fic: The Indirect Life (1/?)
Title: The Indirect Life
Author: blade_girl
Characters: Ambrose/Glitch, appearances by or mentions of Azkadellia and others
Rating: PG-13
Summary: First, he was Ambrose; eventually, he became Glitch. In between, he was simply lost.
Warning: None
Disclaimer: If I owned this franchise, I would have a better car.
Word Count: 3,564
Thanks to crazymadi and amazon_kitten for beta duties. I was too impatient to wait for agraphicdesign 's input, but I will certainly edit according to any errors she finds.
ETA: Chapter Two is here
Terror. That’s what this feeling was called. He didn’t know how he knew that, just as he didn’t know how he knew anything, or why he didn’t know so many other things. His own name, for example. It was odd, not knowing that - wasn’t it? Yes, it was. People knew their names. They just did.
All around him was a room he didn’t know, filled with objects that he often did recognize but, frighteningly, couldn’t seem to name. He felt a need to explore, as though by roaming the room and touching some of these things his memory could be jogged, but when he thought to try it, he found he couldn’t move. His arms and legs and head were pressed firmly down against a hard, cold table by thick straps.That was terrifying, because is anyone ever harshly confined for a pleasant reason? He didn’t know for sure, but he really didn’t think so.
Shivering, he realized it was cold in the room. Chilly air callously caressed him quite literally everywhere. Naked? he thought. He wondered why he was like that. Naked and trussed to a hard, cold table couldn’t be a good thing.
“Can you tell me your name?” a bald man was demanding to know, looming over him and partly backlit by the bright overhead light. His smile was as cold as the air in the room, as hard as the unforgiving surface beneath his bare skin.
Several emotional responses kicked in all at once. Panic: was he expected to know this? Was he failing some sort of test by not knowing his name? Frustration, too - couldn’t this fellow see how distressed he felt? Whatever happened to a simple, “How do you feel?” or a kindly pat on the shoulder to reassure a frightened… patient? Which led to the obvious question: why was he strapped to this table? What was wrong with him? Had he been in an accident?
And finally, most distressing of all, he had the distinct feeling that the man with the cold smile expected him not to recall his own name. And that he would be very glad to find this expectation confirmed.
He wanted to do well. He wanted to make this man happy. If he did, then he could ask to be unstrapped, and for some clothes. “It… I’m… I...” His own voice was both familiar and foreign, and he was momentarily confused by the paradox. Shouldn’t it be either one or the other?
“Your name,” the man repeated urgently, losing the smile. No, no, no! He was upsetting the man! That would never do, he was sure of it.
Alarmed, he ransacked his mind for any trace of identity. There must be something, some humble crumb left somewhere. “No,” he said, panting with the effort. “I… don’t know it. I’m sorry. Can you tell me what it is? I… I promise not to forget again.”
The man’s smile slowly returned, and he wondered why he’d ever considered it something to look forward to. Watching this cruel face crinkle, its lips sliding apart to expose huge teeth was like feeling a snake coil round one’s neck and wondering whether it will strangle or bite. He wanted to shrink back from him, but again - table. Straps.
Terror.
“Never mind that,” the man purred. “Your name’s far less important than your function. Tell me about your work. What is your position? What do you do? For whom do you work?”
He felt his eyes open more widely. What sort of questions were these? If he couldn’t remember his name, what chance did he have of remembering more complex information about his life and work? And why were these answers needed just now?
“I… don’t know. Can’t… Can’t you just ask my…” He faltered. Who? “My next of kin?”
The man looked surprised, then let loose a brittle laugh that bounced sharply, painfully off the gray stone walls. “It’s of no consequence. I think I have my answers.” He continued to chuckle, writing something down on a pad.
A tentative hope arose. The man seemed pleased with him. Timidly smiling, he shifted slightly under the straps and prepared to ask, very meekly, for release. But the man looked past him, speaking to a point somewhere behind his head and above it. “Good enough. Close him up.”
“Don’t you want to quiz him some more?” His startled jerk at the new voice was abbreviated painfully by the tight hold of the straps.
The bald man’s eyes narrowed. The room seemed to get even colder. “Why would I need to do that?”
“I dunno,” said the other voice. The new person leaned into his line of sight briefly, and he saw it was a woman, middle-aged with graying red hair. He could hear objects being moved about, their metallic clinking striking an unreasoning fear in him. Probably that was just because he couldn’t see them. “We’ve seen ‘em sometimes regain some access after long interrogations. Seems a bit early to consider the job done.”
But the bald man dismissed this concern with a wave of the hand and a sneer. “It doesn’t matter whether he regains access or not, Elga. Once we’re certain the brain is working properly, the rest can be disposed of.”
“Then why even ask what he remembers?” demanded the woman.
“Because I found it amusing,” the man snapped. It was scary, the angry look in his eyes. “And you have no business questioning my methods or actions. Now. Close. Him. Up.” He turned abruptly and stalked away without another glance at the… patient? Prisoner? Just what was he?
He started with a cry of fear as unseen hands touched his head. “What… what are you doing? What’s happening?”
“Sewing you up, dearie,” the woman said in bored voice. “Hold still and it’ll hurt less.”
Sewing him up? So, he was open? Surgery! That’s what he’d had.
“Was the operation…” What did he need to ask? Think! “Successful?”
A slight snort from his companion. “Oh yeah. You passed with flying colors.”
He frowned. Surely “passing with flying colors” wasn’t an appropriate expression when referring to brain surgery. Brain surgery! Yes, that’s it! No wonder he couldn’t remember things.
“How long will I be like this?”
The hands on his head stilled. Oh no. He’d caused offense somehow. Maybe he was being too demanding? “Please, I’m… I don’t mean to push. I realize I can’t expect to recover immediately. But how long will it be before I start to remember-”
“You won’t,” she said flatly. At his look of utter panic, she patted his bare shoulder briskly with cold fingers. “There now, it won’t be as bad as you think.”
Never remembering? Ever? How could that not be as bad as he thought? “What… you mean I’ll be like this forever?”
She was fitting something to the top of his head, positioning and repositioning it. “Nothing lasts forever, dearie,” she said absently. He wondered which of them was confused as to the gravity of his situation.
Questions, ask more questions. He thought very hard. He really needed to figure out exactly what was… “Ow!”
“Well, I did tell you to hold still, didn’t I?” the woman said irritably. “Stitchin’ up a head isn’t easy under the best of circumstances, and believe me, you’ll want this to go on straight.”
“Stop. It hurts!” he whimpered, gasping as he again felt a needle pierce his scalp. With efficient, merciless motion, the woman drew the stitch tight. “Oh, please, please stop it! Stop!”
“Quit your thrashing, dimwit!”
He heard the anger in her voice and knew he should heed her words, but all self-control - however much he’d ever had - was thoroughly exhausted now. He’d awakened with no life and no name and no knowledge and plenty of awareness of lacking all of that. He’d been kept naked and cold and restrained and treated like… like some kind of laboratory animal, studied and prodded and questioned and given no answers, no respect, and no comfort. Whoever he was, he deserved better than that, didn’t he? Didn’t anyone?
The terror that had plagued him since he’d first awakened had now assumed full command of his mind. It forced out any capacity for rational thought and overflowed into fruitless physical resistance. He tugged ferociously at the unyielding straps that kept his limbs pressed to the table, noticing the stinging soreness in the places where the straps met his skin. Was this not the first time he’d struggled violently against them? The thought led to fresh panic as he wondered just how much he had forgotten.
The woman was yelling at him, but he’d passed the point of caring whether he angered her. Rage was, in fact, taking root inside of him as his fear and pain were joined by a sense of outrage against the injustice of their treatment of him. Dozens of different thoughts competed for prominence in his head, warring with one another, canceling each other out. What have you done to me? What right have you to do it? Whatever I’ve done, I deserve better than this. Even a prisoner has a right to basic human dignity… to his identity… to a continued sense of self…
But all of this was distilled by his diluted brain into the same endlessly repeated sentiment: “No, please! Stop! It hurts! Please!” He couldn’t even really remember what it was that hurt. He knew only that he wanted it to stop.
A new sensation flooded his body, a feeling of intense vibration that seemed to erupt in his bones and spread directly to all his nerve endings. His body arched against the straps as he tried to gasp and found he couldn’t, and so there was no new exclamation. If there was any mercy in this situation, it was that the pain was short-lived, and he went limp with relief as he drew in shaky, rasping breaths.
“There, now,” said a voice matter-of-factly. To one side, a long stick-like device was lain aside as unseen hands repositioned his head. He thought maybe he’d heard this voice before, but wasn’t sure. He tried to roll his head to get a look at the person - a woman, he thought - but found that a strap against his forehead prevented it. There were straps all over him, pinning him to a hard, cold table. His wrists and ankles, particularly, felt sore and slick under the restraints, and he was out of breath. Perhaps he’d had some sort of seizure.
“Now see that you hold still and I won’t have to do that again,” admonished the female voice. He detected some irritation in the reprimand but no real malice. She clearly had authority over him, with license to punish as needed.
“Are you my mother?” he asked.
Laughter, more grating than musical but still pleasant to hear, briefly filled the room. “No, dearie. I’m just sewin’ you up. Keep still, now.”
Sewing him up… surgery. Something about surgery was familiar. “Then you’re a doctor?”
There was a small sigh, and he understood he was irritating her. He had a feeling that was not a smart thing to do.
“Meant to be a doctor,” she murmured. “No opportunities for the likes of me, though.” He felt a strange sensation on the top of his head - a sharp touch, strangely distant, and a then a pulling sensation. He’d never felt anything like it. Well, as far as he knew, anyway. “How’s that, dearie? Better? I applied a little wizard’s tears to numb you up.”
He had no idea what that meant, but it felt like gratitude was called for. “Thank you.” Confusion tumbled through his mind like pickles in a barrel rolling downhill. “So… you’re not a doctor, but… you’re ‘sewing me up.’”
She snorted. “Oh well, yes, the state can always find a use for the peasant with ambition, can’t it? ‘Doctor? Out of the question, but you can be a doctor’s lowly assistant. Surgeon? Don’t be daft, woman! But here, you can sew up scalps for the Division of Criminal Extractions. That’s a bit like surgery, after all, and better than your kind can usually expect.’”
Nothing she was saying made sense to him. “Division of…” What was the rest?
“Criminal Extractions,” she finished briskly. The sharp-touching and pulling was proceeding quickly now; she’d started near his crown and was getting close to his forehead. “I admit, it was fascinating for a good long while. Even most doctors never get the chance to look at a living human brain, much less help to remove part of one. Still, after a few years, everything loses its novelty, doesn’t it, dearie?”
Being for all intents and purposes mentally newborn, he had no way to judge the truth of her statement. “I… suppose so.” His brow furrowed as he struggled to hang onto something else she’d said that had caught his interest. “Did you… did you say something about removing brains?”
She seemed very busy with knotting the thread as she finished her stitching. There was a sustained tug at his hairline, and he could see one of her hands hold the thread taut as she used a small pair of scissors to trim it close to his skin.
“There,” she said. He thought she sounded like someone very tired trying to make people believe she’s not. There was slight pressure at successive points of the top of his head as she ran her fingers along her handiwork. “Yes, nice and straight if I do say so myself. Now to the other side, and we’ll be all finished here.”
“Oh, good,” he breathed, even though he didn’t have a clue what would happen next. He knew only that he was very tired of whatever it was that was happening right now. He felt her positioning something on his head next to the stitches she’d just put in. “Hey, are you… are you sewing something onto my head?”
“Yes,” she said impatiently. It sounded as though he’d asked her that many times. Maybe he had? “I’m installing your zipper, dearie.”
He pondered that for a while, turning the words over and over in his mind and inspecting them from all possible angles. Nope, no matter how he looked at them, they just didn’t make sense. Without meaning to, he laughed.
“Something funny?” She had that absent sound again, like she was just making conversation out of boredom.
Shyly, he said, “Sorry, I’m just really confused. Nothing’s making sense. I thought you said,” he interrupted himself with another giggle, “that you were installing ‘my zipper.’”
“Yes? What’s funny about that?” The woman’s stitching never faltered.
He frowned. “Well, it’s just silly, is all. People don’t wear zippers on their heads. When’s the last time you saw someone with one? What would be the reason for it? It doesn’t make s-”
Shockingly, she slid around to the side of his table and took his chin roughly in her hand. Her eyes were full of anger, so much anger that he had a feeling most of it had already been there like explosive charges and he’d just accidentally set them off. “The last time I saw someone with one was less than a week ago, dearie. I see zipperheads frequently. You likely never seen one because you’ve never found yourself in the sorts of places those poor wretches end up once they’re turned loose. Nobles, so concerned with ideals and intellectual nonsense. You never paid much attention to the results of your policies - the realities you created for the people you ruled.”
“Me?” he squeaked. “I… ruled?”
With a sigh, she returned to her stitching. “No, not you personally. Your kind. Noble folk.”
“I’m noble?”
“Well, not anymore, of course. You’ve been taken down quite a few pegs now.”
What this meant, exactly, he wasn’t sure, but he guessed it was probably true. He certainly felt “taken down a few pegs,” even if he couldn’t define the expression.
He thought for a while before daring to speak again. It was so easy to say the wrong thing, and he desperately wanted to say right things. “Okay, so… so I’m getting a zipper.”
“Right. Almost finished, too.”
“And nobles don’t get zippers.”
“Criminals get zippers.”
Taking a moment to think that over several times, he eventually gasped. “I’m no criminal! I mean, sure, I don’t remember anything, not even my name, but I’m sure I’m not a criminal.”
“Ah, well,” she said heavily, “it’s them that’s in power that decides what’s criminal, dearie. Your side wasn’t payin’ attention, and now the power’s in other hands, isn’t it?”
“My side? What side? What did we do wrong?”
The stitching halted. “Nothin’ terribly wrong, really. Just… carelessness. I mean, you just can’t set a kingdom in motion and then turn your attention to other things, can you? When you shine all your light in one corner, there’s three corners left in the dark.”
She paused, and he saw her glance up at the door before she muttered, “And all manner of things can grow in the dark, dearie.” The bitterness with which she said this was punctuated by the drawing of the final stitch to brutal tautness. His sharp intake of breath must have made her feel badly, because she rubbed the stitch spot gently before cutting the thread. She infused her voice with cheer like someone dumping soap into a running bath. “There we are, now. All fixed up professional-like.”
“Thank you.” He wasn’t sure if that was the correct response, really - wasn’t this mutilation? Should he be thanking someone for that? But she seemed so unhappy, and maybe he had caused that, so being nice to her was the least he could do, wasn’t it?
Speaking of the least he could do, he was suddenly very aware of the discomfort from being stuck on this table for… however long he’d been like this. “Now I can get up, right? I mean, you’re done sewing me up.”
“No, ‘fraid you’ll be stayin’ there for a few more hours. You’ll be tempted to play with the zipper, and it’s too soon for that. Can’t have you loosening my handiwork.”
“But please,” he whined, which he was pretty sure he didn’t want to do but couldn’t help, “I’m so uncomfortable. I hurt all over. I need to move!”
“I wouldn’t be in such a hurry to leave this room,” the woman snapped, and again he had the sense that he was merely the fuse for her anger but not its primary target. “From here, you go straight to a cold, dark cell.”
“Well, I’m already freezing, lying here with no clothes forever,” he retorted. “How much worse can a little less light make things?”
She slammed down a tray, which caused a bunch of metal things to rattle sharply, and started to say something angry. But maybe she was having trouble with confusion too, because as he watched, he saw the anger die away, as though she’d lost her train of thought. Instead, she swept a strand of her fading red hair back behind her ear and moved out of his sight. He heard a door open and some rustling sounds, and then she was beside him with a stack of white cloth. Sheets, he realized.
“We’ve got no blankets, but a few layers of these should warm you up.” One after another, she shook out four coarsely woven sheets and draped them over his shivering body. When they were all in place, she tucked them under to seal in his body heat.
Overwhelmed by the care, however little or belated, he felt wetness escape from the corner of one eye and trail down his cheek toward his ear. She scowled when she saw it and roughly dried it with a scratchy towel before grabbing a bottle from a cabinet. Using a medicine dropper to measure a precise amount of amber liquid, she cupped a protective hand beneath and came back to the table.
“Open up,” she commanded, and he obeyed. The liquid was bitter and left a slight burning sensation in his mouth that faded before he could remember to complain. “This’ll help you rest while we wait for your transfer.”
“Okay,” he said. He really was feeling quite warm now. Had he been cold before? He couldn’t remember anymore.
He turned his head, as much as he could, to watch the woman as she placed used items into a sink and generally tidied up. She had made him warm, hadn’t she? He should probably thank her.
“Are you my mother?” Wait. That wasn’t thanking.
And she was clearly upset by the lack of thanks, too, because she just sort of hunched herself over the sink with her back to him for a moment. He should probably apologize now, but he needed to say the words to himself a few times to make sure it came out right.
But then she’d already turned back toward him, and this time there was mostly sadness in her eyes, with maybe some anger way down underneath. “Thank the stars, I’m nobody’s mother, dearie.”
And then she left the room, closing the door behind her, leaving him to wonder if he had thanked her for all she had done for him. But long before he’d puzzled that out, he was asleep.
Chapter two is now here
Author: blade_girl
Characters: Ambrose/Glitch, appearances by or mentions of Azkadellia and others
Rating: PG-13
Summary: First, he was Ambrose; eventually, he became Glitch. In between, he was simply lost.
Warning: None
Disclaimer: If I owned this franchise, I would have a better car.
Word Count: 3,564
Thanks to crazymadi and amazon_kitten for beta duties. I was too impatient to wait for agraphicdesign 's input, but I will certainly edit according to any errors she finds.
ETA: Chapter Two is here
Terror. That’s what this feeling was called. He didn’t know how he knew that, just as he didn’t know how he knew anything, or why he didn’t know so many other things. His own name, for example. It was odd, not knowing that - wasn’t it? Yes, it was. People knew their names. They just did.
All around him was a room he didn’t know, filled with objects that he often did recognize but, frighteningly, couldn’t seem to name. He felt a need to explore, as though by roaming the room and touching some of these things his memory could be jogged, but when he thought to try it, he found he couldn’t move. His arms and legs and head were pressed firmly down against a hard, cold table by thick straps.That was terrifying, because is anyone ever harshly confined for a pleasant reason? He didn’t know for sure, but he really didn’t think so.
Shivering, he realized it was cold in the room. Chilly air callously caressed him quite literally everywhere. Naked? he thought. He wondered why he was like that. Naked and trussed to a hard, cold table couldn’t be a good thing.
“Can you tell me your name?” a bald man was demanding to know, looming over him and partly backlit by the bright overhead light. His smile was as cold as the air in the room, as hard as the unforgiving surface beneath his bare skin.
Several emotional responses kicked in all at once. Panic: was he expected to know this? Was he failing some sort of test by not knowing his name? Frustration, too - couldn’t this fellow see how distressed he felt? Whatever happened to a simple, “How do you feel?” or a kindly pat on the shoulder to reassure a frightened… patient? Which led to the obvious question: why was he strapped to this table? What was wrong with him? Had he been in an accident?
And finally, most distressing of all, he had the distinct feeling that the man with the cold smile expected him not to recall his own name. And that he would be very glad to find this expectation confirmed.
He wanted to do well. He wanted to make this man happy. If he did, then he could ask to be unstrapped, and for some clothes. “It… I’m… I...” His own voice was both familiar and foreign, and he was momentarily confused by the paradox. Shouldn’t it be either one or the other?
“Your name,” the man repeated urgently, losing the smile. No, no, no! He was upsetting the man! That would never do, he was sure of it.
Alarmed, he ransacked his mind for any trace of identity. There must be something, some humble crumb left somewhere. “No,” he said, panting with the effort. “I… don’t know it. I’m sorry. Can you tell me what it is? I… I promise not to forget again.”
The man’s smile slowly returned, and he wondered why he’d ever considered it something to look forward to. Watching this cruel face crinkle, its lips sliding apart to expose huge teeth was like feeling a snake coil round one’s neck and wondering whether it will strangle or bite. He wanted to shrink back from him, but again - table. Straps.
Terror.
“Never mind that,” the man purred. “Your name’s far less important than your function. Tell me about your work. What is your position? What do you do? For whom do you work?”
He felt his eyes open more widely. What sort of questions were these? If he couldn’t remember his name, what chance did he have of remembering more complex information about his life and work? And why were these answers needed just now?
“I… don’t know. Can’t… Can’t you just ask my…” He faltered. Who? “My next of kin?”
The man looked surprised, then let loose a brittle laugh that bounced sharply, painfully off the gray stone walls. “It’s of no consequence. I think I have my answers.” He continued to chuckle, writing something down on a pad.
A tentative hope arose. The man seemed pleased with him. Timidly smiling, he shifted slightly under the straps and prepared to ask, very meekly, for release. But the man looked past him, speaking to a point somewhere behind his head and above it. “Good enough. Close him up.”
“Don’t you want to quiz him some more?” His startled jerk at the new voice was abbreviated painfully by the tight hold of the straps.
The bald man’s eyes narrowed. The room seemed to get even colder. “Why would I need to do that?”
“I dunno,” said the other voice. The new person leaned into his line of sight briefly, and he saw it was a woman, middle-aged with graying red hair. He could hear objects being moved about, their metallic clinking striking an unreasoning fear in him. Probably that was just because he couldn’t see them. “We’ve seen ‘em sometimes regain some access after long interrogations. Seems a bit early to consider the job done.”
But the bald man dismissed this concern with a wave of the hand and a sneer. “It doesn’t matter whether he regains access or not, Elga. Once we’re certain the brain is working properly, the rest can be disposed of.”
“Then why even ask what he remembers?” demanded the woman.
“Because I found it amusing,” the man snapped. It was scary, the angry look in his eyes. “And you have no business questioning my methods or actions. Now. Close. Him. Up.” He turned abruptly and stalked away without another glance at the… patient? Prisoner? Just what was he?
He started with a cry of fear as unseen hands touched his head. “What… what are you doing? What’s happening?”
“Sewing you up, dearie,” the woman said in bored voice. “Hold still and it’ll hurt less.”
Sewing him up? So, he was open? Surgery! That’s what he’d had.
“Was the operation…” What did he need to ask? Think! “Successful?”
A slight snort from his companion. “Oh yeah. You passed with flying colors.”
He frowned. Surely “passing with flying colors” wasn’t an appropriate expression when referring to brain surgery. Brain surgery! Yes, that’s it! No wonder he couldn’t remember things.
“How long will I be like this?”
The hands on his head stilled. Oh no. He’d caused offense somehow. Maybe he was being too demanding? “Please, I’m… I don’t mean to push. I realize I can’t expect to recover immediately. But how long will it be before I start to remember-”
“You won’t,” she said flatly. At his look of utter panic, she patted his bare shoulder briskly with cold fingers. “There now, it won’t be as bad as you think.”
Never remembering? Ever? How could that not be as bad as he thought? “What… you mean I’ll be like this forever?”
She was fitting something to the top of his head, positioning and repositioning it. “Nothing lasts forever, dearie,” she said absently. He wondered which of them was confused as to the gravity of his situation.
Questions, ask more questions. He thought very hard. He really needed to figure out exactly what was… “Ow!”
“Well, I did tell you to hold still, didn’t I?” the woman said irritably. “Stitchin’ up a head isn’t easy under the best of circumstances, and believe me, you’ll want this to go on straight.”
“Stop. It hurts!” he whimpered, gasping as he again felt a needle pierce his scalp. With efficient, merciless motion, the woman drew the stitch tight. “Oh, please, please stop it! Stop!”
“Quit your thrashing, dimwit!”
He heard the anger in her voice and knew he should heed her words, but all self-control - however much he’d ever had - was thoroughly exhausted now. He’d awakened with no life and no name and no knowledge and plenty of awareness of lacking all of that. He’d been kept naked and cold and restrained and treated like… like some kind of laboratory animal, studied and prodded and questioned and given no answers, no respect, and no comfort. Whoever he was, he deserved better than that, didn’t he? Didn’t anyone?
The terror that had plagued him since he’d first awakened had now assumed full command of his mind. It forced out any capacity for rational thought and overflowed into fruitless physical resistance. He tugged ferociously at the unyielding straps that kept his limbs pressed to the table, noticing the stinging soreness in the places where the straps met his skin. Was this not the first time he’d struggled violently against them? The thought led to fresh panic as he wondered just how much he had forgotten.
The woman was yelling at him, but he’d passed the point of caring whether he angered her. Rage was, in fact, taking root inside of him as his fear and pain were joined by a sense of outrage against the injustice of their treatment of him. Dozens of different thoughts competed for prominence in his head, warring with one another, canceling each other out. What have you done to me? What right have you to do it? Whatever I’ve done, I deserve better than this. Even a prisoner has a right to basic human dignity… to his identity… to a continued sense of self…
But all of this was distilled by his diluted brain into the same endlessly repeated sentiment: “No, please! Stop! It hurts! Please!” He couldn’t even really remember what it was that hurt. He knew only that he wanted it to stop.
A new sensation flooded his body, a feeling of intense vibration that seemed to erupt in his bones and spread directly to all his nerve endings. His body arched against the straps as he tried to gasp and found he couldn’t, and so there was no new exclamation. If there was any mercy in this situation, it was that the pain was short-lived, and he went limp with relief as he drew in shaky, rasping breaths.
“There, now,” said a voice matter-of-factly. To one side, a long stick-like device was lain aside as unseen hands repositioned his head. He thought maybe he’d heard this voice before, but wasn’t sure. He tried to roll his head to get a look at the person - a woman, he thought - but found that a strap against his forehead prevented it. There were straps all over him, pinning him to a hard, cold table. His wrists and ankles, particularly, felt sore and slick under the restraints, and he was out of breath. Perhaps he’d had some sort of seizure.
“Now see that you hold still and I won’t have to do that again,” admonished the female voice. He detected some irritation in the reprimand but no real malice. She clearly had authority over him, with license to punish as needed.
“Are you my mother?” he asked.
Laughter, more grating than musical but still pleasant to hear, briefly filled the room. “No, dearie. I’m just sewin’ you up. Keep still, now.”
Sewing him up… surgery. Something about surgery was familiar. “Then you’re a doctor?”
There was a small sigh, and he understood he was irritating her. He had a feeling that was not a smart thing to do.
“Meant to be a doctor,” she murmured. “No opportunities for the likes of me, though.” He felt a strange sensation on the top of his head - a sharp touch, strangely distant, and a then a pulling sensation. He’d never felt anything like it. Well, as far as he knew, anyway. “How’s that, dearie? Better? I applied a little wizard’s tears to numb you up.”
He had no idea what that meant, but it felt like gratitude was called for. “Thank you.” Confusion tumbled through his mind like pickles in a barrel rolling downhill. “So… you’re not a doctor, but… you’re ‘sewing me up.’”
She snorted. “Oh well, yes, the state can always find a use for the peasant with ambition, can’t it? ‘Doctor? Out of the question, but you can be a doctor’s lowly assistant. Surgeon? Don’t be daft, woman! But here, you can sew up scalps for the Division of Criminal Extractions. That’s a bit like surgery, after all, and better than your kind can usually expect.’”
Nothing she was saying made sense to him. “Division of…” What was the rest?
“Criminal Extractions,” she finished briskly. The sharp-touching and pulling was proceeding quickly now; she’d started near his crown and was getting close to his forehead. “I admit, it was fascinating for a good long while. Even most doctors never get the chance to look at a living human brain, much less help to remove part of one. Still, after a few years, everything loses its novelty, doesn’t it, dearie?”
Being for all intents and purposes mentally newborn, he had no way to judge the truth of her statement. “I… suppose so.” His brow furrowed as he struggled to hang onto something else she’d said that had caught his interest. “Did you… did you say something about removing brains?”
She seemed very busy with knotting the thread as she finished her stitching. There was a sustained tug at his hairline, and he could see one of her hands hold the thread taut as she used a small pair of scissors to trim it close to his skin.
“There,” she said. He thought she sounded like someone very tired trying to make people believe she’s not. There was slight pressure at successive points of the top of his head as she ran her fingers along her handiwork. “Yes, nice and straight if I do say so myself. Now to the other side, and we’ll be all finished here.”
“Oh, good,” he breathed, even though he didn’t have a clue what would happen next. He knew only that he was very tired of whatever it was that was happening right now. He felt her positioning something on his head next to the stitches she’d just put in. “Hey, are you… are you sewing something onto my head?”
“Yes,” she said impatiently. It sounded as though he’d asked her that many times. Maybe he had? “I’m installing your zipper, dearie.”
He pondered that for a while, turning the words over and over in his mind and inspecting them from all possible angles. Nope, no matter how he looked at them, they just didn’t make sense. Without meaning to, he laughed.
“Something funny?” She had that absent sound again, like she was just making conversation out of boredom.
Shyly, he said, “Sorry, I’m just really confused. Nothing’s making sense. I thought you said,” he interrupted himself with another giggle, “that you were installing ‘my zipper.’”
“Yes? What’s funny about that?” The woman’s stitching never faltered.
He frowned. “Well, it’s just silly, is all. People don’t wear zippers on their heads. When’s the last time you saw someone with one? What would be the reason for it? It doesn’t make s-”
Shockingly, she slid around to the side of his table and took his chin roughly in her hand. Her eyes were full of anger, so much anger that he had a feeling most of it had already been there like explosive charges and he’d just accidentally set them off. “The last time I saw someone with one was less than a week ago, dearie. I see zipperheads frequently. You likely never seen one because you’ve never found yourself in the sorts of places those poor wretches end up once they’re turned loose. Nobles, so concerned with ideals and intellectual nonsense. You never paid much attention to the results of your policies - the realities you created for the people you ruled.”
“Me?” he squeaked. “I… ruled?”
With a sigh, she returned to her stitching. “No, not you personally. Your kind. Noble folk.”
“I’m noble?”
“Well, not anymore, of course. You’ve been taken down quite a few pegs now.”
What this meant, exactly, he wasn’t sure, but he guessed it was probably true. He certainly felt “taken down a few pegs,” even if he couldn’t define the expression.
He thought for a while before daring to speak again. It was so easy to say the wrong thing, and he desperately wanted to say right things. “Okay, so… so I’m getting a zipper.”
“Right. Almost finished, too.”
“And nobles don’t get zippers.”
“Criminals get zippers.”
Taking a moment to think that over several times, he eventually gasped. “I’m no criminal! I mean, sure, I don’t remember anything, not even my name, but I’m sure I’m not a criminal.”
“Ah, well,” she said heavily, “it’s them that’s in power that decides what’s criminal, dearie. Your side wasn’t payin’ attention, and now the power’s in other hands, isn’t it?”
“My side? What side? What did we do wrong?”
The stitching halted. “Nothin’ terribly wrong, really. Just… carelessness. I mean, you just can’t set a kingdom in motion and then turn your attention to other things, can you? When you shine all your light in one corner, there’s three corners left in the dark.”
She paused, and he saw her glance up at the door before she muttered, “And all manner of things can grow in the dark, dearie.” The bitterness with which she said this was punctuated by the drawing of the final stitch to brutal tautness. His sharp intake of breath must have made her feel badly, because she rubbed the stitch spot gently before cutting the thread. She infused her voice with cheer like someone dumping soap into a running bath. “There we are, now. All fixed up professional-like.”
“Thank you.” He wasn’t sure if that was the correct response, really - wasn’t this mutilation? Should he be thanking someone for that? But she seemed so unhappy, and maybe he had caused that, so being nice to her was the least he could do, wasn’t it?
Speaking of the least he could do, he was suddenly very aware of the discomfort from being stuck on this table for… however long he’d been like this. “Now I can get up, right? I mean, you’re done sewing me up.”
“No, ‘fraid you’ll be stayin’ there for a few more hours. You’ll be tempted to play with the zipper, and it’s too soon for that. Can’t have you loosening my handiwork.”
“But please,” he whined, which he was pretty sure he didn’t want to do but couldn’t help, “I’m so uncomfortable. I hurt all over. I need to move!”
“I wouldn’t be in such a hurry to leave this room,” the woman snapped, and again he had the sense that he was merely the fuse for her anger but not its primary target. “From here, you go straight to a cold, dark cell.”
“Well, I’m already freezing, lying here with no clothes forever,” he retorted. “How much worse can a little less light make things?”
She slammed down a tray, which caused a bunch of metal things to rattle sharply, and started to say something angry. But maybe she was having trouble with confusion too, because as he watched, he saw the anger die away, as though she’d lost her train of thought. Instead, she swept a strand of her fading red hair back behind her ear and moved out of his sight. He heard a door open and some rustling sounds, and then she was beside him with a stack of white cloth. Sheets, he realized.
“We’ve got no blankets, but a few layers of these should warm you up.” One after another, she shook out four coarsely woven sheets and draped them over his shivering body. When they were all in place, she tucked them under to seal in his body heat.
Overwhelmed by the care, however little or belated, he felt wetness escape from the corner of one eye and trail down his cheek toward his ear. She scowled when she saw it and roughly dried it with a scratchy towel before grabbing a bottle from a cabinet. Using a medicine dropper to measure a precise amount of amber liquid, she cupped a protective hand beneath and came back to the table.
“Open up,” she commanded, and he obeyed. The liquid was bitter and left a slight burning sensation in his mouth that faded before he could remember to complain. “This’ll help you rest while we wait for your transfer.”
“Okay,” he said. He really was feeling quite warm now. Had he been cold before? He couldn’t remember anymore.
He turned his head, as much as he could, to watch the woman as she placed used items into a sink and generally tidied up. She had made him warm, hadn’t she? He should probably thank her.
“Are you my mother?” Wait. That wasn’t thanking.
And she was clearly upset by the lack of thanks, too, because she just sort of hunched herself over the sink with her back to him for a moment. He should probably apologize now, but he needed to say the words to himself a few times to make sure it came out right.
But then she’d already turned back toward him, and this time there was mostly sadness in her eyes, with maybe some anger way down underneath. “Thank the stars, I’m nobody’s mother, dearie.”
And then she left the room, closing the door behind her, leaving him to wonder if he had thanked her for all she had done for him. But long before he’d puzzled that out, he was asleep.
Chapter two is now here