Logan Trilogy Read Online Free PDF Page B

toward a swinging door.
    Logan passed him quickly.
    He saw the sign he was looking for. It hit the window in a sulfurous shower and withdrew, hit and withdrew into the darkness behind the black glass. THE NEW YOU…THE NEW YOU…THE NEW
    YOU…
    Logan entered the shop.
     
    The waiting room was the color of ashes. The scattered pieces of furniture were faded, worn. Even the air in the room seemed used. An ancient chrome-plated desk hunched in one corner, and behind it sat a young woman in soiled whites. Her face was pale and predatory. She regarded Logan suspiciously.
    "You want Doc?"
    "I want Sanctuary."
    The girl wet her lips with a small pink tongue. "Then you want Doc."
    She rose listlessly, crossed to Logan. "Hand," she said. He held up his right hand, palm out. Red-black-red-black-red-black…
    "C'mon," she said. "Follow through for the new you.
    She led him down a musty hallway and into a large room smelling of metal. Logan recognized the thing in the center of the alum floor; he felt himself ice up. Table! The machine loomed over a flat metal bed that was grooved and slotted and equipped with fastening devices.
    "There's not another like her outside a hospital between here and New Alaska," said a harsh, confident voice.
    Logan whirled to face a thick bodied sixteen-year-old. The man's bony features were split by a crooked-toothed smile. He wore a long gray smock which extended down to his shoe tops. Doc.
    "A little edgy, are you? Well, that's natural. Runners are scared people. Least you got enough sense to start before your flower blacks. It's tougher then, with the Sandmen onto you. What'll it be, face job or full body? Could add a couple inches to those legs"
    "Just the face," said Logan.
    "Got no time, is that it? Runners never got time." A note of sad regret in the voice. "I won't ask your name. I don't want to know it. You got the punchkey and that's good enough for me. Ballard knows who to give them to."
    Ballard! Logan's mind leaped. The world's oldest man. A story to frighten children with. A legend. A subject for folk chants. Was there actually such a man—the force behind Sanctuary?
    "Holly will get you ready. If you're worried about the Table, don't be. They call me Doc , but I'm a
    trained mech. A real mechanic. Give me a basket of transistors and a pound of platinum sponge and I can make anything. You're in good hands, believe what I tell you."
    As he talked, the girl came forward to unbutton the collar of Logan's shirt. The Gun was stuffed into his waistband, and he wondered if they'd want all his clothes off. Hiding the Gun would be impossible here.
    "Ask me what I'm doing in a shop like this if I'm so handy. I got my reasons. I make out. A little Muscle for the cubs, a sea lift now and then, a face job for Ballard—maybe a body change for some sick citizen who's tired of himself. Adds up. I do all right."
    The girl was brushing her fingertips lightly down Logan's arms. There was a deep-blue spark in her eyes. "I'm Holly," she said softly. "Holly 13. In ancient times they said my number was unlucky. Do you believe in luck?"
    Doc aimed another crooked smile at Logan. "Holly don't work for the money. She gets her lift out of watching the Table—and other things." His smile became a dry chuckle. 'Back in a minute."
    "Do I need to undress?" Logan asked the girl.
    "Not for a face," she said. "That is, not unless you want to."
    "What now?"
    "Empty your pockets." She led him to the Table.
    It was one of the big brutes, a Mark J. Surgeon. Suspended over the flat bed was a glittering tangle of probes and pincers and scalpels, springs, clamps and needles. Tubes and looped wires interconnected from one part of the Table to another, crisscrossing the main body which contained the solid-state circuitry forming the machine's memory center and brain. At one end was a console of buttons and switches, lights and dials.
    A Table such as this could lengthen bone and change dental patterns. It could broaden shoulders,