Chapter Thirty-Two – The Doctor’s In the House

Chapter Thirty-Two – The Doctor’s In the House

“There are hundreds of ways the installation of an augmentation can go wrong. You get these backyard non-companies that’ll do installs for cheap, but half the time you don’t get what you paid for.

I’m not a company shill. I don’t give half a fuck where you get your augs. Just get them from a reputable source.”

–Writeit LifeProTips board, 2047

***

“We’re one level up,” Gomorrah said. “Another hole through the floor?”

I glanced around the room we’d burst into. I couldn’t see much until my helmet’s visor adjusted for the near-darkness, buy my ears let me feel the room just fine. It was a storage room… maybe? It was hard to tell, exactly.

“Yeah, we…” I paused, ears twitching within my helmet. Raising a hand, I made the universal “one second” gesture and shuffled over towards the far end of the room. There was a door there, one that, according to the maps Myalis had laid out for me, would lead into a passageway connecting a bunch of smaller rooms together. Our next push down was meant to be a couple of rooms over, where we’d be dropping right into the spot Doc Hack had his lab.

“What is it?” Gomorrah whispered. We were still talking over our coms, but I guessed that kind of habit didn’t die.

“There’s noise in the next room over,” I said. Once I was next to the door, I leaned down and brought my head closer. The sounds were mechanical. Something like a grinder, whirling and… grinding at something. There were other sounds too: air hissing through something, the gurgle of water, and the constant beeping of what had to be some sort of medical device.

Gomorrah stepped closer, boots crunching through the floor bits we’d blown up.

“I think the next room over is Doc’s place,” I said. “They might’ve done some renovating.”

“Then the place isn’t going to be the size and shape we expect it to be,” Gomorrah said.

“I don’t know about you all,” Raccoon said. “But I was thinking evil bad-guy lair. Like in one of those movies.”

I wasn’t going to admit it, but I had the same idea. “We’ll just have to see,” I muttered as I reached up to the door handle and carefully, slowly, spun it around. The door wasn’t locked, and the reason why became clear enough as soon as I peeked through.

Doc Hack’s lab was a messy, uneven room, mostly rectangular, but with segments to the sides that didn’t mirror their opposites. Obviously, they’d torn out walls wherever to make more room.

Still, someone had been at least a little clever about it. Large concrete pillars rose up from the ground floor and all the way up to the ceiling. Obvious additions to keep things from collapsing down.

The space past the door wasn’t all that big. A segment of floor maybe a metre wide, with no rails to the side and a fall down two floors of empty space to the ground below. There were some catwalks and multiple levels on the end opposite us, each one reachable by a metal staircase built around one of the pillars.

“I think we’re mostly out of sight up here,” I whispered. There were lights in the room below, but most of them hung from the ceiling at a level lower than the one we were on; anyone looking up would need to see us in the shadows behind a light. Also, they’d need to be able to see me while I was invisible.

I opened the door a little wider after ensuring there wasn’t anything connected to it. I didn’t want another dollar-store trap going off and alerting everyone.

“Want me to scout ahead again?” I asked.

“Go ahead,” Gomorrah muttered.

I nodded and stepped onto the overhang. It was really a balcony at this point. One without a railing, and overlooking what was obviously some sort of cheap-o hospital setup. I made sure I was properly invisible before moving closer to the edge to look down.

I’d gotten augs once, in my eye. Just the standard crap that everyone got. It had required going to a specialty clinic where I sat down in a plush chair and was given some options. I’d opted out of the local anaesthetic because that shit was expensive. Then some bored undereducated guy had stuck my head in a vice and, a lot of held back screaming later, I had my first aug. Quick and easy and just a little painful. Like getting earrings.

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That was for a simple, run-of-the-mill augmentation that everyone and their grandma had.

What was happening below was on a whole other level.

There were three baths, old cast-iron looking things, too small for anyone to be properly comfortable in. Each of them was currently filled with someone.

Most of someone.

Someone from the torso up.

Tubes leading into baths were probably keeping the three down there alive.

Off to the far end of the room was a pile of clear plastic trash bags, currently filled with discarded limbs, but very little blood.

There were more people down there. A couple hanging off of metal racks, prosthetic arms and legs dangling as they were held up by hooks that passed under their arms.