Cognitive Deviance

83. Hunting Grounds Part 2

The LaserShank went through skin and bone like a hand through a wall of mist. Blood sprayed Jack's face with each slash, only blinking when a drop caught his eye. Limbs popped off like toys, and masked men painted the walls and floor copious shades of red. The Fatemaker's Subjugate Mode lost all of its allure after he'd killed the albino girl whose name he cared nothing for. Nothing could top killing a child, yet such a deed did nothing to boost his pulse.

Jack pondered if raping Margo would warrant a similar sense of indifference. It was the only thing left to try while he still had a few functioning nerves left. Then Psychwatch could remove and replace every part of him that'd come in contact with her body.

Until then, Jack savored each mess he'd left behind, the freedom that came with his destroyed Blur. His clothes and his face soaked up each spurt of blood like a canvas. Carotid arteries came apart like worn fabric upon contact with the blade. The screams were brief, always gargled and shrill, before their heads tumbled off their shoulders. The unlucky ones got to watch the blade reappear through the other side of the arm or leg, feel its fiery, prickling sting as it reduced their flesh to the smallest of atoms before taking something important with it. A limb, a fragment of bone, ounces of blood, oftentimes life itself after minutes of grievous blood loss.

He'd forgotten his true nature, the ones who owned him and decided what would leave his tongue and come in contact with his savage hands, until he saw a drone shine a light down on him through an open window.

"Holy sh-sh-shit!" Nikki shouted into his ear through his ThoughtControl. "Holloway, w-w-what have you done? How many people have you...Wait!"

The drone vanished with one garish blast from his Fatemaker on Eradicator Mode, not a single component left. Two more drones took its place, however, wafting away the minuscule cloud of smoke that remained of the first one.

"J-J-Jack!" Nikki said. "You need to stop!"

The Fatemaker returned, hovering between Jack and Psychwatch's eyes in the sky. But Jack paused, watching a drop of someone else's blood trail off his hand down the grip of his gun. He smoothed his thumb across the grip, amused by its oily sensation, comparing it to the gashes across his right arm courtesy of Crimson.

With his pointer finger curled around the trigger, Jack froze upon hearing Kusanagi declare behind him in a weary voice, "Holloway! You take out another drone, you'll find yourself waking up back in your cell, filled with more implants than you can count."

"Atkinson," said Jack, "do you really want to know how many people I've killed in the last few minutes?"

"Holloway!" said Kusanagi, his Assault Fatemaker trained on his younger colleague's back, though the man struggled to stand. "Holloway, I'm warning you. Holster your weapon now!" 

"Somebody got you, Kusanagi?" Jack said. "You should get that fixed up. You won't last much longer around me."

"Yeah? Guess you haven't noticed, but you have a nasty gash stretching across your waist. What the hell happened to your Blur?"

Jack shrugged. "Didn't think I needed it anymore."

"Great. That means we can just drag you out."

Then Nikki said, "GET DOWN!"

BOOM!

Jack and Kusanagi tumbled to the floor as the wall behind them vanished into dust and rubble with an earsplitting bang. The screams of their fellow officers followed next, and Jack peeked his head up to see a chasm form in place of the hallways he'd journeyed through. He looked back to see Kusanagi writhing around on the floor, blood stippling the dust beneath him, his Blur blinking in and out of existence.