Halfhead

21

The Network has its own private floor of Glasgow Royal Infirmary. Different from the rest of the building, its walls are thicker, its floors are reinforced, its ceiling covered with shielding. Troopers stand guard at the main bank of elevators; anyone without a pass is escorted off the thirteenth floor at the point of a Whomper. But she walks right past them as if they weren’t even there.

She wanders slowly around the private reception area, picking up the wastepaper baskets and emptying them into her buggy. Fat, useless Liam is just another layer of ash in the hospital furnace, the storeroom is nice and clean, and she still has ten minutes before The Man In The Dark-Blue Suit arrives for his appointment. Ten minutes to find out where he’ll be going. Ten minutes to get into position. Ten minutes to decide what she’s going to do to him.

So many beautiful options…

Her medicine makes little stars twinkle at the edge of her vision, the world fizzing on chemical ripples. The base of her neck is sore from repeated injections. She’s had far more than the recommended daily dose.

The buggy creaks as she pushes it through the double doors, following the orange line. The place is quiet, but then four twenty on a Sunday afternoon is hardly peak time. She passes wards, scanners, and operating theatres. The consultation rooms are at the end of a short corridor.

There’s a waiting area in the middle of the room-comfy chairs, pot plants, a coffee machine-and treatment rooms down either side. Each one with a display screen next to it, listing the doctor’s name and upcoming appointments.

There’s no one around to see her checking the screens for William Hunter’s name. She finds it down at the end of the row.

Seven minutes. His appointment is in seven minutes.

Perfect. All she has to do is wait in the little room. She’s not worried about the doctor already being there-doctors die just as easily as everyone else. And when William Hunter turns up she’ll wait till he’s not looking, then use the injector in her pocket to pump him full of sedatives. Heave him into the buggy, just like useless Liam. Only when she gets him down to the storeroom he’ll last a lot, lot longer.

Mmm…

Her hand freezes on the doorknob; there are voices inside the consulting room. She frowns at the display, checking. No one should be in there-it’s reserved for The Man In The Dark-Blue Suit. How dare they! How dare they get in the way! And then the voices say something that makes her flinch.

‘Peitai…’

The word makes her skin burst out in pins and needles.

A cold room, keys beneath her fingers and tubes in her arms.

She lurches back from the door, heart thumping in her chest.

Peitai.

Pictures of her children, flickering lights, questions, elec tricity, pain. She staggers into the buggy and it sends one of the pretty pot plants crashing to the ground.

Peitai…

‘What was that?’ Jo jerked upright.

‘I said that Ken Peitai-’

‘Shush!’ she crossed to the door and put her ear against it. ‘There’s someone out there!’

Will nodded. ‘Yeah, it’s a hospital. There are thousands of people out there.’ It was a stupid thing to say, but it was out before he could stop himself. Ever since she’d asked about the photos in his living room there had been a layer of glass between them. Something that couldn’t be seen, but kept them apart. He was acting like a tit and he knew it.

Jo scowled at him. ‘You know what I mean. We’re hacking into the hospital records, you think your doctor’s going to be happy about that?’

‘Good point.’ He started hammering commands into the keyboard. ‘You see who it is, I’ll copy the files and shut this thing down.’

Lights: too bright for her to bear, shining straight in her eyes. A short man in green, an older one dressed like a crow. Questions. More questions. She stumbles to the seats in the middle of the waiting area and collapses into one.

Hot noise races through her head; the interrogation chair; stabbing bursts of pain; questions. Peitai and his keeper-the man in the long black cloat with the delicate fingers that make her writhe in pain.

Someone says something, but she ignores it. Her head is burning from the inside out.

A hand touches her shoulder and she explodes out of the chair. No. No more. She won’t answer any more questions!

Something goes ‘crack’ and suddenly all the noise and light and pain vanish.

She’s in the waiting area, standing over the body of a woman. The woman isn’t moving, she’s just lying there on the floor, a Palm Zapper nestling in a shoulder holster, just visible through her open jacket.

Dr Westfield grabs it.

It’s all gone wrong. Unravelling…

She stares at the consulting room door with his name next to it.

This is too dangerous. Too big a risk. She has to get away from here. Now.

She grabs her trolley and makes for the exit. Walk, don’t run. If she runs they’ll know something’s wrong. If she runs they’ll catch her.

Will shut down the doctor’s computer with a satisfied click. There were only a couple of references to Peitai and his boss, Mr Kikan, but it was still a lot more than he’d had this morning. And now the files were all downloaded to his cracker where he could read through them at his leisure.

He put everything back the way he’d found it and stood, waiting for Jo to return. When she didn’t he crossed to the treatment room door and stuck his ear against it: silence.

‘Jo?’

He pulled the door open and saw her body lying sprawled across the floor. A bloody graze on her forehead.

‘Jo!’ Will dropped to one knee and felt for a pulse. She was still alive, but it looked as if she was in for one hell of a lump. ‘Jo, can you hear me? Who was it?’

No reply.

‘Damn!’ He stabbed his throat-mike. ‘Control, this is Hunter: Network treatment rooms, Glasgow Royal. I have an officer down.’

‘Roger that, Security is on its way…Wait a minute, “officer”? Don’t you mean Agent?’

‘No I don’t.’ He dragged his Palm Thrummer out of its holster and snapped the thing on. ‘Get a med team here on the double! You’ll find DS Cameron outside Doc Morrison’s room.’

‘Where will you-’

He killed the link.

There was no sign of which way the bastard had gone.

Left or right? Left. He sprinted back along the corridor, making for the exit and the lifts, barged through the first set of swing doors and almost fell over a halfhead. The damn thing was right in the middle of the passageway, but Will dodged it just in time and kept on running.

He was breathing hard when he battered through the next set of doors and into a ring of heavy weapons.

‘Hud it right there! Hauns far I can see ‘em!’

Will was looking down the business end of a Whomper on full power-telltales blinking away on the assault rifle. He did exactly what he was told.

‘Drop the weapon, pal, or I’m gonnae drop you!’

He let the Palm Thrummer fall to the floor. ‘ADS Hunter. I’ve got a Bluecoat DS in need of medical assistance back there and whoever did it is still running loose! Has anyone passed you?’

‘What?’ The assault rifle drifted away from his face as the spokesman frowned. ‘There’s been naebody down this end.’

‘Then they’re still on this level!’

Will pointed at the trooper with the Whomper and the sergeant’s stripes. ‘You come with me.’ He turned towards two others: ‘I want you and you to do a sweep of the floor, search the bloody bedpans if you have to.’ Then he grabbed the remaining trooper. ‘Get back there and guard the lift, no one in or out. Understand?’

‘Hud oan.’ The Whomper drifted back towards Will’s head. ‘Afore we go runnin’ about like good wee doggies, let’s see some ID.’

She can feel the sweat beading on her forehead. The corridor is full of armed guards, but they’re not interested in her; they’re interested in the man trying to order them about. The man she came here to kill. Their guns point at his head, not hers and she wants to keep it that way.

Her heart thumps faster and faster as she wheels the creaking buggy past.

Calm. Stay calm. They don’t even bother to look as she slouches by, even though she knows she must be shaking like a schoolboy in a brothel. And then the doors swing shut behind her and she is in the reception area, praying with every step.

God must love her, because no one says a thing as she walks into the lift.

The doors slide shut and a shudder runs through her body.

She’s going to get away with it.

Will ran back towards the consultation rooms, trailing his armed escort behind him. Jo’s body was still lying where he’d left it and he skidded to a halt. Thank God, she was still breathing.

‘Search the rooms!’

He knelt beside her, stroking her cheek as the sergeant with the Whomper started kicking in doors. Jo’s eyelids fluttered, then she murmured something. He had to lean in close to hear what it was.

‘Well,’ he said, sitting back on his haunches, ‘there’s obviously nothing wrong with your swearing gland.’

Jo grunted, opened her eyes, then closed them again, clutching her bleeding forehead. ‘Bastard…’

‘Are you OK?’

‘No.’ She struggled to sit up. ‘Did you get him?’

‘No sign of anyone. Did you see which way they went?’

She nodded her head, winced, then pointed off towards the main reception, where Will had just come from. ‘Heard the door slam.’

‘What? But there wasn’t anyone…’ He stood, watching the sergeant kicking in another consultation-room door. They’d said no one had passed them, and Will hadn’t seen anyone on the way back.

He clicked his throat-mike. ‘Has anyone tried to leave this floor?’

Jo almost fell over in the rush to pull her earpiece free. ‘Not so loud!’

He shrugged an apology as the voice of the trooper guarding the elevator crackled in his ear.

‘Negative. Just a halfhead with a refuse buggy.’

‘Stop the lift!’

‘What?’

‘Stop the damn lift!’

‘OK, OK! I’m stopping it!’

Jo sagged back against the row of seats, cradling her head in her hands and groaning.

‘Will you be OK?’

‘Go. Catch him.’

Will didn’t need telling twice; he charged back up the corridor and into the reception area. The trooper stood at the lift’s control panel, the open casing exposing neat braids of multicoloured wire and a small terminal.

‘I thought I told you no one in or out!’ Will said, storming across the floor.

‘It was just a halfhead! How could it have been the half-head? It’s got nae brain!’

‘Not the halfhead, you idiot: the buggy. You said it was pushing a refuse buggy.’

‘Aye.’

‘Big enough to hide a man?’

‘Shite.’ The trooper’s face fell.

‘Shite is right. Override the safeties on the lift. We don’t want him cranking the doors open and jumping out.’

‘Yes, sir!’ The private punched something into the elevator’s console. ‘Safeties are killed. He’s going nowhere.’

‘Where is he?’

‘Lift’s stopped between the lobby and the ground floor.’

‘Right.’ Will checked the charge on his Palm Thrummer. ‘Stay here and make sure no one else gets out this way. And this time when I say no one I mean no one! Got it?’

‘Yes, sir!’

Idiot.

Will called the sergeant and told him to round up more bodies and meet him in the hospital lobby.

Tears roll down her cheeks when the lift shudders to a halt between floors. She was so close. So very, very close. Twenty seconds longer and she’d have been free.

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

She could have sat on her backside, down in the storeroom, and waited for her surgical appointment, but no. She has to have revenge! She has to risk everything for a little venal pleasure.

She deserves to be caught.

Deserves it.

But she’d been so close…

Dr Westfield reaches into her jumpsuit pocket and fingers her new Palm Zapper. She won’t make it easy for them. The little pebbled disk is powered up, its dial twisted past ‘HEAVY STUN’ all the way to ‘FULL POWER’.

She looks at what’s left of her face, reflected in the lift’s mirrored doors. If they catch her they’ll burn her brain away again. And this time they’ll do it properly. This time there will be no coming back.

The Zapper is warm in her hands.

They won’t take her alive.

They clustered round the lift entrance, all weapons pointed at the doors. A small crowd was beginning to form behind the Network team, but just like the residents of Sherman House, everyone observed the mythical six-foot barrier.

Will clicked his throat-mike, ‘I’m going to give the word and I want you to bring the elevator down nice and slow.’ He checked the cordon of heavy weapons surrounding him. They had enough firepower to take on a small army. ‘Do it.’

With a delicate ping, the double doors slid open and the sound of electronic firearms gearing up filled the air like wasps in a blender. There, standing behind a disposal buggy, was a solitary halfhead.

‘Shite.’ The sergeant took a step forward and swept the lift from top to bottom. ‘There’s no one here.’

Will could have sworn the truncated face relaxed as the sergeant spoke…but that was ridiculous.

‘Hold on.’ Will motioned one of the troopers forward, pointing at the disposal buggy. He’d been right: it was easily big enough to take a fully grown man. The trooper nodded and held his Whomper vertically, the butt-end brushing the ceiling tiles inside the lift. The barrel was pointing straight down into the open buggy.

‘Sorry, sir,’ he said at last. ‘Nothin’ in there, but crap.’

‘You sure?’

‘Yup.’ The trooper stabbed the assault rifle down into the basket, sweeping it through the rubbish, letting it clang off the buggy’s walls. When he pulled it out again there were unpleasant things sticking to the barrel.

Will stepped into the lift. It was beginning to get a bit crowded: three Network personnel, a halfhead, and a disposal buggy. He peered inside the open top, but the trooper was right, there was no one hiding in there. This had all been one big waste of time.

They stood back and let the halfhead get on with its business, moving between the foyer’s rubbish bins, picking them up and tipping them into the disposal buggy as if there was nothing more important in the world.

‘Damn it!’ They were back to square one.

The trooper with the dirty Whomper wiped the barrel clean and said, ‘Y’know the wee bugger may still be up there, sir?’

The sergeant nodded. ‘Aye, and there’s always the stairs.’

‘You’re right.’ Will powered down his Palm Thrummer and slipped it back in its holster. ‘Sergeant, take enough men to search the whole Network level. The rest of you, watch the exits.’

‘Aye, sir.’

‘Jo, you picking this up? DS Cameron, can you hear me?’

‘Not so loud! I hear you. God my head hurts…’

‘Glad to hear you’re feeling better.’ Will stepped back into the lift, his finger pushing the button for the thirteenth floor. ‘Can you describe the man who attacked you?’

‘I’m kinda fuzzy. I came out of the doors and…and I think there was a halfhead sitting on the seats…And I…I remember going to see if it was OK…Next thing I know: you’re standing over me and my head feels like it’s splitting open.’

‘You didn’t see anyone else?’

‘Just the halfhead.’

He froze as the lift doors slid shut. It couldn’t be…could it? He stabbed the ‘hold’ button and dragged his Thrummer back out. It was a stupid idea, but he could have sworn he’d seen the expression on its face change: as if it’d been expecting trouble that didn’t happen. He squeezed through the doors and ran out into the lobby. There were people milling about everywhere, but no sign of the halfhead with the disposal buggy.

‘Where are you?’ Will pushed his way through the crowd to the middle of the floor and hopped up onto one of the seats.

‘Hey, get down from there!’

‘Shut up, Peter, can you no’ see he’s got a gun?’

Will ignored them, searching the throng for the familiar truncated features and orange and black jumpsuit. There: over by the drinks machine! He jumped down from the chair and saw another halfhead before he’d even hit the floor. And another and another. Suddenly the foyer was full of them, all slouching their way towards the exit.

‘What the hell?’ He barged his way to the front doors.

There were even more of them outside, all shuffling off the back of a bright-yellow Services Roadhugger. It had pulled in, right under the hospital’s portico, keeping out of the rain, and a fat man in dirty grey and blue overalls was man handling more halfheads down from the tailgate. Will grabbed him, spinning him round.

‘Hey, get yer hands aff me, ya bampot!’ The man puffed and flustered, smoothing away imaginary creases in his uniform.

‘I want you to keep your halfheads away from the hospital ones!’

‘Aye, that’ll be shinin’. It’s changeover time, James, this lot have tae go in an’ sweep the floors an’ pick up the jobbies.’

‘Just hold them here!’ Will stuck his ID under the man’s nose and watched the assembling halfheads.

‘Well, well.’ He took Will’s ID card and squinted at it. ‘Hey Dougie, look at this: it’s a bigwig fae the Netwurk!’ The fat man turned and showed it to his colleague, the one dishing out the mops and buckets. ‘Are we no’ honoured?’

‘Oh, aye, I’m honoured all right.’ Dougie laughed, showing off a random collection of lopsided teeth.

Will snatched his ID back. ‘Fancy a three-week holiday in the Tin? Because that’s what you’ll get if I do you for obstruction!’

‘Aye, aye, keep yer wig on, James. There’s nae need tae get a’ huffy.’ The fat man waved a hand at his partner. ‘Douglas,’ he said in a mock Morningside accent, ‘be so good as to line all oor guests up against the truck so that they does not mix wi’ those ruffians ower there.’

‘Aye, aye Mon Capitan. I’ll just shoogle ‘em over here oot o’ harms way.’ He gave an elaborate salute and shoved his charges back against the Roadhugger’s side. ‘Come on ma wee darlins, let’s be havin’ ye.’

‘There ye go, James, all present and correct.’ The fat man added, ‘Sah!’ then clicked his heels and grinned. Will came within an inch of punching him on his squint, sarcastic nose.

The halfheads from the previous shift were beginning to get restless. Every evening they would drift out of the hospital and onto the Roadhugger, go home to the depot to be fed and washed. They lived by their routine and the change was making them nervous. One by one they abandoned their wheelies and their buggies; milling about, looking distressed. Will tried pushing them into some sort of order, but it was like juggling cats: they wanted to get onboard the Roadhugger and there was going to be no standing still until they did.

‘Oh, for God’s sake! Put the bloody things on the truck.’

‘Keep them aff, pit them oan, dae the hokey-cokie…’ The fat man executed a courtly bow to his friend with the awful teeth. ‘Douglas, would you be a dear an’ help oor passengers aboard th’ good ship Lollypop?’

‘My pleasure, Captain!’ He turned and made a megaphone out of his dirty hands and irregular mouth. ‘All aboard the Mudlark!’ To Will’s surprise the halfheads started shuffling forwards. ‘Come on ladies an’ gentlemin, lets be avin’ yeeeew!’

They brought their mops and their buckets, their buggies and their brooms with them. Dougie relieved them of their burdens, then Captain Fat and Sarcastic helped them up the back step and into the Roadhugger. Will stood at the tailgate, looking into their faces as they were pulled onboard. Searching for some sign of life. There was no way to tell if any of them were the halfhead in the lift; they all looked alike to him. Every single one of them seemed to be brain-dead.

‘Ye happy now?’ asked the Captain, when they were all on board and strapped into their bays.

‘How many did you bring with you?’

‘The same number they gave us at the depot. Whit is it wi’ you?’

‘How many?’

He hooked a thumb over his shoulder at the ones lined up along the side of the truck. ‘That many.’

‘You must keep some sort of records-’

‘Look, Mister, we ain’t their keepers. We just picks them up and drops them off. OK? Gie’s a break!’

Will dropped off the tailgate and stared at the line of new halfheads, all clutching their cleaning materials and waiting for instructions. This was madness: they were halfheads. Between them they wouldn’t have enough brains left to break wind, never mind assault a Bluecoat officer and evade a Network security team. It wasn’t just unlikely, it was impossible. He was just making a fool of himself.

‘We all done here, James? Entertaining as this is, Dougie an’ me gottae go dae some actual work, but.’

Will gritted his teeth, forcing out the words, ‘Thank you for your cooperation.’ Then he turned on his heel and stomped back into the hospital, doing his best to ignore the derisive laughter that erupted behind his back.

She watches him leave: face all crumpled, shoulders all slouchy. Poor thing. What he needs is a woman’s touch. She gets a warm feeling inside at that. A woman’s touch, with a very sharp blade.

It was easy to change lines, to become one of the incoming domestic slaves, rather than the outgoing.

When the line snakes away from the Roadhugger and in through the hospital doors she goes with it. They all line up like good little soldiers, then a bored-looking orderly assigns them their tasks.

She tries to look completely bereft of intelligence as the bored man tells her to go and mop the floors in the mortuary. As she slouches off towards the lifts she sees the orderly get to the end of the line and examine his clipboard.

‘We got one too many…’ He frowns, then shrugs. ‘Ah well, waste not want not.’

Dr Westfield catches sight of the big glass and bronze clock hanging over the reception desk. It’s not even five o’clock yet. She still has six hours to go.

Six hours and a head full of bees and broken glass.

Peitai…

She will find herself a nice private room and have a shower. A long, hot shower to cleanse away all the dirt and filth and menial labour of the last six years.

Then she’ll be nice and clean for Dr Stephen Bexley. He’ll give her back her face and her life, and she’ll take his. Then she’ll pay that nice man from the Network a home visit.

He almost had her tonight-almost ended everything before it had really begun.

One good turn deserves another.

Will sat on the edge of the treatment bench and tried not to wince as Doc Morrison poked and prodded his bruised ribs.

‘You know,’ she said, standing back, watching him sitting there in his pants and socks, ‘you’re becoming a bit of a fixture round here. How about you stay out of trouble for a month or two? Let absence make the heart grow fonder.’

‘I’d like to,’ Will smiled, ‘but you’re just too much woman for me to resist.’

‘Very funny. Get your clothes on.’ She slapped a couple more blockers into his hand and invited him, politely, to get the hell out of her office.

Jo was waiting for him outside, a patch of bright pink sitting on her forehead where the graze used to be.

‘That looks nice,’ he said as they walked towards the lifts.

‘So much for natural flesh tones.’ There was still a touch of frost in her voice. She punched the button for the rooftop landing pad and they stood side by side, waiting for the lift to show. ‘How’s your ribs?’

Will shrugged. ‘Doc says they’re healing. What about you?’

‘Slight concussion and a patchwork head.’

He smiled and wrapped an arm round her waist. ‘All in all a lovely day then?’

‘Yeah. Great. Remind me to go out with you next time I’m feeling suicidal.’

‘Oh. Sorry.’ He let go of her and tried not to sound hurt.

They stood in silence.

Will bit his lip and took a deep breath. He wanted to apolo gize, tell her she was important to him, that he didn’t mean to push her away…But looking at her standing there, her face all clenched tight, he couldn’t find the words.

He looked away.

He’d screwed it up again.