So Vile a Sin Read Online Free PDF Page A

a hell of a way to start a career in terrorism.
    Dis
    She had two rooms: one for sleeping in and one for being awake in. There was also an alcove with a fresher and ablution facilities but that didn’t count. She was encouraged to adjust the colour of the walls to suit her moods, but she generally kept them a snowy white. She found it soothing.
    Meals arrived by micro-transmat in the room for being awake in, along with a big blunt spoon to eat them with. There were no sharp edges anywhere. Even the rooms had soft rounded corners.
    There were no windows and no visible doors.
    Over the years – and she was sure it had been years even though she wasn’t certain how many years it had been – she had fallen into a routine. In the morning she would step into the fresher and set it on combination scrub and isometric exercise.
    Then she would order breakfast and tell the simcord to give her a random news summary.
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    She had access to only one media feed, EmpireGold, whose bias was definitely towards the cheerful but often had good reality shows – My Family: Right or Wrong? was her favourite.
    She liked to fill her head with other people’s concerns – it helped to pass the time.
    The simcord timer always conspicuously showed the time and date, the better for her to understand the passage of time.
    Sometimes the date would change abruptly, jumping forward or backward, a few days usually, sometimes a month and on one terrifying occasion a whole year.
    Losing a year (or had she gained it?) had frightened her so much that she’d asked for medication to be stepped up. They said that the incidence of this phenomenon was declining, but she wasn’t sure she believed them.
    After lunch she would arrange the bagchairs so that they faced each other in readiness for the afternoon consultation.
    They said that the routine was a good sign. They said that it was her instinctive reaction to personality fragmentation. That once she demonstrated an ability to retain a sense of linear time they could start to work on her other problems.
    They liked the routine, so it was puzzling that they decided to change it two days in a row.
    On the second day she had hardly finished breakfast when her doctor appeared. ‘I hope I am not intruding,’ he said.
    ‘Not at all,’ she said. She was a bit annoyed. She’d been meaning to punch up Mad, Bad and Dangerous to Know after breakfast. Still, the doctor’s early arrival could herald good news.
    ‘Shouldn’t I clear breakfast first?’
    ‘I think we can risk it this once,’ said the doctor and sat down on a bagchair.
    Dutifully she took her place opposite.
    ‘Firstly, I’d liked to apologize for breaking into your routine,’
    said the doctor. ‘I know how important it is to you.’
    ‘I thought we might be starting a new routine,’ she said. ‘With the other doctor.’
    ‘The other doctor?’
    ‘The one who visited yesterday.’
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    ‘Oh,’ the doctor hesitated. ‘That doctor. Of course.’ Another hesitation. ‘How are you feeling today?’
    ‘I’m not sure. Much the same as always but possibly different.
    I’m sorry, that’s terribly ambiguous.’
    ‘Not at all, not at all,’ said the doctor. ‘I thought you might tell me your impressions of yesterday.’
    ‘Like what exactly?’
    ‘Well, for example, what did you talk about?’
    ‘He asked me how long I had been here and I said I didn’t know. He asked where I was before I came here and I told him –’
    There was a stain just above the simcord screen. Sauce from the meatstrips she had eaten for breakfast. She checked around the room. The breakfast tray was lodged in the corner of the room; her bendy spoon was in her hand.
    ‘Perhaps I should have let you clear away first!’ said her doctor.
    ‘How long?’ she asked.
    ‘Twenty-three minutes. You know, I believe your episodes are shortening.’
    ‘Is that a good sign?’
    ‘A very good sign,’ said the doctor. ‘Your last recorded episode lasted just over