All Conscience Fled (The Good Doctor's Tales Folio Two) Read online

  After what seemed like hours of torture, she stopped. I lay on the floor and quivered, my mind utterly devoid of any thought or aggression. My thoughts would not congeal, shattered into broken emotions, fragments of memories, and devastated gasps of realization. Keaton walked back to the table and sat down to eat her still warm dinner as if nothing at all had happened. Then she spoke.

  “Hancock,” she said.

  My gut clenched in sick terror to have her attention on me again. My perfect Arm memory replayed again and again each horrible moment of agony. I raised my head to her. I barely held my body steady through the shaking.

  “Yes, ma’am,” I whispered, my voice raw.

  “Come here.”

  I scrambled to my feet. I trembled so badly I almost couldn’t walk, but I walked over and stood in front of Keaton. Keaton munched on a sandwich and studied me.

  “Do you think you can manage obedience, now?” she asked.

  “Yes, ma’am,” I said. I shook in terror. I would do anything she wanted me to.

  “Well,” she said, slowly, as if she was thinking, “I think you owe me an apology.”

  “Yes, ma’am. I’m sorry, ma’am.” Tears ran down my cheeks, and my legs shook.

  “Come now. Surely you can do better than that.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. My voice, hoarse from my screams, left my words almost unintelligible. My thoughts ran in a panicked anticipation of what she wanted from me. “Really, I’m sorry. I’ll do whatever you want.” Eventually I figured it out. “I’m sorry I didn’t do what you said. I’m sorry I lost my temper. I won’t do it again. I’m sorry. Please.”

  She eyed me speculatively. “That’s a good start,” she said. “I still think you can do better. Why don’t you try again, this time on your knees?”

  I went down on my knees and apologized again. Then Keaton wanted me to go down on all fours and apologize some more. Not satisfied, Keaton…

  Well, there’s no point in going into the details. The episode went on for quite some time.

  When all the food was gone, I started to clear the dishes and clean up. Keaton said, “Later. Follow me.” I followed her around her warehouse, through all the partitioned rooms, and the open areas of the kitchen and gym, jumping whenever she moved quickly. As I followed, she showed me various security measures I needed to follow, and told me something about my future duties. I paid rapt attention, deathly afraid I would miss something and draw her ire again. Sweat dripped down the middle of my back to add more stains to my now filthy shirt.

  Keaton’s warehouse appeared to be the same as any of a dozen other warehouses in the local warehouse district. Three loading dock doors lined the street side, all at street level. Two of the loading docks had ramps leading down below ground level, so a truck could back in towards them and still be able to unload directly into the warehouse. The third had no ramp, the pavement going straight up to the door.

  High shelves stacked with boxes on pallets make a tight one-car garage, or so it appeared upon entering the third loading dock door. However, those were the only boxes in the place, merely illusion, for the benefit of anyone who happened to be looking when the door was open. A huge space opened up beyond the boxes, about thirty feet long, running the width of the warehouse.

  Keaton’s gym was similar to the set up at the Detention Center, only more so, a cold and hostile place containing various exercise machines, familiar to me now. Racks of dumbbells lined the far wall, dark and iron and huge. Barbells rested in racks beside them, only these weren’t the light things I was used to. These were fat, heavy, and ugly, and looked strong enough for elephants. There were weights, big heavy disks with holes in the middle to go over the barbells, a lot of them. Thy gym even held a punching bag in the corner by the storeroom.

  A maze of equipment covered the rest of the open area, an extension of the gym. There were parallel bars and uneven parallel bars, and individual bars scattered around, at all different heights, some level, some sloping. There were pairs of rings hanging from the rafters far above, and single rings, and ropes. There were ropes all over, some tight, some slack, some level, and some sloped. A monkey’s paradise.

  Keaton was serious about her exercise.

  The ceiling in Keaton’s warehouse was two stories high. Suspended among the rafters close to the vents in the roof were a couple of fans, one at this end of the warehouse and one at the far end over the kitchen. They provided the only circulation in the closed, windowless building.

  Rooms lined either side of the aisle that led from the gym to the kitchen, formed by wooden dividers, about six feet tall. The first one on the right appeared to be some sort of large closet, with aisles of racks holding clothes of all kinds. Cabinets full of drawers lined the wall. Rows of shoe racks ran under the clothing.

  The first room on the left was a dressing room, with more cabinets and a dressing table. A tall three-panel mirror dominated the room, and a lesser make-up mirror on the dressing table reflected its majesty, anointed with scattered makeup supplies. Nearly a dozen wigs rested on the cabinets, each carefully stored on a wig stand.

  The second room on the right was obviously Keaton’s bedroom. Keaton walked by the room without going in, and I didn’t look any farther than my glance at her rumpled bed.

  The second room on the left was some sort of workroom, or perhaps a weapons area. Workbenches covered with tools lined all the walls. A few of the tools were larger, but most were little tools. Little screwdrivers, tiny screws. Jars held pieces of metal, nails, screws and powders. Clocks, little motors and too many other things for me to identify just by looking at sat in orderly ranks on the workbenches. Weaponry lined the walls and filled the empty spaces on the tables; guns, pistols, rifles, shotguns, ammunition, knives of all sorts, little ones, big ones. Keaton waved me on before I satisfied my curiosity, ignoring that room as well.

  The partitions created one other room, a small storeroom accessible from the gym. Keaton let me know I would be sleeping there.

  After the rooms, the aisle opened up into the kitchen. The stove rested against the far wall, next to a long counter with the deep and faucet-less basin at the end, followed by a refrigerator. Past that stood shelves. Metal shelves ran almost the entire rest of the way around the open area. The shelves were loaded with food, with dishes, and with all the things that belong in a kitchen. The expanse of shelves was broken only by the small bathroom and an opening to another room against the left wall, on the far side of the rooms made with dividers. That room backed up against the storage room where I would sleep. The room off the kitchen and the bathroom were real rooms, not made of partitions. The walls were brick, sturdy and substantial.

  The open kitchen area held the table with two chairs where Keaton ate dinner, and a beat-up looking recliner over to the left.

  Were we going to relax and talk? Not now. Keaton led me back to the gym and ordered me to start another exercise session, despite my still aching muscles from the first session. Exercise. The belt. More exercise. More belt. Eventually, even the belt would not suffice and I began to cry, whatever minimal strength I once possessed shattered under the repeated abuse. Keaton wrapped the blood-sodden belt around my hands, then yanked me up by my arms and tied off the belt, leaving me tied to an oversized weight rack, my legs splayed out and my rear less than an inch off the floor.

  “God damn. Don’t you ever do anything except cry?” Keaton asked. She reached over and lifted me up by my shoulder, and with her other hand she slapped me across the face. I cried harder, broken.

  “Fuck,” she said, and slapped me again.

  “Look at you.” Slap. “Every time something good happens, you cry.” Slap. “Every time something bad happens, you cry.” Slap. “You’re probably going to fucking cry every time you get low on juice.” Slap.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, in between slaps and sobs. My bruised face muffled my voice, but Keaton understood me without any trouble. As she spoke, her voice grew in volume and her eyes w
ent wild.

  I had never seen Keaton lose control. I hadn’t realized she could lose control. Panic rose in me, helpless and hopeless.

  “Damn right, you’re sorry.” Slap. “You’re the sorriest piece of shit I’ve ever seen in my life.” Slap. Keaton hit hard. Every one of those slaps jolted my head to the side and left a handprint on my cheek. I struggled to escape and went nowhere.

  “I can’t believe a worthless little shit like you ever became an Arm in the first place.” Slap. “How the hell do you expect to hunt if you whimper and cry every time life gets difficult?” Slap. “You’re worthless,” slap, “weak,” slap, “stupid,” slap, “and a complete,” slap, “piece” slap, “of” slap “shit!” slap.

  She slapped me twice more, harder still, and dropped me. I fell to the floor, except the belt still held up my hands. Keaton kicked the weight rack over, and it fell, dropping weights to the floor, and, very painfully, on me. The belt came free of the rack.

  I lay on the floor, wracked with sobs. A ten-pound weight disk had fallen on my shoulder and hurt like hell. Two forty-five pound weights had smashed my left leg from high enough to scrape skin. My face, red and swollen like a balloon, left me unable to see. Blood from Keaton’s blows leaked down my face with the tears.

  Dr. Zielinski had told me once that Keaton was insane, psychotic. I had thought what she did to me before had been caused by her ill mind. Now I knew better.

  “Clearly you need more incentive than the belt,” she said, laughing with the laugh of a demon, as I lay on the floor. She stalked off, came back with one of those handyman’s tool belts, and knelt down in front of me. When she gripped one of my fingernails with the pliers and pulled it off, I peed myself and shook like a beached fish, my gut clenching and my head swimming in an ocean of pain.

  Suddenly I found I had the energy to exercise.

  “Move that lard ass of yours, dipshit, or I’m going to acquaint you with the rest of my little treasures,” Keaton said, happily angry, fully enjoying my pain. I moved, in utter adrenaline terror. I had no desire to learn what uses she might make of the tiny knives, dental picks and the other horrors on her so-called tool belt.

  (3)

  “Get over here, now!” Keaton. The sound of Keaton’s quiet voice took me from the deepest sleep of my life to instant alertness. I shucked the thin blanket and rushed from the storeroom out to where she waited for me in the gym. Keaton already dripped with sweat; I had slept through her morning exercises. Keaton stood by the squat rack and munched on a piece of cold sausage.

  “Pay attention,” Keaton said. An icily competent woman, who paid attention to every move I made, had replaced the demonic thing I experienced last night. If I didn’t know better, I might never suspect the monster hidden under her paper-thin skin. “The first problem is your muscles. You’ve had a month of uncontrolled muscle development since I last dealt with you. You’re still a new Arm, so your muscle growth rate is high. It’ll slow down substantially several months from now. As Dr. Zielinski told you, you have muscles where they shouldn’t be, including small muscle nodules in your joints.

  “The way to solve your muscle problem is simply to use the muscles, as intense muscle use will reverse the process. Whatever you did in your last month of willing slavery wasn’t worth shit. If you work your muscles intensely enough, for long enough, you’ll develop those muscles and tighten them up. In the process, your body will consume the nodules in your joints, and you’ll keep your muscles sufficiently exercised that they won’t cramp up on you.

  “You got all that?” she said. She finished the last bite of sausage and licked the grease off her fingers.

  I nodded. Keaton actually taught me something. After a full day of her abuse, I held on to her every word as if she spoke with the voice of God.

  “If you want to remove those muscle nodules in your joints, you need to make maximum use of your muscles, skag,” she said. The belt she used on me last night rested doubled over in her hands. She pulled it tight with a snap and my stomach clenched up in terror. I swore she didn’t have it with her when she started. “You’re going to work those muscles until your body is forced to cannibalize anything it doesn’t need. You’re going to go way beyond anything you thought you were capable of. You’re going to work those muscles into complete exhaustion. Then I’m going to generate some adrenaline in you, and you will go way beyond exhaustion.” Just like last night.

  To my surprise, my third exercise session went better than the first two. After I finished, too exhausted to move, I did keep my stomach down and I didn’t have an episode of searing agony afterwards. My reaction felt inhuman, and was; through example, Keaton had shown me a new piece of my inner toughness.

  After what she did to me yesterday, finding any toughness was a surprise. I had thought what they had done to me in the Detention Center had been hard, but I still judged these things too much like a normal human. An Arm can take far more abuse than what I had experienced in the Center. Keaton would show me exactly how much abuse I could take, an insight that made my stomach knot with terror yet again. I wanted her to teach me what I had sold my life for, but I didn’t see how either my mind or my soul would survive.

  I cooked breakfast. I fried the other package of bacon, I scrambled a dozen eggs, and I made incredible quantities of pancakes. For my efforts, I got to eat breakfast with Keaton, my first food in Keaton’s home. I was careful, and polite, and didn’t do anything to set her off. I was so hungry even terror didn’t stop me from eating.

  “Dipshit, you need to learn the rules of my home,” Keaton said, after I cleaned up the breakfast dishes. She sat at the kitchen table, rocking her chair back on two legs while I stood nervously in front of her, dishwater still drying on my hands. “I expect you to cook and to keep house. I expect you to make improvements. I expect you to follow all of the security measures I told you about. You may not go into my office.” She indicated the room that opened off the kitchen, the warehouse manager’s office with its brick walls. There were no windows into the office. “I’ll know if you go near there.” She smiled slightly. “You would regret the consequences.” I shivered. I believed her.

  Keaton continued. “Don’t disturb any works-in-progress in my workroom and keep your hands off the weaponry. You aren’t to make any attempts whatsoever to establish contact with anyone from before. The FBI will be trying to track you by that, and if you do anything that stupid, you’ll be increasing the risk to me. I won’t be pleased. In general, I expect you to take extreme care not to do anything to attract the authorities, or put me at risk in any way.

  “I’m going out. I expect dinner to be ready at 6:00. I’ll give you some money and you can buy supplies. You can spend a little bit of that money on supplies for yourself. I’ll expect an account of what you spend.

  “You’ll be spending the day on your own. Sometime today, it may occur to you to try and run away from me. That would be…” pause “unwise. You’re ignorant. You have no idea how I would stop you. Maybe someday you’ll learn.” She smiled. “If you live. But now, you have no way to escape me. Any attempt to do so would be a serious mistake.

  “Do you understand me?”

  “Yes, ma’am.” ‘Yes, ma’am’ was the appropriate response any time Keaton asked me a question. Keaton eyed me and grunted. I didn’t impress her.

  Just so long as she didn’t hurt me again. Anything so she wouldn’t hurt me again.

  “Come with me,” she said.

  I followed her to her closet room, watched as she rooted through clothes and as she selected a set for me. She stuck an absurd wig on my head, shook her head, growled ‘hold still’ and cut my hair off, leaving a ragged half-inch stubble behind. Then she put the wig back on my head.

  In a bright yellow dress, ribbed yellow tights and a necklace made of oversized plastic beads, I looked like a teenager trying to pretend to be Twiggy. Ridiculous for a 35 year old mother, but in the mirror I saw the lines on my face had disappeared, my complexion no
w perfect and young.

  No cut on my throat, no bruises on my face.

  All the benefits of being an Arm.

  Keaton pulled out a blue screen, placed me in front of it, focused lights on me and took my picture. I had no idea why. At least this didn’t hurt.

  On her way out Keaton gave me $50 in mixed bills. For a moment, alone in her warehouse, I panicked. I wanted juice; I hadn’t had juice in nearly a week. I studied my left hand, missing the fingernail on my index finger, and sank down to the floor in despair. Unlike my other wounds, the finger hadn’t healed. It was scabbed over save for an eighth of an inch of fingernail at the base, improbably white and baby-like.

  Keaton expected me to keep house. After a few minutes, her expectations quieted my panic and sent me off on my errands. I shuffled around the warehouse neighborhood like a zombie until I found a bus stop, and got a couple of bus passengers to direct me to the nearest grocery store. I bought two bags of groceries, the limit of what I could carry, and went back. After I fixed myself lunch, I went back out again, after a stop at a Sears for some necessities, such as a bra, a bath mat and toilet and tank covers and a soap dish. I also bought a tablecloth, a vase and some silk flowers. These trips weren’t easy – the first time I came back to the warehouse my stomach clenched and my body poured out foul smelling sweat, all due to memories of Keaton.

  The second time out I thought about running. I stood in the parking lot of the grocery store and thought about just getting on that bus and going as far away from Keaton as possible. She couldn’t stop me, I told myself. I didn’t believe my own thoughts. I didn’t understand enough about being an Arm to survive on my own. I didn’t know how to shake Keaton and lose her in the dust. I didn’t believe I would be able to do anything Keaton didn’t want. Somehow, she would stop me.

  The fear of what she would do to me if I ran was greater than my fear of what she might do to me in her warehouse.