Debrenceni shrugged, then reached out to take the wine jug and refill his cup. There was a dreadful irony in his voice—a sense of profound mistrust in the words even as he offered them. He sipped at his cup, then sat back, his pale-green eyes resting on Chen's face.
"We could say no, of course. Break contract and find ourselves dumped one morning in the Net, brain-wiped and helpless. That's one option. The moral option, you might call it. But it's not much of a choice, wouldn't you say?" He laughed; a sharp, humorless laugh.
"Anyway... we do it because we must. Because our 'side' demands that someone do it, and we've been given the short straw. Those we deal with here are murderers, of course—though I've found that helps little when you're thinking about it. After all, what are we? I guess the point is that they started it. They began the killing. As for us, well, I guess we're merely finishing what they began."
He sighed. "Look, you'll find a dozen rationalizations while you're here. A hundred different ways of evading things and lying to yourself. But trust to your first instinct, your first response. Never—whatever you do—question that. Your first response was the correct one. The natural one. It's what we've grown used to here that's unnatural. It may seem natural after a while, but it isn't. Remember that in the weeks to come. Hold on to it."
"I see."
"Some forget," Debrenceni said, leaning forward, his voice lowered. "Some even en/cry it."
Chen breathed in deeply. "Like Drake, you mean?"
"No. There you're wrong. Michael feels it greatly, more than any of us, perhaps. I've often wondered how he's managed to stand it. The mountain helps, of course. It helps us all. Somewhere to go. Somewhere to sit and think things through, above the world and all its pettiness."
Chen gave the barest nod. "Who are they? The prisoners, I mean. Where do they come from?"
Debrenceni smiled. "I thought you understood. They're terrorists. Hotheads and troublemakers. This is where they send them now. All of the State's enemies."
KIBWEZI STATION was larger than Chen had first imagined. It stretched back beneath the surface boundary of the perimeter fence and deep into the earth, layer beneath layer. Dark cells lay next to stark-lit, cluttered rooms, while bare, low-ceilinged spaces led through to crowded guardrooms, banked high with monitor screens and the red and green flicker of trace lights. All was linked somehow, interlaced by a labyrinth of narrow corridors and winding stairwells. At first it had seemed very different from the City, a place that made that greater world of levels seem spacious—open-ended—by comparison, and yet, in its condensation and contrasts, it was very much a distillation of the City. At the lowest level were the laboratories and operating theaters—the "dark heart of things," as Drake called it, with that sharp, abrasive laugh that was already grating on Chen's nerves. The sound of a dark, uneasy humor.
It was Chen's first shift in the theaters. Gowned and masked he stood beneath the glare of the operating lights and waited, not quite knowing what to expect, watching the tall figure of Debrenceni washing his hands at the sink. After a while two others came in and nodded to him, crossing the room to wash up before they began. Then, when all were masked and ready, Debrenceni turned and nodded to the ceiling camera. A moment later two of the guards wheeled in a trolley.
The prisoner was strapped tightly to the trolley, his body covered with a simple green cloth, only his shaved head showing. From where Chen stood he could see nothing of the man's features, only the transparency of the flesh, the tight knit of the skull's plates in the harsh overhead light. Then, with a small jerk of realization that transcended the horrifying unreality he had been experiencing since coming into the room, he saw that the man was still conscious. The head turned slightly, as if to try to see what was behind it. There was a momentary glint of brightness, of a moist, penetratingly blue eye, straining to see, then the neck muscles relaxed and the head lay still, kept in place by the bands that formed a kind of brace about it.
Chen watched as one of the others leaned across and tightened the bands, bringing one loose-hanging strap across the mouth and tying it, then fastening a second across the brow, so that the head was held rigidly. Satisfied, the man worked his way around the body, tightening each of the bonds, making sure there would be no movement once things began.
Dry-mouthed, Chen looked to Debrenceni and saw that he, too, was busy, methodically laying out his scalpels on a white cloth. Finished, the Administrator looked up and, smiling with his eyes, indicated that he was ready.
For a moment the sheer unreality of what was happening threatened to overwhelm Chen. His whole body felt cold and his blood seemed to pulse strongly in his head and hands. Then, with a small, embarrassed laugh, he saw what he had not noticed before. It was not a man. The prisoner on the trolley was a woman. Debrenceni worked swiftly, confidently, inserting the needle at four different points in the skull and pushing in a small amount of local anesthetic. Then, with a deftness Chen had not imagined him capable of, Debrenceni began to cut into the skull, using a hot-wire drill to sink down through the bone. The pale, long hands moved delicately, almost tenderly over the woman's naked skull, seeking and finding the exact points where he would open the flesh and drill down toward the softer brain beneath. Chen stood at the head of the trolley, watching everything, -< seeing how one of the assistants mopped and stanched the bleeding while the other passed the instruments. It was all so skillful and so gentle. And then it was done, the twelve slender filaments in place, ready for attachment.
Debrenceni studied the skull a moment, his fingers checking his own work. Then he nodded and, taking a spray from the cloth, coated the skull with a thin, almost plastic layer that glistened wetly under the harsh light. It had the sweet, unexpected scent of some exotic fruit.
Chen came around and looked into the woman's face. She had been quiet throughout and had made little movement, even when the tiny, hand-held drill let out its high, nerve-tormenting whine. He had expected screams, the outward signs of struggle, but there had been nothing; only her stillness, and that unnerving silence.
Her eyes were open. As he leaned over her, her eyes met his and the pupils dilated, focusing on him. He jerked his head back, shocked after all to find her conscious and undrugged, and looked across at Debrenceni, not understanding. They had drilled into her skull . . .
He watched, suddenly frightened. None of this added up. Her reactions were wrong. As they fitted the spiderish helmet, connecting its filaments to those now sprouting from the pale, scarred field of her skull, his mind feverishly sought its own connections. He glanced down at her hands and saw, for the first time, how they were twitching, as if in response to some internal stimulus. For a moment it seemed to mean something—to suggest something—but then it slipped away, leaving only a sense of wrongness, of things not connecting properly.
When the helmet was in place, Debrenceni had them lower the height of the trolley and sit the woman up, adjusting the frame and cushions to accommodate her new position. In doing this the green cover slipped down, exposing the paleness of her shoulders and arms, her small, firm breasts, the smoothness of her stomach. She had a young body. Her face, in contrast, seemed old and abstract, the legs of the metal spider forming a cage about it.
Chen stared at her, as if seeing her anew. Before he had been viewing her only in the abstract. Now he saw how frail and vulnerable she was; how individual and particular her flesh. But there was something more—something that made him turn from the sight of her, embarrassed. He had been aroused. Just looking at her he had felt a strong, immediate response. He felt ashamed, but the fact was there and turned from her, he faced it. Her helpless exposure had made him want her. Not casually or coldly, but with a sudden fierceness that had caught him off guard.