by L. E. French
“And you can’t pay for it.” She sipped at her drink, watching me over the rim of her glass with a pointed, unfriendly stare.
“No, madam, I can’t.” My mind whirled with the possibilities if I could get it back in operation. Though these people terrified me, they’d claimed me. I had no other options and hoped that saving Phantom had earned me enough goodwill to be able to make mistakes without punishment. I swallowed my fear and plunged headfirst into what I hoped wouldn’t be a disaster. “Perhaps we can come to some sort of arrangement?”
“Perhaps we can, Dr. Tsukuda.” Misery eyed me with enough intensity to suspect she could see through my flesh. “I’ll think about it. Monster, take him to his room.”
Monster clamped a paw on my shoulder and pushed me to the front door. I didn’t resist. Apparently, I wouldn’t be a guest for dinner after all. We stepped into the hallway and he shoved me at door number eight, directly across the hall. Opening it, I stepped into the kitchen of a much smaller apartment than Misery’s. The kitchen had a nook with a twin bed and a door leading to a tiny bathroom. Thin, brown curtains covered the single window over the bed and the ceiling had one frosted plastic light fixture.
“Someone will bring some clothes later.” Monster tossed a key at me, which I failed to catch. It clattered on the plastic flooring. “There’s food in the cabinet. Whenever you need to check on Phantom, just knock.” He shut the door before I came up with a response.
I crouched and picked up the key, running my fingers over the floor. The blank, hard surface reminded me of my first date with Ai. Our mothers had set us up on a blind date and paid for a nice dinner at a nice restaurant. Afterward, we had tickets to a play, but neither of us wanted to see it. As we walked around with no particular destination in mind, we passed a crappy little cafe with blank plastic flooring and a synth musician playing in the corner. I danced with her and decided I could live with her as my wife.
Straightening, I wished I could go back and tell that moron never to see her again. I set the key on the marbled plastic counter and opened each of four cabinets. Monster’s idea of “food” consisted of three dozen cans of the tasteless mush only the poorest people eat. Since Ai kicked me out, I’d managed to avoid this shit. Until now.
The label called it PROCESSED FOOD PRODUCT. Several cans claimed to have flavors. I didn’t trust any of them. Some soulless company made it out of “actual animal parts,” plus vitamins, minerals, unspecified grains, and the tears of cuisine chefs.
In the fridge, I found ketchup, mustard, and mayonnaise. Why on earth anyone would want those with Processed Food Product mystified me. I turned the kitchen upside-down until I found salt, pepper and sugar. Resigned to my fate, I grabbed a random can and pulled the tab. The smell made me reconsider, but I hadn’t eaten since yesterday. On reflection, I probably shouldn’t have had so much whiskey. My tolerance for it amazed me.
I dumped some salt into the can, swirled around the gruel-like slop, and sipped it. Salt-flavored oatmeal tasted better than this. Unbidden, thoughts of grilled salmon with a lemon rub came to mind. The night before everything went to shit, I took Ai and Miko out to dinner at our favorite restaurant. Ai had her favorite meal, fresh unagi. Miko played with tempura shrimp more than she ate it. Staring into my can of beige pig slop, the smells of those foods mingling together in my memory finally cracked me.
My eyes burned and I wanted to scream. For the past three days, I’d shuffled from place to place in a haze of denial. I’d kicked a garbage can over on my way out of the hospital. Nothing else had registered until now, except in a detached, clinical way.
Ai never liked that about me. I didn’t emote enough for her. She crumbled into tears at chick flicks and birthday parties while I stood by, stoic and unmoved. I’ll never forget the one time I sat on the couch with Miko, reading her a stupid little story. Ai watched us and burst into tears. Later, she said it reminded her of the man she married, whatever that meant. I hadn’t changed much since we met.
I slid to the floor and leaned against the cabinet with tears sliding down my cheeks. This happened. One mistake destroyed my life. Brad said I was drunk, but I wasn’t. Two hours before surgery, I’d downed one shot. Or two? Maybe it had been two. Ai had thrown me out the day before, so I could hardly be blamed for dipping into my work stash to take the edge off.
At least I’d been able to leave the hospital before the police arrived. Fishing in my pocket, I found the last of my paper money. If Misery or Monster found it, I suspected they’d take it. Not that such a small amount of cash would get me far.
Wiping my face, I clambered to my feet and stuffed the money into the drawer with a scattering of plastic utensils. If they looked, they’d find it. I picked up the key and stared at it, wondering who had copies. Who could come in and slit my throat in my sleep?
I dropped it onto the counter again and forced myself to drink my shit in a can.
Chapter 6
“You should empty that entire bottle by lunchtime,” I told Phantom the next morning. So far, I’d choked down one entire can of Processed Food Product. Phantom got to drink strawberry-flavored protein shakes, which seemed acceptable to cover the liquids he needed. “Call for help to empty your bladder so you don’t rip your stitches. We’ll use this bedpan until you can walk safely.”
“Gross,” Phantom breathed. He still lay on his bed, wiped out by the act of letting me check his temperature and blood pressure. Dark circles under his eyes and pale cheeks told me he’d be in that bed for a while.
The corner of my mouth ticked up. Administering to a patient put me on solid ground. Monster and Wraith not being here helped. I even had clean clothes now, and had been able to take a shower and shave. “Nurses usually handle that, so I’m right there with you. Here’s hoping you can get up soon, but don’t push it too hard. For now, get some sleep.”
“Thanks, Doc Soo,” he mumbled.
I nodded and backed out, leaving the door open so he could be heard. Delusion hunched on a couch in the living room, chewing on his fingernails. His right foot bounced.
“He’s going to be fine,” I assured Delusion. “I’m not just saying that.”
“That’s what Monster said.”
His jittery nerves made me nervous too. I snapped off my latex gloves and tossed them in the kitchen garbage. “Where is everyone?”
“Out.”
“Will they be back soon?”
Delusion flinched and shook his head. “I dunno.” Their kitchen had a black coffeemaker, among other things. I had a feeling I was lucky to have a refrigerator in mine.
A bang in the hallway made us both flinch. Delusion jumped to his feet and fled for his room. Uncertainty gripped me. I took two steps toward Phantom’s room before Monster tossed the front door open. His gaze locked onto mine.
“Doc, come with me.” The grim set of his jaw drew my feet like a dark magnet that didn’t want to be whipped or zapped for disobedience. He led me to door number ten.
Instead of another apartment, we entered a small room with nothing but a metal chair bolted to the plascrete floor. It had no windows, no carpet, no decoration, and nothing else but a paper shopping bag and a bare lightbulb screwed into a metal housing in the plascrete ceiling.
Misery watched while Wraith wrestled a new man into the chair. Monster stepped to his side and used plastic straps at his wrists, ankles, and neck to keep him in place. An extra band wrapped around the man’s chest.
Blood flecked the man’s mouth and nose, and a black eye ripened under shaggy, dark hair as I watched. He wore a dirty, blood-speckled tank top and shiny black pants with no shoes or socks. As soon as he was secure, Monster dragged me inside and shut the door. I gulped, not sure what to think of my presence here. Without missing a beat, Monster turned, took three swift steps, and punched the restrained man in the face. I jumped and backed into the wall with a squeak. The restrained man grunted.
“Doc, c’mere,” Monster said without looking at me.
; Horrified, I slid along the wall to reach the doorknob. “Why?”
Misery snorted and stepped into my path. “Doc, meet Deadbolt.”
Deadbolt spat blood to the side and grunted again. Monster had broken his nose and he only grunted with mild discomfort. Fresh fear rolled over me in a tsunami. Too many dangerous men filled this room. And Misery.
“Why am I here?” I asked, unable to raise my voice above a whisper.
Monster stood aside and jabbed a finger at Deadbolt. “Fix his nose.”
The moment felt surreal. Monster had brought me here to align a nose he hadn’t yet broken, presumably knowing he intended to do so. I wanted to ask why, to refuse, to run screaming from the room. All these things could, I suspected, get me beaten or killed. I gulped and approached the man. Straightening broken noses had been part of my job back when I worked in the ER as a resident.
“Th-this will hurt.” My voice cracked. I didn’t repeat myself. Placing my hands on his face, I took a deep breath. With a quick jerk, I wrenched the cartilage back into alignment. Deadbolt grunted again, this time with genuine pain.
“Good job, Doc.” Monster held up Deadbolt’s head by the chin.
I backed away again. “May I go now?”
“No,” Misery snapped with a dark grin. “You’re going to stay here and keep Deadbolt going as long as possible. Supplies are in the bag.” She pointed to the paper bag.
Her orders took until Monster punched Deadbolt in the gut to sink in. I wanted to throw up. “N-no.” I retreated to the corner, unable to tear my gaze away from Monster hitting Deadbolt again and again. “No, I won’t do that. I won’t help you torture him.”
Misery rushed me. She grabbed my shirt and pointed a gun at my forehead. I hadn’t seen a gun this close before and had no idea where she’d been hiding it. My heart stopped beating and I stopped breathing.
“I gather I was unclear last night, so let me fix that now, Doctor.” Glaring at me, she leaned in until only an inch separated our noses.
Thankfully, I had used the bathroom recently. Otherwise, I would’ve wet my new jeans as I cringed away from her. My mind replayed all the stupidest mistakes I’d ever made. Fucking a patient’s wife in my office rose to the top of the list. Bunny had everything in all the right places. She’d fawned over me. Only now, staring death in the face, did I realize how much of a moron I’d been to piss away my decent marriage and only child for large breasts.
“Your entire job while you’re here is to do whatever I tell you to.” Misery’s steely voice snapped me back to the present. “I’m happy you saved Phantom’s life. That really does make me happy. You have kids, Doctor?” When I nodded, she smiled. It didn’t reach her eyes. “Then you understand that part. The problem is, if I let you walk away, some other gang will find you and snap you up. Someone with your skills is a commodity. That’s why you have the wristband.
“So, you work for me now. I give you a place to stay and food to eat. I’ll find someone to re-activate your implant and pay them. You,” she shoved my forehead with the gun barrel, “do what I tell you to. I’m telling you to do whatever it takes to keep this man alive as long as possible. When he dies, he better be such a fucking mess that I don’t suspect you gave him a mercy killing. Are we clear, or do I need to get the button out?”
“Yes,” I whimpered. “Clear.” What other answer could I give? When she withdrew the gun, I slid to the floor and remembered to breathe. I’d fallen into the deep end of a pool I didn’t understand and had no idea what to do about it.
Monster slammed his fist into Deadbolt’s flesh over and over with meaty thwacks. I’d smelled blood a thousand times in a surgical suite, but the copper in the air here turned my stomach. Squeezing my eyes shut against the beating, I wished I could block out sounds. Monster reached a point where he growled with the effort of pounding on this man. At that point, Deadbolt could only whimper.
After far too long, the sounds changed to panting and wheezing. I opened my eyes to see Deadbolt’s head hanging forward, blood drooling out of his mouth. Monster stood back, wiping his fist with a towel. Misery stepped forward and grabbed Deadbolt by the hair. She inspected his face, looking him over critically. With a huff of disgust, she let go.
“Dammit, Monster, he’s unconscious. You were supposed to stop before that.”
“Sorry.” Monster didn’t sound sorry. “Got carried away, I guess.”
Wraith chuckled. He appeared to have no other purpose in the room than watching the proceeds. Deadbolt couldn’t escape. Maybe he’d take the next beating shift.
Misery turned to me. “Wake him up and fix whatever you can.”
“Are you going to kill him?” The question burbled out of me against my will.
Misery raised her brow. “You probably don’t want to ask that.”
“No, I don’t,” I forced myself to say as I crawled to the bag of supplies and pawed through it. Somehow, though, I felt I had to justify the question. “Just need to decide how to prioritize the injuries.”
“How practical.” Misery smirked. “He’ll die, but not yet. We still have some questions to ask him. You don’t shoot one of my boys and walk away.”
I swallowed bile. “I see.” Without looking at her, Monster, or Wraith, I dragged the bag to Deadbolt’s side and snapped latex gloves on. My initial examination told me he’d sustained mostly superficial injuries. When I prodded his sixth left rib, he winced, but it didn’t shift, so I suspected it was cracked.
“Ah, not out cold after all,” Misery cooed. “Go ahead, Doc. Clean him up and put on bandages.”
Already using a wet wipe on his face, I bit back a rude retort that I didn’t need to be told how to do my job. Instead, I took a deep breath and tried to see Deadbolt as a practice patient. “That seems like a waste of bandages.”
Misery and her two flunkies laughed. “I suppose it is,” she said. “You’re living up to your reputation, Doc.”
I froze. “What?”
Misery crouched beside me with a grin. “You were so nice to give me your full name, Dr. Hideo Tsukuda. I looked you up. Seems your face is plastered all over the ’net and the holonews. Murdered a patient, cheated on your wife with the dead guy’s wife, and an alcoholic. You’re a regular piece of shit, aren’t you? Did you beat your wife? How about your kid?”
“No!” Heat flared in my cheeks. I wanted to crawl into a hole and die. My mind flashed to the surgical suite three days ago.
Standing over Arthur Belton’s prone body covered with blue sheeting, I looked down at the open incision. Gabby controlled suction. Marissa handed tools to me. Paula assisted. Blood covered my gloves. I directed the nanites to devour the aging man’s disintegrating hip while I held his pelvis in place and cut the ends off his ligaments. I saw his iliac artery. My fingers twitched and I sliced the artery in half.
I don’t know why.
That was a lie. I knew exactly why. As I stared, I remembered Bunny telling me how much she hated being married to a decrepit old man. She wanted to feel like a woman again, so she said. Someone so skilled with his hands could do the job. Then she unzipped my pants and gave me a blow job in my office.
None of this would’ve happened without that blow job.
Chapter 7
I threw up into the toilet in my room. Deadbolt had, at most, an hour left to live. I’d done my job in silence for five hours—taping cuts, straightening bones, breaking smelling salts, and cleaning abrasions. Nothing in Misery’s bag provided any kind of anesthetic, and she’d gotten the most caustic cleaning agents possible.
Deadbolt’s screams still echoed in my ears. My ministrations had proven the more horrific part of his session, a fact that bothered me more than anything else I saw in that room. Monster and Wraith took turns punching, slapping, kicking, and even cutting Deadbolt. He endured it all with little reaction. Then I swooped in.
I may have killed Arthur Belton, but he felt nothing. He went under sedation and never woke up. Besides, doctors made mistakes a
ll the time. No one liked to admit it, but Belton was far from the first patient I’d lost on the table.
Processed Food Product looked and tasted about the same coming up as going down. I flushed the toilet and shambled to the kitchen sink. Cool water felt good on my face and cleared the bile from my mouth and sinuses. Leaning over it, I squeezed my eyes shut against the too-fresh memory of Deadbolt.
Getting my implant re-activated was worth this. Right? With it I could steady my hands and keep myself under control. I’d be more useful and could negotiate for better conditions, maybe even bargain to get this stupid wristband off and leave. That abandoned gas station could be converted to a medical suite. I could take patients and avoid the cops. With the right DeeSeat contacts, I could run an underground body shop.
That meant doing whatever Misery wanted until I could make my own way. She’d protect me from guys like Deadbolt. I couldn’t say if she’d protect me from her own people, but if I patched them up enough times, they’d respect me as the doctor in the house. I could set limits and refuse to help with torture.
“Hideo, you’re fucked,” I muttered. Wishing I had a bottle of whiskey, I staggered to my bed and dropped onto it. The textured ceiling had a dark boot print I hadn’t noticed last night or this morning. How it got there, a mystery I had no frame of reference to understand, crowded everything else out of my mind. Briefly.
The boot print reminded me of Monster’s boots, which brought me back to the horrors of room ten. I rubbed my eyes and urged myself to look at the episode from Misery’s perspective. She had to punish anyone who attacked her people or her gang would be perceived as weak. Without my intervention, Phantom probably would have died, which meant her retaliation needed to be rapid and devastating.
I hadn’t paid much attention to the questions and answers in room ten. My sanity had depended upon keeping my eyes averted and memories of Miko close at hand. To save myself now, I remembered her fourth birthday party.
