bioTerrorist
Norman was standing idly, whistling and admiring the decomposing heads on the wall of Epping Station. Apparently the Scavengers had been liberal with blood trails. He couldn’t see out the glass doors of the elevator. It suddenly shuddered to a complete stop.
‘Damned motors,’ Norman muttered. He detached a crowbar that was strapped to his back with Velcro, smashed the glass panes and jumped.
Ignoring the stares of heavily padded people, Norman made his way across the platform. He slipped an amphetamine pill out of a shirt pocket and quickly threw it down.
Being late for a meeting never did much good.
There he stood, gazing up at the tall hybrid sandstone building. The streets were forebodingly quiet. Norman squinted through the steel-reinforced glass doors – only to realise they were tinted black. Tentatively, but excited, he reached for the door handle, and felt the adrenaline gush up. Recoiling, he stumbled back onto the reddish pavement and waited until the rush had gone.
Norman tried again and found himself blinking stupidly in the lobby of the bioHacker building. He didn’t dare believe it.
‘Oi, you, no loitering.’
Just in his moment of triumphant bliss, he turned around to see a Strengthened Kevlar-clad elderly security guard. The guard was holding a Taser at Norman’s stomach.
‘Sorry. I was just wondering whether this was the bioHa…’
Norman’s sentence was lost in his throat when the guard signalled for him to be quiet.
‘Watch it kid, or you’re going to end up in a hell of a tight spot. Like a duffle.’
Torn between an urge to enquire what the guard meant by a duffle, and a general sense of confusion, Norman tapped his head.
‘Wossat mean, kid?’
Exasperated, Norman gave into the urge to yell.
‘Is this the fucking building or not?!’
At once, the security guard, with surprising speed and vigour, wrestled Norman to the ground and smashed his face onto the hard tiles.
‘Stop!’
The shout rang through the lobby – it was only then did Norman notice it was devoid of any people except himself, the guard, and a formally stiff looking man who had just come to his rescue.
‘Cliff, what are you doing? He’s a friend of mine.’
‘Oh. Sorry.’
Cliff relinquished his grip on Norman’s hair and stood to the side.
‘Get up. Come on.’
Norman obliged and found himself staring at the newcomer’s chest.
He was led into a plainly furnished ultramodern office.
‘Sit,’ the man demanded, ‘and would you like some tea? Coffee? Anything to eat? I only have butterscotch.’ he added in a gentler tone.
‘Later.’
The man sat down with a great huff and stared out the huge glass window that faced the rotting harbour.
All of a sudden, he turned to face Norman, who was caught off guard - and grinned hopelessly. Shaking his head, the man again stared out the window.
‘Do you remember what Sydney was like, Blackburn? Before that son of a bitch Riley took over Iemma. Now the city is contaminated. Did you wonder why this building is so empty?’
Norman, who had been paying rapt attention to the man’s small speech, nodded vigorously, afraid that he would prove unsatisfactory.
‘The bioHackers aren’t situated here. The police know this. That’s why we haven’t been overrun.
‘Come, Blackburn. Tell me where you were born.’
The sudden change in subject startled the young man sitting across the table.
‘Ukraine, I think. I never found out.’ he said, rather hesitantly.
‘Then why’s your name Blackburn?’
Tears welled up in Norman’s eyes as he remembered.
‘I migrated to America with my father – they didn’t let me in without changing my name to something more American.’
He said it hastily to lessen the pain; the man noticed.
‘Godlessness destroyed the world, Norman. The fucking Americans had no idea what was going for them.’
The man introduced himself as Colin Rike – and led Norman into what was called the Pylon Lift, which connected directly with the Bloodroom.
‘Norman, this is living hell. This is where everything is done – what the government paid for.’
Norman stared up at the high, polished metal ceilings. It was like standing in a set of stairs.
A set of stairs in which the smell of blood and strangled screams of helpless suckers dominated.
There were hundreds of what looked liked operating tables, neatly ordered and set next to small cabinets, which Norman thought contained knives, scalpels and anaesthetic injections.
Suddenly, surely, he found himself kneeling and yelling at the heavens, over the repeated shouts of a Slicer stationed nearby, who could be heard even over the racket in the hall.
‘SCREAM, BITCH, SCREAM! God fuck it, you, SCREAM!’
The girl, who looked barely of age to have so much fun, just squealed in apparent discomfort.
‘Ignore that, Norman. Please.’
Apparently Rike didn’t enjoy watching Norman enjoy watching people having sex.
‘Yeah. Fine. What’s there to say?’
Rike looked and sounded pleased.
‘We weren’t always like this. Not until the police came and prosecuted three fucking quarters of our Slicers for bodily mutilation and murder. Those Slicers are in jail now, and for life.’
Norman was silent as he slowly let the information pass through one ear and out the other.
‘Yes, Mister Rike, that’s all very good, but can you just let me walk around a little?’
Rike nodded sullenly and trotted to the door, which he stood next to, staring around.
Norman walked through the rows of bloody tables, taking in the bondage magazines and generally messy stations.
One Slicer was reading a moth-bitten copy of Darkly Dreaming Dexter with one hand and holding a large motorised bone saw in the other. He didn’t seem to realise that the saw was going through his male victim’s penis, pelvic bone and left nipple. The Slicer threw down the book and wrestled a bag that contained what looked like a mixture of crack and meth out of his shirt pocket. Oblivious again, he lit a joint.
Seventy three tables away, a pretty middle-aged female Slicer was torturing a small boy with a sharpened switchblade. She pressed it against his stomach, and ignoring his continued pleas for mercy, clicked the blade trigger; then, proceeding to do the same with his cheeks, feet and hands laughing manically.
Norman stared hopelessly.
‘Well, Norman, what’s it going to be?’
Rike was looking into Norman’s eyes greedily after his hour long walk around the Bloodroom.
‘No deal. I like sex… but not this much sex! I don’t want cirrhotic hepatitis or liver failure.’ he replied rather bluntly.
The other man practically snorted.
‘Hah! That’s what they always say.’
Seeing reluctance on Norman’s face, Rike unclipped a small transmitter previously hidden in his belt and spoke into it.
‘Come up.’
There was no reply. Rike looked up and leered.
Before Norman could figure out, he was knocked off his chair and pushed to the floor by three hulking men. He watched in terror as one of them jabbed a medical syringe into his right arm.