Chapter 28: Down the Rabbit HoleI’ve never read ‘Ali Wondernd’ but that Alice girl, as she tumbled down the rabbit hole, must’ve felt a bit like I did norehensive, slightly overwhelmed and, were she to admit it to herself, just a touch excited. However, I kept my attention on K. She seemed different somehow: a little less sure of herself, or maybe just softer around the edges, rexed. Was this another disguise?

  Doctor Jonathes waited for us when the elevator shuddered to a stop. He was short--just a little shorter than me in heels--but thickly built with broad features, thick lips, a ft nose and an amazing shock of wildly dishevelled red hair. His arms thrust out of a white b coat that seemed two sizes too small for him. His fingers were short and stubby but twitched in stant motion, and presently he jabbed his hand at me iing.

  “David, right? So you’re Katherine’s new project, eh?” he said, giving me a crushingly firm handshake. I met his grip with one of equal strength. His dark eyes glittered with amusement and pleasure. If he was at all put off at seeing me dressed like some sophomore tart, he gave no indication. Instead, he stomped away down the passage, making a jerky arm gesture which I could only assume meant we should follow.

  “I’m sure you’re all tired.” He spoke over his shoulder as he led the way. The passage showed none of the aesthetic design of the rest of the ic: these tunnels were bare crete, the ceiling writhing with exposed cabling and piping that snaked into the darkness ahead, and the walls bulged with eleic boxes and access paneling. “So we’ll make this quibsp; This is the Asclepieion. Fet all that nonsense upstairs. liness! Medie! Ha!

  “This is our temple of knowledge and medie--this is where the real stuff in the ic takes pbsp; But you’ve never been here, got it, girlie? Never even heard of it. Yes?”

  I shrugged. “Yeah, sure.”

  “Good. : I don’t care why you’re here. She--,” again his arm jerked, this time in K’s dire--“vouched for you, and that’s good enough for me.”

  He stopped at a metal door set ione wall and quickly punched a code into a keypad. “And if you like dressing in drag, that’s your business,” he tinued. A red light turned green and the dave a jerk. He pushed it open on creaky hinges.

  “Hey waitasec,” I protested. “I don’t like. . . .”

  “None of my business,” he repeated, leading us into a small room. “Now strip.”

  “Hey . . . what?” The room was lit by a flickering florest tube overhead. Sickly green paint fked away in the ers. Every free piece of wall space seemed jammed and cluttered with equipment of all size and shapes, some jostling for room on a variety of tables and stands, others bolted to the wall by heavy steel studs. A medical examination bed sat trally, and a desk overflowing with paper and charts stood shoved up against the wall. A puter s flickered to life as the doade a few twitchy pokes at the keyboard.

  “Strip,” he said without looking babsp; “As in ‘take your clothes off.’ You speak English, right? It’s time for your check-up. Now this is the thing, David. And that’s the st time I’m going to call you by that name, got it? Not that I expect we’ll meet often. As long as you’re at the Asklepios ic, you are dy Belmy. I don’t care how, I don’t care why. But you are dy.

  “See here?” He poi the s. I had a glimpse of a wire-frame map that I quickly reized as the route K and I had taken through the Hygieia underground. Some highlighted red dots along the path pulsed slowly. A sed windht up an image of a fingerprint--presumably mine--ao it a still-frame image of dy pg her hand against the panel.

  “These are your prints, and the system registered you using them here, here, and here,” he said, tapping each point on the s. He hit a few keys, and the fingerprint image shifted. “These are your new prints. Every time you toue of the biometric pads, the system will s in these records instead of your real ones. If anyone raids the security logs—unlikely, but better safe than sort, right?—looking for the prints of David Saunders, they’ll find nothing. Same for visuals: eyes, facial reition, whatever, we’re sing ia we have on file for dy Belmy wherever you go in the ic.

  “dy’s been put up in a nice private room.” His eyes flicked over to K. “She’ll be catered to and taken care of for the duration of her stay, with the same quality of service we extend to all the other rid sick idiots up there. The Asklepios ic will do everything it to expedite her healing and assist in her departure.” His voice sounded like he was repeating something by rote. “With the usual discretion, of course. Yeah? That’ll do?”

  “Yes, Jon, that will do.”

  “Good.” His eyes flicked bae. “What, you’re not naked yet?”

  “Easy, Chief,” I said levelly. “Slow down.”

  “The name’s Jonathon,” he said. “She call me Jon. You call me Doctor. Got it?”

  “Yeah, sure, doc, whatever you say.”

  “Doctor,” he repeated, eyes glittering. “Not Doc.”

  “Listen, buddy,” I said. “I’ve had a rough coup days. I’m wearing a fug skirt and I’ve got a fake t glued over my cobsp; I’m bloody tired, my feet are killing me, and I’ve just been dragged into what looks like, near as I tell, the secret underground ir of a mad stist, so if you don’t mind I think I’ll skip the goddamn formalities. I’ll call you Scooter if the fug mood takes me, got it? Especially if you think I’m gonna drop my skirt just because you tell me to.”

  The bastard ughed. “Mad stist! I like that!” His eyes flicked over to K. “You were right, she does have quite the mouth on her, eh?” Wheurned bae his smile was gone. “Listen, I like you. You’ve got spunk. But I want you to be very, very clear on this very important point. This is my facility. You are here at my sufferance.

  “If she’s brought you here, dressed like that, it’s because you’re in a lot of trouble. And you better appreciate that she’s cashed in some pretty hefty favours for me to take you in.” I gnced aside at K but her eyes revealed nothing. “This facility is not some kind of ir. We are not mad stists, nor is our work illegal. But it is secretive and hiding someone like you here puts our work in serious jeopardy. It’s a massive professional risk for me. And more to the point, I will not have this facility or the people who work here unnecessarily pced in danger.”

  “Someone like me?”

  “The kinds of people she brings us,” he said, and jerked a thumb towards K. “Are usually involved with very unpleasant people.”

  I couldn’t disagree with him there.

  “So, this is the deal. You do what I say and you don’t ask questions. You act like the best little dy you be and stay out of trouble. The i help you with the first; you damn well better take care of the sed.

  “But most of all,” he said, and jabbed oubby finger hard in my chest, “you show me the respect I’m due. You uand, girlie?”

  Believe me, I had to fight back the suddeation to grab that fucker’s finger and show him a thing or two about respebsp; I’ve got a real problem with authority sometimes. I deal with people telling me what to do. I holy . But l their power over me? No way.

  But I’m not stupid. My employment at NeoPharm would’ve been really bloody short if I hadn’t held back every time some dipshit maook on airs and told me to do something idiotibsp; And this Jonathon guy, he wasn’t an idiot. I could tell that in an instant. I didn’t pick up any kind of bad vibe from the guy, but a person would have to walk a very fine lih him. Back down too easily and you’d lose his resped he’d walk all over you; push too hard and you’d have an enemy you wouldn’t want to cross. Especially here, on his home turf.

  I gnced aside at K and she seemed rather amused by the little discussioween the doctor and me. Again I wondered what she’d doo get a guy like him, running a pce like this, in her pocket. There was no point in beb the point.

  “Yeah, I uand,” I said, and hopped up on the bed. I pulled the sweater off over my head, revealing the corseted glories beh. “So where you wanna start, Scooter?”

  He gred at me, but the er of his mouth twitched with a barely repressed smile. “Just strip, will you?” he said, and walked away to have a few quiet words with K. I got to work on my clothes. Bloody hell, but esg from those feminine fines on my own was a chore in itself. Women have a hell of a lot more buckles and straps and hard-to-reach csps and zippers and buttons to tend with. I knew bondage-inspired fashion was in vogue these day, but fuck me I never expected to be on the receiving end of the trend. At some point the doctor wandered back over, and his impatient mumbling, as I struggled to strip down to my panties, suddenly twisted into an appreciate whistle. His eyes widened as those massive parasites ging to my chest swung free.

  “Hey, they’re not real,” I insisted.

  He barely seemed to hear me. “Amazing,” he said, and before I k his hands were glued to my chest. He felt for a seam where those things met my flesh and found none. “Remarkable,” he added, hefting one in his hand and finding the weight and feel almost indistinguishable from the real thing. “Responsive?” he queried, flig a thumb across the nipple.

  “Yes, fug responsive,” I snapped, spping his hand away. Believe me, I wao do a hell of a lot more than just sp the pervert. Ever sihose boobs were stu to me people seem to feel this incredible o ogle and py with the goddamn things.

  He gnced aside at K. “NeoPharm?”

  She nodded. “A ret acquisition.”

  “Those bastards,” he said, voice scored with grudging respebsp; He brought his head eye-level with the breasts and grabbed hold once again, this time kneading and squeezing. “The syic simution is incredible.” I looked over his mess of fiery hair and shot an angry gre at K. She grinned.

  “Enjoying yourself?” she asked.

  Bridges grunted an affirmative as I grumbled, “No!”

  He looked up at me. “You feel my touch?”

  “Yes, I feel your touch,” I ground out through ched teeth. His touch was doing nothing for me. K’s tender ministrations the night before had brought those fuck-udders to life in a way that still had me a little apprehensive. The doctor’s touch was rough and rude and embarrassing. He was starting to royally piss me off.

  The man shook his head in disbelief as both nipples tightened beh his gaze. “The respoterning is truly stunning.” He gnced aside at K. “They finally got to Ghum Khalid, didn’t they?”

  She nodded. “Through his daughter.”

  “I k. Those bastards. Khalid’s a genius in his field.” He looked up as I jerked beh his toubsp; “You okay?”

  “No,” I said, though a little distractedly. Ghum—I khe name from somewhere; why? Meanwhile, a gentle prompt from K urged him to begin the examination proper. He quickly went through the usual routines, poking and prodding away as he maintained a quid steady stream of verbal diarrhoea. When he went to listen with his stethoscope it took a few not-so-subtle remio keep him from returning to another examination of those goddams of mine.

  Obviously we skipped the ‘turn-and-cough’ part of the check-up. sidering how he flipped out over the breasts, no way was I going to let him start prodding away at my syic pussy. Finally he focussed on the bruising localised on my right side. Over the st two days the bruising has settled into a nice, purpled blotch, yellowed at the tre, darkening and then fading towards the edges. With ge stant pressure he pressed along my ribs, all of them, eventually reag my damaged side.

  “Does this hurt?” he asked, pressing lightly.

  “Uh,” I grunted. “Yeah.”

  “How badly? 1-10.”

  “5,” I said. He moved along and pressed again. I released a low hiss of pain. “7.”

  Nodding, he had me stand and walk to one side of the room. I wasn’t sure when K had stepped out of the room, but I ’t deny I felt a little self-scious, padding across a cool crete floor wearing nothing but a pair of cy panties, naked breasts bobbily with each step, left in the pany of some pervert doctor I barely knew. He barely seemed to notice me, though, poking spasmodically at some buttons. Some of the equipment along the wall folded out aended paneling and a module he assured me was for taking X-rays. A few chest-level clicks ter and Bridges checked out the images on his puter.

  He what he saw. “Fractures,” he said. “Two ribs. Painful?”

  “Only when I take a deep breath. Or lie on my back.”

  “Then don’t lie on your babsp; Especially with that extra weight on your chest. Best you do is sleep on your side--the hurt side. It might hurt a bit more but it’s safer for your lungs.” He rummaged around in a draulled out a small, nondescript brown pstic bottle. He flipped them my way and I snatched the bottle from the air. “Painkillers,” he said. “Strong stuff, long-sting. Take one every eight hours or so. There’s enough there to st your stay.”

  I stared at the bottle dubiously. Like I said, I’m not big s. “That’s it?”

  He shrugged. “Normally I’d bind your side for the week, but if yoing to be wearing that bloody thing,” he said, waving towards the discarded corset, “it’ll do pretty much the same thing.” He shook his head. “I really don’t see why you types like wearing that stuff so much.”

  “I told you,” I insisted, “I don’t like. . . .”

  “Not my business,” he cut me off. “As for your ribs, all you do is wait and heal. It should take four, five weeks before everything’s knit up nid solid again. eed that up a bit, but not by much.” He stared off into the distance for a moment, pting. “Slow, isn’t it?” His eyes danced sideways to me. “ you imagine if we had a way to stitch you up ht?” Sched and shook his head. “Now . . . how about you get yourself dressed so we all get some sleep, eh?”