Free The Jigsaw Man by Gord Rollo

tracks the transmitting
    signal it is sending out, and when it is received by a
    neuropath inside the limb, the computer locks on its
    location and continues to feed it electrical stimuli. It's a
    bit hit and miss, but we try and locate as many undam¬
    aged neuropathways as we can, then sit back and wait.
    If all goes as planned, the traumatized limb settles back
    down and starts to act as if n o t h i n g has happened. It's
    receiving a more than adequate blood supply and a con¬
    stant transmission of brain-simulated electrical stimuli.
    I'm oversimplifying again, but basically those are the
    only two things the limb needs.
    "Those spastic, jerky motions you noticed in the
    video are actually induced by us. The body parts don't
    really need that much stimulation to stay healthy, but
    we do it anyway j u s t to keep the muscles from succumb¬
    ing to atrophy.
    "It's not a perfect system, by any means, and some¬
    times all our efforts still end up going for naught, but
    our success rate now stands at j u s t over ninety-one per¬
    cent. N o t too shabby, h u h ? "
    He stopped talking and once again the small confer¬
    ence room was silent, but this time it wasn't uncomfort¬
    able. Unlike the tension-61'ed silence that had succeeded
    the video presentation, this quiet was more of a ponder¬
    ing, absorbing all the facts kind of quiet. We'd been fed
    a lot of information, both visually and verbally, and we
    each needed a minute or two to chew it and digest it at
    our own speed. Realizing this, Dr. Marshall remained
    quiet, busying himself with straightening out and tuck¬
    ing in the blanket covering his legs. It didn't need
    straightening, but it gave us the time we needed to
    gather our thoughts.
    My thoughts weren't particularly nice ones. In fact,
    they were downright nasty. I couldn't quite get the im¬
    age of my own arm out of my head. I kept picturing it
    severed from my body and twitching on some lab table
    with thousands of those little colorful wires trailing
    out from its ragged bloody end. It wasn't a pretty im¬
    age to sit and think about so I stood up to ask the doc¬
    tor a question, just to derail my morbid thoughts.
    "Doctor?" I asked. "Earlier, before you showed the
    video, you said the point wasn't to shock anyone but to
    prove what we were going to attempt here could be done.
    Maybe I'm missing something but with the obvious
    success you're having with this type of thing, isn't it
    becoming old hat for you? I mean, you've done this
    over and over with various body parts, and to me at
    least, you seem to have it down pat. W h a t do you need
    us for? W h a t are you planning to attempt with our
    limbs that's so special?"
    Dr. Marshall seemed to deflate in his wheelchair and
    for a moment I thought I'd blown my chance at getting
    rich. I was sure he was about to get mad and have me
    tossed out on my ear. Instead, he rolled his chair closer
    to us and asked Bill and I to move down so he wouldn't
    have to shout anymore. I helped move Red Beard down
    beside Wheels and Bill and I grabbed chairs in the first
    row too.
    "Much better," Dr. Marshall said with a smile, then
    took a deep breath. "I was going to save this until after
    lunch but what the heck, now's as good a time as any.
    Mr. Fox has brought up a very good point. There comes
    a time in any research project when simply repeating
    the experiment becomes redundant. What's the point
    of doing something again if you already know it can be
    done? It's a waste of time and resources.
    "Our research, while miles ahead of the public sec¬
    tor, has basically slammed up against that proverbial
    redundant wall, so I've decided it's time to take the next
    step up the ladder. It's time we used the knowledge
    we've acquired not only to keep a severed limb alive and
    healthy but to go ahead and reattach it to a h u m a n host,
    fully functional and strong as ever. This is where you
    people come in. Yours will be the first limbs we ever try
    this with, which is why I