The Planet of Relaxation--Chapter Five

Chapter Five: "Welcome Back"

 Sarah proves she's able.
The Doctor goes on the table.
** by K. Michael Wilcox **

 "Welcome back, Sarah Jane," a deep, calming voice said. "Here, I'll help you with that." She felt two large, soft hands guide her up into a sitting position. Once her head's throbbing receded, she opened her eyes.

 "Doctor?" she asked. The face before her grinned. "What happened? How long was I out?"

 "Only an hour, I'd say," the Doctor said.

 "Feels like I've been unconscious for months." Sarah looked past the Doctor's head at a group of uniformed security men examining an apartment. She tried turning her head to the side and saw that she was sitting in a doorway. With some effort, she rotated ninety degrees until she could lean back against the doorjamb. Then she turned her head again and looked out into the corridor. Here there were even more security men, most of them standing at the top of the stairs which led back to street level. One of the men stepped aside, and she saw that Dave Sangstom, the planet's nominal director, was with them. Then she saw why they were all there.

 At their feet was the body of a young woman. Most of her was on the landing, but her severely bruised head dangled unnaturally over the first step. No one had yet touched the body, and her eyes continued to stare, seemingly right at Sarah. With a shudder, the reporter turned away and looked back at the Doctor.

 "What happened here?" she asked.

 "That's what we were hoping you could tell us," Sangstom said as he walked over to where she sat. He made no effort to bend down and consequently towered over her.

 Sarah tried to think back. "It's a blur, really. I was walking past when I heard someone scream. When I got up here, I saw that woman being choked by a large, half-naked man."

 "In the hallway?" the Doctor asked.

 "No, in the apartment," Sarah explained, gesturing with her head and immediately regretting it. "I went to help her. We thought I'd knocked him out, but he woke up so quickly, and we started to run and... that's all I can remember."

 The Doctor considered. "That makes sense. When you discovered he was awake, you were standing..." He stood just inside the apartment next to where Sarah's foot was. "...Right about here, weren't you?"

 "Umm, yeah, I think... Oh no." She looked up at the doorframe and saw a smear of blood. "I ran into the wood, didn't I?" The Doctor nodded. "I feel like such an idiot."

 "Don't," the Doctor said. "It may have saved your life."

 "Wait a minute," Sangstom said. "You mean the killer ignored your friend and went straight for my... my daughter?" For the first time, Sarah saw a tear roll down his cheek. "What kind of a sick animal do we have here?"

 The Doctor shook his head. "No, Sangstom, not an animal. An animal kills because it needs to, for food or survival. This was the work of a sadist, someone who killed for the pleasure of watching the terror on his victim's face as she died. That, Mr Sangstom, is something uniquely human."

 Sarah started to say something but decided to let the Doctor have his moment. Instead, she grabbed the frame behind her and started to pull herself up. She had just reached a standing position when a small man in a drab business suit arrived at the bottom of the stairs.

 "Is that Amanda?" he asked tonelessly. "Oh my. What happened?"

 Sangstom crossed the corridor in two steps and stared down at the man. "What took you so long?"

 "Well," the man droned, "it sounded like something might be wrong, and I got worried, so I stopped at the handers first."

 Sangstom looked back at the Doctor and Sarah Jane. "That is my daughter's husband, Ed Ford," he explained. Then he started talking to the security officers while the son-in-law just stood downstairs and stared dumbly.

 "He looks stoned," Sarah whispered to the Doctor. "That's what too many of this place's mental colonics will do to you. I say, you do look rather pale." The Doctor called Sangstom and a couple of the security agents back over. "Sarah Jane needs medical care."

 "I'm fine," Sarah lied. Then a wave of dizziness hit, and she staggered and fell forward. One of the security men caught her and helped her back to her feet.

 "We still have questions we need to ask Miss Smith," he said.

 "Maybe I could use a bit of fresh air," Sarah said.

 

Whatever the official government line was, Fliss Indie had definitely not chosen to become a hander herself. Rather, her parents signed her up for it on her twelfth birthday and kept the signing bonus for themselves and Fliss's three older brothers and six younger siblings. Even so, Fliss didn't care. She had at the time, she supposed, but those cares were the first to be washed away by ORG, the computer that enhanced and cleansed the handers as well as running everything else on the moon. After two years here and countless sessions in ORG's unloader, it seemed like ancient history. Now, Fliss cared about very little.

 Fliss stripped off her clothes and dropped into her bed, not bothering to crawl under the covers. Within seconds she was asleep. A few minutes after that, she began to dream.

 

Surprisingly enough, Sarah thought, it seemed to have worked. A few minutes of sitting on the kerb, breathing in the afternoon air, and she felt almost as good as new. Well, except that now she could feel a dull throb where she had a bump on her forehead from her encounter with the doorframe. She looked back up at the sky, then at one of the two security officers sitting with her.

 "Umm, what time is it?"

 "Almost 21.30," he answered.

 "So when does it get dark?"

 The officers looked at one another for a moment. "In about a fortnight," the second one told her.

 "Are you ready to answer a few questions?" the first one asked.

 "I think so. You want me to describe the attacker, right?" They nodded in unison. "He was big, like I'd said, and not wearing much, like he'd come from the beach."

 "Or a hander?"

 Sarah thought a moment. "The brain drain guys? Don't know. I've not met one."

 "That's fine. Do you remember anything else like hair or eye colour?"

 "Black and green, in that order."

 The guards looked at each other again. One placed a finger in his ear and spoke into his wrist. "Witness's description matches ORG's misper. Aye, sir. No, sir, she seems fine now. Aye, sir. Aye. Over and out." He let his hand fall and turned to the other officer. "We're to escort Miss Smith back to her rooms."

 Sarah considered objecting, but her heart wasn't in it. Frankly, she just wanted a few dozen aspirin and a good night's sleep.

 

Sangstom looked at the security report, then handed it to the Doctor. His friend had left some time before, and Ed had slipped out soon after. Why he had ever thought it a good idea to arrange for Amanda to marry a cleansing addict escaped him. No, that wasn't true; he just wished it did.

 "'Escaped before unloading'?" the Doctor quoted. "It seems your system isn't perfect after all."

 Sangstom sighed. "Post-client violence happens sometimes, Doctor. That first victim, Miss Bunsen, herself once killed two other handers before we caught and unloaded her." He looked around to make sure that no security agents were within earshot, then leaned forward and lowered his voice. "The problem, Doctor, is that earlier, Mr Neville's file said that he hadn't had a client before he killed her."

 "The file's been altered," the Doctor said. "And you know who did it."

 In the corner of the room, a monitor turned itself on, and an image of an eye appeared. As the two men spoke, the eye looked from one pair of lips to the other. Then, as quickly as it appeared, the eye vanished and the monitor switched off.

 

Ed Ford sat in the waiting room and twiddled his thumbs. There were some magazines on the table before him, but they were all pointlessly angst-free celebrity gossip and children's games. Besides, he'd read them all. When he'd seen his wife's corpse, he knew he'd have to come back here for another cleansing. It wasn't that he felt sorrow for losing her; that left him strangely unaffected. But he had seen a body, and somewhere deep down there was some guilt over the lack of grief. Whatever, it'd soon be gone.

 "We're ready for you, sir," the receptionist said to him.

 A man in a white smock escorted him to a small room with a padded table, then left him there, not bothering to close the door. Without really thinking about it, Ed undressed and lay facedown on the table.

 A couple minutes later, a naked girl entered and closed the door behind her. She brushed some of her brown ringlets from in front of her face and smiled sheepishly. Ed grinned back, then closed his eyes.

 Consequently, he didn't see as Fliss drew the knife from under the table.

 

Sarah Jane glanced back to make sure that her guards were still behind her. They were, but she'd got a bit ahead of them again. So she waited for them to catch up. Though she'd never been a fast walker, Sarah was easily outpacing these two. Perhaps, she thought, gravity here was lower than she was used to, or maybe the throbbing in her head was giving her a reason to pick up the pace.

 The two officers had almost caught up when Sarah saw her assailant on a first-floor balcony. Before she could say anything, he'd leaped to the ground directly behind one of the security men. He immediately reached out and snapped the officer's neck. The other agent started to draw his gun, but the man tackled him at the waist and knocked him to the pavement. He then straddled the officer's chest and grabbed for the neck.

 Sarah looked around for something to use against him, but all she saw close to hand was the officer's corpse. She couldn't see his truncheon, which must have been under the body, but his gun was visible. She quickly unholstered it and pointed it at the attacker.

 "Let him go!" she screamed. The man ignored her. "I said, let him go or I'll shoot!" Still, he seemed not to know she was there. Reluctantly, Sarah carefully aimed for his arm and fired.

 A beam lanced out of the gun and struck Hadyn in the head. For a moment, his skull was visible through a glowing blue haze. Then the light faded, and his corpse, scorched from the neck up, fell onto the officer.

 With an effort, the officer disentangled himself and sat up. "Left it a bit long there, didn't you?" he croaked.

 

Having learned what he could at the murder scene, the Doctor had started to go to the tourists' lodgings, but the security officers had insisted on sending a three-man escort along. Then, halfway to the lodgings, two of them had grabbed him by the shoulders, and they were now dragging him into a pastel-coloured building. They entered through a sliding glass door and stopped in the waiting room.

 "Oh my," the Doctor said, "is this where I sign up for one of those emotional enemas?"

 "Any rooms open?" the lead officer asked the receptionist.

 "'Fraid not. Just had a PCV, and the hander's still on the loose."

 "Another one?"

 The receptionist nodded, then looked away as her terminal beeped at her. "What do you know, you're being given a room. What's this guy done?" She looked at the Doctor, who simply smiled and winked at her. She shrank back, and the Doctor frowned. "Room 13, end of the hall."

 The officer thanked her and led the group to the appointed room. Like all the others, it was small and empty apart from a couple folding chairs and the all-important padded table.

 The lead officer took the Doctor's hat and scarf and tossed them into a corner. Then the ones who had been holding the Doctor pulled off his long coat, unable to hide their surprise that he had another, identical coat on under it. Tossing the first coat aside, they yanked off the second, but there was a third beneath that. Undeterred, they removed this third one, then a fourth, fifth, and sixth.

 "What is this?" the lead officer demanded.

 The Doctor smiled again. "I once had this friend named Bartholomew Cubbins...."

 The officer slapped him across the face. "Shut up!" He turned to the other officers. "Take them all off!" One officer grabbed the collar of the Doctor's shirt and pulled on that. Buttons ricocheted about the small room as the shirt was torn off the Doctor, taking his coats with it and leaving the Doctor in just his trousers and a sleeveless undershirt. The officers slammed the Doctor facedown onto the table, then yanked away the undershirt.

 "Well, if you're going to do it that way," the Doctor said.

 "Hello," a new voice said. The Doctor looked at the doorway and saw a woman in her twenties smile at him. She was naked from the waist up, but her long blonde hair covered her breasts. She stepped forward and gently placed her hands on the Doctor's shoulders. Instantly, her body went rigid and she screamed.

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