Disclaimer: This story is an adaptation of the videogame "Ripper", all copyrights of which belong to Take-Two Interactive.
Bloody Renovation
All our times have come
Here but now they're gone
Seasons don't fear the Reaper
Nor do the wind, the sun or the rain... We can be like they are
Come on baby... Don't fear the Reaper
Baby take my hand... Don't fear the Reaper
We'll be able to fly... Don't fear the Reaper
Baby I'm your man
Valentine is done
Here but now they're gone
Romeo and Juliet
Are together in eternity... Romeo and Juliet
40,000 men and women everyday... Like Romeo and Juliet
40,000 men and women everyday... Redefine happiness
Another 40,000 coming everyday... We can be like they are
Come on baby... Don't fear the Reaper
Baby take my hand... Don't fear the Reaper
We'll be able to fly... Don't fear the Reaper
Baby I'm your man...
Love of two is one
Here but now they're gone
Came the last night of sadness
And it was clear she couldn't go on
Then the door was open and the wind appeared
The candles blew then disappeared
The curtains flew then he appeared... Saying don't be afraid
Come on baby... And she had no fear...
And she ran to him... Then they started to fly
They looked backward and said goodbye... She had become like they are
She had taken his hand... She had become like they are
Come on baby...Don't fear the Reaper
(Don't Fear) The Reaper, by Blue Öyster Cult
It had been a long time since he had last heard that song. While he was sure many would debate the actual quality of the song, he held a lot of emotional attachment to it regardless. He remembered first hearing it back in 1976, at the tender age of ten years. Before that point, he hadn't paid much attention to music, but one of his friends at school had introduced him to it, as well as several other classic rock songs.
While all of the songs had kindled an interest in rock music that had lasted to this day, this song in-particular had stood out. He found it paradoxical how a song could be so relentlessly catchy and yet so hauntingly sad at the same time. He knew the song was about suicide, but he had always found something about the title that was sort of inspirational. When he became a G-Chaser, one of the first lessons he had learned was to not fear the prospect of almost-certain death. As such 'Don't Fear the Reaper' had become a sort of mantra that he lived by, one that had stuck with him in the decades he had lived through.
As the song ended, he switched to a different version of the song, one that had once been played live with more drum fills and a big rock finish. He sat at the small desk in the corner of his apartment, shifting his gaze between his word-processor - complete with half-finished document - and a painting on his wall of a cityscape drawn art-deco style. He hated trying to write articles, for he found himself with frequent cases of writer's block, but he preferred being busy in the quiet periods between shadowruns. Those covert operations seemed to have dried up lately, and he was beginning to worry about this, for as dangerous as those jobs were they were by far the best-paying jobs. Writing just didn't cut it in this day and age.
As a stroke of inspiration came to him and he began to type more words onto the page, there was a knock on the apartment door. Cursing as his concentration was thrown off again, he crossed over to the door and peered through the peep-hole. A young Japanese woman was stood on the other side, with long black hair, a maroon T-shirt, blue jeans and black boots. He smiled slightly as he recognised her and opened the door to let her in.
"Evening, Miki," he said, standing aside to let the woman walk into the apartment. He shut the door behind her, crossing back over to his writing-desk.
"Didn't think you'd be coming round this evening," he continued. "I thought Sparks would want all hands on deck."
"Not this evening, Alan," Miki Saegusa replied. "He's been awfully secretive tonight. Well, you know him; he's always got one dodgy deal or another going on in that place. Still, you'd think..."
Ever since she had been forced to leave her old, very prestigious job behind one year ago, Miki had managed to stay afloat by working at the bar owned by Sparks, the dwarf rigger of Alan's shadowrunning team. She also helped out on shadowruns; her previous knowledge of the inner workings of megacorporations had helped out a lot, as well as her abilities as a psychic. She paused in her speaking to gaze over at Alan's sound system, now hearing the music change to another classic rock number. Her face was contorted into a look of disbelief.
"What is this?" she asked. "It sounds like another illegal something Sparks would play at the bar."
"It's Blue Öyster Cult," Alan replied, turning away from his word processor. "I'm writing an article about them for a retro music magazine."
"I remember you saying you worked freelance," Miki said. "Anything interesting to say about them?"
"Well, here's something that might give you a laugh," Alan replied. "They once did a song dedicated to Godzilla back in 1977. They offended just about everyone with it; aid workers, the government, not to mention just about everyone in Japan still recovering from the most recent attack. This song ended up getting banned. The band did manage to get back on their feet after that fiasco, but technically the ban on this song was never lifted even after Godzilla was presumed dead. You have no idea how much trouble I had getting the sound-file." At this, Miki giggled.
"I said it might give you a laugh," Alan said, nodding.
"I've just started wondering," Miki began, "what President Knight would-"
"Former President, Miki," Alan corrected her rather forcefully. "Besides the fact that he's not President anymore, you ought to be on first-name terms with him, given your 'condition'."
"Alright, alright," Miki shrugged. "No need to bite my head off. Anyway, I wonder what Kiryuu would make of such a dedication. He'd probably find it highly amusing."
"I wouldn't know," Alan replied. "I never found out what sort of music he's into, or even if he listens to music. I did hear once that he was a keen player of the Halo games, though."
"What's 'Halo'?" Miki asked, looking puzzled.
"Oh, never mind," Alan replied. "That, like just about everything else in this apartment, was well before your time."
Miki just nodded rather dumbly. She looked around the apartment, taking in the sights of all the old electronic goods and movie posters lining the walls. She could tell that Alan was addicted to the 20th and early 21st centuries. She knew that those years meant a lot to Alan, but she still found it funny how he couldn't seem to stand modern technology.
Miki knew that Alan was a mutant; she knew of the experiments that had been performed on him, in an effort to cross his DNA with Godzilla's own. She had learned all of this last year, after an unpleasant encounter with the other victims of those experiments. Over the past year, she had gotten used to the idea, and now it seemed to be just another point of idle discussion between them. Of Alan's shadowrunning team, she was the only one who knew about any of this, and for some reason that made her feel rather privileged. She looked at Alan's left arm, which was covered in hard grey scales with a four-fingered claw in place of a hand. She couldn't help both pitying Alan and admiring him for all that he had been through.
Alan, in turn, was crazy about Miki. He had come to find a lot that was very attractive about her; her honesty and kind nature coupled with a refusal to take any rubbish from anyone was one he found very appealing. He had come to know and like her a lot during the last year, and mentally debated whether or not to take this beyond mere friendship. He turned away from his writing to look at her with those golden reptilian eyes of his.
"Can I get you anything?" Alan asked. "Any drinks, or anything?"
"No, thanks," Miki replied. She glanced out of the window, where the evening sky was beginning to cloud over. All signs pointed to there being a thunderstorm, and sure enough a deep rumbling noise was heard some distance away.
"Great..." she muttered. "Another storm in Seattle. As if we don't get enough of them already..."
All of a sudden there was a shrill beeping coming from Alan's commlink, strapped to his reptilian arm. He muttered a few choice curses at being interrupted, and switched on. An avatar that looked like a cartoony green lion appeared on the holographic screen, looking in a considerable state of distress. He recognised this as belonging to his hacker teammate, Zapper, though he had never seen a distressed expression on this avatar before.
"Zapper?" he asked. "What is it? I'm kind of busy here."
"Ryuu..." Zapper's voice could be heard. His tone worried Alan a lot; he sounded very faint, in a state of complete shock, his breathing decidedly ragged.
"I..." he continued to stammer, "I didn't know who else to turn to... I need your help, real bad..."
"Slow down, mate," Alan said, trying to calm him down. "Just calm down. What is it? How can I help?"
"It's..." Zapper hesitated for a moment, his voice almost completely breaking down into a howl of dismay.
"It's Catherine..." he finally said. "The Reaper got her."
***
The past year had been a turbulent one for Alan's shadowrunning hacker, Zapper. Originally christened Cale LeRoi (at least that was what his 'legal' SIN said anyway), his frustrations with his leader's apparent lack of trust in those who were supposed to be his friends had mounted. Ever since that incident the previous year, he had found his leader had become more withdrawn, and had been spending an awful lot of time with Miki of late. He had tried to find out more about his leader through his hacking, but nothing on him seemed to exist. That was understandable, after the Second Crash, but it was frustrating all the same.
The shadowruns were becoming few and far between of late, so Zapper had forced himself to get what some might call a 'real job' for the sake of getting by. Through his many connections in the Matrix, he had been able to secure himself a job as a reporter for the Seattle Herald, a newspaper that was mostly distributed online. He mostly dealt with features on happenings in the Matrix and the latest technological toys available on the market.
That had been until roughly a week ago, when the Reaper killings started. A string of violent murders had occurred across the city recently. Death was not something especially new on the streets of Seattle, but what shocked people about these killings was the sheer viciousness of them. The victims had literally been slashed limb from limb, ripped apart with such intense ferocity. What was especially strange was that the killings had all happened in areas with very heavy security, with no obvious pattern.
Zapper had found himself given a very hasty promotion, for of all the reporters in the city the so-called "Reaper" had picked him to be his instrument of communication. He (at least many assumed it was a he) sent riddles and bold statements proclaiming his triumphs to Zapper personally, demanding that he print them in the newspaper. Zapper had tried to trace the Reaper's communications through the Matrix, but the Reaper was far too clever, apparently a master at covering his online tracks. No-one knew who he was or how he was killing people so viciously, and everyone was frightened, living in fear that they could be next.
It was at the newspaper where Zapper had met his current girlfriend, Catherine Powell, a reporter of some five years. The two of them were working together to crack the Reaper case, for Zapper had decided to take a personal hand in the investigation due to the Reaper contacting him. Now it seemed Catherine was about to pay the price for their investigations...
Zapper had wanted to meet Alan at the police station in downtown Seattle. Out of concern for his teammate, Alan had agreed, and so it was on that wet evening, the raindrops bouncing off of the tarmac with great force, that Alan steered his motorbike into the covered visitor parking area, where he found the spiky-haired elf waiting for him. Zapper looked very shaken.
"Ryuu?" Zapper asked faintly, addressing Alan by his call-sign as Alan parked the bike and switched off the engine. The mutant walked over to Zapper, looking concerned.
"I'm here, mate," he replied. "You holding up alright?" At this, Zapper shot Alan a very icy look.
"Do I look like I'm doing alright?!" he almost yelled. "The Reaper's still out there, taunting me, and Catherine..." At this, he turned away, snarling. Alan could sense that Zapper's feelings for Catherine were very real indeed; he had never seen the elf so badly shaken before. Usually nothing fazed him.
"Alright, look," Alan said, trying to sound reasonable. "Why not just tell me what happened, right from the beginning? I get the feeling you wanted to speak to me before you spoke to the cops, or else why would I be here?"
"Yeah..." Zapper replied faintly. He allowed Alan to steer him to a bench looking out across the police station's courtyard, where a fountain was becoming full to bursting with rainwater. On the fountain was a heavily-graffitied statue of Justice, for the police station doubled not only as a courthouse, but also a prison. Zapper's eyes were facing in its direction, but he did not seem to be looking at anything at all as he began to recount the experiences of the day.
"My editor," he said, "Ben Dodds, called me at 3am to give me the news. There'd been a third victim, a woman this time. The murder had taken place at the old City Library. You know how it's been turned into an apartment block, what with most of the library's resources now on the Matrix? I decided to go there myself while Catherine made another attempt to trace the Reaper's signal. The crime scene was one of the larger apartments, so the victim was pretty well-to-do. Of course, the police were already there, checking things out.
"They've got a new detective on the case," he said. "You remember me telling you that Det. Goldstein came down with HMHVV?"
Alan nodded. HMHVV, or the Human-Metahuman Vampiric Virus, was a very nasty piece of work that turned its victims into undead creatures such as ghouls and vampires. Alan himself was immune to it, but he hated the thought of it still having a presence in the city.
"Well, the new detective," Zapper continued, "is a real hard-ass called Vincent Rigden."
"Rigden?" Alan suddenly asked.
"You know him?" Zapper asked, wide-eyed.
"No," Alan replied quickly. "I used to know a 'Rigden', that's all. Anyway, go on."
"Well," Zapper continued, "the encounter wasn't exactly friendly. Here, I'll let you listen for yourself..."
He pressed some buttons on his commlink, until an audio file began to play. Alan knew that their commlinks had small microphones installed, so that they could record sensitive conversations easily and covertly. Now an extremely rough, haggard voice was speaking. For some reason that voice made Alan's hair stand on end; it was so harsh, giving the impression of a very uncompromising attitude.
"Figured you'd get here sooner or later, LeRoi," the voice gruffly spoke. Alan deduced that this was Detective Rigden he was listening to, and he felt that this was not a man he wanted to get on the wrong side of.
"You can't get enough of this story, can you?" Rigden asked, making no effort to hide his sarcasm.
"I think everybody's had enough of this story," Zapper's voice could be heard, sounding unflappable. "And you are?"
"Detective Vincent Rigden, SPD," Rigden curtly replied. "I know ol' Goldstein gave you a lot of leeway, but this is my investigation now, so you better watch your a**."
The sound of muffled footsteps could then be heard. It sounded like the room was well-carpeted. It was then that he heard the sound of Zapper retching slightly. The smell in that room with the body had to be appalling. Alan was too used to it to care, but he could imagine Zapper getting decidedly queasy.
"Cold Carl Styzyack," Zapper could be heard saying. "We've gotta stop meeting like this." There was a moment of silence, before Zapper suddenly shouted, "Carl!"
"Carl's the pathologist," the Zapper sat next to Alan explained. "He's been working on all the Reaper's victims. So far, zippo."
"Sorry, LeRoi," a reedy, nervous-sounding voice could be heard saying.
"Was there any difference between this murder and the previous ones?" Zapper asked.
"It was identical," Carl sighed. "Absolutely identical. It was a precision cut; a perfect line, cut so as to empty the body cavity. The organs were blown all around the room!"
Alan couldn't begin to imagine what had gone on in that apartment. It sounded too sick for words.
"So it was the same killer?" Zapper asked, though it sounded like he already could guess the answer.
"That's for sure," Carl replied wryly. "I mean the organs... They were completely cut to pieces! I've never seen anything like this in my life... It's amazing, in its own sick way."
"Any clues as to how it was done?" Zapper asked.
Carl just gave a deep sigh. "Don't ask me," he said simply. "You'd think I'd be used to seeing things like this by now, but I'm not. Whoever did this..." He paused for a moment, as if trying to find an appropriate phrase.
All that came out was, "It's beyond madness. It's pure evil."
"Sounds melodramatic," Alan stated.
"I would have thought so too," Zapper replied. "Until I saw the apartment. It was... horrible. No-one in their right mind could have done something like this, and I thought I'd seen it all." He sighed as the sound file continued to play.
"Any idea what weapon he's using?" Zapper was saying.
"Take a look at this mess," was Carl's response. "It has to be something big; a sword, axe, monofilament whip, something like that. You can't cut through all that bone and muscle with a dagger, and the strength it would take to make a cut like that... He'd have to be enormous, even if he was packed to the gills with cyberware and drugs. I'll talk to you about it some more later, once I've got this body to the morgue and given it a more thorough look."
"So any real progress in the investigation at all?" Zapper asked.
"Who knows?" Carl sighed. "Unlike Goldstein, trying to get anything out of Rigden's next to impossible. Besides, if he does have a lead, he'd sure as hell never share it. He might lose his bounty if he does that." He chuckled slightly at his own little joke.
"Well, you've been in the department for years," Zapper said impatiently. "What's your hunch?"
"Well, something's buggin' him," Carl replied, "but who am I to talk? I'm having nightmares about this. I've been in forensics for twenty-two years, and nothin's ever got to me like this. Now I can't sleep."
"You just need a vacation, that's all," Zapper said, encouragingly.
"I hope you're right," Carl replied, sadly.
"Thanks, Carl," Zapper finished. "You take care." More muffled footsteps could be heard, which quickly stopped.
"I took a quick look at the victim's terminal," Zapper explained. "I noticed it was switched on, which I thought was odd. I couldn't see much on the screen; it was covered in blood like everything else. I couldn't tell what it was she was last looking at, and I didn't dare jack in with Rigden watching me. Speaking of which..." he paused as more footsteps were heard, "I got a chance to question him too."
"Don't go taking any souvenirs, LeRoi," Rigden's harsh voice spoke up from the audio file, almost making Alan jump.
"I did the same," Zapper said wryly. "He snuck up behind me with that one."
"Same MO as the others?" Zapper asked on the audio file.
"You got it," Rigden replied. "Look around you, a**hole. If anything, this is more gruesome than the other two. Hell of a lot more splatter."
"Who was the victim?" Alan asked.
"I was just getting to that..." Zapper muttered.
"Who's the victim?" the recorded Zapper asked at that moment.
"Name's Stein," Rigden replied. "May Stein. Age fourty-three, book editor, human."
"Any connection to the other two?" was Zapper's next question, anticipating Alan's next query.
"Well, let's see..." Rigden replied, sounding rather snotty. "Estevez was a programmer and dwarf, Mendell a dry-cleaner and orc. It'll take me fourty-eight hours to run it down, but there's no connection here."
"You have any clues?" Zapper asked, in a tone that sounded somewhat cheeky to Alan.
"No sign of forced entry," Rigden stated, "nothing was disturbed. Two sets of prints; hers and her mother's. The only thing not where it should be is this woman's insides."
"But what about witnesses?" Zapper asked. "This guy must have been a bloody mess. Even if it's three o'clock in the morning, somebody must have seen him."
"As far as I know," Rigden irritably said, "he only left us with one witness, and she's feeling a little fragmented at the moment. This guy... He's un-fucking-believable!"
"How's anybody taking this guy seriously?" Alan snorted. That statement had come completely out of left-field, as far as he was concerned. Zapper just shrugged.
"Why's her computer on?" Zapper asked, after a moment's silence.
"It looks like she was in a public library node," Rigden responded. "Now let me ask you a question; you got any heads-ups, maybe something from your little pen-pal?"
"He writes after the fact, not before," Zapper sighed. "You should know that, Rigden. I never held out on Goldstein, and I wouldn't hold out on you."
"Of course not!" Rigden snarled. "You've been very good about sharing what you know, with the department and several million other people! I should have busted you when you ran that first letter without letting us know about it!"
"Ouch..." Alan muttered. "He's got you there."
"Yeah, well," Zapper mumbled. "Goldstein was always a bit soft in the head. Not this guy, though."
"Alright," Rigden continued, "visiting hours are over. There's nothing here you haven't seen at the other murder sites except a few extra gallons of body fluids."
"You shouldn't be touching anything," Zapper suddenly asked, "should you, Rigden?"
"He had a piece of paper in his hand," Zapper explained. "When I pointed this out to him, he just dropped it on the floor, gave me a cold look then walked out." He stopped the playback at this point, pulling a rolled-up piece of paper out of his pocket. "I was lucky to be able to remove this from the apartment without anyone noticing."
He showed the paper to Alan. On it was what looked like a series of lines, all in six groups of six and each line of varying thickness. On it was also written the word 'Salisbury'.
"What's this supposed to be?" Alan asked.
"It looks like a barcode cipher," Zapper said. "I think the Seattle Central Library node uses them as ID numbers for the books, so if nothing else we can find out what was the last thing she was reading in there. 'Salisbury' is probably her account password."
"Not much to go on, is it?" Alan said.
"Too right," Zapper sighed. "Anyway, after that I spent the day typing up the Reaper's letter to be broadcast on the Matrix. Catherine hadn't been into the office all day. Then I got a call from her. She said that she was onto something, possibly involving the Reaper, and told me to go wait for her at her apartment if I didn't hear from her in an hour. I tried asking Ben about it, but he was as stumped as I was. She was only supposed to be helping me, considering the Reaper only writes to me, but she was acting like it was her own story...
"Then, about an hour later, that was when the Reaper called me again." Zapper's skin started to go pale. "I wasn't able to trace the source of his call again. Just... have a look. I haven't shown this to anyone else yet..."
He switched over to a video file, and instantly what looked like a large, glowing ruby against a black background filled Zapper's commlink screen. At first, Alan thought he could see other parts of this being, just out of sight, but he reasoned that must have been a trick of the light. The ruby glow was V-shaped, giving the impression of a mouth or an eye. As the Reaper spoke, the ruby glow flashed every so often:
"Dear Boss," the Reaper's voice spoke, in a deep, metallic voice that echoed and seemed to cause the hairs on Alan's neck to stand on end, "have you seen my work this morning yet? Your stories make the cops seem so competent. None of you know how I do it, you never will, and you shouldn't let your girlfriend do your work for you. She is close to me, and I'm not laughing... She's... my... next... job... If she gets it today, the story's all yours. Yours truly, Reaper."
As the Reaper finished, the ruby glow filled the whole screen before fading. Alan was silent. He remembered how Zapper had shown him the Reaper's letters on the news, but that voice never failed to send a chill down Alan's spine.
"Needless to say," Zapper said, his voice sounding more faint, "I got out of the office and ran to Catherine's apartment. Usually it takes an hour to cross that part of the sprawl, but I did it in twenty minutes." He sighed, shaking his head. "I'm still kicking myself in the ass for letting Catherine go out alone. Everything looked okay in her apartment, but then Catherine showed up...
"She..." he stammered, "she staggered in. She looked like a zombie. She only managed to breath out the words 'the Reaper' before collapsing. I tried to revive her, but her pulse was so erratic. I shouted out, and luckily one of the neighbours heard the commotion and called the emergency services while I stayed with Catherine.
"The good news is that she isn't dead, but the bad news is that she's now in a coma deeper than I thought possible. The ever-helpful Detective Rigden had her taken to the Tribecca Centre for Cyber-Studies."
"That new clinic they just put up?" Alan asked. "It's also known as the MediCog, right?"
"Yeah..." Zapper replied faintly. "Then I called you, and that's where we're at now." He stood up at that point, trying to put on a brave face, even though Alan could see sweat running down his face. "I'm going into the police station to talk to a few contacts and try to retrieve Catherine's commlink. For some reason I can't hack into it remotely, but hopefully she'll have left me a message on there."
Alan nodded. "Count me in," he said. "I'll help you in any way I can to catch this psycho. I'm sure Miki and Sparks will too. We all have to watch out for each other in the shadows, and this time's no different."
Zapper nodded appreciatively. Alan didn't say that he also doubted Zapper's state of mind at present. He wanted to be present in case the elf did anything rash. The attack on Catherine had shaken him harder than Alan thought possible, so he knew it wasn't safe for Zapper to be on his own right now.
With that, the two of them walked through the parking bay and headed into the police station itself.