The Variant Effect: PAINKILLER by G. Wells Taylor

leveled
her gaze.
    “Listen, I’ve got to get you somewhere safe,
so they don’t finish what they started.” She frowned. “They cycle
people through every four days, moving new patients sequentially
through the procedures starting in the basement and ending on the
third floor. It’s a house of death.”
    “I’m on the third floor,” Borland said and
then coughed. A chill shook him and he chuckled. “My stuff’s there,
if we’re running.”
    “Exactly! And none of the civilians will feel
like giving us any trouble,” she growled and stabbed a button to
hold the door closed. “When we go out of here, we run to the right.
Get as far down the hall as we can go. Once we get our bearings
we’ll grab your stuff.”
    “Sounds good,” Borland snarled, balling up
his bloody right fist. His left hand still pressed against the open
slit over his navel. It was starting to feel heavy.
    “Ready?” she said, raising the pistol in her
right hand.
    Borland nodded, and lifted his fist.
    “Let’s roll! ” the woman shouted and
slapped the button that opened the doors.
    They slid aside to reveal the nurse with the
German accent standing by a patient in hospital blues. The nurse
raised her e-board like a shield. Borland’s rescuer bowled the
woman over as he followed in her wake. The startled patient stepped
back but not fast enough to avoid Borland’s right cross. The man
crumpled.
    They ran past.
    A trio of patients staggered out where the
hall turned right. The woman kicked one in the groin and he went
down howling. Borland blasted through the others like a tank.
    A deep pain ran around from his chest to his
back.
    But the morphine dissolved it as he rumbled
along after the strange woman.
    Keep going .
    He felt light-headed then and dropped to a
knee. The jolt caused a spasm of pain to clench his belly and lower
back. Then the morphine haze descended.
    Not far .
    This time, though, he had to grind his teeth
against a shadow of the pain—the painkiller unable to handle it
all. He dispelled his companion’s concern with a nod as she looped
a hand under his arm and heaved him to his feet.
    He screamed as white-hot agony clenched his
stomach muscles.
    “I’m fine,” he gasped, recovering quickly.
“Keep going!”
    They hurried along the corridor casting looks
left and right.
    “Up here!” she shouted, elbowing another
patient into a wall. He crumpled crying out in pain.
    Borland checked his chest for his nametag.
They told him never to remove it. But it wasn’t required during the
operation. Another sharp stab of pain in his gut, and he tumbled
against the wall, dizzy—leaving a great red smear.
    “Don’t know my room number,” he said and
coughed as she grabbed his arm and pulled him wheezing along with
her.
    “Bastards knew I was coming for you,” she
snarled and then pointed up the hall with her gun—the last door on
the left. “That’ll do for now.”
    She reached out and gripped Borland’s
shoulder; steadied him as another spasm of pain brought a sheet of
sweat over his face.
    Behind them, down the hall he could hear the
shouting and clamber of pursuit. The noise echoed dully, distorted
by a hollow ringing in his ears. His vision blurred, and another
chill shook him.
    The woman whipped through a door pulling a
reeling Borland close on her heels.
    Inside it was the exact duplicate of his
room, except there was a man in the first bed. Some old chap was
out cold, asleep with painkillers. He’d already had the
operation.
    But they finished his .
    The strange woman shut the door and ran to
the window in the far wall. Checked it, saw that it didn’t
open.
    “We’ll make a stand here!” she announced and
then reached out to Borland, pulled him down by the bed beside the
window.
    He collapsed against the wall pressing the
wound over his stomach. His lower back was aching now, and his
testicles answered a shift of position with a blast of pain.
    What’s happening ?
    “Okay...good,” he said, looking