The Cinnamon Horizon
by Elliot Bowers
"She Would Die for Love"
vocal by Julee Cruise, lyrics by David Lynch, music by Angelo Badalamenti
Chapter 9: Cinnamon On The Winds
...
1.
...
_____It was several hours yet until noon. The bright morning sun had burned away the cool
darkness of the night, and everyone was at their places of work. There were some trucks
on the city roads, rumbling and roaring as they transported goods from and to warehouses and
factories. The buildings of this sector were warmed by the bright daylight as the people--the
fleshies and the cyborgs--went about their work and their lives.
_____But that was outside. The bright sun didn't shine everywhere. There were some dark
places inside some buildings, places without windows. These dark places were usually the
basements--underground and beneath the buildings, beneath city streets. But not all of them
were.
...
_____This particular dark place was not a basement. It was a storage room high up in an
executive's building. Most of the stuff here were used by the executives during meetings:
chalk boards, video projectors, etcetera. One such display item had not been used in a while:
a mutilated cyborg, bolted to a thick metal plate, covered with a big red velvet cloth.
_____Carbon, the mutilated cyborg, was not on display today. "Hmmph. HMMP!
HA-HA-HA..." SNORT... Argh! He wagged his head a few times, blinked his eyes. Oh,
his head...! It felt like someone had pumped it full of syrup! It was damned hard for him to
have clear thoughts now--so full of pain and headache. He was either half-awake or
half-asleep, feeling slow and dizzy all the time. Sleep and consciousness sort of ran together
in one big mush for him to wade through while real life just seemed too blury for focusing.
And being covered up half the time, covered over by some kind of drape-thing, didn't help
things. Because his metal body was bolted to a huge rectangle of metal, because he was without
arms and legs, he couldn't do a damned thing--just lie here and wait for sleep to come whenever
it would. Which was getting easier, since his mind was decaying. The mind within the brain
that was going wrong.
_____Put simply, he was going insane. It was a funny and frightening thing, going insane and
knowing it. It was like a banana-colored joke mixed with a dark blue nightmare, on top of
the green-colored ice-cream of sickening fear. "Hmmph-HMMPH!" he chortled. "Huh?
Oh..."
_____Oh yeah, and he was hearing things. Hearing all kinds of things that could not be seen.
Covered with this damned red-velvet cloth, Carbon would hear industrial machine sounds and
deep rumbling. He sometimes heard people laughing and giggling very faintly. And when they
weren't laughing and giggling, he would hear the swish-swish-swish of a broom moving all
around him. He heard wind, too. Though there were no windows in this storage room, he heard
wind... But now, right about now, he was hearing something new.
_____Chirp-CHIRP! Wait, he knew that sound--or thought he did. CHIRP, chirp-chirp-chirp...
He sure did, from history recordings he had heard when he was a kid! "Hmmph! Hrr-hrr..."
he chortled, because his mind was too sluggish to produce laughter. Birds... But birds were
extinct around here, probably everywhere. This didn't make any damned sense.
_____Since when did hallucinations have to make sense? "Hrr-hrr-hrr..." chuffed Carbon,
letting himself be overcome with all the strange sounds filling his mind as sleep once again
closed over his mind--all the funny bird sounds all around him, mixed up with the sounds of
the broom and the laughter of unseen people.
...
_____"Hey, we've got maintenance to do on the infrastructure," said the cyborg with the
moustache. He had on yellow coveralls and a red shirt, a red metal toolbox gripped in his
left metal hand. Behind him were five other men in similar-looking outfits: yellow coveralls
and red shirts, all of them with toolboxes. "We are a little late, but we were called in on short
notice."
_____The blonde-haired receptionist-lady looked through some sheaves of paper: memos.
"Just a minute, sir," she said. "I know I've seen your authorization somewhere in here... Ah,
here it is!" She held up one half-sheet of typewritten paper.
_____According to this memo, the normal maintenance crew was all out for the day. They
didn't call in or anything, but a backup crew would be in. She reread this memo and looked
up at the mustached cyborg and his crew.
_____"So you must be the temporary maintenance personnel," she said. "Well why didn't you
say so?" She spun around in her chair and spoke to the group of huge security guards at the
elevators--cyborgs in white shirts and dress-slacks. "Hey guys, this is the backup work crew.
It looks like they're okay..." One of the huge guards over there shrugged. If the secretary
said they were okay, then they were okay.
_____The group of cyborgs in yellow coveralls was allowed to get on the elevator, smiling as
they went. Hmmph, that was funny... Since when do maintenance people smile on their way
to work? Maybe they were just happy for better work. Yeah, that had to be it; that had to be
why they smiled.
_____Once that group went up in the elevator, another security guard came into this lobby. His
hard shoes made hard sounds as he walked across the vast marble floor. A nod to the secretary,
and he stepped up to the elevator guards. "Ken, we found some...things in the alley, just so
you know."
_____"What, more crack-heads?" responded the elevator guard named Ken. "You know how
it gets near the end of the week. They just can't keep themselves under control. Always smokin'
or poppin' some kinda cheap shit that kills 'em."
_____The guard from the outside shook his head. "No. It's a Hell of a lot worse than that."
He took a step closer and lowered his voice. "We've found about six bodies in the alley, all
of them fleshies. Six, you hear me? SIX. A real mess, blood and stuff everywhere. They were,
like...mutilated. And their heads are missing, too."
...
_____Up in one of the main buildings of the Society, there was a meeting scheduled to happen.
It was the meeting room with wood-paneled walls (REAL wood, not the chemically synthesized
kind), thick carpet and a long shiny black table. Everyone had comfortable seats here. Though
there were several top executives of Feng-Long here, most of the people at this long marble
table were just local managers: trucking foremen, shop-keepers, maintenance managers, those
sorts of things. They were just having idle chatter now, but the real meeting would not start
until one key executive showed up. She was usually very early for meetings like this. Was
something holding her up?
_____Just as the clocks and watches hit the hour mark, the double doors opened up--having
been opened by the guards. And in came the elegant, dark-clad female executive everyone
was waiting for: Miss Patsun. She quickly stepped through the door--a dark suitcase in her left
hand. Standing at the head of the table, Miss Patsun addressed everyone. "I apologize for my
abrupt and terse manner," she said. "There was a last-minute need to acquire something within
my...office.." A pained expression crossed her face, and she brought her right hand to her
forehead. Her throat flexed as she gulped air, swaying a little on her feet. She dropped her
suitcase.
_____Some people put their hands on the table, looking ready to get up and run forward to
catch her in case she fell. But Miss Patsun did not fall. She just blinked her dark eyes and sat
down in the grand seat at the head of the table. She then leaned to the left to get her suitcase
up off of the floor--setting it atop the table. "No... There is no need for worry. It was just a
slight headache." A rare smile came to her face, making her look prettier. "Truly, physical
pain is a part of us all. It comes with being human...or cyborg. Whichever the case may be."
_____Looks of tensed worry became replaced nervous grins all around the table. Medical
technology around here was good enough to help and replace sick body parts, but damaged
brains were a totally different--much more difficult--matter. This wasn't like the old days
of centuries past, when physicians with scanning machines and nanotechnology could
practically bring people back from the dead. If Miss Patsun was to fall sick during the meeting...
_____"Well friends," began the elegant female executive, sitting at the head of the table. "I
welcome you all. You all have very busy schedules, normally, so it must have been an especially
large inconvenience for you all to gather here." She paused, sniffed. "I now open the table
to any introductory points of discussion."
_____"Hmm, yeah... Thank ya, Miss Patsun," said a burly man at the right side of the table,
a trucking manager. "First I just wanted to tell ya that yer enforcers are doin' a good job for
us by keeping out the bounty hunters. Ya always do good. That brings me to the next point I
wanna talk about, the traffic accidents. See, normally, almost nobody gets hits by trucks.
My drivers are very careful. But people are gettin' lazy an' careless..." He paused, waiting
for interruptions. There were none. "There were eighteen percent more accidents last week,
though. I can't identify the drivers responsible, and I don't know the circumstances. Still,
people have gotta BE MORE CAREFUL!"
_____Miss Patsun nodded. "Thank you for that point. Traffic safety... It shall be noted.
Are there any other points to introduce? Pertaining to traffic safety or any related issues? For
example, suggested changes in enforcer actions?" She sniffed the air again, smiled. What was
that sweet smell? Smiling, she asked, "Did anyone eat a great deal of candy recently?"
...
_____HEE-HEE-HEE...! In the storage room, Carbon was giggling madly to himself. Limbless
and mutilated, his mind was beginning to match the condition of his metal body! Losing...his...
fucking...MIND! "HEE-HEE-HEE!" he went, his voice muffled by the red cloth that covered
him. THEY were here. THEY were whispering and chattering louder now, the people that
could not be seen. "Hee-hee-hee...!" SNORT! "Yeah, I can laugh right along with y'all!
HEE-HEE-HEE...!"
_____All around here... Yeah, THEY were here--all around here. He couldn't see them, because
the draping red cloth covered him from head to toe. Wait... What the fuck? HEAD TO TOE?
Well, it WOULD have covered his toes. But his toes were gone, and so were his fingers. Fuck
that, so were his hands and feet! Both damned arms and legs were gone too! HEE-HEE-HEE!
_____Head to toe! Get it, GET IT? Head to toe, but he HAD NO TOES! Carbon laughed
to himself at the thought. It was just so damned silly right now! HEE-HEE-HEE-HEE-HEE...!
His tank-bellied metal torso quivered as he giggled and guffawed.
_____The distant laughter from the unseen people became just a little louder, and the whispering
became a low chatter. Somewhere, in the corner of Carbon's mind, there was just a little bit of
coherent sanity left. That little bit of sanity was scared to death and quivering with fear.
_____Nobody believed in ghosts or monsters or crazy shit like that... When it was all bright
and sunny outside, people laughed and joked about the scary things that supposedly lived in
basements and in the darkness. And there were no such things as space-aliens! That was
the stuff of scary stories little kids told each other and the stuff put in those old cheezy horror
movies! But when the sun dipped below the horizon, or when there was darkness all around,
the sound of wind blowing through dark rooms, ideas like that suddenly became a lot more
believable.
_____Bzzt! Flicker... Flick-flick! The dim storage room lights blinked and winked before
becoming even dimmer. There was a WHOOSH and a rush of air as the draping cloth was
whipped off of him. It revealed the tank-bellied former enforcer in all his mutilated glory--bolted
down and giggling madly. Hee-hee... Huh? A gust of air must have whipped off the cloth that
covered him up.
_____Carbon saw who had taken off the cloth. A strange look came across his face, but he
was still giggling. "Hee-hee! Well, it's about TIME you got here! Hee-hee-hee! Been
WAITIN' for you, friend! Yes indeed! Been waitin' for the longest time. You done got
both my friends somehow. It's about time you came for...me. Hee hee... I was gettin' SO
TIRED. Maybe you can fix the damned lights, too."
_____The Janitor was here: blue coveralls, work shirt, and blue cap on his head--the bill of
the cap shadowing and hiding his face. The wide brush of his broom rested lightly on the
floor, long wooden handle in his left hand. He leaned slowly forward, bringing his shadowed
face closer to Carbon's amidst the flickering lights.
_____"Hee-hee-hee..." giggled Carbon. Then he stopped giggling, stopped breathing. The
Janitor's right hand went to his own cap, and his fingers closed over the stiffened brim. He
slowly pulled off his hat, and the shadow over his face came away. Even by the flickering
light, Carbon could see the true face of the Janitor.
_____"AA-A-AGH!" screamed Carbon! "I see...my-self! I see myself! I...SEE...MYSELF!"
Though the Janitor's face was leaner, it had all the same features. The eyes, the jaw, the
cheeks... The whole damned look...! It was as if Carbon was looking into a kind of real-life,
super high-performance mirror. Carbon let loose with one more scream as the Janitor's strong
hands closed over his head.
...
_____The entire meeting room shook as a massive explosion ROCKED the building. Everyone
was knocked out of their seats. Miss Patsun did not bother to get up from the floor. Her
small sounds of pain were lost in the ensuing confusion and chaos. Everything was shaking
and seeming to tilt! People shouted and yelled, trying to stand up as the room moved. Miss
Patsun had fallen unconscious from the sharp headache that penetrated her brain. She was
lucky; she wouldn't feel her body being broken and crushed.
...
_____From down the street, that group in yellow coveralls and red shirts watched the Feng-Long
building go down. They saw the big flaming blast that consumed the first few floors of the
building and all the smaller structures nearby. It was like watching demolition, except with an
otherwise perfectly good building. And like demolition, the whole thing collapsed in a gigantic
cloud of dust and rumbling destruction.
_____There were screams after as panicking pedestrians ran around. Most people ran away,
but some in dark suits and black sunglasses went running TOWARDS the chaos. The dust
cloud was spreading and coming in this direction, along with an entire crowd of pedestrians,
_____But the group in yellow coveralls and red shirts just stood there. Zalem's master computer
would pay them PLENTY for doing that, and they didn't even have to bring in heads! One of
the guys in yellow coveralls dropped dead as the dust cloud came over here, covering everything.
There was no particular reason why he dropped dead. Maybe his artificial lungs couldn't handle
the dust. Or maybe something inside his chest had just shut down. But there he was, dead on
the sidewalk. The rest of his group didn't notice in all the dust and grit; they were too busy listening
to the sounds of chaos and confusion.
_____And they sure as Hell didn't notice the one in blue coveralls. How could they, as the
smoke was so thick now and the coughing crowd running around? Within the dust cloud, the
Janitor clutched both of his big coverall pockets--both of them squirming. He didn't care if the
one in his left pocket got out, but he put a harder grip on the struggling lump in his right. And
as he stepped out of reality, he had on a warm smile.
...
2.
...
_____Later, after the chaos, eight enforcers stood in a row along this sidewalk, their weapons
drawn. There were four male enforcers, and four females. Most of them were looking neater
than usual, their suits looking extra-starched and pressed. But three here looked ruined. Their
clothes were dusty and torn in places. One guy had a piece of white cloth wrapped around half
of his head as so it covered part of his synthetic face--covering up the damage. The jacket on
that side of his body was a little ripped, exposing a slightly dented metal arm. He stood here
with his fellow enforcers, ready to do this thing--ready to execute some bounty hunters.
_____The six bounty hunters were wrapped in hefty chains and stood up in the street. Even
the cute blonde hunter-girl had a mummy's wrapping of chainwork around and around her
petite metal self. Like everyone else, her head was left exposed above the chains. This damned
setup made her feel like some kind of demented farm-vegetable, stuck in something with only
the top-part exposed. At least the gunshot hole in her metal abdomen wasn't hurting now.
_____She audibly sniffed, blinked her big blue eyes. Tears fell... "Don't start cryin', bitch,"
said the tall male bound to her left. "What, you scared of dying?" He looked over at the
enforcers standing on the sidewalk. "Why the Hell did you become a bounty hunter if you
were such a sissy?"
_____"Don't be stupid! It's not THAT!" she yelled, glancing over at the enforcers. They didn't
react to her outburst. "It's... It's not FAIR! I tried my best. I was careful. But they had those
damned GUNS and shot me! Now they're just gonna finish us off!"
_____The bigger bounty hunter rolled his eyes. "Yeah, so?" After he said that, the back of
his head suddenly sprayed a gray-and-red explosion of chunky wetness. Then he wasn't able
to say anything else. The jagged metal hole continued to pour blood.
_____"AAIGH!" shrieked the hunter-girl, struggling with the chains. This was not a shriek of
fear; they were shrieks of FRUSTRATION. She was angry, damned PISSED OFF! This
really WASN'T FAIR!
_____She had a fierce grimace on her face as she strained and struggled as the blocky handguns
went CRACK-CRACK-CRACK all around and the other bounty hunters died when their head
seemed to explode. There was blood and brains splashing everywhere, the metal neck-stumps
spraying up blood like grotesque fountains.
_____Blood and little chunks of brain splashed all onto her angry young face and blonde hair as
she kept angrily struggling. Though there was already a gunshot hole in her abdomen from being
captured, though it burned and sparked, she still kept fighting. She wanted to KILL those fuckers
with the handguns. All of them were CRIMINALS!
_____CRACK! One more shot, and there were no more. The petite bounty hunter looked
to her left. That hunter was headless now, just a metal neck-stump above the wrapping of
chains--blood jetting up as the electromechainical body tried pumping blood to the head that
wasn't there. To her right, she saw everyone else: decapitated with shots. More blood poured
out from their neck-stumps. She looked over to the enforcers, that group in the pretentious dark
businesswear.
_____Why? The girl looked surprised for a full second. Then came the anger again. "HEY!
Why don't you fucking SHOOT ME! Come on! Rr-r-gh... SHOOT...ME! Right here! You
can do it!" She opened her mouth for a second, as if read to swallow bullets. "Yeah, RIGHT
IN HERE, BIG BOY! I'm talkin' to YOU, cyclops!"
_____One of the enforcers walked over to here, the one with the cloth wrapped over one eye.
He holstered his gun and put his left foot on the mound of chains that held the petite cyborg-girl.
"You know? Did anyone ever tell you how cute you are when you're angry? No? How about
them telling you how much of a brat you are?" He patted her once on the cheek, and she
snapped at him. "Ooh! Sharp teeth! Guess I'd better leave you alone, kid..."
_____Before she knew it, he had holstered his handgun and walked away. Just walked away!
All of them did, the other enforcers. They were not going to shoot her after all. Their plan
was to just leave her here, in the middle of the damned road, in the middle of the afternoon.
All the other bounty hunters were really dead, their heads and brains all blasted. Damn...
_____"Maybe you're too much of a PUNK to shoot a GIRL!" she screamed. Her high-pitched
voice echoedoff the fronts of the short buildings nearby. "Yeah, so COME BACK HERE and
PROVE HOW TOUGH YOU ARE!" Her voice echoed among the buildings before fading up
to the bright blue sky overhead.
_____Then came the bystanders. They came from nowhere and everywhere, out of their
hiding places. Some had emerged from buildings, walking out the front doors. Some more
people came from the alleys and from around the corners. There was soon a crowd as all of
the local inhabitants of the city came out. They were interested in the scene on the street. So
these were some of the bounty hunters from outside...
_____"Criminals! We'll have your heads for this!" screamed the girl in chains. "When
the big computer up in Zalem hears about this, there'll be Hell to pay! You hear me? Lots
of bounty hunters are coming already. Lots and LOTS of them... All of your heads are
gonna be chopped off and cashed in! How do you like THAT, huh?" She nodded, because
that was about all the movement she could make. "Ye-e-ah...! Just you all wait."
_____The crowd just stood there, standing on the sidewalks. People mumbled and chattered
to each other as they glanced over at the girl, her face and hair all bloody and angry. She looked
like a cute little monster, ready to kill, surrounded by headless bounty hunters in chains!
_____Meanwhile, she would just be the object of curiosity for these gawking fools. They were
afraid of the bounty hunters, sure. But not too afraid now! All of those rumors about hunters
not using guns was true. Zalem must be a really fucked-up place, not letting its hunters here
on the ground use guns.
_____The girl laughed and continued to insult the crowd. Then came the pain. The gunshot
in her metal abdomen, shot when she was captured... It was really beginning to hurt. All of her
struggling and screaming had agitated the damage. First, it was a sharp ache. Then the ache
became hot and burning as electrical connections within her electromechanical body heated up.
The pain began to spread down her legs and up her chest. She began to scream.
_____So she was not aware of what was coming. There was a distant rumbling roar that
was coming closer, coming along this road. It was a rather huge truck, the color of the night
sky. Damn, even the windows were dark-tinged. It was really hard to see the driver...
_____R-R-RUMBLE...! The big loud truck had flames coming out of the huge exhaust pipes
as it ran over the chained-up bounty hunters in the street. And if they weren't all dead before,
they sure were now! Blood and metal body parts were all over the street, broken chain-links
scattered about.
_____And that big black truck just kept going, big and loud, the flames and smoke roaring out
of its pipes. There was a screech of tires as it made a fast and dangerous turn right at the next
corner--a screeching that sounded like a chorus in pain. No one saw the truck after that.
...
_____An hour ago, everything down here was shaken with a rumbling roar. Small bits of
ceiling tile had flaked down on all the equipment and all on the floor. Luckily, the electricity
had only flickered for some seconds. After that, everyone had coughing fits for a while until
the air filter could strain most all of the dust out of the computer lab's air. Well, everyone but
Lissette had their coughing fits until the air was clear.
_____She had stayed in the computer lab after the presumed earthquake, using a broom and
dustpan to clean up. Everyone else helped after the air wasn't so clouded with dust, using
damp rags and air-blowers to clean off the equipment.
_____They then went back to work, hacking the Network and maintaining the disconnection
between this sector and Zalem. It was not until an hour later that they found out what had really
happened. An enforcer had made an extremely rare visit to a computer lab--this computer lab.
He told everyone here what had happened up on the surface.
_____Since the artificial and accidental disasters of a few centuries back, there really hadn't
been earthquakes. The shake-up turned out to be something else: the destruction of a
Feng-Long building. Half of the people in the structure, cyborgs, managed to survive. Their
bodies would need extensive repairs. But all the "fleshies"--the full-humans--were dead. That
included all three of the high-ranking Feng-Long executives who were in the building at the time.
_____That included Miss Patsun. Hearing this, Jake stopped typing and just stared at his
computer screen. Sudden tears splashed down from Kela's gold-colored eyes and wetted
spots on the freshly swept floor. Sam bit one of his hammy fists and looked away. Lissette
reacted the strongest: She practically jumped up from her swivel-seat, her long dark hair
streaming like a war-banner.
_____YOU LYING BASTARD, she had shouted, her dark eyes angry. As she had earlier
changed into shorts and a sleeveless blouse, one could see the musculature of her legs and
slim arms tense up. Though the enforcer's dark glasses seemed to hide his expression, he did
look a bit frightened by the girl--though she was at least a foot shorter and a hundred pounds
lighter than himself.
_____Sam had disarmed the situation. He thanked the enforcer for being the bearer of that
really bad news, and--hand around the shoulder--he guided the dark-suited cyborg out of the
computer lab as Lissette's dark angry eyes glared on. Get OUT, you LIAR! Get out! She
collapsed to her knees after the screaming fit. The enforcer would not lie about something of
that magnitude; she knew it.
_____Since then, everyone had calmed down. Jake hadn't chuckled for a while, but he was
still at his workstation--looking for new ways to hack Zalem's computers. Sitting at the
machine next to Sam's, Kela only sniffled once in a while.
_____Lissette decided to check the multi-colored wires that connected the machines of the
lab to the cabinet-sized server-computer against the wall. While she was at it, she also checked
the status of the huge machine itself--a toolkit on the floor while she sat behind there with all
the little flickering green status lights. Hmm...
_____She built this machine herself, from various bits of computer hardware scavanged
from old offices and bodies of Deckmen: She would know if anything was wrong or knocked
out of place. Shouldn't be, really. The hardware was simple, but very rugged. And if there
were any screwed-up connections, there would be little yellow lights instead of green.
_____Nothing looked wrong. BZZT-thud! "Ow!" In surprise, she had jerked back her head,
bumping it into the cinderblock wall near her back. BZZT...flicker-flicker! The lights in the
computer lab went low and ALL the status lights behind the server went yellow. Then, some
sort of shadowy mist began to cover over everything.
_____Oh no, she thought. Is this some kind of toxic leak? While everything was going dark,
she scrambled out from behind the huge computer...and fell down. She couldn't move...and
her body felt numb. Everything was getting so dark now.
...
_____...It was always dark all around here, which was normal for this place. There were
blazingly bright spotlights for illumination here, which was also normal--for now. But, to say
that anything here was "normal" was like saying that the night sky was "bright" with stars.
_____One blazingly bright spotlight shone down on a polished wooden table, two seats placed
here. On one seat was a pile of sand. The wind here blew around some of the grains, but the
pile of sand remained intact and whole. Hell, the way it was set at the table, a person would
think that the sand was a guest!
_____Sitting opposite the pile of sand was the Janitor, enjoying a very large bowl of
cinnamon oatmeal. He had his had off, and his face still looked damned familiar. His left hand
on his stomach, his right hand did the work of scooping up the oatmeal and bringing it to his
mouth. The bowl really was big; the damned thing must have been six times the size of anyone's
stomach. But he just kept eating and eating that cinnamon oatmeal... Ah-h-h, how delicious...
But who was screaming in the distance?
_____The other spotlight here shone down on the platinum-haired Dream Woman, standing
atop the other wooden table. Her red silk dress was tight over her slender and cream-pale body,
covering her from shoulders to ankles--a long slit exposing one of her legs from the thigh down.
A lazy, hypnotic sound of music began to play from somewhere in the darkness, and
the Dream Woman closed her eyes. She began to sing in slow accompaniment to the tune.
SHE said, she wouldn't stay
SHE said, she couldn't stay
She told me, she would die... for love...
She said, she would GO someday
She said, she would GO AWAY!
She to-o-old me.. she would die-e-e for love...
Don't you think...HE knows
Don't you think... HE cares
Don't you think...HE dr-r-eams
Don't you think...he CRIES?
She said, she would run away!
She said she would FLY away
She to-o-old me she would die for love...
Don't you think...HE knows
Don't you think...HE cares
Don't you think HE DREAMS
Don't you think...HE CRIES?
_____After that, the music faded as the Dream Woman swayed atop the table--her hands
clasped under her chin. Then came the sickening darkness again as everything faded off.
The spotlights turned off, and everything seemed to be going away...
...
_____Lissette sat up, then got up from the floor. The last remnants of numbness were fading
from her body. She felt a little shaky. Other than that, she was feeling fine. Looking around,
she saw that everyone else was just stirring to their senses: Sam on the floor, Jake slumped at
his workstation. Kela was slumped back in her seat--her head back and her straight purple hair
hanging straight down.
_____"Whoa-a-a... Why do I feel like I've been hit by a truck?" mumbled Sam, sitting up
on the floor and clutching his balding head. "I just had this really whacked-out dream."
Lissette came over and helped the big chubby man to his feet. "Thanks, Lissette... Somebody
remind me to never again fool around with cheap tomato juice mixed in expensive rum!"
_____Kela sat up in her seat and leaned forward, her fine fingers at her forehead. Her odd-gold
eyes were clenched shut. "Ow-w-w... Sam, did you say something about a...dream?" she
said, eyes still shut. "'Cause that dream must have really messed up my head--along with
that weird shadow-smoke stuff." Jake just chuckled, though his eyes squinted in pain from
the headache he had.
_____"Yeah..." answered Sam. "Some dream about a really pale girl in a slinky red dress. She
was singing backwards or something. Damn... My head hurts just THINKING about it." He
staggered over to one of the side-doors. "I'm going to get some water from the side-room to
splash on my face..and maybe, after that, I'll throw up in the toilet."
_____As Sam stepped through the side-door, Lissette looked at everyone else here. Something
really weird had just happened. It had affected everyone else the same way, except for her.
Lissette was reminded again that she was...different. Though she looked and seemed like
everyone else, she WASN'T like everyone else.
_____No, she didn't want to think about that right now. She didn't even want to know what
made everyone go unconscious, didn't even talk about it. So she again busied herself by
checking the server while everyone recovered from their headaches. The past few minutes of
unconsciousness had been a blank for her. She did not dream.
...
3.
...
_____Sera was sitting at the bar, and the female bartender was slowly preparing drinks. The
red-haired cyborg and the fleshie seemed to be the only two people in here: no one was at the
tables, and no one else was seated at this bar. It seemed very lonely and quiet here, even after
what had happened several miles away.
_____The red-haired young cyborg was unsure exactly why she was drawn to this bar. It was
like plenty of other drinking spots in this trendy downtown area. Executives of the Society drank
and dined out often--restaurants, bars and cafes--so there were lots of places to get drinks.
Still, why here, with all the other places?
_____Maybe Sera was drawn to this particular drinking spot because the bartender was young
and female, a rarity. Bartenders were most all older men or cyborgs, gruff and old, not young
and pretty girls. And Sera thought the bartender was very pretty in her own way: slender
figure, sparkling green eyes, and blonde hair. Nice clothes too--dark leggings and white
blouse, a black vest fastened over her flat abdomen and pert breasts. The bartender's big
pretty eyes always seemed to sparkle with some kind of inner amusement. Other than the
color of the eyes and hair, the bartender reminded Sera of how she had been once.
_____Sera's day-purse hung at her left elbow, still with plenty of credit-chips to spend on
drinks. Aw, what the Hell. Miss Patsun didn't have anything for her to do today. Sera was
making a lot more money these days, not that it mattered much. She didn't spend much on
clothes, her new apartment's rent took little out of her pay, and she did not need too much
food: just enough to keep her brain alive. Right now, she was fully intent on soaking her
brain in as much alcohol as it would tolerate before she sank into the dark and warm depths
of blissful unconsciousness.
_____Not drunk yet, but she felt herself getting there. The drinks given by the bartender so
far already made Sera feel as if she was floating in some kind of pleasantly warm and
invisible ocean. And the day felt like one big, long, tired blur. All of her problems were far
away as she just drifted away on her own ocean of intoxication away from the shores of
reality--away from all her troubles. Wait... What troubles?
_____Good, she was forgetting already. All of her stresses and worries were gently wafting
away for now. Her lips slowly spread in a big lazy smile, feeling really good. Not just good,
but GO-O-OOD. The bartender smiled right along with her and poured another red drink
from a red bottle.
_____"W-w-wow-w-w!" slurred Sera, sipping some more stuff in the mug. "Th-this is
DAMNED good sh-stuff! Wha-wha... WHOOPS! Ha-ha-ha..." She nearly fell off of her
high stool. "H-hey, I th-think I've had this...stuff somewhere before..." Her dark eyes
squinted as she seemed to strain her memory. "But where? It's damned good."
_____The pretty bartender nodded. "Ha-ha-ha...! You have tasted the red drink before,
but not in that style," she said, raising the bottle of red liquid. "Many people have drunk it.
Yet they cannot liquefy it. The key ingredient is..." She smiled. "It's what I like to call
cinnamon, though you would call it something else. Ha-ha-ha!"
_____Sera looked dumbstruck for a moment, her mouth hung open. "R-R-REALLY! Why
the HELL didn't you SAY s-so? Ha-ha-ha...!" She tried to say a whole bunch of other things
after that. Her thoughts became slurry and blurry, and all the words came out sounding
wrong and backwards. It was harder to say anything or to put coherent words together.
_____FWOOSH... The bar door had been flung opened. In walked a mixed-up group of at
least six cyborgs--big and short, male and female--all wearing the same kind of outfit. They
all had yellow coveralls and red shirts. Laughing and joking, they were very happy about
what had happened an hour ago. "Hey bartender-bitch!" shouted one of the males. "We're
here to CELEBRATE!"
_____All six came over here and sat themselves down, putting their elbows on the polished
surface for drinks. The obnoxious male sat right next to Sera, who gave him a lost look.
"What're YOU looking at? Anyway... Bartender, give us whatever you criminals drink in
this sector. And if you can get us all drunk within the next fifteen minutes, maybe we won't
cut off that cute head of yours and sell it."
_____They're bounty hunters, thought Sera as her pleasant alcoholic lethargy was burned
away. Feeling the anger, components within her body rapidly processed the intoxicating
chemicals out of her blood and injected adrenaline into her brain. Something was going to
happen.
_____The obnoxious bounty hunter winked. "Or maybe we'll just have a little grown-up fun
with you first." All the newcomers, male and female, guffawed and laughed at that one--as if
it was one of the funniest jokes in the world. "I don't have the uh...TOOL for what I want to
do, but I'll think of something! Like the way my buddies... Guh!" One of the female bounty
hunters had elbowed him--hard.
_____The bartender smiled. "You will think of something. You always do." She gave the
obnoxious male bounty hunter a wink as she brought her own delicate fingers to the dark
buttons of the vest over her blouse. Giving him a pouty look, she asked, "Is this what you
want? Hmm?"
_____Someone else at the bar whistled and cheered. Saying, "Hell YEAH, babe! Show us
those cute tits of yours! YOW!" Then the male bounty hunters began slapping the table and
making all kinds of animal noises as the female bartender began to sway her firm hips and
fondle the buttons of her vest.
_____She then climbed atop the bar and continued her little dance, stepping out of her little
black shoes. She then unbuttoned her vest, dropped it to the bar-top. Next came the blouse...
And off came the leggings. Before Sera knew it, the pretty dancing bartender-girl was down
to bra and panties, beginning to make herself completely naked. She really was lithe and
beautiful, her smooth creamy body as fair as her little silk underwear, beautiful all over. Such
a beautiful body. Sera wasn't attracted to women, but even she was beginning to feel interested.
The room began to heat up, wind began to blow, and then came an awful headache that brought
darkness over her.
...
_____The next thing she knew, she was lying on the floor. That headache of hers was fading
as laughter went off into the distance. Someone was laughing in the distance... The laughter
floated on the wind, the wind that blew in through the blown-open windows and the absolutely
blasted doorway. There was broken glass everywhere. But that wasn't the only mess.
_____Sera sat up, stood up, and saw the awful bloody mess. She had seen carnage before,
random violence being a fact of life here in the city, but this was probably the most gruesome.
There was congealing blood and miscellaneous body fluids soaking the top of every surface
here. But the worst of the blood was pooled around the body parts. That was it: parts. There
was not a single intact body in here except her own.
_____Her footwear crunched on bloody glass as she looked around this place. Metal arms
and legs were on top of tables and onto the floor, as if violently RIPPED off and tossed like
junk. Metal torsos were smashed and split, which explained the blood and oil. Wet and
bloody parts were put next to yet more wet and bloody body parts--parts that were supposed
to be INSIDE rather than OUTSIDE. The clothes were torn to rags and put in piles, soaking
up more blood and fluids. There was just...so...much...blood....
_____The bartender-girl! What had happened to her? Suddenly numb and sick with worry,
Sera looked towards the bar--expecting more of a mess. The bartender's clothes were still
there, strangely dry and still fresh-looking: not torn or damaged at all. Even the little silk
underthings were unstained by what soaked everything else. The black shoes and leggings,
the white blouse and vest, they were free of blood as well.
_____Something was very wrong here. Feeling even more sick, Sera walked around the
bar and looked for the female bartender's body--which was not here. All the body parts were
cyborg. And...
_____She found heads behind the drinking bar itself. Dead heads, six in a row, their shocked
faces looking like grotesque interior decorations. The tops of their skulls were all opened up,
synthetic scalps and metal skulls peeled open like food-cans: the ruined, red-stained brains
exposed. But the worse was the spoons, when she noticed the spoons…
_____There were rusty metal spoons dipped deep into each of those opened skulls, which
explained why the brains were ruined. Did the bartender somehow...? "Uh-h-h..." moaned
the female cyborg, feeling a wave of sickness come over her. She staggered back from the
sight, her metal legs unsteady.
_____With the dead eyes staring in her direction, she slipped and fell backward. Then she
scrambled to her feet and got out of the bar as fast as she could, somehow remembering her
little day-purse. She left bloody footprints along the sidewalk as she ran off unsteadily. She
had to tell someone about what happened here, maybe Miss Patsun herself!
...
_____The sun continued to heat the city air as the day grew late--the sunlight going from
high-noon to the richer golden tone of later afternoon. By the time Sera walked up to this
streetcorner, her sickness and fear had already begun to fade. It was just that she saw all of
that mess, all of that blood. She wasn't sure why she reacted that way. That was not the first
time she had seen bloody messes in her life. Random and extremely bloody violence was just
a part of everyday living these days, she kept telling herself. Just part of life. There was
nothing shocking or outrageous about it. She thought this, putting her scrambled thoughts
together, as she waited for it to be safe enough to cross the street.
_____Hmm, there were a lot of cars on the road--and even more trucks. Which was unusual,
since most of the factories were still producing. There shouldn't be so much shipping happening
this time of day. Sera waited for there to be fewer trucks and cars before she quickly made her
way across the street. Miss Patsun's office building should be around that corner--where all
the trucks were coming from...
_____A group of workers came from around the corner, pushing three large metal carts along
this sidewalk. Sera slowed her pace as she approached, not wanting to be in the way. There
were just so many of them, the workers--at least six. Was there some kind of construction
going on? When the group of workers was close, she had a chance to ask.
_____"Hey guys. What's going on?" she said to the approaching half-dozen workers in red
work-gear--their clothes all dusted with concrete. "It looks like..." THUMP! "OW! Watch
it! You almost knocked me into the street!" Indeed, one of them almost had, having made
her stagger.
_____The rest of the group stopped. "Heh-heh... Oh, I'm SORRY!" said the one who had
shouldered Sera. "I DID? Maybe I should try a little HARDER! Heh-heh-heh..." He then
raised his hands and gave her a hard SHOVE--hitting her in the chest.
_____"What!" she shouted when she fell backward, landing on her elbows. She quickly
stood again and quickly brushed some hair away from her face. "HEY! I just asked a simple
question! What the HELL is your problem, huh? Look, I just had a really bad day too. But
I'm not going around and being rude!"
_____"Shut up, dumb criminal bitch!" shouted another one. "Aw, fuck it. Let's take her to
the alley so we can get another head without any damned problems. Besides, most of the
heads we've go so far are all fucked up from the building collapse." He pulled a thick-looking
blade from under his work-shirt. "Yeah, nobody's looking..."
_____Grinning, someone else stepped closer--a long blade appearing in his left hand as if
by magic. Uh-oh... She had only learned how to fight unarmed opponents. And when she
did, there were always lots of other enforcers around to finish the job with guns. There were
just too many of them right now. So she turned and ran.
_____"AAH-HA-HA-HA!" they laughed. Their laughter at her back, she dashed back to the
previous streetcorner. The traffic...! She skidded to a halt, her machine-made footwear smoking
as she stopped. Stumbling, she tried to turn right and run some more when a metal hand grabbed
her arm.
_____"Damn, you can't run for SHIT, honey!" said the one with the thick blade. He had Sera
by an arm and was trying to drag her away. She struggled and pulled against his hold on her.
"Now let's go where we can be alone. Don't worry, it won't hurt...for long. I'll do you quick!
Just a pain in the neck, and it'll all be over soon after that."
_____And then he was kneeling on the concrete, one of his knees bent the completely wrong
way. It had happened so fast that it didn't seem to happen at all! Sera had lashed out with a
very fast low-kick right at the bounty hunter's right knee--breaking it backward. He didn't
even see the blow coming.
_____He then felt himself knocked away, flapping along the sidewalk as the world seemed
to go around-and-around-and-around. Damn, he was feeling funny. No, wait... It was just
his HEAD that was knocked away! Aw, shit...he tried to say, but he had no lungs. And
those were his last thoughts as he passed into the laughing darkness of death.
_____Sera took the thick-looking knife from the headless corpse. Then, all kinds of dark
thoughts came into her mind. All this time, she had fought without weapons. She now felt
that she could have a LOT of fun with this thing. And there were some willing volunteers right
around the corner.
_____One of the bounty hunters had come around to see what was taking Jack so long. THUNK!
He then lost his balance as he hit his right ankle on something. Looking down, the hunter saw
that he had actually lost his whole right foot--cut off by that red-haired bitch! Kneeling, she
tossed the severed metal body part at his face--a distraction as she dashed past him, a
red-haired gray blur. A sudden line in his metal abdomen spurted blood and cooling fluids...
He fell to the sidewalk and bled to death before he realized what had happened.
_____"Damn, she's QUICK!" said one of the four remaining bounty hunters, standing by the
three carts. They all took out various blades and staffs and began their approach. "You just
stay still for a second, cutie... Yeah... Just like that!" Then that one ran at her, his long solid
fighting staff poised for a STRIKE!
_____Swish-CRACK! It was a hit that managed to knock a deep chunk out of the hard
tan-colored sidewalk. There was a rushing blur again, then he found that he couldn't move
his arms. He leaned back from his missed attack, and his metal arms fell off. He opened his
mouth to speak, then felt his words snatched by a sudden gust of wind as something tapped his
neck. His head fell off of his body... The other three bounty hunters were just as easy.
...
_____Sera was on her knees when it was over, leaning against the wall--her metal body
heated from the overdrive exertions. The blade in her hand had snapped during the fighting.
Now it was chipped and damaged. But the fighting... That had felt good. Sera's brain was
awash in the lingering sweet pleasure from what had just happened. No wonder why there
were so many cyborg bounty hunters; they must like their jobs.
_____And she was surprised when she suddenly threw up. Her artificial digestive system had
reacted more intensely than a real one would. Luckily, all that came up was some very dark
fluid, mixed with the blood on the sidewalk. Wiping her synthetic mouth with the back of a
solid hand, she stood up and looked at the short little blade she had taken from the bounty
hunter. Something was happening to her.
_____Back at the bar, it really wasn't all sickness that made her run away. The waves of
dizziness that had overcome her back there, it wasn't really all nausea. It was pleasure--deep
and perverse. It was the kind of feeling she hadn't felt since she had a real body--a sweet
and deep kind of feeling she thought she would never have again since losing her flesh body.
Now she knew how to feel it any time there was someone to kill...
_____"NO!" she shouted. This wasn't why she had become a cyborg! Sera didn't want to
become a MONSTER, like those three bastards who had killed and ate the surviving members
of her family! She killed two of them, and one of them was still alive. The last monster...
_____Yet, apparently, she was becoming exactly like those three. As the city winds played
with silken strands of her long red hair, she thought about cutting up bodies and making blood
gush. It actually felt GOOD to cut people, to cut and maim. To KILL, that felt the best.
And she knew it would feel even BETTER to kill a fleshie, their bodies so firm outside and
with deliciously soft and wet insides. Mmm-m-m…
_____The red-haired young cyborg squeezed her eyes shut, clenched the damaged blade
and shrieked, "STOP IT!" Then she threw down that weapon and shoved her way through
the crowd of onlookers who had gathered around to see the crazy cyborg who killed all of
these hunters. Then she ran past the carts that the bounty hunters were pushing. She really
had to see someone soon. Maybe Mr. Yin could help! Miss Patsun had to know where he
was, if not help solve the sadistic sickness that was filling her mind.
...
4.
...
_____Carlos had found himself a small area to work on, and he continued lifting up pieces of
concrete and the occasional body part. He had been working steadily for the past hour, but he
felt that he may as well continue working for hours yet--his sturdy work-clothes dusted and
streaked with grit. His electromechanical arms worked tirelessly, metal hands gripping and
passing away the chunks of rubble. Though his head and metal torso was heating from the
exertions, he just kept going. There were hundreds of workers around here, all around and
doing the same thing.
_____But not all of what he picked up was hard junk--not at all. He had found a few crushed
corpses so far. The fleshies, full humans, were obliterated when the building came down. They
were like bags of meat, all full of soft wet organs and blood. He could tell when he was close
to finding a dead fleshie by the blood.
_____There was a shifting of rubble and a sudden flurry of activity behind him. "Agh...! Guh-
guh..." gasped and coughed a female cyborg in business suit--her gashed synthetic face exposed
in the debris. "Ghh... SOMEBODY HELP ME OUT OF THIS!" Carlos turned around
and went to help. Everyone pushed and shoved aside rubble to help a female cyborg out of
the rubble. "IT HURTS!" she screamed, yelling and struggling. The right side of her business
jacket was torn, exposing the damaged metal torso beneath--which leaked blood. She then
went unconscious.
_____Some other people came by and hurriedly carried her away. Carlos kept himself from
following the group, instead went back to his spot. And all this time, they thought that they
had found all of the survivors. Cyborgs... The survivors were all cyborgs. They had not found
a single fleshie survivor.
_____He went back to work. And he thought of meat. Yes, just bags of meat, all full of soft
wetness. Meat puppets, really. It was safer to think of them as meat, as not being remains of
people. Whenever corpses of dead people were found, they were just picked up and lifted
away with the rest of the mess. Along with chunks of wall and flooring, there were bigger
chunks of fleshie-people and cyborgs. Concrete, bodies, floor tiles, blood, wires, all of that
was picked up and carried away. Just pick it up and carry it away. Pick it up and carry.
Pick up, carry away. It was simple.
_____What was it that Lars said that night with he and Marlene? Oh yes… He said, so
long there is food, it should not matter if people are happy or sad. Carlos wondered how
true that was right now. With bounty hunters invading this sector and killing people, with all
the troubles happening these past fewweeks, he wondered about what life was worth.
____"SLOW DOWN, girl! You're wearing yourself out!" shouted someone near the ruined
street. "Hey Jimmy, tell 'em to get the hose over here... This kid is gonna to burn herself up!
I'm tryin' to warn her!" Carlos then heard the familiar WHOOSH of cold gushing water from
a hose--spraying metal bodies to cool them down. He was getting warm himself, should
really go over and try to get cooled a little as well.
_____No, he would keep at it--like that pretty cyborg-girl with the long red hair. When she
first came here, he heard her working pretty damned fast. She was practically throwing aside
big chunks of broken building and digging in a hurry. A lot of the people in this building
didn't have too many close relatives as they were so dedicated to their jobs. Maybe she
knew someone in the ruin... And maybe that was why she was now close to overheating
herself.
_____Now Carlos felt an extra twinge of sadness. Now he remembered where he saw the
red-haired cyborg-girl before... Carlos saw her sitting at an outdoor cafe, while he was on
his way to work. The girl was getting drunk. He remembered asking about her during mid-day
lunch-breaks at work. Some people said she was some kind of prize-fighter at the local
arena. Then there was talk about her being a new enforcer with too much on her mind.
_____Whatever was wrong with the girl, it had made her want to get drunk that morning--and
probably a lot of other mornings too. In his younger years, before he became a cyborg, he
had seen more than one friend die in horrible and awful ways.
_____One of his friends had been yanked into an ingot-pressing machine at a steel reprocessing
facility. The machines were designed for ruggedness and speed, not for safety. So it was
easy to have an accident if one wasn't careful. What came out the other end was barely
recognizable as once being human, so burned and mutilated.
_____Another fleshie friend of his had gotten into a fistfight with a cyborg--a fleshie with no
real fighting skills, trying to fight someone with a metal body. It was like a terrible forklift
accident. The damned fool was punched through the chest--blood everywhere.
_____They were all meat puppets, everyone. Even cyborgs had a bit of meat left: brains.
Oh, look at this: more dead meat. As he lifted chunks of concrete and dead human flesh
from the ruined rubble, he was again reminded of what people were worth. Everyone was
just parts of the great big machine known as civilization.
_____Someone patted him on the shoulder. He looked up, saw a familiar woman's face:
Marlene--dressed in a grit-dusted tee-shirt and jean-shorts. "Hey guy, you can stop now.
The construction personnel are going to handle the rest of this." She put her solid hands on
her shapely metal hips in denim. "Damn, you look really tired. Let's go get a beer or
something. Then we can worry about how we're going to spend our overtime pay."
_____Carlos shrugged and got up from where he was working. Looking around, he saw
that everyone else was slow-walking their way across this ruin. Most of the rubble was gone
already, and it was late-afternoon already. So lost in thought and work, he really didn't notice
the progress being made or the passage of time.
_____There were plenty of big heavy trucks parked nearby, starting their engines to carry away
the rubble as he and Marlene approached the street. In getting away from the rubble heap, he
passed right by the red-haired girl who was working so intensely earlier. Her long red hair hid the
sides of her face and lay against her slim solid back.
_____When Carlos and Marlene were a block away, he glanced back. The red-haired cyborg-
girl was still back there, the late-afternoon light drawing out her shadow onto the street. "Hope
she finds whatever she's looking for," he commented. "Poor kid." Marlene chose not to say
anything about that. A random breeze blew past his ear, and he thought he heard... "Did you
hear someone scream?"
...
_____Within the chunks of rubble, there was an old-fashioned radio. It was once within Miss
Patsun's desk--which was smashed to ruins. As was Miss Patsun's body. Her crushed
remains had been put in one of the junk-trucks, along with plenty of other corpses--like all
the other dead meat. But her strange radio was still in the ruins.
_____A rather heavy truck rumbled by. Sera, still kneeling and feeling overheated, turned her
head--stroked some lengths of red hair away from her eyes to see better. Despite there being
bright yellow sunlight, the truck seemed an unusually black color. It must have been some kind
of fancy and expensive paint job to make it look so dark.
_____The young cyborg did not notice the shifting of the rubble, from when the dark truck
drove by. That heavy vibration was just enough to make some of the hard concrete debris
slide aside.
_____This had partially exposed Miss Patsun's old-fashioned radio--strangely intact. There
was no real damage to the plastic casing. It looked no worse than it did before the building
collapse. The the meshed circular part with the speaker was exposed to the sky. When the
wind blew, it whispered and brushed along the exposed mesh. The radio seemed to be on,
because there were faint sounds of screaming coming from beneath the speaker's mesh.
...
_____It has always been very dark here. Always had been, and it always would be--though
there were the rare spotlights. Like how one such incredibly bright spotlight shone down on
of the round wooden tables. The Dream Woman was seated at this table. Now, her tight
red dress was styled differently. The shimmering silk seemed molded to her slim body like a
second skin--styled as so it left her shoulders and arms bare. Her long, silky pale-blonde hair
was brushed straight back from her face--as so she could enjoy her bowl of cinnamon oatmeal
by the bright illumination of the spotlight.
_____The Janitor was still sitting here as well, that huge punchbowl now empty. He had even
licked the residue of cinnamon from the rim. Now he sat very still, his hands at his sides, the
belly of his coveralls swollen and full.
_____The Dream-Woman had herself another spoonful of the cinnamon oatmeal. Oh, how
delicious! This was the most wonderful-tasting oatmeal she had in a very long time. She
dipped the spoon into the bowl and took up small amounts. Then she would bring the
sweet-tasting mush to her lips. Mmm-m-m…
_____AA-AGH! Carbon screamed in the darkness. The shadowy figures in the gloom giggled
and shook. For every sound of pain he made, they had funny mutterings and little sounds to make.
The pale-haired Dream Woman took another bite--resulting in another scream from the cyborg.
She stirred the spoon within the mush of the bowl, and Carbon made retching sick sounds.
Another bite, and then came another scream.
_____The Dream Woman glanced across the table, at the Janitor--not moving or reacting to
the sound of Carbon's screams. His eyes were still closed, and his face was relaxed with peace.
There was no point in talking to him now.
_____She took another spoonful. Too bad, this bowl was almost empty. She had worked
SO HARD to get this cinnamon oatmeal. The most delicious bowl of cinnamon oatmeal ever
made, and she had done her best to make it last. She used the spoon to take another dainty
bite, savoring the thick sweet deliciousness. Yet again, Carbon screamed in the distant
darkness. But his screams were becoming fainter, just as the cinnamon oatmeal was becoming
less and less.
_____She glanced over at the Janitor once more, her red eyes glinting... Bluish smoke began
to billow up from the floor beneath the table. It began to swirl thickly around where the Janitor
was sitting, around the Janitor himself. Soon, the bluish smoke completely covered the
hard-working figure in coveralls and blue work-shirt. Even with the bright white spotlight
shining and blazing, the blue smoke was too thick to see through.
_____Within a moment, the smoke dissolved. It became translucent, faded and wafted up into
the darkness. But now there was not much to see. Where the Janitor once sat, there was now
a pile of mud in the seat, dripping onto the floor. The wooden chair seemed to soften and rot
with the mud, collapsing under the weight. Somewhere in that pile of mud was a pair of muddy
and ruined coveralls that would never be worn again.
_____The pile of mud began to dissolve, and the Dream Woman continued to savor her
delicious and soft bowl of cinnamon oatmeal. She knew where the Janitor had come from, and
she knew where he was returning to. All the while, Carbon's screams in the darkness became
fainter and fainter.
...
_____Sera's body had cooled down sixty minutes ago. But it wasn't until now that she felt
ready to continuing her solitary digging. She was lucky that she had gotten here when she did:
Not all the remains and concrete had been removed and trucked away. The workers wouldn't
continue their work until tomorrow, so she had this place to herself. Digging and digging...
He had to be in here somewhere. She just knew it.
_____Wait... She heard a muffled scream--HIS scream. A nasty look on her pretty face,
Sera scrambled over to where she had heard it coming from. She quickly went to her knees
and threw aside some junk and that old radio. Her metal fingertips struck something! Moving
with frantic speed, she soon found Carbon in the rubble.
_____"You're ALL MINE NOW, BASTARD! YEAH-H-H!" She tilted back her head, and
gave a sheer SHOUT of triump and glee--the sound blasting through her throat. Then, hands
tensing, she returned her attention to what she wanted to do, getting Carbon out of the debris
as so she could have her way with him.
_____When she fully uncovered the mutilated cyborg, bolted to the rectangular metal plate,
her fingers went to his head...which was already smashed in. Then everything seemed to go
dead to her. She felt a dark coldness spread throughout her body, and all her strength left
her.
_____Apparently, Carbon was already dead. No... NO! Sera blinked and leaned forward
to get a better look. Yep, he was a goner. "NO-NO-NO-NO-NO-NO!" she ranted. "You
were the LAST ONE! I was supposed to finish you off! It's not fair! Not fair! Why did you
have to die? Stupid jerk, you KNEW what was supposed to happen to you in the end. YOU
were supposed to be my reward. After all of this! But now YOU'RE DEAD!"
_____The echoes of her shouts faded, taken off on the city winds. So this was it. All three of
her sworn enemies were dead. She had so deeply wanted to kill the last one herself. No use in
trying to do that now. And now her family was waiting for her.
_____Sunlight glinted off of another piece of metal nearby. This piece of metal happened to be
shaped and crafted into the form of a handgun, gripped and held by a cyborg still buried in the
debris and rubble.
_____Whispering the names of her family members, she stumbled over to the gripped handgun.
It was to easy to take the weapon from the dead electromechanical hand--as if the buried broken
cyborg was handing her the thing. Kneeling on both knees, she used the fingers of her left hand
to get some hair out of the way, putting the barrel of the weapon to the synthetic skin of her
temple. Her tears dripped to the concrete as she squeezed the trigger.