4

Victor watched warily as the headless women moved with measured, lunatic steps across the yard—one after another, in single file. Several of them bore fresh scars—red, swollen gashes, stitched with black thread. One of their kidneys had been removed. That was the need. That was why they were kept, fed, cared for, and washed: so that, if necessary, they could donate a healthy and functional organ to a sick person. This wasn't done routinely. They weren't disassembled, the tissues stored in a refrigerator, awaiting a buyer. They were kept alive as long as possible—partly because a human organ feels much more at home in a human body—or something similar—than in a cold storage facility. Simple economics. Logic. Headless creatures were created for precisely this purpose—to store tissue for transplant in an environment as close to natural as possible. There was no point in killing a fully functional being just to harvest its kidney.

If an order came for a heart, there was no way to save the rest. They could manage without a brain, but the heart carried a much heavier burden. It seemed simple—suck in one end, push out the other—but it couldn't be minimized. A tiny brain substitute worked perfectly. A smaller heart, however, would be weaker—and therefore, incidentally, inferior. It had to be large and healthy—that's why they were bred, after all. And without it, nothing would work. And artificially keeping a headless creature alive was simply unprofitable. Inserting an artificial heart was beyond the institute's financial capabilities—or at least seemed like an unattractive option. They had to pay for maintenance, food, and care—for guards and doctors, and pay exorbitant rent for vast warehouses. All this generated enormous expenses, barely offset by revenue. Charity for creatures without even a brain seemed like a superfluous favor. They probably didn't care.

Only the doctor recorded in the database what and when they donated XY 126, 150, and 73, as well as XX 45, 67, and 69. And also the disappearance of XX 13. Her heart had been sent to the Cleveland Clinic, while the rest of the useful organs were stored in cold storage. Of course, it wasn't the best place for a liver and a few other useful bits and pieces, but they couldn't go to waste. Simple economics. And as a lower-grade commodity, they were sold at lower prices. Logically.

The line of headless women was guarded by a guard, slowly walking alongside the line of patients. It was the same one Victor had caught in the hall after hours engaging in unregulated activities. They passed each other several times, but the doctor never dropped the matter, and Smith—that was the guard's name—played dumb. He suspected McDonald had caught him doing something that could have gotten him fired—but he acted as if nothing had happened. Now he walked calmly, his expression impassive, right next to the naked, headless women moving in single file.

When one suddenly attacked another, he stood frozen for a moment. Nothing violent ever happened here. Usually, you could die of boredom. But when XX 98 lunged at 97, he charged at her. Before drawing his Taser, he tried to pull her away with his bare hands. But 98 was relentless. She clung to 97 and persistently bumped her hips—and there was nothing of the epileptic-Tourette-like nature of the involuntary movements they sometimes experienced. The woman repeated a single movement—a violent thrust of her hips. As if she were practicing something she'd learned.

Smith drew his Taser and jabbed her several times with several thousand volts—more than enough, because the petite woman collapsed after the first electroshock. 98 collapsed to the ground like a log—but Smith didn't leave her. He began to beat her—punching and kicking her.

A second guard ran up, alerted by the noise and the torrent of curses from Smith's mouth. He forcibly pulled him away from the headless woman huddled on the ground.

"Leave her alone," he soothed. "You'll spoil her even more.

"

Victor took Joan to a fancy dinner at a French restaurant. Such outings were becoming less and less frequent. After a few years of marriage, you casually fall into a routine. You get used to the other person being there, forever, where they are—at home—and that's fine. You stop taking her to the movies, inviting her to dinner at expensive restaurants, going to parties with her. Once the ring settles on her finger, the motivation for those gestures of generosity and tenderness that were once a fundamental strategy and moral obligation disappears.

Joan sat across from Victor, eating a salad with tomatoes and walnuts in vinaigrette. They talked. They talked as they always did. They talked as if nothing had happened. They were silent about what had happened a few days ago. That was why they were here. They both knew it, but he wouldn't admit it, and she pretended not to. But for the past few days, something unpleasant had hung in the air—a strange, unbearable tension. All conversations were preceded by a deep breath and ended with a soft, stifled sigh. Victor felt Joan slipping away from him. She wasn't running away from him, she wasn't avoiding him—but since that night, things had been different. He felt he was losing her—that what he'd done had filled and overflowed the cup of bitterness. Joan never reproached him for his helplessness. She didn't demand he pull himself together, didn't force him to try—and she herself didn't seek the bliss unavailable in the marital bed elsewhere. No. She loved him. He was surprised. Victor had once half-jokingly remarked that if he were a woman, he would have left long ago. But she never complained. She didn't say anything now. He, too, hadn't mentioned a word of what had happened. Soft music played in the background.

When the waiter brought their ordered dishes—the same for both: Basque omelette with peppers and spicy pork chops—they had an excuse to remain silent about a common topic. They ate and drank—she with sweet wine, he with dry. They looked at each other and pretended everything was as usual.

Victor felt a nudge. He turned abruptly.

The waiter who had jostled him looked down in embarrassment.

"Excusez-moi," he said politely.

He swayed for a moment, and the tray balanced on his outstretched hand. The chrome lid bounced and clattered to the floor, revealing the dish someone had ordered: duck with oranges. The young man, struggling to regain his balance, swung the roast. The tray whistled right before Victor's eyes. Orange slices almost fell on his pants.

Victor instinctively closed his eyes—like someone anticipating a blow. For a moment, a single frozen image appeared behind his eyelids. A roast, dripping with sauce. A dead duck, headless and roasted with oranges. He saw the stump of the neck from which the head had once sprouted. Thanks to it, the duck had once been alive and quacking. Now it rested on the tray—browned, surrounded by fruit. And yet, as Victor opened his eyes, he couldn't help but think that she would soon rise and flee. That she would rise and devour the oranges, sucking them in with the stump of her neck that protruded above her breastbone. He knew that, if necessary, she needed neither beak nor head. She could suck up food like a vacuum cleaner.

When the waiter regained his balance, he bent down to pick up the lid, but didn't replace it. The roast had been ordered by a portly man two tables away, so there was no point in making a show of ceremony by fanning the lid for several meters.

Victor stared at the duck so long and so insistently that even the gourmet, who was feasting on his roast, noticed—and, confused, tore himself away from his meal. Joan watched her husband, clearly concerned. He, meanwhile, stared at the roast, expecting it to leap up and dance the lambada on the table at any moment. It would start juggling oranges, which it would eventually eat, then flee on its stumps, losing its filling along the way.

He felt shortness of breath, then the bitter taste of half-digested food returning the way it had come. He vomited onto his plate. For several minutes, he spat out bits of omelet and stomach juices onto the table, and then—when he had nothing left to vomit—he had a bout of hiccups that plagued him for half an hour.

***

McDonald stood over the desk, staring at the monitors. He leaned against the counter, breathing heavily.

He knew what he was about to do would be pointless in the long run. He had fewer than four hundred headless creatures here. Worldwide, organ donor breeding for transplantation was in the tens of thousands. What he was doing now had neither great significance nor much meaning—no matter how you looked at it. It was, if you thought about it, just a dramatic act of displaying stupidity. But apparently, there was no need to dwell on it. And McDonald felt he had to do it. He knew he shouldn't—but that didn't stop him.

It was eight o'clock. Wake-up time for the headless creatures. McDonald stood at the air conditioning console and raised the temperature in Hall 1, then Hall 2, to room temperature—and then ten degrees higher. The two hundred headless creatures reacted immediately. They all jumped up in unison as soon as the temperature rose, and as it began to heat up, they began to pace restlessly around the cages.

Victor opened all the cages with a single button. Mechanical locks clanged, and the barred doors flew open. Headless creatures emerged from their lairs and spread across the hall. They stumbled, sometimes falling—but instantly scrambled back to their feet. They swarmed, mindlessly pushing against the walls, bouncing off each other like atoms of compressed gas.

The doctor opened the main entrance to the hall. Not the exit to the exercise yard. The door opened, through which guards, himself, or staff with a stretcher carrying a donor for organ harvesting entered the halls.

Headless men and women—completely by accident—found their way out and began crowding the passageway. They spilled into the main corridor. The doctor watched them on monitors, flicking through views from various cameras—and smiled to himself. The headless males and females walked in a tight file down the main hall. Their lack of brains saved them from the worst imperfection of all sentient beings: fear. Uncertainty. Panic. They were in no hurry. They moved slowly forward with their usual, lunatic gait—chaotically but systematically toward the exit.

Victor left the lab to open the door for them personally. He trotted hurriedly down the corridor, hearing their footsteps behind him, and when he reached the door, he pressed his hand against the fingerprint reader. The scanner ran a beam of bright light over his fingertips and along his fingers. The computer recognized him—and opened the door.

As the wave of headless beings emerged from around the corner and headed for the exit, McDonald positioned himself in the corner by the door. He didn't want to squeeze between them to get back to the lab. So he stood to the side to let them pass.

He was surprised when—instead of heading for the exit—the men and women pushed along the entire width of the corridor, not shrinking even a fraction to fit through the doorway. They slammed into him in a tight formation, crushing him into the wall next to the exit. He tried to defend himself, to push them away, but the men were tall and strong—they were supposed to be—and the unfit doctor had no chance against them. Again and again, they pressed against him, crushing his ribs. Victor gasped, striking blindly with his bony fists—but the headless men didn't feel it. They weren't supposed to. Finally, he ran out of breath, and spots danced before his eyes. He felt himself losing ground. He began to slide to the ground—and they continued to press on him. The kick broke his nose. The doctor, staunching the profuse bleeding, fell to the floor. He began to crawl, smearing his bloody hand with gum paste, and his nose was bleeding profusely. He grabbed the doorframe and tried to pull himself toward the exit. Meanwhile, the headless men continued to press forward. Those who reached the doorway passed through and pushed on. Those who encountered the wall bounced off it—but mindlessly kept trying to break through. As if they were having a blast. As if they didn't care.

The doctor crawled on his belly in a pool of his own blood. Hundreds of feet passed over him, inadvertently kicking him, bruising him, trampling him, and breaking his bones. McDonald didn't give up, even when he heard the crunch of his spine over the pounding of the stampede. He couldn't feel his legs anymore. He couldn't feel the pain of his shattered ankles and knees. He thought then that he didn't care anymore.

He heard, rather than felt, the crack of his skull cracking.