Edward Black's Heart

Chapter one. The fire.

The hospital A&E burst open as the rolling stretcher was rushed into the bright walls of William Harvey Hospital, two ambulance drivers kicking down every door in the way as the nurses on either side ran through whilst a sprinting doctor checked out the charred body below him, somehow keeping his concentration whilst running and almost appearing to have overactive legs whilst his upper body remained still as a rock.

“Patient has suffered numerous injuries. One severed arm, one crushed leg, internal organs badly damaged as well as exterior. Eyes, ears and nose severely burned and not responding, internal haemorrhaging and numerous organs failing”, the doctor said as he and the other nurses ambulated toward the nearest available operating room. As the boy was being moved around the hallways, onlookers and nearby patients looked in horror as they saw the awfully mutilated face of the teenager and his charred, blackened body.

The stretcher came to a stop as the boy was cautiously lifted from it and to the hospital bed. Scrubbing up, the doctor placed his surgical gear on and the nurses gathered around to assist, noting his dropping heart rate going down by the minute.

“The organs are failing and blood circulation is off at the right arm and both legs. We will need to do organ removal and a course of amputations. Get two IV drips to keep his fluids up and I need someone over there to keep blood going. Does anyone have the information on his blood type?” the doctor yelled as a nurse came running in with two bags.

“B positive”,  the nurse said as she set up the blood bags and tubes for the patient.  The doctor looked over the body for a brief second, seeming as if he was searching for something. Some kind of answer within the crusted markings of the boy below him. The sweat beads rolled down his forehead and his nose but he wiped it just in time to keep his fluids form possibly landing on the victim.

“This isn’t a one-man job, get Dr Willem in here. NOW!”, he ordered as one of the nurses ran out and got on to the phone. Five minutes later, two more doctors appeared.

“Adam, good choice calling me. This is Doctor Walker, he specialises in burn victims. You do the amputations, I’ll handle the organs and Dr Walker, you need to treat the severe burn marks. I believe we are going to be here for quite a few hours”, he said breathlessly as he and the other doctor began getting their surgical gear on with assistance from two other nurses.

“His heart rate is getting lower!” a particularly alarmed nurse began to say. The doctors gathered around and took their positions, the one named Adam applying tourniquets to the body parts that were getting the chop. Doctor Willem was scanning over the body, checking the worst parts and seeing which internals needed to be removed before everyone received the shock of a lifetime when one of the nurses noticed the patient’s eyes open.

“OH MY GOD HE’S AWAKE”, she screamed before he began to move. Somehow his lips still worked and he let out the loudest scream he could, though it wasn’t extremely loud as his vocal cords were entirely out of commission.

“Jesus, someone put him under! What’s his name?! Give me the file!!!”, Doctor Walker shouted as he opened a folder with information on the patient. “Okay, Edward, calm yourself. Try to breathe, you’ve been in a terrible accident and you need to do your best to calm down!”, he said in a soft and soothing manner. Edward still shook a little and looked around frantically.

“What happened? Where am I? Where’s my dad?”, he asked desperately.
“It’s perfectly alright Edward, you’ve been in an accident, you’re at William Harvey Hospital and I promise, your dad is on his way. Just try your best to relax”, the doctor said as he continued on the burns across the body. There was an audible groan from Edward as he began contorting in his bed.

“I’m in so much pain…”, he anguished as he tried to look over his own body.

“Yes, I know. I’m going to put you under some moderate anaesthetic so that you won’t feel it”, Walker continued as he applied the anaesthetics and put Edward to sleep. 

Never before had one person undergone so many medical procedures in such a short time. Though short, for this team, was just under 28 hours straight. Thanks to modern medicine, Edward was strapped under a whole wealth of machinery, however, they would not last him long as the Doctors came in the next day. There in the bed lay Edward, the miracle survivor. Completely covered head to toe in bandages, the only visible part of him was his one eye, nose and mouth. The bandages were all patched in red, barely any part of it white anymore and his one leg was propped upright. Newspapers all over England had been trying to make their way into the hospital to get a quote from the fire survivor who’d somehow faced incredible odds and made it through the most punishing and gruesome surgery known. Doctor Walker came into the room and his face immediately gave away the news he had to bear that day. His face was pale as a vampire, his eyes sunken and almost looking completely black, dull and void of life. His messy brown hair was all matted down like he’d had a bucket of water poured on him and his hair was only just beginning to dry out. His pen which seemed to usually appear hanging neatly in his right breast pocket was slightly askew. As if, somehow, this was the main marker that gave away the bad news he had for the day. Anyone could assume from the hair, the eyes, the shaking hands, perhaps the good doctor had not slept last night. Perhaps it was a bad breakfast making its way through his system or he maybe just got badly beaten at his favourite video game? No, the professional pen would stay exactly as it was in any of these scenarios. But not today. Today was one of those days for a doctor in which he must attempt to tell a young flower that it is not allowed to grow anymore. It can’t.

“I can hear you… who is it? Is that you dad?”, Edward croaked hoarsely from his bed. It was sad and yet slightly terrifying. A slight wheeze on top of a rattle before the words came out but they rang as if they were the last words of a corpse marking time in its hollow, gloomy bed.

“Sorry mate, it’s Doctor Walker…”, he replied in an equally deceased manner. The words from the doctor seemed to whisper outwards like dust puffing from a smoking pipe. Edward didn’t respond or move. It was eerie to be in his presence at this time, as if in the morgue with the lifeless cadaver already. The doctor shuffled cautiously to Edward’s side like a gazelle to the open field, being ever cautious of the lion ahead. A lion, Edward most certainly as not. If anything he was the tired tiger that had no strength left to fight or hunt and only now lurked around, waiting for either easy prey or a newer, stronger predator to claim him. 

“Erm… well, I have the results here but… I think you already know what I’m going to tell you”, he said as he sunk down slowly into the chair, almost seeming to melt into it.

“There’s excessive damage to all of your organs. We’ve had to remove one of your eyes, both of your legs and your right arm, other internal organs which include your lungs, intestines, kidneys and… your heart. Right now you’re being kept alive by machinery only…”, Walker explained as he stared at his form and did his absolute best to not look at his patient.

“How long?”, Edward croaked.

“I… don’t really have that informatio-”, Walker began to say before he was cut off.

“Then give me your professional opinion, Doctor!”, Edward retorted in a raised voice, though it was easy to see that it almost killed him to raise his levels like that. It was the especially audible sting as Edward said the medical term that made Walker unsure of what to say. 

He could feel the venom in his throat which stopped him from speaking but then afterwards, it let the speaking happen as he automatically said, “One day at best. Maybe less.”

It was the doctor who was sitting there with his hands in his head, ready to burst into tears. In his mind, he was formulating all kinds of ways to apologise as he’d, unfortunately, had to do at times in the past. How would he even approach something as horrifying as this? Only once he’d had to break the news to a cancer patient, only once he’d had to inform a drunk young adult about the cost of his mistake those few nights ago, he’d never faced a situation like this before where he had a mutilated patient that looked as dead as a vulture’s meal of the day and it was he who had to somehow reassure this person that everything would be okay. This 13-year-old child, who had a whole life ahead of him was going to die, by the time Walker would be getting up for breakfast. What could he possibly say to him at this point? God be with you? There’s always something to look forward to? You’ll see all your relatives and that pet goldfish that Uncle Jeff said had gone to a better place after flushing the toilet? There was just no combination of words that existed that would help Doctor Walker at this time. After mulling it over, he finally figured he’d say something but he didn’t need to. He looked up to see Edward the burnt, broken, torn apart, one-eyed ragdoll lying on the bed, staring directly at him. In a regular horror story, this would be a look that all would fear. The look of a dead-eyed stiff staring right into the camera before bursting to life and letting out a jumpscare screech that would make everyone have a heart attack, no matter how much they expected it. However, this was no scare tactic. In Edward’s eye was a look of only determination with a note of… forgiveness?

“Do you believe in angels Doctor Walker?”, Edward asked so calmly. What a question to receive. Somehow,  this question stunted the good doctor. He didn’t know. Does he believe in angels? Perhaps. Then again, all the things he’d seen made him believe otherwise. The existence of angels implied the existence of a god, and if there were such a benevolent, all-knowing, all-seeing, all-caring and all-powerful entity out there somewhere, a profession such as this would be obsolete. Why would a doctor be needed when people could just pray to a god and their prayers would be answered?

“Not recently”, he replied, sounding uncertain of his own response. “What about you?”

Edward looked toward his body, scanning each part seeming as if he were looking over for a new diagnosis, rather than internalising the truth of his position and health. Breathing in as much as he could with his artificial lungs made from various tubes and pipes, Edward looked back at the doctor and dryly said, “I stopped believing in angels the day I was born…”

Doctor Walker frowned as he thought about this statement. How could a child, a baby no less, have any awareness of angels or the divine and even be able to decide whether or not they believe in such things?

“Doctor, I would like to see my dad, please. Whatever happens next, I want you to promise that you will tell people that you were able to save me. I am in good health and surviving with replacement organs, adjusting to my new lifestyle as an amputee,” Edward uttered huskily. This was the strangest last request Walker had ever gotten, and it was his first. Why would he do that? What was going to happen? What did Edward expect? How could he possibly believe anything other than the final conclusion was going to come along? It was the most bizarre situation possible, and yet, Doctor Walker only nodded. He didn’t know why and he didn’t know what compelled him to do this but he simply nodded, stood up, straightened his coat and pocket pen and walked out of the room. 

Edward’s thoughts danced in the dark for a while, even though he could feel the hurt in his head as even parts of his brain were beyond repair. Thankfully, he hadn’t lost his intelligence. Even though he was only 13, his brain was all he had and it was all he needed. The door opened again and a large man with a rather 90s looking goatee around his mouth and chin ran into the room and sat down abruptly.

There was dead silence between the two and the air was thick with emotion. Edward would break down into tears if his ducts even worked.

“Son, I… I want to say that…”, he began.

“No. We aren’t doing that. I’m not going to die and this isn't the last time you get to see me, Dad. I need you to take me home”, Edward said as he stared right at his father. All he did was sit there staring at him with his mouth wide open.

“Eddie, I am in no way taking you from this hospital. Any life you have left has to be spent here or else you will be gone earlier than… than I would wish for”, he trailed off quietly at the end and the cold silence returned to fester in the air.

“Dad, if there was ever any time for me to ask you a favour, now is the time”, Edward replied, staring deep into his father’s face. The two were silent but Edward didn’t have to say anything. His father was a previous A&E nurse of twenty years and knew how all of this worked. In Edward’s mind, if he were to agree, he would stand up and refix the equipment, keeping his artificial heart and lungs intact. The average human could survive without one of the lungs, one of the kidneys, spleen, appendix, gallbladder, adenoids, tonsils, some of the lymph nodes, the fibula bones from each leg and approximately six ribs. In his current situation, Edward had neither lungs nor heart or tonsils, intestines, spleen, appendix or his left kidney. His spine was badly damaged and he had no legs and a missing arm. Despite all of his injuries and the bleakness of his possible recovery, his father stood up and fiddled with the machinery.

“It’s not going to be easy to get you mobile. Thankfully, we don’t live too far from here”, he said in a very hushed tone.

“Thanks, Dad”, Edward whispered as he lay back on the bed and closed his eyes. Allowing for the smooth transfer of the machinery as painless as possible would require him to be as still and relaxed as he could be and the only way to do that was to close his eyes and try to regress himself to a good memory. Thankfully, Edward had mastered the art of lucid dreaming and was able to shut himself off within good time.

Dreaming whilst under the influence of drugs that could knock out an elephant and having your body being more machine than man, if a rather pathetic machine, was quite strange. Edward had full control over when he began to dream and how he reacted in the dream but he never figured out how to control what he dreamt. It was one of the few mysteries in his brain that he couldn’t solve yet. In this particular dream, Edward was taken back to his childhood, building his first-ever computer. He was five years old when he did this and he impressed everyone around him. Edward watched as his young prodigy self finished building up a high calibre computer with an Alienware casing and finish with some rainbow lighting. His dad was extremely proud and kept it for years. He’s still got it to this day, though with some upgrades to fit the current year. Edward was gifted with extraordinary and futuristic intelligence, as his dad put it, and used that intelligence to the best of his ability. The dream skipped forward to his time in school when he was summoned to the headmaster's office for ‘experimenting’ on the students, using them as guinea pigs for his sociological and psychological investigations as well as studies on the human brain. 

Edward saw how he was offered the chance to study at higher schools early but he didn’t want to be fast-tracked in any way. It was from then onwards that Edward learned to suppress his mind around other people and not let them in on exactly how great his intelligence really was. Something was off in the dream though. Like he couldn’t breathe because of the very air around him, collapsing his lungs with every inhale. The world became distorted and strange as if it were off balance. He looked at the new road ahead of him and it was tipped slightly to the left, making it extremely awkward for him to continue walking forwards. 

Soon enough, the world started crumbling. Buildings were turning into dust, plants and grass turned to grey and dissipated into ash and the people that he saw around him were faceless. They seemed to still be breathing and alive but they couldn’t move. Slowly, from the feet up, they were melting. First, their skin and then the muscles melted into a mesh of flesh and blood which oozed out of them and bubbles as the broken-down bones fell into the puddles. Edward wanted to vomit. He tried to. Nothing came out. As he watched the bodies and everything else happening around him, he kept punching his stomach, shoving his fingers in his throat, as if vomiting would stop the nightmare. It didn’t happen and it didn’t help either, all he could do was watch the faceless men melt into puddles of human toxic waste. Edward finally woke up and when he did, he was at the hallway of his home in Sandhurst.

“Okay, now what??”, his dad asked frantically. Edward could feel his life slipping away from him as he tried his best to focus, though it was made all the more difficult with his brain slowly shutting down.

“Erm, right, I need to go to my bedroom, inside the wardrobe is a keypad. It’ll have a code, retina scans and fingerprint scanner and it’ll read a blood DNA sample too. So you need to take some blood from me, hold me up for the eye scan and fingerprint and the code is 1564,” Edward explained. It took so much brainpower to explain all of that and it left Edward exhausted, however, it only took five minutes for him to realize that he hadn’t said any of that. The only word he could utter was “Alfred”.

Upon his word, a slender, near 7ft tall robot came down the stairs. It was rather strange to look at as it looked almost like an inspiration of the C3-PO droid from Star Wars and Kryten of Red Dwarf. It was predominantly silver in colour but with some red parts on it here and there and a purple left leg, symbolizing that of an unfinished model. It had long and slender arms that reached down to its knees and its body from the waist up seemed to be armoured apart from the purple leg. 

“Goodness sir! What accident have you gotten into this time??!”, Alfred asked in a voice that could only be compared to being a young David Attenborough. Edward slowly turned his head toward the robot and croaked, “Lifesaver Program”. The droid went quiet before turning around and saying, “This way Mr Black.”

“Son, what’s going on? What is that robot thing? What’s Lifesaver?”, he asked frantically, no doubt having a million more questions, but got no reply on the way up the stairs. Edward was all but gone at this point, occasionally slipping in and out of consciousness as they walked up the red and cream diamond-patterned carpeted stairs towards Edwards bedroom. Within it was schematics galore, detailing ideas for computers, car engines, televisions and more. Mr Black looked around at his son’s room and smiled a little, remembering how smart his boy was and how he hoped Edward had a bright future ahead of him. Then a thought occurred. Edward had always been smarter than most others, probably even smarter than him. Could it be possible that he built this robot? It couldn’t be, could it? Nobody in the whole world could be that smart, especially at such a young age. 

But then, Edward outsmarted everyone he’d ever met and with all the projects he’d undertaken in the past, building a robot didn’t seem so far fetched. 

Alfred took Edward up to the wardrobe where his clothes were and moved aside the hanging coats and there was a keypad. Alfred pressed a red circle next to the 0 value and it opened up a panel with a needle and a small paper sheet with a female voice saying “Please provide blood sample”. Alfred took the needle and poked it in between the bandages to get some blood and tapped it out onto the paper.

“Sample accepted, welcome Edward Black”, the voice said again and the back wall of the wardrobe slid open to reveal a brightly lit elevator. It was not at all what Mr Black expected as it was very Victorian on the inside. It seemed like any old elevator in a hotel or tavern-style pub with more than one floor. Then again, he had no idea what to expect in this place. Everyone went in and the panel shut, the elevator moving downward. Light elevator music played in the background as they descended and, while Alfred was calm and still, Mr Black was sweating and panicking, trying not to look at his son and burst into tears. The door opened again and Mr Black’s eyes widened as he looked into a large laboratory with multiple rooms, computers, workstations and robotics. There were unfinished pieces, schematics galore, near done projects and some fruits of labour currently flying around or operating in the process it had been programmed for. It was insane and yet amazing.

“If you will, Mr Black sir, the robotics room is over there. I shall activate the Lifesaver.”, Alfred said as he calmly strode toward one of the consoles next to an open room full of robot parts.

“Whoa, hold on, we are supposed to be saving his life! Why am I sticking him on a workbench?!!”, Mr Black said somewhat angrily. Alfred turned to him and said just as calmly, “Because this is where the Lifesaver will assemble and keep his life intact. Lifesaver is an emergency surgery that was created by scientist and engineer Edward Black in order to save the lives of dying patients from any disease known to man and any injuries by replacing expired organs and bodily mass with cybernetics. This is the treatment he shall be getting”, Alfred explained. This was all seeming like a load of waffle at this point and Mr Black even began doubting if he was either sane or awake. Then a thought occurred to him which warmed his heart a little. Of course, Edward would be the one to create something like this, to save lives. That’s all Edward ever seemed to want from life, to protect humanity and the Earth and make the world a better place. 

“I shall now be beginning the surgery, Mr Black. If you like, you can register yourself as a new user with this droid here so you are able to access the lab yourself. I think Edward would want that”, Alfred said as he went into the robotics room. Mr Black turned around to see a tiny orb looking bot hover toward him and say, “Welcome to the lab, please state your name.”

“Erm… Andrew Neil Black.” The droid floated still for a moment before a holographic screen projection showed up and the droid said, “Andrew Neil Black, son of Neil Black and Alma Black, 57 years of age, divorced, former A&E nurse of St Thomas Hospital, current self-employed computer store owner, father of Edward Black and Brock Black. Is this correct?”

“Y-yes,” he replied as he pondered how the robot had access to all of that information and what more it might know. After confirming the information, the screen showed a blank panel and the droid held out a tray with paper on it and a needle, similar to the one he saw on the panel earlier. He knew what this part was so he pressed his thumb to the screen, being shocked that he was able to actually feel it and touch it and noting that it felt like wafer-thin glass, and then took the needle and pricked his finger, letting the blood droplet fall to the paper.

“Thank you, Mr Black. You have been added to the database. Do you have any questions?”, the droid asked. Questions? Well obviously. Mr Black had a whole wealth of questions he wanted to ask but he remembered he had little time.

“How many people know about this place?”, he asked before frantically looking at the robotics room.

“Only two sir. Edward Black and Andrew Neil Black”, it replied. Mr Black nodded before darting to the robotics room and looking at his son through the screen. 

On the operating table, he was there, two robot legs and a robot arm sat in positions, ready to be welded on. Mr Black looked at the robot called Alfred and asked, “What’s that? What are you holding?”

Albert turned to Mr Black, holding a blueish white glowing sphere with a small silvery line going through it in the shape of a wave. Mr Black thought his eyes were tricking him but it appeared to be tinkling. Mr Black could see the hospital heart on a table next to Edward and the panic levels spiralled. Alfred, as calm as ever, turned to look at Mr Black, held the orb in his hand and said, “This is Edward Black’s heart.”