Part 11 (2/2)

Ace carefully pulled the syringe from her arm. Then she wondered what to do with it. Then it seemed too heavy to hold, so she dropped it on the floor. The syringe fell softly on the carpet at her feet. Ace sat back in her comfortable armchair and looked at John Henbest.

Henbest seemed to be moving away from her on a receding tide of light. He rose from his chair and fought the tide of light, slowly wading towards her.

He bent over the sofa and grabbed her under her armpits and lifted her in a businesslike fas.h.i.+on, like he was s.h.i.+fting a sack of potatoes. Henbest moved her from the armchair to the sofa. He fussily arranged the cus.h.i.+ons behind her head. At one point Ace's head lolled back helplessly and she found herself staring deeply, helplessly into the tiny weave of the fleurs-de-lys fabric of a cus.h.i.+on before he carefully lifted her head again so she could see the room.

She saw him go to his desk and sit down and pick up his phone. Before he could speak into it, there was the sound of the door opening and then the sound of someone coming in. Major Butcher stepped into view. Henbest set the phone down. 'I was just about to call you. She's ready for interrogation.'

Henbest reached into his desk and took out another case, one coated in black rubber this time, as if designed to survive being dropped in the ocean.

He took out another syringe. 'The final ingredient in the c.o.c.ktail that we want to mix in this young lady's bloodstream.'

He came forward and gave Ace another injection. She didn't resist. She couldn't. As soon as she received the second injection her eyes began to drift shut. She heard Major Butcher say, 'Shouldn't you swab her arm with alcohol before you do that?'

'Which one of us has a medical degree?' said Henbest petulantly.73.

Then Ace's eyes closed and she was lost in a warm floating darkness, listening to voices echo around her.

Ace woke up to find the Doctor looking down at her. She knew right away from his expression that something was wrong. 'What is it?' she said.

'How much do you remember?'

Ace felt a twinge of pain in her right arm and looked down to see that the sleeve of her blouse was rolled up and there on the inside of her arm were two pink blotches and two tiny heads of dried blood. The pink blotches already showed signs of darkening into bruises. 'The b.a.s.t.a.r.d. He said something about a radiation rash. Then before I could stop him, he was injecting me.'

'And nothing after that?'

'Just a blur. What did he give me?'

'He would probably call it truth serum.'

'So I might have told him something.'

The Doctor chuckled. 'I imagine just enough to confuse them.'

'Them?'

'Major Butcher was there, too.'

'When you rescued me you mean,' said Ace, sitting up. 'Thanks for that, by the way.' Looking around, she was surprised to see that they were sitting in Cosmic Ray's front room. 'You brought me here?'

'It's the last place anyone will think of looking for us.'

'Except for me, man, except for me,' said Ray. He came in from the bathroom, followed by the liquid echoing roar of a flus.h.i.+ng toilet. He went to the record player and embarked on the endless ritual of changing the cactus needle in the tone arm. Ace was beginning to see why he was so paranoid about running out of the d.a.m.ned things. 'Now that the kitten's awake, us cats can listen to some music.'

'Tell me, Ray,' said the Doctor. 'Did you know that Rosalita was going to be there by the pond today?'

'Yeah, sure I did. We made an arrangement. So I could pick up my Lady Silk record.'

'But you didn't know it was her who was shooting us?'

'Not until you told me, man. I just knew someone was shooting in my general direction and I got the h.e.l.l out of it. I'm no war hero, daddy-o. Not on the battlefield, with bullets flying past me and stuff. I'm doing my bit here.

With my physics.'

The Doctor smiled at Ace. 'Yes, while you were asleep Ray and I have been having quite an interesting discussion about physics.'74.

'Yeah man, your Doctor friend here is pretty fast about grasping concepts.

Man, he's switched on. Hip. All I had to do was sketch an equation and he'd get what I was getting at, like right way.'

'Yes, well I'm glad I was unconscious during all that,' said Ace.

'So what you're saying,' said the Doctor, turning to Ray and adopting a gently persistent tone of voice, 'is that you were going to the pond to deliberately rendezvous with Rosalita.'

'Yeah man. I needed to get that disc. The record, Daddy-o. The song that old Butcher had impounded. Luckily Rosie brought in a few spare copies.'

'Were you the only recipient of these discs here on the Hill, or was she also distributing them to a number of other people?'

'No idea, man. No idea.' Ray put on a record and turned it up loud. The Doctor went over and turned it down again. Ray gave him a reproachful look but said nothing. Over the years he must have grown accustomed to people wanting to turn his music down.

'And the presence of your friend Private Dobbs '

'Old Dobbsy man.'

'His presence there at the pond with your latest s.h.i.+pment of cactus needles, that was all purely fortuitous.'

'Eh?'

'It was coincidental.'

'No, no, no man. I knew I had to meet Rosie with the platter at the pond so I arranged to also meet Dobbsy there with the cactus needles. Two birds with one stone, baby. Two birds with one stone.'

'And you had no idea that Rosalita was going to pull a gun and start shooting at us?' said Ace.

'No man, I told you before. This is like listening to a stuck record.'

'Speaking of records,' said Ace.

'I'll turn this one up, baby.'

'That's not what I was going to say. I was going to say, what happened to the Lady Silk record? The Doctor found it before Barker did and he gave it to me to look after.' She looked at the Doctor. 'What did you do with it?'

'I gave it to Ray.'

'You did what?' said Ace.

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