Machine Man (serial)

Page 25.

Cassandra Cautery pulled a chair right up to the edge of my hospital bed and sat there, looking up at me with wet eyes. I won’t lie. It was very fetching. I know: she was a lawyer, and duplicitous, and didn’t care for me at all. But I had gone a long time without anyone looking at me like that, a very long time. Look, all I’m saying is it was fetching. Give me a break.

“I just want to make sure you’re okay.” Cassandra Cautery took my hand. Her skin was surprisingly cold.

“I’m okay.”

“Are you?” She squeezed my hand.

“Yes,” I said. “I’m okay.”

“If something brought this on—something you found out—I just want you to know you can tell me. Anything you tell me stays between us, in the strictest confidence.” She leaned forward. “It’s Dick, isn’t it?”

“Who?”

“Your boss.”

“Oh,” I said. “D. Peters. No, I just wanted to cut off my leg.” She looked confused, so I added, “To build a better one.”

“Oh,” said Cassandra Cautery. She took back her hand.

“I hope this won’t interfere with my work. I’ve had a few new ideas this last week.”

She stood and looked down at me. It was an evaluative look. She was attempting to scan my body for trace emanations of deception.

“Seriously,” I said.

Cassandra Cautery leaned close. Something glinted in her eyes. I think it was greed. She looked like a kid who had just stumbled into the living room on Christmas morning and didn’t dare let herself believe that huge present was for her.

I said, “Why? Is something going on with D. Peters?” A memory surfaced in my brain, vague and indistinct, but there. “Did D. Peters tell you, Don’t do that thing? What thing?”

Cassandra Cautery kissed my forehead. “Shhh. All I want you to worry about, Charlie, is getting better.”

I didn’t say anything. I was confused by the kiss. I had gone seven years without a kiss, and now I had two. It was the kind of data event that implied a serious contamination of laboratory conditions.

She paused in the doorway. “And getting back to work.” Then she was gone.

25.