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But Sazahk had expected Dom to make contact. He was sure the human had been at least half as excited about the prospect of Dead Zone research as Sazahk was. He wouldn’t have disappeared without even a cursory analysis.
“And you haven’t heard anything about them from anyone else?” Sazahk pressed as they passed clusters of nurses, doctors, and surgeons, all in the crisp green uniforms of medical professionals that haunted Sazahk’s nightmares. “You have contacts in the Resistance, the official government of Tava, the Klah’Eel, the Qesh. You know more people than anyone of your rank could be expected to. Have you heard anything from any of them?”
“No, Sazahk, I’m sorry.” Patrick stopped outside a door and turned to Sazahk. “But I will ask around for you, alright?”
Sazahk reluctantly stopped beside him and glanced at the door with the number of his operating room. “Alright. Thank you.”
Patrick looked between him and the closed door. “You sure you don’t want me to come in with you?”
Purple escaped Sazahk’s control and bloomed across the back of his hands. “I am very sure. I don’t require assistance or hand-holding for the task of lying still.”
“Fair enough.” Patrick no longer reacted at all to Sazahk’s indignant rebuffs of offered help. “I’ll make those calls for you while you’re in there.”
“Thank you. I’ll be with you shortly.” Sazahk spun on his heel, opened the door, and stepped into the room.
He didn’t require assistance. He didn’t require hand-holding. And he didn’t require Garin.
“Hello, sir, you’re right on time.”
Sazahk didn’t hear the smooth baritone of the nurse addressing him. All he heard was the beep of surgery equipment that must have been an auditory illusion, because all the equipment was behind the pane of glass he stared through into the operating theater.
It all looked exactly the same. Mind-flaying technology apparently hadn’t advanced in the last ten years.
“We’ll just need to shave off some hair and sterilize the location before we get you in there.” The nurse took his forearm, and Sazahk clenched his jaw to keep from yanking away.
But Garin loved his hair, Sazahk thought as he let himself be sat in a chair and the nurse’s cool fingers on his scalp tilted his chin down to expose the back of his neck.
And it’ll all still be there, Sazahk replied to himself as the buzz of the clippers filled the air. Except for this one little part. And he was assuming Garin still had an interest in running his fingers through Sazahk’s hair like he’d seemed to so enjoy. Sazahk wasn’t the only man within touching distance now that they were back in civilization. There were plenty of more normal men with hair Garin could caress.
Sazahk flinched as the frigid metal of the clipper blade brushed his skin. But before the expression had even settled on his face, the nurse flicked the device off. The clippers clattered on the table beside them and the nurse pinned Sazahk’s locks away from the shaved portion.
“And that’s it. It should grow back in no time, and no one will see it when you have your hair down, anyway.” He kept his hand on Sazahk’s head, holding his chin down. “This is cold, but it won’t hurt. It’s just a disinfectant.”
An icy wetness swiped down the back of Sazahk’s neck, right over the scar Sazahk had brushed with his fingers more times than he could count.
“And now on to the theater and I’ll pass you off to the anesthetist.” The nurse took Sazahk’s arm again and tugged him from his chair as the glass door slid open.
The anesthetist. Sazahk’s least favorite person aside from the officers that had dragged him into the operating theater screaming and struggling.
Except there were no officers this time, and this was a different anesthetist. Sazahk knew because he’d never forgotten the first one’s face.
“Hello there.” The woman smiled when the nurse lead Sazahk to her. She nodded to the tilted bed with the opening in the headrest. “Lie down and I’ll get you ready for the surgeon.”
Sazahk forced his limbs to obey him and ordered them to lay him face down on the table and rest his forehead against the cushion. He looked down at the tablet set up in his field of view.
“The incision point is so small that all we’ll need is a local anesthetic.” The woman flicked a flex metal tentacle out from the base of Sazahk’s table and pulled a rolling cart closer to her as she spoke in a cheerful voice. “But we’ll also need to give you a short-lived paralytic to ensure no unintended movements while the surgeons are working on such a delicate part of your body. The paralytic won’t affect your breathing or heartbeat or anything like that, and you’ll still be able to speak, though it may feel a little odd to do so.”
Sazahk closed his eyes and braced himself.
“I’ll start with the anesthetic so that it has time to do its job. Small pinch.”
Sazahk winced as a pinch a little larger than small bit the base of his skull. A cold trickle, then tingling numbness, spread down the back of his neck. But that wasn’t what Sazahk dreaded.
“And now the paralytic. It’s fast-acting and should take hold as soon as the drip is set up.” The woman twisted Sazahk’s arm enough to expose a vein to her needle. “But it’ll also stop working almost as soon as the IV is removed.”
But only if the IV was removed. Only if the officers present didn’t decide he’d be easier to handle if he couldn’t move.
Except there were no officers present.
