Machine Man (serial)

Page 20.

When I

I woke, but I was not in the hospital. It took me a while to figure this out, because I couldn’t focus my eyes, and because I really, really should have been in the hospital. I had just crushed my right leg. There was no other placenowhere else I belonged.

“… for sure,”still don’t think he knows,” said someone. I think it wasIt sounded like my boss, D. Peters. “It’s just a hell of a coincidence.”

“I don’t believe in coincidences.” This was a woman, hard to place until her scent wafted across me.

“Check the security tape,” said D. Peters. “He did it himself. There’s no question.”

“Hmm,” said Cassandra Cautery.

“Hmm.” I tried to move my head, to see her,Cassandra Cautery, but couldn’t. A sun hung over my face, angry and brilliant white.brilliant. It looked familiar. It seemed to bewas a lab light. But I couldn’t be in the lab. That would make no sense. It would mean IThe problem with this was it suggested I was lying on the floor, bleeding to death.

“He moved,” said D. Peters. “Just then. Did you see that?”

“You’re panicking,” said Cassandra Cautery. “You’re a panicker, Dennis. That’s the reason we’re in this situation.”It’s your panicking that led us here.”

“For God’s sake,” said D. Peters said.

“There isPeters. Or Dennis, I guess.

“We have a role for panickers at Better Future,”this company,” said Cassandra Cautery. “And“But it’s not management.”

D. Peters said nothing. After a while, I said, “Urgh…”

There was silence.

“Oh,” said Cassandra Cautery. “Fine, then. Take him to the hospital.”

Hands

Rough hands seized me under the arms.by my armpits. Was it CarlCarl, the security guard?guard who had carried me down here my first day back at work? I thought I seemed to recognizerecognized his rough, hostile grip.fingers. The blazing light above me swung away.

“And give him some of that benzo-8,” said Cassandra Cautery. “You know. The stuff that wipes memory.”

So that was curious.

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