Prisoner in his own Home...
“Morning.”
Olm looked up from his table. “Oh, hi Mirv. Didn’t hear you come in.”
Mirv looked at the mass of circuitry on the table. “What’re you doing?”
“Trying to rebuild Jase.”
“What’s that?”
Olm sighed. “An old friend. Lanar destroyed him, but I was able to retain his backup Mind Disc, so he’s still alive, in a sense. He just can’t do anything except talk.”
Mirv raised his eyebrows. “It talks?”
“Not in Mudosian, in his own electronic language. I am just lucky enough to own a translator.”
Mirv sat down at the table. “I didn’t know you knew about this sort of thing.”
Olm chuckled. “There’s probably a lot you don’t know about me.” Putting aside the mechanical parts, he steepled his fingers and looked across the table. “You wanted an Apprenticeship, didn’t you?”
Mirv nodded. “My Master sent me to Pyke to seek out your best Healer.”
Olm winced at the term ‘Healer’. “Your Master, was he a Healer?”
“Not a very good one. I’d learnt everything I could from him.”
“What did you learn?”
Mirv frowned. “About herbs, and how to heal with potions. He was very helpful.”
Olm frowned in turn. “It looks like I’ve got a lot to teach you. Let’s start by forgetting everything you’ve been taught. Shamanistic Healing, of the sort that you’ve been taught, is Bullshit. It’s mostly for show, and often relies on the patients recovering through coincidence, or Psychosomatically.”
Mirv’s eyes widened. “What? Well, what do you do?”
Olm stood up. “Firstly, I’m not a Healer, I am a Doctor. I don’t go in for all of that showy ritual ‘magic’. I rely on medicines. Medicines that have been tried and tested and have proven to be reliable.” He strode to the door to his cellar, motioning to Mirv to follow. “The City People, for all their faults, know a lot more about certain things than we do, and Medicine is one of them.” The descended a staircase, into a room filled with all kinds of equipment, electronic and mechanical. There were bottles of coloured liquids lining the walls, there were operating tables with complex equipment beside them, and many other things, few of which Mirv could even guess at the purpose of. “Fortunately, I have some contacts in Carthag, who have been able to get hold of this equipment for me. It is because of this equipment that the average life expectancy in Pyke has risen to 35 in the 10 years that I have worked here.”
Mirv looked around, experiencing severe Culture Shock. He opened his mouth to ask a question, when there was a sudden banging from the front door upstairs. In a mild state of panic, Olm grabbed Mirv by the arm and pulled him upstairs, locking the door at the top behind them. Sitting Mirv down at the table, he hurriedly swept the pieces of Jase into a box, which he also locked. Only then did he unlatch the door, and swing it open.
A large squad of sligs were framed in the doorway. “Good Morning, sir. I wonder if yer’d mind if we had a little chat…”
Olm narrowed his eyes suspiciously. “If this is about Spider, I’ve been acquitted.”
“No, it’s nothing ter do with that. Mind if we step inside?” Without waiting for an answer, six of the sligs pushed past Olm into the room behind him. The rest were still milling about uncertainly when Olm shut the door, worriedly.
“Look, I don’t – Hey!” Olm had seen one of the sligs surreptitiously shake the handle of one of his locked desk drawers. Olm slapped his hand away. The slig glared menacingly at him, but stepped back when the Sergeant gave a small shake of the head. Olm stepped back a little, so that he could see all of the sligs. “Look, what do you want here?”
The Sergeant’s face lost its smile. “I’ll be blunt with yer, Mr. Doctor, yer in a pretty dangerous position at the moment.”
Dangerous? he thought, No more dangerous than anyone else’s in the village… “What do you mean?”
“It’s no secret that we’ve been employed here to help catch a dangerous killer. An elusive killer. So far, we don’t know of anyone who’s survived an attack, but if anyone does, they’ll be in pretty bad shape, so they’ll probably be brought to yer.” The Sergeant turned his attention to Mirv, as if seeing him for the first time, then turned back to Olm. “If, as we think, this killer wants to stay unseen, he won’t want any of his victims to tell anyone else what he looks like, so he’ll be coming here to finish them off.” He leaned on the desk to emphasise his point. “And to finish off anyone who’s had contact with them…”
Olm was silent for a second, then reiterated what he’d said before. “What do you want?”
The Sergeant remained as he was for a while, then straightened. “The Mayor has ordered us to protect yer. In case the killer decides to make an appearance.”
“I don’t need any protection,” Olm said as he began to usher the sligs from his hut, “Now if you don’t mind…”
“Oh, I don’t think we’ll be leaving quite yet,” the Sergeant said as he sat down at Olm’s desk, putting his feet up, “We’re comfortable here.”
Olm was speechless for a second, then shook his head and began to walk towards the door. “Well, I’m leaving then…”
But one of the sligs blocked his path. “For yer own protection, we’re gonna have to ask yer ter stay here.”
Olm looked at the slig incredulously, then turned back to the Sergeant, who shrugged. “Orders is Orders.”
Olm stood still for a few seconds, then picked up the box containing Jase and walked over towards the cellar door, grabbing Mirv by the wrist as he went. He slammed the door shut behind them.
One of the sligs looked to the Sergeant. “Shall we break down the door?”
The Sergeant shook his head and sat back, grinning. “There aren’t any other exits, they can’t do any harm in there. We may as well relax, make ourselves comfy…”
*
“What are you going to do?”
Olm sighed, exasperatedly. “I don’t know, but I’m gonna stay down here, where they can’t get at me.”
“What if they break down the door?”
Olm looked at Mirv for a second, then shook his head. “Armour plated. They couldn’t get in here without a battering ram so big it wouldn’t be able to fit in that room, anyway…”
“Well,” Mirv said, brows knotting, “What about me? I don’t wanna be stuck down here!”
Olm strode to a desk, from which he pulled out a shining key. “Here. Let yourself out, and lock the door behind yourself. They’ll let you out, I expect. You can come back here to sleep at night, if you want, and we can carry on your training. If any patients arrive, escort them down here. Don’t let any of the guards follow you.”
Mirv nodded. “I’ll find myself a bed upstairs, later.” He bit his lip. “I’ll be seeing you later, then.”
Olm chuckled humourlessly. “I’ll be here…”
Mirv left.
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Guns don't kill people, People kill people! Using Guns.
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