June 17th, 2128
The nine year old boy lay quietly. Nothing disturbed his peaceful slumber as the sounds of the city echoed outside. Carts clattered, mugs of beer smashed and fights broke out. The sweet, sickly smell of honey-roasted Vat meat drifted beneath his door.
He had dark, raven hair and long, skinny arms. His sisters, B.B and Ann, often teased him that he looked like one of the extinct monkeys, a gibbon. His fingernails were dirty from cleaning the tables in the bar below, and scratches covered his palms where splinters had caught him. He shivered slightly and drew the covers closer around himself, unaware of the terror that was just minutes away.
In the room next door, behind a flimsy curtain, two older girls sat cross legged, murmuring. A book and a photo lay between the two, a photo of a man and a woman. The three childrens parents. One of the girls, the taller one with darker hair, looked up suddenly.
“B.B.” She whispered urgently. “B.B, look!”
The second girl, B.B, glanced out the window. A red glow, like an early sunrise, shone from downtown. A cloud of smog hung above it, and even as the girls watched, a tall building fell slightly, then came crashing to the ground. Both girls screamed at the same time, calling for their mother. Ann jumped up and ran into the corridor, crashing into her brother.
“Leo! For Gods sake, Leo, get out of here!” Then she yelled again, shouting “Fire!” for all to hear.
B.B appeared behind her, and the three children rushed downstairs, where a panic had broken out in the drunken crowd. They spotted their mother standing at the bar, and their father, unconscious, and face down in a pool of sick. The two girls ran for their mother, but Leo tripped and landed on the straw.
He watched, enthralled, as boots, feet and the occasional CyberMech stump clattered around him. Suddenly a silver, metalic hand grabbed him by the scruff of his neck. He was hoisted to his feet, then the man with his CyberMech hand was gone.
Most of the people had disappeared by now. Leo searched around and found his mother and sisters, huddled behind the bar.
“Leo! Get over here Leo!”
Leo barely heard her. He was staring above her head, at the small window over the bar. There was a face there. A swollen, inhuman face, covered in scabs and oozing pus. Then an arm appeared next to the face, but it wasn’t an arm, couldn’t be an arm, because it had no hand. Just a knife. A burnished steel knife, which flashed as it plunged through the top of B.Bs head.
Everything happened at once. Leo screamed, and the TechFreak, and thats what it was, stabbed down again. Leo’s mother stumbled away, trying to drag Ann as well, but she was too slow. The TechFreak opened up Ann’s back with a single slash, spilling blood everywhere.
Leo turned to run, but a second TechFreak barred the doorway. A third and a fourth crashed through the front windows. Leo was surrounded, and he could see his mother wasn’t coming to help. His father was still face down on the floor.
The Freak behind Leo slashed, and Leo ducked, screaming. He crawled sideways to an upturned table, taking cover behind it. Three of the Freaks converged on him, while the fourth went at his mother, who was now brandishing a smashed bottle. She jabbed at the Freaks head, and it exploded, spraying goo and blood across the back wall.
Leo peeked over the top of the table, fingers over the edge. The closest freak chose this moment to swipe, and Leo dropped again. Something was wrong though. He could still feel his fingers, clutching the top of the table. And he could see the freaks blade, embedded in the very same table. And he could see three of his fingers, like massive maggots, on the dusty floor in front of him.
