Dark Matter (27 page)

He spiked my drink.

Rasputin let the conjoined memories
implode. He looked up into the eye’s seething sky, an inner reflection of the
anarchy let loose on his body by the seizures.

Thorpe
authored this, to get inside my skull again, to plant his precious probe.

Panic took him. He had to get word to Dee
or Jordy. He needed to speak. But unconsciousness was closing over him like a
midnight tide. He could hear them talking, but their voices were waning ever
fainter. The gulf between the real world and his inner world was widening. His
body was dragging him down into sleep, a defence mechanism against the pain.

He pushed upward. He needed only a moment
to wring obedience from his body to speak. The voices grew louder, and as he
broke the surface, his eyes opened.

Thorpe was the first to notice. He
approached the bed and his shadow swallowed Rasputin.

Rasputin’s gaze darted about the room
hunting for Dee or Jordy—they had to be there. But all he could see was Thorpe’s
trunk, clothed in dark blue surgeon’s overalls.

There was nothing for it but to shout the
countermand.

But as the word rose in his throat, his jaw
snapped shut on it. Rasputin had time enough to see a corner of Thorpe’s mouth
lift in a half-smile, before the seizure rolled his pupils up into his eye
sockets.

The last clear image to flash across his
mind was of an electrode biting into his grey matter.

When he came to, he was aware of his
body—not because it screamed at him in pain, but as one feels the purring of a
well-maintained engine. He sensed its eagerness to respond, to leap forward at
the merest pulse of the throttle. He promised himself to never again take that
feeling for granted.

He opened his eyes. He lay in a different
room, but still a hospital room. It was washed in daylight and he was alone.

Was it all a dream? Have I only just
woken from my coma?

Moments after pressing the call button all
doubt was dispelled, for accompanying Dee and Jordy to the summons was the
loping form of Sam.

“We’ve got to stop meeting like this,” said
Rasputin to Dee.

Dee leant to hug Rasputin, and he saw a
uniformed police officer stride past along a corridor.

He pushed Dee away and said to Sam, “Please
tell me the cops are here to nail Thorpe.” Then, reminded by the surgeon’s
name, Rasputin shot a hand to his temple. It met nothing but skin and hair,
intact and responding with no sensation other than quiet acknowledgment of the
touch.

Sam nodded.

“You got it. And don’t worry. We got him in
time.”

“Just,” said Jordy, and raked his hair back
with both hands.

“Can we find some fresh air?” said
Rasputin. He rose. His body felt like it had been through a stone-wash rinse
cycle.

Jordy found Rasputin’s cane in the pile of
belongings that had been stripped from him on admission. Evidently the staff
hadn’t been expecting him to need it any time soon. A little way down the
corridor they found a sun lounge, with meter-wide windows thrown open on
gardens and the arc of a lake’s shore. Rasputin fell into a chair, closed his
eyes and basked.

“How?” he said at last.

Sam laughed, and said, “With the opposite
of precision,” he said.

“I called him,” said Dee, indicating the
agent-in-training. She continued, in response to Rasputin’s unspoken question.
“Right after you woke briefly this morning. I didn’t
see
you wake, but I
could tell from how he acted.” She paused, closing her eyes a moment. “I saw
his
face, and it scared the hell out of me. I can’t describe it, Monk, but he did
not mean you well.” She became silent, her face contorting with fought emotion.

Rasputin had to look away.

Jordy took up the story. “So we had the
idea to call Sam,” he said, turning to him. “And, to be honest, I had bugger
all idea how you could help. But it was clear we weren’t getting anywhere with
the staff here. They were all subject to his charm.”

“Fear,” corrected Dee, having composed
herself. “I found Sam’s number in your phone.”

Rasputin noticed Sam cock an eyebrow, and
said, “What did you tell him?”

“It was Dee’s idea,” said Jordy.

Dee’s face held a mixture of shame and grim
pleasure—an alien look for her.

“They called me,” said Sam, “and told me a
mad-heroin-addict surgeon, who was bragging of having taken a hit this morning,
was about to open your skull and jam a probe into your brain, and could I do
something.”

“We hoped drugs would put it on his radar,”
said Dee. “Plus, you’re ASIO’s latest protégé.”

“He’s not that,” said Sam, and Rasputin
repressed the urge to ask why not. “I told you what interested me more.” He
looked at Rasputin. “Remember you asked me to work up a brief on Thorpe?”

“I asked if he had a brother. Thanks, by
the way. I think.”

“We don’t do things by halves. The data
boys built a full profile, including financials. One point in particular
captured my interest, retrospectively, of course. Thorpe had patents pending on
electrode signal analysis technology—not uncommon for an academic—but, in
addition, the company owning the patents, his company, had another partner.

“So?”

“The partner is a criminal lawyer.”

“What does that mean?”

“No idea. But it’s odd isn’t it? And odd
often turns out to be interesting.”

Rasputin stifled a yawn.

“That’s a bit of an anticlimax.”

“You haven’t heard the rest yet,” said
Jordy with mischief in his eye.

Sam continued, “I called up my boss for
permission to involve the police. It was a risk. It would blow our little
understanding, and he might’ve blown my ear off, but he bought it enough to
give the okay.”

Thank God, thought Rasputin.

“We almost blew it, though,” said Sam. “One
of the cops sent here to check our errant surgeon was a green stick. Thorpe was
the coolest customer, apparently. He asked to visit the toilet first, and the
young gun let him go. When his partner found out, he bolted to the loo and
burst into the cubicle.” Sam stopped.

He, Jordy and Dee were beaming at each other.

“What?” said Rasputin. “He flushed the
heroin?”

“No, you idiot,” said Jordy. “There never
was any heroin.”

“But there was Chlorpromazine. Six ampules
of it, in fact. Two were empty, and, funny thing, empty ampules don’t flush so
well: the cop found Mr. Thorpe frantically watching over a few floaters. Some
smart folk can be really dumb.”

Rasputin enjoyed a moment’s Schadenfreude.

“Chlorpromazine?”

“An anti-psychotic. But give it to someone
with a lowered seizure threshold and bingo: more seizures.”

Rasputin said, thinking aloud. “Then he got
me in here, doped me up, and set himself up as the only saviour in town.”

“I knew he was no good,” said Jordy, “the
moment I first met him.”

“Why so?” said Sam.

“Women’s intuition,” said Rasputin. Then he
turned to Dee. “You were lucky he had the stuff on him. What were you going to
do if he was clean?”

She shook her head. “I hadn’t thought
beyond buying time. Anything to keep you out of the operating theatre.” She
went on in a whisper. “That look, Monk...” She gazed out into the gardens and
shivered.

They were silent then for minutes, as
though taking a collective breath. Dragonflies flew and pinballed among reeds
at the lake’s edge, and just then were the most interesting sight in the world.

“What now?” said Rasputin.

“Home and rest, is what now,” said Dee. She
hovered nearest to Rasputin, perched on the edge of a reclining lounge.

Rest
,
thought Rasputin. What a funny word. He wondered if rest was what unicorns did
in castles of cloud.

“Where’s Thorpe now?” he asked Sam.

“Being questioned at the station in the
CBD,” said Sam. Then added, “Behind locked doors.” Rasputin fancied Sam thought
him afraid.

Jordy’s pants emitted a belching sound that
startled him.

“You still have my phone,” said Rasputin.

Jordy dug it out and handed it to him. The
display indicated a new message. It read: MediCrypt—locks away your medical
records.

Rasputin furrowed his brow.

He spoke to Sam. “Did you give me this
phone to dick around with me? It’s getting a little trite.”

“What? I didn’t give you any phone.”

“But—” He halted. He thought back to the
night he had sat on the steps with Jordy as night closed in.

“Do you remember the message I got the
other day?” he said to Jordy. “You said it was spam. It said ‘makes sense of
all your data,’ right after I’d unloaded on you about the crap going down in my
head. I bet it was
him
, toying with me.”

“You’re being paranoid,” said Jordy.

“How would he have known that?” said Dee.
Rasputin smiled at her; she couldn’t help defending the absent party.

“No idea, but now he’s taunting me from
beyond the grave.”

Sam said, “If you mean Thorpe, you’ll have
to settle for ‘professional’ grave. He might lose his license, but don’t count
on him getting time for today.”

Rasputin rose, feeling the large muscles in
his limbs twang and settle like new guitar strings. Everything hurt, but he
forced himself to walk. “Would it be too much to ask for a pound of flesh?” He
stumped toward the corridor leading back to his room, and his clothes.
“Downtown, you said?”

Jordy pulled Rasputin’s rusting coupe
over to the curb. He listened as the engine died. “That’s your valves. You do
need to service this thing, you know.”

“With what?” said Rasputin, his gaze fixed
on the facade of the police station.

“You want me to...come in?” said Jordy.

Rasputin swung his legs out, planted his
feet on the pavement, and heaved himself onto them.

“No. Thanks.” Before he could change his
mind, he pushed away from the car, swinging the door shut with his free hand.

“Pick you up in an hour,” Jordy shouted
from behind the glass. He started the engine and sliced into the traffic flow.

Thorpe was alone in an interview room. His
jacket was off, shirt cuffs rolled high as though he was doing rounds. Rasputin
peered through one-way glass set into the door and bided the return of his
courage. Thorpe was locked in and all but defrocked. So why did he look more
the lion than ever? He held his great maned head level as he strode in neat
circles around a table at the room’s centre.

Rasputin reached for the door’s handle,
felt the cool touch of its metal, and paused. He had been offered ten minutes
with Thorpe by the officer in charge, reluctantly, and only because he had
threatened to frustrate charges against the surgeon. Right now, he wasn’t sure
he even wanted ten seconds.

Thorpe halted at the far side of the table
as Rasputin entered. His question caught Rasputin off guard. “So, do you have a
death wish or are you a moron?”

Rasputin reminded himself he was at a
police station, not Thorpe’s office.

“You first: sadist or criminal?”

“No, I’m serious. You’ve sabotaged your
only hope.”

“Sabotaged? What the hell do you call
spiking my drink and stoking seizures?”

Thorpe rounded the table. Rasputin circled
it to keep him opposite.

“Collateral. And besides, the seizures will
leave no permanent damage. They became necessary when you persisted in fending
me off.” He stopped, and so did Rasputin. “I got lucky first time. The
particular concoction you drank causes seizures in less than one in five people—of
healthy mind, that is.” The surgeon’s brow drew down. “I’m curious about you
Rasputin. What thing in your past is so potent to goad you to fight with such
energy?”

“I could ask you the same question.”

“Oh? My brother you mean?” He laughed, an
unhealthy, forced sound. “I’ve no idea how you found him, but you’re wrong,
whatever you think.”

Thorpe turned away for the first time since
Rasputin had entered the room. A thin band of sweat stained his shirt between
his shoulder blades. The room smelled of scared men.

Rasputin pressed him: “What would cause a
man in your position—wealthy, respected—to risk so much? An ailing brother,
perhaps? It fits.”

Thorpe spun to face him. His voice was
even, but he gripped the chair in front of him with such force the tendons over
his knuckles blanched.

“Spare me the playroom psychology. My
brother is an interesting case, nothing more, and if you say our veins run with
the same blood, I say I don’t care for the mystical significance placed on what
is cellular detritus—
nothing more
. Blood might be thicker than water,
but so is sewage.”