I kicked the habitShed my skinThis is the uffI go dang in

  – Peter Gabriel, “Sledgehammer” (1986)

  Chapter 2 - This is the uff I Go Dang InCraig looked at himself in the mirror. He had to admit, he didn’t look half bad after a shower, a shave, and some clothes that he could be seen in publi and not have to answer any questions about.

  Could use a haircut though. His hair was too shaggy by far. Naturally, they didn’t let him cut it at the other pbsp;

  It was strange. He actually found himself in a bit of aed mood, despite this being an objectively horrible situation. Then again, that might also be the testosterone impnts.

  Oh, testosterone, how he had missed thee.

  He arrived at Director Luna’s office for the 0700 meeting at 0650, because he got the feeling Luna absolutely was not kidding when she said that tardiness would be fatal.

  Luna herself was sitting at the desk when he arrived, going over some paperwork. She waved Craig in.

  “Bishop, gd to see you made it. Have a seat. I was just reacquainting myself with your dossier. That pirl…”

  Craig winced. And Luna noticed.

  “Tell me about her.”

  “Pippa Green. She was kind. Beautiful, though she sometimes had trouble seeing it. Troubled past. Had lots of reasons to distrust people, but still tried to keep herself open enough to try to trust people. Whiaturally, I probably ruined for life. We… liked each other. If I had simply… If I hadn’t used her, she and I might have even been a couple. But, simply put, I wanted revenge against Dorley more than I wanted happiness. I took advantage of her.”

  Luna raised an eyebrow.

  “No, not like that. I knocked her out and used her biometrics to open the locks to the outside.”

  “And now you have no freedom, no revenge, no love i. Isn’t that tragic?” said Luna, grinning. “In the cssical seoo – your own as have doomed you.”

  “Well established,” said Craig. “Well, director, where shall we start?”

  “With the enemy,” said Luna. “How much are you familiar with the history of Dorley Hall, the st pce you were imprisoned?”

  “Not very. I was more ed with curres at the time.”

  “Long story short, there are other facilities like Dorley around the world. Facilities that are not nearly so kind, altruistid whose purpose is not rehabilitation but exploitation. Facilities you will be assisting us in shutting down through extralegal means.”

  Craig raised an eyebrow.

  “But not Dorley itself?”

  “Why does that you?” Luna frowned.

  “Well, not to put too fine a point on it, I do bear a bit of a grudge. So, this is to elimihe petition?”

  “I think you fail to uand. You were, and remain, a menace, and what happeo you was a kindness. Had you succeeded in the programme, you would have emerged a better, happier, and freer person. These other facilities are desigo take i people, torture and mutite them for perverted amusement, and then to be sold off as physical and sexual bor.”

  “I see. What’s my role in your pn?”

  “Straight to business, I see,” said Luna. “Well, it depends on portunities arise. But the ohing that all these facilities require - and have trouble obtaining, is medical staff. Which is why you are not just going to plete your medical training here. We will also be giving you training in surveilnce, espionage, and terintelligence. A typical mission might involve you infiltrating one of these facilities as a trusted medical professional under an assumed alias, where you will report names, pces, serial numbers on equipment, perhaps a bit of light sabotage. Oh, I should warn you, your exfiltration may not always be a high priority, so we will also be giving you SERE training.”

  “SERE?”

  “Survive, Evade, Resist, Extract” said Luna.

  “Those are skills I very much could have used three weeks ago,” said Craig.

  “Don’t undersell yourself, Bishop. You demonstrated a talent for it. Anyway, for the first couple of weeks, we’ll trate on the medical training first and foremost and physical ditioning.”

  “I’m supposed to jog with my heart rate throttled?” Craig asked.

  “We schedule periods of normal ary activity with your 3C device.”

  “Three bsp;

  “ary Coer and trol,” expined Luna.

  “I would have goh Three D.”

  “Three D?”

  “Doki Doki Deathtrap,” said Craig.

  Luna ughed.

  “That may actually stick,” she said. “Now, I’m sure you have questions. Now’s a good time to get many of them addressed.”

  Craig nodded. “What’s with the ame? Bishop.”

  “Well, it would be a dead giveaway of the name of a suicide victim studying medie at Almsworth started practig medie not a year ter across the try.”

  “Any significe to the name Bishop? As in the chess piece, or the religious title?”

  “No. We chose it from a hat. You’re not worth putting a whole lot of thought into a ame.”

  “And the woman at the issary. She’s one of us?”

  “No, she’s one of us,” corrected Luna. “You, Bishop, are not ‘one of us.’ You will never be ‘one of us.’ But you do work for ‘us.’ To everyone else at this hospital you will be the model doctor. Your bedside manner will be impeccable. You will be kind, charming, professional, and gracious. You will be the perfect gentleman. But we both know who and what you really are, and what you’d really be doing if we didn’t keep the tightest of leashes on you, now, don’t we?”

  “I suppose so,” said Craig, who holy couldn’t deny that, at that particur moment, the part of his brain not focused on the versation at hand was currently imagining Luna’s grizzly murder via a slow and horribly ineffit on.

  “Pstic cutlery,” he said.

  “What?” asked Luna.

  “Sorry. Just thinking of something and didn’t realise I said that out loud.”

  Craig smiled.

  ***

  “Dr. Kosior, I presume?” said Craig.

  A middle aged doctor with a stroern European at – Polish, if Craig had to guess – shook his hand and grinned.

  “Ah, Dr. Bishop! I’ve heard great things about you from Ms. Luna, she seems to think you’re some kind of wunderkind. She expects great things of you, but don’t let that pressure you.” Dr. Kosior paused.

  “Maybe let it pressure you a little bit,” he tinued. “Yoing to have to learn to keep a calm heart when things go sideways.”

  “Well, you know what they say,” said Craig. “It’s gettier all the time.”

  “Yes,” said Dr. Kosior. “That’s a great attitude to have! You’ll fit in here.”

  Hmm, thought Craig. No tersign. Dr. Kosior was exactly who he appeared to be.

  Well, shoot. That was going to make things more plicated. It was easier at Dorley, where everyone was either plicit or a victim of the spiraormal, blissfully unaeople? That was going to make things so much harder.

  Dr. Kave Craig a tour of the wards, staff areas, and key departments, and Craig found him impossible not to like. (Aried.) He was intelligent, knowledgeable. He was halfway through an undergrad in Polish literature, worked for a couple of years as a copywriter and English-to-Polish transtor, then came to the U.K. to perfect his idiomatiglish, and study aually practice medie.

  “Bah, Brexit,” he said, wheopic came up. “It won’t gh. It would slit the throat of the NHS. When the politis realise all the doctors will return to their home tries and they’ll be severely uaffed, they will do something to save face. Maybe they’ll have a very soft Brexit, or try doing a sed referendum and put their thumb on the scale for remain, or better still, just call the whole thing off. They’d have to be stupid to gh with it.”

  Craig agreed. Brexit was going to be, in the words of Lord Buckethead (yes, a real politi, who really wore a bucket on his head - British politics is a little ridiculous,) that it was going to be “a shitshow.”

  Of course, he didn’t mention to Dr. Kosier that the idea of people suffering due to their own stupidity simply delighted him, and was one of the key reasons he himself voted “leave.”

  They discussed his responsibilities, the patient rounds, dotations, when to escate s. He was given expectations for professionalism, unication with senior doctors, and teamwork with the nursing staff.

  “Remember,” Dr. Kosier said. “The nurses i more with the patients, and are actually there when the medical treatments as you advise are carried out. Have you ever seen a war movie?”

  Craig nodded, but raised an eyebrow.

  “In every good war movie, the lieutenant or the captain has the rank and the advaraining, but the grizzled old sergeant has the experience. Arouy to eighty pert of the time that you and they disagree, you’ll find they’re right. Trust your own judgement, but proceed cautiously. If you still think you’re right, get a sed opinion from a senior doctor.”

  The rest of the day was rather typical. Shadowing Dr. Kosier and the senior doctors. The proper formatting for patient notes. What to do if a patient didn’t speak English but was in distress, watg how experienced doctors unicated with patients aives – that one Craig paid full attention to. He already learned how to appear sympathetid empathetic, for a time, anyway, but this was something he was going to have to fake quite a bit.

  He took some patient histories, and performed a simple physical examination on a willing patient while Dr. Kosier looked on.

  “Your blood pressure is a little high,” said Craig to the patient. “But I don’t think there's a need for medication just yet? Maybe we could cut ba sodium in your diet?” He looked over to Dr. Kosier, who gave him a thumbs up, and addressed the patient himself. “My friend had a little elevated blood pressure too, but I told him to start cooking with herbs and spices in the food rather than salt, and look freen and amber colored low sodium bels, and it worked for him. Little things. Try that first. There’s some good info on the NHS website.”

  Later on, Dr. Kosier to aside. “I told that patient a little white lie back there – this is not NHS policy, you uand – but I find that patients are more likely to follow the instrus if you tell them ‘this worked for my friend, if you do it it’ll work for you,’ instead of telling them ‘this is what you must do.’”

  And then Dr. Kosier winked.

  As mentioned, Craig found Dr. Kosier very difficult to hate, and that annoyed him to no end.

  ***

  About a week in, and Craig found himself w on the night shifts. Signifitly more autonomy. Signifitly less sleep. Which made him a ky psychopath.

  The other junior doctors and nursing staff made prolific use of the coffee mae in the breakroom. Craig never partook. What was the point? Maybe he could ask Luna for a bit more flexibility with the Doki Doki Deathtrap, but he suspected he hadn’t quite gotten to the point where he could be asking for favours.

  “You fucker!” someone yelled in his ear as he was trying not to doze off. It startled him almost out of his chair. He turo see Gwyh Boal, one of the nurses pulling the night shift with him.

  “What? Hold on.” Craig sat up, f himself to full attention. It took a lot out of him.

  “You ordered an ABG test on Mr. Molinez,”

  Molinez. COPD. ic obstructive pulmonary disease. Lifelong smoker. Came in with struggles breathing.

  “I remember,” said Craig. “What did the test show?”

  “Elevated PaCO2. The patient’s retaining carbon dioxide.”

  “Did you start him on oxygen therapy?”

  “Of course. That’s not the point!” said Boal, angrily.

  Craig was fused.

  “Sorry, I’m not getting it.”

  “Molinez was in disfort but more or less stable. You could have gotten all that information from a VBG. There was no need painfully poking around in his bloody arteries when a bloody vein could have sufficed!”

  “I don’t uand. Isn’t an ABG more accurate?”

  “Doctor, an ABG hurts. That’s why you do the VBG first, and then if it indicates there may be something serious, you do the ABG!”

  Craig thought about this. Boal was right. An arterial blood draw would hurt more. No doubt Dr. Kosier would have caught it if he was on duty. He just failed to think about the pain of the patient in his deaking.

  Because why would he? Why would he care if Mr. Molinez hurt a little bit? The ABG was more accurate. And that was the goal, right? To beat the disease.

  And he was about to expin all this to nurse Boal, and then he looked at her fabsp;

  Seventy to eighty pert of the time, the nurse is right, Dr. Kosier said.

  Boal set. Not at the error, but that there was unnecessary pain. Other people don’t like seeing people in pain, he remembered.

  Only a psychopath wouldn’t care.

  “Shit,” he said, worried about his cover.

  “Damn right,” she said. “Doctor, you’re not in medical school anymore. You’re dealing with human beings. There are no grades. There is only pain and relief, siess ah, life ah.”

  “Yes,” he said, agreeing. “I’ll report my error to Dr. Kosier when he es in.”

  Boal gred at him.

  “And?”

  Craig put on his best ‘dumb’ face. He didn’t know what Boal was asking of him.

  “I’m tired, and I’m missing something important,” he said.

  “Yoing to apologise to Mr. Martinez.”

  Right. That would be what a normal person would do when he found out that he had hurt someone unnecessarily.

  ***

  Mr. Martinez, as luck would have it, was not asleep when Craig stopped by. He had on a Venturi mask which was delivering oxygen to him at a steady rate.

  “Hello, Mr. Martinez? I’m Dr. Bishop. I was the one who first saw you when you came in. Is it alright if I e in to talk?”

  Mr. Martinez nodded. God, this was going to be difficult. Apologies were ly his thing.

  “When you came in, we were worried about your ventition. And so I ordered a test to check if you were getting enough oxygeing rid of carbon dioxide normally. And the tests did provide the information we were looking for, which is why you have the oxygen mask on.”

  Craig took a deep breath, looking around.

  “I made a mistake. Instead of them to draw your blood from the arteries, I could have gotten the same information by drawing from your vein. It would have hurt less. I caused you unnecessary disfort, and for that, I am genuinely sorry.”

  Mr. Martinez beed him over towards the side of his bed, and Craig headed there, tentatively.

  “You are a young man, no?” said Mr. Martinez, between raspy breaths.

  “Yes.”

  “And a new doctor?”

  “Yes. This is actually my first week of my foundation year.”

  Mr. Martinez nodded.

  “Doctor Bishop. It hurt like the dis. But you got the information? You saved my life?”

  “I don’t know about saving your life, but it told us you would breathe easier with that mask. Tomorrow Dr. Kosier, my supervisor, will likely e in and talk to you about steps.”

  “When I was ye, I worked as an atant. And one day I made a mistake. A big one. I caught my mistake, and I brought it to my boss. I had cost the pany twenty five thousand pounds.”

  “They must have been very upset,” said Craig.

  Mr. Martines smiled.

  “Naturally I offered my resignation.”

  Did you find new work after that?

  “Didn’t have to. My boss didn’t accept it. He said to me, ‘You made a mistake. You eventually caught the mistake, you came to us immediately when you made it, and you’re never, ever going to make the same mistake again, right?’ ‘Never,” I said.”

  “Then I would be a very stupid businessman to accept the resignation of an employee who I just spent twenty five thousand pounds training,” he said. “He then told me to go home, get some rest, and e back the day ready to start over.”

  Craig let out a little chuckle at that.

  “Yes, it hurt. But you’re never going to make the same mistake again, are you?”

  “No, not ever, if I help it.”

  “You have a long career ahead of you. You are fiven if my pain makes you a better doctor.”

  “I try.”

  ***

  “Yeah, Luna,” Craig said to his handler during an early m briefing. “This isn’t w out. Would it be possible to get a nice quid painless death?”

  “Sorry, Bishop,” she replied, without looking up from her puter s. “We’re out of ‘nice, quick, and painless.’ We do have ‘horrible, slow and agonising.’ Would that work? We could even do it as an outpatient procedure.”

  “Maybe some other time?” said Craig. “I just don’t know if I … keep up the act. I’m surrounded by good, det people. It’s… irritating.”

  This caused Luna to look up from her puter, finally.

  “Oh, really? And you weren’t surrounded by good, det people before?”

  “Please. Before I was at Dorley. Their whole sele criteria was categorically and exclusively horrible people.”

  “You don’t think they got better?”

  “No,” Craig said, ftly.

  “Not even Ms. Green?”

  It felt like a knife was shoved into his heart, and he had to double cheake sure the Doki Doki Deathtrap wasn’t glitg out.

  “I think if you let her go now, she may be able to escape the cycle. But oh Dorley has her on? No. They want to get her to sponsor, for chrissakes. It’s ohing to be tolerant of torture, it’s ao be an active partit.”

  “So they’re all awful. Every one of them. The boys in the basement, the girls in the sed year, the sponsors, the washouts, everyo you, Dr. Bishop?”

  “No. I am awful. My crime - the reason I washed out? I wouldn’t ge the type of awful I was. There is no room in Dorley for any type of awful other than the official Dorley type of awful. Instead of individuals choosing their form of cruelty, it was a unified front of cruelty. Instead of anarchy, totalitarianism. It’s a cult, and like a lot ious movements, they feel totally justified in hurting, t, killing people, if they’re the wrong type of people. I don’t see Dorley ref people at all. I see them f them to .”

  “Insightful, but ly relevant to your particur ,” said Luna. “What is it about Idris that has you so upset, then?”

  “I nearly got away with it at Dorley, because I only had to deal with awful people. I could… pn what I o, because everyone redictable in the same way. When the ehinks alike and has identical motives, it bees easier to pn against it. I kly how to a order to fool everyone. After a while it became sed nature - there were moments when I even believed it myself.”

  “Here, oher hand,” he tinued, “it’s hard to tell how any one person will react. There are so many different motivations and ideas of morality, I ’t… I ’t keep up with what everyone wants from me. I ’t keep switg from person to person and it’s drivis.”

  “Is that all?” asked Luna, disied.

  “No. I also ’t drink coffee. Makes the night shift hell.”

  “Oh. Well, that I do something about, said Luna.”

  She typed something into her puter. Immediately Craig noticed his heartbeat skip, and then jump to a slightly elevated rate. Probably 90, if he had to guess.

  “There you go. The 3C will not a range of natural heart rhythms from 65 to 160. Enjoy your jitter juice.”

  Craig raised an eyebrow.

  “I thought you weren’t ined to do me any favors,” he said.

  “I’m not. But you’ve performed adequately so far, and relying oick all the time gets tiring. Here you go. Have a carrot. I saw how you hahe Menendez i.”

  “You meaest I screwed up?”

  “No, I meaest you passed,” said Luna. “Don’t gratute yourself too hard, though. B minus at best.”

  “Luna, what are you doing?” asked Craig.

  “Hmm?”

  “It’s almost like you’re… sp me.”

  “Oh, n. I’m not sp you. I’m no sponsor. I’m handling you. I’m a handler. You will be givehing you o aplish the objectives we assign you. I will determine what those needs are. And I have decided that coffee is one of those needs.”

  ***

  “So, first week here. How are things going?” said Dr. Kosier.

  “Well, you know about the i with Mr. Menendez. And there was almost another one where I ordered a respiratory culture for a urinary trafe. Got yelled at by the nurses again. Turns out my finger slipped oablet in the dropdown menu - luckily as soon as they saw it, they knew what’s up.”

  “Yeah, gotta be careful with those things. Double check the firmation s before sending off as or procedures, always. But I’ve noticed you’re handling the pressure a little bit better than when you first started w here. You’re doing good, kid.”

  “I am? I’m doing well?”

  “Well, sure,” said Dr. Kosier. “But I also mean, you’re doing good. As in ‘Superman’ does good. Wro or no, Mr. Menendez is still getting the right treatment. And you know how to prioritize your tasks under pressure.”

  “Oh. Well, under pressure, I’ve had a lot of experience.”

  “Indeed. But… that’s the end of the good news. There’s something I’ve got to talk to you about - a pce you’re falling behind where you should be.”

  Oh great, thought Craig. structive criticism.

  “Hit me.”

  “You’re very… detached and ical when you’re having difficult versations with families. The senior doctors and I aren’t always going to be there to back you up – and it’s an important part of the job. One I know you struggle with.”

  “Well, maybe.”

  “No ‘maybe’ about it. I make a personal observation? Ohat I hope gives you perspective?” said Dr. Kosier.

  “Of course.”

  “Has anyone ever suggested to you that you may have… difficulty with empathy. Or with remorse?”

  Shit. His disguise was already unraveling.

  “Uh, maybe. As a kid. Why?”

  “I want you to go make an appoi with one of our staff psychologists. I’m not an expert, but I’ve seen enough people e and go in my career that I’ve learhat a lot of people - likeable people, charming and unfppable, like yourself, also be… overfident, perhaps? And have difficulty uanding other people’s pain aions.”

  “What are you saying, doctor?”

  “Craig, I think you might be a psychopath.” Dr. Kosier said.

  Oh, shit.

  “Well, if I’m a psychopath, I must be in the wrong line of work, then,” said Craig, f ughter.

  “No, not at all!” said Dr. Kosier, smiling. “In fact, I think you might have chosen a great career. Psychopaths are great at dealing with the stresses of the job, they aren’t afraid of making tough calls when need be. Ahy? It’s a muscle. No matter how weak it might be now, you keep exerg the muscle, it gets bigger. Dr. Bishop, nobody is expeg you to be perfe your first week. There’s a reason the foundatiram takes years. But there might be some be to you making an appoio see a professional.”

  “Hmm. If I am a psychopath, this should probably be something you should take up with Director Luna.”

  “Oh yes, Luna is absolutely a psychopath. Don’t tell her I said that. Damn good director though.”

  ***