The woman rose from the trashcan with a ball of tinfoil. She unwrapped it like a Christmas present. Inside, she found a half-eaten cheeseburger which she fed to her dog. “He used to be a doctor. Don’t practice no more.” She pointed to her dog, who ravaged the cheeseburger.
Oh boy, Jayne thought. “Well, do you know if there’s a doctor who is still practicing.”
The woman pointed to the ornate ele-grav. “Doctors? Hospitals? Below. In the center you might find help.” She held up her right hand – she was missing her middle, ring and pinky fingers. “Rabies.”
The dog finished the cheeseburger. She balled up the foil and slid it into her coat pocket. “Know why he don’t practice no more?” She pointed to her dog again. “Why he ain’t a doctor no more?”
Jayne had to keep this lady talking in the hopes that she’d give a little more information about the doctor who performed that amputation. “No. Why?”
The woman started laughing with her toothless smile. “Patients complained that his fleas were too high.” She cackled.
Jayne had to fake a chuckle with a literal, “Ha. Ha.” She adjusted herself. “So, who helped you out with those rabies?”
“A raccossum. Best deal on rabies in town.” She laughed again, but then she sensed Jayne’s frustration. She got straight with her. “Doctor Savage. Middle of town. Middle of the triangle.”
Jayne couldn’t tell how cogent the woman was. If ‘Doctor Savage’ was real or a product of mental illness. “Thank you. Do you know how I get to the casinos?”
The woman had returned to trashcan raiding, but stopped to quickly gesture to the ele-grav. “The gates of heaven, the gates of hell, what happens down there is no one’s to tell.”
Jayne nodded. “Right.” The woman had officially given her the creeps. Still, she reached into her tourist backpack and pulled out three protein biscuits. She tossed them to the woman. “For you and the dog.”
Jayne kicked the starter with one foot and held down the accelerator with her other. She sped off.
Two main roads advanced inside the triangle of Headless Hope. Truth Street ran north to south, between the two legs. The other, Consequences Street, ran east to west, from the base to the apex point.
Jayne hit the halfway point of Trigger Boulevard’s left leg and took a hard right onto Truth Street. The abandoned shops and storefronts gave way to abandoned apartments. As she entered the center of the triangle she discovered more signs of life. She rode past humble survivors like a laundromat, a diner called Sullivan’s, a mechanic’s and, most appropriately, a funeral parlor.
For the last fight for the life of Headless Hope, as best Jayne could tell, its residents had retreated to the final defense: its heart.
And there, at the intersection of Truth and Consequences, Jayne saw a neon caduceus over a sign reading “Doctor D. Savage, General Practitioner.”
+++
Examination Room, Offices of Doctor D. Savage, Headless Hope, Amaros
Doctor Savage held Jayne’s ankle in place as he wrapped sealing-gel soaked gauze around it, alternating twice around her ankle, once around the arch of her foot.
Jayne could feel the sealing-gel solidifying itself to the shape of her foot as he continued wrapping.
Doctor Savage reached the end of the wrap and held down the end against Jayne’s ankle until the entire wrap was firmly in place. “That was fifty-seven years ago, of course. Things were different then. Headless Hope was considered one of the best towns for the middle class. Now? I’d say the actual population of residents, and I’m not even counting the seasonal-arrivals who work during the busy months, I mean the card-carrying Hopers, you see? I’d say there’s less than a thousand of us left. By the way, this is going to hurt!”
Jayne sprung upward off the examining table, reaching for her leg. She growled in pain. “What the hell was that?”
“Lidocaine 17X. Between you and me? This stuff hasn’t been legal in a few years. But I have so much of it left! What am I supposed to do? Throw it out? No way. Times are too hard. Besides, it gets the job done.”
He was right. Jayne felt the pain in her ankle melt away. She was sick and tired of dealing with it. She hoped this treatment would stick.
Doctor Savage peeled off his gloves and hobbled over to the sink. He rinsed his hands, then splashed some cold water across his wrinkled face. He ran his fingers through his tumbleweed hair. Jayne realized Doctor Savage was just one more feature of the landscape that surrounded him. “It just occurred to me I should have given you the anesthetic, then wrapped it. Oh well! At least I have an excuse: I am very old.” He hobbled back to Jayne. “How does it feel?”
Jayne rubbed her ankle. “It… doesn’t feel at all. It’s totally numb!”
Dr. Savage nodded. “Good! Time for the final test, then.” He pulled a mallet out of nowhere and swung it down hard toward Jayne’s foot. Jayne gasped. She tried to stop him, but she was too late. The heavy hammer slammed against her ankle and… made a squeaky noise. Jayne breathed an incredulous sigh of relief.
Dr. Savage laughed. “I used to do that to all the kids who came in here… But kids don’t come in here anymore.” He placed the toy mallet back into the cabinet under the sink.
+++
Doctor Savage didn’t have any nurses. He didn’t have any receptionists, either. He hobbled behind Jayne out to the front of his practice, stepping behind the counter where he assumed a new role.
Jayne took out the roll of contingency cash she had brought with her, and gave him three hundred credits. Compared to the healthcare of Theron Techcropolis, this was basically free.
Jayne looked Doctor Savage in the eyes. “I need one more thing.” She thought about her past mistakes when it came to choosing who she could trust. But right now, in this moment, she didn’t have a choice. “How often do gang members come in here?
Doctor Savage shook his head and held up his hands. “Never. I don’t affiliate with those people. I refuse to treat them.”
Jayne narrowed her gaze. “Isn’t that against the Hippocratic oath?”
Doctor Savage shrugged. “If the price is right.”
Jayne placed a fifty-credit bill down on the counter.
Doctor Savage took the bill and, unlike the other bills that went into the cashbox, this one went right into his shirt pocket. “Which gang?”
Jayne pointed at the underside of her wrist. “They have lightning bolts running down their arms, here.”
The doctor leaned back in his chair. “The Bitches, yeah. A few have come in. Usually magne-cycle accidents. They pay well.”
“Where can I find them?”
Doctor Savage shook his head. “I wouldn’t know.”
Another fifty went down on the counter. “I already know they frequent a tattoo shop called Zodiac Zelda’s. Where is it?”
The bill went into Doctor Savage’s pocket. “In the underworld. On Transference Avenue. If I had a credit for every infected job from Zodiac Zelda’s I’ve had to treat, I’d have more credits than you’ve bribed me with. You got any tattoos?”
Jayne shook her head. “How do I get to the… underworld—"
Doctor Savage pointed outside, through the front window. “Ele-gravs all over the outer triangle. A trip down is ten credits.”
Jayne shook her head. “Can’t take an ele-grav. Can’t risk anything with surveillance.”
Doctor Savage rubbed his chin. He eyed how thick Jayne’s roll of cash was. But then again, here was a girl in trouble. Was this not an extension of the Hippocratic oath? He mulled over the dilemma. “You know,” he stood up from the chair behind the counter and motioned Jayne to follow him once more into the back, “why don’t you come with me to the operating room?”
Jayne followed him into the only other room in the small practice. It was full of any potentially-necessary surgical equipment, all out of date and seemingly unused.
Doctor Savage pushed the gurney up against the wall. “One of the most important things for a hospita
l is to be easily accessible… for all who may need attention.” He knelt down in the center of the room and dug his fingernails between two dusty floor tiles. He found a crack in which he could grab hold and lifted up a false-floor covering a ladder descending into a void. “My own private portal to hell.”
Jayne couldn’t believe it. Was there anyone in this town who wasn’t crooked? Maybe the homeless woman. Or maybe only her dog. The last pure soul in Headless Hope. But who was she to judge now? She’d had to smudge the lines of her own morality recently. Sometimes it worked out when money talked. For now, she was thankful that she had Doctor Savage on her side, even if she had to pay for it. “What do I owe you?”
Doctor Savage held his hands up. “You’ve paid me enough. Now, I merely request you keep me out of your business. The less I know, the better.”
Jayne nodded. The ceremony of their departure was unclear. So, they simply shook hands. Jayne climbed down into the hole. Doctor Savage placed the false floor back in place. Jayne could hear him push the gurney back on top. She lowered herself into the underworld.
+++
The Deep Wen, 1700 feet beneath Headless Hope, Amaros
Jayne held the railing of the rusting staircase she arrived on ten minutes ago, the barely more secure platform Doctor Savage’s ladder led her to.
Every dozen meters, a new utility light hung down from the intricate electrical grid running along the canopy of the cave. Wires encased in waterproof alloys burrowed their way into the cave wall holding up this ancient staircase.
Jayne couldn’t imagine what the hell the purpose of this staircase could possibly be. The staircase groaned, creaked, and swayed with every step she took. She could only imagine it was a remnant from the earliest constructions of Headless Hope’s Deep Wen, back when its ultimate purpose was sheltering Headless Hope’s citizens during the mounting arms race between the Federation and other galactic governments, back before the Federation absorbed their enemies through aggressive negotiations.
But now, the staircase was usefully forgotten for Jayne’s purpose: sneak into Deep Wen without an ele-grav’s monitor zapping her image straight into Dean Geiger’s all-knowing electronic brain.
Jayne started worrying about the depth of the staircase. When she looked down, there was nothing but an endless dark void below her.
As the staircase turned the corner around the curving cave wall, Jayne plunged into darkness. She had no way of knowing if the staircase would suddenly run out, collapsed from years of the cave’s humid air working on the metal. Every step was a risk. Every step could send her hurtling into certain death below her.
But then, almost miraculously, the staircase leveled out into a walkway, and one final hanging light signaled the end of this leg of her journey. The walkway fed directly into a gaping mouth of a cave.
There was no turning back now. Jayne ventured into the cave.
+++
Jayne guided herself through the cave with nothing but her hands running against the rough, jagged walls. The sound of dripping water, natural construction noises of a brand new stalactite development, nearly drove Jayne mad.
Just when she thought she couldn’t take it anymore, she heard a familiar noise: the atonal symphony of a city. Jayne could see a small light at the end of the cave.
The cave’s exit was ineffectively barricaded by iron bars over a chain-link fence that simply swung open like a door. Years of illicit passage, Jayne surmised, had kept the entrance a secret. She kept tradition and firmly shut the gate behind her.
Now out of the cave, Jayne stood on the precipice and looked before her: The Deep Wen of Headless Hope.
The naturally massive cathedral of space in the middle of the cave accommodated a condensed metropolis, rising higher and higher, all the way to the roof of the cave. Every building cast the surrounding cave in a seedy, neon glow.
Jayne’s eyes followed the intricate system of the walkways which, rising up from the lowest floor and twisting around buildings like a rollercoaster, had room for only two kinds of transportation: walking on foot, or riding on rickshaws.
Jayne could hear music, the rabble of drunkenness, and the sound of cold, hard cash being counted.
Time to get to work.
+++
Zodiac Zelda’s Tattoo and Piercing, Deep Wen, Headless Hope, Amaros
Jayne found Zodiac Zelda’s on the ground floor of Deep Wen, down a long alley rich with the smell of cheap flank-sticks and noodle balls emerging straight out of fryers and onto paper plates for the employees of the city.
Laundry crisscrossed the tall, narrow walls like a makeshift carnival. The walkway was barely wide enough for two people to pass each other.
Jayne could feel all eyes on her: an outsider. Not a tourist who wandered into the wrong part of town, but someone dangerous who might temporarily throw off the precarious balance so rarely maintained in these people’s lives.
A huge woman, pock faced and six-foot-seven, at least, wearing chainmail guarded the solid wood door of Zodiac Zelda’s. “How’s it going?”
Jayne planted herself firmly in front of the bouncer. “I need to talk to Zelda.”
The bouncer sized Jayne up. Jayne barely came up to her shoulders. “Zelda’s not in today, and she’s not taking appointments. You want a tattoo? Find the necessary channels and go through them.”
Jayne craned her neck until she felt her spine go craaack. Felt good. “I don’t explain myself, but there’s a lot hanging in the balance of this. More than you’ll ever realize. This is bigger than you or me.”
The bouncer laughed. “Not much is bigger than me.”
Jayne’s brain zipped through any and all information that might be useful. She was tough, she could fight, but this hunk of woman? Jayne would be nothing more than an aperitif for her. Even I know my limits, Jayne thought.
No, she’d have to resort to brains. “Brielle sent me.”
The bouncer’s face turned white. “Stay here.” She opened the wood door behind her, ducked through the doorway, and shut it behind her. Jayne heard two heavy locks slide into place.
In just a few moments, before Jayne even had a chance to adjust to the perils of waiting for something unknown, she heard the heavy locks again and the bouncer opened the door. “Come inside.”
Jayne found the parlor unextraordinary. It was pristine and sanitary in a necessary sort of way, as if maintained out of a fear of being shut down, not in an effort to prevent infections.
The bouncer walked over to the front desk and turned a coffee cup 360 degrees clockwise. It locked into place, and a false, holo-wall at the back of the parlor de-pixelated unveiling a narrow entry now guarded by nothing more than hanging beads.
Ok, Jayne thought, they got hidden doors and switches disguised as coffee mugs. This operation is not as low-rent as I was expecting.
The bouncer gave Jayne no indication to proceed. The revelation of a secret was invitation enough. Jayne passed through the beads and into the backroom.
The air in the low-ceilinged room was thick with smoke, like an aquarium for smokers. The hanging tapestries denoted ancient goddesses, runes and equations of alchemy. The floor was thick with layered rugs, pillows, and ottomans, from the entry to the far wall, where a chaise lounge rose out of the cushioned sea.
She was covered head-to-toe in tattoos. Except for the lightning bolt on her right wrist, she was covered only in flowers. Her form, spread across the chaise lounge, was hidden by the dim lighting and the hanging frock she wore. Her hair shot off from her head, practically blending into the plumes of smoke rising from her yorka pipe, which she passively puffed on while looking Jayne up and down.
Except Jayne realized that was impossible. Her eyes were glazed white with cataracts.
Zodiac Zelda removed the pipe from her mouth. “How’s it going?”
‘How’s it going’!? Jayne thought. She couldn’t believe the casual opening to a conversation. Oh well, might as well respond. “I'll admit, I've been better.�
��
Zodiac Zelda twisted one of the many rings on her fingers, until a tight blue flame burst out from the ring’s head. She relit the pipe. “I don’t know what I can tell you about Nova. Let me clear the air about that now. If you’re expecting some sort of trade off, information for information, I won’t help you…”
Jayne wondered if it was true, what the mystics of Creote-Opula, the only planet where yorka could grow, said about the root: it grants psychic abilities.
Zelda let Jayne bask in the mystery of that moment. She tamped her pipe. “I’ve already heard from Brielle. Through our chain. She’s being held at customs at the Whip End River Shuttle Report. She’s being held because she lacks identification, not because they know who she is. So she’ll return.” She placed her emptied pipe in a box, and slid the box behind a hidden shelf behind another holo-wall. “So, I must thank you for giving me such a headache. Oh, for crying out loud, sit down already.”
Well, maybe the yorka does grant some sort of sixth sense. How else could she have known Jayne was standing? “I’m sorry about Brielle. But right now, I don’t have much choice regarding my actions. I have to—”
“We always have a choice.”
Jayne paused. Zelda’s penchant for philosophical musings kept slowing her down. “Yes. Well, there is a lot at stake here. More than I can really describe, but Amaros, the entire Federation, is at stake. If that weren’t reason enough for me to save it, then I think you can appreciate that I’ve been drawn into it personally.”
“I’m sure you have excellent reasons, Jayne. Do you see this?” Zelda pointed at the tattoo of a white rose inside her bicep.
Jayne didn’t question how Zelda knew her name. Maybe it was the supposed-psychic properties of the yorka. Maybe news traveled fast. Jayne simply nodded, then, remembering that Zelda couldn’t see her, spoke. “Yes.”
Zelda circled the tattoo with her finger. “Julianne.” She pulled down her frock at the collar, revealing a gardenia. She gently laid her fingers on it. “Anastasia.” Zelda raised her bare leg free from her flowing gown. She pointed to a lotus hidden among the countless flowers. “Esther.”
Exposed (Interplanetary Spy for Hire Book 2) Page 14