"You should have seen it." The man sits back in his chair. "I didn't think it was possible, but he was able to just walk in and take what he wanted. We might as well have just hired a few gonks straight out of middle school for all the good they did."
The reporter waits as the man downs another shot. "Well, since I haven't seen it, why don't you walk me through what you saw?"
"Ah, right. I was gonna tell you about… about the incident. Let's see… it was back before he really made much of a name for himself-"
"Welcome to Dreamworld!" The artificially cheerful hostess greets the scruffy man as he walks in. "What would you like to experience today?"
V's eyes flick from corner to corner, taking stock of the area. "Uh… Braindance. Something sexy."
"Okay." The woman types in the information. Her newest customer seems like he's on his last legs, but who was she to deny a man spending his last credits on some pleasure before he goes? "Would Ms. Destiny work for you?"
His eyes move to the projection and he quickly nods.
While not really that odd, it did strike the hostess that he had barely glanced at the body of the woman. Normally people are a lot more choosy when it could be their last happy memory.
Still, it's not her place to stop anyone.
"Go ahead into room eighteen." She smiles, and he nods, walking past her.
The rooms are spartan, the only expense allowed being a few nicer couches so once in the throes of a braindance the physical form wouldn't be flopping around on the cold metal floor.
He closes the door, then plugs himself into the center console that promises to load a braindance and bring him immeasurable amounts of pleasure.
It's only seconds before everything starts to go wrong.
Upstairs, the very, very bored security officer stops pleasuring himself when one of the screens turns blood red, the only sort of warning that woul be able to penetrate the haze of his mind. Still, it takes him a good few seconds to realize what's gone wrong.
"Some gonk just got stuck in a BD again? Third fuckin' one this week!" He pulls his pants up and calls his boss."
"What is it this time?"
"Yeah, uh… got another fried gonk in booth eighteen."
There's a long sigh. "Send in some of the Tygers to clean them up, alright?"
"Got it." The call drop and the security office immediately rings up the Tyger thug on premises. "Hey, Minaka?"
"What is it?" The thug glares through his comms. "I'm talkin' with this babe right now, taikobara."
"Crispy one in eighteen."
Minaka barks out a laugh. "Can't get your shitty BD soft to work, still? Fine, let me deal with them. Eighteen?"
"Yeah."
The security guard sighs as he plugs back into the camera feeds, expecting to watch the Tyger claw walk in, drag out a charred and twitching corpse, and then he can report back to the boss that the body had been cleaned out.
Instead, Minaka walks in, and then a minute goes by.
Then two.
The security guard attempts to ring up Minaka, but the call refuses to connect.
Alright, this is taking too long. "Boss? Tyger went into the booth but didn't come out."
"Is he molesting corpses again? Fucking claws, can't trust them to do shit." The older man grumbles. "Go down there and deal with it."
"But-"
"Didn't ask."
The connection closes, and the security guard sighs. When he get's back, he's going to have to find something really spicy to get back to his quota-
The door into the hallway refuses to open.
He frowns. The password was the same. He never changed it, so it had to be the same.
Yet, when his fingers dance in a familiar pattern, the keypad beeps a harsh negative and remains firmly shut. What the hell-
Movement on one of the screens catches his eye, and he turns back to his wall of monitors.
The camera feeds inside the rooms show people in various states of dress, some twitching to their BDs, others pounding on their doors, trying to get out.
Only one room is both occupied but entirely still. Eighteen.
Minaka lies chest down on the floor, eyes staring glassily up at the cameras.
"Oh, shit."
A man with what must be some nice Kiroshi optics with the feature scramblers is walking through the otherwise empty halls, sleeves rolled back and a Unity handgun in his hands.
He once more rings up his boss, but it doesn't connect.
Minaka's dead, that's for sure. Maybe his backup?
He urgent;y sorts through his list of Tyger contacts, looking for one that would be nearby-
More movement draws his attention, and he glances at the screens once more.
The blurry faced man has stopped outside a door.
His door.
The lock on the door beeps a cheery chirp that indicates it's been unlocked, and the security guard realizes that he's about to die.
He pulls his shotgun out, aiming it at the door opening what seems to be impossibly slowly-
Then, every mechanical joint in his body locks up and- deprived of his ability to shift his weight, he topples over.
V, unshaven and eyes glowing a bright orange as he continues to hack things around himself, calmly walks into the security office and steps over the still twitching body.
The security guard has no choice but to watch as V steps over to the computer console and plugs a cable from his wrist into the console.
The camera feeds go dark, and in their place information pops up.
"A virus. No shit." He leans closer. "Maelstrom make? How did the claws get it?"
He pauses as if listening to someone else for a few seconds. "Well, it's clear that the boss isn't innocent of all of this. Let's go pay him a visit."
He steps over the security guard once more, teh door closing and locking behind him.
Suddenly, he joints are willing to cooperate once again, and he stands up as the camera feeds return to the screens.
The front door bursts open, three Tygers walking in loaded with iron. They fan out to search the area almost immediately, yelling out threats inaudible to the security guard.
He's forced to watch in horror as the trio walk further into the building, only to walk right past the man standing in plain sight.
He watches them walk past, drawing a blade before walking right behind the first Tyger and slitting his throat.
The other two spin around, fingers on their triggers. One of them is even able to get a shot off before they both burst into flames, eyes literally cooking the meat around them as the optics overload.
Once all three are on the floor, the man seems to inspect his shirt, find some blood and attempt to wring it out before giving up and heading back toward the main office.
The guard gulps. There's no way this is going to end well, is there?
The man walks right up the room, tapping the keypad in a sequence that the guard was sure the door wasn't set to this morning, then walking in.
The office is mic'ed up, since the boss likes to record his conversations to use as blackmail. The guard is able to listen in, quickly switching over to the correct channel.
"-Galveston, yeah?"
Galveston nods. "And who the fuck are you?"
"People call me V." V states pulling one of the chairs used for guests and sitting down with arms across the back. "I hear you've got quite a nice business here, Galv."
"Of course. We offer only the most premium BDs-"
"Nah, I ain't talking that petty shit. I'm talkin' the body snatchin'."
"I have no idea what you're talking about."
"Oh?" V stands back up, hand laying casually on the chair. "Man, it must be a crazy coincidence that every time someone picks 'Destiny' they're never seen again? Or, that their chrome all seems to end up at the ripper's down the street?"
"Oh, please. There's millions of other explanations. After all, all of our BDs are safe. I've checked them myself."
"Safe." V nods. "Alright. So the receipts from Maelstrom about a custom BD with embedded kill soft isn't real?"
Galveston pauses. "No."
"Alright." V turns. "Well then, sorry to bother you."
"Huh? Ah… yes, you'd better leave now before I call my back-"
The chair V never quite let go of soars past Galveston's head so fast that it's hard to see on camera, destroying the BD servers behind him.
On other screens, people start to wake up, irritated that their jerk-off session had been interrupted.
"You… you fucking gonk!" Galveston raises his holdout firearm, but it's much too late.
His arm stops responding to his instructions, the firearm dropping to the floor as V walks up to him.
"So, I had an idea." He pushes Galveston over, not attempting to brace his head at all, and a pool of blood starts to slowly form. "You say this BD is safe, yeah? Well, let's just run it on you then."
"W-wait, you can't do that?"
"Why not?" V tilts his head. "You just said it's safe."
"My, uh, my hardware is incompatible with BDs!"
"You just said you checked them yourself." V pulls out the cable from his palm and plugs it into the port right behind Galveston's ear.
The man sieves up, eyes rolling up into his head after a few seconds and life signs going flat.
The security guard swallows nervously. This guy is nuts.
"Well, that's that." V stands up and looks around. "Anything look like it's worth taking?" After a few moments of looking around he shrugs and turns for the door. "Yeah, it did go well. Hardly any reinforcements."
He raises his handgun and shoots at the alarm panel.
All the lights in the building flick to red, and an alarm starts blaring at piercing volumes.
"Boring."
"-And that's when I decided to hide under the security console for the next few hours." The man slugs down yet another shot. "Ain't no way I was gonna step into the cyberpsycho's path."
"Do you think he was suffering from cyberpsychosis?"
"Nah, lady. I just meant… look, when I finally got out the floor was literally covered with corpses. My shoes filled with blood trying to walk through the piles of Tyger claw bodies. I always figured they'd come after me, but they didn't because they were too busy dealing with the literal morgue's worth of dead."
"Why did he spare you?"
"I dunno." He shudders. "I expected him to come after me at any moment, so I found my favorite porn and just started going at it, you know? Figured if I had to go, I was gonna get at least one more good wank-"
Editor's note: While we have received many requests to ask Mr. Peter's what his favorite porn was after this documentary was released, evidence points to him being taken by a gang of Tyger Claws shortly after the release of the documentary. It seems they had not forgotten about him as he had assumed.
