Stuart MacBride - Halfhead

She nods her head, hot tears running down her cheeks.

‘Plllllssssssssssssss drrrrrnt…’

He drops the wand to the tabletop, where it skitters and clanks on the cold metal surface. ‘Tell me where my wife is!’

‘Cnnnnnnnnnt tllllllllk.’

He grabs her datapad and presses it hard against her face. Nerves creak and burn.

‘You can’t talk, but you can type, you fucking bitch! Tell me where she is, or so help me I’ll peel your head apart!’

Her hands fumble with the smooth ceramic rectangle and it slips, bounces off the edge of the operating table and falls to the floor.

‘Stupid, clumsy bitch !’ He slaps her. It’s like a knife’s being driven through her face. Skinpaint and skinglue shift beneath the surface of her cheek, threatening to tear the muscle loose. It’s not been attached long enough for the fibres to bind themselves to the bone.

She curls up agony as he stoops to pick up the dropped datapad. She has worked so hard! This isn’t how it’s meant to happen!

Something cold and hard rolls against her forehead and she reaches up, snatching it with both hands.

‘Right, you cow.’ He grabs her by the shoulder, wrenching her over onto her back. ‘Type!’

The wand screeches in her hands and Doctor Stephen Bexley screams. ‘Jesushhh, oh fucking Jesushhh!’ He’s on the floor on his hands and knees, clutching at his left cheek-there’s a big hole in his face that goes all the way through to his tongue.

Carefully she swings her legs out over the edge of the slab and lurches to her feet. Her head pounds and her ribs ache and for a moment she comes close to fainting…but she doesn’t. Instead she yanks the test block out of the wand’s holder and batters Doctor Bexley over the back of the head.

She feels a lot better now. The operating theatre’s bio-scrubber is plugged into her arm, pulling the blood out and purifying it, before pumping it back in again. Naughty old Stephen’s chemicals are being flushed clean away.

He lies on the operating table, strapped in nice and tight, his eyes as wide as dinner plates. He’s scared and so he should be.

She pats him on the cheek-the one without the golf-ball-sized hole in it-and pulls her new face into a smile. It’s hard work. She hasn’t done it before.

‘Yvvvvvv bnnnnnn nnnnnte…’ She has to admit: she doesn’t sound good.

But she’s still doing better than Stephen. The only sound he can make is a strangled sob from the smooth-edged hole in his cheek. If she peers into it she can see his tongue, ringed in a circle of cut-through teeth.

Poor lamb. And his day’s about to get even worse.

She pulls out the datapad and types the words for him.

‘ YOU HAVE BEEN NAUGHTY ,’ says the cold, artificial voice.

He doesn’t reply, but then he can’t: his lips are stuck together with skinglue.

‘ WE HAD A DEAL, STEPHEN. AND YOU TRIED TO TAKE MY FACE AWAY. ‘

Tears roll down the sides of his face like tiny waterfalls. The wound in his cheek must be causing him some discomfort. She could give him a couple of blockers, make it easier for him, but she doesn’t want to.

‘ I TOLD YOU WHAT WOULD HAPPEN TO YOUR WIFE IF YOU DISOBEYED ME. ‘

He bucks and writhes against his restraints. It doesn’t help. She checks the clock on the theatre wall: nearly half past six in the morning. People will be here soon, cleaning and polishing and preparing for the first operation of the day. But she really wants to make Stephen’s last few minutes special.

‘ I WAS GOING TO LET HER DIE. BUT NOW I HAVE TO MAKE AN EXAMPLE OF HER. ‘

He screws his eyes shut. Bangs his head off the stainless steel tabletop. Cries.

‘ SHE WILL TAKE DAYS TO DIE BECAUSE OF YOU. LONG, PAINFUL DAYS. PERHAPS I WILL SEND HER HEAD TO YOUR CHILDREN AS A KEEPSAKE. ‘

She pauses and makes a noise that could almost be mistaken for laughter. It is rough and it hurts, but it feels so good! She leans in so close that her eyelashes sparkle with his tears.

‘ WOULD YOU LIKE THAT, STEPHEN? ‘

The sobbing is louder than ever, his grimace opening up the smooth edges of the wound, making it bleed.

‘ MUMMY’S HEAD IN A BOX. ‘

But he’s stopped listening; he’s lost in his world of despair. He’s just sentenced his wife and her unborn child to death, and that’s something he’ll have to live with for the rest of his life. Dr Westfield glances back to the clock again. Which will last exactly eighteen minutes, give or take thirty seconds. She wants to be out of here in plenty of time to avoid the rush and prying eyes.

Speaking of eyes…

She climbs up onto the operating table, straddling Stephen’s groin. With gentle, rhythmic motions she rocks back and forth, trying to get an erection out of him, but he isn’t playing. Shame. But never mind: she’s got something that’ll take his mind off his poor dead wife.

She twists the top off a tube of skinglue and runs a thin line along the top and bottom lids of both his eyes. With gentle fingers she pulls them open and sticks them down. He looks like a startled cartoon character.

She leans forward and tries to lick his right eyeball, but her tongue is too unruly, too swollen to comply, and all that comes out is a stream of spittle. It spirals down onto his cornea and pools in the deep red folds underneath. Her left hand reaches out and plucks the surgeon’s wand from its holder. With a hot buzz it comes online and she eases the hair trigger back and forth, feeling for the right level. She wants this to be nice and gentle.

‘Yyyyy hvvvvvv awwwwways hddddddd boooooffflllll eyyyyyyyssssssssss.’

The wand’s nozzle comes to rest over the pupil of Stephen’s left eye and she opens her mouth slightly, trying not to pull the muscles too hard. She takes a breath: it tastes of antiseptic and recycled air and Stephen’s sweat.

Her finger caresses the trigger.

Now the air tastes of eye.

‘Sometimes, William, I think you’re hell-bent on destroying your career.’ Director Smith-Hamilton made a big show of massaging her temples. Her office was nice and warm, in contrast to the day outside, rain hammering against her panoramic window. ‘Do you really think I’ve got nothing better to do than run around cleaning up after you?’

Will kept his mouth shut.

‘Why must you always be so difficult , William? Why must you always cause trouble?’

‘At no point did I contradict any of your standing orders. You said to steer clear of Sherman House and that’s exactly what I’m doing.’

‘Then why did I have Ken Peitai on the phone this morning telling me how much he enjoyed your little chat yesterday? Oh he was full of lovely words about you William, “what a solid agent he is”, “fine head on his shoulders”, “credit to the Network”.’

That didn’t make any sense-why would the slimy little bastard call the Director with a glowing character reference? ‘I’m sorry, ma’am, but I’m confused: did Mr Peitai complain about any aspect of my behaviour?’

She scowled at him from under the razor-sharp edge of her fringe. ‘No, but Governor Clark did. Again !’ Director Smith-Hamilton sank back into her executive chair and went into the head massaging routine again. ‘Why were you speaking to him at all? I told you to stay away from Sherman House!’

‘I did!’ Getting irate wasn’t going to help, so Will took a deep breath and tried to sound reasonable. ‘I was at Comlab Six on a teambuilding exercise with DS Cameron when Mr Peitai approached me. He told me to stop digging for information on him, his boss and the PsychTech programme. Said it was a matter of national security.’