Dark Hall Press Techno-Horror Anthology

by Oliver Smith

  And there was so much here. They were always coming up with something new, or something improved. It was all so shiny and sleek and…sexy. Yes, it was sexy. The possibilities seemed endless.

  Wandering the brightly-lit halls of the store mesmerized, Kedwood stopped and joined a small crowd of people standing in front of a huge television screen on which New Somatics founder Phil Box was demonstrating some new fiber optic eyeball attachments that could store information, receive email, and even pick up signals from your home entertainment system.

  “Just think,” said Box, who barely looked like a human being anymore and instead resembled one of his own inventions. Which, Kedwood thought, I suppose he is. “No more boring monorail journeys gazing out the window at nothing. With these you can be making a start on those important emails, searching through a store of information, or just sitting back and enjoying a film. All without the use of external screens or a facial attachment of any kind.”

  Imagine the faces of the people at work if I walked in with a pair of those, Kedwood thought. Imagine Nina’s face. Imagine how impressed she’d be.

  On the screen in front of him, Box went on talking. “With these you’ll be way ahead of the Jonses, all yours for only…”

  When the price was revealed Kedwood’s heart sank and his dream of walking into the office with a pair of brand new fiber optic eyeballs evaporated instantly.

  Maybe one day, he thought. Then: Yeah. When everyone’s had them and moved on to something else. That’s when I’ll be able to afford them.

  He decided it was time he went home. Back to reality. His mother would be wondering where he’d got to.

  He couldn’t get the beautiful girl who’d been manning the fish stall out of his mind. That night he lay in bed thinking about her. Eventually, he realized, if she stayed in the country long enough, she’d think about getting some modifications made. She would do it perhaps for work, to better herself, or she might do it just for show. He tried to imagine her with the pair of the carbon-fiber legs Nina had, but for some reason he pushed the thought away. He lay awake with his heart burdened and his head spinning. In the morning, when he rose, he stared at himself for a long time in the full length mirror, trying to see himself the way she’d seen him, but he was so used to the way he looked these days that he couldn’t remember anything different.

  The next day at work, Kedwood had just got started on a new batch of data when someone entered his cubicle and shut his terminal down. Disconnecting and turning in his chair, he found Nina standing before him along with a man he didn’t recognize. In fact, man was perhaps not the right word to describe this person. Though he was dressed in a suit and tie, he looked to be barely out of his teens. He had blond, deliberately unkempt hair and a cheeky grin on his face. But what registered at once with Kedwood was that the man—the boy— had a pair of those fiber optic eyeballs he’d seen demonstrated last night at the New Somatics Superstore. And not only that, but he had the carbon-fiber blades instead of legs, just like Nina did.

  Who the hell is this guy? Kedwood disliked him on sight.

  “Kedwood, this is Sawyer. He just joined us today. I want you to show him the ropes. Show him whatever it is you do.”

  “What I do? Why does he need to know what I do?”

  Nina was silent a moment. She took in a long breath and let it out again. “You might as well know. There’s going to be a shake-up around here, cut backs. The management wants to bring in some new blood. Sawyer will be taking a look at what you and the others in the department are doing, assessing your productivity, seeing if any improvements can be made.”

  Him? Kedwood thought. Assessing our productivity? But he’s barely out of nappies.

  “All right?” Nina said.

  “Yes,” Kedwood replied. “Of course.”

  “Cool!” said Sawyer, dragging a chair over from an empty cubicle. “Hey, guy, I see you’ve still got the old hydraulic legs. You should really get updated, dude. That stuff’s just too heavy. And check this—the eyes, see? Got them last week. They’re the latest, yeah? They were a birthday present from the old man.”

  “The old man must have a lot of money to throw around,” Kedwood said over his shoulder as he turned back to his workstation. “I was down at the store last night. Those things are expensive.”

  “Yeah well, he is the CEO.”

  Kedwood spun around in his chair. “Our CEO?”

  “That’s right. The man at the top.” Sawyer grinned and pointed towards the ceiling.

  “I see,” Kedwood said. At the same time he was thinking: Oh Christ! Oh Christ! After all I’ve had done! Why me?

  It turned out Sawyer would be sitting in with Kedwood for the rest of the week, as well as the following one. It only took two days for Kedwood to start thinking of ways to murder the man and get away with it, perhaps by poisoning his coffee or shoving him out of the monorail while it was moving. Whenever he got a free moment, he would daydream about doing these things. By the third day he didn’t even want to get away with it. He just wanted to murder Sawyer. And he wanted to enjoy doing it.

  Mid-afternoon on the fourth day, Sawyer sent Kedwood to get coffees from the dispensing machine, but when Kedwood returned Sawyer was gone.

  “Where’d that little prick go?” Kedwood said, not realizing he was speaking out loud.

  Speakman’s head popped up over the cubicle wall. “Careful what you say. Don’t you know that’s the CEO’s kid?”

  “Of course I know,” Kedwood said. “He said he wanted coffee and now he’s buggered off.”

  “Important email just in,” Speakman said, with a strange sly look on his face. “On the eyeballs. Heard him sniggering about it.”

  “Sniggering? What are you talking about? Where is he?”

  Speakman nodded towards Nina’s office. There was a smirk on his face. “Didn’t he tell you? He’s been modified down there, too.”

  “Down there?”

  “Where it counts,” Speakman said, with a wink. “Didn’t you know he was…?”

  “Was? Was what? You’ve lost me.”

  Speakman lowered his voice to a whisper. “Servicing Nina.”

  “Servicing…?”

  “Everyone else knows.”

  “Everyone else knows what?”

  “You understand what I’m talking about, right?”

  “No, really, I’ve no idea. Well, anyway, he sent me for coffee and now he’s going to damn well drink it, even if I have to pour it down his throat myself.”

  Carrying Sawyer’s cup, Kedwood started walking towards Nina’s office, hearing Speakman’s voice behind him as he did.

  “I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”

  The blinds were closed on the windows in Nina’s office. She always closed them when she was in a meeting. Kedwood made a fist and was about to knock on the door when something made him pause. It was a sound from inside. Moving his head closer to the door, he listened. From inside Nina’s office he heard what sounded like a tiny motor running and someone making little yelping noises.

  His face flushed red as he realized at last what was going on. Servicing! He turned abruptly and strode back to his cubicle. He caught the eye of one of the secretaries on the way and saw that she was smirking. When he was back at his workstation, his neighbor’s head popped up again over the divide.

  “Told you,” Speakman said.

  He lay awake at night thinking about the girl he’d seen down by the docks. She’d said her name was Jade. He was troubled more and more by the idea that she might get modified in some way. And if she did that she’d be just like all of them, like all the people at work, like Nina and Sawyer and Speakman. Like himself and his mother. Like the Rodmans.

  And what were they exactly?

  Modified.

  That Friday after work he returned to the docks looking for Jade, but instead of her it was again the swarthy-looking man at the fish stall. He grunted at Kedwood when he asked where Jade was.

  “Not he
re today. What you want her for anyway?”

  “I just wanted to speak with her. I’m worried about her.”

  The man looked him over, smiling. “What you need worry about her for?”

  “I’m worried she might want to change herself. I’m worried she might become like me.”

  The man laughed. He was about to say something, but was distracted by a woman who approached the stall and began asking about the produce. Seeing it was useless to continue, Kedwood turned away. He began walking back toward his car when he thought he saw Jade walking ahead of him in the crowd. He called her name, but there was so much bustle and noise that she didn’t hear him. He kept her dark head in sight as he pushed his way through the throng. He was led away from the busy area along the waterfront, towards an area of disused factories and poorly lit streets. The roads were laid with cobblestones. Hurrying to catch up with the woman, he grabbed her arm and spun her around. But then he saw it wasn’t Jade at all. This woman was older, with a pinched face. At the sight of him she began to scream. She screamed and screamed and Kedwood could not explain himself over the noise. A dark-skinned man wearing a dirty vest stepped out from a backstreet and looked the scene over. Then three others appeared from one of the empty buildings. One of these men held a pool cue; the other—Kedwood saw—had a tire iron. As if on some silent command, the men began to approach from either side. The woman stopped screaming and scuttled away into the night. When Kedwood looked around, he saw that the men were circling him, smiling. One had a cigarette hanging off his lip, and was brandishing the pool cue from the thin end like a weapon.

  This is bad. He looked along the street and up at the surrounding buildings. Should’ve paid attention where I was walking. Where am I?

  It was then that he felt the first blow to his back. Seconds later the pool cue smashed against the side of his face. Reeling, he fell to the ground. One of the men made a grab at his finger flash, but he pulled his hand out of reach. Struggling to his feet, he used the power in his hydraulic legs to leap forward just as the tire iron was swung at his head.

  They want to strip me, he thought, madly. I’m just spare parts to them. Bits and pieces they can sell.

  Calling on the power in his legs again, he began to run. The men chased him for a few streets, but fell back when he entered the crowds around the waterside.

  He paused to lean against a wall and regain his breath. They almost had me. It’s too dangerous down here.

  Monday morning came and Kedwood was back in his cubicle with the CEO’s smirking son. Sawyer was explaining something to him, but Kedwood wasn’t listening. He was staring at a stapler on the desk top. It had LIESO INDUSTRIES written across its back in marker pen. In his mind, Kedwood was pictured himself lying face down and naked on the desk. Lengthways across his back, in big handwritten letters, the same words were written: LIESO INDUSTRIES.

  “Hey,” Sawyer said, snapping his fingers before Kedwood’s face. “Where are you, guy? You with me? You listening? What’s with you these days?”

  Kedwood looked up into Sawyer’s face. “I’ve been having a lot of strange thoughts.”

  Sawyer grinned. “They say slitting your writs is the best way to go, dude. Get loaded and just open those babies up.”

  “What?”

  “If you wanna kill yourself.”

  Kedwood sat up. “Who said I wanted to kill myself?”

  “I just thought… you know… since you might be losing your job and everything. And you can’t afford an upgrade, can you? And someone told me you had a thing for Nina, and I’ve been slipping it to her every day for a week now. I’m bored with that though. There’s a secretary I’ve had my eyes on. The one with the headpanel. You seen her? Man, those things are sleek. Anyway, I just thought you might want to jump out the window or something.”

  “Well I don’t. And I don’t have a thing for Nina. She used to be attractive, but now she’s just…” He was about to say modified, but stopped himself before he could. “I saw a much more beautiful girl down by the docks a week or so ago. No modifications at all. But beautiful. There was just something about her. She was stunning.”

  “No modifications?” Sawyer said, his face screwing up in disgust. “You mean a natural? You’ve got the hots for a natural? You’re kidding me.”

  “No. She was remarkable.”

  “I gotta see this. I gotta see what’s got my man Kedwood all worked up. You can show me after work.”

  “What? I’m not going to…why should I?”

  “You like this job or not, dude?”

  “You mean you could—?”

  “I could make you look real productive, man. Or not. You know what I’m saying?”

  Kedwood stared into the man’s face. He couldn’t remember hating anyone as much as he hated Sawyer. If only there was a way to get rid of him. Get rid of him for good. But strip him first. Strip him of all his modifications. See who he was underneath it all.

  “Back to work,” Sawyer said.

  And Kedwood thought: Yes. Strip him.

  “You’re sure about this, man?” Sawyer said, peering down the alleyway Kedwood was pointing into.

  “Don’t you ever come down here?” Kedwood said.

  Sawyer snorted. “Of course I don’t. This is no place for someone like me. Now where’s this stunning broad you were talking about.”

  “She’s down there.”

  “Man, this better be worth it.” Sawyer rolled his eyes and started walking down the alley. Kedwood followed at a distance. His heart rate had picked up and he was sweating. Halting, he let Sawyer wander on ahead of him. Eventually Sawyer stopped and turned around.

  “Is this a joke?” he called to Kedwood.

  “No joke,” Kedwood said.

  “Where is she then? Where is she this remarkable woman?”

  “Oh…”

  Kedwood saw something shifting in the shadows behind Sawyer. Then he turned and began to walk quickly back the way they had come.

  “Hey, Cockwood, where do you think you’re…umph!”

  Kedwood picked up his pace. He winced at the sounds coming from farther down the alley, but when he reached the exit way he paused and listened. Sawyer screamed. Sawyer sobbed. Sawyer pleaded. Then he was screaming again, calling for his mother. Then, after a little while, he was silent and the only sound was the clunk and rip of them stripping away his modifications.

  That’s got to hurt, Kedwood thought. Serves the little bastard right.

  When he re-joined the crowds at the dockside, Kedwood was amazed to see Jade manning the fish stall again. He walked right up to her, and though she shrank from him and glared, he took hold of her wrist and said directly to her face:

  “Don’t ever change yourself. Not for anything or anyone. You understand?”

  She nodded, more to appease him than anything else, but he walked away satisfied.

  The next morning at work everyone thought it was odd that no one had seen Sawyer. And, someone said, the kid hadn’t backed-up the data he’d been collecting. He’d kept it all stored in his eyeballs.

  “Those eyeballs,” Speakman said, shaking his head. “They were the latest thing. You think you’ll ever get something like that fitted?”

  Kedwood looked up, a small smile on his face, and answered simply, “Probably not.”

  Workman's Wages

  By Brett J. Talley

  Every morning was the same, as sure as the dawn follows the night. He awoke, screaming, the vision from his nightmare still palpable and real, like an image burned into the retina by a sudden flash of light. Always the same dream, filled with blood and pain and death. And her cold, lifeless eyes.

  ….

  “This is our latest photograph of Cyrus Bishop.”

  Sarah removed the cap from her pen, noting that the photo was at least a decade old. Arnette clicked a button. The next image was a corporate logo.

  “As you probably know,” he continued, “Bishop Industries is the largest manufacturer of stee
l alloys in the world. Bishop steel is stronger and more cost effective than anything else available on the market.” Arnette paused. “Mr. Ryan, am I boring you?”

  Sarah glanced over at Jonathan Ryan. He was in another world, gazing out the window to the empty field beyond. He’d been doing that a lot lately.

  “Mr. Ryan!”

  Jonathan turned his head and looked at him, but his expression was as impassive as the sea. “I hear you,” he said finally. “You just haven't said anything that interesting.”

  Philip Rodriguez chuckled. Sarah spared him a glance.

  “Every day,” Arnette continued, glaring at Jonathan, “trainloads of steel leave Bishop Industries for delivery around the world.” He clicked a button and a satellite image appeared. “The primary facility is located in Wyoming, and as you can see, it's massive.”

  Jonathan looked back out the window. Arnette frowned and glanced at Sarah, almost pleadingly. For some reason she’d never quite understood, Jonathan had always been her problem.

  “Sir,” she said, hoping to spur Arnette to the point, “is there a problem with Bishop Industries? I was under the impression they were a rather well-respected company.”

  “Oh, they are,” Arnette said. “Bishop Industries has given more charitable donations than any company in America for the last five years.” As Arnette spoke, he brought up slide after slide of projects sponsored under the Bishop corporate logo. Hospitals, schools, parks. Bishop logoed doctors in Africa, Bishop relief aid in Haiti. “No, Ms. Bennett, one cannot say that Bishop has failed to establish quite a name for itself.”