The Variant Effect: PAINKILLER (2 page)

But Borland knew his first years of service
back in the day had enough uncomfortable truths and rumors attached
to warrant some suspicion if not outright disdain or hostility.

Never get a break
.

He winced as he hefted his bags and turned.
The action brought a hard and painful tug from his hernias.

Borland stood where the flattened wheelchair
curb led up to a short sidewalk that crossed a narrow lawn to the
front of the building.

It didn’t look like much. But that was a
trick of the eye.

He knew from the website that the Shomberg
Clinic was a sprawling complex of hospital rooms, dining areas and
operating theaters hidden behind a ‘false front’ like the fake
western streets in movie studio backlots.

This false front consisted of a main door and
entrance arranged center to a set of four 30-foot pillars holding a
paneled cupola that bore a spotlight pointed at the sidewalk. This
would shine down where the circular drive met the walk. The
driveway formed a tight oval around a bricked–in strip of grass
bearing three crowded flower gardens.

The gardens reminded Borland of corsages.

The doorway and cupola were set on a large
white-paneled building with black shuttered windows. It resembled a
large house, its gaudy entrance crowded by tall thick cedars. All
of it was intended to evoke a colonial country charm but managed to
remind Borland of a southern Civil War plantation house, slaves and
secrets. A closer look showed him fake cedar shingle over aluminum
siding, and false masonry glued to concrete.

Nothing old under the sun
.

Coming in the drive, he’d already noticed the
willows, blue spruce and pines that towered in groups around the
property; giving the grounds a country club feel.

Paused before the entrance now, Borland could
hear the unnerving repetitive action of many sprinklers:
Hiss.
Ssskin. Skin. Skin. Skin. Click. Hiss. Skin. Skin. Skin
...

Everywhere water spurted or sprayed from
spigots and sprinklers. A small army of people in blue coveralls
tended the plumbing, moved about the grass and spring gardens with
purpose.

On both sides of the winding drive coming in,
Borland had seen sections and segments of brownstone wall
construction with cedars and gardens hugging them tight. The
fortifications suggested a maze, defense and battle.

And confusion
.

Unless it signified a war on hernias? That
was all they did at the Shomberg Clinic: eradicate the scourge of
ruptured abdomens.

Borland managed to chuckle at that, was sure
he would have laughed if he wasn’t sober. He couldn’t drink before
the operation.

That was the deal.

And the hard part
.

His face drooped into a frown as he hefted
his bags and walked toward the entrance.

CHAPTER 3

A pair of middle-aged nurses with throaty,
heavy smokers’ voices scowled at Borland after taking his name,
then they ordered him to have a seat in the waiting room.

He hesitated to give them a glower of his
own.

What’s your Goddamn problem
?

He crossed the carpet and paused at the open
doors of the waiting room to frown at the crowded couches and
chairs—hoping his toxic expression would free him from doing more
than sitting quietly and waiting for his turn with the hernia
doctors.

Borland resented the Joe Anybody approach but
he’d already messed up his first
exclusive
crack at it, and
he didn’t want to—check that, couldn’t
blow
it again.

One short week before, Borland showed up
drunk for his appointment and the doctor that Brass had arranged
for his pre-op wouldn’t touch him in that state. When the sawbones
asked Borland to leave and he refused, a couple of burly orderlies
dragged him out. They’d been nice about it, like the doctor gave
them a wink or something—but the bulls deposited Borland on a bench
at the curb and called a taxi for him.

He’d only meant to have a couple blasts to
take the edge off. After all, it wasn’t much more than a month
after Parkerville and he was still feeling shaky with nightmares
full of panic, spooks—and zombies now.

Ssskin
. Let it go.
Get past
it
.

Night terrors were old hat, it was the day
terrors that he couldn’t get used to.

That’s why you’re a Captain and they’re
not
.

The Variant Effect was on the rise again.
Simple as that. He didn’t believe Brass’ projections that
presentations were gradually tapering off, and he knew that
maintaining a cordon around Parkerville was just a show for the
media.

Variant was already in Metro
.

Borland knew how it worked. The Variant
Effect came out of the shadows, explosively. One minute, it was on
the decline, the next you had presentations everywhere. And with a
new hybrid on the loose, anything could happen.

Knowing that, it was understandable that he
needed a drink before he’d let some stranger handle his testicles
in a building full of scalpels. That was part of the reason Brass
had arranged his surgery at the Shomberg Clinic. It had an almost
perfect record going back long before the day, and was the favorite
of armies, law enforcement and athletes. It wasn’t state-of-the-art
in hernia repair, it was the art with only a one percent failure
rate.

Safest place in the world to get it done.

So why are you worried?

Borland slapped a hand against the ornately
molded doorframe and glared at the assembled guests, some rookies
and others he knew would be veterans either getting old scars
checked or new holes plugged. You could tell by the look. Anyone
showing confidence either wasn’t about to have his groin cut open,
or he’d had it done before.

Most everybody looked nervous as hell. Family
too, he guessed, and friends were packed into the large waiting
area looking put out.

Then he realized with some chagrin that his
eyes had lingered too long on a wrinkled old face—fat jowls
sagging—white brows clenched over furious blue eyes.

Similar, he realized, if not exactly the way
his own face would be—if he lived that long. Borland had to admit
that his own rugged good looks had hit the road so many times that
applying the term ‘good’ required some mental soft focus. But that
was the way it was for the survivors. Time passed and the years had
their way.

Borland covered the social discomfort of
locking eyes with grandpa by gripping and pulling on his own
tie—and playing with the lapels on his jacket.

He let a great puff of air buzz over his lips
as he scanned the room trying to find a chair where he could hole
up.

Private clinic maybe—but the waiting room was
public.

Borland cleared his throat and lowered his
gaze before bending to snatch up his bags. He shambled across the
thick carpet to an easy chair covered in antique floral upholstery.
It didn’t suit him at all, but the seat was wedged into a corner
away from all the faces.

Borland was still feeling the squad’s first
mission, and he’d tapered himself off the painkillers, thinking
whiskey could do the trick.

Then they told him to lay off the sauce.

His back and knees were killing him and there
was a clicking noise when he breathed through his nose. The squad
doctor who’d treated it said the septum was fractured and would
require surgery to mend.

Thanks Aggie
.

Crossing the room, Borland noticed that the
old man read the move as rejection. He heaved himself out of his
chair with a grunt to show his displeasure. A white plastic bag was
wound around the old man’s wrist. French doors set in the wall
behind him allowed Borland a backlit X-ray of its contents: pill
bottles, toothbrush, razors and comb.

Borland huffed derisively and his nose
clicked
.

A life’s work in an airsick bag
.

Borland dropped his luggage and settled into
his chair, but something caused his hair to prickle. A sound: a
curious clicking, tapping background noise that filled in the edges
of the scene. Then he grumbled.

Phones
.

All of them had phones, eBooks and palm-coms:
a menagerie of wireless devices, one in every hand.
Touching
base. Updating days. Messaging machines
. He frowned at the
behavior. That was why Varion was gobbled up by the bottle-full—why
the day got out of hand so fast.

Obsessive tendencies from cradle to
grave
.

Borland grunted.

Obsessed with their obsessions
.

Fingers tapped and stroked at keys and touch
screens.
Click, tap, and rattle, click, click, click
…

They were all the same.
Tappers.
Clickers
!

No better than Biters, a waste of...

Ssskin
.

He cleared his throat, compelled to make some
kind of human sound to cover the mechanical whispering.

But the cough was answered by a painful throb
behind his navel, and he burped.

The hernias got worse after Parkerville. He
was a wreck generally, with an injured lower back, pains in his
legs and bruises all over. And there were several deep ugly
lacerations on his face, neck and side that were barely healed. No
question though: the hernias were worse. All the fighting had torn
things up. When he sneezed now it felt like his guts were coming
out.

A nurse appeared at the doorway and yelled a
name. A rustle went through the gathering as a woman in her early
forties got up, grabbed her bags and hurried after the nurse.

Borland’s stomach made gurgling noises. His
belly button had completely inverted, and the grapefruit-size
hernia in his right groin bulged out under his belly. He had gas
all the time and he couldn’t get comfortable.

It was time
.

He dropped his chin and peered around the
waiting room: queer gold filigree against merlot wallpaper, all the
furniture had ridged backs of highly polished wood. The legs too,
they were carved into organic shapes.

Three sets of French doors opened the wall at
intervals across from him and showed him a broad deck with a wooded
scene beyond. Some men stood out there smoking, and Borland’s hand
instinctively reached into his jacket for his flask

Then he stopped.

He wasn’t drunk now. It was early enough that
he’d managed to get to the clinic without needing a drink. And that
was one of the requirements. But they didn’t say anything about
after
the operation. His flask was just a sampler. He had
two bottles hidden in his bags.

For later
.

You need the surgery.

He was tired of getting old.

They said he’d be at the Shomberg Clinic for
six days minimum with time off between the surgeries. He’d be
cooperative, but knew there was time to bend the rules.

Too crowded here
.

He was always nervous in crowds. And with
Variant Effect on the rise…

The nurse returned to the doorway and called
another name. She waited, and then called the name twice more. The
assembled guests shifted uncomfortably.

The nurse glanced back at her e-board and
left the room.

Borland noticed a gorgeous young brunette on
a couch who was either accompanying a male relative, or was about
to make some surgeon’s day.

There has to be an upside for
them
...

“Joe Borland?” The nurse’s voice echoed
through the waiting area and Borland looked over to see the woman
scanning faces.

He waved to catch her attention, stood up,
then winced as he grabbed his bags and followed her.

CHAPTER 4

The nurse ordered Borland to wait in a narrow
hallway crowded by a long line of chairs. A pre-op doctor would
soon go over the basics with him. Most of the seats were taken by
people chattering nervously or tapping on their palm-coms. He
avoided inclusion by dropping into the nearest chair and sinking
into himself. He lowered his eyelids to half-mast and crossed his
forearms over his gut.

He hoped this posture would convince people
he was dead, or at least asleep. So long as they understood that he
was not open to interaction.

Not long after, the frowning old man from the
waiting room stumped into the hallway and jammed himself into the
last empty chair on Borland’s left. The old man’s plastic bag
rattled.

The two men grumbled simultaneously.

And time passed.

The four doors across from them opened
occasionally as patients were summoned. Then more waiting.

One stifling hour later, a man in a suit with
thick glasses, bald crown and bluish jowls opened one of the doors.
He held up an e-board and read Borland’s name.

About goddamn time
...

Borland followed him into a crappy office
that looked like something you’d see in a low-budget movie.

Or like the Salvation Army had furnished
the dump
.

The doctor’s expression was frozen in place.
Oh he
fake smiled
once, but that was it. The man looked
bored, distracted—like he was remembering another time and place.
Borland was forced to repeat himself whenever he asked a question
or answered one. The doctor had an accent...Eastern Europe? He had
to be 35.

But the man’s disinterest was soon getting
under Borland’s skin.

“
I saved the world once, you
know
...”

He muttered this under his breath, but the
doctor wasn’t listening. The man sat at his desk across from
Borland, scrolling around on his e-reader like he didn’t care.

Borland froze.

A kinderkid? It’s possible
!

Then Borland realized he might have been
studying the man too closely, but the doctor just glanced at him
from time to time, looked up from his file to ask a question
without focusing his eyes on anything.