played havoc with the electro-photoreceptors in his corneal readers, turning the message script into tall, reedy, scary lettering. Nonetheless, the distressing bit was clear enough, and Dr. Bajwa scrolled it over his corneas a few times, taking it in: NHS Ãlite Patient No. 87229109, Handley, Cuthbert Alfred. Arrest Notification. Offence: Drunk (FlÅt) and Incapable, High Street, Camden Town. Result in Lieu of Fine and/or Detention: Compulsory Form B-810 Report, Mental Hygiene Exam, Ministry of Mind. Date: 1 March 2052 via SkinWerks Bond . Examiner: Dr. George Reece, 2nd Viscount Islington, 1st Psyalleviator (EQUIPOISE), Home Counties Region.
It was all that Baj had been fighting to prevent, and it almost certainly meant that his elderly patient would end up institutionalizedâand, soon enough, dead.
âYou can come home and live with us,â the little girl said. âYou wonât be sad with us. Iâve got a mother, you know.â
Baj leaned down, and kissed the girl on the forehead, and walked away. He smelled the street in her hairârain, spit, the earthy acridity of coal dust from a century ago.
He realized at that moment that he had no choice but to cooperate with EquiPoise when it came to Cuthbert, or risk his own medical registration. While the Watch might not have been unleashed on Cuthbert yet, one deviation from the Ministry of Mindâs examination procedures and detention was inevitableâshould he survive the arrest itself. The next day, he was able to break the news to Cuthbert, who seemed completely and rather pitifully unfazed. It was the one reaction Baj feared most.
âYou need to respect EquiPoise,â he pleaded with Cuthbert. âOh god, Cuthbert. You donât understand. They will want everything from you.â
âIâve no worries,â he answered. âThereâs a âforce that through the green fuse,â Baj, drives everything, and itâll never let us down. And no EquiPoise will get their grubby donnies * on my otters, Iâll tell you that.â
Cuthbert had just as well, the doctor thought bitterly, handed his pureed brain to EquiPoise in a disposable jar. It was over.
CUTHBERTâS FATEFUL EXAM with Dr. Reece lasted forty-five seconds, over a scent-enabled SkinWerks screen, during which Reece put a mere two questions to Cuthbert: Do you hear voices? and Do you dedicate yourself to the King? Cuthbert answered, respectively, â Of course, donât you? â and â More than youâll ever know .â
Dr. Reece didnât like him. Reeceâs rather minor new Islington viscountcy, for which he outbid a few B-list media celebrities and paid the Windsors £130,000, hadnât quite bought him the respect he felt he deserved.
An NHS Ãlite First Psyalleviator who kept tabs on several thousand other destitute mental cases, Reece calibrated medications on bulk database screens and, in short, superintended thousands of unwell brains. At the start of the exam, Cuthbertâs marshy smell of FlÅt and old clothes so bothered him, Reece had immediately activated his high-priced olfactory CoreMods (as he often did with Indigents), an insult clearly visible to Cuthbert with the Psyalleviatorâs telltale swipe of his nasal septum.
Like many of the aristocracy, his face looked weird, showing signs of various rejuvenating mods with telltale âcracksâ in the facade. In the Viscount Reeceâs case, his blue eyes had the watery, dull look of a man obviously older than 110 or so, which wasnât particularly old by todayâs standards, but the rest of his face belonged, cosmetically, to a twenty- or thirty-year-old manâs.
Cuthbert kept staring and smiling at the man, ruffling him mightily.
Animal conversationalist that he was, he also informed Dr. Reece that âyour cat told me you bore him stiff.â The First Psyalleviator sniffed a little and stiffly tapped something into the
It was all that Baj had been fighting to prevent, and it almost certainly meant that his elderly patient would end up institutionalizedâand, soon enough, dead.
âYou can come home and live with us,â the little girl said. âYou wonât be sad with us. Iâve got a mother, you know.â
Baj leaned down, and kissed the girl on the forehead, and walked away. He smelled the street in her hairârain, spit, the earthy acridity of coal dust from a century ago.
He realized at that moment that he had no choice but to cooperate with EquiPoise when it came to Cuthbert, or risk his own medical registration. While the Watch might not have been unleashed on Cuthbert yet, one deviation from the Ministry of Mindâs examination procedures and detention was inevitableâshould he survive the arrest itself. The next day, he was able to break the news to Cuthbert, who seemed completely and rather pitifully unfazed. It was the one reaction Baj feared most.
âYou need to respect EquiPoise,â he pleaded with Cuthbert. âOh god, Cuthbert. You donât understand. They will want everything from you.â
âIâve no worries,â he answered. âThereâs a âforce that through the green fuse,â Baj, drives everything, and itâll never let us down. And no EquiPoise will get their grubby donnies * on my otters, Iâll tell you that.â
Cuthbert had just as well, the doctor thought bitterly, handed his pureed brain to EquiPoise in a disposable jar. It was over.
CUTHBERTâS FATEFUL EXAM with Dr. Reece lasted forty-five seconds, over a scent-enabled SkinWerks screen, during which Reece put a mere two questions to Cuthbert: Do you hear voices? and Do you dedicate yourself to the King? Cuthbert answered, respectively, â Of course, donât you? â and â More than youâll ever know .â
Dr. Reece didnât like him. Reeceâs rather minor new Islington viscountcy, for which he outbid a few B-list media celebrities and paid the Windsors £130,000, hadnât quite bought him the respect he felt he deserved.
An NHS Ãlite First Psyalleviator who kept tabs on several thousand other destitute mental cases, Reece calibrated medications on bulk database screens and, in short, superintended thousands of unwell brains. At the start of the exam, Cuthbertâs marshy smell of FlÅt and old clothes so bothered him, Reece had immediately activated his high-priced olfactory CoreMods (as he often did with Indigents), an insult clearly visible to Cuthbert with the Psyalleviatorâs telltale swipe of his nasal septum.
Like many of the aristocracy, his face looked weird, showing signs of various rejuvenating mods with telltale âcracksâ in the facade. In the Viscount Reeceâs case, his blue eyes had the watery, dull look of a man obviously older than 110 or so, which wasnât particularly old by todayâs standards, but the rest of his face belonged, cosmetically, to a twenty- or thirty-year-old manâs.
Cuthbert kept staring and smiling at the man, ruffling him mightily.
Animal conversationalist that he was, he also informed Dr. Reece that âyour cat told me you bore him stiff.â The First Psyalleviator sniffed a little and stiffly tapped something into the
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