by Blade, CG
“Start Hilo Hawaii homicide October 14th midnight” Norman spoke instructing a Vidscreen display to start. The video was from WDNC news channel’s local feed out of Hilo and the reporter was standing in front of a burnt, singed, and damaged Aeolus Cruiser with bloody appendages hanging out of its broken bubbletop. A partial foot was sticking out of the hatch in the back of the Cruiser. Noxious black smoke and flames were billowing out of the destroyed Cruiser.
“Hello Hawaii this is WDNC reporter Anai Baragge standing here in an alley behind the Mitov Nightclub the locals dubbed “Club Hellfire” after this horrific incident which took place in the wee hours of the morning.” Miss Baragge turned towards the Cruiser whipping her arms around pointing to areas of interest in the ongoing investigation. Firefighters and local police were scrambling around talking to each other wearing gas masks and tactical piercer gear. Spotlights were set up on the scene as the Hilo Police Department forensic team was quickly retrieving evidence and covering the area in tarps and barriers. The palm trees along with Anai’s long blue dress were flapping in the salty tepid wind as the rain was starting to get stronger forming big drops on the ground from the dark early morning sky. She read notes off a Vidset she was holding in her hand.
“From everything we know right now at the crime scene the incident has cost four women their lives. Police tell us that the deceased women were bar patrons here for the concert of Electra Glide star Nefarious P.I.G. Their bodies dismembered and dumped in the burnt out Cruiser you see behind me. We now have a video of the scene where this horrific incident that took place. I must warn you, if you have younger viewers or a weak stomach you might want to skip past this part of the broadcast or leave the room.”
Petra looked at Ray and Norman with a perplexed stare on her face. The two of them knew what was coming next so there was no surprise between them.
The video started playing: Four high-class drunken women dressed like models on a runway stumbled drunkenly around a corner of a building behind the nightclub through an alley at 11:45 p.m. They leaned against a Cruiser and were singing, talking, and chatting loudly with a woman in a yellow sundress. She was hugging and kissing them as they all began to get closer to each other and eventually they were all over the hood of the Cruiser grinding on top of each other. They seemed to be enjoying the overtly sexual scene transpiring as each of them fondled whoever was closest to them at the time. Unbeknownst to the women distracted on top of the Cruiser, the woman in the sundress walked over to the side of the Cruiser, pulled an axe from the interior and began swinging it in all directions hitting all four women with a couple of hard blows. The four women tried to escape screaming and yelling for help. The axe-wielding woman chased them down and continued chopping and whacking at them with the sharp blade at breakneck speed. When the screaming and crying finally stopped, she picked up all of the remaining limbs that were scattered all over the blood-soaked asphalt and threw them into the Cruiser’s interior along with the torsos. She opened the back hatch of the Cruiser removing a box and doused the entire vehicle with a flammable substance. She pulled out a small metal box she had retrieved from her dress pocket and threw it into the middle of the corpse-filled Cruiser. Blood-soaked and grinning she stood mesmerized watching the crackling flames get higher and higher as if she were at a campfire enjoying the warm starry night above her. Lighting a cigarette she took out of her pocket, she blew smoke rings towards the night sky watching as they dissipated in the wind. Drunken onlookers were now gathering outside of the bar, drinks in hand weaving and staring at the twenty-foot high flames. The Cruiser eventually blew up sending pieces of metal, plastic, and body parts flying in all directions. The explosion rocked the city block blowing out nearby windows as people held on to anything they could for support. The aftershock of the explosion blew the woman’s hair back and singed her face. Thick black choking smoke bellowed out of the Cruiser as the woman turned and looked into the camera mounted in the alley, smiled, and blew a smoke ring towards the lens. Lifting up her arm to the camera, she showed off the crimson Ouroboros tattoo that burned brightly in the dark. She walked away through the shocked crowd and disappeared.
“That is all the information we have for you now and we will bring you more as we talk further with the police and forensics. They are running facial recognition programs and all police can tell us is that the Cruiser is owned by the Island Realty Company and was normally driven by a Mr. Dean Leuthold a realtor at Island Realty. This is WDNC reporter Anai Baragge in Hilo, Hawaii. Remember America, we are with you everywhere.”
“Reverse video thirty-five seconds.” Petra instructed the Vidscreen.
The Vidscreen reversed the video and stopped at the point where the woman was smiling at the camera lens. Her blackened face resembled a charred firefighter who had battled a blaze for hours.
“Your daughter is a real cut-up Ray.”
“I don’t know what to say Petra. I just don’t understand it.” Ray put his hands up to his temples and tugged on his skin with his fingertips.
“Well one thing is for sure she has a real axe to grind with someone. She is showing off with that extra photo shoot she’s doing there at the end.”
“The question is why?” Norman asked.
“Norman am I back to normal now?”
“Yes Petra you and Ter are back to normal as far as we know. We deleted the humor codes for you and we also made a startling discovery while we were tinkering around in your chip—”
“—tinkering around with my chip Norman?” Petra tilted her head like a dog searching for the correct response to her master’s commands.
“Yes Petra—um sorry, what I mean to say is we think we now know why your addicted to fructose products.”
“Oh boy this should be good.” Ter replied with a snarky sarcastic tone—again.
“Well we think, and I mean this is only a theory so far so be patient with me,” Norman took his hands out of his lab coat pockets, pulled out his Vidset and swiped through some files. He was reading notes off his brightly lit display. “Well it’s basically the same as drug addiction. The hippocampus area of your brain receives inputs from your microchip programming code that helps to stimulate your adrenaline flow. It can produce opiate-like effects similar to psycho-stimulants or arcing. In a nutshell, your embedded microchip is overstimulating your brain causing you to crave HFCS or High Fructose Corn Syrup on a constant basis. Our lab is working on another chip right now that will disconnect that particular hippocampus area from your programming.”
“So let me see if I am hearing you correctly, Ter and her buddy attached to my brain are the reason why I crave fructose Norman?” Petra asked knowing the answer. She wanted him to say it—aloud.
“Yes Petra. You are correct.”
“Gulp.”
Chapter 9
VUNERABLE
“Just read the parts that count doc!” Emily slapped the back of Professor Parsons Trefoils head hard, leaving a handprint on his antiqued cracked balding spot as he sat in the mansion’s expansive garage and transcribed the Latin inscriptions from the world’s most evil manuscript into a Vidscreen that then converted the ancient language into English. His words were scrolling across the Vidscreen connected to both cylindrical crimson tanks sitting in the middle of the room. Cables and wiring attached to the tanks ran through makeshift pieces of conduit that led through a hole in the roof and were connected to a thirty foot white tapered spire. As Professor Parsons read and spoke Latin the Vidscreen repeated his words back to him aloud while translating the words via a voice modulator microchip.
“Yes Emily.” he said sheepishly as he smiled and continued his work. The Codex Gigas sat upon a wooden table on a swivel book rest as he turned the 800-year-old yellowing parched pages, reading aloud:
“K X K Pat Credo, Domine Ne Ifu item contra febres fexes drex artifex. Dino sanguinem bibis et carnes manducas et in sanguine lauaris sed collige ungulas centum et quinquaginta et iace in uno loco quasi agnus anniculus. Dor
mi nunc et semper et per omnia secula seculorum. Amen.”
“Translating…” the Vidscreen was interpreting his words and a digitized male voice repeated in English: “KXK Pater Credo, Lord Ne Ifu also against fevers fexes drex artifex. Dino blood thou drinkest and flesh thou eatest and in blood thou washest thyself kolla tempus but gather 150 fingernails/talons and lie down in one place like a yearling lamb. Sleep now and always and in all perpetuity. Amen.”
“Very good doc, keep going you’re almost done.” She lightly patted him on the head.
“Yes Emily.” He smiled like an obedient dog receiving praise.
Emily walked from the garage to the kitchen shutting the door behind her. Dreama had cleaned up the best she could and was now sitting at the kitchen counter painting her fingernails and toenails a bright red chrome color. She held out her hands and blistered feet and legs in front of her admiring her own artwork.
“Take these people to the beach. They look like they need some sun.”
Emily was pointing to the four complacent occupants who were sitting taking up space in the living room breathing in the charcoal substance that was filling their lungs.
“All of them?”
“Yes all of them we don’t need them anymore. Will you please turn off that damn machine too? It is so nasty smelling” Emily waved her hands in front of her face trying to rid herself of the arc vapor.
“What about the kahuna? Take him too?”
“Nah, leave him here. He is kinda growing on me.” Emily gently stroked his shaved head. The shaman was still sitting in the corner of the kitchen on the floor next to the refrigerator rocking back and forth quietly chanting “Da Hui” repeatedly under his breath.
“Okay guys let’s go!” Dreama got up and walked to the middle of the living room. She was standing in the center of the mesmerized souls motioning for them to stand. All at once, the four people who had former lives were standing waiting like awkward cattle unaware of the coming slaughter.
“It’s working—its working!” Dreama turned to look at Emily who was screaming from the kitchen cheerfully jumping up and down in her tank top and jean shorts smiling as she stared at her Vidset. The newsfeed was coming from USNN’s broadcast center in Los Angeles and was spreading like wildfire across the northern continent and the rest of the world within a matter of seconds.
Thursday October 16th 10:00 AM
“Hey you guys you have to see this!” The Meredith Med Lab Lecture Hall manager yelled out of the doorway as people were shuffling in and out of the floor offices and the elevators. The lab techs, doctors, and scientists were starting to trickle into the lecture hall staring at the one-hundred foot screen behind the stage. Its display divided into several feeds from all over the world seemed like a giant picture-in-picture Vidscreen on steroids. Some of them sat down and others were trying to find seating while straining to figure out what was happening.
“Petra have you seen the news?” Ray asked straining to look over people’s heads spotting her walking down the hallway past the open doors of the hall. She was in her workout gear. The blonde in her ponytail had completely disappeared replaced by a radiant shade of beautiful cobalt blue. Stopping and turning she walked into the large room as employees gave her room pausing their conversations and parting to allow her to pass through the crowded hall. Standing next to Ray, she watched a feed from USNN’s New York broadcast center.
“Again as we have stated earlier there seems to be a data-slice currently happening on the citizen’s homes across the United States.” The announcer was one that was familiar to them all. A well-versed journalist wearing a black suit and red tie, Tom Mzik seated at a long news desk, at his sides various ‘experts’ in binary security and data-slicing joining him in the studio. The bottom edge of the screen had small video boxes of reporters who were silent at remote locations, waiting for their onscreen cues.
“Yes that’s right Tom, we really don’t know how the encrypted data that makes up the HLN or Home Link Network was sliced, but it seems to be the work of binary terrorists, either domestic or abroad.” Juan Crabtreeio, a smartly dressed ex-naval commander turned security expert, sitting next to Tom in the studio began explaining specifics about the ongoing situation. He continued to expound on the slice further “Currently Tom all of our homes are linked together through satellites that have redundant safety features which enable all of us to feel safe in our homes with our appliances’ hardware and software. We trust that these network satellites are up there doing their job. Right now though it looks like we have lost most of our satellite links and our homes are exposed to anyone or anything at the moment.”
“So are they just temporarily offline, these satellites Juan, or is this something bigger?”
“It’s hard to say at this point but if this problem isn’t fixed soon no one will be able to lock their own doors or control anything in their homes tonight. The price we pay for convenience and technology can also making us vulnerable. It is a double-edged sword Tom. Over ninety percent of Americans currently use this Home Link Network service.”
Petra and Ray turned and looked at each other simultaneously. Neither of them spoke a word.
“I understand we are going to a live feed from New York with reporter Cindy Calloway, Cindy—”
“—Tom, I am standing in the rural farming community of Meredith New York where the epicenter of the data-slice seemed to start as the houses and farms here were taken over by someone or something earlier this morning. With me now is Mrs. Jill Logsdon who lives in this yellow farmhouse behind me with her husband Jerry and their two small children. Mrs. Logsdon, can you tell us what happened to your home this morning?” The beautiful female reporter wearing a blue suit held her Vidset up near Jill’s fearful wincing pale face. The lighting illuminating their farmhouse’s exterior and interior rooms were flashing at random, resembling a vengeful child flipping light switches on and off very quickly.
“Uh—yes Cindy we were going through our morning routine getting the kids ready for school and all of a sudden the thermostat shut off and the washing machine started running on its own. We tried to turn off the washing machine through our Home Link Network screen but we seemed locked out of it. Then without warning our dishwasher, garbage disposer and Vidscreen all turned on at once and scared the hell out of us. Sorry I mean heck—oops.” She quickly covered her mouth with her hand. “The Doomba vacuum started chasing the animals all over the house and our Razer lawnmower tried to eat our children in the yard as they waited to catch the Hover-Bus for school. All of the doors in our house unlocked and opened and now it seems our Cruiser has taken off down the road on its own. It just vanished! My husband’s favorite tractor, his Plowmaster 76, took off down the driveway following it. It began grinding everything in its path. It was just horrible Cindy! We tried contacting Home Link but there seems to be no one there. No one will answer. Our coffee pot won’t work now and my husband Jerry gets a little edgy if he doesn’t have his morning coffee.” Jill pulled her tattered brown sweater together at her waist over her flowered dress shivering in the crisp, cool, and fall morning sun. A tear seeped out of the corner of her eye as she wiped her face with a folded napkin.
Behind the two of them, a large man in blue striped coveralls was hitting the farmhouse’s yellow front door with healthy blows from a sledgehammer. He was cussing loudly as he beat and knocked the electronics off the housing that held the doorknob together.
“Jerry please quit doing that honey!” Jill sheepishly yelled to him as he began chasing after and whacking at the running green lawnmower that was eating items all over the yard. The mower seemed to have a mind of its own as it avoided his attempts to beat it senseless with the sledgehammer.
“Tom reports like this are coming in from all over the New York area and it seems to be spreading to every city in the nation now from what I understand.”
“Thank you Cindy. Now were going to Oliver with the weather, Oliver…”
“It’s cold!”
“Thank you Oliver. I believe we are now… we are going to—we are going to Georgia yes Georgia with our reporter on the scene there Dave Rypinski.” Tom was pushing on his ear playing with an electronic device stuffed into it.
“Hello Tom I am standing in what seems to be the center of mass confusion as every Cruiser and functional mode of transportation in the country seems to be headed in my direction. The scene that everyone has now dubbed Cybergeddon76 is unfolding all around us as every movable vehicle in the country is heading here to Georgia, particularly, Elbert County Georgia. I am standing in the middle of the Georgia Guidestones, once dubbed the ‘American Stonehenge’, which is now looking more like the center of a parking lot for hundreds of Cruisers and Drones powered by Rayson’s AA5C39 tubes. As you can see above me Tom thousands of delivery drones have been filling the sky blanketing the earth with an ever-darkening sea of electronic clouds. We are not sure what is going on here as they are just hovering here and—wait—wait! Look up there guys!” He began pointing to the sky, yelling, and obvious panic in his voice. Fear and dread were on all their faces as the sharply dressed reporter and his crew scrambled for cover. A sleek black Rayson Jet-Carrier, known for carrying 500 passengers or more, was out of control and coming straight at them from above plummeting to Earth at a steep angle. The twenty-foot high granite stone monoliths known only as the ‘Georgia Guidestones’ engraved with several different languages became dark as the forward swept wing Jet-Carrier got closer to them eventually blocking out the hot rays of the sun. Dave Rypinski and his camera crew quickly leapt out of the way and dodged the 250-foot long, 200-foot wide black Jet-Carrier. The pilots sensing eminent danger had ejected the passengers and themselves with Rayson Industries patented Para-Pod safety feature. The bottom half of the Carrier that housed the passenger pod, remaining shell, and engines smashed into the Stonehenge replica sending pieces of heavy jagged stone flying in all directions. The Para-Pod floated safely down to earth in a polymer cocoon via giant translucent parachutes.