Sinthetica

by Scott Medbury

  Sinthetica

  Scott Medbury

  Contents

  Introduction

  Prologue

  Part 1 - The Delivery

  Part 2 - Myfriend

  Part 3 - Murder and Mayhem

  Copyright © 2016 Scott Medbury

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  All characters, corporations and events depicted in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Introduction

  The inspiration for this story is twofold. A love of ‘possibilities’ and a fascination for man’s capacity for good and evil.

  Robotics is set to become the biggest disrupter of society since the industrial revolution when machinery saw the agrarian, rural societies in Europe and America become industrial and urban. The bank of England believes that over the next 20 years (yes that’s 20 not 200) robots of varying sophistication could take over 80 million American and 15 million British jobs. That’s 50% of the workforce.

  That is an incredibly sobering prediction and has a whole swag of ramifications for our lives and those of our children. I began thinking about what has driven previous disruptive technology, and clearly the biggest disrupter in our lifetime has been the internet. Many industries and market forces have driven the internet over the last 25 years, in fact there are too many to mention, but one of the biggest has been sex.

  As one senior industry figure put it, all the way back in 2002: 'For years it has been a dirty secret that one of the key drivers of new consumer technology is sex and pornography.’

  Cybersex, phone sex, cam sex, virtual sex, sex chat, live streaming and sexting are all new phenomena that are the direct result of humankind’s most primal urges.

  Just some of the technologies that have advanced far quicker than they would have had it not been for sex, include:

  E-commerce - instant payment means instant gratification, and sex has driven online payment and security solutions since the dawn of the internet

  Streaming video - Dutch company Red Light District developed the first Internet-based video streaming two years before YouTube went online

  Webcams – these were a staple of the internet sex industry long before they were introduced to the boardrooms of businesses across the world.

  We can even go further back and look at older technologies like VCR and Cable TV for examples of sex driven advances. Who needed to visit an adult theater when you could simply switch the TV on.

  Will Robotics be any different? I don’t think so. Japanese companies have been working on human form robots for over 20 years, and invariably the finished product is in the image of an attractive young woman.

  My conclusion? At least some of those 95 million jobs over the next 20 years will somehow involve human/ robot intimacy and relationships.

  Which leads me to my story and what you might get by mixing a technology with endless possibilities, with man’s capacity for good and evil.

  I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.

  Scott Medbury

  25th July 2016

  Sinthetica

  Prologue

  Kapotnya, Moscow – Russia Winter 1999

  It was cold in the ancient Mercedes. The air from the struggling heater was no warmer than the breath from her mouth. Her unrelenting talk grated every nerve in his body. He let it continue, hearing but not listening, content that soon he would silence it for good.

  Finally, after an hour’s drive from his shitty neighborhood, he turned off the freeway and drove into an equally shitty industrial estate. It was here he would end her life and get rid of her body in a dog food factory. A fitting end for the stupid bitch.

  The drab buildings, uniformly ugly that marched along the road seemed to compliment the gray day. If she was curious why he had brought them to the industrial park on a Sunday, she didn’t ask; she just continued babbling about her friends and the inane things they did during the week. He pulled the lumbering vehicle over to the side of the road in front of a factory.

  She was oblivious. Oblivious to his dark mood. Oblivious to his intentions. Oblivious to the fact that each word – each peal of her sweet laughter – twisted the knife of her betrayal further into his guts.

  Fucking bitch!

  At 17 years of age, Dimitri Molenski already had a hard look about him. He was hard. In fact, he was a psychopath. Like most psychopaths, he hid it well. He could be charming and adaptable, but ironically it was his bad boy persona, not his charm, that had attracted Inga Svenson to him.

  When they had been introduced at a party by her new friend Kristina, Inga – the daughter of the new Swedish ambassador – had immediately been attracted to his swagger, his rudeness and his clear disdain for her.

  The beautiful 18-year-old was not used to any man being rude to her. Indeed, she was the one normally showing disdain. Disdain for groveling boys her own age. Disdain for the middle- aged men who moved in her parent’s social circle, making no effort to hide their lechery. Disdain for the old men who leered at her when she was out and about.

  During a giggling visit to the ladies room during the party, Kristina had warned her that he was from the wrong side of the tracks.

  “He’s bad, Inga. There’s a rumor he even killed a man in the summer.”

  “Really?”

  Far from dissuading Inga, this information only made the mysterious Dimitri more desirable.

  “Can you imagine my father’s reaction if I brought a boy like that home,” she said.

  They both laughed, although Kristina was secretly horrified that her friend would even consider such a thing. But the fact was, Inga wasn’t just considering it.

  Within an hour, the beautiful daughter of a Swedish diplomat was kneeling at the feet of the small time Russian thug in a dark alley beside the nightclub, busily breaking down his disdain for her.

  Her relationship with Molenski had indeed driven her father wild. But the more he raged, the more determined she became until, eventually, her mother stepped in, persuading her father to let it be.

  “She will tire of him in a few months, how could she not? He is a scumbag. Have you noticed his eyes? There is something dead in them… like the eyes of a shark. She will surely wake up from this spell he has her under. It’s important we don’t alienate ourselves from her. We must be there to pick up the pieces when it’s finished.”

  The ‘few months’ had turned into eight and Inga had not yet tired of Dimitri. She was under the illusion she had managed to coax a softer side of him into the light. For his part, Dimitri tolerated her. Her father’s status and her glamorous looks gave him status among his peers and of course, the sex was a bonus.

  Yes, he knew how to play the game, but occasionally his mask slipped. Those slips were scary for Inga, but rather than taking them as a warning sign, she tried all the harder to coddle him, to make up for the difficult childhood that had no doubt molded him into this sometimes angry youth.

  Inga finally paused and looked around.

  “You’re not saying much,” Inga said, in almost perfect Russian. “Where are we?”

  He finally turned and looked at her, but didn’t answer.

  “Dimi, what’s wrong?” she asked, placing a hand on his arm.

  “Marat saw you.”

  “What?”

  “Marat saw you with the old man. Saw what you did in the carpark, you fucking whore!”
<
br />   “What? I don’t know what you’re talking…”

  SLAP!

  It was the first time he had ever struck her, and Inga’s mouth fell open in shock, a red hand mark appearing on the flawless skin of her cheek almost immediately.

  “Dimi!” she said, tears filling her eyes. “Please, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  She really didn’t. Inga had been faithful to Molenski the whole time they were dating. But unfortunately for her, the leader of Molenski’s gang, Marat, didn’t like the amount of time his lieutenant had been spending with her. It was interfering with his ‘work’ and costing the gang money.

  It was easy. All it took was a few whispered words. Molenski’s jealous streak and short fuse took care of the rest. Marat thought the stuck up Swedish bitch would cop a beating and then piss off back to daddy.

  Even he didn’t realize the depths of young Dimitri’s ‘badness.'

  With her cheek burning, the young Swedish girl finally did, though. Through her tears, she could finally see it in his eyes, and when he produced the knife, she knew she was in serious trouble.

  “Did you really think I wouldn’t find out?”

  He didn’t wait for an answer. Before she could open her mouth, his hand snaked out and swiped his blade across her left cheek. Inga screamed and clapped her hand to her cheek, attempting to stem the warm blood that flowed copiously over and through her fingers. She began to fumble for the door handle with her other hand.

  He laughed and stabbed her in the left breast. Inga shrieked in agony and intensified her efforts to escape the vehicle. Molenski laughed harder. The stab wound was not deep enough to do any real damage; he intended to stretch this out as long as he could.

  “Dimi please!” she begged her giggling torturer.

  Then he stopped laughing, and it was worse. He put the blade of the knife under her nose. Inga’s hand froze on the door handle.

  “First I’m going to make you sorry you were ever born, and then I will send little bits of you back to Daddy.”

  In full survival mode, Inga pulled the door handle and pushed his blade away simultaneously as she desperately lunged from the car. As quick as she was, he was quicker, and he managed to grab a fistful of her soft hair before she could escape and began to drag her back into the car.

  “I think your ear first,” he said.

  Inga groaned in pain and with a strength borne of panic, jerked forward. Hard. She felt searing pain as her hair was torn out by the roots, allowing her to spill out of the car onto the cold concrete. She scrambled to her feet and ran, leaving a stunned Molenski with nothing but a fistful of hair.

  He was out of the car and after her in a flash, but she had a good start.

  The terrified, sobbing girl ran as hard as she could, her breath coming in hitching bursts that plumed in the cold winter air. Blood from the wound in her cheek poured down her face and splattered onto the concrete sidewalk leaving a gory trail.

  His footsteps were closing on her.

  If only she could make it to the main road.

  Molenski was almost upon her, his knife still clutched in one hand, the other reaching out for her blonde hair, trailing behind her like the ribbons of a fast flying kite.

  With one final effort, Inga opened the gap another inch as she rushed headlong into the cross street… then disappeared under a truck.

  Molenski skidded to a stop, fast enough to avoid the same fate as Inga, but not fast enough to avoid the truck altogether. He hit the side of the vehicle and bounced, flung back onto the sidewalk even as the driver slammed his brakes, locking up the wheels of the big truck which screeched to a halt, fifty feet down the road.

  The stricken driver jumped from his cab and grasped his head in both hands, wailing in shock. Molenski rose to his feet slowly, oblivious to the driver and the scattering of people that came running from their places of work. He had eyes only for the bloody, broken body in the middle of the road.

  There was no sadness or loss. Only a deep, raging fury that Inga had stolen his right to torture and execute her for her betrayal.

  The distraught driver began stumbling towards him, wailing.

  “I’m sorry, it was an accident; she came right out in front of me…”

  Molenski spat on the sidewalk before turning and walking away without looking back.

  Part 1 - The Delivery

  Chicago, USA - November 11, 2029

  1

  Ivan Petrovic stared at the TV without really watching it. He had been dressed in his light cotton suit and tie since 7 am. Being up so early was a requirement of the job he had performed since his late twenties, and even though he was rarely called before 8 am, just occasionally Dimitri Molenski, his boss, surprised him by calling earlier.

  Whether this was to catch him out or not, he wasn’t sure, but it was moot. Ivan had been ready for the call every time. He was diligent and disciplined when it came to his job and apart from his six weeks in hospital after the ambush, he had eaten and dressed before 7 am every single day of his long tenure as Dimitri Molenski’s personal bodyguard.

  Ivan stood up and walked to the kitchenette of his suite. The sink was clean. Had he already washed up from his breakfast? If so he must have done it on autopilot. Then he remembered, yes, he had done it straight after he finished his coffee. He smiled. So forgetful of the little things. It was a consequence of his induced coma. As the doctors had told him during his rehabilitation, one simply could not recover from the trauma of multiple gunshot wounds and near death without some after effects.

  Still, physically he was fully recovered and if anything, fitter and stronger than before. If a little forgetfulness was the price to pay for escaping death, he was more than willing to pay it. He went back into the living room and sat down in front of the blank television screen to await the call.

  Ivan was a big man, tall and heavily muscled, but he moved with the grace of a big cat. His blond hair was shorn into a military cut, and his handsome Slavic face was serious most of the time. He had a year to run on this (his third) 5-year contract. This time, however, he wasn’t sure he could see it through to the end. It wasn’t the work itself. While it could be boring, there was nothing to complain about. He was earning a good salary, had a luxury suite in his employer’s mansion and got to see from the inside how a big, albeit only semi-legitimate, business operated.

  No, it wasn’t boredom or job dissatisfaction that was sapping Ivan’s tolerance for the job, it was Molenski himself. Or more to the point, the things he did or had others do in his name. And it was getting worse.

  He owed Molenski a lot. The man had taken him under his wing back in Russia when Ivan was only 15. He had given him a job and a roof over his head, before paying for Ivan’s passage to America three years later. The payback had been Ivan’s absolute loyalty through good times and bad, through gang wars and living the high life.

  His near death experience had lent him some perspective, though. The bodyguard had seen and done many bad things in the service of Molenski, but in the last two years, he had seen more personal violence, bloodshed, and murder than ever before. More even than during than the five-year gang war upon which Molenski had built his empire.

  It had actually been quiet the last few months, so much so that Ivan began to wonder if he should reconsider his plan. Perhaps the mob chief was finally beginning to mellow?

  But no, the events of the night before confirmed that nothing had changed and that the fleeting, bloodless period of calm was about to come to a shuddering end.

  This morning, Molenski would be talking to the man his security team had abducted the night before. If the Russian were true to form, it would end very badly for the man.

  If there was one thing the bodyguard could use to ease his burden of guilt, it was the fact that Molenski was a very bad man doing very bad things to other very bad people. Most of the time.

  Unfortunately, that didn’t negate the fact that over the years, each bullet, each scream,
each drop of blood, had chipped away at Ivan’s resolve and loyalty to his boss. Like a tooth that had been eroded by overuse, he was almost down to the raw nerve and was less and less immune to the misery inflicted by and for the Russian.

  Ivan kicked his thoughts around like a soccer center forward practicing for a big game. He knew it would be impossible to break his contract with Molenski without either killing him or running for his life. Both would be difficult, nigh impossible, given the resources at his employer’s disposal.

  No, it was better to see his contract to its bitter end and take the large sum of money he had been saving all his working life. Easier to jet off somewhere to live by the beach and pay for some top notch counseling to try and erase the damage done by his service to the brutal mob boss.

  Given his ruthlessness, Ivan should perhaps have been concerned about Molenski turning on him once the contract ended. He wasn’t. He had been around the Russian long enough to know that his warped moral code put business deals above all else. The contract between them was business and the Russian always honored those deals and expected the same of others. In fact, that was why the man currently sitting in the basement was in so much trouble.

  The phone rang.

  2

  Ivan loosened his tie and collar. The heavy steam of the bathroom had dampened the material of his suit and, compounded by his boss’s cigar smoke, made it hard to breathe. He surreptitiously checked his watch. One hour and twenty-seven minutes had passed.

  Surely he will be done soon.

  There was a knock at the door. The big man jumped to his feet, his hand reflexively reaching underneath his sports jacket. He stepped lightly to the door, his hand on the handle of his gun.

  Molenski, relaxing in his hot bath, didn’t move. He simply blew out a plume of cigar smoke and watched as it curled upwards, mingling and dissipating into the steam. To the casual observer, he may have appeared disengaged, perhaps more interested in his cigar smoke than the knock at the door. They would have been wrong.