Chapter 35
The door slip open, emitting a light whisper and splitting Vox's painted image right in half.
It led right into the heart of Vox's operations...or at least, it certainly looked like it as far as Chay could tell, if the rows and rows of screens covering the walls were anything to go by. She'd seen all of the other garish decorations of this tower, from the numerous corporate paraphernalia to the near-nude photographs of a 'younger' Valentino (back when he had both full antennae instead of one).
But this was a kind of insecurity on a completely different level. For one thing, the 'floor' of the office was almost non-existent: there was a ring around the room with a walkable surface that was roughly six feet wide surrounding an enormous, cavernous pit filled with water tinted red from the lighting. Only one, singular bridge extended out into the middle of this chasm, leading to a floating platform which itself was emblazoned with Vox's logo.
Then, there were the sharks. The pit's water was inhabited by what looked like a school of viscious, neon-lighted cybernetic sharks that had long, prehensile tails that stretched far beyond any shark she had ever encountered in life. They seemed to circle the platform, sensing that a potential meal was ready to unceremoniously fall into their jaws.
And, of course, there were the screens. They completely covered the walls from top to bottom, floor to ceiling. Nor did they remain in one place, as they continually shifted position from one area to the next, seemingly floating in thin air while also being pulled around by unseen mechanics. The images on the screen showed various shots from within and without the tower: the lobby where they had snuck in, the door in the lobby that also had Vox's image leading into the employee's area, the streets outside which were currently crawling with WUL, and countless images of what looked like inside shots of other Sinners's homes.
Then there were the screens all clustered up in the middle of the platform...where someone was sitting in a chair, positioned directly in front of them.
She cocked the hammer on her pistol and slowly made her way forward on the bridge. Her footsteps reverberated all around the room as she came closer and closer to the array of screens and wires. The sharks in the water started circling closer and closer, practically chomping for the chance.
She could hear…muffled speech?
"Mmmf, mffmff..."
Something was off here. In fact, she had been incredibly uneasy the entire operation. The Vees might have been arrogant, narcissistic and frankly deviant in every way imaginable...but certainly they weren't stupid, and especially not Vox. Even with WUL in the area, they wouldn't have simply been this lax in security. She knew enough about what he was capable of to know that, the moment they spotted her, his people would be on her in a nanosecond. That was why she had made the decision to send Lester into the crawlspace to remain hidden. At the very least, she could provide a distraction…
"Mfff, fuffkmfmkm!"
But so far? Nothing. Not even an alarm.
She exhaled slowly as she crept up to the office chair. It was wide and made of luxurious black leather, and had yet another iteration of Vox's logo on the back. It was large enough for four or five people to sit in.
She put her hand on the chair and spun it around.
"MFFFMFFMFFFFFFMFF!"
She found Vox.
And Valentino.
And Velvette.
All three of them, bound to the chair with blessed rope and duct tape over their mouths. Val was roughly seated on the chair's cushion, with Vox on his lap and Velvette on top of his.
They didn't look happy at all.
"...Well, this just opens a whole new set of questions.", she said.
Vox yelled a very muffled 'fuck you' directly at her.
"...And now, we're here."
The Hotel lobby was silent, but it was a silence that was loud.
"Holy fucking shit…", Angel said, brushing his hair back from his forehead.
"Yeah.", Viola said as she put the cigarette out in the ashtray. "That's the appropriate response."
"Jesus, that shit with the tree…", Vaggie said. "I saw some shit when I was alive but that's...that's a lot."
"Lines up with what I remember.", Husk said as he wiped down a beer stein. "Well, the stuff I heard then. Kinda didn't live long enough to see that whole thing with the Chinese, though."
"Neither did Chay.", Viola said. "She died in '78. She's never told us why."
"Purge.", Husk answered. "She started making noise about Dear Leader's personality cult and they shot her."
Vaggie raised an eyebrow. "And you know that because…?"
"She told me.", Husk answered. "Back when we first met. I recognized the clothes she was wearing and made the connection. That scarf is a dead giveaway."
"You'd think.", Viola said. "But you're the first Sinner we've encountered who made the connection."
Charlie clapped her hands. "This changes nothing. She's still a guest here, and I want to help her earn redemption just like everybody else. She clearly regrets her past actions and-"
She was interrupted by a loud blaring siren.
WHHHOOOOOOOOOP WHHOOOOOOOOP
Loud, metallic grinding rattled outside of the Hotel's walls, nearly deafening everyone inside. A quartet of metallic walls, as tall as the Hotel was, raised up simultaneously from hidden compartments on all four sides of the Hotel grounds, completely enclosing the building in an iron shell.
"Attention Hotel guests and staff", Baxter's voice crackled over the intercom. "It is now 11:00 PM. Lockdown is now in effect and will not be lifted until noon tomorrow. All doors and windows leading in and out of the building have been closed and sealed shut. Any last minute preparations guests wish to take within the Hotel before the Extermination begins should be done now. That is all."
Charlie jumped up out of her chair. "OK, OK...we still have an hour, right? An hour? Great, perfect…I'm gonna go find my dad and get ready. Vaggie?"
"I'm on it." Her Angelic harpoon appeared in her hand. "I'm gonna head to the roof and make some last minute inspections. We need Niffty to check the vents and make sure those grills are secure. We'll need Fye to help her inspect…fuuuuuuuuckkk."
The room suddenly grew quiet.
"...He's still not back, is he?"
Lucius grabbed his hellphone and quickly started texting.
"I'm on it.", he blurted out as his claws clicked on the screen. "Give me a second for a respo-"
The hellphone bleeped out the texting signal.
"...He says 'Hunkered down at branch HQ basement.'...so I guess he's fine for the moment."
Vaggie gave a sigh of relief. "Well, that's one accounted for. That just leaves-"
"Chay!", Shakie shouted as she jumped up from her chair. "She's still out there!"
"Shit, that's right.", Vaggie replied anxiously. "Fuck, alright. Think, think…"
She pointed at the Imps. "Any ideas, you two?"
Lucius began texting on his phone again. "Hold on...I'm gonna text Fye again. Maybe he's seen her."
"Text Gish, to.", Viola suggested. "She might be nearby."
"You're not worried about that Gish chick?", Angel asked.
"She usually spends Extermination Day outside.", Viola answered. "Never bothered her before."
Charlie gave a worried smile. "Great! That's...concerning, but also great!"
Lucius's phone bleeped again.
"….He says 'Haven't seen her yet. Getting people now.'….the fuck does that mean?"
Chay grabbed the tape over Vox's mouth and ripped it off.
The Overlord responded with an angry yowl of pain.
"FFFFfuuck! God fucking dammit piece of shit...COCK!"
Val answered him with an angry moan. Velvette just rolled her eyes.
"I'd ask whether you kiss your mother with that mouth, but for all I know you did."
"Hey, eat my ass you dried-out shrunken head on a stick!", he yelled back.
"Yeah, whatever."
She cocked her gun and pointed it at the Vees.
"Now, listen closely because I'm not saying this twice. I've got six more bullets left. All of them are Carmine originals, with hollow point tips. That means I have two shots for each one of you, and believe me when I say that I am just itching to make you hurt in the worst way possible for the shit you three assholes have done."
She pointed it at Vox. "You, for helping unleash those fucking abominations out there…"
Then to Val, "You, for what you've done to my friends and all of those other people you still have under contract…"
and finally to Velvette, "And you...well I just don't like you."
Vox broke out in sputtering mad laughter.
"Are you fucking me right now? Are you fucking me right now?!"
His voice began to distort into static-filled overblown rage, like a blown out speaker.
"Not only do you come into my tower, march into my office, stain my carpets with the blood of men I hired, damaged my property, and now you have the fucking absolute nerve to point a gun at me and make demands? Of me?!"
The screen on his face began to glow brighter. His larger red eye began to shift around and vibrate.
"Do you have any goddamn idea just who the fuck you are messing with? Do you realize just how badly you are currently fu- wait, what the fuck are you doing? Why are you turning around-"
Chay had turned completely around, facing the opposite direction.
"Lester?", she called out. "You nearby?"
A small voice echoed from the top of the cavernous room. "Present."
In what looked like a green rock plummeting from a tall cliff, Lester descended upon the three Vees and landed on the headrest of the chair. He took a piece of cloth from his cloak and wrapped it around Vox's head.
"Blinded him.", he said.
"Oh fuck you! Fuck you fuck you fuck you! PUSSY!", Vox screamed.
Chay turned back around, a deadly serious grin on her face.
"Yeah, I'm not taking any chances. My guess is that your regular powers are being suppressed due to that blessed rope you guys are tied up with, meaning you probably couldn't hypnotize a damn thing right now...but still, I'm not going to chance it."
Lester hopped off the chair and strolled up to Chay's side.
"We have found the man with the television head.", he said.
"That we have, Lester.", Chay answered. "So, you want to introduce yourself to our trio of twats here, or would you like me to do the honors?
Lester's blood-stained sickle slowly emerged from his cloak.
"Alright then.", Chay answered again. "OK, you three: flash back about three weeks ago…"
She pointed her gun at Vox's head.
"You and Huggles the Pimp Moth rolled up in front of the Hotel, threatening to raze the building unless we gave you your precious prototype back. My little friend here broke Val's hand, and then the Princess made both of you look like chumps. Since I can just see some of the cast on your fingers through those ropes, I'm going to guess you both remember it rather vividly…so no need to go into anymore detail, I wager."
Vox growled.
"I swear to fuck I'm going to feed you you're own fucking entrails with an oyster fork you goddamn-"
"Now, moving on from there: after you both left with your tails between your legs, we experienced a certain…I would use the term 'zombie apocalypse', but that doesn't quite match up. Either way, you three were probably able to completely ignore that whole deal, what with it only lasting a night and you three having this oh-so-well secured tower to cower in…which leads us to this..."
She reached into her pocket and pulled out a mostly intact shard, one that was completely defused and inactive.
"All of those creeches had these things embedded in their heads. The so-called 'bootlegs', as you yourself called them. All based on your prototype. I know you can't really see it, Vox, but I'm sure you're smart enough to know what I'm talking about."
She repocketed the shard.
"Well, that lead me to ask a few questions of a few people. One of them was an employee of yours that apparently stole that prototype and then sold it to a fixer, who was in turn working for...well, you three are already acquainted with him, if the WUL agents outside are any suggestion….and the dozen or so corpses we left behind."
This time, it was Valentino's turn to start yelling and growling ...though with the tape over his mouth he was still unintelligible.
Chay sighed. "I'm going to regret this…"
She reached up and tore the tape off of his mouth.
"Hijo de puta con la polla flacida de mierada the bastard took my fucking penthouse!"
Vox moaned irritably. "Oh fuck off, Val. We're kind of dealing with some other shit right now."
"Hey, fuck you!", Val yelled back at him. "We wouldn't be in this fucking mess if you had just taken employee background checks a little more seriously!"
"Mmmfffmfmfm!"
Velvette was trying to yell through her own tape. Chay was seriously considering just letting it stay there.
It was Lester who walked up and tore if off of her face.
"Your muffled yelling annoys me.", Lester said. "Speak plainly and with purpose."
The Overlord spat out adhesive residue from the tape. "Fuckin' hell, we…first off, fuck you ya munchkin Speak & Spell...but second he's fucking right, ya flathead! We're in this situation because you let that Hibernian bell-end head up your security for your stupid little pet project!"
"You know…", Chay interjected. "I really do have to ask: Sawney Bean? Really?"
Vox looked (blindly) between the three Sinners.
"Well….I mean….he was just….come on, man!", he whined, stomping his feet on the floor.
BLAM
One of the screens behind the Vees sparked and smoked.
"Huh.", Chay said. "I guess your powers aren't completely muted."
"All the fuckin' good it does us.", Vel sneered.
Chay shook her head. "Look, I'm going to take a wild guess here: You decided to beef up your security, so you called in Bodfish's outfit, not knowing that he was working with Flynn this whole time. He got one over on all three of you, and now your tower is crawling with WUL and Flynn is somewhere in the building. Your thoughts?"
Vox leaned over to the side, growling indecipherable.
"You know, my grandmother used to say that a man who growls all the time turns into a monkey.", Chay said.
"I'm startin' to think he might be as daft as one.", Velvette muttered.
"Whatever. I'm gonna get to the point."
She re-cocked the hammer on her gun and pointed it, again, at Vox's head.
"Two questions, answer clearly. First: your people kidnapped a Sinner named Ella. She just so happens to be my friend's sister. I know for a fact that she is here, somewhere in this tower. I don't know what state she's in, but you will tell me where she is."
"I don't have to tell you shit.", Vox spat back.
"...True.", Chay said. She slowly lowered the gun's line of sight. "So my next question is: which testicle are you least attached to? You better choose wisely, because the way it's looking I'm probably gonna take out Val's nutsack as well."
"Whoa whoa whoa…", Vox answered, visibly sweating. "Let's not get ahead of ourselves here!
She made a big show of un-cocking and then slowly re-cocking the gun as loudly as she could.
"Look, you know this already!", Vox yelled, a panicked grin on his face. "That prototype is a mind control device! We put it in the vault because it just wasn't working out-"
"Yeah, no."
She walked up and pressed the barrel against Vox's glass face.
"I figured out that was a bullshit excuse days ago. The shards are for UI in an attempt to copy and upload a person's soul."
She couldn't see Vox's eyes, but she could guess the look on his face at that moment.
"How…"
He leaned forward against the ropes.
"How the fuck did you…mother fucker!"
Vox leaned back and screamed at the top of his lungs.
"Whackford! You sniveling traitorous goddamn...aRRRGHHGGH!"
BLAM BLAM
Two more of the screens behind them popped.
"You done?", Chay asked.
Vox's head was smoking. Sparks began to fly out of his flat screen face.
Chay looked at her hellphone.
It was 11:37 PM. She was running out of time.
"Fuck it, I don't have time for this shit."
She walked up to Vox and smacked him across his face.
"Yowch!", he yelled in pain.
"You're out of time. Tell me where Ella is now or you're losing more than a testicle."
"I don't fucking know who that is!"
"Yes, you do.", she answered. "You might not know her name, but you know who she is. Small Sinner, kind of looks like a rat. You bought her from one of the meat trucks that trolls the Cannibal Colony. Her own grandfather knows you did it. Now cut the bullshit and talk."
"Oh for fuck's sake…", Velvette moaned. "Val, should we tell this cunt what she wants to know or do you want to hear the little piss baby whine all bloody night?"
"Maldita sea!", Val whined back. "This has caused us too much trouble as it already is!"
Velvette sighed. "Fuck it, then".
She turned to look at Chay. "Your bloody Ella doesn't exist anymore. The piss baby here copied her soul onto that fucking prototype what got stolen."
Lester leapt onto the chair and shoved the point of his sickle against Vox's neck.
"Lester, wait!", Chay yelled
She grabbed his shoulder and pulled him back. The small Sinner was hyperventilating, his eyes dilated with fury.
"She is dead.", he said through gritted teeth. "My sister is dead and this one killed her…"
"She isn't dead, Lester!", She yelled. "I know she isn't!"
"But-"
Chay yanked him back onto the floor.
"Lester.", she said. "Think. She just said that her soul is on that prototype. We know who has the prototype and he's still in this building."
It was Valentino's turn to mouth off.
"You're talking about that green-haired twat?", he said with a spit. "He had the prototype."
Chay pulled her gun back out and pointed it at Val.
"What do you mean?"
"A la mierda con esta mierda that fucker Bodfish broke into our server room and let Flynn inside of it."
"Your point?"
Vox sighed audibly.
"For fuck's sake...I swear if you weren't so goddamn hot I'd have left you long ago, Val."
"Ah, I love you to babito.", Val cooed back.
Vox groaned.
"Look: your girl was on the protoype, and for all we know she might still be on it. But a couple of days ago she somehow managed to breach our firewall and tap into our system's mainframe. Then when Flynn got here, he plugged the damn thing into our servers. The thing might, might still be down there."
Chay considered the information she was just given.
She uncocked her gun.
"Lester...do you know where the Servers are?"
"The enormous computation boxes are in the basement.", said Lester. "It is very cold down there."
"Very good. I want you to go down there now and find that shard. That is where your sister is. Then I want you to leave this tower and get to safety."
Lester slowly looked up at Chay.
"I shall do this...but what about you?"
"I have other business to take care of.", she answered. "We'll talk about you paying my fee afterwards. Now hurry."
Lester nodded. He turned around and dashed over the bridge towards the door.
Chay waited for the door to hiss shut.
"Now then…", she said. "Just one more question and I'll get out of your hair."
"You really think you're going to survive this, don't you?", Vox asked mockingly.
"...No.", she answered. "No, I don't. The Extermination is in twenty minutes and I have no way to get back to the Hotel. And even if I do, you three will be hounding me for the rest of eternity."
She walked up to Vox and pulled the blindfold off of his head.
"But power grows out of the barrel of a gun. Whether I make it or not at this point is meaningless. So last question: where is Flynn?"
Vox's newly unblinded eyes blinked in the oppressive light.
"...He's in the penthouse.", he mumbled. "On the top floor. That platform behind you will take you to him."
Chay put her gun into her jacket.
"Very well then.", she said. "Just so you three know: if I do survive this, I'm coming for you. And I won't be alone."
CHAPTER 35 END
