‘Now then, Miss Barrons,’ he said in his most commanding and respectable voice. ‘As your physician it is important that you do exactly as I tell you. Do you understand?’
A giggle from around the corner, followed by, ‘Oh yes, Doctor.’
Norman straightened his tie and advanced towards his patient. ‘In order to examine you properly I’m going to have to ask you to remove all of your clothing.’
‘Oh, Doctor! Are you sure that’s necessary?’
He loved saying this bit: ‘Trust me. I’m a doctor.’
‘Well, you know best…’ The sound of buttons popping open made his pulse quicken. A white labcoat flipped over the top of a stack of Germaway, closely followed by a set of blue scrubs. There was a pause, as delicious as it was predictable.
‘Can’t I even keep my bra and panties on?’
Panties…Norman gulped. It didn’t matter how many times she said it, it always turned him on.
‘Don’t worry,’ he said, trembling slightly, ‘it’s for your own good.’
A gloriously lacy piece of underwear joined the pile on top of the disinfectant, quickly followed by its skimpy associate.
‘Excellent. Now if you’ll just step out here, I’ll begin the examination.’ Norman straightened his tie again. He wasn’t allowed to get undressed. Not yet.
A long, silky leg appeared from behind the crates, teasingly slow. She stepped out into the aisle, naked as the day she was born. Her long auburn hair hung over her shoulders, the ends just dancing above the tips of her gorgeous, pointy breasts. The smile she wore was wide and inviting, painted in dark-red lipstick that glistened in the artificial lights.
‘Oh, Doctor…’ She pouted. ‘I feel terribly hot!’
‘Then we’d better start by checking your temperature.’
She slunk towards him, biting softly on her bottom lip, dropped to her knees and unzipped his trousers.
The grey-haired man behind the table steepled his thin surgeon’s fingers and said, ‘Tell me about him.’
Ken Peitai waved his hand over the control console, and a double-sized human head appeared above the boardroom table. The face looked as if it hadn’t slept properly in weeks, thick blue bags hanging beneath the bloodshot eyes, hair sticking up in random directions, a bloody lip.
‘Assistant Network Section Director William Scott Hunter: 32.’ Ken waved his hand again and the head slowly rotated. ‘Youngest ever to hold the position. Four years at the Academy: graduated with a degree in Unauthorized Data Access. Came third in his class. Bit of gossip for ya: the guy who came first is doing thirty to life in the Tin for blowing up that deep-space research lab in Dundee. Some friends, huh?’
The old man reached into a top pocket, bringing out a test tube half-filled with thick green liquid. The glass rod danced across his fingers like a sliver of light. ‘Go on.’
Ken tried not to stare. His employer never missed a beat-if he did, they’d both be dead in minutes.
‘Four months before graduation he gets called up: Virtual Riots. He’s on a scholarship so he’s got no say in the matter. Works his way up to sergeant before his Dragonfly crashes into our very own Sherman House, thirty-nine floors up. William here rescues his buddy Private Brian Alexander from the cannibals and carries him out to safety.’ Ken smiled. ‘There was talk of making a big budget movie out of it, but it all fell through. When the VRs finish, the Network decides not to release his commission. Since then he’s been their golden boy.’
Ken paused for a moment, letting the disembodied head turn in silence.
‘Best predictions have him taking over the Network Directorship within five years, senior position at the Ministry for Defence and Justice in nine.’
The old man nodded, holding the test tube up like a conductor’s baton.
‘And yet he claims he was here because a crime scene had been cleaned?’
Ken stroked the control pad again and schematics flashed up on the wall screens-pulse, pupil dilation, skin conductivity, thermal images. ‘All the monitors say he was telling the truth. I checked the recordings from apartment forty-seven one-twenty-two: he spent the whole time staring at the wallpaper.’
The old man set the test tube dancing again. ‘What about his employer?’
‘I threw a bit of weight around and had Governor Clark call her this afternoon: read her the riot act. Let her know she’d never get a Ministry seat if she pissed us off. By the time he was finished she was fallin’ over herself to cooperate: said she was going to have a “quiet word” with our Mr Hunter. I listened to it; she tore a strip off his ass a mile wide.’
The old man smiled. ‘Good. It would be a shame if we had to have Mr Hunter killed.’ He sat back in his chair and popped the test tube back in his top pocket. ‘Keep an eye on him, Ken. Make sure that doesn’t become necessary.’
She has no idea how long she’s been asleep: down here, in the bowels of the hospital, it’s hard to measure time. The rhythm that’s been such a major part of her life for the last six years is gone. There’s no early morning alarm, followed by feeding, followed by getting into the truck, followed by getting out of the truck, followed by scrubbing and mopping and picking up litter…She doesn’t miss the work, but her body misses the routine.
She rolls over in her nest, sits up beneath the low ceiling fan, and frowns. The storeroom is supposed to be unmanned, but she can hear giggling. Somewhere in the aisle below, two people are playing doctors and nurses.
Quietly she slides forward, peering over the wall of toilet paper. And there they are: a woman with perky breasts lying back on a big box of surgical gloves, her companion kneeling in front of her. She’s got her hands behind her head, moaning and squirming as he licks and slurps between her legs. And then it happens. The woman opens her eyes and realizes she’s being watched. She’s pretty. Not beautiful-her face is too pointed for that-but she’s definitely pretty. It is a shame she’ll have to die.
A frown flits across her face-does she tell her partner there’s someone staring at them, or does she close her eyes again and sink back into the moment?
She makes the wrong choice. ‘Norman?’
Dr Westfield would have let her come before killing her. After all, she’s not a monster. Not all the time.
‘Norman!’ The woman slaps her partner on the head and points up towards the nest of toilet paper.
‘Ow, Jesus, Kris! What was that for?’
‘Up there!’ she says, pointing again. ‘Someone’s watching us.’
‘What?’ Norman jumps to his feet and stands there, erection bobbing about like a cheeky pink sausage. ‘Jesus! Oh Jesus!’ He scrambles back into his trousers. ‘I knew we shouldn’t have come down here! Oh Jesus, we’re for it now!’
They’ve been playing doctors and nurses. Now it’s time to play killer and victims.
Dr Westfield slips out of her nest and down to the storeroom floor, spilling toilet rolls everywhere.
The naked woman narrows her eyes. ‘What’s a halfhead doing in here?’
‘Why did I let you talk me into this?’
‘I talked you into this?’
‘It’ll go on our permanent records!’
‘Oh really?’ Kris places one hand on her hip and pokes him in the chest with the other. ‘I didn’t hear you complaining five minutes ago when I was sucking your dick!’
‘I can’t afford to lose this job!’ He drags his shirt over his head and bends to grab his labcoat from the pile of discarded clothes. He doesn’t see the blow that ends Kris’s life, by the time he turns around she’s lying on the concrete floor, a pool of deep, shiny red seeping out from the back of her head.
‘Kris?’ Norman steps forward. Stops. Swallows. ‘Oh Jesus…’