U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs

The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs is a government institution whose presence in the novel is registered through the equipment, treatment possibilities, and benefits on which veterans depend. Its care is concrete but bounded: it provides Conner Penske with a prosthesis and a system for steering his Tarantula, considers possible transplants, and has tried to understand Burton Fisher’s lingering haptic effects. Yet care does not amount to complete restoration, and Burton’s VA benefits remain vulnerable to the consequences of his outside work. The agency links military service to the long, uneven aftermath of injury and adaptation.

Care and the Veterans’ Bodies

Conner’s prosthesis is among the clearest signs of the VA’s practical role. At Burton’s home, Conner rises from a seat that is not a chair but his prosthetic arrangement: he is Velcro’d into equipment purchased by the VA. It gives him an upright, striking silhouette, but his movement makes plain that the device does not make walking easy or natural. Its visible presence marks a difference between being equipped and being restored.

The account of Conner’s possible treatment further specifies the limits of what the VA can offer. Flynne understands that a transplanted toe might be used as a thumb, and that a donor thumb or perhaps a right foot could be possible if Conner enrolled and committed the time. But there are no comparable transplants for his right arm or left leg, because the remaining stumps do not provide enough nerve length for the necessary connection. The prospect of intervention is thus conditional and uneven: options depend on anatomy, eligibility, and the patient’s willingness to undergo a lengthy process.

The agency’s assistance also extends beyond prosthetic limbs. Conner rides a Tarantula using a servo steering rig paid for by the VA, enabling him to travel around the county and beyond. The equipment supports a particular way of moving through the world, though it does not erase the severe losses that shaped his return from war or the difficulties of his daily life.

Haptics, Diagnosis, and Unfinished Effects

Burton’s experience is described not as a settled PTSD diagnosis but as a problem associated with the haptics used during military service. The family has been told that the system sometimes glitches him, producing phantom-like traces of the tattoo signals once used to tell him when to run, hold still, or act. The marks left where the equipment was removed could be treated, but Burton does not want to keep returning for more procedures. The aftereffects therefore persist in a life shaped by both technical intervention and his own limits on further treatment.

Flynne identifies Burton as a veteran of Haptic Recon 1 and explains that he may have effects from the embedded systems like those affecting her brother. She adds that the VA tried to work out what was happening. The agency appears here as an institution that investigates an unfamiliar service-related condition, but the passage does not suggest that it has resolved it. Flynne’s comparison connects the brothers’ experiences while preserving a distinction between Burton’s specific symptoms and the broader uncertainty around them.

Benefits and Institutional Pressure

The VA’s influence also operates through the support Burton receives. Ella warns that if the agency learns Burton is moonlighting, it may cut him off. That threat makes the agency’s benefits more than background assistance: they are a material stake in the family’s decisions and in the risks surrounding Burton’s work. Ella contrasts the possible outcome of current events with the likelihood that the VA itself will continue operating, emphasizing that the family cannot simply assume the institution will disappear or that its support is secure.

Across these references, the VA is neither presented as a complete solution nor reduced to a single act of neglect. It supplies equipment, funds mobility, considers treatment, investigates haptic aftereffects, and administers benefits that can be put at risk. The contrast between this institutional care and the veterans’ continuing needs gives the agency its narrative significance: military service remains present not only in memory, but in bodies, devices, treatment decisions, and economic dependence.