Flesh and Silver

by Stephen L. Burns

  The spasm subsided, and in its wake a voice howled a litany at the back of her head. A man’s voice. The irrefutable voice of her conscience. She heaved herself to her feet in dumb obedience.

  She had shown weakness of faith. She had doubted. Not just herself, but God’s perfect servant Himself. She had sinned most greviously.

  And so she must atone.

  —

  Marchey watched Scylla go rigid as a steel beam, her one green eye rolling back in her head until only the white showed, crushing the heavy ceramic cup she held like so much eggshell. At first he thought she might be suffering a grand mal seizure.

  After a moment she seemed to shake it off, taking a deep breath and lurching to her feet. The blank lens that replaced one eye slid blindly past him. Her other eye, the one of the unusual bottle green that reminded him of another woman, another time, another life, was fixed and dilated.

  She plodded to the center of the deck space like an automaton, folded to her knees. There was a metallic double click. The bulky silver bracers on the back of her forearms released themselves to dangle loose. She removed them, laying them aside within easy reach.

  Out of the utility pouch she wore at one silver-sheathed hip came a palm-sized matte black box. She pressed a catch. Two coiled wires sprang from a concealed compartment. At the end of each wire glinted a long steel needle.

  She turned her hands over. Marchey saw that removing her bracers had bared a small patch of exposed flesh at the back of each hand, the pale skin framed in silver. Her ink-etched face a stiff, frozen wasteland, she drove a needle deep into the back of first one hand and then the other. Only the knotting of her jaw muscles betrayed her pain.

  Now wired to the box, she placed it before her knees. The heel of each hand went atop it. After a long moment she leaned forward, putting her weight on her arms and hands. The box began to emit a low, sinister hum.

  Scylla’s arms stiffened. Her back, her whole body clenched cable-taut as electricity surged from one electrode to the other, using her body as the conductor. She threw her head back, her jaw clamped tight on what had to be a scream.

  She inflicted that agony on herself for a slow ten count, then let up. After muttering a low, monotonous prayer, she leaned on the box again.

  Marchey shuddered and looked away.

  Obviously she was punishing herself. A term for what she was doing floated up out of some obscure corner of his memory: self-flagellation. Usually it was a matter of the penitent scourging him or herself until he or she bled. Her exo made whipping pointless, even if she were to use a length of chain on herself.

  Why was she doing it? He stared into his cup as if expecting to find the answer there, then shrugged and drained it. He refilled his cup, this time with straight brandy.

  A strangled moan from Scylla drew his attention. She was panting for breath. Sweat beaded her tattooed forehead. Her whole body trembled as if palsied, nerves misfiring and muscles twitching from the overload. The set of her jaw said she was preparing to scourge herself again.

  If he hadn’t know it before, this was irrefutable proof that he was in the hands of a madwoman. One who believed herself to be an angel of the sort favored by Revelations. No guests for years, and then this is what he got.

  I should stop her, whispered a voice in his head.

  He didn’t move. There was no point even to trying. As long as she was in that exo, she could be anyone and do anything she damn well pleased. This he knew from firsthand experience.

  Back when he’d interned in that UNSRA Military Hospital he’d watched a shock trooper installed in an exo like hers take on a fully armed Ogre tank, his bracers deactivated to even the odds. It had taken the trooper all of twenty-one seconds to single-handedly reduce the battle machine to smoking scrap.

  Marchey knew he ought to be scared shitless.

  But he really didn’t feel much of anything.

  He took a meditative swig of brandy, wondering if he’d reached the point where he was past caring if he lived or died.

  Interesting question. He didn’t think so. When he got right down to it, his present situation wasn’t all that different from his normal routine. His destination might have been changed from the one originally set for him, but he wasn’t being wrenched off in some radical new direction. Someone else had been in control of his movements for several years now. Someone else chose where he would exercise his special skills, and on whom.

  This was undoubtedly more of the same. Sure, this time an armored female maniac was in charge, but for all he knew his itinerary up until this time had been decided with darts, dice, or pigeon entrails.

  When his work was done he would be shown the door, shoved back into the old game, still the ceaselessly moving pawn in an endless chess match where the Black Queen ruled the vast and far-flung board. Her name was Death, and the stalemates he forced on her had become meaningless events, forgotten by day’s end. Fleeting and inconsequential as fireflies in the void or fingerprints on glass.

  He played on, but by Survivors’ Rules: apathy was sanity; caring would be the kiss of death.

  Marchey’s right hand strayed up to the silver metal pin he wore over his heart. The metal still shone, even if its gleaming promise had become obscured. He found himself remembering when he had agreed to give up what little autonomy he still possessed.

  He was back where it had all begun. Square one.

  —

  A meter-long reproduction of Marchey’s pin hung on the wood-texed wall behind Dr. Salvaz Bophanza’s desk, the initials of the Bergmann Medical Institute under it in gold-edged black. A close look would have revealed a patina of dust on the upper curves and strokes.

  The chunky, middle-aged black man behind the desk gave Marchey a rueful smile. “I’d offer you a drink, old buddy, but I had to give it up.” He patted his stomach. “Kept eating holes in the tank.”

  Marchey made a face as he sat down. “That’s a bitch, Sal.”

  Bophanza shrugged. “It’s not so bad. I only miss it when I’m thirsty.” His smile faded. “You probably wonder why I recalled you.”

  “I was hoping it was so we could catch Happy Hour on your expense account,” Marchey answered in an attempt to lighten the mood.

  Sal rolled his eyes. “I wish. No, you’re back here because things aren’t working out very well the way they stand.”

  Marchey sketched an ironic bow. “Still a master of understatement, Mister Director Sir.”

  He’d arrived at the Institute to find it all but deserted, a bare handful of the staff still remaining. The corridors were silent and empty, the air of abandonment palpable. A mood of bleak pessimism had descended, but he’d hoped seeing his old friend would make him feel better. One look at Sal had been enough to kick the slats out of that.

  Sal Bophanza appeared to have aged a decade in the four years since Marchey had last seen him in person. His glowing ebony skin had lost its sheen, and he seemed to have shrunk and slumped inside it. What had once been a wild black dreadlocked mane was now a thinning salt-and-pepper fuzz. His body had broadened and thickened, but his face had thinned, and it wore the resolute, resigned countenance of the captain of a sinking ship. As director of the Bergmann Medical Institute, that was uncomfortably close to his job description.

  Sal’s smile was fleeting. “I try. The fact is we’re dead in the water here. When we first started having problems and the word came down our first crop was to be our last, at least for a while, I was angry. Now I’m glad. Jesus could heal, and got crucified for his trouble. Nobody’s nailed any of you guys up yet, but it wouldn’t surprise me if they got around to it eventually.”

  Sal came out from behind his desk and began to pace. Marchey remained sprawled in his chair, waiting patiently. He knew Sal was working his way up to something. Probably more bad news.

  “It really pisses me off,” Sal went on, his voice dripping disgust. “The system will use you when they don’t have any other options, but treat you like fucking pariahs be
fore and after. The word has gotten around. Becoming a Bergmann Surgeon is the kiss of death. Even if the program weren’t on hold, it wouldn’t matter. We haven’t had an inquiry or application in over two years.”

  “That’s probably for the best.” See, he could do understatement, too. Now to something he’d been dreading. “I heard that Sara-Lyn Neff, Josiah Two-trees, and Grace Nakamura all killed themselves. Is it true?” Three out of thirty-five. Not a positive trend.

  Sal’s face fell, the anger leaking out of him. “It is. So did Ivan Kolinski.”

  Four. Marchey shook his head sadly. “They were all damned good doctors.” Ivan had been an incorrigible practical joker. Once he had “borrowed” one of Josiah’s prosthetics while he was operating and replaced it with one made of foil-wrapped chocolate. The look on Josiah’s face…

  It was easier to imagine him playing dead than being dead. Those four—all thirty-five of them—had been so full of life. Bursting with energy and idealism. So committed to the Healer’s Oath and to medicine that they had risked all in hopes of breaking ground to a new frontier. Well, they had, and become outsiders in the process.

  “The best,” Sal agreed in a somber tone. “Ivan’s death was the worst of all. It was—” He closed his eyes a moment. “It was partially our fault. We brought him back here after he gave himself a near-fatal drug overdose on Cassandra Station. We had to make him stop practicing. He’d just gotten too erratic to be trusted.”

  Bophanza stared down at his hands as if Ivan’s blood was on them. “He put himself in trance, put his prosthetics aside, and stopped his own heart. He left a note. It said that the way he had to practice now was killing him by inches, but without it he was nothing, and had nothing left to live for.”

  He looked up at Marchey, his eyes moist and haunted. “He said he knew why we made him stop, and didn’t blame us. He… thanked us…”

  “You didn’t have any choice,” Marchey offered, knowing nothing he said would ease Sal’s pain.

  His old friend nodded mutely, then said, “It’s killing you all. I know that.”

  Marchey made himself sit up straight. “Yeah, and knowing that is eating you alive. But I doubt that you called me back here so we could compare our beds of nails. I’m here. What happens now?”

  Sal looked relieved to drop the subject of Ivan’s death. He parked his buttocks on one corner of his desk, taking on a brisk, businesslike air. “You go back out. But MedArm came up with an idea that might just make the best of a bad situation. You are each being assigned a high-speed UNSRA courier ship of your very own. No more depending on the schedules of the regular carriers to get from place to place. The ships are fully automated. We will handle logistics and itinerary from this end. See, MedArm agrees that your skills are far too valuable to be wasted. What you can do is still in demand—”

  “Even if we’re not.” Marchey turned the idea over in his mind. “We can cover a larger area this way. Having our own ships will give us at least the illusion of having a place we belong, right?” He watched his old friend nod, and kept on doing his best to look at the idea in a positive light.

  “Maybe it will even help our reputation. We’re constantly on the move to serve the greater good, not because we’re about as popular as tapeworms. Highspeed house calls in a back-assward ambulance.” He shrugged. “Why not? It can’t make things any worse.” Sal leaned closer, his face intent. “It’s still not going to be easy. But the couriers are big enough for two…” He raised one eyebrow and let the implication dangle like a baited hook.

  Marchey snorted. “Then I’ll have lots of elbow room.” His voice dropped lower, and he looked Sal straight in the eye. “So we’re admitting that we’ve turned ourselves into nothing more than pieces of specialized medical equipment to be passed around on a rotating basis.”

  “No, dammit, that’s not true!” Bophanza snapped. “You’re a healer, Gory! A goddamned good one! You and the other Bergmann Surgeons were some of the brightest, most dedicated doctors—”

  “Were is the operative word, Sal.” Marchey spoke softly, but with steel-clad certainty. “I used to be a doctor. I remember what it was like. Doctors don’t give their patients nightmares. The mere sight of them doesn’t risk scaring the patient to death. Doctors treat people. I haven’t met one of my patients in years. They’re not people, they’re conditions. Diseases. Traumas. Unconscious and broken meat machinery.” He thumped his chest. “I know what I’ve become. Just a meat mechanic. That’s all.”

  “No,” Sal insisted stubbornly, “That’s not true.”

  “Bullshit!” Marchey roared, slapping his hands onto the arms of his chair hard enough to crack the veneered plastic. He realized that he was getting angry. But not at Sal, who had trouble enough of his own without being put in the position of an emotional punching bag.

  “Sorry,” he said, getting up and going to lay a silver hand on Sal’s shoulder. “I’m not mad at you. Just at the way things turned out.”

  “You have a right to be,” Sal answered wearily. “We all do.” In one way Sal had taken the hardest road of them all. Marchey smiled and squeezed his old friend’s shoulder.

  “I remember when you flunked the final tests,” he went on. “They wouldn’t let you give up your hands. I remember how disappointed you were. How hurt.” He shook his head. “There was already a lot of heat on the program, a lot of controversy about what we were trying to do. People thought we were crazy, and maybe we were. I know how easy it would’ve been for you to have repudiated us and what we were doing to make yourself feel better about missing the final cut.”

  He wondered if he could have showed half the guts and class Sal had displayed. “But you didn’t. You kept on believing in what we were trying to do. You took an even harder choice than we did, staying on to help us realize a dream that was denied you.”

  “You don’t know how close I came to quitting,” Sal admitted softly.

  “But you didn’t, and now you run the place. Your dream soured, but you kept on serving it anyway. It hasn’t gotten any sweeter or easier since then, but you’re still here. Still trying to make it work.”

  He gazed up at the dusty emblem on the wall, recalling the hope it had symbolized, the pride he had felt every time he saw it. “Come to find out, we weren’t the lucky ones either. We gained an incredible skill, but lost everything else in the bargain. But we’re still keeping on the best we can because it’s all we have left. We can still be useful, and who knows, maybe someday…”

  Marchey let his hand fall from Sal’s shoulder, watching him mull over his own maybe-somedays. “I’ll accept things the way they are. The way it seems they have to be. It’s that or give up completely. Maybe this bit with ships will work, though I have my doubts. I’ll try it because I have nothing to lose. But there’s one thing I want you to do for me, old friend. For all us poor bastards who will be bouncing around out there all by ourselves.”

  Bophanza met Marchey’s gaze squarely. “Name it.”

  “Remember the dream for us, Sal. I doubt we’ll be able to much longer. Keep looking for a way to make it come true after all.”

  Bophanza nodded solemnly, then came off his desk and wrapped his arms around Marchey, pulling him close and holding him tightly. That was his answer.

  Marchey stiffened and almost pulled away. But after a moment he relaxed and returned his old friend’s embrace, feeling his strength and conviction, and allowing himself to remember how it felt to have someone care.

  Marchey’s hand fell.

  —

  That had been the beginning of his endless shuttle from task to task. No home other than this ship, and no end to his journey in sight.

  He had been a prisoner in this ship long before Scylla took it and him over. She was just someone else who wanted to use the tool he had become.

  She was still praying, but it looked like she had at least quit hurting herself. Absorbed as she appeared to be, he didn’t doubt that she would abandon her devotions were he
to approach her or the ship’s controls.

  Not that he planned to bother. There was no point to it.

  He was being moved to another square. But every part of the board was the same; all the long years gone by had shown him that. The game never changed. It couldn’t be won. All he was doing now was playing it out to its foregone end. So why should he care about the who and where and why?

  What was the difference between indifference and defeat?

  Indifference was an empty cup. Defeat was no cup at all.

  He looked down. His cup was empty, the spirits all gone.

  So he refilled it.

  And smiled to himself.

  See how easy it is to take control of your life?

  “What is that?”

  Marchey looked up, startled. “What?”

  Scylla slid onto the galley seat across from him, eyeing his plate distastefully. “That stuff you are eating.”

  He laid aside the real bound book—M. A. Zeke’s excellent novelization of Homer’s works—he’d been reading while eating supper. The whole day had been pretty much spent reading and drinking. His captor had skulked around so quietly that after a while he forgot she was even there.

  Chiding himself for being a bad host, he decided he should pay at least minimal attention to his guest.

  “That’s steak,” he answered, pointing with his fork. “Not real steak, but a tolerable substitute. That’s a baked potato. The yellow stuff atop it is cheese sauce, the green flakes are chives. I think the chives and the potato are real, but I doubt the cheese has ever seen any more of the inside of a cow than the steak. The green beans are real, as are the mushrooms.”

  Scylla absorbed all this with a furrowed brow. “None of that can be real food,” she announced. “I do not see how you can eat such things.”

  “Substitutes aren’t that bad if they’re real good.” He chuckled at his turn of phrase. “Want to try some?”