Variant was already in Metro.
Borland knew how it worked. The Variant Effect came out of the shadows, explosively. One minute, it was on the decline, the next you had presentations everywhere. And with a new hybrid on the loose, anything could happen.
Knowing that, it was understandable that he needed a drink before he'd let some stranger handle his testicles in a building full of scalpels. That was part of the reason Brass had arranged his surgery at the Shomberg Clinic. It had an almost perfect record going back long before the day, and was the favorite of armies, law enforcement and athletes. It wasn't state-of-the-art in hernia repair, it was the art with only a one percent failure rate.
Safest place in the world to get it done.
So why are you worried?
Borland slapped a hand against the ornately molded doorframe and glared at the assembled guests, some rookies and others he knew would be veterans either getting old scars checked or new holes plugged. You could tell by the look. Anyone showing confidence either wasn't about to have his groin cut open, or he'd had it done before.
Most everybody looked nervous as hell. Family too, he guessed, and friends were packed into the large waiting area looking put out.
Then he realized with some chagrin that his eyes had lingered too long on a wrinkled old face-fat jowls sagging-white brows clenched over furious blue eyes.
Similar, he realized, if not exactly the way his own face would be-if he lived that long. Borland had to admit that his own rugged good looks had hit the road so many times that applying the term 'good' required some mental soft focus. But that was the way it was for the survivors. Time passed and the years had their way.
Borland covered the social discomfort of locking eyes with grandpa by gripping and pulling on his own tie-and playing with the lapels on his jacket.
He let a great puff of air buzz over his lips as he scanned the room trying to find a chair where he could hole up.
Private clinic maybe-but the waiting room was public.
Borland cleared his throat and lowered his gaze before bending to snatch up his bags. He shambled across the thick carpet to an easy chair covered in antique floral upholstery. It didn't suit him at all, but the seat was wedged into a corner away from all the faces.
Borland was still feeling the squad's first mission, and he'd tapered himself off the painkillers, thinking whiskey could do the trick.
Then they told him to lay off the sauce.
His back and knees were killing him and there was a clicking noise when he breathed through his nose. The squad doctor who'd treated it said the septum was fractured and would require surgery to mend.
Thanks Aggie.
Crossing the room, Borland noticed that the old man read the move as rejection. He heaved himself out of his chair with a grunt to show his displeasure. A white plastic bag was wound around the old man's wrist. French doors set in the wall behind him allowed Borland a backlit X-ray of its contents: pill bottles, toothbrush, razors and comb.
Borland huffed derisively and his nose clicked.
A life's work in an airsick bag.
Borland dropped his luggage and settled into his chair, but something caused his hair to prickle. A sound: a curious clicking, tapping background noise that filled in the edges of the scene. Then he grumbled.
Phones.
All of them had phones, eBooks and palm-coms: a menagerie of wireless devices, one in every hand. Touching base. Updating days. Messaging machines. He frowned at the behavior. That was why Varion was gobbled up by the bottle-full-why the day got out of hand so fast.
Obsessive tendencies from cradle to grave.
Borland grunted.
Obsessed with their obsessions.
Fingers tapped and stroked at keys and touch screens. Click, tap, and rattle, click, click, click O
They were all the same. Tappers. Clickers!
No better than Biters, a waste of…
Ssskin.
He cleared his throat, compelled to make some kind of human sound to cover the mechanical whispering.
But the cough was answered by a painful throb behind his navel, and he burped.
The hernias got worse after Parkerville. He was a wreck generally, with an injured lower back, pains in his legs and bruises all over. And there were several deep ugly lacerations on his face, neck and side that were barely healed. No question though: the hernias were worse. All the fighting had torn things up. When he sneezed now it felt like his guts were coming out.
A nurse appeared at the doorway and yelled a name. A rustle went through the gathering as a woman in her early forties got up, grabbed her bags and hurried after the nurse.
Borland's stomach made gurgling noises. His belly button had completely inverted, and the grapefruit-size hernia in his right groin bulged out under his belly. He had gas all the time and he couldn't get comfortable.
It was time.
He dropped his chin and peered around the waiting room: queer gold filigree against merlot wallpaper, all the furniture had ridged backs of highly polished wood. The legs too, they were carved into organic shapes.
Three sets of French doors opened the wall at intervals across from him and showed him a broad deck with a wooded scene beyond. Some men stood out there smoking, and Borland's hand instinctively reached into his jacket for his flask
Then he stopped.
He wasn't drunk now. It was early enough that he'd managed to get to the clinic without needing a drink. And that was one of the requirements. But they didn't say anything about after the operation. His flask was just a sampler. He had two bottles hidden in his bags.
For later.
You need the surgery.
He was tired of getting old.
They said he'd be at the Shomberg Clinic for six days minimum with time off between the surgeries. He'd be cooperative, but knew there was time to bend the rules.
Too crowded here.
He was always nervous in crowds. And with Variant Effect on the riseO
The nurse returned to the doorway and called another name. She waited, and then called the name twice more. The assembled guests shifted uncomfortably.
The nurse glanced back at her e-board and left the room.
Borland noticed a gorgeous young brunette on a couch who was either accompanying a male relative, or was about to make some surgeon's day.
There has to be an upside for them…
"Joe Borland?" The nurse's voice echoed through the waiting area and Borland looked over to see the woman scanning faces.
He waved to catch her attention, stood up, then winced as he grabbed his bags and followed her.
CHAPTER 4
The nurse ordered Borland to wait in a narrow hallway crowded by a long line of chairs. A pre-op doctor would soon go over the basics with him. Most of the seats were taken by people chattering nervously or tapping on their palm-coms. He avoided inclusion by dropping into the nearest chair and sinking into himself. He lowered his eyelids to half-mast and crossed his forearms over his gut.
He hoped this posture would convince people he was dead, or at least asleep. So long as they understood that he was not open to interaction.
Not long after, the frowning old man from the waiting room stumped into the hallway and jammed himself into the last empty chair on Borland's left. The old man's plastic bag rattled.
The two men grumbled simultaneously.
And time passed.
The four doors across from them opened occasionally as patients were summoned. Then more waiting.
One stifling hour later, a man in a suit with thick glasses, bald crown and bluish jowls opened one of the doors. He held up an e-board and read Borland's name.
About goddamn time…
Borland followed him into a crappy office that looked like something you'd see in a low-budget movie.