Page 59 of Equalizer
A chill went through him.Am I a hostage—or a sacrifice?
“You’re awake. Good. I was beginning to think they gave you too large a dose. What would be the fun in that?” Dr. JeremiahHumphries looked up from where he stood over an operating table, gowned and masked for surgery.
A man lay strapped to the table, and a severed hand sat on a small cart next to Humphries.
“You’ve been so interested in my work—I thought you should see it in action before you make a contribution,” Humphries continued.
Contribution. He’s going to kill me and take the parts he needs. I could be dead and harvested before Owen knows anything’s gone wrong.
“You should be grateful—very few people get a front-row seat to my work. It’s proprietary, after all,” Humphries went on, seemingly unperturbed by Calvin’s lack of response. “In fact, I think you may have even known the donor in this case. That annoying security chief from the Wild West show. He couldn’t take a hint to back off.”
Steven? Oh, God. That’s going to wreck Owen.
And when he finds out I’ve been taken? I might not get rescued, but I’ll definitely be avenged. He won’t leave anything standing.
Shit. I thought we’d have more time together.Calvin’s fear and anger turned to sorrow.
“I have a process for selecting donors,” Humphries continued. “There needs to be a general compatibility in body size and type, skin tone, age, and gender. The part needs to be fresh, so the death should be recent—the more so, the better.”
The man on the table was still breathing, naked except for a sheet.
“When I first started, I scavenged the only bodies I could get—from vagrants and drifters. They usually weren’t in the best health, and that made the operations riskier than usual,” Humphries monologued. “But I made do. Most went well. There were some complications, but that’s how science advances.”
Calvin wondered how many of the early patients survived and decided he didn’t want to know.
“I refined the process,” Humphries continued. “But the real breakthrough came from matching donors to recipients. No longer depending on chance or making do with the best available. Once I started selecting a good fit, the results improved.”
Calvin held his tongue. There was no point in antagonizing Humphries when Calvin had no means of escape and no certainty of rescue.
I might find out everything we wanted to know and not be able to tell Owen. I’ll have died in vain.
“You’re just the right fit for my next patient,” Humphries said. “Close to the same height and build, similar musculature and coloring. There will always be a scar, of course, but on wrists and ankles, that’s easy to hide. It won’t be an exact match, but you’d be surprised how few people are truly observant.”
“Ever considering going legitimate—and soliciting voluntary contributions from the families of accident victims or the healthy dead?” Calvin asked. As uncomfortable as the idea of patching a living body back together with pieces from corpses made him, the real crimes lay in murder and in violating the bodies without consent.
“The authorities and the Church have played merry hell with doctors transplanting thyroids,” Humphries said as he worked to reattach the hand on his sleeping patient. “I can’t imagine them supporting a more visible replacement. Even if the family agreed—which would be surprising—the process to get approval would take years. Decades. And in the meantime, people who need help do without.”
Yeah, you’re a real philanthropist, Calvin thought. Humphries was no doubt well paid for his efforts and risks, and without approval from the authorities, rich mobsters andcriminals were the beneficiaries because they could afford his price and weren’t concerned about the ethics.
“Why Steven—the guy from the Wild West show?” Calvin tested the ropes binding him and found them too tight to slip, so he knew his best bet was to keep Humphries talking to buy time.
“He was in excellent health, a good match for age and build,” the resurrectionist said. “And the fact that he was acquainted with you and your partner sealed the deal. I don’t allow people to get in my way.”
Calvin looked around; his training kicked in, even though he probably wouldn’t survive to report his observations. Humphries had set up one part of the huge, empty space with lights and equipment for a mobile surgical unit, similar to what the military used. Most of the old warehouse was dark and unused, cluttered with boxes and stacks of wood except for supply bins of materials for Humphries’s work.
Since Calvin didn’t see any indication of living quarters, he guessed the doctor had found somewhere else for lodging.
The building had electricity, which was still uncommon. That powered the lights, but even more importantly, it fed the big metal box that Calvin guessed was the special electrical generator Humphries used to revivify his monstrosities.
A huge knot of wires ran from a spot in the outer wall into the machine and more straggled from the front of the equipment, where Calvin supposed Humphries connected his patient to bring the limb back to life.
His captors had peeled off Calvin’s gloves. When his skin touched the chair or rope, images of past prisoners…sacrifices…flashed in his mind, and he felt glimmers of their pain and fear. He knew he had to push through the horror if he was going to have any chance of saving himself.
“The surgery itself is tedious.” Humphries seemed unable to avoid playing to an audience, even a captive one. “There’s magicinvolved, and electricity, but if the part isn’t reconnected well, it won’t get blood, and the person won’t be able to feel it. Magic helps with that and preservation, but it’s much more than just sewing the skin together and hoping for the best.”
He wants to be hailed as a medical genius and be famous and accepted. I bet it galls him to have to hide in a warehouse and serve criminals instead of rich patients.
“How long do they last? The parts you stitch on?” Calvin couldn’t help being curious.
