I wasn’t buying the bitch’s getup. Offworlders didn’t need glasses. They didn’t gray. And their skin didn’t wrinkle into crow’s-feet. This whole pseudo-schoolmarm look of hers was nothing but a bullshit attempt to make herself look doctorly.
She was a fake. Offworlders were all fakes, changing their looks on a whim, shifting and morphing. Chameleons.
“You cut my hand off without asking me. You’re a butcher.”
She brushed my complaint away with a swipe of her hand. “I’m going to attach an artificial hand for you. I picked out something special.”
“I want to see it.”
“And ruin the surprise? No. I don’t do work to order. I’m an artist. Don’t worry, when I’m finished with you, I guarantee you’ll be thankful.”
“She’s right,” said Maria. “She does amazing work.”
I was not a canvas. I had to get out of here now. “Untie me.”
She acquiesced with a nod and started unbuckling. “Do you know how lucky you are that Maria brought you to me instead of one of those filthy hospitals?”
Somebody appeared in the doorway, a teenaged boy with milky eyes on chocolate skin. “Would you like some tea, Doctor?”
The doctor’s head snapped around to look at him. “Can’t you see I’m busy?”
He bowed his head and blinked his cataract eyes. “My apologies.” He walked away.
She turned back to me, her eyes rolling behind her glasses. “That boy has a lot to learn if he thinks he’s going to make it as my houseboy.”
Maria asked, “Can you fix his eyes?”
“Not if he doesn’t learn how to follow directions.”
She undid the straps. I breathed easier and easier with each uncoupling, and I sat up as soon as the last strap slithered off.
“Hold out your arm so I can change your dressing.”
I had my arm pulled in tight, hugged to my body. I didn’t trust her. I had to get out of here.
Maria gave me the eye. The doctor made a don’t-keep-me-waiting face. “You need fresh bandages. The wound has to stay clean or the rot will set in.”
The rot had taken my mother.
Reluctantly, I lifted my half-arm and let her start unraveling. I watched the layers peel off, steeling myself for my new reality. The last bandage fell free. My hand was gone, an empty space where it should be.
I raised my arm. It had a cap on the end, some kind of thick, plastic-like substance that sealed the wound, a dozen or more vinelike tendrils holding it on.
She was going to give me a new hand? A hand of her choice.
Fuck that.
I had to get out of here.
I held my arm out straight. It held steady. Didn’t shake anymore.
I could deal. I was plenty used to having only one good hand.
I could fucking deal.
With my mind made up, I sat still and let the doctor dress my arm with a fresh set of bandages. When she finished, I made my intentions clear. “Pull the IV. I’m leaving.”
“Not until I take measurements for your new hand.”
“Pull it.”
Maria tried to intercede. “You’re not thinking straight. She’s a great doctor. The best.”
I looked the doctor in the eye. I wanted to enjoy this. “She’s a hack. Tit jobs and robo-snatches. Artist, my ass. Real doctors cure the sick.”
The hack glared at me, cheeks burning, eyes smoldering, her carefully constructed doctor’s face not so doctorly anymore.
I held my left arm up and nodded at the IV. “Pull it.”
“Fine. Be a cripple.” She reached over my torso to my left arm and yanked the IV tube like she was starting a cheap outboard. I didn’t feel it. I could get used to this no-pain thing.
Maria watched the doctor go out the door before she got in my face. “What’s wrong with you?”
I nudged her back with my left and stood. A bead of blood formed on my arm where the needle had been.
“I’m going to kill you if you screwed this up for me.”
The drop broke loose and I swiped it away with my… my stump.
I was in my underwear. “Where are my clothes?”
“They were stained. I threw them away. Sit down and think it through.”
“Shoes?”
“Under the bed.”
I used my toes to pull them out one at a time and slipped them on. “My money and my gun?”
“In the drawer. Listen, why don’t you wait here while I go buy you a set of whites. It’ll give you a chance to think.”
I didn’t want to think. I wanted to leave before that bitch doctor cut off another part of me.
I walked out the door. Maria’s voice sounded behind me. “You can’t go out in your underwear.”
Looking left, I spotted the houseboy. “Where’s the exit?”
He pointed to a set of steps.
I took them down and threw open the door at the bottom. Greeted by a blast of party noise, I moved into the street, a jungle breeze kissing my skin, clouds of O smoke wafting on the black air. Music blared from a dozen open doorways, the combined sound mixing and mashing into a pulsing cacophony. The street was filled with a large herd of offworld kids bucking and braying.
Bangkok Street.
I refused to be bothered by the strange looks coming my way. I spotted a clothes counter down the way and made straight for it. As I cut through the herd like a wounded lion, everybody gave me plenty of room.
I glanced to my right. Maria’s big hair had fallen in lockstep with me.
Wearing more bandages than clothes, I stepped up to the counter. “Whites,” I said to the kid who had watched me approach with saucer eyes. He grabbed hold of a pincer device and used it to reach for some pants that sat on a high shelf behind a crowd of cheap BIG SLEEP ’89 T-shirts.
A full-length mirror stood between the counter and the dressing curtain. I forced myself to take a look. Bronze skin overrun by an unhealthy gray, like I’d been rolled in ash. I’d lost a lot of weight, my underwear hanging loose around my pelvis. When was the last time I could see my ribs?
A dead tree with a bough sawed off. That was what I was.
The kid tossed aside the pair of pants he’d pulled down after checking the size. “Too big.”
I looked at Maria, a frown on her face.
“What?” I asked, innocent-like.
“You better not have screwed things up for me.”
“I wouldn’t let that woman touch my sister.”
“Don’t you get it? She’s an offworlder. The local doctors can’t do the shit she does.”
“She’s a hack, and I won’t be her lab rat.”
“Dammit, Juno, she was going to help you. I got you a deal.”
“Who asked you?”
Anger flared in those mascara-lined eyes. “Who asked me? I saved your damn life.”
She was right. Without her, I would’ve bled out on the sweatshop floor. As unsure as I was that being saved was a good thing, I had to admit she’d tried to be a friend. For that I should show some respect. “You’re right. Sorry.” I cranked up the sincerity in my gaze until she acknowledged the apology with a smirk of acceptance.
The kid passed me a pair of white linen pants. I set my piece on the table, took hold of the waistband with my left, and shook out the folds. I slipped in a leg. “Were you following me?”
“Remember those two guys who came looking for you? I was worried they might be waiting for you outside,
