The Box

The Box



Plague – Addiction - Violence
Chapter 1

(73 years into the future)

Morgan Coughman felt a tired numbness in his legs from his earlier walk and grudgingly admitted to himself that he had finally become an old man. All his life he’d learnt to think of himself as the enthusiastic, vibrant person he’d been used to seeing in the mirror in his early years. Like so many other people he’d known, he’d kept on telling his friends that he was still young on the inside, still filled with the wonder and mystery of youth despite the irrevocable march of time that seemed so intent on marching across his back, leaving him twisted and broken and with only the fleeting memory of what once he’d been, while his future and the rich potential of it sold out from under him a little by every mistake he made.
He rubbed his watery eyes and glanced out at his surroundings. He still remembered the old days. He always had a smirk and a sharp comment for anyone that falsely remembered them as perfect but he felt he could be sure that they were at least, to some degree better. He sighed deeply and closed his diary. It was an old electronic device that had somehow managed to stay working for over forty nine years with minimal coaxing and upgrades. He patted its smooth black surface warmly and just stared at the little electronic box. It was old now, perhaps laughably so. One of the electronics engineers he knew was eager to buy it as a curiosity but he’d always refused because he simply didn’t need the money. It was now a part of him, as much so perhaps as his arms or his eyes or some buried part of his own mind. When he would be gone, what else of him would remain? He’d never lived the life he’d dreamt of and had never made the mark on the world that he knew he should. His life had never touched the hearts and minds of the people around him and would vanish in the mists of time like a sandcastle on a beach as the tide draws in. Somehow leaving behind something tangible made it easier to die, some reference to nearly fifty years of life, fifty years of watching mankind walk inexorably down a path to oblivion.
“You alright?” A voice called out, stirring him from his vacant thoughts.
Morgan looked round, a little startled. In the doorway was his boss, Aaron Thorn. He was a frightening man and he hated to have worked for him for so long. It wasn’t his size or his power that made men fear him, it was something in his eyes. He always left Morgan thinking of a child with a shotgun, somehow innocent but with a deadly force at his hand that he couldn’t control and so, in the fullness of time was destined to do harm.
“I’m fine!” Morgan nodded slowly. Aaron stood in the doorway to his tiny, gloomy office and nodded thoughtfully along with him. He was dressed in clothes that accentuated his poor taste, as if he was somehow proud of his limited coordination and restraint. Red clashed with green as his long silky jacket swayed gently around his creaseless trousers and a garish tie topped off the styleless ensemble like a mockery of decorum.
“I’ve been thinking about you.” Aaron began, always sounding threatening as habit overwhelmed his keen but limited intellect. “How old are you now?”
“I’m ninety three.” Morgan replied flatly, turning his chair to face the man he resented so bitterly and so secretly as most of his staff did.
“And you’re still working here?” Aaron smiled to himself. “I hope I do better than you did.”
“I’m sure you won’t have to worry about working when you’re my age.” Morgan huffed ironically, knowing he’d miss the barb hidden in the remark.
“You know something?” Aaron began, taking a step forward. “You’re the best damned employee I ever had.”
“Really?” Morgan asked, a little surprised and flushed with a sudden swell of unexpected pride.
“You’ve never missed a day.” Aaron shrugged, gliding over to glance out of his office window. “You hardly ever fuck up and everyone likes you.”
Morgan followed his gaze out of the window to see a blue flashing light in the distance. In the neighbourhood where he lived and worked they were hardly a rare sight but he always seemed intent on watching if any approached his business. It hardly made any difference anyway. His permits were all in order, he always paid the appropriate amount to the appropriate people and nobody anywhere cared one bit about what he was doing.
“We’ll be sorry to see you go.” Aaron said softly, his attention still fixed on the police Skimmer in the distance.
“I’m not planning to go anywhere.” Morgan replied, slightly alarmed that the conversation had taken a turn against him. Work was hard to find for a man like him. He was old, had limited skills and a past that could catch up with him at any time.
“Good.” Aaron beamed as he snapped away from the window, satisfied that whoever the police were after wasn’t him. “No problem then!”
Morgan watched silently as his boss left through the door and made a point of not closing it after him. He huffed his annoyance and dropped his head to the terminal at his desk. Reams of data were available to him at the touch of a single key. The entire financial history of Aaron Thorns empire, his bank records and an irrevocable trace of every filthy transaction, every paid murderer, every shattered life and broken dream he’d ever had a hand in.
The real reason that Morgan was his best employee had nothing to do with his punctuality or his popularity with the other staff, he at least knew that to be true. The real reason was that he could be trusted further than any other man working for the greedy, semi-literate thug. Morgan hung his head shamefully as he allowed himself to realise the truth of his life. He was the head financier to a vicious porn and prostitution ring and was allowed access to every piece of information at the disposal of the advanced computer system that they employed. The reason he was so trusted was not because of his loyalty or his commitment but because they knew that he had neither the imagination nor the courage or ingenuity remaining to him to do anything with it. Perhaps that had been the problem with his entire life but as he had gown older with increasingly less to lose he had found himself growing more fearful and had clung on with greater resolve to every vague shred of hi life.

Aaron Thorn strolled menacingly along the corridors of the upper section of his building. His empire formed the key stone of the entire red-light district of the East Valley. He had built the business up from the nothing that life had afforded him as a boy. His family were all connected with drugs and scams and anything they could make a fast and easy buck with, it had seemed so natural a step to get into the prostitution racket. At first he’d used real girls as thirty years ago there’d been no alternative but that was such a messy, unreliable way to do business. People had always been the unstable element, the fly in the ointment of his success. He’d achieved everything he had in spite of his family, in spite of his teachers and councillors and in spite of authority.
When he’d started he’d been illegal but now his company was virtually legitimate. Nobody cared about his methods, nobody questioned his practices any more, they all just went along with him, as if he led the way into a dark but well established path where he was the sole guide. He could now count among his friends a group of engineers, psychologists, businessmen, politicians and even law-enforcement officials, nobody he knew in the old days could have pulled off a stunt like that and got away with it.
He was selling sex, or at least the next best thing and he was well respected for doing it. It was true that his building was not in the heart of the commercial district or even in the over-inhabited suburban towers at the fringe of the city limits. He was confined to the Dark-sides, a euphemism coined long ago due to the conditions and lack of maintenance.
Weather control measures ensured bright skies and warm days for everyone in the capital ring but the unpleasant weather, the “secondary conditions” had to go somewhere and geography drew them to an undesirable valley to the east. It’s undesirability due to virtually perpetual storms and clouded skies which forced the rent down created a slum nearly overnight. That was when the predators moved in. He was among the first to smell the rich scent of fresh blood, the pungent odour of opportunity to be drawn at the expense of the weak. Financed by the blood and tears of a thousand lost children he bought up land and moved in anyone that could scarcely afford to live there, building being paid for by generous government grants.
The emporium was just a nod to the older days, a fond memory of his years fighting his way up through the ranks to demand respect and status.
“Afternoon.” Hamilton Travis nodded warmly to him as the pair approached one another.
“Hello.” Aaron grunted moodily his reply.
Hamilton slowed as the two drew closer, a sure sign that a conversation would ensue. Aaron stopped short of hating him, but not by much. He was everything he was not, a pitiful excuse for a fallen man with nothing about him that held any measure of pride in himself. He was a Biotechnical psychiatrist, a sort of hybrid kind of engineer and councillor rolled into one. They were unfortunately hard to find, even more difficult to get one who was willing to work for the money that Aaron was willing to pay. Luckily for him, Hamilton had problems that went beyond the obvious shortcomings of his personality and guaranteed he’d never find employment in a more reputable environment. Even though he freely exploited him for his weaknesses he disliked him for them also.
“What can I do for you, Ham?” Aaron asked politely, each word sticking in his throat as he winced inwardly at having to talk about some mind-numbing computerised banality or pedantic posturing. He eyed the young man up and down, taking in his appearance, his posture and expression, measuring him up with his eyes. He had long black greasy hair, combed back from his face in some ridiculous affectation that accentuated his drawn and haggard features, his sunken eyes and pale mottled skin. He was dressed casually, a white shirt topped off with a dark brown sports jacket on top of neutral black trousers.
Hamilton winced slightly at the sound of his name shortened in what amounted to a deliberate attempt to annoy him.
“I hear we’re getting some new girls in?” He ventured, clasping his hands nervously behind his back as the short, angry man glared back at him with obvious resentment.
“That’s right, seven more coming in tomorrow.” Aaron nodded in an overly restricted way so that his head barely moved.
“It would have been nice to be told.” Hamilton shrugged. “Do we know what’s wrong with them?”
“They’re broken.” Aaron glared menacingly, snapping the words out like an angry teacher rebuking a child. “Which means they’re cheap, that’s why I bought them!”
“But if I knew what the problems were I could set up the equipment accordingly and save some time.” Hamilton grumbled, diverting his eyes and kicking an imaginary ball of dust along the filthy grey carpet.
“Yeah, but it’s my time.” Aaron grinned, folding his arms across his chest. “I’m paying for it so its mine to waste.”
“But they expire two days after delivery.” Hamilton whined. “I might need that long if they’re severely damaged!”
“Let me worry about that.” Aaron smiled like a hunter with his prey in the crosshairs of a photon incinerator. He wasted no more of his time, pausing only to give Hamilton a look of contempt as he continued stalking along the offices of his business with no real idea where he was heading or why he was heading there.

Morgan Coughman breathed the stale air. He remembered long ago, a time when he’d been a child. Long before he’d been an accountant or an embezzler or finally a coward that his father had built him a train set. An old-fashioned contraption that used electricity drawn from a specific point in the house instead of supplied by an invisible grid circling the entire planet.
He remembered the polished little engines that he drove up and down the rails for hours, he remembered the scenery, tiny fluffy trees and packets of special dirt he’d had to glue on the wooden base. The thing he remembered most was the smell. The tiny whiff of ozone as the train sped along, a faint metallic odour that had marked his memory so deeply that nearly a century spent in hell could erase it.
That was how everything smelt now. Most people didn’t even notice but the whole of Earth now reeked of burning ozone, metallic and dirty in a way that would have been unimaginable when he was a child, and of course the Dark-sides were the worst of all. Nobody seemed to know why, or didn’t care but the energy seemed stronger there. On really bad nights when the storms rattled his windows and hammered at his doors the filth in the air was sickeningly heavy and when things were calm there was often a whistling noise, a faint humming sound that hung around him, coming from nowhere but filling his mind with its presence.
He strolled along in silent contemplation, remembering the past and comparing it to the future he saw before him. The Dark-sides, a living graveyard of humanity, a place where ghosts walked among the living like shadows and the realms between were played out in the darkness of alleys or other silent catacombs. The people that lived there were hollow husks, hope driven from them by poverty and the lingering threat of violence that stalked them all equally. Half the people he knew were addicted to Stims, an electronic drug that could be downloaded from Comm-net with the right equipment. Of course nobody on the streets had the right equipment and the universal planetary communications network hardly ever worked in the valley anyway. People like Aaron Thorn were making huge profits by selling Stim-pads, small handheld devices that injected the deadly electromagnetic pulse directly into the brain. They were fuelled by a power cell that held the data encoded into it so that it was virtually impossible to copy the drug, which meant repeat profits and an ever-growing army of mind-damaged users.
Stim made the users docile at first but then the brain over-compensated and the long-term user could be driven to acts of unspeakable violence. In his youth people had recoiled in horror at the news every time such unspeakable acts were committed but now it was commonplace. The Dark-sides in every city around the world were replete with terrifying stories of disembowelling, cannibalism and things that were yet to be properly named and classified but these were no longer stories on the news. No longer were they remote events, separated and sanitised so that the effect could not be properly felt. These now happened to his neighbours, his friends. Nobody was safe and nobody could be prepared. A Stim user in the throws of a murderous rage could be more powerful than a Biotekk police officer and immeasurably more motivated and determined.
The cities though were somehow worse. At least in the East Valley there was signs of life, the occasional glimpse of an eye that still had a passion burning away inside it, a spark of what it was to be Human. In the cities the people seemed little more than automatons. Mindless slaves to the system that spawned and perpetuated their entrapment. Perhaps it was that there lives were so easy. Their needs were met and filled by something else, something intangible and remote. Biotekk units laboured for them while Comm-net filled their every information need, linking billions of people with an intricate web of satellites and in turn linking them to the Global Intelligence Micro-processor. A vast computer, more capable than everything that had ever existed put together at once. Nothing was beyond its intellectual grasp, nothing was beyond it reach, people no longer were compelled to think at all.
Morgan sighed heavily to himself. Where was there left to go? There were now many colonies in space, the lunar bases, three more on Mars and two on the moons around Jupiter but they were just research stations and were not yet open to casual travellers. He would never be allowed off world, anyway. He had a criminal record and worse than that, at least two outstanding warrants for his arrest, for him there was nowhere left to run.

Nathan Ryan sat in the darkness of his room, collapsed in the corner, his body useless to him while his mind lit up with pleasure and a warm contentment that had otherwise slipped beyond his grasp many years ago. He could see everything before him, the peeling artificial walls, the filthy windows and the sickly garish light cutting brazenly through the grey skies outside.
He was aware of sounds, a gentle tapping on the window of rain is it washed over the dark streets, resolved to itself that it would never again be a cleansing fall. The soft sounds mixed with the harsh sirens and occasional shouts or screams from beyond. It all washed over him, he no longer cared about anything or anyone. His mind had started to become active again, he realised lazily that he was noticing things around him. The cold of the floor beneath him, the yellow tinge to the paper that hung from the walls, the sickly smells of his conditions and the pity deep within him for his lost soul.
He noticed one smell above the others, a bitterly acidic smell and he realised almost immediately what it was. He concentrated on his legs, feeling around in his mind for his senses that were now so dull and unresponsive. He felt what he had dreaded, a cold, lethargic unpleasantness around his groin giving final proof that he had again lost control of his bladder. He tried to move, tried to reach for a towel but his muscles mocked him with their weight and stubbornness.
He hated this, he hated what Stims could do to him. They gave him the escape he needed and he loved them deeply for that. Three times a week he would cradle his Stim-pad lovingly, gently devouring the expectation, savouring every crumb of the anticipation after the need grew too much to resist and he succumbed to needing another session. At the rest of the time he hated them. He hated the blinding pain when he tried to resist using them, he hated the feelings that it shook up in him afterwards and he hated the way his mind now felt. He had become a shell of his former self. His mind tingled, like an ear too used to loud noises and his brain seemed to numbly reverberate between sessions and thinking now seemed so much more difficult than ever before. He had to use his fingers now to count, like a child learning basic maths he was now reduced to the level of an uneducated fool, slowly struggling to work out how much money to give the teller when buying food.
His brain seemed more numb each time, every session sending his consciousness further away from reality, as if he was now only watching his life through the eyes of another. The worst thing of all was the knowledge that he’d done it to himself.
A year ago he’d been a salesman working for G-Tekk, the huge global conglomerate that basically ran the world. The controlled the Comm-net, the power grid, Biotekk and even the GIMP. Nothing seemed to slip through they’re greedy, power-hungry fingers and that suited him perfectly well. He was always a good salesman and as his father had told him, “there were no independents anymore.”
He’d sold his private business and began working for G-Tekk, earning twice as much as he’d managed to take while working for himself. His duty was to sell medical scanners, small hand-held devices that were held to the back of the skull while they sent out invisible tendrils of microwave radiation to the brain. The information they received was beamed to Comm-net to be processed and within seconds a complete diagnosis could be made of the persons health.
It was such a simple job selling such an amazing product. At first it was exciting bringing a new piece of equipment to the market but it quickly lost its challenge. He decided to move his sales to the East Valley. Money was scarce down there and the Comm-net only worked sporadically so it seemed more of an uphill struggle but then that was what he was looking for from his life; challenge!
He reasoned that with money in short supply then the people would be more interested in preventing diseases before they required more extensive treatment. It had been something of a surprise when one man placed an order for his entire stock, although of course he knew why now.
Nathan Ryan gasped a breath of air into his tired lungs and they burnt accordingly with every slight movement, punishing him for inhaling. He blinked weakly as the light now seemed brighter and more cutting, burning into his eyes now like needles being driven into his brain. His muscles were still too heavy to move and now he was in pain. Pain from the wetness of his clothes, pain from the lights outside and pain from sitting in a crumpled heap, unable to move for five hours.
How had he let this happen to himself?

Morgan Coughman sat down heavily on a stool, a black vinyl covering on top of a cold and tarnished metal rod, fixed securely to the floor to prevent rowdy locals from using them as weapons.
“Pete.” He nodded with a warm smile finding its way out of one side of his mouth.
“Hello Morgan.” Pete replied from behind the counter. He was a younger man of around forty, fit and able with a sharp mind and a keen wit. He had to be to run a business on the Dark-side against every threat, every jealous glare from everyone who couldn’t afford his service. “What will it be?”
“A menu.” Morgan shrugged, “A customer deserves a choice, don’t you think?”
“I guess so.” Pete nodded, passing a laminated sheet of plastic to him. “Although I don’t get much of either these days.”
“How so?” Morgan raised his eyebrow in interest.
“Another delivery went missing this morning, probably hijacked.” Pete explained calmly. “And as for customers…” He let the words trail off, gesturing with his hand at the empty restaurant.
“The lunchtime rush?” Morgan sniggered warmly.
“Afraid so.” Pete conceded. “What I wouldn’t give for my old job back.”
“What did you do?” Morgan asked with disinterest as his tired eyes scanned up and down the menu as the invisible electronics posted one illuminated offering after another. “Before you started here?”
“I was a cop.” Pete replied matter of factly while picking up a jug of coffee for his only patron. “Coffee?”
“A cop?” Morgan began, his voice trembling. “I had no idea.”
“Don’t worry.” Pete chuckled. “Everyone here has something to hide, even me.”
“I see.” Morgan took a deep breath and nodded slightly towards the jug before returning his attention to the menu.
“I left ten years ago.” Pete explained absently. “Around the time they started bringing in Biotekk units.”
“I didn’t think they started using them that long ago.” Morgan added conversationally.
“At first they just started using them for guard duty and low key stuff but as they got more sophisticated they ended up being better than the men on the street.” Pete sighed with obvious regret. “I saw which way the wind was blowing and took early retirement. I figured I’d set myself up with a nice little business .”
“Hence this place?” Morgan smiled up at Pete’s careworn face.
“Well, I guess it hasn’t worked out like I hoped.” Pete shrugged. “Who could have known the East Valley would end up like this?”
“I had a rough idea.” Morgan told him, his finger tracing along the plastic menu between lasagne and chillie.
“Well, I wish you’d told me.” Pete smiled.
“I used to be a financial advisor.” Morgan sat back on his stool giving him his full attention.
“So what happened to you, then?” Pete asked, pouring a thick cup of steaming black coffee into a stained white cup.
“I did some things I regret.” Morgan shrugged, hanging his head sorrowfully.
“Like working for Aaron Thorn?” Pete suggested dryly. “Hey, I don’t work for the police any more, anything you say is just between friends.”
“Actually it was the things I regret that ended up with me working for Aaron Thorn.” Morgan explained. “When I was younger I embezzled a few hundred thousand credits from a bank I was working for. I figured I’d invest it over the internet and replace it before they ever found out.”
“The internet?” Pete shrugged while absently wiping dry a plate.
“It was the old version of the Comm-net.” Morgan explained. “The investment plummeted and I lost some of the money. I did some illegal transfers to cover up my mistake, a bit of insider trading.”
“I see.” Pete nodded nonchalantly. “So what happened?”
“I did three years for insider trading.” Morgan sighed, remembering the horrific impression that prison life had left on him. “When I got out they discovered the transfers so I went into hiding. I ended up here about twenty years ago working as an accountant for Mr. Thorn.”
“Tough break.” Pete nodded dryly as he poured more coffee into Morgan’s half emptied cup.
“It was my own fault.” He said, hanging his head and taking in the warm, bitter smell of his coffee that pleasurably lit up his senses. “There are worse things to be than Mr. Thorns lackey.”
“Have you got any insurance?” Pete rubbed his nose, seeming oddly relaxed and disinterested. “I mean, you don’t trust him, do you?”

Nathan Ryan struggled to his feet. He hadn’t let the Stim session run its course, in fact he never did and perhaps that was part of the problem. He just wasn’t the sort of person who could sit idly and just let the experience wash over him. In the early stages of course he had no choice. When he placed the pad to his skull behind his ear and felt the cold metal contacts against his bare skin his heart would race, purely with the anticipation. His thumb would hover over the button as he’d struggle with the internal urge to begin. He would always suffer a moment of turmoil, a part of him knowing what would happen, the damage he was doing to himself, always needing a stronger and stronger dose to reach the same height as the part of his brain that reacted to it slowly atrophied with every hit. Another part of him was desperate for the charge, clawing at his mind for him to release the energy into his brain, shattering his thoughts and consciousness and releasing him to the blissful escape. That part always won, not because it was stronger but because now everything else was hopelessly weak.
Finally his thumb would sink down onto the button and the click of the devices internal contact would be the last thing he’d hear or even be aware of for at least five hours. Five long, lucid hours of bliss, of freedom from thoughts and fears, his mind sent to a place where it was at least temporarily free from knowing what he’d become.
He staggered uneasily to his feet, seeing the wretched Stim pad on the floor, lying where it had fallen as the energy had surged through the tissue of his mind, disrupting brain activity and releasing hormones. He hated himself, he hated everything. As much as he loved the Stim before he pressed the button he hated it now.
He glanced around his room. His single box in the low tower of the East Valley slums. Filth lay strewn around him, washing up laid broken on the floor and mouldering in the sink, waste so badly crusted on that it was now useless. A single light disk sat humming in the centre of the low ceiling, throwing it’s dull white glow across his meagre possessions and illuminating his damnation.
When he’d started he’d never imagined he’d end up like this. He’d sold his entire stock to a businessman. He’d doubted the wisdom of it at first, he was intelligent enough to realise that if he intended to sell them on then he knew he could demand a better price than the unwitting salesman. He’d decided to do it anyway as the sale earnt him a fat bonus for acceding his targets. He asked what he intended to do with so many medical diagnosis pads and the man had laughed. He’d made some comment about seeing things with an open mind. He fixed him with a disarming grin and asked him what he saw when he looked at a medical diagnosis pad.
Nathan was at a loss to answer. The man had concluded that he saw nothing but what was written on the box, Nathan had reluctantly agreed with him. The poorly dressed, angry sounding man then sat back in his chair like a chess player that knows he’s won.
“When I see your product I don’t see what you see. I see it for what it is.” He’d told him, his voice lowered as if to add a touch of drama or suspense. “I see a device that releases beams of microwave radiation into the brain with an incredible degree of sophistication and controllability.”
Nathan had just sat there, silent and expectant for him to continue. If he could now identify one moment that shaped his life it would be that one. One minute of his life that so radically changed its direction for ever that he became something that he could no longer recognise in the mirror.
The man pulled out a vial, a silver cylinder that he put down slowly onto the table, as gently as if it was fragile and incredibly valuable. He took one of the pads from the box and removed the power-cell from the hand grip and replaced it with the vial from his pocket. He’d simply placed the pad on the table and whispered softly for him to try it.
He’d shaken his head and smiled stupidly. A glance around to the burly men behind had wiped the smile off of his face forever. For the first time he realised what he’d done. He looked back into the wild, fierce eyes of his customer and watched his lips curl into a snarl as he repeated his words. His hand had quivered uneasily as he’d reached over to the pad and picked it up. With another look at the burly men standing either side of the door he’d placed it to his skull and gingerly pressed the button. From then on his life had become a blur that had led him to the shambling wreck of a man he now was in the filthy and languid pit of depression he now wallowing helplessly within.
He began to cry. Tears of regret for himself and of anger for his stupidity. The damage was now so great that he could barely remember his life over the last year but his recall before was as sharp as when he’d first lived it. He saw his arm flailing out and heard the smash of something glass tumbling to the floor.
He felt the fury building within him and he let out a roar that seemed to escape his mouth in spite of himself. With a sudden moment of clarity he knew this was it. He’d heard the rumours on the streets and the cold fingers of certainty had firmly entrenched the ideas in his mind. He’d heard that hard Stim users could end up as uncontrollable animals, driven by rage and something darker from the depths of the Human psyche where the animal within dwelt silently, waiting to slip its leash. He’d heard that they reach a point where the damage is just too great and they snap. He’d seen countless bodies and mutilated victims lining the streets, hastily covered before scavengers or other Hard-Stimmers could see them and be driven wild by the scent of blood. Nobody ever knew what triggered it and perhaps it was different for everyone, all that was known is that it preceded total mental collapse, the kind that was so violent that the muscle spasm could snap your own skeleton like dry twigs and internal organs could be driven to explode.
With a kind of cold resignation he realised he had now reached that point and a part of him was relieved, because at least it would soon be over.
As he watched himself walking along the darkened corridor of his habitat block he felt mildly sympathetic for whoever died along with him, but he was long past truly caring.
He remembered a story of a man he’d once met. Some stranger had told him that he’d gone wild with a kitchen knife and had cut off three of his own fingers along with every conceivable extremity from a group of people stuck in a lift with him. Apparently he’d fallen to the floor, screaming in agony with the medical Skimmer drivers and paramedics too afraid to approach him. His facial muscles had tightened until his eyes burst, spewing black and red liquid from the gaping sockets as he screamed in pain and terror. Finally his skull had collapsed, bursting most of his brain from his head to cascade across the pavement in a frenzied mass of fluid and solid body tissues. He had carried on screaming for at least two minutes after that, blood pumping from the grotesque pulp that had used to be his head while his hands flailed wildly around in some vain attempt to claw back his brain.
He wondered if the story was true.

Hamilton Travis lazily recalibrated his machine for tomorrows workload. The conditions he now worked in meant that he didn’t have access to the state of the art equipment that most members of his trade were used to, he instead had to make do with a shambolic clutter of computers and devices that he’d scraped together with the limited and grudging handouts that Aaron Thorn furnished him with. He simply could not make the petty gangster understand that his work was of a highly sophisticated nature and that it was unwise to cut corners.
The old machinery he had would have been adequate if he was simply maintaining existing girls but fixing damaged ones was stretching his abilities to breaking point, especially a delivery of seven new ones, each with intricate and complex problems of their own before they could be made functional and sent off to work in the prostitution rings that his boss managed with such an iron grip.
Turning the programs from adjustments to diagnosis was most of a days work but nobody had even thought to inform him of an imminent delivery of fresh candidates. He hated most of his work. It wasn’t the job, as such but the reason he was doing it.
He loved the psychology behind fixing the faults, he enjoyed breaking the puzzle of each fault and then finding a way round it, beating every obstacle and creating solutions out of problems. Each girl that walked out of his lab was a triumph, an achievement against seemingly impossible odds, he just sometimes wished that they weren’t walking out to become mindless sex objects.
He sighed and returned his attention back to his work.

Morgan Coughman trudged wearily from the diner. He glanced back pensively at the doorway, eyeing Pete with some suspicion. He’d never known that he’d used to be a policeman as he had never though to ask. He’d just gone in every day, bought his lunch and exchanged friendly and relaxed conversation. He continued on his way along the path back towards his work and drew a personal terminal from his pocket. He clipped a Comm-tag to his ear and adjusted the mic to sit in front of his mouth.
“Access Morgan personal records.” He instructed absently to the computer in his hand and watched as the screen danced with tiny symbols as it scanned his ancient and massive personal archive.
“Record note.” He began thoughtfully. “Pete who runs the ‘Happy Diner’ used to be a police officer, I complacently told him of my past and regret it. I suppose that at my age though, I’ve got nothing left to lose, the crimes I perpetrated were forgotten forty years ago and I’m probably the only person left who cares.”
He looked up into the sickly grey sky as a yellow tinge began to seep into the gloomy clouds.
“I’ve watched the world descend into a pathetic shadow of itself where freedom and choice are forgotten concepts, perhaps permanently consigned to antiquity. Maybe it’s too late to change things, maybe there’s nobody left who can or will. The people have given up their rights to those that would buy them like a cheap commodity in exchange for bland comforts and perhaps they don’t deserve the chance to have what I still crave for them. I can’t keep the thought from my head that in some way they all deserve this but I can’t fully give myself to these doubts and I promise that above all I will never abandon hope!” Morgan smiled grimly as his head hung in pity of a prosperous and dying world.
“Access Thorns financial records and copy them to my personal files and save under my usual password.”
As he shambled along he knew in his heart that he was being nothing less than paranoid but it didn’t hurt to take precautions. At least now he had something to offer the police if they were to arrest him. They would forget all about him if he suggested one fraction of the secrets held in Thorns personal database.
“Note.” He began again. “Copy file again and release to voice print of…” He wracked his brain, thinking of anyone that hated Thorn enough to act against him if anything was to happen that might unnaturally shorten his life. He stopped walking and glanced around, thinking of anyone who would or even could stand up to Thorn but nobody sprung immediately to mind. Aaron Thorn may well have been a vicious deviant, too quick to resort to violence and too gratified by it when he did but he commanded respect and that meant he had more friends than enemies.
“Release the files to anyone in possession of my personal password who’s voice pattern is not on file as being an employee of Thorn, excepting Hamilton Travis.” He said finally, hoping that if his employer acted against him then at least he would be able to offer some retaliation, even if only posthumously.

Aaron Thorn took out his Com-net infopad as he heard it bleep softly that it had received a memo for him. The net itself worked only sporadically in the East Valley but internal memorandums could be transferred without it being in effect due to the short range involved.
He sat back heavily in his opulent leather chair and banged his feet hard up onto his expensive carved oak desk. He pressed on the screen to accept the memo and groaned in bemusement as he saw who it was from.
“Hamilton bloody Travis.” He muttered angrily, reading through the requests for more equipment which translated to a large investment of capital. He read through the reams of requests and the spiralling numbers beside them before slamming the infopad down hard onto the desk with an unintelligible grunt.
“Get Hamilton Travis to my office.” He growled into his communicator clipped to his ear.

Blood splattered across the wall and flooded across his face as Nathan Ryan hammered his way past another block tenant on his way to the street. He was vaguely aware of the pain of the blood as it spat into his eyes but it all seemed foggy and unreal, as if it was happening to someone else and he was merely viewing his tragedy as a dispassionate observer.
He heard the roars coming from his own mouth as the hammer swung around his head wildly, crashing into the walls and tearing chunks of plaster and sending shards of plastic padding cascading around the lobby as he made for the door.
A woman screamed in terror as she reached the bottom of the stairs and saw him, flinging herself against the wall behind, her eyes filled with a paralysing fear. Nathan turned to face her as he reached the tatty transparent plastic door.
He went silent for a moment, locked eye to eye with the petrified woman. She breathed heavily, he mouth lolling open unnoticed by her mind as it recoiled in terror. Nathan suddenly leapt forward brandishing his hammer. Once a tool, innocently made to fulfil a mundane task but now distorted by his madness into a hideous weapon of mass carnage.
He covered the distance and began raining blows down onto her stricken head and body and she went quietly and silently to her death.

Morgan shuffled on towards his office with a heavy heart. Things had finally reached a point in his life where the future was forgotten and planning for it seemed as redundant as regretting the past. He’d always known at the back of his mind that his life would one day head downwards to a point where he’d be making desperate plans to protect all the things he’d already lost.
He shook his head sadly as he walked slowly along the path, lost in his own thoughts.
He didn’t hear the growling at first, or the shouting. His attention was snapped forwards by the sound of a plastic door shattering and being torn from its hinges by some disproportionate force or impact.
He stood aghast as a man, twisted and inhuman came rampaging through the doorway. Morgan silently rebuked himself for his unpreparedness. Throughout his life he had quietly lowered his head and let life run over him when it suited him to do so. The one brave act of his life had dragged him further down to the place where he now found himself, staring unblinkingly at a Hard-Stimmer holding a hammer that was dripping with blood while snorting wildly and grinning inanely. He stared back helplessly, his mind racing for some solution against what he knew were hopeless odds. He had no means of defence, no gun or stun-weapon and, of course no police in sight, not that there ever were.
He wished he’d had children, something to give his life a chance, a meaning, some hope for a second chance.
He closed his eyes slowly and prepared himself for the inevitable.