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"Now put your left leg in the second one... there we go. Make sure it's secure... fantastic. Now stand!"
"B-b-but..."
"Have faith, Johnny. Stand up!"
Tessa's eyes were glued to the tv screen. Her mouth was wide open as she stared in awe at the young paraplegic boy on television stand to his feet for the first time in his entire life.
"I'm doing it! I'm doing it, Professor Dwyer!"
"There you go, Johnny! Now walk!"
"But-"
"Just believe in yourself, Johnny!"
Tessa's eyes only enlarged as the boy who was born with a congenital disorder that inhibited his ability to walk took his very first steps. She remembered when she first saw articles about Professor Dwyer's proposal to create artificially intelligent bionic legs for the boy. It quickly became the highest trending news on an international level. For Professor Dwyer was one of the world's if not THE world's greatest mind. He not only worked with but was admired by several other brilliant minds including Bill Gates, Stephen Hawking and Elon Musk.
"Ladies and gentlemen, we are witnessing history in the making. This groundbreaking moment takes mankind to an entirely new level in artificial intelligence."
"Oh mama, I wanna be like Professor Dwyer!" Tessa said, shaking her head in disbelief.
Suddenly, the smoke alarm went off and Tessa could smell something burning. She scrambled to her feet to turn off the stove burner as the alarm beeped loudly in the small house.
"Tessa, you burnin' down my kitchen, girl?!" her father called out from the living room.
"No, papa!" she shouted as she shoved one of the kitchen chairs beneath the smoke alarm. She grabbed a piece of mail on the kitchen table and quickly climbed on top to start fanning the smoke from the machine.
"Tessa!"
"I got it, papa!" she shouted as she jumped up on the chair to hit the button. The alarm immediately stopped beeping.
Tessa breathed a sigh of relief as she climbed off the chair. She looked at the crinkled envelope in her hand and her face immediately fell. It was a second warning about her father's late payment for his therapy session.
She dropped the envelope on the table and her face fell even further to see another warning from the landlord for late rent.
"Tessa Marie!" her father called again.
"Coming, papa!" she shouted. She quickly organized the envelopes and turned back to the stove. The spatula nearly bent as she tried to scrape the burnt french toast off of the pan.
