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The four of them were still at the dinner table, Lisa smiling as she added more food to Chloe's bowl, when another knock came at the front door.
"Who is it this time?"
Before Ryan could get up, the household security staff had already gone to answer it.
The visitor was a middle-aged man with a severe disability. All four limbs. He sat in a wheelchair, pushed in from behind by an attendant.
Both of his arms were fitted with Triton-1 prosthetics, and he wore a sensor cap. He gripped the wheelchair's armrests and leaned forward, craning his head into the house with a mixture of urgency and anticipation, trying to see inside. The attendant behind him steadied his shoulders to prevent an accident.
"And this is?" Ryan stepped out, taking a look. He didn't recognize the man at all. He glanced at his father, assuming this was someone Tom knew.
Tom came out and smacked his own forehead.
"Look at my memory. I was in meetings all afternoon and completely forgot to tell my son about you."
"Ryan, this is Aaron Holt. You can call him Mr. Holt. He arranged with me earlier that he wanted to come meet you."
Ryan glanced at Aaron Holt and had a fairly good idea of why he was here.
Lisa looked at Chloe, who was sitting beside her with a bowl in one hand and a chicken drumstick in the other, blinking her big eyes and watching the unfolding scene with open interest. Lisa sighed.
"You two, come back and finish dinner. And our guest, please come sit and eat with us. Whatever the business is, we can discuss it after the meal." She went to the kitchen and brought out two more sets of bowls, chopsticks, and spoons.
Once Lisa had spoken, Ryan and Tom obediently sat back down at the table. Ryan even added another drumstick to Chloe's bowl. "Eat more."
"No more. I'm on a diet."
Ryan looked at the three clean drumstick bones already on her side of the table and registered some doubt. And besides.
"No need. You don't gain weight anyway."
Aaron Holt was wheeled to the edge of the table, smiling broadly. He apologized to everyone for the intrusion, then picked up a bowl and spoon and began to eat.
"This food is genuinely delicious," he said between bites, complimenting the cooking.
Ryan observed him. Holt was clearly using a custom sensor cap, one that integrated the signal acquisition for both prosthetics into a single unit, capable of receiving and processing motor neuron signals from the left and right arms simultaneously. It wasn't a standard dual-arm prosthetic configuration, but the improvised setup didn't seem to limit him much. His eating motions looked close to a non-disabled person's.
When the meal was finished, Ryan settled onto the living room sofa, and Holt finally explained why he'd come.
"Five years ago, I was in a car accident. I'd built up some savings by then, fortunately, and I barely escaped from death's door. But as you can see, all four of my limbs had to be amputated."
He used a prosthetic hand to tap the residual stump of one thigh.
"Over the past few years, I've followed the development of prosthetic technology closely. I even visited the Whitfield lab at Harvard. I was desperate with envy at what I saw there. I wanted to invest in them, just so I could have a prosthetic fitted on the spot. They wouldn't agree to it, so I came home and kept waiting."
"I'd been hoping that within ten years I might be able to use one of their brain-controlled prosthetics. That would have been good enough for me. Then your company appeared out of nowhere and launched a brain-controlled prosthetic alongside them."
He flexed the Triton-1 units on his arms.
"I've worn prosthetics from both companies. Yours is the better product. After I got the Triton-1 fitted, it took only a few days of training before I could eat a meal the way I used to. I still can't manage a fork properly. But eating food that I don't need someone else to feed me, that food tastes good."
Aaron Holt laughed, his face full of satisfaction.
Tom smiled at the side of the room, visibly pleased that his company's product had been able to help someone.
"However." Holt's smile contracted. "You don't currently offer a lower-limb prosthetic. And even if you did, for someone like me, missing all four limbs, fitting four separate prosthetics onto my body would not be an easy thing."
He spread his hands and produced a large, rueful smile.
"So you'd like our company to develop a brain-controlled prosthetic specifically designed to be practical for you?" Ryan said, stating Holt's purpose for him.
Holt nodded. "Yes. That's exactly my thinking. Ideally, the prosthetic should be able to support my normal daily mobility."
"And of course, this wouldn't be without compensation."
Holt leaned his body forward from the wheelchair. The attendant behind him quickly steadied him.
"For that prosthetic, I'm prepared to fund your company with at least six hundred million dollars in research budget. Pure funding. No expectation of any return on investment. I have only one condition." Holt extended a prosthetic hand and held up six fingers.
"When the prosthetic is finished, I get to be the first person fitted with it. And during the testing process, I can serve as your volunteer. As long as there's no risk to my life."
Ryan had never encountered a person like this before. Someone who arrived carrying his own research grant.
He thought about Holt's request. By Holt's own description, the device being asked for warranted a different name.
A brain-controlled exoskeleton.
Holt's eyes were full of anticipation, nearly bloodshot, fixed intently on Ryan, as though terrified Ryan would shake his head in the next second.
After thinking it over, Ryan nodded.
"The research is feasible. You can work out the specific terms of the collaboration with my father."
"However." The single word made Holt, a man worth well over a billion dollars, tense up immediately.
"I can't give you a timeline right now. I have other, more important projects on my plate. Your project is not high-priority."
Ryan laid it out bluntly.
Holt exhaled. As long as Ryan wasn't backing out.
"That's fine. I've waited several years. I can wait ten more."
"Thank you. Truly. I know this is a lot of trouble."
If Holt had been able to stand, he would have bowed to Ryan right there.
His confidence in Ryan was complete. The source of that confidence was the Triton-1 he was currently wearing. He believed that Ryan would, one day, develop the prosthetic he imagined, the one that would let him move freely again.
With the matter settled, Holt didn't linger. He arranged with Tom to discuss the details after the new year and left in a state of genuine happiness.
Tom then brought up another topic.
"Next month, the country is hosting the Winter Paralympics. I fitted the arm-disability athletes on our national team with Triton-1 units. A sponsorship, essentially. Unfortunately, the events are all winter sports, ice and snow. Not the best showcase for our prosthetic."
"If it were the Summer Paralympics, that would be perfect. It would cause a sensation."
Ryan thought about it. A person fitted with a Triton-1, playing table tennis, against an opponent in a wheelchair or with a single arm. The match would be decided before it began.
He had a sudden, uneasy thought.
Were Prism Sciences prosthetics going to end up banned from the Paralympics?