Iain Banks - Transition

They’ll be approached by somebody unknown to them after the operation’s over and get their supplies that way. Ha! These poor fuckers are here on faith and are going to have to stand around waiting for the Man. That’s too bad for them and, as it turns out, for me. So I still need to rendezvous with my Londoner mate Ade after all. This cuts back my options significantly, but even a fairly deep rummage through Dr Jildeep’s mind finds nothing that can help the situation. I suppose I could stay inside one of their minds for longer than I was intending to, but long before their supplier arrives they’ll have the blockers up and functioning again, or – if I disable these two blockers permanently – they’ll bring in new ones and I’ll be trapped at best. More likely by far a good blocker will spot the wrong ’un in their midst like a badly bruised thumb and I’ll be caught.

Whatever; with the second blocker down nobody has the power to stop me and there’s no point interfering with anybody else. I’m free to go.

A man – an unremarkable man, about thirty, black hair, medium build – sitting at the stern of a passing vaporetto bound for Santa Lucia sees a naked man run along the dark roof of an impressive white and black palazzo on the western side of the Canalasso. Along with the rest of the passengers – now turning to each other, muttering, saying things like “Oh, my goodness” and “Eh? Cosa?” and so on – he turns to watch as the man throws himself from the roof and hurtles into the water just in front of a water taxi, which swerves and goes astern to rescue him, even though he does seem rather intent on swimming down the canal towards San Marco. Nearby, a man in an idling launch turns off the engine and casually drops the keys overboard.

The unremarkable man at the stern of the passing vaporetto looks surprised for a few moments, then sneezes.

(Italian, English, Greek, Turkish, Russian, Mandarin.)

Mavis Bocklite, a genial pensioner from Baxley, Georgia, USA, who is sitting across from him, says, “Bless you, sir.”

Finally! I smile and nod. “Grazie, signora.”

I think I am well,” I tell the broad doctor who had the dolls in her desk. I know her name now. She is called Dr Valspitter. “I think I am okay now to leave.” My grasp of the local language has improved markedly. It is called Itic. Dr Valspitter looks at me, lips pursed, brows gathered in the middle as though by a pulled thread. “I appreciate everything all here have done for me,” I tell her.

“What do you remember of your past life?” the doctor asks me.

“Not very much,” I confess.

“What would you do if you returned to the outside world?”

“I would look for a place to stay and for work to do. I am able to work.”

“Not at your old job, perhaps.”

“Ordinary labourer. I could do ordinary labour. I know building sites. That I could do. Ordinary labouring.”

“You feel you could do this?”

“Yes, I feel I could do this.”

“How would you find a place to live?”

“I would go to the Municipal Available Local Lodgings Clearing Office.”

Dr Valspitter looks approving, nods and makes a note. “Good. And how would you find work?”

The obvious next question. “I would approach building site managers, but also I would go to the Municipal Local Employment Exchange.”

The doctor makes another note. I think I’m doing all right here. I need to. I have to get out. I have to get away.

Last night I found I could not sleep and took another small-hours wander along the corridor, down the stairwell and along to what I still thought of as the silent ward. I could not help it; I felt drawn there. I don’t think that’s what woke me up but once I was awake I found myself thinking obsessively about the rows of still beds with their vacant-eyed, near-silent patients, and the contrast with their appearance in daylight when they were awake. I couldn’t think what good padding down to look at them would do, but I couldn’t think of anything else to do either and maybe just seeing them for real rather than in my mind’s eye would let me get back to sleep eventually.

So I went, I looked – they were all just the same, though there were cards and personal items on the bedside cabinets and a few chairs scattered throughout the ward, all the things I’d convinced myself hadn’t been present on my first two visits but which I suppose were always there – then I came back again.

There was somebody in my room. I had left the door closed and my light off, but now I could see some light showing beneath the door, reflecting dimly off the shiny floor. At first, of course, I thought it would just be the duty nurse again.

Then I saw more movement, at the far end of the corridor, somewhere inside the day room. A pale figure, moving across the dark space, disappearing then reappearing and coming towards the low lights of the corridor. The figure in the day room emerged into the half-light of the night-dimmed corridor lights and was revealed as the duty nurse, walking back to his desk at the end of the corridor holding a magazine and flicking its pages, intent on it. He did not look up, so did not see me.

I felt a sudden terror and shrank back against the wall as far as I could, hiding behind a metal cupboard holding fire-fighting equipment. The duty nurse sat down at his station at the far end of the corridor, feet up on the desk, still flicking through the magazine. He stretched out to one side – I could hear the wheels of his chair squeaking – and turned on the radio at a low volume. Tinny pop music sounded.

I could no longer see the door to my room. Who was in there if not the nurse? Was it my former attacker, whoever had tried to interfere with me? Perhaps I ought to go to the door, fling it open, confront them, the noise and commotion of course attracting the attention of the duty nurse. Or perhaps I should just approach the duty nurse directly and tell him there was somebody in my room, let him deal with whoever it was.

I had decided on the latter course and was about to step out from behind the fire-equipment cupboard and walk towards the duty nurse’s station, when, from the far end of the corridor, I heard a toilet flush.

A door creaked and closed. I stepped along the wall to the nearest door, twisted the handle and let myself in. This should be a private visiting room, empty at this time of night. Sound came from somewhere near the toilets. Slipper-slapping footsteps came, and I recognised one of the old boys, a not-quite slack-jaw capable of holding a conversation and talking about something other than television or the weather. He went, head hunched, past where I watched via the cracked door.

Somebody said something and he looked up, waving down the corridor, no doubt at the duty nurse. I opened the door a little further to watch him go. When he was opposite the door to my room, a couple of doors short of his own room, the door to my room was flung open and light spilled out. “Mr Kel?” I heard a strong male voice say.

The old guy stood looking confused, staring blinking at whoever had addressed him from my room and then down the corridor. I heard seat wheels squeal as the nurse said something, voice inflected in a question.

Then a bright light shone into the old fellow’s face, he put his hand up to shield his eyes, the duty nurse shouted something, the bright light went out and a man – tall, well-built, in a dark suit – went running past me and away down the corridor towards the stair well. He held a chunky-looking torch in one hand. In the other hand he was carrying something else. He thrust it inside his jacket as he ran past me. It was dark and heavy-looking and I knew it was a gun.