Strange Queens Ch. 04

'Why did you do that, Chelsea? As much as I enjoyed it...' Paulo asked her.
'To prove I still love you. Master.'

'I don't need your sexual services to prove that.'

'But it helps.'

Paulo looked at her. 'Thank you.'

They said nothing more as the car sped through the streets, twisting and turning, approaching its destination.

* * * * *

Jordan stayed awake for a while, sitting up and directing Rachel as she felt fit, but after twenty minutes or so she had relaxed back into her seat and was dozing quietly beside Rachel. Rachel just drove on diligently, hoping to herself that Jordan would still be able to sense her friend's influence whilst she was asleep. If the phone call this morning had proven anything, she hoped that she was right in her assumption.

The car moved slowly further towards the edge of town, winding casually through street after street.

* * * * *

PART 5

CONCLUSION

"And though we are not now that strength which in old days moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are— made weak by time and fate, but strong in will; to strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield."
~Fraiser Crane, Series Finale, Goodnight Seattle, Frasier, May 13, 2004.

* * * * *
An extract from the events at the Kapplin Correctional Facility

06:30 AM, experimental procedures northern junction, west operating wing

Document rank: Alpha
Document priority: 1.2

Document codename: Livewire

Three full-body medical staff stood around an operating table, a large, futuristic array of lights blaring blindingly down on the patient beneath. The table, far from your normal operating bench, was shaped like a low-poly skate ramp, with a flat, moving central platform and two tilted platforms on either side. At present, the patient was strapped to one of these sides, fixtures for the head, chest, hips and legs designed to slide effortlessly into matching receptacles in the surface of the bench face in place to support the subject on the unusual forty-five degree angle.

The staff moved quickly around the person on the bench, two younger females moving about, collecting tools and contraptions for a larger, dark skinned male. Head surgeon and the lead mind in his most unique a field, he held a thick syringe in his hand, a syringe equipped with needles on a rotating head much like the head on a hole-punch tool. A small trigger on the side allowed the head to turn, clicking a new needle in place in a fraction of a second, the other needles around its circumference folding out of the way as they passed the body of the tool. And its contents, delivered from the curved body's glass vial by two indented channels in the solid arms of the tool, was a most unusual substance, at least at first glance; thick and purple, it seemed to swirl and blossom about itself in the chamber all of its own accord, despite the movements of the surgeon injecting it.

The reason for the needle wheel was simple. Quickly and professionally, the surgeon moved from point to point on the side of the patient's face, spending less that a second between insertion points. He moved quick and fluidly, expertly locating and penetrating the skin as though he'd done it a thousand times before.
After expending the hypodermic wheel, the tall man handed it to his female protégé, who took it gingerly and carried it to a tray of its own. Placing it down with the utmost care, she took her time, wide eyed and focussed. She kept her free hand well clear of the needles. Once in the tray, she clasped a lid closed over the device, and only then did she relax -- just a little.

Turning to his second assistant, the surgeon held his hands out. Reaching for his wrists with a metallic tool in her fingers, she swiftly clasped what looked like handcuffs around his wrists, thick metal cuffs joined with a strong, solid bar in their centre. Then, she pulled two wires from her pocket, wires whose snaking ends ran past her leg and across the floor to an enormous white device mounted on the wall. She pressed one into a jack on each wrist cuff, the inserting end seemingly so long that it would pass right through the hole and into the skin of the wearer. She pressed it firmly into place, as deep as it would go, before strapping medical tape over it. She repeated the process on the other cuff, strapping it in place firmly. The surgeon made no reactions, but his arms seemed to tense ever so slightly upon each insertion.

Once completed, she turned and moved to the machine now connected to the arms of the surgeon as the first female attendant returned with a large tray in hands. Slowly and methodically, the tall operating surgeon picked up a large, gleaming scalpel from the tray and turned to his patient. Impassively he sliced away at the useless cartilage adorning the ear canal, removing obtrusions in perfect arcs and slicing professionally down razor straight lines.

His work took him ten minutes. When he was complete, he placed the now maroon stained tool down on a tray held by his second female attendant and picked up a pair of long, flat ended tweezers, reaching in to his work area and removing the disconnected tissue. It too joined the scalpel on the bare tray held by the second female.
After several minutes of careful extraction, the surgeon placed his utensil on the tray and retrieved a new one, a long, thin cylindrical device with a microscopic bladed end. Invisible to the naked eye, the perfectly circular end of this cylinder bore tiny staggered feet, much like a very small version of the teeth on a saw blade, or, more accurately, a hole drilling attachment for an electric drill, circular and toothed for cutting round openings with the power of the drill behind it.

Gently, the surgeon lowered it into the now open canal of the patient until he felt the faintest of resistance. Casually, he placed his fingertips on the end of the tool, as though he was holding the top of a coke bottle with his fingers straight. Then, like he was clicking his fingers, he gave the cylinder a ultra-quick and clean twist and then was raising out of the open hole. As he drew it out, he revealed the needle sharp tip, a tip which now bore the wafer thin, semi-transparent severed ear drum of the patient in it. Discarding it on his tray, he picked up a long white stick, something which closely resembled a pipe cleaner, and twisted it about his handiwork carefully.

Once done, he placed the now reddened cleaner down on the tray and turned to his other assistant, picking up a second, very intricate looking metallic cylinder. Once he'd done so, the tray holding female turned to the bench and put down her tray, picking up a large clear bowl, the bottom of which filled with the thick, swirling purple liquid. The bowl seemed far too big for the amount of stuff in it. The second assistant also put her tray down, and she picked up a small glass test tube with the purple substance in it, a long channel on its lip to facilitate pouring. Passing it to him tenderly, he reached over the head of the subject held at an angle on the sloping lop-sided bench and held the end of the lengthened channel over the opened ear hole of the patient, hovering right in the centre.

Gently and with a consistent speed, he poured the stuff into the open hole. As soon as the last of the stuff had disappeared into the cavity, the vial was back in the second assistant's hands and he was moving, holding up the intricate, electronic looking cylinder in his other hand and lowering it into the purple bowl held by assistant one. A complex network of metal wiring, small, transistor like circuitry and panels of sterile, gleaming metal could be seen on its flanks, the tip in the palm of the surgeon's hand ending in a finished metal plug coated with a thin black plastic. It bore sixteen small holes in it, three in a line down the length of the face larger than the rest.

The surgeon dipped the device in the purple liquid, coating the lower half in the substance. The stuff seemed to cling to the metal, seeping amongst the workings, coating every surface and filling every crevice. He raised it quickly, the purple slush quickly seeping up the tool and approaching the gloved hand of the surgeon. Carefully, without even the slightest tremor, he held it in a dead straight line above the cavity in the side of the patient's head and lowered it in. All the while his futuristic metal handcuffs stretched and moved with him, restricting no movement and almost seeming to help steady his hand.
It was a perfect fit in the perfectly circular hole bored into the ear, and a tiny ring of the stuff was left around the entry point as it slid deeper.
It only took a few seconds. The device went all the way in, buried up to the capped plug end, leaving it just a few millimetres below the surface level of the patient's skin. As soon as it was inside the head of the victim, the surgeon pulled his hand away and stood back.

The three of them watched tentatively. For a moment, nothing moved, save the purple liquid as it seeped into the ear of the patient.
And then, they began to shake. Just slightly at first, but quickly increasing to a violent spasm. The liquid in the bowl, too, still gripped by the first assistant, began to shake and shimmer, splashing about and jumping into the air like glue on a speaker, sending droplets into the air.
And then, as quickly as it had started, it stopped, and all was still.
No one moved for a few seconds, and then, gingerly, the three attendees stepped closer. When they saw it, they could see their surgically implanted plug sitting seamlessly in the ear of the patient, skin formed not just around the edge of the wound, but around each of the sixteen minute plug-holes in the device, no visible point of surgical interaction to be found. All that was left that was any different from any normal ear was the series of dark holes inside the ear canal, invisible from most angles of view except side-on to the patient, and covered in part by the shadows of the outer ear.

Stepping back, the surgeon held his arms out, and the second female attendant stepped over to the large white device on the wall, tapping a few buttons. Then she returned to the surgeon and pulled out the plugs, unclipping the cuffs and lifting them from his skin. Deep, red trenches could be seen where the firm rubber interior had pressed into his skin, and two holes, one on each wrist, were beginning to well with blood. These were the holes from the plugs which had indeed pierced -- deeply -- into the surgeon's wrists. The surgeon rubbed his wrists as the second attendant returned the plugs to the device, wrapping the cables up.
He turned -- to find the first attendant clutching her face. The large clear bowl was on the floor, the purple substance in it still. In a flash he was on her, tearing her hands from her face and forcing her head back. He looked at her closely, peered into the eye she had been holding. He looked closely and immediately saw it. Her iris bore a tinge of purple in it.

Cursing, the first words anyone had spoken since the operation had started, his hand slammed violently against her cheek, sending a gout of spit from her lips. She whimpered, but he didn't care for her plea, turning to his second assistant. With a firm, angry point at the woman who was again clutching her eye, she scrambled to the move and was grabbing her quickly, pushing her away from the benches and out through a door in the far corner. The two stepped into an airlock on the other side of the operation room, standing still for thirty seconds while a white mist descended around them.

The female attendants stood, the mist floating thickly all about them and obscuring them from view. When the mist had cleared, the second woman remained as she had been when she entered.

The first was on the floor, unmoving.
The untouched attendant looked down at her accomplice, then up through the glass at the surgeon still inside the theatre. With a dismissive wave, he gestured her back inside. The door opened again and she stepped through, back into the operating theatre, leaving the still form of the woman in the airlock.

She returned to his side, and he raised his arm, checking his watch. The time read 6:28:58. Flicking his fingers towards the bench, the assistant busied herself with a black, wheeled device, bulky and futuristic looking, punching buttons and bringing up commands on a small green display. When it presented itself, she grasped the end of a plug that revealed itself in the side of the unit, drawing it out and playing a sizeable amount of cable behind it. The surgeon continued eyeing his watch, counting the seconds as they ticked by.

6:29:32...
6:29:33...
6:29:34...

The attendant pushed some more buttons, and the device whirred, priming itself. A rapid spam of lines of code scrolled with speed on the display, far too fast to read, increasing in intensity.

6:29:58...

6:29.59...
6:30.00...

Wordlessly, the surgeon turned to the attendant, who looked at him. He nodded to her, and took the cable from her outstretched hand. He kept his eyes on her, hers locked on the display as it flashed with each line of code flying past the tiny view. After several more seconds, the display suddenly went still, a single line at the far end of the unit flashing slowly and rhythmically on and off. The attendant held up a single thumb, and the surgeon turned to his patient. He held up the end of the connector, its pins gleaming. Slowly, gently, he lowered it into the socket embedded in the ear of the patient. It clicked, mutely, and the attendant stared at the display.
"Awaiting connection of host. . . " the display read. She held her breath.
Then, it was gone, and the display was awash with lines of code again. A progress bar underneath the single line display flickered on and began to fill itself.

The pair waited for about two minutes. Finally, the display flicked off, and the device wore down, apparently turning itself off. The surgeon unlinked the device from the patient's ear, and the assistant spooled it back into the cavity in the machine. It closed once it was back in place, and she wheeled the tool away from the table.
Pulling off his gloves, the surgeon picked up a small, personal music player looking device from a drawer. It bore a set of in-ear headphones, much like those found with just about every music player sold in the world. The only difference with this particular pair was that one side bore a set of thin, gleaming pins instead of the smooth plastic that houses the sound drivers. The surgeon slid the set into the ears of the patient, making sure to tender the pins into their contacts, and then undid the straps holding the patient in place. He removed the fixtures and the subject slid gently down onto the flat panel of the table, who, quite casually, sat up and slid off the end of the bench. The patient stood, all on their own, their eyes still closed.

Carefully, the surgeon slid the small device connected to the headset into a pocket on the patient's surgical gown and guided them gently to a small, metal door in the far wall of the cell. His assistant swung it open before him and he walked his subject slowly and gently through the threshold, leading him around a corner. He came to a block of cells suspended on their own mechanical pillars, helping the patient into one empty cell. He stood them in the centre, facing outwards, and then left, closing the door behind him. As he moved to the front, looking in at the still form of the freshly operated subject, it raised slightly on the mechanics holding it suspended in mid-air, clicking in place beside a row of identical-looking people in cells identical to their own, each dressed only in surgical gowns, each bearing cables reaching up from their pockets and into their ears, each with a metal device buried deep in the side of their heads, reaching deep into their brains.

Number eighty-one had been a success like all their predecessors. The technology was advancing well, and before long they would be out there, in the wild, ready to bring him more patients to operate on.

And only one nurse had been lost this time. How very pleasing.

* * * * *

the sleek car pulled into a carpark outside a small, nondescript building, rolling next to silently into one of the many empty parking spaces. It was dark, and there were no lights on or even near the building to help distinguish it from the rest of the murky night world around it. The car flicked off its lights and the driver opened his door, stepping out. He strode away, leaving the door to close itself, which it did shortly after. He passed efficiently around to the rear of the facility, where he knocked briskly on a door there. After several moments standing in the cold, the door apparently opened and he disappeared inside.
Inside the vehicle, now no longer running, a second occupant, a passenger, a female, sat back on her seat and sighed, a million distant, unrelated and all equally as disconnected thoughts flying about in her mind, a mind she didn't have the energy or will to think too much with right at the moment.

Two blocks away and sitting at a red light sat another car, this one running and waiting to move on from the busy intersection boasting a whole two cars stopped at opposing ends of the junction. Inside, Rachel tapped her fingers on the wheel idly, while Jordan and Katrina slept peacefully in their seats. Katrina had since slipped down and was now lying on her side across the length of the back seats, while Jordan had simply slumped further into her reclined passenger seat. The sounds of the two females snoring did little for Rachel's own seeping tiredness eating away at her bones, though it was strangely therapeutic to her otherwise murky thoughts. If they could sleep, things weren't that bad. The thought of them sleeping by her was somewhat calming, their trust in her a morale boost. The light changed and Rachel pulled away, the car across the road eventually realising the light had turned and also moving on their way.

It was rapidly approaching morning now and the light of the sun was starting to peek over the horizon of buildings and trees adorning the city suburbia. Rachel took it in, watching the rarely seen sight as she rolled down the roads. She could take it easy out here, on the shy side of five am, slow and steady, with time to stop and smell the sunlight. It blued the dark sky and created a beautiful contrast between the twinkling diamond night adorned with stars and the glowing blue and gold of the day to come, as though an item of jewellery had been fashioned to flaunt a lapis lazuli, topaz and an azurite or labradorite side, adorned with tiny diamantes, a symbolisation of the day and the night sharing the same space for a fleeting moment. Rachel suddenly found herself wishing that such a sight was indeed a piece of jewellery, for it would be one she would wear every single day, even if it wasn't quite as beautiful as this.

Moving ahead, Rachel's car reached the outermost buildings in this quiet, gentle block and pulled to the side of the road. Sitting back in her seat as she flicked off the engine, Rachel let herself relax for a few minutes. She closed her eyes to rest them from the long night of bright lights, and without realizing it, a minute later she was asleep.