He saw his opportunity, and jabbed a knuckle-pointed punch at her solar plexus. It would be armoured, of course, but he didn't want to break it, just to send a shock through her whole skeleton.
'You see, all that metal inside you can rattle around. It can hurt you as badly as I can.'
He pressed her ribs, his hands moving faster than perception.
'A few more of those, and all your boneshields will be loose. That'll be like having breadknives floating around the inside of your chest. You won't care for it. I can promise you that.'
She stepped back, away from him. She had worked up a sweat. The sun was up there now. It looked like the thirty-nine thousand six hundred and fifteenth sunny day in a row in Arizona.
'Are you enjoying this little game of 'Sally Go Round the Roses'? I am.'
'Freak you.'
'Tut tut. Such language. You should gain a command of more elaborate invective.'
She made a reach for his throat, which he dodged. Her fingers closed just under his jaw, nails scraping his adam's apple.
'Nice try. Your favourite move, isn't it? Your father's autopsy reports show an especially fine specimen of the throat-grab. And you did something similar to that Daughter of the American Revolution in Moroni.'
He pulled out a derringer, and shot at her heart. Her jacket exploded, and he saw blackened flesh below.
'You might be wondering why I did that?'
She was snarling now, not looking like a girl at all.
'I knew it wouldn't kill you…'
She tightened her padded pyjamas, modestly shifting the hole from blueing ribs to smooth skin.
'…it didn't even hurt you, really. You've had your nerves deadened to reduce your pain perception…'
He threw the useless gun away.
'But it did some damage, Jesse. Believe me, inside, you're leaking a little. Nothing serious. It'll clear up on its own thanks to Dr Threadneedle's micro-organisms. But you'd be well advised not to exert yourself further.'
He brushed her cheek with his toecap.
'Trust me, I'm a doctor.'
His heel slammed into her jaw, knocking her head to one side.
'Of course, my PhD. is in economics, but I have an amateur's informed interest in bio-engineering.'
She got a good hold on his ankle, but not good enough. He pulled free.
'Did that dislocate your thumbs? No, well I'm sure it hurt them a lot.'
She tucked her thumbs inside her fists, and tried to land a couple of punches on him. If they had connected, they would have broken bones and punctured organs, but he was out of the way and had made sure there would be a stone pillar where her fists landed.
'Did you know that Dr Threadneedle's experimental subjects had a 76% mental breakdown rate when he was with GenTech? Still, I'm sure he made some startling advances before opening you up.'
Jesse fell back, her knuckles bloodied, steel glinting in the ruined flesh. There were distinct imprints in the stone where she had punched.
'And that must have been very unpleasant. You know, this is an interesting approach. I'm not really killing you, I'm just seducing you into a slow, painful suicide…'
Dr Proctor knew that everyone else who had faced up to her had been too scared of her ferocity, of her bio- amendments. Too bad Threadneedle hadn't tried some of the new IQ-boost chromosomes on her greymass. If Jessamyn Bonney were intelligent, she could have been a real threat.
She went for one of his knees, and got lucky. No, he had to give her credit. She had seen an oppportunity, and taken it well.
Pain flared up, and he slowed momentarily. She got a kick into his side, and he had to dart back, out of range.
She wasn't really unintelligent, just uninformed. She hadn't even heard of him. Probably didn't follow the newsies, stuck out here in the sand. Like most of the sheep, she was going to die because she was ignorant, not because she was undeserving…
He'd been fought before. He didn't always favour helpless prey. He'd stalked and struggled with the best of them. Others had resisted more than this.
His side throbbed, and he realized she'd done better than he'd thought at first. With a cold anger, he stepped up to her, and used his elbows on her neck, face, shoulders and chest.
Again, he was out of her range before she really knew what he had done to her.
Her face was beginning to blacken.
'Some of those are ordinary bruises, but some of those are nice little pockets filling up with blood from the ruptured vessels.'
She wiped her face off with the back of her hand.
'I can mash your face against your durium skull, Jesse. That's what I'm doing. Then I'll get to your greymass through your eyesockets.'
She pulled her eyepatch off. He had wondered when she'd try that.
The red lens of the burner winked as it warmed up. He slipped his hand into his side-pocket and palmed the circular mirror.
The beam came, and he had his hand up to deflect it. The angle was off, so it didn't bounce back straight and burn the implant out, but it did pass through her hair, raising some smoke.
'Do you want to try that again? I thought not.'
He made a fist, and crushed the mirror to shards, which he rubbed into her jaw.
'Let's get some air into the wounds, Jesse. You've a pretty face. I think we can make it interesting, give it some character, a few lines here, a few holes there…'
She tried for his throat again.
'Persistent little minx, eh? I was impressed with the Dead Rat roster, by the way. Especially Rodriguez. Fingers through the eyes. I always like that one myself. Of course, I don't have bolts in my knuckles to make it easy.'
He bent under her fingerthrust.
'Takes the sport out of it, somehow.'
A stone sang against the stones beside his head. He hadn't forgotten the Indian. He wasn't relevant to this situation, but he could be a minor danger.
'Why don't you just give up, Jesse? You can't live through this day. I'll tell you what, I'll make it painless. You can't say fairer than that.'
She didn't answer him, just made a few passes in the air.
Dr Proctor felt stings on his face. And trickling blood.
'Neat. You got the glass out, and used it. You have resources.'
It was time to finish it.
XIII
Hawk-That-Settles watched Jesse fight with Dr Proctor. His contribution had been meagre, and unappreciated by either of the participants.
Overhead, the sun had stopped moving. That was the signal. Now, it was his part in the ritual.
He drew a circle in the sand…
Dr Proctor got a hold on Jesse, forcing her down.
…he sang the song of the moon and the crocodile once more.
A cloud appeared in the sky, a black dot above the horizon, burping upwards.
Jesse's face was in the sand, which blew away from the flagstones beneath. She was coughing. Dr Proctor had one hand at the back of her neck, the other free. She was pinned beneath his body. He was scientifically killing her.
The cloud came through the sky like a bird of prey. It seemed to grow bigger as it got nearer. It didn't look like
