“Now, Dr. Stevenson,” Dr. Baker begins, “we don’t need any old stories about Rapunzels in the tower.”
“Do you still feel that bulge in her stomach, your wife, that is?” Stevens asks Baker.
“Well, even after seven miscarriages…”
“That’s right,” Stevenson agrees. “I was the primary on one or two of those and I had to tell this bastard, this is not for you to see. That’s just what I told him and that’s what I meant. But he had to see and the carnage was not holy by any means. It was a god damn mess is what it was.”
“I was curious after the first four that maybe I had been doing something wrong,” Baker says.
“I can train the child in utero,” Stevenson suggests. “By careful electrical discharges through the amniotic sack, a fetus can be trained to respond to stimulus in a negative reinforcement method. I spent many years researching this technique, honing it to perfection. I can now safely say that in utero obedience is within our grasp.”
“But what effect does this have on the unborn fetus?”

Stevenson points to a hairy beast circling the boulevard below us and says, “That’s my simian attendant. He’s in close contact with his bestial side. Picks his ass in public, shits in his hand and throws it at people. I keep him on because he’s colorful.”
“How did you get your start, doctor?” I ask.
“Why, I trained at the finest medical institutions of the near east, all the way through the Alps and up north towards the chocolate countries. My first exceptional case was the separation of Siamese twins in a small clinic in an African nation that no longer exists. I was stationed there as part of the Doctors Without Borders program and my only refuge at the time was Logono, the extract of poison that natives used.

“This Siamese twin set had grown up to about fourteen years and only now had they decided they could no longer be joined. So I went and cut them right down the middle, split the liver in half, and watched them both die. They already had two children to worry about and I figured I was doing them a favor. So that was my first case, not because they didn’t survive but because I made the proclamation that death was the best thing for them.

“But this beast here,” he says, pointing at the bug on the table, “this is my nemesis. I have studied it for over thirteen years now and have come no closer to understanding its physiological make up. Clinically, we’ve learned that its penis produces a fluid that prolongs orgasm by slowing nerve response in the genitals. It is accepted that all aphrodisiacs are based on this principle, though this is the only one we’ve ever come upon that actually works at its purpose.

“Several meat eaters have proven effective in secret tests of cannibalism. What does this portend? Possibly best we don’t know, but the fact remains. This bug is an aphrodisiac and so is the flesh of humans.”
Now Stevenson’s led us across the room to a wall that’s opened to reveal a woman strapped to a gurney.
“This is one of my personal projects,” he explains to us. “Had to take advantage of The Frontier because this type of research would never be permitted in the city. Essential, yes, but brutal.”

First Lieutenant: Why, Captain, what do you see there?
Captain: It appears to be an Aztec death march.
F.L.: That’s not what we think it is. That’s a god damn celebration of lost innocence.
C: I thought the Aztecs cherished virginity.
FL: Now make sure this is properly nourished. We don’t want anyone getting dehydrated out there.
C: We’ve gotta stay after Stevenson, maybe put some of the telepaths on him. The guy’s no good and you just know he’s up to something. That man doesn’t travel to the Frontier for kicks.
FL: I think it’s possible that he’s got agents working here in his absence.
C: We can’t put anything passed him. He’s the antithesis of trustworthiness. Even as a patient you never know if you’re going to be cured or turned into an atrocity. He’s likely to make a surgery into a public performance.
FL: Or a think piece.
C: That’s just it. We have to stop him while we can.

Upper Class Debutante’s Coming Out Party: “She’s so damn fresh. She douches a thousand times a day to maintain that freshness.”
“Douche, I can smell it from here. She’s a cavern vampire in Prada.”
Blast of trumpets, the Debutante is carried in by four aging black men, all of whom are being whipped by their master as they carry her.
“Now face the light,” her mother yells. “Let the world see our darling!”