Page 30 of Equalizer
“What makes your muscles move? How can you lift your arm or swing your leg?” Gordon continued. “Our brains send small pulses of electricity through our bodies for every movement. This is completely natural. Nature tends toward life.Deathis against nature, and I believe that as these principles are better understood, we may finally, one day, triumph over death itself!”
He whisked the next dome away to show a plucked turkey that looked like it came straight from the poulterer’s shop.
“Take a good look—this turkey is just like what you buy at the market. It’s fresh, but clearly not alive as it is missing both its head and its insides.”
The crowd chuckled nervously. Calvin scanned faces when it was his turn to hold the opera glasses and saw a mixture of apprehension and excitement.
“Electricity will not make up for what the bird lacks,” Gordon said. “But science can animate the body that remains.”
He attached the wires once more, and the blue glow lit up the arena.
The turkey began to jerk and wobble. Naked wings made feeble flapping movements.
People shrieked and screamed. Some of the women swayed in their seats and collapsed onto their companions, fainting dead away.
Louisa’s attention remained fixed on Gordon with a grim expression on her face. Owen’s eyebrows drew together like thunderclouds, and he looked more angry than transfixed.
Calvin felt a strange mix of emotions, a tangle of awe for the science and apprehension over how it might be applied and who might control the power.
The blue glow faded, and the bird stilled. Once the murmuring from the crowd subsided, Gordon picked up his megaphone again.
“Ladies and gentlemen, surely you can see the miracle of science that is galvanism. Imagine the possibilities! Think of what this technology, fused with medical knowledge, could unlock. The next wave of inventors will develop tools that can be used to combine electricity and medicine in ways we can hardly even now comprehend!”
“He puts on a good show.” Calvin leaned over to murmur in Owen’s ear. “I’ll give him that.”
“For a total crackpot,” Owen muttered.
“For my third and final demonstration, I hope to make the possibilities of this wonderous new technology clear. Behold!”
Gordon lifted the third lid, and screams came from alarmed patrons as he unveiled a severed human arm.
“Wonder where he got that,” Louisa whispered with a wry look.
Calvin peered closely at the limb through the opera glasses. It was pale but did not appear to be decomposed. Although difficult to see at a distance, the hand looked gnarled from hardwork, giving him to suspect it might have been taken from one of the vagrant corpses.
Once again, Gordon attached wires and switched on the coil.
The fingers splayed wide, then clenched convulsively into a fist as the forearm quivered.
He cut the power on and off, repeating the reaction. Somewhere in the audience, a patron threw up.
“For the love of God, stop!” a man shouted.
The power shut off and the hand opened, dead meat once more.
“I realize what I have shown you has shocked some sensibilities,” Gordon admitted, having at least the decency to cover the severed limb with a dome once more.
“But think of what this means! Not today and not tomorrow, but very soon, this could change how doctors deal with patients who have lost a hand, a foot, even an arm or leg. Could it be reattached? Reinvigorated? We don’t know now, but soon this new frontier will become our reality!”
The audience surged to their feet, giving Gordon a standing ovation. He smiled and bowed, looking gratified and serenely smug.
Calvin, Owen, and Louisa exchanged a potent look, appalled at what Gordon had demonstrated and aghast at the enthusiasm of the crowd.
They don’t understand what this really means. For someone to get the spare parts, they have to be harvested from someone else’s dead body. They’re not asking where the bodies come from.
The band struck up again, signaling the end of the show. Two guards escorted Gordon off the stage and away from the crowd as he bowed and waved in acknowledgment while the audience cheered.
They didn’t fight the rush, waiting until the auditorium had largely cleared before they tried to leave. Calvin wondered what the others had made of the demonstration, particularly Owen, whose responses still seemed uncharacteristically muted.
