((Chapter heading is taken from the Delain song Sever. This one was a bitch to write, and to a point the next will be, too.
Do you guys know Dragon Age? Soutar has the voice and manner of speech of the mad hermit in my ears. The same VA was also the Architect, I just found out. Fascinating.))
Chapter 17
Garlands for the Grave
When Adam pulled up at the Skene Care Centre, the police were already there. Adam got as far as the door. 'Sorry, you can't go in right now.' The policeman was slightly green in the face and awfully young.
'I'm here to see Doctor Soutar,' Adam explained. 'He asked me to come.'
'Doctor Soutar?' The man licked his lips. 'He's not supposed to be asking people over, he's supposed to get himself into a bleeding ambulance.' He closed his eyes. 'Sorry.'
'This your first operation?' Adam produced his Interpol badge. 'Trust me, I've been there.'
'Sir I need to verify …'
'Verify away.' He used the time it would take to look if there was anything suspicious visible outside. Of course there wasn't, but at least he didn't make the poor green guy even more nervous than he was already by standing there, twiddling his thumbs. When he returned, a not quite so green guy was with him. 'Have you verified that I am indeed who I said I was?'
'Yes,' the older man said, arms folded, stance screaming defiance. 'Webster's the name. And you're with anti terrorism, it seems. This isn't terrorism, and we don't need Scotland to follow into the rest of the world's collective panic attack.'
'I couldn't agree more, seeing how it looks like I'll be living here,' Adam told him. 'I need to talk to Doctor Soutar. He asked for me.'
'He asked for you, true. The fool is supposed to be lying down with his injury. And I doubt you'll be happy with him.'
'I doubt that, too, funnily enough.'
'This is my investigation, not yours.'
'I know, sir. I won't interfere, I just want to talk to the man.'
Webster huffed. 'Fine, then. Go. Don't touch anything.'
Adam was barely inside when he was rushed by Soutar. 'Mr Jensen, oh thank God you are here.' The doctor had a bandage on his head, blood leaking through it at the temple. 'I … ah … have to sit down. I need to speak with you, four eyes … These idiots, they'll … oh God.'
'Doctor, calm down.' Adam followed the flustered man through the corridors, past confused patients into an office.
The frightened man locked the door with shaking hands. 'Look … This is so strange. I was with him … with Marcus. We were talking, he told me … it's impossible, but. Um.'
'Doctor Soutar. Tell me. We'll work out what's possible and what isn't then.'
'No. No, I don't think so. I've got a recording.' He produced a storage disk. 'One moment … Here it comes.'
Marcus's voice, Adam found immediately, sounded strange. He talked about the warehouse again, about being brought there by a monster. But his tone … it was monotonous, flat even. 'He sounds odd,' Adam gave voice to his thought.
Soutar nodded. 'Yes, doesn't he? He's been like this all day. Almost apathetic.'
'Marcus, please try once more for me,' Doctor Soutar said on the recording. 'You worked on the technique with Loss. Think of the monster. Close your eyes.'
'It's no use.'
'Try.'
'I am … oh. Oh!'
'Do you remember something? Are you in pain?'
'It can't be.' There was the sound of a chair scraping over the floor. 'It's just as wrong as the monster, it's not real.' The panic in Marcus's voice was painful and in stark contrast to his dull tone before. 'It hurts to … but … oh. It … I remember, God, I remember Frank. Frank Pritchard. My friend.'
Soutar's voice was hushed. 'Are you certain, Marcus?'
'I'm … I'm.' A pause. 'Yes.' That last word was spoken firmly. There was another moment's silence, then a wail erupted from the recording, inhuman, agonised.
Soutar halted the recording. 'You're not going to get much more than this, except me getting whacked on the head. Marcus died quietly. Right after his revelation, he attacked me, slammed my head into the desk. I didn't expect it at all. When I came to, he was already dead. Strangled. By an augmented hand.' He lowered his voice. 'His own, it must have been.'
For the second time that day, Adam asked himself if he could imagine Francis doing something of the sort. For the second time, the answer was a clear and resounding no. 'He didn't do this,' Adam said. 'There is no way Francis would do this.'
Soutar licked his lips, fingers playing with the data disk he'd retrieved again. In his fear, he dropped it and picked it up again. 'I understand,' he said. 'You two seem close …'
'That isn't it,' Adam said. 'I have known this man for years, and we weren't always on friendly terms. But I was once a cop, and I know a little bit about how people work. Francis isn't capable of violence. He isn't even capable of witnessing it. I've heard him on the infolink when I told him people had died. I heard him lose it when he watched a man being shot in the gut. He cannot have done this. He is literally unable to.'
'He wasn't here, could've placed a bug in Marcus's chip …'
'Someone did, that's for sure,' Adam said. 'But it wasn't him. It was whoever did the operation. Francis has neither the know-how to augment someone, nor the nerve to cut a man's hand off.'
'I need to give this to the police. You know that.'
For a moment, Adam considered stealing the disk and knocking Soutar out. It took a real effort not to. He remembered Francis insisting he leave the evidence at the warehouse alone and made up his mind. 'I know,' he said at last. 'Thanks for the heads-up.' He was on his way out when he had an idea. 'Do you believe the police will let me see the body?'
'No … but I don't think they're exactly … uh … guarding him.'
'Where would he be?'
'Hospital. From here … go left, the stairs up one floor, and into the first room on your right. Operation theatre.'
Ϡ
The body didn't tell much of a story. The strangulation marks did correspond with his augmented hand. Adam thought of the scalpel inside the augment, of the equipment here, and that he didn't think he'd been seen coming here. He could remove the biochip, take it with him, find out what was wrong. But he had entered the Care Centre through the front door, surely he'd be questioned, and he didn't have the time for that. Cursing under his breath, Adam stepped out of the otherwise deserted operating theatre. It had been the right choice. Webster was on his way to intercept him. 'What the hell do you think you're doing here?'
Adam gestured behind himself. 'Marcus … I knew him. I wanted to say my farewell. I didn't touch anything.'
The officer huffed. 'Fine. Look, Jensen, I understand that this is all very tragic, but you need to let us do our work.'
Adam nodded. 'I will, don't worry. But I have a suggestion. Take a look at his biochip. Someone's messed with it, I don't know who or how, but he wasn't entirely sane. He kept saying that a birdlike monster took him.'
'Oh dear. Psychosis, do you think?'
Adam didn't believe that for a second. The attack on Soutar and the forced suicide hadn't been random. He'd been too close to regain control of himself, and whoever had augmented him must have been monitoring him. They had then removed him as a threat and left Soutar behind as a witness pointing to an innocent man. But if Adam told this officer any of that, he'd find himself questioned, too. There was only one acceptable answer. 'Probably. Maybe even a form of DDS, I don't know. But I believe that this is important.'
'I … suppose you may have more experience than I regarding freak crimes. I'll see that it's looked into. This has to end.'
Adam hurried back outside, checked, not for the first time, if he still had the device from the warehouse on him, and connected it to the car's computer. At first, there didn't seem to be much at all, like an audio file that belonged to a surveillance camera: minor noise, occasional indistinct sounds, but little more. He jumped forwards, little by little. It couldn't take forever, the device didn't have much space. When he heard footsteps, Adam started to listen again. At first, there was only the sound of someone moving around. Then a voice, a female, muffled, maybe gagged. Adam turned up the volume and was rewarded by an ear-splitting scream, followed by a smack. A hiss, voice indistinguishable; a soft plea and another smack; and then words, the voice familiar, horribly familiar in Adam's ears. 'Stop whining. At least you're not the first I'm doing this with, so you might even survive.' Footsteps again, and then the voice, Francis's voice that Adam had come to rely on and trust, continued, close to the recording device. 'Not that it matters. You won't be missed. And now, lights out for you.' And with a click, the recording ended, leaving Adam frozen in the front seat while the world collapsed.
