‘I hope you’ve not been stealing anything, E-1031,’ Kessler continued. ‘Because Millmoor doesn’t approve of stealing. Years on your days, that can be. I’ll check, shall I?’
Rough hands pawed at Luke’s limbs, patting down the overalls, tugging at pockets. Just when he thought it was over, the guard pincered Luke’s chin between finger and thumb, forcing his mouth open.
‘I like to do a thorough job,’ Kessler said, thrusting the index and middle fingers of his other hand into Luke’s mouth. Luke gagged, and as saliva welled in his mouth he tasted soap and sharp antiseptic. Were Kessler’s hands the only clean thing in Millmoor?
Kessler pulled out his fingers and wiped them down the front of Luke’s boilersuit.
‘Looks like you’ve been a good boy, E-1031. But it was careless of you to trip and fall while moving around the Machine Park. That can be dangerous in a place like this.’
‘Trip?’ Luke croaked, anger welling up as nausea ebbed. ‘You hit me, you bastard.’ He coughed, hoping for a bit of bile to take away the taste of Kessler in his mouth.
‘You tripped,’ repeated Kessler. ‘Clearly you need a little lesson on being more careful in future.’
The baton reared up, light flaring along its length.
It can kill, Luke remembered, in an instant. Blunt force trauma can kill, if the brain swells.
But the blow struck lower. Luke heard something – several things – crack, and gasped. He inhaled knives. Saw needles.
Blacked out.
When he came to, the antiseptic smell was still there. But on opening his eyes, Kessler was nowhere to be seen. Luke had been dumped in a chair in the corner of what looked like a medical waiting room.
The core of his body was one jagged mass of pain, as if all his organs had been taken out and replaced by broken glass. He leaned forward unsteadily and threw up again on the floor. There wasn’t much of it this time, and it was pinkish. Spotted with red. It was hard to breathe.
‘How did this happen?’
A voice nearby. Low. Angry.
A shape squatted down at Luke’s side and a palm reached up to his forehead. Luke cringed away, but there was nowhere to go.
The touch was cool, the hand gentle, and Luke let his head sag forward against it with a sob of relief.
‘I’m Doctor Jackson, and I want you to try and stand,’ the voice said. ‘Don’t think about it hurting, and maybe it won’t. Come with me.’
And unbelievably, Luke found that he could. Leaning on the medic’s white-coated arm, moving as if someone had just added a nought onto his age, he shuffled down the corridor. The doctor led him into a small room and directed him to lean against a gurney.
‘I’m going to take a look at you. I’ll be as careful as I can. May I?’
He gestured towards the buttons on Luke’s overalls, and Luke nodded. He studied the man, to distract himself from the agony that was surely coming. The medic had a short-sided haircut and a neat beard. His face was tanned, and laughter lines at the corner of his eyes stood out pale against his skin. ‘Jackson J-3646’ was embroidered in blue on the breast pocket of his coat. He looked almost too young to be a doctor.
He must have started his days straight after uni, Luke decided. Abi had told him that wasn’t unheard of among medical graduates with more ambition than scruples. You’d be thrown in at the deep end in the slavetowns and acquire loads of experience, with nobody minding too much about any mistakes.
But this guy knew what he was doing. His hands lightly pulled up Luke’s T-shirt, carefully lifted his hair for a look at his skull. With each press of fingers Luke anticipated a detonation of agony, but all that came was a dull throbbing.
‘Let me guess,’ the doctor said, letting the cotton drop back over Luke’s middle. ‘Workplace accident. You tripped and fell. Right onto something shaped like, oh, a Security baton?’
Startled, Luke glanced at the doctor’s face. Was this a trap? Careful, Luke.
Maybe this Jackson was Kessler’s pal. Did the smiling medic patch up all of the Security man’s ‘little lessons’, keeping them hush?
‘Workplace accident,’ Luke agreed. Jackson frowned.
‘Of course it was. And I’ll tell you what: it’s not nearly as bad as it must feel. I think you hit your head on the way down, which sent your neural pathways into a state of hypersensitivity. But it’s nothing I can’t fix with some heavy-duty analgesics. Wait a sec.’
Jackson turned away to rummage in a mirror-fronted cabinet.
The doc was right: Luke already felt much better than he had on coming round in the waiting room. He’d thought Kessler had pulverized a few of his ribs, but when he risked a look at his midriff, all he could see was livid bruising. That made sense, in a twisted sort of way. Kessler couldn’t go round beating people half to death. Slaves might be chattels of the state, but that didn’t mean sadistic Security guards could just break them. Kessler must have known exactly what he was doing, landing every blow for maximum agony and minimum actual injury.
Jackson turned back with a fat tub of ointment. As he smeared it lightly across Luke’s abdomen, the last of the pain lifted away. Luke wanted to cry with relief, and spluttered his thanks.
‘No problem,’ said Jackson, straightening up and looking Luke in the eye. ‘Least I could do for the friend of a friend.’
And there went Luke’s heart again, leaping against his not-busted-after-all ribcage. What did the doc mean? Luke didn’t have any friends in Millmoor, just a mute work partner, a former school acquaintance, and a barely teenage taskmaster.