The Command Triad would have to make some decisions, sooner rather than later. Perhaps if they pulled out of some parts of the world and left them to rot, they’d be able to return later, once the humans had finished killing each other off. The Middle Eastern humans had unleashed nuclear weapons on each other. Who knew what the British humans would do?
Chapter Thirty-One
Resistance Hideout, Near Coventry
United Kingdom, Day 42
“Well, you’ve been through the wars,” the doctor observed, cheerfully. “Let’s have a careful look at you, all right?”
“Let’s not and say we did,” Alex said. Her body still hurt, even though she’d had a good meal and a proper sleep once they’d evaded the alien pursuit and found their way to a resistance base near Coventry. “I don’t want anyone to look at me ever again.”
“I need to examine you if I am to prescribe treatment,” the doctor said, patiently. “I’m sorry that I’m the only doctor here, but…”
“Never mind,” Alex said. The original owner of the house had left a dressing gown behind when they’d abandoned their property for the illusionary safety of the countryside. She shucked it off and climbed onto the examination table, wincing as she saw the bruises covering her body. The interrogation team had seemed more interested in hurting her than actually dragging information from her unwilling lips. “Get on with it.”
“Lie flat,” the doctor said. He started by examining the bruises covering her chest, including a nasty one right across her left breast. “They hit you with a cane, I presume?”
Alex nodded. “Canes can break the skin, which is why some people use them for S&M frolics,” the doctor observed. “There’s an extra layer of danger as the cuts can become infected and cause greater hardship down the road.” He studied the cuts in view and relaxed a little. “There’s no sign of any infection, but I’m going to give you some cream to rub on them every night before you go to bed. It should encourage faster healing.”
“They lashed my feet as well,” Alex said. She couldn’t keep the bitterness out of her voice. “Do people do that for fun as well?”
The doctor snorted. “There are people who choke themselves nearly to death for the thrill it gives them,” he said. He studied her feet carefully. “Luckily, your feet weren’t too badly damaged — I expect they wanted you to be able to walk under your own power. A couple of the wounded we plucked from the alien base were hamstrung — the bastards cut the nerves in their ankles, making it impossible for them to walk properly. It’s hard to tell if they were being paranoid or sadistic. Roll over for a moment.”
Alex obeyed, tensing as she felt his fingers working their way over her back and buttocks. “I can’t see any infection,” the doctor said, after a moment. “I think you’ve been very lucky. The disgraceful conditions in that camp would have meant that you would have picked up something, sooner or later. A number of the prisoners from the main detention cages have been suffering vitamin deficiencies, of all things. We don’t have the resources to treat all of them here, so we’ve had to spread them out a bit and hope that the aliens or their collaborators don’t realise what we’ve done.”
His hands grasped her buttocks, pulling them apart for a moment. “There’s far too much scarring down here,” he said, grimly. “How many times did they rape you?”
“I can’t remember,” Alex admitted. It was shameful, but no amount of thinking could unlock the puzzle. She should have remembered. “Why don’t I remember?”
“They gave you a mild drug in your food,” the doctor said. “I took a blood sample last night and found traces of a particularly obnoxious date rape drug. My guess is that they were working to break down your resistance by disorientating you — it probably would have worked, given enough time.” He winced. “Turn over and let me have a look at you from the other side.”
Alex had always been embarrassed when her sexual organs had been examined, even by a female doctor, but she submitted without complaint. “I assume that you weren’t a virgin when you fell into their hands?” The doctor asked. Alex flushed, but nodded. Her first time had been nothing to write home about, although it had gotten better over the weeks that had followed. “There’s quite a bit of scarring down here — I don’t see any signs of any STDs, but I don’t have the equipment to do proper tests. I’m going to give you a course of antibiotics and I expect you to take them for at least a month.”
He shrugged. “Normally, we would have sent you for counselling as well, but we don’t have any of the trained specialists here,” he added. “I spent half my time as a civilian GP referring people for counselling who didn’t need it and now there are more trauma cases on my hands than I ever saw in my worst nightmares.”
“It’s tough all over,” Alex said, as she sat upright. It still hurt to move, but it was getting better — or maybe she was just getting used to the pain. Her hands shook as she reached for the dressing gown and she found herself having problems picking it up. The doctor gave her a sympathetic look and helped her stand upright. “I… why don’t I feel balanced?”
“Delayed shock,” the doctor said. “I’ve seen it quite a bit in military and police personnel. You keep plugging onwards while the crisis is going on and then you start coming to pieces. My advice, my very strong advice, would be to rest for the next few weeks. You don’t need to spend any time on the front lines…”
“The entire world is on the front lines,” Alex pointed out, dryly. “What happens if the aliens come crashing in here and demand our immediate surrender?”
“Try and relax,” the doctor said, with a faint smile. He hesitated, briefly. “One other thing. I’d strongly recommend that you refrain from sexual intercourse for the next month or two, at least while you’re taking the antibiotics. You really need to let your body heal before you do anything else.”
“I don’t think that that’s going to be a problem,” Alex said. She caught sight of herself in the mirror and scowled. Her blonde hair had been hacked off by a manic, her face was bruised and covered in tiny cuts and what little of her legs could be seen had been marked by the cane. “No one’s going to be interested in me for a few weeks anyway.”
The doctor shrugged. “I’d suggest refraining anyway,” he said. “I should warn you — some people putting out propaganda on the internet want to use your story to embarrass the collaborators. They will certainly want to talk to you about it, maybe have you filmed talking about it or take pictures of your wounds. If that bothers you, tell them to go to hell. They captured enough footage from the interrogation chamber to thoroughly embarrass the collaborators without needing your input.”
Alex looked up at him. “Footage?”
“The bastards recorded all of their interrogations,” the doctor said. He looked sick, even at the mere thought of it. “I saw a handful of them when they wanted a medical opinion. My considered opinion is that they were torturers first and interrogators second. At least one of them was supposed to be locked up in jail for the rest of his life. One of their sessions was the slow murder of a young girl with no real connection to the resistance. God alone knows what they did with the body.”
Alex remembered some of the reports from London. “The aliens had their prisoners dig pits and they simply dumped the bodies there,” she said. “Maybe there’s another pit near the detention camp. The girls in the cage told me that quite a few of them had died while they were in alien custody.”