Most of all, whatever the nature of the illness, Grainy was desperately tired. He wasn’t spending enough time with the child, that light-filled girl who dreamed of joining the war. He was neglecting his friends. He was demurring when Mace asked him to rub her ankle, and he liked rubbing her ankle. He wasn’t pulling his weight at work. He knew it, and he felt awful. Peace was important. Peace was everything. Peace took time and effort, day in, day out, like breathing.
Finally, when he realised his gut was turning hard, the worry wore him down. He went to the doctor for the first time since he’d mysteriously snapped his Achilles tendon, before his twentieth birthday. He still had no idea how he’d done his Achilles. It hadn’t been fussed over at the time: old Doc Bille, a genius neurosurgeon in the Old Time whose hands, in the New Time, shook, just slightly but more than enough, had watched and nodded as a couple of trainee nurses ripped the old tendon out and slipped a new one in. Grainy was home before dark, and pain-free in thirty-six hours. Eventually, old Doc Bille had let his tumours kill him. Or so Grainy had heard.
Today, though, a new doctor, Dr Gee, ushered him into her room and gazed at him with a wounded look as he described his symptoms.
‘Is it serious?’ Grainy asked. ‘It is, isn’t it?’
‘Remove your clothes, please,’ Dr Gee said. She was all business. Under the circumstances, it was the only way.
‘What, all of them?’
‘All of them.’
‘Even my —’
‘All of them.’
‘Isn’t it customary to have a third person in the room, for such an … an extensive intrusive examination? I mean, we hardly know each other, and I’m a citizen and you’re a medical officer, and, and, and —’
‘Yes, quite right: Section 9.1.1.1 of the Medical Regulations of Rise. But, sorry, not this time.’ Don’t push me, she thought. Don’t ask questions. Don’t doubt me. Let’s just get through this, best we can.
‘May I ask why?’
‘I’m sorry, truly I am, but that’s classified information.’
‘Classified? But it’s my body.’
‘All I can do is refer you to Section 12.4.29, amendment 4.’
Section 12.4.29 flashed onto an autoscreen. Grainy started reading: ‘Exceptions to Section 9.1.1.1 can be made when a medical officer is instructed by unnamed authorities (see Section 13.84.2.77) that Section 44.1 can be invoked.’ On and on it went, exactly the sort of gibberish that the New Time, taking Walker and Barton’s lead, had abandoned.
‘That bad?’ Grainy said.
Dr Gee shrugged. ‘Please remove your clothes. Please just do it.’
As Grainy attempted to strip, he grew breathless. The zip on his shirt half-undone, he dropped his arms to his side.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I’m doing my best. I really am. I just need a moment. This is the problem, the exact problem, or part of it: I start things, but I don’t quite have the energy to finish them.’
‘Let me help,’ Dr Gee said. She already knew how this examination was going to end, and she was keen to get it over and done with — for her sake and for that of this nice young man. She pulled the zip, exposing Grainy’s torso, and pulled the shirt free. His slightly distended belly drew her hand. She shone a light camera on his chest. After a moment, an image, magnified 900 times, materialised before her. Don’t ask him any personal questions, she told herself. Just don’t.
‘Hmmmm,’ she said, putting on a show for no good reason. She could see that he knew he was in deep trouble.
She pulled the zip of Grainy’s trousers and they fell to his ankles, revealing thin legs, bulging kneecaps, and a lovely round discolouration on his hip that would soon enough turn red and raw. She tugged on his underpants. They dropped without resistance.
‘Well? What do you think?’ Grainy asked.
‘One moment, please.’ She gave his stomach one last conspiratorial prod and then turned her back on him. ‘I’ve got a Code 427,’ she whispered into her wearable. Goddammit, yet another one, she thought to herself. Six in a week.
Barely fifteen minutes later, two orderlies dressed in sleek black overalls, masks covering their faces, strapped Grainy to a gurney. They placed an especially tight strap across his middle, pushing his swollen belly into his body cavity. Gently, they slipped a cloth mask over his head.
‘I’m so sorry about this, truly I am,’ one of the masked men said, as he adjusted the mask so that its two holes aligned with Grainy’s nostrils. ‘A necessary precaution, but I do apologise.’
‘I feel bad,’ the other man added, ‘but you can’t talk — please, not a word — until we tell you that you can.’
‘But where are you taking me?’ Grainy asked.
‘I’m most dreadfully sorry but, as I just said, not a word now.’
They carried him out of Dr Gee’s surgery via a rear door, loaded him into a windowless van, and drove away. Once they were moving, they lifted the cloth off his face.
‘Sorry about that. Truly. A regrettable but necessary precaution.’
‘But where are you taking me?’ Grainy asked. ‘What’s going to happen to me?’
‘Best-case scenario: you’ll be a picture of good health in no time at all.’
‘But why won’t you actually answer my question? Where are we going? Please tell me what’s happening. Have I done something wrong? Committed some crime? Oh, please tell me.’
‘No, no, you’ve done nothing wrong. Not in the least. We’re helping you,’ one of them said.
‘It is what it is,’ the other one said, absently patting Grainy’s head. ‘Best to make the most of it. Think of it as downtime.’
‘But where are you taking me?’
‘We’re going where we have to go. It’s not a long trip. Sit back. Close your eyes. Enjoy the smooth road.’
‘You might find it helps to imagine something pleasant. A favourite battle scene, perhaps.’
‘Can you at least take these straps off me now?’
‘No no no: they’re part of the healing process, believe it or not.’
‘Is that a gun in your belt?’
‘A gun? I’d be very surprised if it was a gun.’
After a longer time than the hooded men had promised Grainy, the van arrived at an imposing gated building from the Old Time. Its old sign was faded but intact: ‘National Concert Hall’. The hall was fashioned from great chunks of sandstone, patched up here and there with clear plastic bricks. It was classic Rise architecture: the best of the old combined with the best of the new. The bright colours of the tall, enclosing fence suggested the barrier was a recent addition.