Spares. Michael Marshall Smith
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in position for a blow that would have killed him immediately. I didn't take advantage of it. I couldn't, then, though I wish I had. Suej goggled vaguely at him for a moment, rolled over, and then craned her head back towards him with a look of such vacancy that he recoiled in distaste. I found myself nearly smiling: Suej understood how to behave. Better so than David, who looked a little self-conscious and was keeping his front carefully turned towards the wall. I let the main spares wear various bits and pieces of my clothes, and they'd got used to it. Being clothed may not be a natural state, but for them it was a badge of belonging to a world outside the blue.
In the end I didn't have much choice. I pointed Jenny out, and the orderly looked her up and down before dragging her out of the tunnel. From the way his hands crawled over her body I thought it was lucky the doctors were in a greater hurry than usual.
One of them met us as we turned into the corridor to the operating room and impatiently motioned us forward. I tried to send some message to Jenny as the door closed between us, and then I strode back down the corridor again, hands clenching.
I passed Ratchet on the way. The droid generally waited outside the OR in case there were any special instructions after the operation. Usually we exchanged some word at that point, some verbalization of futility. That day we didn't. Neither of us appeared to be in the mood.
I went back to the main room, poured a whiskey and waited for what could only be bad news. In those last few moments at the Farm my mind was filled with alternatives, parts that could be taken without scarring Jenny too badly. A finger joint, maybe. A ligament somewhere unimportant.
But not her eyes, I was thinking – they're too beautiful. Please don't take her eyes.
Then suddenly I heard shouts and the sound of an impact. Seconds later, the medic droid shot into the main room and zipped out of the front door without even looking at me. I shot a bewildered glance after it and then instinctively ran towards the OR. As I reached the turn I saw Ratchet speeding down the corridor towards me, dragging Jenny, who looked bewildered and terrified. The door to the operating theatre was locked, and I could hear the sound of the doctors banging their fists against it. Jenny tripped and fell towards me, and I caught her in my arms.
‘What the fuck?’ I asked.
‘She spoke,’ Ratchet said.
Jenny cowered away from me. I tried to soften my face and to smile. I don't imagine it looked too convincing.
‘It's not her fault,’ Ratchet added quickly. Jenny's twin had been involved in a fire, and had internal injuries together with third-degree burns over eighty-five per cent of her body. Jenny would not have survived the operation. They were going to use her up in one go; were, in short, intending to skin and gut her. The surgeons had hurriedly discussed technique as Jenny was strapped to the table, not for a moment realizing that she could understand if not the detail, then certainly the gist of what they were saying. The operations on the spares were never made under anaesthetic, and as the head surgeon had bent over her to inject the muscle paralyser, Jenny had allowed two words to escape from her mouth.
‘Please,’ she said. ‘Don't.’
Only little words – but she shouldn't have been able to speak at all. Ratchet, eavesdropping outside, had immediately smashed through the doors, slammed the surgeon out of the way, grabbed Jenny and ran.
He knew as well as I did that it had finally all come down.
‘Jack,’ the droid said suddenly, and I turned to see the orderly sprinting along the tunnel corridor towards us, holding a pump-action riot gun at port arms. I pulled Jenny and Ratchet back into the other corridor. ‘What are we going to do?’
‘This,’ I said, waited a second, then stepped out in front of the orderly. As he whipped the gun round into position I snapped my hand into his chin, palm open, and his head rocked back on his neck. I punched him in the throat, put my hands on his shoulders and whipped my knee up while yanking his face down towards it. He grunted as his nose spread across his face and tumbled forwards, already unconscious. Before he hit the floor I caught the back of his head with a swinging kick that broke his neck.
I turned the body over and pulled the gun out of twitching hands. Then I grabbed the revolver from his holster and shoved it into my belt.
‘Keep them in there,’ I said to Ratchet, stabbing my finger towards the OR. Both the droid and the spare were staring at me. I avoided their eyes and grasped Jenny's hand. Nice Uncle Jack betrays his real skills, I thought, with a sinking feeling.
She fought against me for a moment but then gave in and was dragged behind me as I ran to the tunnels where I shook David and Suej to their feet, hustled them out and pushed them through into the control room. I stepped into the room where I slept, grabbed an assortment of clothes and threw them at the spares, shouting at them to get dressed. As they clambered into a ragged assortment of my cast-offs I heard the first shots coming from the OR. At least one of the surgeons had his own weapon and was trying to shoot his way through the door. SafetyNet doctors aren't your usual kindly men in white coats. Their backgrounds are kind of checkered, and at least some of them are ex-Bright Eyes. The spares turned their heads back and forth at the sound, faces white and eyes wide with complete incomprehension, and I motioned at them to hurry.
I snatched my travelling bag from the cupboard where it had lain unused for over five years, and swept more of my clothes into it, selecting the thickest sweaters I had. I'd been out that afternoon, of course, and knew how cold it was going to be. I scrunched a couple of lightweight folderCoats into the top of the bag, propped the shotgun against the wall for a moment while I dragged a jacket on, and then stepped out into the control room. The medic droid popped urgently back through the main door, paused for a moment, and then disappeared into the corridors. I made to follow but Ratchet appeared in the doorway.
‘They're getting through and I can't kill them,’ he stated simply. I knew the medic droid couldn't either. To that extent, at least, they were both still company men. ‘Go now.’
‘Ratchet,’ I said, and I'm not sure what I was going to say. I knew he couldn't come with us, that he would be like a big red beacon amongst the group, trackable by radio from the sky. Perhaps I was going to ask advice, or thank him. I never got as far as doing either.
‘One of them is using a mobile,’ Ratchet interrupted suddenly. ‘Go. Go. Go.’ As he repeated the word, over and over with eerie similarity like some verbal siren, I heard a crash from down the corridor. I ran to the spares and shoved them out into the compound as footsteps ticked down the OR corridor. The steps paused for a moment, presumably by the body of the orderly, and then thundered towards us: aggressive, purposeful slaps of leather on dry tiles.
‘Get in the ambulance,’ I shouted at David, who just stared at me. He knew what a van was – he'd seen cars and trucks on television. As for how you got into them, that was a different matter, and not something they go to great pains to explain in films. It's generally taken as read. He started banging his hands, palms down, against one of the doors, frustration spiralling into fury.
Suej stared at me, ready to do something, anything, if I would only tell her what it should be; and Jenny stood to one side, head down, holding one of Suej's hands and crying into the wind. I felt a toxic gout of hatred of myself, for making her feel to blame for what was showering all around us. Then suddenly six cubic inches of the door frame exploded into my face.
I believe some moments in your life collapse into themselves, that some things never really happen at all except in the grainy slow motion of retrospect. Perhaps those moments, those sparks which flare and fall out of your life, are drawn together somewhere, to make a whole that stands apart from you. Maybe they are all part of some other life. The killing of the orderly had been a simple, savage act. The surgeon was different, was a glimpse of this other void swimming into vision out of darkness.
In silence, I turned slowly to see the surgeon bursting into the control room, his body surging towards me. His face was hard, with straight lines of bone, skin stretched with effort and two chips of ice in his eyes; his gun was steady in his hand. His mouth opened as he shouted something at me, but I never heard what it