“The doctor in?” I asked with a grin.
“No.”
“I can wait.” I stepped over the doorjamb and forced him aside.
He put his hand on my elbow. “You’ll have to come back later.”
I started up the stairs. “Doc! You in, Doc?”
“You c-can’t d-do this.”
I ignored his stutters. “Doc? Where are you, Doc?” I hit the top of the stairs and started down the hall, pushing open doors on the way. “Doc?” I threw open another door. Tanks on tables, tanks on the floor, stacked all around. Body parts were growing inside, flesh clinging to circuitry, growing around it, enveloping it. Fingers. Hands. Legs. Suspended organs swam in fish tanks.
“Who the hell are you?” A woman’s voice.
I spun around to face her. “Hey, Doc, it’s me. Remember?” I waved at her with my half-arm.
“I tried to stop him,” said the teen, his milky eyes gone sour.
She motioned her servant away with a toss of her hand, kept her eyes on me. “What are you doing here?”
This woman cut off my hand. Cut it off without asking me. But I needed information. Needed to know if she’d done the work on Lizard-man. I needed that name. I capped the well of anger inside me with a casual smile. “I had time to rethink this missing hand. Sorry I was so rude before, but it was quite a shock, losing a part of me.”
She squinted suspiciously, her crow’s-feet sinking deep into the sands of her face.
I opened my mouth, words stalling in my throat. It wasn’t too late to play it straight. To drop the charade and ask my questions like I was a regular cop. Except I wasn’t a cop, meaning she had no reason to talk to me.
“You still got that replacement hand?”
She nodded like she’d expected that question. “Have you had your dressings changed?”
“No.”
“Come.” She stepped down the hall.
I took a last look at the lab, a shiver tickling the hair on my neck. I followed her into an exam room. It could have been the same one I was in before, but muddled memories made it difficult to pin down. I sat on the padded table and unbuttoned my shirt.
She was dressed most undoctorly-silk shirt, tight pants, like she was ready for a night on the town. But the stressed buttons and taut fabric of her shirt didn’t fit right over her rack.
Her shirt was wrong. My brain scratched at it. I was missing something.
I took off my own shirt, and she pulled up a stool. Seeing the bloodstained bundle of bandages, she spoke with a scolding tone, “What happened here?”
“Got in a bad scrape.”
She let it pass with a head shake and an unfriendly smirk, her chilly bedside manner on full display. Made me want to ask what she thought she was accomplishing with her glasses and salt-and-pepper hair. Why play the middle-aged doctor when you weren’t going to back it up with a warm personality? Or any personality at all.
She yanked tape and started unraveling. “I know you said you don’t do work to order but-”
“I don’t,” she interrupted.
I continued on as if I hadn’t heard her. “In my line of work I could use something with a little punch, if you know what I mean.”
“Be more specific.” Her face stayed flat when she talked, her voice unreadable.
“I’m talking weapons.”
She took her eyes off the bandages and looked square at me.
“Maria told me about some of the work you do for her hooker friends, so I figured maybe you do stuff for bodyguards like me?”
“You’re a bodyguard?”
“Bodyguard. Bouncer. Whatever pays.”
She pulled off the last of the bandages, exposing the blood-caked cap affixed to the end of my arm, and the viny tendrils holding it in place. She dug scissors from a drawer and clip-clipped the air.
“Those sterile?”
“I’m a pro. I won’t cut you.”
I tensed as she leaned in and snipped the first tendril. She pinched the severed piece in her fingers, and I felt a tug as it pulled free. Barely felt it at all.
“So you want a self-defense system?”
“Yes.”
“I’ve done weapons before.” I waited for her to elaborate, for her to say she once did a hand that could morph into a steel trap. She snipped another tendril. “You never told me how you hurt your arm.”
“Didn’t Maria tell you?”
“No.”
I had a lie ready. “I took a day job at a bottling plant and got my hand caught in the machinery.”
“Bad luck.” She dropped another tendril in the trash.
“So what can you do for me?”
She snipped at the tendrils. “I don’t take directions from my patients.” Her tone was as sharp as her scissors. “I go where inspiration leads me.”
“But Maria told me you’ve installed very specific equipment for some of her hooker friends.”
“I let them tell me what area of the body they want me to work on, but that’s all. My practice is not a lunch buffet. Only an artist can be trusted to shape the human body.”
She pulled the cap off the end of my arm. I didn’t look. Didn’t want to know what was down there after so much neglect. I kept my gaze focused on her, pictured her with a saw in her hand, going at my arm. My arm. I breathed deep, gritted my teeth. Get a grip.
She opened up a small pack of gauze, bunched it up in her hand, and poured some alcohol into the center.
I kept my arm still, fighting the urge to jerk free. This butcher cut off my hand.
“Doesn’t look too bad.” She took a deep whiff of my wound. “You’re a lucky one. I don’t smell the rot, but I’d like to get some antibiotics into you just in case.”
“Sounds good.” I tried to sound cool. Calm.
“Be right back.” She went out the door.
I wanted to get out of here, jitters tingling in my feet and legs. I didn’t want her touching me again. But I hadn’t scored any info yet. I told myself I was being paranoid. Just some antibiotics. You need the antibiotics. I knew damn well how regular antibiotic injections kept my mother alive a year longer than most.
I could do this. A quick injection, and it would be over. I’d never have to let her touch me again. We could get back to talking about a new hand. Back to steel traps. I could con her into giving me Lizard-man’s name as a referral.
A figure appeared in the door. The teen with the clouded eyes. He had a syringe in his hand. “I have your antibiotics.” He stepped forward, the syringe filled with clear liquid.
Clear. A sick twinge rolled in my gut. It should be brown. I’d injected my mother plenty of times. Always brown.
“I’ll need an arm,” he said.
I pointed at his hands. “Wash those things first.”
“I already did.”
“Wash ’em again so I can see you.”
He nodded glumly, turned around, and moved to the sink, setting the syringe on the counter before running the water.
I slipped up behind him, slow, silent. He shut off the water, reached for a towel. I nabbed the syringe, bit off the cap with my teeth. He spun, tried to back away, but I’d already sunk the needle into his thigh. He let out a squeak as I dropped the plunger. Antibiotics my ass.
Milk-filled eyes curdled. His balance shifted. Legs noodled. I left the needle in his thigh and eased him down into a crumpled mass of angled limbs. Couldn’t afford to make noise.
I moved to the door, listened first, peeked out second. I crept into the hall and headed for the stairs, the sound of a hushed voice ahead. I pressed my back into the wall, moved toward an open doorway, shoulder blades sliding over bumpy plaster.
“Just get down here.” The doctor’s voice.
A pause. She was on the phone.
She spoke again. “I’m putting him under until you get here.”
I stopped at the edge of the door frame. The stairs were so, so close, but I stayed where I was, afraid to cross the open doorway. I couldn’t let her see me. Couldn’t give her the chance to unleash whatever offworld tech she had inside her. Recessed lase-pistols? Plague pins? Who the fuck knew?
“Bye.”
Shit. I should’ve gone for it already. I heard footsteps. Fuck. I backed down the hall, away from the stairs, and ducked through a door. A bathroom. Stalls and urinals. A shower. Three sinks.