Halfhead

by Stuart B. MacBride

  ‘I told it to you in the first place.’

  The shuttle’s door popped open and slid back on its runners, exposing a clean, well-appointed interior. Not like the shabby ones the Network always used. They climbed onboard. ‘NETWORK HEADQUARTERS’ was already programmed into the destinator.

  With a gentle hiss the door slipped back into place and the shuttle began to move, pulling away from the station.

  Will settled back in his plush seat, taking one last look at the entrance to Ken Peitai’s little subterranean kingdom. It was amazing the things that could go on right under your…

  He froze.

  Just coming through the frosted doors was someone he recognized. Her wild ginger hair was now tied back in a neat ponytail and she was laughing, her green eyes twinkling in the strip-lights. The tribal scars were gone, only a faint trace of puffiness remaining where she’d peeled them off. The woman from Sherman House—the one he’d zapped.

  He didn’t get much of a look at her companion, just a flash of a tall man in a long black cloat, its straps fluttering in the wake of the departing shuttle.

  The car accelerated to cruising speed, leaving the platform far behind.

  Oh shit.

  If Ken’s little social engineering project was so damn altruistic, how come his agents were running around stirring things up? When Stein died, the ginger-haired woman hadn’t been trying to ‘keep a lid on things’, she’d been running at the front of the pack, with a projectile weapon in her hand and a crazy glint in her eye. She’d tried to kill his team for God’s sake!

  Then there was the rest of them—the ones who’d chased Will and Emily through the corridors…How the hell did Ken Peitai get away with running his private militia in a building full of VR syndrome? It was like sticking a firecracker in a wasps’ byke.

  Emily was right not to trust the little git.

  Will scowled, watching the lights vwip past.

  Out of the frying pan.

  13

  The rains arrived that evening, right on schedule. A flash. A single peal of thunder. The first drop spattered against the hot concrete, evaporating almost immediately. And then another drop. And another. Growing faster, thicker, heavier, until it was bouncing back from the pavement.

  Gradually the streets filled with people, standing with their faces turned to the downpour. They danced and sang, celebrating the end of the oppressive heat, passing plastics of whisky and beer around. An impromptu carnival that rivalled any New Year’s Eve.

  And then the temperature began to drop—slowly at first, just a couple of degrees an hour—until everyone was soaked and shivering. So they left the streets to the rain.

  Summer was over. Now it was the turn of the monsoon.

  ‘That does not explain why you disobeyed my direct order to stay away from Sherman House!’

  The shuttle had dropped Will and Emily off at Network Headquarters almost two hours ago, dressed in all their tattered finery. Fifteen minutes later the summons to the Director’s office had arrived. She’d kept them waiting in the anteroom for ages before calling Emily in. Director SmithHamilton was a professional, she did not believe in public bollockings. That meant Will had to sit outside while she tore a strip off of Lieutenant Brand. And then wait some more while she made a few phone calls. And then wait some more on top of that, just to make sure he knew he was in trouble.

  He stood to attention while she paced back and forth in front of the panoramic glass wall, rubbing at her forehead. ‘I mean, I could understand it if you were one of the junior agents, but you’re an Assistant Section Director, William! I have to be able to trust you to follow the chain of command. If you don’t, how can we expect anyone else to?’

  Behind her, Will had a perfect view of the city. Grey skies, sheets of rain. Glasgow was drowning. He knew how it felt. ‘I can only say—’

  ‘I’m not finished yet. When I decided to promote you to Assistant Section Director, I faced a great deal of opposition. “He’s too young,” they said. “He lacks discipline,” they said. I told them they were wrong: that despite your youth and unsavoury connections, you had a good, solid head on your shoulders. That you had what it took.’ She stopped pacing. ‘Was I wrong, William? Should I have listened to them and left you with the rank and file for another five years?’

  ‘Well, you—’

  ‘Don’t interrupt. It was bad enough you went back to Sherman House against my direct orders, but did you really have to drag Lieutenant Brand along with you? Are you looking to ruin her career as well as your own?’

  ‘I only told Lieutenant Brand where I was going once we were aboard the shuttle. She insisted on accompanying me to ensure my safety. She was not able to contact Control to inform them of my intentions because we were surrounded by residents who could have overheard, putting both of our lives in jeopardy.’

  ‘I had Governor Clark on the phone for twenty minutes this afternoon, demanding your head on a stick!’ Director SmithHamilton leant back against her huge sandstone desk. ‘You can consider yourself lucky the people running Sherman House have decided not to make a formal complaint. A Mr Peitai called me an hour ago to speak on your behalf: you owe him. Were it not for his support your position here would have been untenable. Do you understand?’

  ‘Yes, ma’am.’

  ‘Obviously, I can’t let this disgraceful breach go unpunished. I’m fining you one month’s wages and cutting your holiday entitlement by four days.’

  ‘Thank you, ma’am.’

  She sighed. ‘What are we going to do with you, William? I always had high hopes of you following in my footsteps. I thought that one day—when I move on to take a seat at the Ministry—I’d be able to leave the Network in your hands.’

  SmithHamilton turned to face the downpour. Cleared her throat. Fidgeted with the cuffs of her jacket. ‘I understand they found Dr Westfield’s body yesterday. It must have come as a terrible shock.’ She paused. ‘Perhaps that’s why you went against my exclusion order on Sherman House?’

  He didn’t answer, but she nodded anyway, then walked over and put a hand on his shoulder. Up close she smelled of lavender and bergamot. ‘I think you should take the rest of the week as compassionate leave. We’ll hold down the fort here and you can come to terms with…Well with whatever you have to come to terms with.’ She guided him towards the door.

  ‘Remember, William, we have a team of highly trained therapists who can help you through this. I want you to feel free to give them a call. Make them work for their money.’

  Which was pretty much exactly the same speech he’d given DS Cameron.

  Will murmured something noncommittal and thanked the Director for her time. Then marched off down the corridor, back straight, head up.

  As soon as he heard her office door close, he slumped to a halt and swore. She could keep her highly-trained therapists—he’d had enough analysis to last a lifetime, thank you very much.

  He got into the lift and hit the button for the lowest level. Brooding all the way down.

  There was no sign of George’s shiny receptionist, so Will went straight through.

  The ‘Frankenstein’s Day Off’ cartoon was gone, replaced by a large sign taped to the mortuary door: ‘GEORGE’S HOUSE OF FUN’. The Network’s chief pathologist was inside, up to his elbows in someone. As Will stomped in wearing his gaudy rags, the little fat man looked up, his mouth hanging open, cheeks twitching, eyes wide.

  ‘What the bloody hell do you look like?’ George sniggered, but that caused nasty things to come out of his nose. ‘Is the circus in town?’

  ‘I need a favour.’

  He dragged out a scabby hanky and blew. ‘OK, I’ll do you a favour—if you do me some balloon animals.’ He snapped off one of his gloves, pinched the wrist hole together and blew, inflating the thing into a bloated hand-shape. ‘Look, it’s a stegosaurus!’ The fingertips were smeared with blood.

  ‘Very funny.’ Will grabbed it off him and dropped it in the bin. ‘I need yo
u to run a complete med-scan on me.’

  George stopped laughing. ‘Me?’ He frowned. ‘Why not get the MO to do it?’

  ‘Because I don’t want the MO knowing I dress up like Bobo the Bastarding Clown on my days off. You know what an old gossip he is, I’ll get bookings for children’s parties!’

  ‘Point taken. So why a med-scan?’

  ‘Emily and I got taken down at Sherman House. Might have been a Zapper, but I’m not sure. We lost about two hours; I want to make sure there’s no nerve damage.’

  ‘Well…But all my equipment is designed to work on dead people. It’d be really cold. And uncomfortable.’

  ‘I’ll live with it.’

  ‘That’ll be a novelty, none of my other clients ever do.’ He took off his bloodstained cutting apron and pulled on a fresh pair of gloves. ‘Strip off and jump up on a slab and we’ll get started. Mr Arthur here is in no hurry for his cranial evacuation.’

  Will got undressed, then settled down to an excruciating half hour of cold probes and bright blue lights.

  Norman bit his lip and suppressed a giggle. Kris was the most exciting thing that had ever happened to him. Just five minutes ago they’d been running some old biddie through the imager, and now here they were ‘Going Down Below’ as Kris liked to call it. Going. Down. Below!

  He was going to marry her. Hadn’t asked her yet, but she had to know he was thinking about it. Hop a shuttle to Dundee, get hitched in one of the big casinos by someone dressed as Elvis.

  The elevator slid to a halt and they tumbled out into the utilitarian-green corridor.

  No one about—as usual—so Kris punched the passcode she’d stolen from Dr Brooms into the storeroom keypad.

  ‘Come on, then.’ She pulled him inside. ‘I’m a very sick woman. You’ll probably have to perform a full, in-depth, thorough, hands-on, no-holds-barred, medical examination.’ She punctuated each word with a small, delicate bite on the tip of his nose.

  Norman groaned, his ‘special thermometer’ rising to the occasion. Kris danced away down the aisle, waving to him as she disappeared behind the stacks of disinfectant.

  ‘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…’

  He looks up at Dr Westfield, then down at the bone-hammer in her hand.

  His face goes slack and he wets himself.

  Calmly she steps over Kris’s body and holds up the stainless steel mallet. Clumps of hair glisten on the striking surface and she pauses for a moment to sniff the delicious coppery smell of fresh blood.