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in his care. Dietary reports. Physical fitness reports.
Sanitation reports. Complaints. Certification renewals. That didn’t
include all of the papers he had to submit to the Tyranny.
Employees who hadn’t shown up for work (even though they most
likely hadn’t shown up because they were already in one of the
Tyranny’s secret prisons). Logs of anything his patients had said
or done that could be construed as being anti-Tyranny.
    It was never-ending. Most of the
paperwork was completed by his staff. All he had to do was initial
each page and provide his signature at the very end. It sounded
simple enough, but he had to sign hundreds of documents each week.
And, not wanting to sign something without reading at least part of
it first, he found the task burdensome and a drain on his
time.
    “ Dr. Bradburn,” his secretary said
again, following him on his way back to his office.
    “ Sorry, Cindy. I’m
busy.”
    It didn’t help things that three
new patients had been brought in the previous night. His facility
usually had no more than three new patients each month. He didn’t
have the time or the staff necessary to get them in-processed in a
timely manner. He barely had enough time to sit with each man, read
through their charts, get a sense of how lucid each one was, and
begin thinking about how best to help them.
    There was no use hoping he would be home in
time to eat dinner with his family. It was already a lost cause.
That was the thought that made him shake his head in frustration as
he rushed into his office to drop one stack of patient folders and
pick up another.
    “ Dr. Bradburn?” a man’s voice
said.
    The doctor only noticed the
individual in the black suit once he looked up from the documents
in his hand. The man was already sitting in a chair opposite of
where Dr. Bradburn usually sat. He offered a rehearsed smile but
didn’t bother to stand or extend his hand.
    “ Who”—the doctor started, but was
immediately interrupted.
    “ I’m from the Tyranny, doctor. We
need to have a talk.”
    Moving toward his seat,
Bradburn looked back at his secretary. She was standing in the
doorway, her eyes squinting, an expression he recognized as
her I-tried-to-tell-you face. The man’s presence, the fact that he didn’t
bother giving his name, made Bradburn’s secretary all the more
uneasy. An effect that rubbed off on the doctor.
    The man in the black suit turned,
saw the secretary still standing there, and said, “That’ll be all.
Please close the door.”
    She backed away and did as she was
told.
    With his office door closed and a
man from the Tyranny sitting across from him, the air in Bradburn’s
chest sank down to his gut. Suddenly, having enough time in the day
was the least of his worries.

2

     
    “ Doctor?”
    “ Yes?”
    The Tyranny’s agent leaned forward
slightly, propping his elbows on the end of Bradburn’s desk, giving
the doctor a better view of his expensive watch and of the blaster
that was holstered to his hip.
    The two men were almost complete opposites.
Whereas Bradburn’s hair was grey and thinning, the man from the
Tyranny had black hair that was slicked to the side. Bradburn
looked as though the only exercise he got came from walking from
one appointment to another. The agent looked as though a
significant portion of each day was spent in a gym. And while
Bradburn’s natural disposition was to smile and shrug his
shoulders, the agent’s unflinching eye and solid jaw made him look
as if he never found humor in anything.
    “ Something very serious and
disturbing has come to the Tyranny’s attention,” the man
said.
    Outside, an AeroCam hovered by
Bradburn’s window before moving to a different part of the facility
grounds. Bradburn hoped it was just one of the usual cameras that
were always recording what went on in and around the hospital. If
the Tyranny had sent more of the flying robots to accompany the man
in the dark suit, something very serious must have