I had an appointment with the Red Doctor, and I wasn't looking forward to it one goddamn bit.

At this point in my sordid tale, you might be wondering why on earth a mere psychiatrist like me spends so much time in the field, leading a team of cut-rate superhumans for the matter.

The fact that certain entities, such as the Red Doctor, didn't kill me on sight was certainly a modest factor. (Let's not go into my short stint in the US military working for the VA, I still handed out motril and modafinil in my dreams).

Of course, the fact that he didn't kill me straight away, didn't imply that he couldn't or wouldn't. So I was trying to display a great deal more confidence than I felt when I walked into the emergency room of this long abandoned hospital in Houston.

We'd come prepared, if not nearly adequately for taking him down. The Lone Star government had been gracious enough to put a few antiquated reapers armed with that Hellfire missile variant that deployed swords instead of standard explosives. He was mildly more susceptible to blades than gunfire, but nothing I had could put him down for good. There were old F-35s loitering too, half there to keep the US from getting nosy, and the rest to add more explosives to the mix if needed. I suspected one was even carrying a tactical nuke.

Grim (Who I could remember for once) and Alan were setup a block away, hiding behind adaptive camo with multiple snipers at the ready. They'd lose line of sight while I was indoors, barring the few sections of the building where the decay had advanced enough that parts of the wall had fallen off.

Most of the city looked clean enough that you could occasionally forget that a neutron bomb had gone off above it less than a decade ago. Provided you didn't step on the thousands of brittle, bone-dry skeletons littering the streets.

I checked my comms, Emily and Alia were trying to keep pace with me below, following a convenient drainage system as far as it would lead them. She could delay the bastard if the need arose, and buy me time to run for my life. Let's not think too hard about what he could do to her given enough time.

The Emergency room was relatively well lit, the hospital had pivoted to solar-powered illumination before the bombs dropped, and some lights still shone fitfully, just bright enough to uncover the thick layers of dust and grime.

I gently pushed aside the wheelchair lodged inside the frame of what had once been a glass door, prompting the occupant to faceplant, scattering bones and shattered glass with a noise that almost made me jump out of my skin. No rush with that Adat, if he's in a bad mood, then getting skinned would be the last of your worries.

Surprisingly, the place still had that astringent smell I'd always associated with hospitals, despite the years. Likely the first sign of his presence, there was no way the volatiles would have lasted this long.

Praying that this was a false positive, I advanced, without the psychological security of a gun to protect myself. It would only piss him off, and wouldn't be likely to put a dent in him.

I heard humming, and pushed myself out of line of sight as a porter came trundling down the hallway, pushing a cart ahead of him. Even though I was in the shadows, he stopped, doffed his cap at me, and proceeded on his endless circuit, leaving a trail of blood and maggots behind him. I didn't intend to look at his face any more than I had to.

So that means that the Red Doctor was aware of my presence. Turning around now was a bad idea, the last thing I needed was to infuriate him.

I strode through the rest of the ground floor, there were fewer corpses here, it was far enough within the bowels of the structure that the worst of the neutron radiation hadn't made it in.

I heard a snarl, and saw a coyote at the other end of the room, hackles raised. A surgical scalpel was embedded in its skull, making a red ruin of one eye that still trickled jelly into its fur.

No threat, so I let it walk away, shaking its head mournfully in a futile effort to dislodge the scalpel.

Once it was out of the building, I felt a pang of conscience and ordered Alan to put it out of its misery with a bullet to the brain.

The elevator didn't work, leaving aside that it was packed with bones again. It must have been on the top floor when the bomb went off.

So I took the stairs, occasionally stepping aside as the odd orderly made their way round. They smelled like corpse bile, skin puffy and raw from the over-application of formaldehyde to stave off the rot. These ones were too far gone to bother me.

There were no lights on the second floor barring what little sunlight made it in through the ruined windows. I passed through a ward, where the remaining bodies were mercifully still, and found myself before an OR complex.

I was steeling myself up to enter when I felt a faint buzz inside my jacket.

Puzzled, I put my hand in, feeling a roughly rectangular plastic object.

I pulled it out, it was a pager, a once inseparable part of hospital culture but one that was thankfully obsolete when I'd gone to med school. It's sad little LED screen showed me a message:

DR. SEN TO THE OPERATING ROOM

I had not put that thing in my pocket.

No, there was no point in keeping him waiting. I pushed the doors open, finding myself in a changing slash observation room.

Another orderly stood there, he gestured at me to change into a surgical gown.

Praying that I still remembered aseptic protocols now that I hadn't been inside an OR in a dozen years, I took what was proferred, trying not to touch his greasy hands where there were too many holes in his gloves.

I put on the cap, slid my hands into their own, slightly better preserved gloves, and walked through long dry decon showers into the actual OR.

Apparently, the setup had been too new-fangled for the Doctor, because the autosurgeon mounted on the roof had been torn out and tossed into a corner in a fit of rage.

"Dr. Sen, a rare pleasure indeed!"

I turned to where a figure stood, supervising 'surgeons' as they hacked away at a corpse in the dim light.

He wasn't particularly physically imposing, a bit shorter than my 6'2", but he was clad in a red lab coat, dyed with things you'd rather not know about.

From the corner of my eye, he gave every impression of being just like that one kind paediatric surgeon who'd removed my appendix when I was a wee lad. Even his voice was kindly and warm, and against my significantly better judgment, I felt the urge to sit down and talk shop with him.

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One glance at his face dealt with that, there was a void where his face should have been, a shock of white hair, and just the hint of an ancient surgical mask held in place by god knows what.

"Evening Doctor-" He interrupted me, raising one finger. I shut the fuck up right away.

"Please, Adat. I didn't become a surgeon just so I could be mistaken for an internist." He said, his accent suddenly changing to a posh British one. When had he killed one of those?

"My apologies, Mister Red, that's just my Americanisms getting to me." I told him, doing my best to pretend that all was well.

Based on the current personality he was displaying, he must have last eaten a British surgeon. They were always anal about being referred to as Mister instead of Doctor, which struck me as completely arse backwards. But I didn't practise on that side of the pond, so what did it matter?

"Good man. I can smell ichor, have you been getting your hands dirty recently?" He asked, looking over at the two surgeons doing what even my limited knowledge of neurosurgery suggested was inadvisable.

"I dissected an alien, not that I made any incisions myself." He'd smell the lie if I claimed to have done so, and in truth, all I did was monitor the autosurgeon while it tried to handle brand new anatomy.

"Why, we'll make a surgeon of you yet! You certainly have the hands for it." He walked over, leaving the scent of formaldehyde, hospital handwash and feces in his wake.

I tried not to panic as he gently took my hands in his. He seemed particularly interested in my cybernetic one, flexing my index finger like a fine toy.

I tried not to wince as the force with which he manipulated it ripped apart graphene tendons like string. That could be fixed later.

"Such a shame to have to resort to such crude replacements. I could have had a new one sewn right back on, good as new." He told me, letting go of my hand, the index finger twitching and flopping. I was grateful I didn't feel any pain.

"I'll keep the offer in mind, Mr. Red." I told him.

"I had some queries of a professional nature to ask of you. A surgeon of your talents is a rare sight these days." I told him, hoping that like anyone wearing the decaying skin of a neurosurgeon, he'd have an ego the size of the moon.

He preened, certainly happy at my praise. "If only all the new residents were half as respectful as you. Those lot move me to tears sometimes, with their incompetence." He pointed accusingly at the two surgeons still gamely hacking away. One of them dragged a bone saw in a most erratic manner, and the other didn't even make a sound as a slip sent the tip of his finger skittering across the floor. He was too busy peering into the cranium, swollen tongue peeking out from his askew mask.

"Still, expertise has a price. Have you brought payment?" He asked me, almost seeming shy at the idea of monetary exchange. In reality, this was closer to a barter.

"Would seven be adequate?" I asked him. That was much less than the Texans had provided me, but there was no harm in being frugal.

"Depends. Are any of them medically qualified? My current assistants leave much room for improvement.." He told me, pacing over to where even the pretense of surgery was being dropped, one surgeon now significantly more interested in chopping into the other.

"I have a dentist. He was convicted of rape." I told him.

"Is he competent?" The Red Doctor asked, grabbing one of his minions by the chin, making it go slack. He ran his hands over their teeth, picked one and tugged. It came out with a distressingly wet sound. "Never mind, I'll take what I can get. Still, you should tell the Americans to be more generous next time, the Brits have been far too kind, they were the ones who gave me Mr. Khan after all."

"I'll see what can be done." I promised him.

Fuck. Would he notice if we sent the new condemned with memory implants? What if we had them do some actual surgeries in advance?

I handed him a list of requests, and he took the paper from me, producing a pair of glasses, the frames bent and gnawed on.

"Quite interesting. It'll be a challenge with my current tools, but I always love a challenge." He whispered, neatly folding it away.

I gave the signal, and multiple trolleys rolled themselves into the ER from across the street. Each had someone strapped to it, mercifully sedated. I'd made sure the doses were high, they didn't deserve to wake up while the Doctor was having his way with them, even for all the crimes they must have committed to get the Texans to assign them to Death Row.

More orderlies emerged, wheeling them away into the bowels of the hospital. I could almost feel my team and the Texans twitching, eager to fire.

Still, they held off. Mere bullets were a waste of time.

It had cost the Brits two Emergency Response Units and a full platoon of SAS operators before they'd given up on dislodging him from St. Thomas's. I was still surprised they served him a competent neurosurgeon on a platter, but the NHS was practically fully automated by that point.

Most of the list I'd handed him was busy work. Something to keep him occupied, less than eager to move house to Austin. The last thing we needed was him showing up in a children's hospital. If we were lucky, we might get some genuine insights out of him, though that was becoming rarer and rarer as he went further off the deep end. Still, it was a minor blessing that he'd ended up in an abandoned hospital in Houston, if we could keep his interest for a little bit longer, he might not even be tempted to stray.

As I walked out into the streets, the last rays of the setting sun catching the crumbling fascade of the hospital, I waved off the F-35s and drones. It was too early to burn the city with more radiation, and for all I knew, he could have eaten a radiologist recently enough that he might just enjoy the chance to expose some x-ray films.

Some monsters you just kept fed so they wouldn't eat you first.

I paused. Did the aliens have the equivalent of hospitals? Something else to ask Minerva when I visited her again.