Steel Reapers

[Shroom Man 777]

Steel Reapers


ONE
Stripjoint Slaughter

Willie MacAdder sat alone, sipping his drink. His table was located on one of the bar’s few shady corners. Normally, on a Friday night, he’d be out with his friends, in a disco, drinking fancy cocktails intentionally laced with liquid OrGazmo. But not tonight. For a week now, things were in the shitter, and all he could do to alleviate that was to drink some cheap ass shit in some stripjoint.

“Same shit, different day,” Willie muttered. Work was filled with assholes, among other things, and so he decided to do some relaxing. So far, no good. Maybe I’d just quit and get another job. Yeah. First thing next week.

The joint itself wasn’t too shabby. Lots of folks, including those from the Neo-Mafia, and lots of dancers. A bunch of waiter-bots, a lot of half-naked waitresses. The place didn’t really have a bright atmosphere, it was dark with cigarette smoke and the joint had a fog machine too (why, Willie didn’t know, probably because the owners thought it’d look cool). But the place was also illuminated by a psychedelic lightshow of lasers and holograms, a lightshow that could easily induce headaches and maybe even epileptic seizures. In Willie’s case, it was the former, and it contributed to the shittiness of his day. It was also why he was in his dark little corner.

Around the bar were cages where dancers did their erotic striptease, there was a small stage with a bunch of poles and it had dancers too. A number of tables fully equipped with poles, and occupied by the aforementioned mobsters, also had strippers on them. The girls looked good, especially under the bar’s lighting, but Willie wasn’t in the mood to stare. There were a few dance floors, but Willie wasn’t in the mood to grind his crotch into some half naked chick’s behind either. The dance floors, like the fog machines, were odd features in a stripjoint, but it was probably because the owners didn’t really want to specialize their establishment. More customers, more cash.

“Waiter, another drink,” Willie ordered rudely.

“What kind of drink?” the scantly clad waitress had a tone in her voice. Probably because Willie had mistaken her for a man, or a waiter-bot. But Willie didn’t care, he wasn’t even looking at her, he was too busy massaging his temples.

“The cheapest kind. Make it fast,” although his headache was getting worse, Willie still had the presence of mind to realize that he was being a dick. But he didn’t care. The waitress scooted away, walking in a way that made her posterior move in an eye-catching way, it was the joint’s standard operating procedure, S.O.P. “Oh shit!”

Willie jolted up and quickly made his way to the bathroom. He sidestepped a blonde teen wearing a skin-tight bodysuit, bumped a couple of guys and smashed through a HardLight representation of a local music band, causing the semi-solid holographic construct to disseminate, much to the annoyance of many patrons.

“Asshole! Come back here!” a tough looking mob goon, shouted. Willie kept moving, he didn’t bother to look back at the guy, but if he did, he would’ve realized how dangerous it was to piss people off in a place like this.

“Oh Jesus, there it is!” Willie exclaimed as he caught sight of the restroom. He pushed a waiter-bot aside and hurried his pace. He pulled the door open, sidestepped a big guy wearing a trench coat and a pair of sunglasses (who the hell wears those in a bar anyway?), and zipped into a stall to do his business. If Willie had paid any attention at all, he would’ve noticed that the big man in the trench coat had a sawn off shotgun in one hand and a machine pistol in the other.




“Anyway, so me and the guys were at this restaurant the other day cause the owner, a Ziggie, hadn’t paid his protection money. A week overdue,” Mark Micucci said before pausing to take a drink. “The lizard’s groveling and crying, and he’s saying this zigonese shit that no one can understand. Then Mickey here takes out his baseball bat and holy shit, the lizard practically shits himself. Man, it stunk so bad we decided to get the hell out of there and come back next week. The Ziggie’s not going anywhere, anyway.”

“Yeah. Too much of those Zigonian Eggs, I say,” laughed Mickey and his fellow mobsters. “Though, that shit really taste’s good.”

“What shit? That lizard’s shit?” one of the other mobsters, a skinny man in a suit, said, chuckling.

“No! I mean the eggs!”

“Whatever. You, over there, give my brother here a lap dance, will ya?” Mark gestured to one of the dancers and pointed to his brother. “Mickey, don’t worry. It’s on me. The slut, on the other hand, is gonna be dancing on you. On that big belly of yours.”

“Gee, thanks, bro. But why the sudden generosity?”

“I’m just in the mood. Besides, with those damn Syndicates assholes muzzling in on our turf, no telling what could happen tomorrow. We could get killed, y’know, if shit hits the fan. And I tell you, it will!” everyone nodded in agreement.

“Yeah, those assholes. Maybe next week that Ziggie would have to pay them protection money instead of us,” Mickey sighed, then turned to face the dancer, who was apparently having some difficulty moving through the crowd in between her and their table. “Hey, hurry up while the OrGazmo’s still in my system.”

“I’m coming, I’m coming!” the dancer replied. Thanks to the noise of the music, or perhaps it was intentional, she sounded like as if she was saying ‘cumming’ instead of ‘coming’. Her short multi-colored hair was apparently dyed, and she had piercings all over. She was wearing a tight little white shirt, practically see-through, under a tight little leather jacket, and a tight little leather mini-skirt. She also had fishnet stockings and high heels, they looked like the kinds that could produce sparks.

As she made her way, a big man in a trench coat and a pair of sunglasses pushed her aside with such force and speed that she couldn’t even yelp in surprise.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Mickey cried out in surprise. He got up and motioned his posse to follow suit. “Guys, show this prick how to treat a woman r-“

The big man, his partially concealed face not giving the slightest hint of emotion, drew a sawn-off shotgun from his coat and aimed, slowly and methodically, like a machine. While the others ran, ducked or jumped out of sight, Mickey just stood there, gaping, his face with that ‘dear caught in the headlights’ look and his mind not comprehending the situation. The big man squeezed the trigger and the resulting gunshot rang through the air and for a second the entire bar was as silent as a tomb. Mickey was sent flying backwards, his body riddled with depleted uranium buckshots.

“Jesus! Shit! Mickey!” Mark screamed. Finally registering the situation, he crawled to a nearby table, flipped it over to provide some cover and drew his pistol. There was another shotgun blast and another one of his posse fell, the corpse dropping barely two meters away from him. There was a pool of blood forming around the corpse. “Holy shit!”

The bar’s patrons were beginning to realize what was happening. People were screaming, panic was everywhere and everybody was rushing towards the exit. Mark took a quick peek and saw that the gunman was still there, and he was moving closer. “Fuck!” There was no other way out, the main exit, the bathrooms, the fire exits; the gunman was obstructing everything. Mark got up and fired several shots, and dashed towards another set of tables, hoping to establish distance. He knew he wasn’t going to make it, from the corner of his left eye he could see the gunman take aim with the machine pistol in his other hand. Mark jumped, the gunman squeezed out a burst, and he felt the hot lead penetrating into his hip. He screamed, crashed through a lot of chairs and landed on the floor with a loud, painful thud. Mark realized that he was just a few seconds away from getting killed, that shit had indeed hit the fan and that somehow, it was all the Syndicate’s fault.

Five seconds later, Mark was still alive, though blood was flowing out from his below-the-belt wound like a broken faucet. It was probably a hollow point, but Mark didn’t have any experience with gunshot wounds and he didn’t have any time to think about anything else but survival. Crawl! he commanded himself as he clawed his way towards the direction of the nearest exit, or to where he thought the nearest exit was. He wasn’t sure, he couldn’t even see properly, but it didn’t matter.

There were more gunshots, several machine pistol shots and one resonating shotgun blast. Someone probably got the gunman’s attention, but he didn’t last too long. Most mobsters didn’t wear body armor, most didn’t bring shotguns and machine pistols to bars and stripjoints either. Mark could hear even more automatic weapons fire from the other sides of the bar, some seemingly coming from the VIP rooms. There was the distinct sound of assault rifle fire, and he noticed a laser beam zip overhead (he could tell because by then most of the lasers and holograms were turned off).

There was another shotgun blast and, to Mark’s surprise, a dead body landed right beside him. There were more screams, apparently, there were still people left in the joint. Mark rolled the body over and noted that it belonged to someone he knew, he couldn’t really find a name, but for the moment it didn’t really seem to matter.

As he crawled towards safety, Mark spotted another gunman, probably a friend of the one he already met, he had shades and a leather jacket, one hand had a carbine, and the other had a sawn-off shotgun. In front of him were five mobsters hiding behind the makeshift cover of several upturned tables. One mobster got up to fire his weapon, but had his face blown to bloody bits by shotgun fire. The gunman then let loose a stream of automatic fire, cutting down the other four. It was a slaughter. Another sneaked right behind the gunman and unloaded his pistol on the back of his head. The gunman did not fall down to the ground dead, with his brains blown off, to the surprise of Mark and the other mobster. Instead, he was merely stunned, but still standing and obviously still alive. The mobster reloaded his pistol, preparing to have another go, but the gunman ‘rebooted’, spun around and gave the man a painful looking backhand, sending him flying backwards a couple meters to some tables.

No longer distracted, the gunman, who was obviously not human, resumed what he was doing, which to Mark seemed like the systematic elimination of all the members of the Neo-Mafia.

“-- bleeding to death,” Mark mumbled as he climbed over a bunch of corpses. Behind him, the gunman opened up on a bunch of innocent bystanders trying to find safety. They were blocking his way. “Need to get out.”

Then someone, or something, nearly stepped on him. “Shit, I’m dead.”

“Mark, is that you?” it was a familiar voice.

“Victor?”

“Don’t worry man,” there was the sound of a shotgun being pumped. “Just stay there, those Syndicate fuckers are going down!”

“No wait…they’re not…human…” too late, Victor was already going for the nearest gunman. Mark, tired and practically out of blood, rested his head on a dead hooker. He’d join her soon.




Victor fired his shotgun at the leather-clad gunman. Buckshots were no good, so he had to use rifled slugs, the ones used by police to breech doors, to go through the bulletproof vests the bastards were wearing. “How’d you like eating some shit, prick?” He pumped his shotgun and fired another round, and another, and another, and another. The rounds connected with the gunman’s chest and shoulder, sending him spinning towards the ground, his shotgun falling out of his hands. “Gotcha!” Victor reloaded his own shotgun, glanced at the fallen body and turned to the next one, the one with the trench coat. “One down, four to go.”

He crouched and moved under the cover of upturned tables and still-standing chairs, careful not to catch the attention of the second gunman. He narrowed his eyes on something in front of the gunman. “Shit!” It was Vicente Silvestro, his boss, he had one leg blown off and was trying to crawl away, leaving behind a thick trail of blood as he did so. And the gunman was stalking him, slowly walking towards him as he calculated which part was best to put a bullet in. “Hey asshole!”

The gunman turned from Silvestro’s crawling form to face Victor. In a flash, he brought up his machine pistol and emptied its contents at Victor, but Victor was one step ahead of him. He ducked, quickly crawled behind a counter as the gunman reloaded, pumped his shotgun, got up and fired. The rifled slug slammed dead center of the gunman’s torso, sending him staggering backwards. He was phased, but only just slightly. Victor fired another round, and the gunman staggered some more, stunned but obviously still alive. Victor fired three more rounds, and this time the gunman was sent crashing backwards. He didn’t look like he was gonna get back up.

“That’s two. Christ, what kind of body armor are these guys wearing?” Victor asked himself. Then he wondered why the fuck would the Syndicates attack them and why here. It would be suicide, it’d be insane, the Mafia still had the upper hand and any Syndicate offensive would be met with retaliation, something the Syndicate wasn’t in the position to suffer. Victor checked his gun’s ammunition counter and began reloading more slugs. There were sounds coming from behind him, footsteps, heavy ones. He pumped his shotgun while dropping the slugs he had in his free hand and made an about face. “What the-“

The gunman in the leather jacket, no longer dead, opened up with his carbine. The three shot burst blew out Victor’s face, sending blood, brains and bone flying all over, and Victor fell to the ground like a faceless rag doll. The gunman calmly strode over the limp body and collected Victor’s shotgun and the ammunition that was dropped on the floor.

The other gunman, the other one Victor ‘killed’, the one in the trench coat, also got up. Both of their eyes met and they nodded in silent communication. The trench-coated gunman collected his own weapons, walked over to Vicente Silvestro, who was still struggling to crawl away, and decapitated him with a shotgun round to the head. Then he made his way to a door behind the counter that the now-deceased Victor was using for cover, it lead to the back door. The leather-clad gunman followed suit, as did another one, similarly dressed and clutching a handgun and a laser carbine, but before he disappeared into the unlit corridor, he turned and fired a snapshot, the laser beam instantly killing a man who was running out of the bathroom.

Two more gunmen followed in their abrupt and silent exit, leaving behind them a scene of carnage and death.

[Crazedwraith]

Very cool.

[Shroom Man 777]

Danke.

[Shroom Man 777]

Ninety four views and just one reply (aside from my own)? BAH

[speaker-to-trolls]

Cool story. Is this from the SotS universe?.

[Crazedwraith]

Cool story. Is this from the SotS universe?.

There's OrGazmo in there. SO I'd say: Yes, yes it is.

[Shroom Man 777]

Cool story. Is this from the SotS universe?.

Damn right it is.

If you're interested, you can check this place out: Home of SOTS

[Shroom Man 777]

Chapter Two is coming soon.

JME2, you promised to check my fic out! Meanie!

[Shroom Man 777]

TWO
Meeting

There was a distant sound of an explosion.

“Just like clockwork,” a man, smartly dressed in an expensive dark blue suit, commented as he observed the far away strip joint caught fire.

“Ah yes, that’s why you picked this restaurant, right? So we could have a view of the hit,” asked his partner, another man also dressed in a suit, a dark grey one, equally expensive-looking.

“Yep,” they were in a classy French restaurant on a hill overlooking the city of Fiorenza. They had a perfect view of the city due to their seats’ positioning as well as the fact that the building was mostly made of glass. “I wanted to see, albeit indirectly, Vincente Silvestro and his goons get slaughtered.”

“This is a dangerous game you’re playing, you know? As soon as the rest of them realize what’s happening, they’re going to come down on us hard and we won’t stand a chance against them,” the man in grey replied, his voice was filled with concern.

“Nonsense. They won’t do that until they know what really happened, and they can’t link that,” Blue motioned to the distant smoking ruins of the strip joint. “To us. They might have the upper hand right now, but open war is still an unwise move. Especially when they don’t know what hit them. As far as they know, it could have been one of their own.”

“Hmm…I still don’t like it,” Grey snorted.

“Calm down, relax, here, have some of this!” Blue pulled out an intricate looking box out of his breast pocket. He pressed a button and it opened, revealing its powdery content. “Here, snort on this, it’s my own mixture.”

“What is that…? Kassie?”

“Nah, couldn’t get hold of it. It’s just standard powdered OrGazmo, but I added a lot of other stuff. It’s pretty damned good. Like I said, it’s my own mixture.”

“Is it safe? I’ve heard stories of kids experimenting on that shit and ending up in comas.”

“It’s safe; I’ve been using this mixture for a month now. I consulted medical books, so I knew what I was doing when I made this stuff. Come on, have some, celebrate a little! It’s not like I’m some kid, I’m your boss, remember?”

“I think I’ll pass…”

“Suit yourself,” Blue took a pinch out of his snuffbox and inhaled, then he jerked his head backwards and arched his back as an explosion of pleasure surged through his body. The climax lasted for almost a minute, then Blue settled down. “My god that was good.”

“You look flushed,” Grey commented, amused with Blue’s orgasm. “Maybe I’ll try some of that stuff, but not here. I prefer to take my drugs in private.”

“Not my loss,”

“Anyway, back to more serious matters.”

“Yeah?” Blue cocked an eyebrow.

“Well…I was wondering. Where did you find him?”

“My guys found him on Solaris, in one of the space stations.”

“Really?” Grey made a contemplative nod. “I heard those Free Worlders were pretty into that tech stuff. How old is he?”

“He’s barely old enough to drive.”

“Really? So you didn’t get him from one of those big shot universities.”

“No. Besides, universities don’t teach you how to reprogram and refit androids into fully fledged Infiltrators,” Blue said this with a hushed tone in his voice. Their little Syndicate project was a hush-hush thing that only a small handful of people knew about, so he had developed a habit of whispering whenever talking about it. It was better to be paranoid than foolish. “Neither do they teach you how to make fake skin and hair so realistic that you can’t tell the difference between those robots and people.”

“Hmm…I thought someone else was in charge of the skin?” Grey asked.

“Oh yeah, you’re right. My bad,” Blue said, his voice still barely audible, and then he cleared his throat, pushed his chair away from the table and leaned backwards. “Why don’t we talk about something else? Waiter, a follow up the wine please.”

“Yes sir,” a passing by waiter-bot acknowledged.

“Hmm…okay,” came Grey’s reply. “You think you should take the wine right after the OrGazmo?”

“I’ve read –“

“Medical books, yeah, where have I heard that before?” Grey asked sardonically, then he laughed. Blue followed suit.

“You know what? You’re probably right. I shouldn’t drink right after snorting, but Vincente’s dead, so why the hell not?” more laughing ensued.

“Sir, your wine,” the waiter-bot placed a bottle of wine in an ice bucket at the middle of their table.

“That was fast,” Grey remarked as the waiter-bot hobbled away. “So, now that Vincente’s dead, who’s next?”

“Well, I’m not really sure. I was thinking of having you choose.”

“Hm?”

“You heard me. You choose and you tell him, he’ll take care of the rest,” Blue said as he pulled his chair in, grabbed a corkscrew and began removing the wine bottle’s cork.

[Crazedwraith]

hmm...a plot coalesses slightly...nice.