“Yeah?” He pulled out another bottle and a fresh needle. “Let’s try the next one.”

Five bottles later he smirked at her. “Pretty thorough protections for a secretary.”

“They’re… the insurance companies… they’re paranoid. I… I… please, please don’t hurt me anymore. I’m just a secretary!” She wailed in despair, “I don’t know anything!”

“I think the back teeth, next. Who are you?”

“Who do you want me to be?” She screamed, and pleaded, “I’ll be anybody you want me to be! Please, please…”

“So, who are you?” he asked, after waiting for her to wind down.

“I’m a secretary! Just a secretary…” she trailed off, sobbing.

A couple of hours later, he stripped off the rubber gloves he’d had to add at one point, looking up at Worth.

“There’s really no more point. Her story’s changing randomly and none of it’s very inventive.” He wandered into the kitchen and came back out with a paper plate. “It’s getting harder to revive her.” He shrugged. “We could pull an all-nighter, but I really don’t see the point.” He put a piece of the cold pizza on the plate and took it back to the microwave and came back to where Worth was scowling at the limp and half-dead mass of blood and matted blond hair. “In my professional opinion, my friend, that,” he gestured with his pizza, “is a secretary.”

“Damn. She would have been good for the whole weekend. Cut her down I guess, while we decide where to get rid of her.”

“It’s Friday.” Worth took out a bottle of solvent and started the laborious process of cleaning the blood out of his whips. “The guy who runs the incinerator on Oak Street can sell all the GalTech drugs he can get his hands on. For a couple hundred hits of Provigil-C he’ll walk around the block.” He tossed a damp and bloody paper towel into a trash bag and grabbed another, watching out of the corner of his eye as Sam cut her down and she collapsed on the mat.