The Variant Effect: PAINKILLER (6 page)

A nurse hurried in and the three of them
heaved Borland onto the operating table.

He felt like he was floating.

The nurse threw a sheet over Borland and
tucked it tight, immobilizing him. She pulled his left arm out and
positioned it, held it in place with a Velcro strap and wrapped a
blood pressure cuff around the bicep. Then she dug for a vein in
his left hand and slid an IV needle into place.

“Penicillin,” she said, tapping the clear IV
bag before setting up a small curtain across Borland’s chest.

“I’d prefer a martini,” Borland drawled, his
mouth starting to feel gummy.

Gravity fastened him securely to the table.
His mind was spinning but clear as he watched one doctor leave and
the other with the Scottish accent remain.

“We have rather traditional methods here, Mr.
Borland,” the doctor said. “But not
that
traditional.”

“I got you, I got you.” Borland tried to make
a
shushing
sound but it came out like a wet raspberry.
“Mum’s the word.”

The doctor was already at work. Borland felt
a minor pressure on his gut and then the nurse asked him...

“How are you feeling, Mr. Borland?” She read
from a list on an e-reader. They’d quizzed him during admission and
he told them lies he couldn’t now remember.

“Pretty damn good, blue eyes,” he growled,
then burst out laughing. “Where’s my martini?”

“They’re a favorite of mine too, Mr.
Borland,” the doctor said, glancing over at him as he worked.
“Gin.”

“It’s
Captain
,” Borland corrected.
“And once we made martinis out of photocopier fluid down at the
stationhouse. But, we couldn’t drink it.”

“
Captain
?” the nurse said. “Are you in
the military.”

“Variant Squad back in the day,” Borland
explained, and then shifted a furtive look between his doctor and
nurse. “Can you keep a secret? Because Variant’s coming back...but
it’s a secret.”

He tried to make the
shushing
sound
again, but the deep breath required to do it caused him to brown
out.

Hello
.

Zombie
.

Centipede
.

What?

His vision returned and his mouth was alive
with taste. The nurse was dabbing his lips with a cotton swab
soaked in lemon juice.

“That’s good,” he said, smiling lasciviously
and then gestured with his head toward the doctor. “But won’t he
get jealous?”

The doctor laughed and said: “We received a
bulletin about the Variant Effect from Metro Law Enforcement.”

“What did I tell you? It’s coming back...”
Borland said, suddenly aware of a hard pressure in his gut and a
growing point of heat. He felt a tug, then heard a mechanical
click
. “It’s still in the water and so here—PRESTO!” He
tried to clap but his arms were restrained. The table shook. The IV
drip pulled at the back of his hand.

“You know,” he said, catching the doctor’s
eye. “I feel fantastic.”

“It’s the morphine,” the doctor drawled. “A
favorite of mine too.” He let Borland hang for a second. “But never
on duty.”

“Oh.” Borland laughed. “That’s the perfect
place for it.”

“
Captain
Borland?” the nursed mused,
“I think I’ve heard that name.”

“Probably lady, I mean, well I don’t like to
say but...” Borland mumbled, his lips tangling, and then: “I was
pretty well-known back in the day.”

“What for?” The nurse looked puzzled.

“Oh, well.” Borland shifted his eyes away.
“Good stuff
too
.”

Borland shrugged and then apologized. “Tell
me if I’m distracting you doctor.” He made a fist, and then
chortled, his mind rolling away from the big lights overhead. Then
he said: “You know, we nailed Variant in Parkerville about a month
ago.” He pursed his lips. “But it’s a new one.”

The doctor paused, his eyes thoughtful.

“Nurse, how are Captain Borland’s
vitals?”

The nurse answered: “Pulse and respiration
are fine. Blood pressure is high but close enough to pre-op to be
considered normal.”

“What’s wrong?” Borland asked.

The doctor smiled with his eyes as he leaned
over the cloth curtain.

“No worries,” he said. “It’s just that you
seem very aware, Captain Borland. Are you feeling all right? We
could give you something else, if you’re anxious at all.”

“I feel great!” Borland laughed. “But I’ve
never been a cheap date. Especially after the old cranking days.”
He smacked his lips as a wave of warm exhaustion splashed over his
mind. “
Uhn. Gahn
,” he mumbled, for a minute in a swoon. The
nurse swabbed his lips with lemon juice again.

Things went dark and then...

Where the hell am I?

“There we go, Captain,” the nurse cooed. “Is
that better?”

And Borland felt his mind kick awake
again.

“So, Captain Borland, how bad is it?” the
doctor asked, his muffled voice carrying real concern. “Are we
headed back into
the day
?”

“What do you mean?” And then Borland had a
sinking feeling.
What did you tell them
?

“You said the Variant Effect was coming
back.” The doctor peered over the curtain. “How bad is it?”

“What?” Borland’s mind raced.
What else
did you tell him
? The pressure and heat were building in his
abdomen. He tried to cover. “I meant before, like it was coming
before. It was bad back then, is all,” Borland grumbled and
laughed, looking up at the doctor. “No worries.”

He froze.

There was something up there behind the
doctor, a shape, no a shadow.

A man? Someone watching
.

Borland laughed as a wave of euphoria flooded
him.

The centipede
?

“Who’s that?” he said, squinting into the
overhead lights.

“Pardon me?” the doctor asked, flinching,
following Borland’s gaze up over his shoulder. He looked back to
Borland like nothing was there.

But Borland could see a shape. Something dark
and broad moved into the space over the doctor’s shoulder.

“Right
there
,” Borland said, gesturing
with his chin and laughing. “Some ugly bastard.”

Borland’s vision cleared and the shape
resolved into something big. It had a green, segmented body. And
there were eyes—beady and shiny like its glistening shell—watching
from under long fuzzy antennae while its serrated jaws dripped.

Borland laughed as it wrapped its barbed legs
around the doctor’s shoulders like it was an old friend.

“A centipede,” Borland said, unable to feel
any terror. He laughed. “Like the one in my room. But
way
bigger.”

The doctor looked over at the nurse and
nodded.

“Don’t worry, Captain Borland,” he reassured.
“Hallucinations are common with the mixture of drugs in your
system.”

“A big green one,” Borland continued. “Can’t
step on
him
though...”

The doctor looked at the nurse and chuckled,
and Borland laughed.

Then something caught the nurse’s eye because
she looked past the doctor and her hands came up. The doctor just
started to turn when a solid
crunching
sound knocked him
forward onto Borland. He rolled off and out of sight. The nurse
barely got a scream out before there was another
crunch
. Her
body shook and she fell against Borland, her cheek striking his
before she hit the floor.

Borland laughed.

The strange woman who couldn’t eat chicken
was leaning over him.

“Hey!” he shouted gleefully. “
You’re
all better.”

“Hurry,” she said, yanking the IV out of his
hand and pulling the sheets off him. The woman heaved Borland into
a sitting position, and then removed a pair of clamps from flaps of
skin around the wound in his belly.

He only felt a minor tug.

Borland kept smiling as she tied his pants
and closed his top. The thin material was immediately saturated by
a wave of blood. “We’ve got to get you out of here. NOW!”

She helped him off the table. He started
laughing, one arm over her shoulder as strange sensations pulsed in
his chest and stomach. He steadied himself against her.

She snatched a scalpel from a tray by the
table, and led Borland out of the room.

“We can’t let them do this!” Determination
hardened her features. She
looked
like a cop.

Borland laughed and staggered along with her.
He felt wet and cold on his legs, but that was all he could
feel.

The morphine still warmed his soul.

CHAPTER 10

“This way!” the strange woman cried, pulling
Borland by the arm. He was dizzy. His vision blurred as his arms
and legs wobbled, felt like they might collapse. But there was
miraculous, drug-induced energy flowing through him as he sprang
along after her, blithely medicated, giggling about the coppery
cold air that tickled his torso and thighs.

His mind reeled with vertigo, spun slowly
forward like he would fall out of his head.

They pushed past another set of doors and ran
to the elevator as its doors slid open on a nurse inside. She
looked at Borland’s bloody clothing, shrieked and fell back,
sliding against the far wall of the elevator as Borland’s ‘rescuer’
slashed and stabbed the air with her scalpel.

The terrified nurse hit a crowd of buttons on
the far panel and the doors in that side of the compartment slid
apart. She rolled ungracefully backwards into a white-lit hall full
of shelves and supplies.

“Out!” the strange woman barked, launching a
kick at the air behind the fleeing nurse who stumbled to her feet
and fell into a shelf full of equipment. There was a crash of
shattering glass.

“That’ll teach her!” Borland shouted.

Then the strange woman grabbed Borland’s arm
and pulled him into the elevator. He lost his balance and slammed
into the corner. His face rang off a thick stainless steel railing,
smashed against fake veneer.

He struggled on his knees laughing as his
rescuer punched the ‘close door’ button beside her, and both sides
of the elevator slid shut.

Borland pressed against the tingling wet
bulge under his smock as the woman slapped another button. The
floor lurched and the elevator started to climb.

Borland was chortling wetly. He pushed off
the wall with one hand while the other cradled his bloody gut. A
deep throb cut through him but faded in a fog of painkiller.

“Hey! You’re pretty good,” he said and then
chuckled. The morphine and Ativan were still coursing through his
system, annihilating his pain and anxiety before it could reach his
brain. “Is it the centipede?”

“What do you know about centipede?” she
asked, eyes round with disbelief.

But Borland’s attention had shifted down to
the blood that soaked the front of his smock. He opened one of the
ties to investigate the damage beneath and his hands found the numb
edges of a gaping five-inch incision.

“Oh,” he said, and chuckled. “That’s really,
really bad, lady!” He looked at the woman as she stared at the
lighted numbers over the door. “There must be some real
trouble.”

“You don’t know how lucky you are.” She gave
a serious half-smile and reached out, patting the back of his
bloody hand where it covered his open wound.

“I got to you in time,” she said and then
shifted the scalpel to her left hand as she reached behind her and
pulled a gun from where it was wedged in the waistband of her
pants. Borland recognized the .9mm; it was made of ceramic. A
serious piece of hardware—professionals used it: detectives,
military police, even Variant Squad Lieutenants.

Take your pick lady, who are you
?

The woman winced as she cocked the weapon,
remembering that she had fresh injuries too, but was running
without Borland’s morphine.

He laughed thinking about it. Of course, he
didn’t have her sutures. He giggled.

We’re screwed!

“What’s the plan?” Borland asked, probing the
bloody edges of his surgical opening with his fingers. Then his
attention fell back to her gun.

And he asked: “Who do you work for?”

“Lots of people, and
nobody
,” she
growled and glanced fearfully left and right as the elevator
shuddered.

“Oh, like black ops?” Borland said, comically
calm. Blood was seeping down his chest, and he was starting to feel
nauseous. “The army? The Feds?” Then he snapped his fingers.
“
You’re
with the police?”

She nodded solemnly. “I used to be...”

The elevator stopped and the woman leveled
her gaze.

“Listen, I’ve got to get you somewhere safe,
so they don’t finish what they started.” She frowned. “They cycle
people through every four days, moving new patients sequentially
through the procedures starting in the basement and ending on the
third floor. It’s a house of death.”

“I’m on the third floor,” Borland said and
then coughed. A chill shook him and he chuckled. “My stuff’s there,
if we’re running.”

“Exactly! And none of the civilians will feel
like giving us any trouble,” she growled and stabbed a button to
hold the door closed. “When we go out of here, we run to the right.
Get as far down the hall as we can go. Once we get our bearings
we’ll grab your stuff.”

“Sounds good,” Borland snarled, balling up
his bloody right fist. His left hand still pressed against the open
slit over his navel. It was starting to feel heavy.

“Ready?” she said, raising the pistol in her
right hand.

Borland nodded, and lifted his fist.

“Let’s
roll!
” the woman shouted and
slapped the button that opened the doors.

They slid aside to reveal the nurse with the
German accent standing by a patient in hospital blues. The nurse
raised her e-board like a shield. Borland’s rescuer bowled the
woman over as he followed in her wake. The startled patient stepped
back but not fast enough to avoid Borland’s right cross. The man
crumpled.