LASER PSYCHO by Doug Klein
Retrofit Nightmares
The future is bleak and bathed in neon. After a disastrous string of global nuclear wars and biological bombings, the world has rebuilt. The landscape of the former United States stands as a prime example of this new era of life on Earth. Now the United Conglomerate Metropolitans, a coalition of massive high-tech city-states house most of the population. Corporate warfare runs amuck as companies look to take over and rule as the metros slowly eat themselves alive with dangerous tech, genetics, and corruption. Within this dystopian landscape, horror has found new ways of manifesting. Where does flesh meet firmware? Where does terror meet technology? Within the scarlet nexus of life and death in a dying future, old nightmares are retrofitted to continue among the chrome castles and radioactive fields of tomorrow. These are the stories that this world has to tell.
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The augment shop was slightly more full than usual. There were five people in the waiting room, patiently reading through older magazines or watching a local car commercial on a lower definition screen embedded in the wall. Business had been booming in the little shop, with all sorts of folks coming in to get hearing augments, cosmetic enhancements, and the ever-popular LED nail job. The receptionist was working on her computer, inputting a customer’s insurance information, and the augmenters were in the back setting up an elderly man with bionic eyes so he could see his grandchildren better.
The door to the front entrance opened and a man in all black walked in. His face obscured by a large welder mask with a panel of red glass running horizontally through it. A white skull had been painted on the front, not very well, but it was impossible to not know what it was. The heads in the waiting room all swung in his direction. The receptionist stood and began to shout, but it became a high-pitched shriek as a red laser stream coated her face. Her skin melted; her flesh boiled. The smell of burnt flesh and burning tires permeated the room almost instantly. Her body slumped into her chair, vapors of death caressing her smoldering skull as they twirled up into the air. The room exploded into a scene of chaos and fear.
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The title sequence of the Channel 9 Nightly News filled the screen before vanishing with a dramatic graphic of the words, "Breaking News". The camera panned to lead anchor Fred Granley, his somber face furrowed.
"Tonight, terror in the Southeast district." He turned his head to the left to face camera two and continued.
"The low-income augment shop, Allied Augmentations, has suffered a tragic attack. According to reports, a man, clad all in black, walked into the shop and began to kill the patrons inside with some sort of modified laser hand weapon. All nine people inside, including the three employees, perished. The images will be graphic, so please, tell any minors to turn away now."
Images of the inside of the shop flashed together in a tightly edited media package. Shots of the police tape, blood splatter seats, and burnt skulls being covered by plastic transitioned together with Fred narrating over the macabre video.
"This is the third shop to be hit in such a way. Innocent people going to better themselves at a clinic losing their lives in violent fashion. The killer, who is being referred to as the "Laser Psycho" left another message in blood on the walls before leaving the area. The words "COSMETIC DAMAGE" were smeared over one of the walls, but no evidence or fingerprints were found. Police have been using city surveillance to locate this psycho, but due to the area being in the lower tier of income, many of those systems are not functioning properly. The motives are still unclear, but there is speculation on what it could be. Susan, you have more on that." Fred cocked his head to the side and the broadcast moved from camera two to camera four. Susan Brucker, the lead investigative reporter, leaned forward on the desk.
"Yes, thank you Fred. This was the third strike from the Laser Psycho, all three happening in less than a month. Each one, with a similar MO. An augment shop hit, and a message left in blood. The first attack was at an upper-class synthetic lab, Original Synths. There, seven patrons and four staff were brutally killed, all with their faces seemingly melted off, and their bodies left where they fell. The first words left for authorities were, "SO SYNTHETIC SO PATHETIC". From there the centrally located Human Plus facility was also targeted, where five more victims of this ruthless individual were taken from us. Another strike, another message. This one simply said "HUMANS??". And now, with the recent attack today, more speculation has gone to why this person is doing what they are doing. We've brought in criminal psychologist, Aiden Krenshaw, to discuss. Aiden, thank you for coming." Susan turned to her side and an overweight man with a visibly augmented hand sat next to her. His pristine augmented hand clasped his more weathered one.
"Thank you." Aiden nodded. An awkward few seconds of silence passed until Susan attempted to jumpstart the interview.
"So, Mr. Krenshaw, after looking over this situation and with what is known, what do you see being the possible motive for such a person as this Laser Psycho?" Susan placed her hand to her chin and feigned extreme interest. Krenshaw shifted back and forth in his seat, as if in thought.
"Well, from the brutality of the attacks, the fact that each one has occurred at an augment shop or synthetic lab, and the dubious content of the grisly messages left in blood, we can come to many possibilities, but there is one that sticks out to me. I believe our perpetrator, our psycho, was disfigured from a past operation and is venting an outwards rage at these places of business. I have divulged this opinion to the police as well and there are ongoing investigations into possible patients with less than desirable results." Krenshaw rocked back in his chair once more, a smug smile sat on his wide face.
Susan and Fred kept the conversation going according to the outlines they were given, and in the control room, the wall of screens showed each angle as the interview continued. Aiden was now gesturing with his hands, the augmented one doing most of the work. Camera two was still on Fred, who was trying to get words in edgewise but was not quite succeeding. Camera four was still focused on Susan, whose eyes flicked from her notes to Aiden and back as she continued to feign interest. The screen for camera three, which had a shot of the entire news desk, had a crisp shot, and was what the live feed had been on for longer than normal. The three behind the desk continued to talk on the screen as a crimson substance began to cover it. The video editor's smoldering head crashed onto the control panel. The now partial crimson screen continued to show the live broadcast.
"...with augments at an all-time high, there will be some mistakes and mishaps, but one cannot take out their problems on others." Krenshaw finished his convoluted argument. Susan hadn't received a signal that they were running long on time, but she knew they must be close. She went to wrap up and send to commercial break.
"Thank you so much. Now after the break, the new process to take refuse and turn it into the newest food craze. All that and more after the..." Before Susan could finish, a flash of blinding light stabbed at her peripheral. She flinched and put a hand up to block it, but as soon as it was there it was gone. Her vision was affected, but she could still make out the body of Aiden Krenshaw as it fell to the floor. It hit with such force that the hot liquid mess that had been his face splashed out across the newsroom floor. Susan sprung to her feet to run, but Fred, in his panic, struck Susan in the face heading to the exit on the other side of the room. She fell back first onto the news desk, wincing in pain. The cameramen in the room bolted to the exit, swinging the door open so fast it struck Fred, who was looking back in fear, in the side of the face. He stumbled back into a wall and slumped down. Susan's head hung upside down off of the edge of the desk. Her eyes opened to see the inverted image of a man in all black, with a pistol in his hand with the very edge of the barrel glowing red.
"Oh..." was all she could get out before bright light silenced her. The laser caressed her entire head, and her skin and flesh began to run down her hair to the floor. The plastics and synthetics that had kept her looking young let out a ghastly black smoke that mixed with the bubbling of her flesh. A small pool of gore formed on the ground, and the laser stayed true until the fabric of what had been Susan Brucker's face wore thin and her lower jaw tumbled down into the gore below.
Fred shook his head and saw Susan's demise. He screamed and tried to get up and run, but despite augmenting his heart and face, his legs were not as maintained as they could have been. He had scrambled to his feet and reached for the door, but as his hand found the handle, it began to burn. Light seared his eyes as his hand was reduced to singed tendons and bone. Fred fell, and his skeletal hand snapped off from the pressure. Fred made grotesque sounds as he grasped at the blackened flesh residue of his wrist. He didn't hear the footsteps that had crept up to him, and his eyes were still blinded from the flash. His agony was short lived.
The feed was still live. It had been mere moments, and the station heads had decided not to cut the feed, as their ratings had begun to shoot up to unbelievable numbers. The psycho walked back into the frame of camera three. He looked at it, then to Susan's corpse. He moved quickly to her body, jamming his fingers into her and then moved with purpose to the camera. He roughly jerked it about and framed his face in the lens. His fingers gently smeared blood across the screen before the sounds of sirens began to filter into the audio. He set the camera back, and then ran off screen. The words he wrote, although blurry, were easily read.
NO OPEN CASKETS
The words reduced in size and became a graphic hovering over the shoulder of another anchor from a sister station who had picked up the feed. The newsroom was buzzing.
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