“Silas,” it said.
“Who…?” was all Erik could reply.
“Do you remember me?” the face asked, speaking to Erik as though he were a child.
“Who…?” he repeated, drooling, and unable to get a grip on reality.
“I’m Argus,” the face said, highly annoyed. “I can’t believe you did it.”
“Who…?”
“I was told you planned on dying. I guess you failed at that half of your mission.”
The eyes on the face began to drift apart, their colors changing, blurring together with their own inky pupils. Erik said nothing, watching the face re-arrange itself. A smile appeared on its forehead, parallel to the one hanging in mid-air below its chin.
“I had to turn you in. You shouldn’t have left me behind.”
“Who…?”
“Is this what you wanted?” it questioned - “to be an idiot? You made a city full of idiots just like you… I hope it was worth it.”
Erik couldn’t comprehend. A migraine was birthing spawn in his brain somewhere.
Black.
White.
A new face appeared; it belonged to his father. His teeth were all missing, blood foamed from his mouth, and one eye exploded in red.
“Run. Don’t ever look back.”
Black.
“Is this the terrorist?”
White.
A woman stood over him. She had black skin, black hair, brown eyes; she looked large, unpleasant. “What are you planning to do with him?”
“He’s not to die. Special instructions on how to handle him have been left with Dr. Khalid.”
That voice - did he recognize it?
Black. Eternity.
His eyes opened. He was behind his own face again, strapped down to a cold steel table. He struggled, looked around the room. “HELLO?!” he shouted. It was pure vanity. There was no one in sight.
He tried to remember his own name…
“Silas,” said a voice from across the room, from out of the shadows, hidden from his view.
“Where am I?!” Erik demanded. “Who am I!?”
“Silas, you don’t want to know who you are. But you’re about to find out.”
Erik began to vibrate, and the sound of crunching gears filled the room. Struggling uselessly, it came to him that he was strapped to some kind of moving table, which was presently turning him upright. He hadn’t even realized that he’d been hanging upside down for what was likely many hours.
“Do you prefer pain?” asked the man in the shadows as he stepped out into the light. He wore a lab-coat, and in his hand carried a black poker; he looked Arabian, and middle-aged - a Muslim Inquisitor wearing a pair of circular glasses with thin gold wire rims, with khaki pants on beneath his lab coat. He couldn’t have been any taller than five-nine, and weighed no more than one-hundred and fifty pounds. “Your friends explained your philosophy to me,” he said. “It’s so… juvenile. It seems that you prefer to be evil for the sake of it. Like a spoiled little child who lacks discipline. Would you say that describes you?”
Erik didn’t know what to say. He didn’t even know if he remembered how to talk. He opened his mouth, but it was so dry that only useless air escaped.
“Don’t bother trying to speak,” the stranger said. “We both know you’re not a reasonable man, or a rational one.” He took a slight, ironic bow to Erik, grinning as he did so. “My name is Dr. Khalid. Do you have any guesses as to why I may be here?” Erik only stared, silent. “Well… it is not to interrogate you. You have no information of value to me. As far as the Empire is concerned, you’re nothing more than a common, run of the mill anarchist. Your delusions of grandeur may suit your ego, but Allah has brought you to justice, just as he brings all infidels to justice. Do you know how many civilians we had to put down as the result of your little terrorist act in New Mecca?”
No, thought Erik.
“We executed over one million people because of you. Your spiritual poison was not allowed to spread.”
“Kill me now,” Erik said hoarsely, surprising himself at the involuntary command.
“I haven’t been ordered to kill you,” Khalid responded, sounding almost gleeful at the sadism of denying death to his torture subject. “However, I’ve been ordered to make you suffer… heinously.” Erik only grinned at this threat. Unexpectedly, Khalid grinned back.
Then they began to play.
Erik’s fingernails were ripped off first. With each flash of pain, more of his identity returned, more of the LSD’s slippery grasp on his perception faded. A part of it, on some level, affected him increasingly less. With each succession of torturous undertaking, the spell of the liquid chaos traversed through peaks and crescendos until snapping him slowly back into sobriety and sanity.
Gasping, he spoke to Dr. Khalid as he selected another instrument of pain from a table across the room. “You’re just as pathetic as I am,” Erik told him.
Dr. Khalid turned, eyeing Erik cynically through the man’s own blood, which happened to be painting both of their faces. “Am I?” he asked, amused.
“Maybe worse,” Erik continued. “So stupid you have to believe in a god that doesn’t exist, that you can’t possibly comprehend life in a universe where you aren’t special or chosen or forgiven for all of the evil things that you do.”
“A terrorist like you is reprimanding me? Is this truly happening?” Khalid questioned sarcastically.
“No matter what you do to me - no matter how many pounds of flesh you carve, how many of my followers you kill, there will always be more. Do you know why? Your order is a lie, and it is plainly obvious. No matter how hard you try to hide it, how strongly you manage to repress it, it is right out in the open. Your power isn’t real. That’s why you crave it so badly.”
Khalid smiled, turned and picked up a scalpel. “An old-fashioned but extremely useful tool,” he said, nearing Erik. He leaned down, staring into his eyes with his own, almost as black as his pupils. “Is it this power that you refer to?” he asked, drawing the knife against Erik’s cheek, cutting through. Blood flowed out freely, and Erik first flinched before smiling.
“Meaningless,” Erik replied.
“What does this mean?” Khalid asked, slashing his other cheek.
Erik reacted in much the same way, spitting up blood into his face. He stepped back, wiping it off in disgust. “Why did you kill those who I infected?” Erik questioned, sounding curious only in a most apathetic way.
“Why do you care?”
“I don’t really.”
“We killed them because although you vastly overestimated the long-term effects of your poison, there were many negative side-effects which contributed to the undermining of Allah’s plan. You have been overdosed for well over two-weeks now. You got a more potent dose than anyone in New Mecca. Although the citizens were driven insane, the most serious effects of the attack only persisted for around 72 hours for most victims - at least the most serious of the initial, noticeable effects. In the long-term, they were poisoned with strange, blasphemous thoughts.”
“How do you know that I overestimated anything?”
“Morgan talked, Elronde talked. Pixel didn’t talk. It didn’t say a word, even when I killed it.”
“Pixel is dead?”
“Oh, they’re all dead,” said Dr. Khalid. “Shiloh, Argus - yes, even him, although he betrayed you and came to us.”
“Then kill me,” Erik answered.
Khalid jammed the scalpel into Erik’s thigh, cold steel shoved between his atoms. It felt quite unpleasant. Erik exhaled, hissing in pain. The doctor slowly pulled the knife out, savoring the exquisite discomfort on his subject’s face.
“That’s Allah’s finger nail scraping your skin,” Khalid whispered sharply. “And we’re not even through carving the first pound of flesh…”
“Pain doesn’t bother me…” Erik replied, and though he gasped, it was clear that suffering would change nothing of his demeanor.
<
br /> “I wish I could say that you’re lying, but sadly, I think you’re telling the truth.” Khalid dropped the bloody scalpel, and it clinked to the concrete floor beside him.
“I tried to imagine what would cause you to suffer the most. I couldn’t really picture it… I wasn’t thinking like you. You see, I learned a lot about you from your comrades, and from others I’ve taken in during our continental sting over the last two weeks. You like to believe all of existence is reprehensible, that all men and women are egos that need to be squashed. You hate reality. But I have been studying the effects of this ‘LSD’ that your newly-defunct terrorist cell has synthesized. Reality overload seems to be the most common side effect. You crave death… obviously. Maybe the most poetic end for you would be to never let you have it, at least insofar as I am capable, while at the same time overdosing you with your own poison for the rest of your existence.”
Erik remembered the LSD in his brain, reality slipping, unable to hold onto anything. His heart raced again. The end, stolen from him, for so long he’d expected it, hoped for it, needed it. Without death, he was…
“A failure,” Dr. Khalid said. “That’s what people like you have always been: unruly children smashing sand castles. Truly, you should all be put down.”
And with that, he stepped behind the table, out of Erik’s view. When he returned, there was an IV, a needle attached to the end. The rainbow liquid dripping from the sharp end of the syringe, he recognized immediately. His heart dreaded it, his soul cried back in disgust. No more. No more, he wanted to be done with it, he wanted to be dead.
Khalid plunged the needle into Erik’s arm, as he was unable to do more than tense it up beneath the restraints.
Liquid chaos.
Hallucinations injected into his veins.
Quickly the room lit.
Khalid smiled, with black eyes.
Black.
Black.
Government Hooqueret
A holographic screen hovers in the air before me, translucent cerulean coloring in its empty spaces, drawing it from floor to ceiling and splitting the room into two hemispheres of effulgent blue. Fluorescent lines trace out the different sectors of the Hooqueret mill, mostly stacked to capacity, leaving the place up to its neck in clones.
There are 34 Levitt’s in cell-block D15. The maximum capacity is 35. 19 Aniston’s in C-45. The living space is the same as the Levitt clones, but they don’t get along. Capacity is 20. Only two Jolie’s can exist in that space, and sometimes even that minimal arrangement doesn’t work out too well.
Luckily, killing season is coming up. That should clear out some of this inventory. We have new stock coming in within less than a month. We’ll need all of these gene-whores out of here by then - over one-thousand of them, erased, their corpses disintegrated in the microwave.
Sammy walks up behind me, a stupid fucking grin on his face. I don’t know what he finds so funny about this life, but he‘s always smiling, always overjoyed in spite of the wretched filth surrounding us. Getting rid of this gene-trash is the only reason he has a job, so I can safely assume he enjoys putting them out of their misery. That must be why he’s always so happy.
“You seen the new model Monroe’s’ yet?”
“What’s the difference?” I ask, somehow sucked into the conversation in spite of myself.
“Bigger tits, tighter ass! You gotta try it.”
“That’s disgusting,” I tell him; mainly because I’m gay, not because I have anything against fucking gene-whores. That’s why they exist.
“Good enough for the president. Good enough for me.”
Pinkerton stares me down, his reddish-brown irises spinning around my own black reflection.
“How goes our appointment bloc regarding the forthcoming season?”
I hesitate to respond, knowing he won‘t be happy. “None set as of now, sir.”
He looks concerned; I can see his irises spinning like they always do when he gets upset. “That’s our busiest season… I wouldn’t want to think the bad economy could cause such a drastic slowdown in simply a year. Have you contacted Senator Edwards? I imagine he’d be here for sure.”
“He’s not taking our calls, sir…”
He gazes at the wall, his eyes smoldering. I’m afraid to speak.
“Open the book. Make the calls tonight. We have a larger stock than normal this year; we can’t have these ones around when they arrive. You know what happened last time. These current models are slightly more aggressive in response to complaints about the passivity of the current stock, so we can’t risk having leftovers. Tell everyone we’ll offer a 20% discount, and they get a free upgrade to a no-holds-barred execution. Can you do that for me?”
I swallow, not sure of how to answer. Sometimes Pinkerton prefers if I just nod. I do so.
“Good. And if you fail to get me ten appointments by this time tomorrow, I might throw you in the clearance block.”
That’s all I need to hear.
Today we received a report of the upcoming shipments. Over 1,032 new gene-whores expected to arrive within the next thirty days, all virgins. Our CEO has bartered with the government, slashing prices dramatically in order for killing season to be moved up - immediately. Senator Edwards is now returning our calls.
Pinkerton thinks this is what was going on the whole time - a set-up from inside the government; seems like they want that killing season moved up year after year. There are whispers of legislation to extend killing season to all 365 days of the year. I’m skeptical that we could afford to run the mill should the law be passed, but Pinkerton thinks the business would be so good that we could end up profiting even more than we do now.
We’ll see.
It’s not like I’m going to argue with him.
In addition to our most consistently used models - our two, expensive Jolie’s, our 190 Bieber’s (far too many), our 14 Gaga’s, and other classic strains, we’re getting a few new ones, of the ancient DNA line. 20 Cleopatra’s, 5 Lincoln’s (I really don’t get it), 30 Kennedy’s (John F.), and 80 - yes 80 – Roberts’ (as in, Julia). These models were phased out years ago, but seem to be returning in this year’s line - dusted off and thrust out of the stock room, I presume.
There are too many other additions to list. I look at the subtotal of new clones expected to arrive. It reads 1,032. As expected. Hopefully our new sale will help to reduce the massive over-stock. Pinkerton is upset that it so dramatically undercuts the 20% reduction that he wanted me to offer to those in the book (none of which would return my calls). The price for a no-holds-barred execution session is set at $100 a kill. That’s so low, anyone can afford it.
Of course, the Hooqueret only open to official members of the United States Government.
Senator Edwards is the first to arrive on day one of killing season. He walks in with the same smile I see him beaming on television, shaking hands like nobody’s business. Doesn’t seem to care at all what he’s walking into, and has walked into on numerous occasions before. For the next thirty days, the Hooqueret is a slaughter-mill.
“Mr. Sammy?” he asks, beaming that stupid smirk at me like I’m one of the gene-whores he’s about to decapitate.
“Sammy is my assistant,” I reply. “I’m Mr. Cohill. Surely, you remember?”
“I see so many people…” he says apologetically. “Do forgive me.”
I say nothing, staring at him with the purest apathy, perhaps a vague humor the intention behind my refusal to speak - to make him feel uncomfortable.
“So…” he says awkwardly, seeming to have nothing to add.
I decide to end his torture. “What will you be ordering today, sir? Would you like to see a menu?”
“I know what’s on the menu,” he says. “I looked it up online.” He’s been here thirty times this year, so I know he actually had simply memorized the thing, but I decide that I don’t really desire to call him on it. That’s not good for business. He’s a liar, but there are worse who walk thro
ugh our doors.
“So what would you desire? You’ll have to alert us to the methods of execution so that we may set them up for you. You know that the fee per head is $100 a pop. As the new law requires, for the benefit of all in government who wish to partake, there has been a ten-clone limit put in place. How many would you like to order?”
“Ten,” he says, no hesitation. “When can I come back and order more?”
“One week,” I reply.
“Do I have to tell you how I want to kill them?”
“Do you require any special instruments?”
“Just a gun,” he says. “Give me ten of them Jennifer Aniston’s. We’re gonna have us a party.”
Two more customers arrive. The second is President Serling. The third is Vice-President Serling. They order all thirty-five young Michael Jackson’s, with a side of meat-cleaver. For Presidential clients, the kill limits are lifted. While they do their business, Senator Edwards finishes his. I have Sammy do the dirty-work of taking the corpses to the microwave for disintegration - I personally find it rather disgusting.
Business is steady over the next week. We clear out every last Justin Bieber within twenty-four hours; all of the Madonnas’, Zac Efrons’ and Shakiras’. Three Lady GaGas’ remain, having killed six customers. Her price has gone up. It seems counter-intuitive, with the risk of being in her immediate proximity, but Pinkerton says that some jackass will pay it anyway.
I hope we can still make the sales before the new stock arrives. Only two weeks away. I want a bonus this year.
One week remains. Prices have been slashed to fifty dollars. There are exactly one-hundred clones left. Six Joseph-Gordon Levitts’, nine Drew Barrymores’, seven Ronald Reagans’, nine Sarah Palins’, forty Michele Bachmanns’ (not a popular model), twelve Princess Dianas’, seven Ashton Kutchers’, four Chers’, five Howard Sterns’ and one Lady GaGa.
Strange Violence Page 5