I was alone. I found myself at a different side of the building that looked like a warehouse. This door was left open. Animals were being slaughtered and skinned alive.
There were dogs and cats there were bears and there were antelope; different species altogether. The man that was decapitating the non-responsive beings was doing a lot of the work in this room as well. Things were hazy, naked bodies were exposed and being raped on examination tables next to the slaughtered animals. I ran and slipped in a pile of coagulating blood. My head cracked when I hit the floor, blood was pouring from my brains and all I knew was to run. The animals were screaming in discomfort and agony. I could hear slabs of flesh being thrown against the wall and stacked up to be chopped and ground. Running harder and faster, as the sweat and blood pour from my face, I managed to make it outside. The remnants of the animals were lined up, covered with blue tarps. Steam was emitting from the sewers. The pavement was wet from the pouring rain.
Norma stopped me with her eyes. In exhaustion I fell to the ground
Norma entered my mind and told me, “Parents that brought their children to the day-care would be drugged and beheaded, every baby that cried in the day-care would be tortured and incinerated, every pregnant, legally insane woman would have their babies aborted from the womb and the rest of the children of failed abortions would become workers for the facility. No one would leave.” Petrified and screaming, with no sound leaving my mouth, she stared.
The woman bent down with a rusty oversized needle and penetrated deeply into my veins. “The interview went well, my dear, you’ll start tomorrow.”
Everything went black.
MANTA RED
David Conway
The hologram shimmers momentarily and then materialises like a high-resolution mirage. An intangible sculpture moulded in light, the illusion of depth, of palpable reality, is deceptively compelling. And yet, for all its digitally-enhanced definition, the life-size tableau retains an ethereal quality: an eerie remoteness reinforced by the prevailing silence.
Dr. Yoshida hovers close by, hypnotically drawn, like a moth to the flame, His cold gaze, his bland, androgynous features imbued with the glacial euphoria of realised ambition, the inscrutable rapture of a dreaming, insect hive.
A single thought. She is here, At last, she is here.
Holographically conveyed from a distant chamber in the estate’s East wing, the woman lies, silent and immobile, on a bed of shiny, black polycarbon-vinyl, perfectly moulded to the contours of her supine form. From head to toe her entire body is tightly encased in a glistening costume of the same fabric. It clings snugly to every line and curve: her slim thighs; the firm globes of her small breasts; the smooth convexities of her hips and shallow abdomen. Not a single centimetre of naked flesh is exposed, Even her eyes, nose and mouth are concealed by a tight-fitting mask that envelopes the whole of her head. The basic polycarbon molecule has been designed with inherent organic properties. It is porous enough to permit regular pulmonary and epidermal respiration; the risk of suffocation is less than non-existent.
The irresistible image is that of the woman’s body freshly coalesced from an icy reservoir of thick, black oil, the subterranean cauldron of fossilised extinction and decay that has fuelled the clamorous din of technology’s bleak, insatiable tyranny. A sublime icon, she is coldly alluring, the embodiment of ritual Fetishism, impersonal sensuality.
And this is the perfect setting for her.
The cool, empty silence and scalpel-clean sterility of white light are set with transparent aluminium panels which house a species of radiant plankton, countless billions of them, their bodies glowing with the brilliant iridescence of ceaseless reproduction, orgasm and death. Designer mutations, these creatures have been genetically engineered by Dr. Yoshida – the phosphorous content of their bodies vastly increased; their voraciously exaggerated sexual appetites and instinctive cannibalism artificially boosted – for the sole purpose of illuminating this, his sanctum sanctorum. It could truly be said that these walls positively glow with the fluorescent radiance of sex and death: an implacable, endless cycle.
The room is furnished with a Spartan simplicity that harks back to the traditional virtues of Zen. A low table laid out with the requisite accoutrements of the tea ceremony. A samurai sword and the ceremonial dagger intended for the ritual seppuku are sheathed and mounted lengthways on an ornamental teak display rack. The weapons are ancient, priceless, and every inch as lethal and exquisite as when they left the master craftsman’s forge centuries before the accession of the first shogun.
A brace of traditional screens have been upholstered with the flayed hides of twelve Yakuza gangsters. Five of them were acquired quite legally at auction in New Tokyo; the remaining seven are the result of Dr. Yoshida s more unorthodox enterprises. The skins themselves are quite remarkable, floridly embellished with the most expert examples of the tattooist’s craft. Mythical dragons and other monstrous hybrids are rendered with breathtaking clarity and precision; cranes and birds of paradise – their sublime frailty and the subtle variations in the colours and textures of their respective plumage flawlessly executed; elaborate tableaux depicting scenes from legend and fable. It is the supreme measure of the artists’ skill that their handiwork succeeds in subverting even the slightest hint of the macabre implicit in the sight of flayed, human skins displayed like trophies. One of the screens remains partially denuded; two more skins would be perfectly accommodated. The atmosphere is strictly controlled: filtered, recycled. Nothing survives here by accident. Nothing thrives that has not been intended to thrive. This is the perfect environment.
A second holographic image enters the insubstantial frieze, silently materialising from the projection’s invisible periphery. She is dressed in the traditional kimono; the formal make-up and rigid coiffure of the geisha, her garment of white silk embroidered with shimmering turquoise and silver, contrasting starkly with her companion’s seamless attire of glossily skin-tight poly carbon-vinyl. The geisha glides across to the bed, standing over the motionless form of its blackly sculpted occupant.
The geisha’s right hand, as frail and graceful as a dove, reaches out and plucks a perfect circle of the paperthin, black fabric from the inert woman’s featureless mask, revealing her right eye, frozen rigidly open. As a professional, Dr. Yoshida is forced to concede the uncommon quality of the workmanship. The eye, set in its oval orbit like a glittering jewel – the emerald green of the iris, a lush evocation of centuries’-extinct equatorial rainforests; the vertically elliptical dilation of the pupil, so startlingly feline – is sterling testimony to the technical achievements of New Tokyo’s thriving bio-scaping clinics.
The little geisha continues to methodically pick apart the oily black costume of her slumbering, unprotesting companion. She peels the woman like a fruit; one by one her sublime treasures are slowly, tantalisingly revealed. Within a very short time she is completely naked. Her flawless pale flesh assumes a spectral radiance which contrasts luminously with the mattress’s black, light absorbent surface. The deep lustre of her long black hair is shot through with metallic blue, scintillating with the cool iridescence of burnished chrome. The lush green of her surgically-enhanced, catlike eyes seems to peer from the depths of some improbable alien sea, her coral pink lips slightly parted to reveal the scalloped ridges of her teeth like neat rows of pearls; hard, well-formed and perfectly white.
“Beautiful– “ says Dr. Yoshida, drawing clammy, sweet breath through a fugue of persuasive arousal. Beneath his skin, the messy miracles of bio-transmutation initiate a series of chain reactions, accelerating subtly, inexorably, towards the apex of critical mass. Soon. It will be soon.
“Aiko– “ Dr. Yoshida addresses the holographic frieze directly; the estate’s sophisticated communications and surveillance systems carry his voice to the chamber where the ritual disrobement of his unwilling guest has been performed. Aiko, the silent geisha, turns her impassive face to the source, recognising her master’
s voice. “Prepare her now,” he says, “and take her directly to the Conservatory.” Aiko bows deeply, indicating her compliance. Dr. Yoshida allows the hologram to linger for several more moments, and then, at his unspoken mental command, it wavers indistinctly and abruptly dematerialises. In its place, almost simultaneously, two more holographic tableaux coalesce with the deceptive illusion of solidity. Nothing happens within the walls of the estate, or anywhere on the island itself, that Dr. Yoshida does not know about. His elaborate security systems afford him a level of omniscience that was once the alleged prerogative of the gods.
He watches, intrigued, as a group of five young men make their way with caution and stealth along the corridor which links the estate’s Eastern wing with the central core of the complex: the Conservatory. They are all comprehensively armed with the most lethal and sophisticated weaponry currently available to the modern assassin. Dressed in chameleon polycarbon combat fatigues; flexible, lightweight body armour; and featureless, visored masks, they resemble a platoon of belligerent ants, a single mass-mind obsessed with the insect imperative of murder.
These faceless killers are members of the mercenary elite known as termination executives. Under the auspices of the Free Trade Charter, observed by all the Pan-Pacific conglomerates, they are legitimately licensed to commit contract murder. Discorporation, the term enshrined in the legislation’s bland lexicon of euphemistic jargon is a recognised tool of corporate enterprise, falling into the same category as a ‘hostile take-over’. This group, led by Ishiru Okida, one of the most highly paid termination executives operating out of New Tokyo, has accepted a 15 million yen-dollar contract from the Hakashi Corporation, sanctioning Dr. Yoshida’s discorporation. Stories have been circulating among the upper-most strata of New Tokyo’s corporate and scientific communities, concerning Dr. Yoshida’s secretive and allegedly fruitful research into the fields of bio-intelligence, molecular transmutation and – most tantalising of all – nanotechnology. Assuming that the rumours are true, the Hakashi Corporation estimates that the secrets to be unearthed within the cloistered fortress of Dr. Yoshida’s island estate will give them years – if not decades – advantage over their competitors. Dr. Yoshida observes their progress with cold disdain, in his own thoughts as remote from their cruel materialism as from the maggots that feast on the ripe ooze of death and decay. These murderous philistines have lain siege to his island retreat for precisely seventeen minutes, closely monitored from the moment their boots hit the sandy beach. It is time to dispose of them.
Dr. Yoshida issues a series of mental commands, activating the nanodefenses.
The resulting carnage is brief but colourful.
Nanomachines – cyberorganic microprocessors comparable in size to the virulent molecules of a thriving bacillus – reproduce rapidly, precipitating a razor-ribbon maelstrom of shrapnel hail, consciously directed, endlessly voracious.
The sterile air of the blue-white corridor is suffused with a delicate, red mist: atomised droplets of warm blood, meatily aromatic. Diamond grapeshot condenses out of empty air like fatal ice, its brilliant vortex disintegrating body armour and fatigues effortlessly. Cybernetic cancer spores materialise on naked, defenceless bodies, programmed tumours that propagate with a hungry efficiency that far surpasses the ravenous malignancy of their natural forebears. Fragments of flayed skin, like bloody, autumnal leaves, swirl on buzz-saw eddies of the ceaseless, scouring cyclone. Writhing like moulting serpents, raw muscles and wet expanses of peeled fat glistening moistly, the would-be assassins shriek their wordless agony in splashing pools of their own bodies’ rapid dissolution. Dr. Yoshida revels in the excruciating music of their screams, scarcely human in its intensity, volume and pitch.
It is, however, far from being a mindless, indiscriminate slaughter. Dr. Yoshida is far too astute for that. There must be at least one survivor for him to interrogate later. He is determined to learn who was ultimately responsible for this invasion – and to exact appropriate retribution.
Bleeding from countless wounds, his protective outfit in useless tatters, Ishiru Okida staggers through the swirling red fog, deaf to the screams of his comrades. At the end of the corridor an electronic door slides silently, solicitously open. Through a searing haze of blinding pain, Ishiru somehow manages to reach and stumble through the door which opens directly onto his original objective: Dr. Yoshida’s Conservatory. The door glides shut behind him.
Meanwhile, in the corridor, the nanodefenses continue their work with painstaking thoroughness. It has taken seconds for the assassins’ bodies to be reduced to a state that is scarcely recognisable as human. A synthesised dew of molecular acid, selectively secreted, renders bone steaming, gelatinous ooze, vertebrae melting into an undifferentiated mire of pulped gristle and molten fat.
Steaming viscera, infected with tumultuously active fungi, spiral wildly from pelvic cavities like nests of frenzied snakes. Bulbous malignancies, the approximate size and shape of cauliflowers, cling in unendurable clusters to the mercenaries’ wracked bodies. They howl for death which somehow remains callously reticent.
From the depths of a vat of raw polycarbon base that resembles a treacherous, prehistoric tar-pit, its cloying blackness teeming with Nanomachines, four dark shapes coalesce suddenly. Glistening, black, humanoid forms, they solidify in an approximate simulation of the traditional ninja assassin, the historical fore-runners of the modern termination executives whose homicidal skills are so highly prized and lucratively rewarded. The ninjas are armed with orgone disrupters. They move silently through the fading red mist, not a single droplet of blood adhering to their frictionless, obsidian skins. They dispose of the squirming, crippled, human parodies with passionless efficiency. The orgone disruptors discharge bursts of concentrated DOR (Deadly Orgone Radiation), writhing bolts of blue-green, plasmic energy that interrupts the harmonic resonance of the biological functions essential to the cohesion of all living organisms. In theory and in practise the process has been succinctly described as a form of genetic fission.
For a second the assassins’ bodies glow an eerie green, tissues incandescent with the radiance of fatal transfiguration. And then they erupt. The process is not simply one of decay – of accelerated putrefaction, even. By destabilising the complex interactions that link matter and energy in a self-regenerating, sequential continuum the orgone disruptors initiate chain-reactions of internalised temporal distortion. Metabolic time travel. Nucleic degeneration set on a downward spiral of genetic decay.
Molecular bonds shatter. Complex protein chains; fine spun lattices of amino acids; are unravelled, frayed, degraded, swamped by the quantum catastrophe of chromosomal chaos. In moments the assassins are no more than four, indistinguishable pools of bubbling, protoplasmic slime, swarming with the autonomous, amoebic organisms that once fuelled a billion species’ evolutionary ascent from the fertile muck of the young earth’s primal stew. These, too, are quickly devoured by the tireless hive of proliferate Nanomachines. They scour the walls, floor and ceiling of the corridor. Not a fragment of skin, a single iota of blood, remains.
The polycarbon automatons return to the vat that spawned them, melting back into the cold, black morass.
They disintegrate so thoroughly that it is as if they had never existed. An icy calm once more pervades the sterile air, the blue white radiance of the corridor. Less than two minutes have passed.
Dr. Yoshida’s attention shifts to the second holographic frieze. Two young men are slouching casually on a large settee. They are identically dressed in grey business suits that shimmer slightly with a subtle, metallic sheen. The expert cut of their suits effectively disguises the fact that they are both carrying shoulder-holstered handguns, state-of the-art weapons equipped with laser sightings and heat-seeking smart shells whose draconian firepower is frankly superfluous beyond a military combat situation.
Both men wear their hair fashionably short and slicked back severely, accentuating the softness of their unwrinkled, clean-shaven featur
es infused with the unmistakable, innocent cruelty of psychopathic children. Several dishes of synthetic fruits and sweetmeats, genetically engineered for their mild narcotic and aphrodisiac qualities, are laid out before them on a glass-topped table. The men nibble at the succulent delicacies, enjoying a light euphoria of hallucinogenic arousal.
These men are members of the Yakuza, the insidious criminal underworld that permeates every stratum of New Tokyo society and its Pan-Pacific economic satellites. They have been responsible for the abduction of the woman who, even now, subject to the tender ministrations of Aiko, the mute, compliant geisha, is being prepared for the culmination of Dr. Yoshida’s lifelong ambition, the pinnacle of years of research and heroic endeavour.
Dr. Yoshida directs the men to the Conservatory, where, he assures them, they will be paid for their services presently. And, he hints, there will be a special bonus in store, a reward for the exemplary execution of the task he had set them. They move out languidly into the corridor, avarice adulterating their drugged serenity with its cold, premeditative edge.
Dr. Yoshida banishes both holograms with a single thought. Now he is alone with his dreams, the elaborate shawl of ambition that enmeshes his mind and extends beyond it like the web of a patient, contemplative spider, gossamer strands laced with gems of shining dew. Four hapless flies are now inextricably entwined in his silver net.
The Starry Wisdom Page 25
