the slanting light from beyond the exit was touching it. People around Kendrick stared on in unbelieving horror, like lambs who were catching their first glimpse of the slaughterhouse.
A few months later, Kendrick could only wish that he'd had as much sense and courage as Marco.
14 October 2096 Edinburgh
Kendrick woke to bright morning light. He mumbled a word to the windowscreen and a series of numerals appeared as grey shadows superimposed on the opaque glass.
He should leave before Caroline woke, he thought. He hauled himself up from the thin sheets she'd given him and padded barefoot into the kitchen before he became aware that she'd already left.
The door to her bedroom lay open and he peeked inside. Very gone. One dream in particular had been astonishingly vivid and, strangely uncertain how much of it actually had been a dream, he re-entered the living room.
He'd dreamed that he had opened his eyes to see Caroline standing just beyond the couch he lay on. In the dream, the windowscreen was no longer opaque: pale moonlight outlined her naked form, and her head tilted back to stare beyond the slate rooftops of the city.
Wreathed in shadows, she had looked like some half-imagined goddess yearning for a way back home into the sky. And then she had turned and looked at him, and he had tumbled into the deep abyss of her eyes, as if falling through eternity…
He shook his head. Just a dream.
A little over half an hour later, Kendrick stepped outside into bright sunshine. A bitterly chill wind rattled through the sparse trees that broke through cobblestones up and down the street. His taxi rolled up right on time and he slid into its warm, driverless interior, making it to the Clinic a few minutes early.
The building was located in the Morningside area, a three-storey pile of nineteenth-century granite set behind black-painted iron railings. The plaque on the wall next to the front door identified it as home to a data- archaeology firm – all an elaborate cover story.
As Kendrick climbed the half-dozen steps to the front entrance, his enhanced senses warned him that his retinas were being scanned. A few seconds later the door clicked open with a solid thunk.
As he stepped inside, the building felt as curiously empty as on every other occasion he'd visited here. There were no pictures adorning the walls, and the hallway floor consisted only of bare, unvarnished floorboards. A winding staircase situated at the far end led both up and down. Apart from the hallway itself, Kendrick had only ever seen the basement. He reined in his curiosity, knowing that in the circles in which men like Hardenbrooke moved the less anyone else knew of their activities, the better. Such caution was wise, since the treatments and drugs that Hardenbrooke dealt in were stunningly illegal.
Kendrick found his way downstairs, keeping one hand on the black varnished banister as he descended into the basement. He spotted Hardenbrooke at the far end of a long, wide room, crouched over a crumpled eepsheet monitor tacked onto a slant-top desk. Other eepsheets were pinned up on the bare, whitewashed walls, all showing variations on the same X-ray-like image of a human body, a variety of clearly non-biological components highlighted in primary shades of red and blue. As he got closer, Kendrick realized that the images were of his own internal organs.
Hardenbrooke turned and stepped towards him, smiling. 'Sure no one followed you here?' he asked, taking Kendrick by the arm and gently guiding him to an adjustable leather couch in the centre of the big room. Hardenbrooke's badly scarred face twisted up in a parody of a smile; from just above the right ear and extending below the neck of his shirt, one side of his features had the look of melted plastic. Around the ear itself the flesh was hairless and smooth.
Kendrick climbed onto the leather couch and waited while Hardenbrooke hovered over a wheeled aluminium trolley loaded with a variety of medical instruments, all neatly laid out on antiseptic paper. 'No,' Kendrick finally responded, after running his journey to Morningside from Caroline's flat through his head. 'Is there some problem?'
'Just professional paranoia. A black-market clinic in Glasgow got raided last week – didn't you hear about it?'
'Maybe.' A snatch of news footage flickered across Kendrick's mind's eye. 'You're worried about that happening here?'
'Sometimes I reckon it's more a case of 'when' than 'if'. I'm not casting any aspersions on your good character, of course,' Hardenbrooke assured him with a flicker of a smile. 'It's just-'
'Sure, I understand. But there wasn't anyone following me.' Kendrick made sure to catch the man's eye as he said this. 'Listen, I'm not just here for the regular treatments. Last night I suffered two seizures in a row, plus…' He shook his head and sighed. 'Look, I need you to check out my heart.'
Hardenbrooke raised one and a half eyebrows. Something about the man's scars made it hard to determine his age. What little Kendrick knew about him extended only as far as Hardenbrooke's claim to be a survivor of the LA Nuke. Beyond that, the professional nature of their relationship precluded any personal knowledge about each other. Yet they were partners in crime as much as they were doctor and patient, and Kendrick had been paying Hardenbrooke a lot of money for a series of treatments that had so far proved surprisingly effective.
Nonetheless, over recent months some other details of the medic's history had filtered through, giving Kendrick an opportunity to fill in some of the blanks.
'Two seizures? Last night?' Hardenbrooke echoed. 'You should have contacted me immediately.' His tone was admonishing.
'I know I should. But I'm here now.'
The medic went over to a metal desk and pulled a drawer open, rummaging around inside, then stepped back holding an old-fashioned stethoscope in his hands as he fitted the earpieces into his melted-plastic ears. Motioning Kendrick to pull his T-shirt up, Hardenbrooke pressed the icy-cold metal disc against his chest and listened. Kendrick watched a look of consternation spread across that part of Hardenbrooke's face still capable of registering emotion.
Then Hardenbrooke stood up straight. 'Let's come to an agreement,' he said. 'When I say call me if something happens, then call me instantly. Anything that looks like a setback, just call me. Otherwise you're making it a lot harder for me to help you. Is that clear?'
'Absolutely.' Kendrick nodded. 'I'm sorry,' he added. 'I was just a little-'
'I understand.' Hardenbrooke paused, then, 'I'll be frank, Mr Gallmon, technically you should be dead.'
A look of alarm crossed Kendrick's face. 'Hang on there.' Hardenbrooke raised a finger. 'What I'm saying is, this is something I've never even heard about before, even among Labrats with totally runaway augmentation growth. This, Mr Gallmon, is unique. I need you to tell me everything you can before we go any further.'
Well, maybe not everything, Kendrick thought as he began. 'There were… hallucinations, a little like before.' He outlined some of the details. Hardenbrooke was already familiar with the visions of butterfly-winged children.
'Anything else?'
Kendrick thought of Peter McCowan. But the ghost – wasn't there a better word? – had warned him against Hardenbrooke. Was that just some figment of Kendrick's own anxieties?
But then, figments of one's imagination didn't necessarily give out warnings about bombs in suitcases either. Seeing men who'd been dead for years – that was something Kendrick was more than willing to keep to himself for the moment.
'That's it: I collapsed twice, I saw things, and my heart stopped working.' He laughed nervously. 'Nothing unusual, really.'
'Look, you have to remember your augmentations are-'
'Inherently unpredictable,' Kendrick finished for him. 'I know.'
