because if she was a patient and caught a glimpse of this damn thing perched over her, she thought she’d never set foot in a hospital again.
No turning back now, lovely Rita.
She drew a deep breath.
Please, God.
She stood up as Chase led the visitors into the room.
Please. Let everything turn out okay.