Thirty Four Minutes DEAD

by Kaye, Steve Hammond

  All MC Project staff in the Washington Designation were set to meet the following morning and the occasion would evidence the Rochaux work in its entirety. Vain had been provided with a lapel badge bearing his name and his new divisional identity. He and Tavini had obviously now been separated, and he and Fearston were going to be aligned to a unit that Vance Fray had been entrusted with. This was an obvious demotion for Fray, and Greg wondered how it would alter the former security figurehead.

  Greg was still reflecting on his new appearance and unit placement when he tried to sleep later that evening. Tanya and Levene also crept into his thoughts. He wondered if his wife could possibly get used to his new face and he tried to envisage the Rochaux changes that would have consumed Marcia. Sleep eventually claimed him.

  When he entered the meeting room the following morning he was initially surprised at how few altered faces were in evidence. MC Project staff had been encouraged to stand and mingle in an informal fashion. All wore the lapel name badges, but there was no need for the vast majority of those in attendance. Vain saw Voight unchanged, Carson unchanged and Leif Denison - unchanged! Eventually he decided to move away from the doorway and walk amongst his colleagues. This prompted a uniform silence to come over those who witnessed his new countenance, and he walked around for a full two minutes before anyone actually spoke to him. In effect he was regarded as an artistic display, a living sculpture!

  Vain felt like a leper, and just when he was about to exit the arena of embarrassment, a friendly, familiar voice from behind him changed his mind. He turned expecting to see Diana Fearston, but he hadn’t bargained for the alterations which had been performed upon his understudy.

  “The price for knowing me I suppose - the bastards!”

  “Not your usual charm, Greg!”

  “Sorry Diana, I didn’t mean it to sound like that, you know”.

  “I know Greg. It’s okay, really it is. I mean we all knew a few ‘cave-ins’ might occur didn’t we? You look wild though, I wouldn’t have recognised you without the badge!”

  Vain was horrified. Some of the early Rochaux treatments had cruelly been branded as ‘cave-ins’ by the American press, because the victim suffered a reaction, which involved skin tissue rejection and brittle bone formation. Unfortunately Fearston had suffered both side-effects with her skin turning a sickly jaundiced yellow, and some of her facial bones had collapsed, ageing her a good ten years. She had retained her noble demeanour despite her ill fortune and Vain placed his arm around her, hugging her to him, expressing how glad he was that the two of them would retain their working relationship.

  Whilst the pair conversed, Mr Fray entered the room, and it didn’t take the onlookers long to realise that the Rochaux treatment that this individual had received was a revenge-edict for his Sinquiry outburst. The MC Project lost public face in Britain during that instance, and now Fray was paying for it in private, losing his own ‘established’ face.

  The changes performed upon the former main-player bore out the visual hallmarks of Denison’s directive vendetta. Fray had been metaphorically ‘tarred and feathered!’ The sleek white hair of old was now totally absent, shaved out of existence and never to reappear - Rochaux’s follicle-blocking agents would ensure that.

  Fray’s piercing eyes had been radically altered, with the iris injections draining the vivid blue lustre and replacing it with a dull grey colour that had a lifeless tonality in comparison. Vance Fray’s facial skin had been ‘tucked’ very tightly to his cheekbone contours, and the man winced in pain if his mouth registered any expression that deviated from poker-faced neutrality. Already new pain-derived wrinkle lines cut tracks across the mouth region and a smile or laugh would invite the highest pain threshold. The selected pigmentation involved blotches of the white hue which cast Vain’s face and more dominant outcrops of tissue colour that had a more ruddy complexion. Fray’s face looked blemished and unnatural.

  He said little to the assembled ranks, preferring to stay close to the back wall. After a few words with Denison, Fray exited the room. He was a twisted shadow of his former self, looking out of place in the company of the high ranks that he had once been part of. The unaltered face of Jess Wheeler sneered as he watched the broken man depart.

  After witnessing the radical alterations to Fearston and Fray, Gregory Vain temporarily forgot to look out for Levene, but shortly after Fray’s departure she entered the room - a typical late entrance. Levene knew that she looked good, different but still beautiful. The long hair was now cut short in a wrap-around bob. The raven black colour of old had been altered significantly to a uniform dark burgundy and the pert nose was now pierced with a small diamond stud. Levene’s eyes had been changed to a dark green colour hue, but her ashen pallor had been kept. There was little evidence of any cuts or tucks. Marcia purred her greetings, fixing Greg’s yellow eyes with a stare of sensual intensity.

  “Nice show Greg, off the wall, but cool in a rebel way! I guess there’s a cyber-punk spirit running through some of the Rochaux guys. Your eyes and my nose kinda bear that out, don’t they? Are you pleased with your changes?”

  “The alterations are reasonable, but others weren’t so lucky, were they? Have you seen Diana and Fray?”

  “I’ve seen them, but they’re not me or you are they, Greg? I mean, I’m not going to lose sleep over them. I was so damned pleased that I could live with my own changes! You haven’t said anything yet Greg, what do you think of the new me?”

  “You mean the ‘book cover’. Oh you’re still beautiful, Marcia”.

  “You’re pretty true to your surname yourself, Mr Vain. You can skip the false humility!”

  Greg’s book cover line had annoyed Levene, making her feel that he was implying that she let a superficiality mould her character. The spiky exchange would probably have developed further but David Tavini cut in. Neither Levene nor Vain had seen the prerogative three controllers watching them, but that gave Tavini the chance to mentally rehearse his chosen words to Vain.

  “Well I know that those yellow eyes weren’t chosen to signify a cowardly streak, Greg! You pack quite a butt, Mr Vain - helluva rumble my friend, wasn’t it?”

  Vain accepted Tavini’s handshake, but he couldn’t forget the robotic form of mind control which had accounted for Belinda. The pair continued to talk for a while, but Vain made an excuse to leave when Levene addressed Tavini’s further prerogative three responsibilities. She had congratulated Tavini for being made honcho of the said MC unit, but Vain couldn’t verbally engage in that subject and he took his leave. Tavini turned his attention to Marcia.

  “See him back into the fold, Marcia. He hasn’t got many cards left, you know. He’s too fucking moral for his own good, but I still kinda like the guy”.

  “I’ll try David, but I’m starting to wonder if Mr Vain has gone as far as he can. Some might say that he’s treading water right now but others may counter, saying that he’s scared of our future, wanting to stop the clock and not advance further”.

  The new face exposure had been an example of gross discrimination as far as Vain was concerned. Denison had initially told the MC Project ranks that the Rochaux surgeons would facially alter all staff. He had then modified his original decision, and what had transpired in actuality strongly suggested that a retribution-determined ‘branding’ had taken place. Vain knew that he had displayed too many ‘loose cannon’ behavioural traits to escape his own branding, but he felt it was unjust that Wheeler’s face remained unaltered. His new divisional boss bore the deepest scars of Denison’s retribution.

  Fray’s mindsight unit undertook random MC vault explorations intensively for the next two weeks. Vain and Fearston worked in tandem, being assisted by two project newcomers. Leanne Jackson, a neuro-surgeon prodigy from Chicago, handled digital conversion. At twenty-three she was one of the youngest MC Project specialists. The laser extraction work was performed by one of the Chinese recruits taken on after the Washington peace conference. his preferred
name was ‘Silo’ and he was a staunch Vainite as far as allegiance was concerned. Silo had been one of the ‘right-hand’ supporters who had fought with Vain after the Tavini altercation. The team of four had great communal respect for each other and this counted for a lot, as eighteen-hour working days became the norm. Vain’s team undertook between seven and ten mindsight-explorations each day, upon living subjects brought to them by the Security division. Wheeler, Voight or Dwight Richards would deliver the test-subjects, but no names or circumstances were ever given concerning whom exactly was having their mind read! On occasions Vain’s crew had to read to a subject and record their subsequent mindsight, but usually the team were told to break directly into the vault-extension without any prompted stimuli.

  Fear was a common denominator in the eyes of the subjects, and Vain felt that ‘victims’ was a better collective name for them. It had been rumoured for some time that Denison may ‘hit the streets’ to find new test subjects, and Vain deduced that his team were probably bearing front-line testimony to this recruitment method. None of the four could be certain that Denison was using press-gang tactics though, because the team were always denied visual access to the generated material! After each exploration, the subject would be taken away, along with the recorded laser proofs and another subject was led in, passing the previous test-individual on their way. The MC-Project was entering ‘mass production’!

  Fray only surveyed his division’s work on rare occasions. He was privy to handling the laser recordings, and his Rochaux wounds seemed to worsen on each successive day. The one important announcement that he did make to Vain’s team was uttered on operational day eleven. His message was short, being encoded with safety as his main prerogative.

  “Press on, my team. Your work is progressing better than all expectations by all accounts, and a rest period is penned in after day seventeen. I have been permitted to tell you that your work will soon be activated throughout internal project divisions. Random mindsight readings will be performed upon individuals as they go about their MC business, with activation instances being selected by Leif. In short, an individual will wear the sonic vault-splicer for a period of some hours, possibly a day. Mr Denison will scan-activate on occasions during this period of monitoring. Press on, my team”.

  The last utterance was said almost as a sigh and Vain felt sorrow for his new superior. He didn’t have time to share comments with his colleagues though, as the excessive workload was turning each team member into a temporary work-eat-sleep creature. Day fifteen involved a nineteen-hour working day, and only five sleep hours were penned in before the next shift. Vain slumped asleep in the recess room that adjoined the exploration venue. A rough shake woke him, with a new urgency sounding in Fray’s voice.

  “Get up, Vain. You’ve got an exploration to undertake. The whole team, right now! This one’s my order. Denison’s conveyor belt will start in less than three hours, so we’ve gotta move it!”

  Vain stood up and turned on Fray, angry at being forced awake after another day of project-overload.

  “Sorry Vance. This sounds ‘Hidden A’ stuff. I’ve probably used up my chances with Leif you know, try another exploration crew”.

  The gun cut into Vain’s temple.

  “This isn’t a fucking option, Vain! Here’s the low-down. Some of my security guys have stayed loyal and they’ve brought us a present next door! We’ve got a subject strapped in the mindsight chair. Strapped because he’s reputed to be possessed! Catholicism had him booked for an exorcism yesterday but my guys intercepted him. Can you see the possibilities here?”

  “No”.

  “Franco Molvetti had been housebound for thirty days. He recently rampaged through the streets asking for deliverance from Satan! Up until a month ago he was a veritable pillar of the community, working for the homeless and under-privileged in Washington. That was before the violence, the self-mutilation and the seizure type contortions. The phlegm was a trickle at first, but now it’s a torrent! His language became as foetid as his breath and his skin has welts breaking the surface. Molvetti either has some fucking serious illness or the devil that he claims to see is for real, Greg! Religion undertakes thousands of exorcisms each year, one MC Project interception is hardly greedy Greg, it’s ‘our’ divine fucking right!”

  Fray was charging through his words at an excitable pace, and Vain was still struggling to understand exactly how Molvetti’s condition held special interest for the ranks of the MC Project. Greg voiced his confusion and after a sigh of exasperation, Fray slowed down, measuring his words with more precision.

  “Smell the coffee, Vain! The guy says that he sees the devil. If we explore both of his MC vaults, we’ll have our answer, one of man’s eternal questions answered! If the vault-extension delivers a mindsight devil, we’ll know that Molvetti is ‘imagining’ his own Lucifer, but if we find satanic imagery in his main vault we’ll know that he has physically witnessed the devil! If the result is the latter then heaven help us, but we’ll never know until we try!”

  Vain knew that membrane fall-through could still distort visual truth, after Fearston’s revelations, but his understudy had only encountered one example of this image-source aberration. Adrenaline started to pulse through his body as his mind took on board the enormity of the exploration that awaited him. He said nothing to Fray about membrane fall-through, keeping Fearston’s research secret. He then followed Fray into the exploration arena, with his own mind still undecided - should they track and unlock Satan, or was this exploration tempting fate?

  Franco Molvetti had been heavily sedated and as Silo set up his laser extraction equipment the subject remained still, with laboured breathing. Residue of a phlegm-based substance dribbled from Molvetti’s mouth and fresh knuckle bite marks dripped blood on to the exploration chair. Greg placed the sonic vault-splicer around the head of the subject. Still no awakening resulted. Fray gesticulated to Fearston to activate the viewing screen. He made a vehement utterance to accompany the said activation.

  “Unlike you Denison, unlike you Wheeler, I show my team their explorations. Your private screening prerogative can get fucked!”

  The room lights were dimmed as Vain probed amongst Molvetti’s main MC vault. The screen rendered a uniform silver colour hue, and then Vance Fray’s luck ran out. The arena door was smashed open and Jess Wheeler’s voice boomed an entrance.

  “On the deck, fuckers. Take those still standing, guys”.

  Vain’s unit instinctively hit the floor, but Fray’s men briefly countered with some useless resistance. Dwight Richards took out one of Fray’s ‘loyalists’ with a volley of shots, whilst Voight accounted for the other with a single shot to the head. Wheeler shot Fray’s gun from his hands and the security head then felled the man with a deft roundhouse kick. As blood poured from Fray’s fingerless right hand, Wheeler spoke and shock waves resounded throughout the exploration arena.

  “Voight, Richards, check them for weapons. It looks like a Fray wild card though. None of the others should have any guns down here, so if you find any, then shoot the fuckers. Not Fray though, I’ve got something special in mind!”

  As Wheeler’s security ranks strip-searched Vain’s team, Greg managed to ask one question to Wheeler.

  “What about Molvetti. What’s going to happen to him?”

  “Same as we do with all the fodder, Vain”.

  Wheeler walked behind Molvetti’s chair and wrenched the subject’s head back toward him. He forced a pistol into the mouth of the bleary-eyed subject, delivering one of his bespoke execution lines. Molvetti had recovered consciousness - just in time to register his own death!

  “Chew on this, paleface. Here’s your fucking exorcism!”

  The trigger was pulled, and pieces of Molvetti’s brain slid down the far wall. His teeth and jawbone were blasted in all directions. The ‘possessed’ head had only been preserved to a twenty percent ratio! Wheeler then turned on the whimpering Fray, bringing his boots down on the man’s rib c
age. A vicious kick to the testicles rendered the man unconscious. Wheeler again spoke out to everyone, standing amidst the bloodfest that lay on all sides.

  “Richards, take four guys and escort these four back to their sleeping zones. Leave them naked though, a lesson, or some kinda bull like that. Voight, you’re coming with me. We’re taking a crew of eight. We’re gonna use the Kingstonhill wharf. I want cameras and some fucking petroleum. Oh, and bring some cord, we’ll use some metal shit for a tight hold”.

  The van raced away from the Designation and Fray awoke, vomiting due to the fumes of the petrol that soaked his whole body. He had been stripped naked and severely beaten around his chest and waist regions. The petrol stung into his cuts and it burned to a level of excruciating pain where digits used to be on his right hand. Fray knew that he was going to die. How was the only unanswered question.

  The vehicle screeched to a halt at the gates of the industrial junkyard that represented Kingstonhill wharf. The security entourage dragged Fray toward the submarine graveyard. A variety of transport forms lay in states of decay, but Wheeler had his mind set on using one of the derelict conning-towers for illumination purposes. When they located a suitable rusting hulk, Wheeler spoke.

  “Strap him up with the cord guys, upside-down, in an X-shape, across the tower. He’s gonna be our saint Peter!”

  Some of Wheeler’s men did as their leader had instructed, and as the man was secured, other security staff arranged a pile of planks and loose wood directly below the ‘staked’ Vance Fray. Many litres of additional combustible fuel were dowsed on Fray and the woodpile. Jess Wheeler started to bark further orders when the stake was ready.

  “Hamilton, Mace, get ready with those cameras. Set me a long trail, Easton. I want to be out of range when he fires up!”