Every part of my body hurt.
Blinking was uncomfortable and sluggish, as if I had to retrain my body to follow the simplest subconscious instructions. I had to blink several times to get the light to stop blurring my vision. The room I was in was dimly lit by a horse shoe shaped bulb in the ceiling directly overhead. I was completely restrained in a sterile bed, with one thin sheet preventing the world from seeing my body. The room itself was equally pristine and a little roomy by comparison to some of the hospitals I had been in in the past. I was led to believe I was in the Mantle, but had no idea how I got there.
Despite the discomfort, I turned my head to get more information about my surroundings. The lights for the machines to my left behind me were actively on and lit in low-light mode. To my right, the head of a pyrenees breed dog man rested with his furry arms up against my side. Sometimes I wish that I had just saved my money and purchased a regular dog. Given my experiences in the past with genetic modification, dealing with meta-humans has always left me uneasy, be they cybernetically or genetically adjusted. Having a human/dog hybrid as a pet was typically an exotic pursuit that the rich elite of the Mantle entertained for their amusement, much similar to owning exotic animals of the old world as pets.
The Dogman’s name was Baxter. He was my partner.
I purchased Baxter as a puppy, if you could call him that. Damndest thing to see a baby with the head and physical features of a dog, despite how normal it has become. Consider me a bit old fashioned, but I tend to treat all genetic impurities with suspicion. I have trouble finding any of it normal. Maybe that makes me a purist, but I am not a radical like some folks I have met, or been witness to. My insistence on genetic normalcy may be due to my upbringing, and despite all of that, Baxter has helped me to come to terms with... difference. Instead of a pet, I used him as a tool to sniff out genetic and cyber modifications. He had since turned out to be quite the effective protector/partner. Baxter shared the physique of a two hundred pound, six-foot-tall wrestler, albeit a fully fur coated wrestler. He was not wearing his armor, nor was he wearing his collar.
The lack of a collar pissed me off.
“Where were you Baxter?”, I grumbled, sounding like I had a sock in my mouth.
His triangle ears perked as his head snapped to attention looking at me.
“Don?!” He gasped, his voice a deep baritone and carried a thick tongued accent.
“Where were you Baxter…”, I croaked more aggressively.
His jaw hung open for a moment as he attempted to figure out a way to answer.
“I… I went to the bathroom.” He spoke sheepishly.
I attempted to fight my restraints, and promptly regretted the decision. After rolling my eyes to the back of my head in a groan, I barked, “You took a thirty-minute bathroom break?!”
“I needed to stretch my legs.” He insisted through his teeth, his eyes squinting in a glare.
I glared back at him, “Why didn’t you bring your collar?”
He glared back with a growl, “I forgot it.”
I squinted to show my displeasure, “Don’t you growl at me!”
He bared his teeth, “What are you going to do about it?”
The machine to my left beeped furiously with my pulse getting both of our attention.
I rolled my eyes and returned my gaze to the ceiling, wincing as I attempted to turn my chin up, “No food for a week.”
“Oh please Don, I cook better than you do.” He leaned back in his chair and gave me a dismissive gesture with his hand.
I wanted to roll over to my side and point an accusing finger at him as I gave him a stern fatherly lecture. The attempt caused me to nearly black out, and all I could do was moan in pain. The restraints on the bed were there to keep me safe from further injury, and they did a remarkable job at that.
“Fate’s sake Don, will you stop pushing yourself. In case you don’t remember you were damn near murdered by a raging cybernetic Tuekoe.” Baxter took hold of my shoulders and placed a gentle weight on them to force me to stop moving. He held me in the bed that way for a moment as he assessed me.
I gave him a defeated glare.
“I am tired of paying fees to get you out of the pound Baxter. If you are not going to go with me when you leave the office, the least you can do is wear your damn collar!” I spoke as clear as I could underneath him.
“Maybe you should stop waiting and process my C-Classification upgrade then. I hate wearing that collar, I am not a dog!” He leaned closer and spoke through his teeth.
I sighed. His citizenship classification was the last conversation I wanted to have at the time so I deflected with a new point of conversation, “What hospital are we in? How the hell did you get here without your collar?”
Baxter didn’t reply, his features perked alert and he snapped his attention to the entrance way. Leaning against the door frame was a dark brown skinned woman. She wore a dark blue Order dress uniform, with a skirt that stopped at the knee and heeled boots that approached her mid-calf. She wore curly shoulder length hair that had dark green highlights. She had dark eyes, a broad nose and full lips colored to match her hair. The woman was athletic, and very attractive. She had her arms folded, and had Baxter’s collar and leash in hand.
“I told you that educating them would cause you problems. You never listen to me Don.” Her voice was candy to the ears. At least it was when I was not in trouble.
“Hi Tiara. I would wave, or make a welcoming gesture, but I have a dogman, of whom I am considering pressing charges, that is preventing me from hurting myself.”
She smiled, and Baxter leaned in close before giving me a full tongued lick from the skin of my neck up the side of my face. I cringed and made a futile attempt to move my head away. He sat back into his chair, and gave me a toothy grin.
“So help me Baxter…” I growled.
Tiara tossed Baxter his collar and leash and walked in a fashion that forced her boots to make clicking noises against the floor. She gave an apologetic gesture toward Baxter, “No offense Baxter,” before she leaned over the side of my bed and prodded me in the chest with her finger, “You brought this behavior onto yourself. You are lucky he has not been euthanized yet.”
I gave her a smile, “I don’t know what he would do if you were not there to bail him out.”
“I am right here you know.” Baxter added.
“Put your damn collar on.” Tiara scolded.
“Sorry Ms. Mason” Baxter apologized as he snapped the clasp into place around his neck.
She turned to me with a smile, “See… Discipline.”
“He likes you.”, I retorted sarcastically.
She drew her face close to mine, and I was given the pleasure of a flowery aromatic scent either from some oil or soap on her skin or her shampoo. She gently stroked my cheek with her right hand, “I am a likable kind of woman.”
From a distance it was hardly noticeable, but up close, it was almost impossible not to notice that Tiara was “rigged”. Her right eye had a semi-luminescent gloss that was noticeable up close. The iris of the eye had a dull glow like a small LED screen. Where a normal eye had little red veins around the white, hers had small glowing circuits. Her touch was cold, a reminder that the hand was not actually a hand at all.
Tiara was an officer in the Order, the police force that protects the various districts of New DC. She lost both her eye and arm from an accident during one of her operations a few years ago. Both were damaged beyond repair. Her cybernetic augments are a “benefit” if you would call them that, from her services as an agent of the Order.
I looked her in her good eye, the one that was not fake, “Why can’t you touch me with your good hand?”
“This is my strong hand.” She smiled.
I gave her a snide look, “Your good one.”
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
She pursed her lips and gave me a coy look, “I don’t share my warmth with just anyone.”
She gave Baxter a squint eyed glare. He had been staring at us intently the whole time, his tail probably twitching.
He put his hands up submissively.
“Don’t mind me. Fly on the wall.” He arched both of his thumbs toward the exit to the room, “I can go if you want though.”
“You know damn well you are in The Mantle Baxter. You are not leaving this room without that collar and a handler.” She grumbled.
“Don’t mind him. Back to what we were talking about. What is the occasion? You rarely smell this nice.” I interrupted.
She pulled a sharply offended look, the way someone who was playing with you would, “Wow Donovan. Just wow…”
“Oh come on! You know what I am talking about. You don’t usually get dolled up and use flowery lotions and shampoos when lounging at home or working.”
She tapped me on the nose with the finger from her “good” hand, a world of difference in terms of touch I might add, “For your information, I was at an Order initiate banquet, welcoming the new qualifying recruits into our ranks before Baxter called me to help him get up here in the Mantle.”
I looked to the ceiling in an inquisitive manner, “Wonder why I don’t get invited to those anymore?”
She gave a seductive smirk, “Maybe it’s because you declined cybernetic augmentation, and you were relieved of your tour of duty. That and I was unable to locate you to invite you as my plus one. I know you normally enjoy the free food, so it struck me as odd. Oh and I am beyond curious as to what you were doing two weeks ago. We have not talked.”
I winced a little bit at the general soreness from my body as I tried to adjust my restraints to a more comfortable position, “It was business. Who was your plus one? Couldn’t have been Baxter, he was with me.”
She looked disappointed. “I’ll have you know, I went by myself. It was embarrassing.”
I rolled my eyes away toward Baxter, “Trust me… I would have much rather come to eat some fine dining in a crowd of people that could care less about, or look down on, me than the “business” a few weeks ago.”
Her face shifted from playful to serious, “Yes. About that…” She pulled away and lifted a PDA from the side of the bed. She thrust two fingers toward my face to emphasize her point, “You have now been in the hospital for relatively severe injuries twice in two weeks Donovan. What the hell is the matter with you?”
I winced as I adjusted myself, an itch that I couldn’t scratch building in intensity on my back, “It’s not as bad as it looks.”
She split her fingers along the PDA screen, and tapped a few sections, grimacing as she read off the list, “Concussion, fractured shin, six grazings from gunshots, all of which required sutures; a dislocated elbow, two broken ribs, a neck injury resulting from whiplash, minor throat trauma and a laundry list of minor cuts, abrasions and bruises.”
She waited a bit to give me time to respond to her as she gave me a concerned look. After a few moments, she gave an insisting nod with her head, begging me to answer for myself. I complained, “What do you want from me? I would shrug if I could.”
She slapped my side lightly and pain ignited, forcing me to gasp a cry of pain. Tiara slid the PDA back into its slot on the side of the bed. Her voice escalated in its pitch as she complained, “I want you to stop with this macho crap Donovan. It hasn’t even been a week into your first payment on your last medical bills, and you flagged your mediband to call a medibus to transport you to The Mantle for your injuries?! How the hell are you supposed to pay for this?”
“I didn’t adjust my mediband. I have no idea how I got here!” I spoke through my teeth.
“Mr. Kenter’s bill has been taken care of by several unnamed benefactors.” A deep bass voice responded from the door. He was a balding, portly gentleman, with a bushy handlebar mustache probably in his late forties. “I would also appreciate it if you did not injure my patient further, Officer Mason.”
“Unnamed benefactors?” Tiara cocked her eyebrow, curiosity clearly agitating her.
Baxter inserted himself quickly with a revelation, “It goes without saying that if Tuekoe was ousted by The Sanctuary, he would probably have a bounty on his head. Maybe even by several parties involved.” He looked excited and leaned over toward me, “That means we can get back to talking about my C-Classification upgrade!”
Tiara’s eyes lit up with curiosity as she gave Baxter her complete attention. I gave him a wide eyed, stern glare. Tiara was an Order resource officer for the district I worked in. As much as she pulled strings for me, I would rather keep her knowledge of any affiliations with a Syndicate as low key as possible. Baxter’s big mouth was going to get us in trouble, and she was no doubt going to grill him on everything he knew when she could manage to get some private time with him. She would probably bribe him with real meat, a non-synthetic vanilla pudding cup, or something equally shady. Knowing Baxter, she wouldn’t need to bribe him at all.
Baxter’s eyes moved back and forth between me and Tiara a few times, gathering our reactions. After a few moments, he made a defeated gesture with his hands, “What?”
“You did not mention The Sanctuary or Tuekoe when you called me yesterday Baxter.” Tiara questioned, the concern in her voice was intense.
The doctor coughed, and interrupted us, “Ahem, as I said… Unnamed benefactors.”
Tiara didn’t say anything as the doctor entered the room. He offered his hand to her and she shook it in a professional manner, smiling as she did, “Doctor Holste, I presume?”
Holste returned the smile with a subtle, gentlemanly nod. He collected the PDA from the side of the bed, and after a quick glance, his demeanor shifted from pleasant, to annoyed. There was a snide tone in his voice, “Your relationship to the nearly deceased, Ms. Mason?”
Tiara did not look pleased with the sudden shift of attitude and spoke frankly, “Friend.”
Holste twitched his mustache into a smirk, “Then you will understand, that it is past visiting hours.” He flipped his wrist up, and his sleeve dropped revealing his mediband. “It is twenty-one, twenty-two. In the interest of patient confidentiality, I would request you please leave so that I may conduct my work with our newly conscious patient.”
Tiara begrudgingly nodded, and made to leave in a dignified fashion, before the doctor stopped her.
Holste insisted, “And take your hound with you.”
Tiara turned her head in a half glance back to the doctor as she walked, pointing at Baxter with an arched thumb, “That one is his.”
Stopping at the doorway she turned to him, “You are staying with Donovan until I can make arrangements otherwise. My flat does not allow pets, so I need to pull some strings. I’ll call you Baxter.”
Baxter gave her a thumbs up, and Tiara gave Dr. Holste one last nod with a forced smile before leaving the room. The doctor followed her and pulled his hand along the door frame. A sheet of clear plastic slid down mechanically to the floor muting all of the sound from outside. He returned to the side of my bed, and observed the PDA for a few minutes.
Something didn’t sit well with me regarding this doctor, and it wasn’t just the fact that he was rude to my dog, and told my friend to take a hike.
“Am I going to live Doc?” I asked sarcastically.
He continued reading the PDA and spoke without even looking at me, “All things considered Mr. Kenter, you will live. The Synthetics in your chest and arm were not damaged, and the grafts from the Tully Center in the Rails should be finished processing by the time the various surgeries we will conduct up here are finished.”
That worried me. Surgeries meant I would be unconscious, and when you are unconscious things happen that you are unaware of.
“How many Surgeries are we talking about here? Are those covered too by my “benefactors?”
He smiled with a corner smirk and leaned closer, “Temple sends his regards.”
I think he took a lot of pleasure out of my reaction. The last thing I wanted was syndicate blood money paying my debts. Nothing, and I do mean absolutely nothing good comes from gifts like that. Baxter snarled and stood from his chair with a growl. The doctor didn’t say anything, he just observed with an almost inhuman confidence. I stared at him wide eyed, fully knowing that I was pretty much trapped in a hospital that shared influence with the only syndicate boss I had ever personally encountered. The Mantle was supposed to be impervious to that stuff. The Order’s orders and all that.
I kept the doctor in view, “Baxter… Call Tiara. I am not staying here another day.”
The doctor interrupted Baxter sharply as he moved to make the call on his mediband, “That won’t be necessary, dog. You both can settle down. This is strictly a no strings attached arrangement. You made several people very happy by dealing with Tuekoe. I do not know the details, and I do not care to. Suffice to say, your medical needs are fully taken care of, and I am to inform you that you will be completely, legally, compensated for your efforts via a financial bonus provided by those involved.”
I didn’t bother masking the anger I had in my voice, “I do not want their blood money.”
Holste replied, “Did I not mention the legal aspect of your cash reward? Besides you are in no way, shape or form, in a position to argue and resist. This is a Mantle facility, not one of your lowly Rails locations. You are in good hands, but the likelihood the authorities will accept the word of a Dog over a medical practitioner is hardly in your favor despite your apparent connections to a certain Resource Officer.”
He eyed Baxter for a moment and continued, “Trust me detective. We will fix you up, and have you back on the street in no time. If you would like to keep your relationship to Temple a positive one, I would suggest you let me do my job. He sent you to the best so you would be taken care of, and I intend to do what I am told.”
Baxter eased up, but continued a light growl to let the doctor know he was still a potential threat. The doctor did not take notice and continued, “As I was saying. We should have you ready to go within a few days. Your muscle grafts should be ready to go within two days, so I am going to be relieving you of your synthetics by that time too. Fortunately, no permanent damage was caused despite near fatal trauma, and your concussion should only require medicine to help with the headaches. Beyond that, plenty of rest and avoid heavy lifting or any work related physical activities. Take a vacation detective. You’ve earned it.”
I didn’t like it, but I was hardly in a position to argue. Nothing about the situation made sense. Temple was hardly a generous person, despite my assistance solving his “rogue element” problem. It was a wonder he didn’t ice both Baxter and myself when my case had concluded. Call it paranoia, call it a part of my concussion, but I was certain Tuekoe visiting my office was a way to get me out of the picture, in a truly underhanded and indirect fashion. It would have cleaned up the problem with his own guy, and solved a loose end in the form of myself. That sort of thinking completely made sense. Paying for my debts, however, did not make sense unless he still needed me for something. Something I was unaware of.
Holste seemed to be waiting for me to say something and spoke kindly after I didn’t, “Did you need an analgesic? You look uncomfortable.”
I rolled my eyes in a defeated fashion, “Whatever you need doc. I just want to go home.”
Holste replied, “Very good. Trust me detective. You will feel like a new man when we are done.”
Given the day and age of genetic and cybernetic modifications, and my general lack of interest in even having synthetic systems put in my body; I don’t think the doctor had any idea how generally uncomfortable that statement made me feel.