"Baby Blues"

Genre:	Rational Horror
Length:	Novella
Summary:	Desperate to reunite with his daughter, Mitchell has done the impossible: escaped from Rikers Island Penitentiary. His escape is only the start of his problems, though, because Rikers is no ordinary prison, Mitchell is no ordinary prisoner, and every human in the city is desperate to send him back....

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"Hello, Mitchell," the man said quietly as he removed Mitchell's blindfold. He was unprepossessing—short, with a weak chin and thinning hair that was more salt than pepper. The de rigueur mirrorshades perched on his wide nose had a distortion that suggested they were prescription, and not a weak prescription at that.

Mitchell blinked as his sensitive eyes adjusted from the darkness of the blindfold to the bright light of his cell. Whoever the man was, he was standing calmly, staring down at Mitchell with the quiet air of someone lost in their memories. His clothes gave no hint as to his identity; he wore the same surgical scrubs and mask as all the others who came through his cell every day.

Mitchell wanted to ask 'Who are you?', but his most recent procedure had left him with no breath—of course, even if he had had the breath, the oral speculum jammed in his mouth would have made his words incomprehensible.

Whoever he was, the man didn't seem surprised by Mitchell's silence. "My name is Eli Clay, Mitchell. I'm Lily's father." The smile might have looked pleasant, but the eyes belied it.

Oh crap, Mitchell thought, glancing frantically around the room. His field of view was very limited—the headstrap kept him from turning or lifting his head—but he couldn't see anyone else aside from himself and Clay. Standard protocol was that no one came in alone; the usual mix was one doctor, one nurse, one guard.

Clay smiled a gentle smile. "You left her there, Mitchell. Alone, and bleeding," he said softly. "You know, I asked the doctor if she could have been saved if you had brought her to the hospital yourself. He said that no, she must have died almost immediately." He paused, the smile going wider as he studied the memory. "He was a terrible liar."

I'm sorry! Mitchell tried and failed to say. I'm so sorry, but look around you—isn't this place enough? He wanted to plead but literally could not make words come out.

After a moment, Clay gave the happy sigh of a man starting a job he enjoyed; he lifted a black doctor's bag onto the surgical table Mitchell was strapped to and opened it with a flourish. He swung the instrument tray into easy reach and started removing things from the bag. "So, Mitchell," he said, laying a series of dental instruments out on the tray one by one, aligning them with careful precision. "I'm sure you're sorry for what happened, but I wanted to have a chance to talk to you about it." For a moment he turned back to Mitchell and set a gentle hand on his shoulder. Mitchell's broken spine meant that he couldn't feel the touch, but he could see the look that accompanied it. He would have shuddered if his paralysis allowed.

Before going back to his instruments, Clay leaned down and studied his patient for a moment, making sure the speculum holding his mouth open was properly set and wouldn't slip. Satisfied, he turned back to the instrument tray. "Her injuries were quite severe, you know. Fractured left tibia. Multiple fractures to the anterior left second through ninth ribs. Multiple herniated organs. Severe concussion with intracranial bleeding." He paused, considering. "Of course, the worst of it was her hands." He glanced over at Mitchell's wide-eyed face. "She put her hands up to shield herself when she saw your car coming, Mitchell. It's a perfectly normal, instinctive warding gesture. Programmed into our hindbrains millions of years ago, almost impossible to suppress."

Anger was beginning to leach into his voice now, so Clay turned away for a moment, breathing and centering himself. When he turned back, the friendly smile was back on his face. "Where was I? Ah. Yes. Her hands…they took the brunt of the impact. Every single joint was…well…there was a lot of damage, let's leave it at that."

Clay lifted his last tool out of the doctor's bag: a Craftsman hammer. He turned it this way and that for a moment, visibly considering the look and heft of it, before setting it down on the instrument tray and aligning it, very precisely, with the dental instruments.