See for Yourself

By Nicholas Stillman

Imagine a future technology which can cure AIDS, predict strokes, and transplant faces—and only the mafia has it. Vaughn, a compassionate and squeamish debtor, gets to use some of their more portable secret tools. Vaughn did not go to med school.

To pay his debt, Vaughn must find a face, any face from one of four soon-to-die stroke victims. Finding them in a megacasino takes no effort with the medical mafia’s tech. The hard part involves collecting the face with the medical mafia’s bone saw. While casinos have a way of spitting bad luck at the downtrodden, Vaughn has a few tools to skirt the new dystopian law. He’ll need them in his hellish night of choosing (and chasing) his harvest. But which will he end first, his contract or his conscience?

Get “See for Yourself” now for a heart-stopping twist and a taste of medical fiction you'll wish would stay underground.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Stillman Sci-Fi
• Release date: Mar 5, 2017
• ISBN: 9781386957874

Nicholas Stillman

Nicholas Stillman writes dark but entertaining science fiction. His weekly short stories and collections aim for variety and novelty with fun and thought-provoking twists. They often branch into dystopia, crime, horror, medical fiction, black comedy, romance, adventure, adult, and the completely new. Some of Stillman’s themes include civilizational collapse, addictions of the future, medicine in space, dark psychology, and the terrifying fate of our healthcare. Stillman offers monthly free short stories at StillmanSciFi.com. Get yourself free, easily accessible short stories for life--the perfect way for any science fiction fan to spend time on commutes or at home.

Book preview

See for Yourself

By Nicholas Stillman

© 2017 Nicholas Stillman

Get free short stories monthly at stillmanscifi.com

You’ll have to bring us someone’s face, Dr. McGill said, from someone who will die anyway.

Vaughn waited for the medical mafia doc to go on. He stood with his knees locked to suppress a full-body shudder. He also tried not to look at the two huge bodyguards flanking Dr. McGill. The night wind in the vacant construction site seemed to skirt them. They stood fixed like statues, armored up to combat heaven and weaponized up to their helmets.

The suited, bald doctor looked like a bulbous little scepter between them, a possession of theirs. Of course, the ownership worked the other way around.

Since you arranged to pay in service rather than cash, Dr. McGill continued, we’ve set up a few hours of work for you. We’ve minimized any risk of police involvement. The face you’ll harvest for us will come from the megacasino down the road. You’ll end your contract by sawing off the tissue and delivering it to us. One face pays for the procedure that saved your wife.

Vaughn glanced at the stars to thank them. It probably looked to the mafia like he stood there calculating costs. He almost smirked at the concept. No one calculates anything around Dr. McGill, not after choosing service.

Luckily for you, Dr. McGill said, "a whopping four gamblers will die of stroke tonight. Normally that casino reports only one or two strokers per day. We’ve also got a client with serious burns to his face. He’ll accept any one of those four faces for transplant, so you get to choose among them.

Obviously, you’ll want to seclude yourself with one of the strokers right when he dies. Then, you do the ABC: acquire the face, bring it to me, and cancel your debt.

An autumn wind blew across Dr. McGill’s vast and