Randolph Moles, Modern Living

“You don’t look very well,” said Duffy.

I was sitting at my desk, head down on the cool walnut surface, my temples throbbing as though fit to burst. I was tired, annoyed, frustrated, and my leg hurt badly.

“I don’t feel very well,” I answered.

“Can I get you anything?” he asked. “Painkillers or something?”

“It won’t work. I’ve got so many patches stuck on my arse that my cheeks look like a couple of shrink-wrapped turkeys.”

I was silent for a moment.

“Duffy,” I said, face still resting on the cool desktop, “I do need someone to go and score me some stronger painkillers. Not the stuff you get in chemists’ or from doctors—the sort you buy in a pub car park at night from a guy named Nobby who pretends he’s your best mate.”

Duffy gave a polite cough. “Commander Hicks is here, ma’am.”

I looked up to see that yes, Braxton was here, and presumably he must have heard my attempt to coerce my subordinate into scoring illegal patches on my behalf.

“It’s the pain talking,” I said quickly. “I wasn’t serious. What I really need is a new body—and that’s not as daft as you might imagine. Are you here for the meeting?”

He nodded and placed a copy of his budget proposal on my desk. It looked suspiciously thin.

“How’s the job going, Thursday?” he asked somewhat portentously.

“I got shot at yesterday morning. Mrs. Hilly of the Blyton Fundamentalist movement has made death threats, and Colonel Wexler of the SLS is none too pleased that I won’t sanction dawn raids for overdue books.”

“Librarying is a harder profession than the public realizes,” he said. “People think it’s all rubber stamps, knowing that Dewey 521 is celestial mechanics and saying. ‘Try looking under fiction’ sixty-eight times a day.”

“I was an assistant librarian when at uni,” I told him. “The Dewey system stays with you forever.”

“Listen,” said Braxton, suddenly becoming more serious, “I want you to know that despite what happens in there, I’m on your side.”

This did sound ominous.

“What is going to happen in there?”

“I’m on your side,” he repeated. “Just remember that. See you in there.”

He left to go through to the boardroom, and I heaved myself to my feet, wincing badly.

“Want a hand?” said Duffy, who was at my side.

“I’ll be fine. The muscles work, it’s the ragged nerve endings that are giving me hell.”

“What did Braxton mean by saying he was ‘on your side’?”

“Don’t know. Now, let’s kick some budget butt.”

***

The boardroom was down the corridor from my office, and I was stopped just outside it by Phoebe, who looked agitated.

“Can I have a word?” she said. “It’s important.”

“Okay.”