Stuart MacBride - Halfhead

‘No ah don’t!’

‘Children, children.’ Stephen smiles at them, always the self-appointed father figure. ‘Play nice.’

The workbench is covered with thin streaks of blood where she’s been rubbing it with the wadding. She dips the cloth into the bucket at her feet and wipes it clean before anyone can see.

The crucible drops down the feeder rack and slips off to the incubation room. The first cell division will already be under way, expanding and growing at an accelerated rate.

Now all she has to do is wait.

‘Feelin’ any better?’ Special Agent Brian Alexander plonked himself down on the end of Will’s hospital bed. The little private room was comfortable enough, if you liked machines that pinged and gurgled at random intervals. ‘You look like a mouldy jobbie, by the way.’

‘What took you so long?’ Will swung his legs out of bed, then stood, his hospital-issue smock flapping open at the back. The left side of his face felt as if it had been stretched over a head three times too big for it. And every breath was like being stabbed in the chest.

‘Last time I do you a favour.’ Brian sniffed. ‘We knew they took all your clothes in as evidence, so me an’ Jo went shoppin’ !’

Will stared at him. ‘Oh, no. Tell me you didn’t let…’ He ground to a halt-DS Cameron was standing in the doorway. She was still wearing the same florescent pink, triple breasted suit she’d had on in the park that morning. Given her taste in work clothes, and the dirty big grin on Brian’s face, Will got the nasty feeling they’d bought something that would make him look like a complete idiot. He forced a smile. ‘I mean…Thanks.’

It was the thought that counted. And besides, whatever fashion-disaster they’d bought, he’d only have to wear it from here back to the apartment. Twenty minutes, half an hour tops.

Will reached round and clasped the gown closed at the back, making sure DS Cameron didn’t get subjected to an eyeful of buttock. ‘Honestly, you shouldn’t have gone to all that trouble.’ They really shouldn’t have: they could have just gone past the flat and picked him up a change of clothes-and Brian knew it-but that wouldn’t have been as much fun as buying something hideous.

‘Oh no,’ Brian’s smile grew wider. ‘It was a pleasure! Wasn’t it, Jo?’

DS Cameron handed Will a bulky bag in luminous yellow with something trendy written on the side. ‘Hope they fit.’ Was she blushing?

Suddenly Will felt very uncomfortable. ‘Em…thank you.’

Brian let the silence drag on for a bit, before taking DS Cameron by the arm and leading her out into the corridor so Will could ‘get some privacy’. Wink, wink. The bastard was loving every minute of this.

Will dumped the bag down on the bed and opened it gingerly. There was no sudden flash of electric green, or yellow and blue stripes, or any of the other fashion eye-burners that were all the rage on Sauchiehall Street. Not believing his luck he tipped the contents out onto the scratchy sheets and began to dress.

Outside the room, Jo shifted from foot to foot. Brian nudged her. ‘You needin’ a pee?’

‘Don’t be daft.’ She scowled and stopped fidgeting. Then started again. ‘Think he’ll like them?’

‘Ooh, I get it,’ Brian’s eyes sparkled as he started to sing: ‘Jo and Wi-ill, up a tree, H.U.M.P-’

Smart arse.

She smacked him one.

‘Ow! Better watch that DS Cameron-don’t think Will likes rough girls.’

Jo turned and leant against the wall. ‘Tell me about him.’

‘OK…’ Brian held up his hands, pulling back the cuffs of his jacket. A ragged line ran all the way around the left wrist. The arm looked normal enough, but the hand didn’t-it was smaller than the right, and the skin was a strange pink colour: as if he’d borrowed it from someone shorter who didn’t get a lot of sun. Up till now she hadn’t even noticed there was anything wrong with it. So much for impressing everyone with her Bluecoat powers of observation.

He held both hands side by side. It just emphasized the difference. ‘Eleven years ago we were workin’ in one of them Rapid Response Teams, doin’ our best to stop them riotin’ bamheids from killin’ each other. Thirteen Service personnel got grabbed at Dexter Heights: poor sods were only there to pick up the dead. So we go in after them.’ He leant against the wall next to her. ‘There’s me: out on a wire with the rest of the pickup team, shootin’ back at a bunch of wee radges with Shrikes and Whompers; no way in hell we’re gonnae rescue the hostages, the buggers have got way too much firepower. So we do a runner: hard D, me and the guys all danglin’ about underneath the Dragonfly when it jumps into the air. Only we don’t make it.’

The smile slid from his face. ‘Somethin’ big hits the ship and we do a nosedive right into Sherman Heights. Bang!’ He slammed his hand with the funny borrowed fingers against the plasticboard.

Jo tried not to flinch.

‘Everyone on a wire gets flattened against the wall, an’ this is like thirty-nine storeys off the deck, mind. Will’s the only one still movin’. Pilot and Copilot’s dead, so’s the rest of the pickup team: squashed like fuckin’ bugs on the side of a dirty big buildin’.’

He pursed his lips for a moment. Frowned. ‘I’m no’ a hunnerd percent sure what happens next cos I’m all busted up and out ma face on blockers, but somehow Will hauls me back into the drop bay. Then he carries me on his back for about two days, climbin’ down the stairs an’ lift shafts: tryin’ to stay away from the locals. You know, proper hero stuff.’ Brian dropped his voice to a whisper. ‘They wis goin’ tae make a big film out of it, but the Ministry called copyright on everything involving government personnel. Thievin’ bastards. Anyway…’

Brian straightened up and showed her his hand again. ‘At some point in the proceedin’s Will gets jumped by the natives, and while he’s fightin’ them off, some noseless wee turd carries my poor, unconscious body away intae the depths of the buildin’. I come round for like about five minutes, an’ it’s real hazy: I’m in this parkin’ lot on one of the sublevels, and some bugger’s chewin’ on a severed hand…Takes me a while to realize it’s mine.’

He stared at that strange, pink-skinned palm. ‘So I scream. Will appears, chaos ensues, an’ next thing I know we’re out-him runnin’ hell for leather, me slung over his shoulder like a sack of tatties. He’d never set eyes on me before the crash, could’a left me to die on the wire, or in the basement, or half a million other times, but he didn’t. Came back for me, even though I wis a total fuckin’ stranger. You want to know what he’s like? That’s what he’s like.’

Jo looked at the hand again. ‘Not a very good cloneplant, is it?’

Brian shrugged. ‘Had it done eleven years ago; they’ve got a wee bitty better at it since then. James keeps tellin’ me to get a new one grown, get this one replaced. But I’m buggered if I’m gonnae sit back and let anyone cut ma hand off again.’

Jo had to admit he had a point.

Will examined himself in the mirror above the sink in the tiny en-suite shower room. Brian had been right-he looked bloody awful. The left side of his face was swollen and tender, covered in dark-purple bruises. An off-colour patch sat on his temple-just above the eyebrow-where Jacket-and-Scarf had tried to cave his head in with that metal rod. The surgical team had filled the wound with skinpaint, but it would take a while to blend in.

The rest of him looked…almost stylish. Black trousers, grey T-shirt, and a collarless thing in stone-blue. The unders weren’t covered in little hearts or bunny rabbits. They’d even thrown in a jacket that must have cost someone a small fortune.