Henchman

I noticed a package of condoms on the nightstand - a good sign.

"So what do you want to do? Cash up front."

"I just want to talk."

"So talk."

I asked her all the questions that Dr. Nevik had given me. She passed all of them. I shouldn’t have asked any of my own.

"When did you first try skids?"

"A month ago. I was at a party up top. This guy slipped some into my drink. He told me to come down here if I wanted more. I haven’t gone back."

"What did you do up top?"

"I’m a student - political science if you can believe it. I want to get into law though."

"Do you see yourself getting there from here?"

"Back up top?"

"To law school."

"You want to nail me or not?"

"What’s in your locket?"

"You don’t have to do this."

"Do what?"

"You’re trying to get to know me, so you won’t feel bad about nailing me then walking away. A lot of first timers do it. Don’t worry about it. It doesn’t make a difference to me," she said.

"Do you have a boyfriend?"

"I broke up with him when I came down here."

"Did he give you that locket?"

"No. My mom gave it to me when I was twelve. It’s a little two-way phone. She still calls everyday - even though she knows I’m down here."

"Here," I tossed her the wad of cash. Maybe I should have stayed just a little longer, but I suddenly had to get out of there.

I didn’t go far. I followed Sage for couple blocks and watched her buy her three hits. She wandered into an alley where she curled herself up into a ball, sat on the cold, grimy concrete and injected herself.

The skids high lasts up to four hours during which it knocks the user into a virtual coma. Some people stop breathing. Sage didn’t.

I carried her back to my car. In just about any other place in the world an unconscious girl over a guy’s shoulder gets attention. In Vanton’s lower east side no one lifted an eyebrow.

*

Dr. Nevik glanced down at the pocket watch in the palm of his hand as I wheeled Sage in. She was slumped over on her side, with a trail of drool leaking from the corner of her mouth down onto her chest.

"You’re late, Baz."

"Sorry, I had to sneak her in through the back."

"The doctors will be coming for morning rounds soon."

"Shouldn’t we wait then?"

"We can’t. Miss Kendal won’t survive the morning. We have to act now."

I didn’t like it, but the doctor knew what he was doing. I locked the hospital room door.

Dr. Nevik inspected Sage the way a buyer inspects a used car. He poked her, shone a light in her eyes and asked me various questions. "This body will do fine," he concluded. "Good work, Baz."

Dr. Nevik quickly went to work. He kept everything in a metal briefcase that he unlocked, flipped open and set on a table. He plugged his machine in, turned it on and moved behind the curtain.

"What happens to Sage?" I asked.

"Sage?"

"This girl."

The doctor continued working. "Don’t concern yourself with such matters Baz," he answered. "You’ll absorb yourself in a paradoxical moral dilemma. You have to understand this body is addicted to skids. It is already dead."

"But the addiction is physiological, isn’t it? Won’t the body still have that addiction after the procedure?"

"To an extent, yes. But the process alters her physiology."

"How?"

"I don’t have time to explain quantum mechanics and neural networks now, Baz."

"Humour me."

"The mind and the brain are separate entities. The brain provides the raw materials to support the mind - microtubules inside neural cells.