Stuart MacBride - Halfhead

Will limped out into the corridor with a small, ‘Tada.’

‘You still look like shite,’ said Brian, head on one side, ‘but at least now you look like well-dressed shite.’

‘This lot can’t have been cheap.’

‘Aye, well remember that when you’re signin’ my expenses this month.’

DS Cameron still hadn’t said anything. Maybe he’d offended her by being an ungrateful bastard when she’d turned up with the clothes. Will cleared his throat. ‘Thank you…both of you. These are really great.’

She smiled, obviously pleased. ‘It’s OK.’

Brian tugged at the jacket’s lapels, lining them up. ‘I wanted to get you somethin’ a bit more vivid , but she wasn’t having any of it.’

Jo shrugged. ‘Just thought these would suit you better.’

She looked at the floor, twiddling with her hair while Will tried to think of something to say.

‘So…’ Brian grinned. ‘Are we goin’ or no’?’

They’d almost made it as far as the escalator when a reedy voice piped up behind them, ‘And where do you think you’re going, Mr Hunter?’

‘Home?’

A short woman with greying hair and glasses marched in front of them, blocking the lifts. Dr Euphemia Morrison-if you worked for the Network, and you went into combat, sooner or later you ended up in her care. ‘You are kidding, right? You nearly died this morning, remember?’

‘Er…Pressing business. Can’t be helped.’

‘You just had major surgery.’

‘ Really pressing business.’

‘Apart from anything else, you’ve got a concussion, you need constant supervision.’ Dr Morrison pointed back towards the private room. ‘Get your arse back in that bed.’

No one moved.

She stared at him, but Will didn’t flinch.

‘Fine…’ She said at last. ‘But if you drop dead in the middle of the night, don’t come crying to me.’ She turned on Brian. ‘Keep an eye on him this time, for God’s sake. If I have to glue his ribs back together again there’ll be no bloody bone left.’

Dr Morrison poked Will gently in the stomach. ‘Your insides are one big gristly ball of scar tissue. Next time I’m cutting all that gubbins out and replacing it, whether you like it or not.’ She handed Will a packet of blockers, the finger-length plastic tubes fluorescing slightly under the UV lights. ‘No more than one an hour. And I want to see you back here at four thirty on Sunday for a follow-up.’ She poked him again. ‘Don’t make me come and get you. And try to stay off your bum for a while, keep those bruises moving or you’ll seize up.’

‘Yes, Mum.’ He planted a small kiss on her cheek.

‘Don’t you “yes mum” me, you cheeky wee bugger. Go on: out. I have sick people to attend to.’

Will hobbled after Jo and Brian to the lifts, riding down in silence, till Jo finally asked, ‘So your mother’s a doctor?’

‘What?’

The doors pinged open and they stepped out into the hospital’s busy lobby.

‘The doctor: I didn’t know she was your mum.’

‘She’s not. Doc Morrison is like that with pretty much everyone. Even more of an old mother hen than Brian is.’

Brian didn’t rise to it, just kept barging a path to the front doors.

Will limped along behind him. ‘So what’s the plan?’

‘We’re givin’ you a lift home, then me and Jo gotta crash a birthday party full of dead folk.’

‘Why don’t I just tag along with you?’

‘No chance. The Tiny Terror would have my balls: you’re on compassionate leave till Monday.’

‘Look, you heard what the Doc said-I’ve got a concussion. Someone needs to keep an eye on me just in case something-’

‘Nice try. You’re goin’ home.’ The automatic doors swished open.

Outside, it was still chucking it down.

People dashed in from the deluge, collars up, plastics down, looking miserable. The only ones not rushing about trying to get into the dry were the halfheads-they just went about their daily business, emptying the bins, polishing the plaques, mopping up the dirty water tramped in from the streets-as if today were a day no different from any other.

They didn’t mind the wet, because they couldn’t feel it. Some would get flu, some would get pneumonia, some would probably even die and no one would care. Not even them.

Brian hurried out into the rain, sploshing through the puddles towards the car park, while Jo and Will huddled under the hospital’s portico-watching the people go by.

Neither of them saw the halfhead shivering its way through the deluge towards them, pushing a wheely-bucket piled high with refuse sacks. They didn’t see it, but it saw them.

She recognizes Him, even with all the bruising and casual clothes. He’s lost some hair and gained some pounds, but it’s Him all right: The Man In The Dark-Blue Suit. The man who did this to her.

The BASTARD who did this.

He’s dead. He’s still walking about but he’s dead. Right now. Dead.

There’s a scalpel in her pocket-not as delicate as a surgeon’s wand, but it’ll open him up just as well. Spill his guts all over the concrete floor. Blood like a fountain. Screams. Begging to be put out of his misery as she jams her hand into his hollow stomach cavity and reaches for his heart…

Everything is bees and broken glass.

She steps forward, the scalpel’s handle cold against her palm.

And then stops. Too quick. It’ll be over too quick. The Man In The Dark-Blue Suit deserves to suffer.

We begin by splitting the lower jaw .

Deep breaths. Calm. Deep fucking breaths.

A battered people carrier pulls up outside the hospital entrance-The Man In The Dark-Blue Suit limps over and opens the back door, clambering inside, followed by some woman dressed in garish pink.

They drive off, sending up a wall of spray.

She stands there, watching as the car disappears into the waterlogged traffic.

It takes a lot of effort to calm her breathing. Slowly the buzzing in her head subsides and she can think clearly again. Focus. Not focusing leads to mistakes. Mistakes lead to getting caught.

It has taken her four hours to traverse the city, depositing her bargaining chip in a safe place. Safe for her, but not so safe for her old friend Dr Stephen Bexley.

She has dozens of apartments dotted all over the city, all neat and clean, safe and tidy. The people who used to live in them are all dead. Have been for years. She didn’t list their names in court, kept them secret.

During the trial, the NewsNet channels had gloried in the size of her body count, gleeful indignation as the roll of the dead grew and grew. But to her it was little different from reciting a shopping list. No one cries when the fleshworks harvest their great vats of cloned meat do they? No, they eat their CheatMeat burgers and go on with their happy, dead, little lives.

It’s not her fault she has more refined tastes.

She stalks the corridors beneath the hospital buildings. Pushing her wheely-bucket and its special cargo.

All that fuss about a few hundred dead bodies. Ridiculous. Imagine the outcry if they’d discovered the real number of victims was even higher. But they didn’t. And best of all, they never found out about ‘Harbinger’. If they had they’d have rounded up all her special children before they had a chance to blossom and grow. And that would have been a terrible waste.

Back in the storeroom she finds a box of datapads and spends a happy fifteen minutes programming one. Then, when everything is perfect, she goes visiting.

Dr Stephen Bexley’s office is on twenty-nine, one level down from the incubators where her cells are multiplying and dividing. It takes all the control she has not to skip out into the corridor when the lift doors open on the right floor.