LIQUIDATE: Chapter 3

(This shit has been in my computer for frack knows how many months thanks to procrastinations and personal shit. I wanted this to be longer but decided to release as it is. In the meantime, spinoff incoming).

Senior executive of Wenxin Steelworks. Aged 39. Found dead in own room. Krok’d in the head. Window crashed from forced entry.

Journalist of Wowzers! Aged 30. Found sprawled in Bintang Street. Krok’d in the stomach and chest. Organs missing.

CEO of AutoStory. Aged 50. Found dead in own penthouse. Krok’d skull from the back. Brain missing.

Chief administrator of LilGizmo’s Malaysian branch. Aged 29. Decapitated at home. Thighs and organs missing. Cranial contents crushed beyond recognition.

Financial executive of MayCimb. Aged 56. Car bombed. Charred black.

Weapons technician of Verdicts And Sec (VaS). Aged 34. Krok’d leg and gut. Crushed between the eyes. Door was forced open.

Famous entrepreneur and bullish investor. Aged 40. Was among the massacred in villa party. Bodies blasted by explosives. Bodyguards died from headshots.

Influencer and financial guru. Aged 29. Krok’d in the head in bedroom. Organs missing.

Chief Operating Officer of TeraHolmes. Aged 68. Narrowly escaped home invasion. Died near HQ next day. Krok’d head and torso. Organs missing. Witnesses claimed seeing somebody “skinless with a weird gun and visored headset” fleeing the scene with a Frostbitten variant of a TG shopping bag.

Bodies sprawled in ConSec’s headquarters. Multiple gunshots and other injuries. Extensive structural damages from apparent heavy fighting.

Two bodies missing limbs, killed by explosive. One body krok’d in the head. One more died from extensive blunt trauma on the face. Neck flesh torn by human teeth. Organs missing. First three bodies donned bodysuits of unknown, biological origin, outwardly resembling red, human muscular configuration. All bodies found in abandoned apartment unit. Door was open.

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Four months since his first written assignment, Lad was given extra responsibilities into doing the same general work on top of data entry shtick. Proof reading and some blog writing. Every article is the home of hyperlinked keywords leading towards MayCimb products, promotions and services. Today, it only took half a day for Lad to complete his entry work, then it was time to proofread a beginner’s guide to legal organ stock investments.

At the corner of his vision, White is conversing with a couple of suits, their voices barely audible from where Lad is sitting. His eyes stayed glued to the screen, the fingers mechanically stomping on keys when White passes by.

Lad is halfway through the article when ten minutes later, he looks behind him, seeing nobody. Turning back to the screen, he hurriedly logs into his bank account and peeks at his balance and transaction history. Like last month, his full wage was added to his account a while ago. Lad’s lips curl into a small smile.

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In the open closet are some work and casual clothes, and a hung, dark blue TG shopping bag. Freezer variant. None, however, stand out as much as a few items neatly hidden under a spare blanket, which Lad already pulled off. He is crouching down in his boxers as he gazes at the objects, trigger finger squeezing the air.

A mortarboard shaped helmet with a pair of red, round visors sits on top of a bodysuit of writhing, pulsating red muscle meat, every inch follows the human muscle configuration. The rectus abdominis and pectoralis majors stand out like cancerous tumours.

Lad’s main arsenal accompanies the meaty apparel, sitting close to the helmet and a black hip holster. The Krok is a revolver that reloads as an automatic, holding eight shots in a clip. Minus the cylinder, its body is a coat of pus-oozing, scale-like gangrene, moist and solid to the touch. No tiny patch of metal is visible. The revolving cylinder appears as red meat with bits of exposed cartilage holding it together. It has none of the usual six holes on an ordinary cylinder. The trigger is a small finger bone.

Lad takes the muscle bodysuit into his hands, carefully setting the helmet and Krok aside before climbing into it through his legs, pulling and working its way up to his collarbone. The suit clings onto him as an extra layer of his skin, defining every curve and angle of his outward anatomy.

Flexing his digits, Lad checks the clip, filled with .44 Hollow Point Magnum. Guaranteed death and deformity in the right places. Destruction of the meat further enhanced with the Krok’s natural talent. No victim deserves an intact burial. He re-inserts the clip and takes a spare, also filled with the same cartridge. The Krok is now holstered at his hips.

Lad dons the helmet on his head, the mortarboard seals his top skull and his forehead, his eyes further obscured by the pair of red round visors, glowing upon activation. Just above the visors is a single word forged in silver: ConSec.

HUD activated. Window of reality accessible. Additional optic options ready. Thermal imaging. Night vision. Anti meatbag lock-on system. The time strikes 2310. Leave with the TG bag, folded and slid into the flesh pocket.

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Locked door. Isolated in a cube. Fingers beaded with sweat, punching keys in frantic paces. Breathing drawn from gritted teeth. White Sponk hooded sweatshirt and trackpants. Head crowned in faded blonde, turning at the door every few minutes. The window in the monitor is displaying a trash can, a bar slowly filled up by red.

The cube hotel comes with a solid door, permitting nobody to simply look through except the tenant through a peephole behind it. Red digital lettering reads: RENTED FOR: 2 HOURS.

The bar is 70% full.

Wilson looks through his peephole, finding nobody outside. Grinding teeth with teeth, he picks up a silver .38 snubnose and points the midget barrel to the door, sometimes glancing at the bar in his laptop’s monitor.

77%. 80%.

A few clothes, toiletries and a small backpack lie here on the beige, crusty carpet. The laundry pile at the corner is two days old.

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99%. 100%.

All files purged. Commencing shutdown. Lid closed. Brush teeth. Pack up. Peep out. Crack open the door. Look left and right. Get out.

Wilson throws his Sponk hood over his hair and brisk walks through the street. Every few seconds are dedicated to scanning his surroundings as he moves on.

He picks up the pace. The LRT is about to leave. Step inside. Keep the head down. Sit somewhere closest to the door. Home is just three stations away. Heartbeat increasing. Swallow. Breathe.

At the third station, Wilson gets off. Close to midnight, the streets are still littered with walking long pigs in various outfits and wares. Trendy boutiques. Jackets. Masks. Blinking or glowing lights. Mall-grade cyberware. Smartphones are still the norm, but so does Lucid eyewear. The latest, lighter innovation of interfacing with comms tech and cyberspace. The streets are flanked by concrete, steel, and glass, all marred with holo advertisements, screaming at the flesh apes to purchase and consume megacorp vomit. The streets and walls are constantly blanketed in a slurry of pink and purple neon.

“Yeah, all is gone. I’m heading back home and frack right back off,” says Wilson in his phone, rushing through the crowds while throwing a backwards glance for a second. Drizzle falls onto the advert-soaked concrete, prompting him to dash a little faster, heading towards a street of condos and rent shacks.

Wilson shows the residential card to a security guard in the lobby of his condo and takes the elevator to the fifth floor. Enter Room 505. The living room is strewn with junk. Stinking clothes. Electronics. He waddles through to his bedroom and grabs a zipped duffel bag from his bed.

There was a loud knock on the door.

“Wilson?!” a voice calls out.

Wilson drops the duffel and draws his snubnose, eyes widened as he approaches the door, gripping onto the handle. A hiss of breathe is drawn through gritted teeth as he turns the lock and quickly cracks the door open, pointing the barrel through the gap and fires two shots.

Wilson stumbles back when he is knocked by the force of a foot kicking open the door. In the split second he faces his doorway, greeting his vision is a slab of meat standing on two legs and two red circles glaring at him, the hand pointing a black barrel at the same direction. Two loud gunshots fill the air as Wilson falls on the floor of his living room, immense pain felt on his face and stomach. Imminent decomposition. Skin around wounds turn black as it rots and dies while Wilson lets out short bursts of pained croaks and yelps. Necrotic tissue ulcerates, slippery ropes slither on his fingers. Brain and intestines expand and burst out of the ulcerated gangrene, more whimpers and gags escape from his lips while his eyes slide halfway out of the sockets, the sclera fading to a shade of deep red.

In the final second of his life, Wilson feels a sharp tip piercing through his skin on his chest, then they are split apart in two, down to his burst abdomen.

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Postmortem dissection proceeded as normal. Split the muscle. Shove the red hand into the cavity. Expand with steel. Expose assets. Cut them out for portable storage. Heart, lungs, liver and stomach ready for trading.

The curved, bloodstained chrome steel retracts into the back of the bodysuit’s wrist. Lad stores the abdominal organs into his TG Freezer shopping bag and zips it up. The inside is perpetually cold, set in a sub-zero temperature. Slinging the bag over his shoulder, he takes one more look at his professional handiwork before hurriedly taking his leave.

Lad points the Krok forward while brisk walking through the hall, its gangrened flesh pulsates in his grip. He foregoes the elevator and enters the emergency exit, descending the stairs all the way to ground level, then walks out through another emergency exit. The familiar stink of booze and urine assaults his nostrils as Lad is now at the side of the condo and struts to the backstreets. Some in the crowd throw glances at him, but a few reel back when he walks through their personal space while moving on, the visors staring back at their gaze, prompting them to turn away. Sweating. Murmuring. Shivering.

Time for a change of clothes.