The music was faint in his headphones, and al but drowned out by the noise of the MRI scanner that was slowly putting together a picture of his spine. Of the state of it. The sound, like a pneumatic dril , made it seem as if he were listening to some radical, techno remix of the Man in Black, but it was stil better than the alternative. They’d told him he could choose one of their CDs for the twenty minutes or so he’d be inside the chamber, but Thorne had decided to take no chances and brought The Man Comes Around along with him. Good job he had. Even the little he could hear was preferable to some of the shit on the laminated list he’d found waiting for him in the changing room. Jamie Cul um, Katie Melua, Norah bloody Jones. He lay, quite stil as he’d been instructed. Straining to hear. His hand around the rubber panic button he’d been told to squeeze if he felt uncomfortable or alarmed for any reason. If he wanted to stop the procedure. The rhythm of the machine, the repetitive clatter, like a buzz that had been slowed, began to fade.
