The Reverend came back through the door, and motioned the two of them to see to the door, while he dragged me and Bobby toward what I could only assume were his personal chambers. I struggled in vain, trying to free myself from his grip.
The fragger wouldn’t let me go. So I did the only thing I could think of. I grabbed Bobby’s arm and stuck it into his Achilles tendon, where I knew it would cause him some pain and slow him down. I was right, at least about part of it. He dropped me, kicked Bobby in the face before realizing I was the source of the pain, and then grabbed me by the arm and stomped on my chest. He squeezed his grip tight as he stomped a second time, and I could feel blackness coming in on the edges of my vision. I could almost feel the bones of my hand crushing as he stopped and smiled, satisfied with himself. He gave my poor ruined hand one final squeeze and dropped it.
He picked us up, practically dragging us like corpses, into his private study. He dropped us off to one side, moving aside a carpet before opening a hatch in the floor that lead to a basement area. Within this basement area, I could hear the sounds of people, and the place buzzed like an angry hive of wasps
He dragged us down a few steps. I could hear people pleading for their lives, people stuck to the walls with some sort of mucous, people with boils and scabs all over their bodies. In fact, while I was lying there, I noticed that one of the men down there screamed as one of the boils moved up his neck and over his chin to rest on the side of his skull. I’m lucky my brother wasn’t here, or he would’ve…
I threw up all over the floor. Father Vitolus laughed and said something in a crazy buzzing that made all of the people in there go silent. He carried Bobby over to a wall, sticking him to the same mucous that the rest of the people seemed to be enmeshed in. He then turned and lifted me as if I were weightless, and stuck me in the same sticky resin. It was warm, and it seemed to suck the life out of me, He arranged me for a moment, and then turned his attention back to Bobby. Father Vitolus shook, and his skin seemed to split as a huge wasp tail emerged from his lower back. I vomited again.
I watched as the preacher man split Bobby like a bag full of rotted fish, spilling his intestines out all over the floor. The preacher went to work quickly, cutting the intestines free, and pulling a bunch of other organs out of Bobby’s lifeless shell. Once he was satisfied, he moved over to a gigantic wasp hive, and pulled as small larvae from the paper. Small, who am I kidding? The thing was the side of a football, and wriggled like a newborn. The preacherman shoved this larvae into Bobby’s now empty midsection, and then gently folded the skin back over it, as if treating a newborn baby. It was kinda sick, but I’m not enough of a puss to throw up over stuff like that.
I assumed I was next, and the preacher took his sweet time getting over to me. As he came over to stand in front of me, I was amazed to see Bobby pull himself free of the goop and start walking toward the stairs. I shouted for him to help me, the fragger still owed me money, but as he turned and looked at me, the preacher started laughing.
“He’s one of us now,” was all he said, and I knew that Bobby was still dead.
Bobby moved over to the entry hatch, and I couldn’t help but feel my hope fade as he moved further and further away. Father Vitolus faced me, the stinger shaking in anticipation. Then something went wrong. There was a rumble, and before Bobby or the Father could react, there was a group of runners on the stairs. They were carrying modified shotguns, firing flechette and slugs, cutting into Bobby and the Father. They shot again and again, emptying what must’ve been fifteen shots into each of them. Bobby was barely recognizable, the shards of flechette sticking out of his cyberskull, like a final grinning mask. The Father was far less recognizable, nothing but a red and yellow mush, clothing and bones cut to ribbons. One of the men used a flamethrower on the wasp hive, and the buzzing increased to an almost painful level. The people in the ichor next to me screamed for relief, and as the corporate personnel cut them free, it was clear that they weren’t setting us free.
As they pulled me free of the muck, I landed on the remains of Father Vitolus, and the stinger, somehow still intact, jabbed into my shin. I felt a moment of burning, blinding pain, and then fell into darkness.
When I woke up, I was in a hospital. There was some tech there telling me that they had opened me up to see how the poison had affected me, and while they were in there, they upgraded some of my systems. Specifially, they had fine-tuned my systems, and replaced my ruined hand with some advanced cyberwear. I looked at it, and I wouldn’t have been able to tell the difference unless they had told me.
Dr. Linaweaver came back a few hours later, taking time to talk to me about what cyberwear they had put into me. They had upgraded my systems, but there was so much damage from the previous surgery that there wasn’t a lot they could do. They replaced my arm with a partial cyberlimb, indistinguishable from my other hand, and inserted a retractable cyberspur, for me to use as a weapon. In addition to that, they had wired my brain with a cybercomputer and commlink, so I could talk to my brother at any time. He said there was a switch installed, but stopped himself before saying more. He also said that the computer would allow limited communications with others, and that it would allow me to use my assets to greater tactical advantage.
About this time, I saw the trideo on in the corner of the room. I asked the guard to turn it up, after noticing that I seemed to be involved with the main report. As the guard unmated the channel, the announcer read “Again, we have no leads in the whereabouts of Adam Watrous. Seen is this videotape released by the UCAS FBI, Watrous is seen entering the UB church on fourteenth street in Redmond District, and shooting head preacher and homeless activist Dr. Robert Vitolus. As police were cataloging the carnage caused by Watrous, they would only describe it as ‘grim’,” the announcer went on to talk about the UB being shut down in the UCAS for tax evasion, and my mind seemed to shut off. I was in shock. How could they possibly say that about me?
I laughed out loud. “Oh, those fraggers got the wrong man! They’re looking for my namby-pamby brother, when the real threat is RIGHT HERE! I’M RIGHT HERE FRAGGERS!” I continued to laugh, and then caught the tech’s paling reaction. I shrugged and looked away. “Oh, don’t worry about it, med-boy. I’m not going to hurt anyone here. I only hurt people when I get paid.” Noticing some restraints, I tested them. My new cyberarm felt identical to my real arm.
“Speaking of getting paid, when do I get out of here?”
