By Dmitri Lipson
The underground market was cold and wet from rain water leaking in, they don’t patch it up because no one cares, no one has the money or the time, It’s all business in Angel City. The only light down in the below is from ugly lamps on the ceilings. Most of the homeless gather here around the steam vents from the nearby factory for warmth. The market was flooded today with rebellious punks, shady businessman, and scavengers who wore gas masks and geiger counters.
There was a small river from the leakage which somebody long ago had built a small corrugated metal bridge over. Victor knocked on the steel door four times in rapid succession. There was a pause, then the metal slit opened and closed. You could hear locks, numbering in the double digits, being undone. Martinez was always paranoid of something. The burly guy who opened the door led him into the back room through some long strands of multi colored beads. Victor was in a rush, he had a missing persons case and he had to get going today but his car was in the shop. After a brief conversation, Martinez lended his old car to Victor, they shook hands and left.
After some investigation of the locals, Victor arrived at an abandoned factory through a side door. Light shone through broken windows into the factory illuminating old machinery, conveyor belts lined the place. Human workers were no longer needed for labour and when factories could not compete they shut down or were bought and then automated. He continued down by some crates and entered into the back area.
He did not expect dead bodies. They were everywhere, scattered on tables and floors dissected with mechanical precision. Victor had seen this before when underground rippers had bought illegal military grade medical drones and rewired them to start harvesting organs. But this was different, Victor had been monitoring the illegal organ business lately the organs that were harvested here were not even expensive, In fact most of what was taken was just the raw muscle tissue and the lungs.
His experience as a privateer in the corporate war hardened him to the corpses, but nothing ever stopped his dreams. He took a swig from his flask, drinking cheap whiskey helped drown out the screaming in his head, he shook it a little, it was almost empty.
He checked their belongings, there seemed to be no connection between the people, so far at least. Though they all were showing high levels of an unknown tranquilizer and even signs of struggle, Victor suspected they were kidnapped dragged here and used for something he did not know as of yet. He looked around for a little, when he heard a loud clanging from nearby he followed the sound checking cautiously. He peeked around the corner and saw a man running down the hallway and screaming “NO NO!” at the top of his lungs.
The still living man, like a ragdoll, was plucked from the ground by long wires and then dragged into the air. He was reworked into something disturbing. Small wires shot out with barbed hooks stabbing into him. Robotic needles and arms began their work, first implants took away his face, and then red glowing neon eyes were placed in the fashion of smiles. His skin was peeled off like wrapping paper, and replaced with a black carbon fibre which resembled black rubbery tubes. An erie smoke started emitting from his back and a thick black ooze poured out from between the artificial living tubes.
Some sort of cybernetic monstrosity, connected to wires that led into the darkness lurked here. He gathered his resolve, and decided to go further and investigate what the hell could of done that. He moved forward quickly so the smiling creature that had been created before his eyes would not spot him. He checked to make sure that his revolver was ready. Victor hid behind some pipes and waited for the thing to go by. It moved incredibly fast but in bursts looking more like a blur than that of which only a few moments ago was human.
It went by him perhaps on some sort of patrol. When he thought he was in the clear he moved to follow the monstrosity further in. He turned the corner, to see another one of the artificial soldiers, Moving towards him. There was little time to get to cover, he fired once and the being dodged. In a blink of an eye it was ten feet towards him. He fired again and again until he hit it in the head, if fell as it squirted black ooze and blood across the ground, Long guttural croaks came from the twisted and twitching monstrosity who lie upon the floor, so he shot it again. He dragged the corpse towards a hidden area before more could arrive, He studied the thing looking for anything to go on, He found on the side of the head a logo and underneath a small title, “Lavender” it was a sub company of Daisy (the worlds biggest biological company.)
He found his culprit, but he knew he could not bring this to court, no one could stand up to Daisy’s big money lawyers, they would bury you in legal nonsense and probably blame you for the crime, that is if the hitmen did not get to you first.
Victors number one concern was getting the hell out of here. More of those things had arrived, a whole hoard of them! He could barely take out one, let alone twelve. But before he could worry about them, he saw their leader, made of wires and light blue glass eyes. The giant living monstrosity veered over them about twenty feet tall, it could barely fit in the hallway, as its wires prodded around the room hungrily.
