Polity 4 - The Technician Read Online Free Page A

medical centre.’ He tried to gesture to his surroundings, but
still his arm was restrained.
    ‘The
Underground?’ she suggested.
    Ah, it
was obvious now.
    ‘I see –
those maggots planted a bomb did they?’
    She
gazed at him incredulously, then just shook her head and walked away.
    Jem
inspected his surroundings again and began to wonder if his assessment of the
situation was true. There were Polity machines being used here, and the
scripture had been painted out on the walls . . . Perhaps, though this place
bore some resemblance to a pond workers’ bunkhouse, it wasn’t that at all. With
sudden horror he realized. He was a prisoner of the Underground! They had done
something above, at Triada Compound, and snatched him. Those in the other beds
were rebels injured during whatever had occurred. Perhaps he too had been
injured but, what seemed certain, soon they would start interrogating him. He
tried to fight against his restraints, but moved not at all. Polity technology;
they had a nerve blocker on him, which was probably why he couldn’t speak
properly. He could do nothing.
    ‘I can’t
do a complete reconstruction.’
    She was
back, placing a chair down beside his bed, something wrapped in white cloth
under her arm. This item she placed on the bed beside him as she sat. Then she
took another object out of her pocket – a small hand mirror – and put that on
the bed too, face down.
    ‘You
will get nothing from me,’ he said. ‘You may have taken my Gift
but I am still a member of the Brotherhood.’
    ‘At this
juncture, shock tactics can sometimes restore memory.’ She nodded to herself.
‘But I’m not a mindtech so I can’t be sure – in fact there’s no one here with
that training – I just checked.’
    ‘I will
reveal nothing, even under electro-stimulation.’ That he had nothing to reveal
was the most frightening thing. They might not believe him and just continue
torturing him.
    ‘Yes, you
religious police were big on electro-stimulation.’
    Whickering
clicking.
    His gaze
shot to the insectile machine. Was that what they would use?
    ‘Physical
reconstruction from your neck to your knees went well,’ she said. ‘Using
cellweld techniques, carbon muscle frame and collagen foam I was able to
rebuild most of it, though you can no longer produce spermatozoa and it will
take about a month for the muscle to grow into the frames.’
    What in
Smythe’s name was she on about?
    ‘I’ve
used transparent syntheskin over this, which will gradually acquire skin colour
as your skin cells multiply through it – we used up all the precoloured stuff
elsewhere.’ She paused for a moment. ‘I’ve used the same skin on your right
arm, and your fingernails will regrow, but I was unable to rebuild your left
arm. Until such time as the Polity gets here and ships in supplies, you’ll have
to make do with a prosthetic.’
    He was
beginning to see the shape of it now. This was the
interrogation, though he had yet to identify the thrust of this woman’s
technique.
    ‘You
have a very convoluted method of making threats,’ he said, trying to remain
calm. But he physically remembered . . . something .
. . a line of agony ascending from his knees, yellow eyes watching, and
something sharp, ever so sharp . . .
    ‘I could
do very little about your face.’
    ‘Some
new rebel interrogation technique,’ he said, a ball of terror growing in his
chest. ‘We are so much better at it.’
    She
bowed her head. ‘Yes, the Theocracy was very good at inflicting pain. Some
think it a shame it was snuffed out so quickly. Others want some payback on
those of you that survived, which is why Grant has an armed guard on this
building.’
    Grant?
    Faith is dead, jabbered a voice in his mind.
    She
raised her gaze to his face and he saw her wince.
    ‘You
said earlier you did not need a “godless Polity machine” to enable you to speak
and you also wondered why you cannot blink. Here are the facts: the hooder, one
that