"Hey, the little bugger's tryin' to move," O'Brian said, sounding both surprised and indignant.
Sure enough, the restraint sensors were registering slight, intermittent pressures. "Yeah. I guess we'd better take a look," Forester said, steeling himself as O'Brian flipped a switch and the closed-circuit monitor came to life.
Strapped, wired, and tubed in place, Number Twenty-Seven lay in the soft confines of his form-fit cubicle/cradle. His face with its cleft lip, slanting eyes, and saddle-shaped nose was turned toward the camera. Forester's stomach churned, as it always did when he looked at one of Project Recovery's forty-nine Spoonbenders. Why the hell do I stick with this damned. Project? he wondered for the billionth time—and for the billionth time the same answer came: Because if I don't, people like O'Brian will be in charge.
"I don't see anything obvious," Forester said after a moment. "You'd better give Kincaid a call."
"We could try a restart first," the operator suggested.
Restart—shorthand for cutting off the Spoonbender's oxygen for a minute to put him to sleep, in the hope that whatever made him stop work would be gone when he turned the air back on. One of the more gruesome euphemisms in a project that thrived on them. "No, we're going to do some thinking before we push any more buttons. You'd better get Doc Barenburg down here, too." If he's sober, he added to himself; the doctor's off-duty habits were well known.
O'Brian turned away. Forester's gaze drifted back to the TV screen... and suddenly he stiffened, inhaling sharply through clenched teeth.
"What's wrong?" O'Brian, phone in hand, spun around.
Forester pointed at the screen. "Look! His eyes are open!"
O'Brian's response was a startled obscenity. Turning back, he started dialing.