The Variant Effect: PAINKILLER by G. Wells Taylor Read Free Book Online Page B

morphine still warmed his soul.
     
     

CHAPTER 10
     
    “This way!” the strange woman cried, pulling
Borland by the arm. He was dizzy. His vision blurred as his arms
and legs wobbled, felt like they might collapse. But there was
miraculous, drug-induced energy flowing through him as he sprang
along after her, blithely medicated, giggling about the coppery
cold air that tickled his torso and thighs.
    His mind reeled with vertigo, spun slowly
forward like he would fall out of his head.
    They pushed past another set of doors and ran
to the elevator as its doors slid open on a nurse inside. She
looked at Borland’s bloody clothing, shrieked and fell back,
sliding against the far wall of the elevator as Borland’s ‘rescuer’
slashed and stabbed the air with her scalpel.
    The terrified nurse hit a crowd of buttons on
the far panel and the doors in that side of the compartment slid
apart. She rolled ungracefully backwards into a white-lit hall full
of shelves and supplies.
    “Out!” the strange woman barked, launching a
kick at the air behind the fleeing nurse who stumbled to her feet
and fell into a shelf full of equipment. There was a crash of
shattering glass.
    “That’ll teach her!” Borland shouted.
    Then the strange woman grabbed Borland’s arm
and pulled him into the elevator. He lost his balance and slammed
into the corner. His face rang off a thick stainless steel railing,
smashed against fake veneer.
    He struggled on his knees laughing as his
rescuer punched the ‘close door’ button beside her, and both sides
of the elevator slid shut.
    Borland pressed against the tingling wet
bulge under his smock as the woman slapped another button. The
floor lurched and the elevator started to climb.
    Borland was chortling wetly. He pushed off
the wall with one hand while the other cradled his bloody gut. A
deep throb cut through him but faded in a fog of painkiller.
    “Hey! You’re pretty good,” he said and then
chuckled. The morphine and Ativan were still coursing through his
system, annihilating his pain and anxiety before it could reach his
brain. “Is it the centipede?”
    “What do you know about centipede?” she
asked, eyes round with disbelief.
    But Borland’s attention had shifted down to
the blood that soaked the front of his smock. He opened one of the
ties to investigate the damage beneath and his hands found the numb
edges of a gaping five-inch incision.
    “Oh,” he said, and chuckled. “That’s really,
really bad, lady!” He looked at the woman as she stared at the
lighted numbers over the door. “There must be some real
trouble.”
    “You don’t know how lucky you are.” She gave
a serious half-smile and reached out, patting the back of his
bloody hand where it covered his open wound.
    “I got to you in time,” she said and then
shifted the scalpel to her left hand as she reached behind her and
pulled a gun from where it was wedged in the waistband of her
pants. Borland recognized the .9mm; it was made of ceramic. A
serious piece of hardware—professionals used it: detectives,
military police, even Variant Squad Lieutenants.
    Take your pick lady, who are you ?
    The woman winced as she cocked the weapon,
remembering that she had fresh injuries too, but was running
without Borland’s morphine.
    He laughed thinking about it. Of course, he
didn’t have her sutures. He giggled.
    We’re screwed!
    “What’s the plan?” Borland asked, probing the
bloody edges of his surgical opening with his fingers. Then his
attention fell back to her gun.
    And he asked: “Who do you work for?”
    “Lots of people, and nobody ,” she
growled and glanced fearfully left and right as the elevator
shuddered.
    “Oh, like black ops?” Borland said, comically
calm. Blood was seeping down his chest, and he was starting to feel
nauseous. “The army? The Feds?” Then he snapped his fingers.
“ You’re with the police?”
    She nodded solemnly. “I used to be...”
    The elevator stopped and the woman