Ripper Doc

The offer from Hammer, as unusual as it is, is too intriguing for Tim to turn away. He wants that tech and is willing to do what it takes to get it. Getting the data out of the datasilo is job number one. After that, everything else is nurse work. Tim sits down at his desk and leans back in his chair, engaging the dataport in the back of his neck with the datajack in the back of his seat, which spools out a thin fiberwire as he leans forward again. The world around him rapidly fades to black as the deck interfaces with the processor implanted in his brain and pumps in sensory data.

In cyberspace, Tim is Plague. His avatar is a gram-negative, non-motile, facultative anaerobic coccobacillus bacterium commonly referred to as Yersinia pestis; an amorphous translucent bluish blob roughly shaped like a safety pin. He isn't a nova hot jockey, but he knows his way around his ICE breakers. With enough money, you can buy the necessary softs to get into your typical mom 'n pop shop, and many script kiddies do, only to quickly find out there's more to breaking and entering than just the breaking and the entering. Horizon Justice Force Cyber Division, Brownies, as they less than lovingly call them, would dispatch Judges to your actual location for trying. Their response time is the stuff of legends; get kidnapped or threatened at gunpoint, they would tell you to hire better security, but run a Blowtorch on the local coffee shop in a misguided attempt to get a free cup of coffee, and they would bust down your door and clone death you in eight minutes or less.

To actually pull off a hack requires a deeper understanding of the underlying mechanisms that make the whole thing work. Billions of lines of code, a miasma of interconnected systems communicating with thousands of different protocols, the stack is deep and riddled with opportunities for those willing to pull back the curtain and devote their careers to wrapping their heads around the holistic organism. Much code is devoted to organizing, analyzing, testing, documenting, and generating this massive code set, in much the same way he does his job. To the modern corporate biologist interested in advancing medical knowledge, a human is a massive set of data stored on supercomputing farms you deal with in code, and while that can work, in Tim's mind the real rubber meets the road when the titanium neural transmitters bond with the cerebral cortex. This means getting more involved sometimes, but the results are always educational. The laws just aren't geared to let the smart people do the work they need when they really want to think in a non-linear way.

Plague has last been testing out his latest motorcycle code, and is way out in undeveloped territory, having wanted to see just how far he could push his speed hack. Horizon Cyberspace is initially a literal copy of the initial Horizon City design commissioned by Larry Horizon and Sophia Hope themselves. They had just imported the computer concept art model the artists had made for the architects, scaled it up to actual size, and started building from there. Japan and India have taken a more thoughtful approach to their Cyberspaces, and while they are seamlessly connected to the user as far as data sharing goes, they don't actually share a physical space in the virtual world; rather, a user has to choose which virtual space they want and can switch between them at will. Outside of the city's dome in the Horizon cyberspace, the aesthetic rules for construction are not enforced like they are in the city, and lots of people have built outward the organic chaos in a first-come, first-serve manner, claiming territory in a seemingly never-ending gold rush. The further out you go, the less likely you are to encounter any form of civilization, save the occasional 20-foot-tall penis with "FIRST!" tattooed on it; a common prank designed to make that area of scenery unpalatable for further development.

Since you can instantly travel to any publicly accessible location in any cyberspace simply by knowing its address, the need for a speed hack is strictly a cosmetic vanity; a way for hackers to show off to each other and hone their skills. In theory, it is possible to travel from Horizon City to the edge of its Cyberspace. In practice, it would take several hundred thousand years to do so on Plague's bike. Plague is convinced he can do better, and his performance at the motorcycle races confirms it.

Pulling up the fast movement menu, Plague slaps the home shortcut, instantly moving him and his motorcycle into his virtual laboratory. Set up to hold all his work, it is a simple rectangle 512 feet wide, and 65,535 feet deep, filled with all his experiments. Whenever he starts working on something new, he just moves down in the Warehouse a little. He checks his dashboard, then pulls up his softs. They are organized by utility, and today it is going to be "Security." He checks his stores of one-shots and makes sure all the versions are showing the latest and greatest, then punches up the auction bays and loads up the latest versions of the ones that are not, the money being deducted from a credchip built into his deck for just this purpose.

He is just getting ready to start when a notification informs him the front door motion sensor has detected two people, and the doorbell is being rung. He pulls up the camera feed and sees a male and female dressed in baggy clothing with tattoos of crosses covering their heads. He has done business with these two before, so he jacks out and goes to let them in.

"Carlos, Maria, I wasn't expecting to see you today. Please! Please, have a seat!" Tim lets the two gangers in and joins them at the table. Sinners are a religious gang that run Sin Street all the way the length of the dome, from the north immigration gate, 26 miles south to where it ends at the multi-level parking structure against the south wall of the dome. They see themselves as protectors of the area and believe the best way to serve God is to serve his people. All those who wish to do business on Sin street, from the biggest club to the lowliest pickpocket, either make arrangements with the Sinners, or pay for their sins. As a result, Sin street is a relatively safe place to be, compared to the rest of Red. Sure, tourists will lose their wallets if they aren't looking too carefully, but it is understood things could be worse. Tim's private clinic is near the south-west end of Sin street. His unmarked building isn't open to the public, and introductions are by appointment only, but Carlos and Maria are both emissaries of the Sinners, and customers, needing the occasional knife wound stitched, bullet removed, or bone set. If they knock, he needs to answer, eventually.

"So good to see you!" Tim continues. "You are looking well, and it's not payday for another week and a half. What can I do for you?" He gives them a gigantic smile, his cheeks wrinkling with the effort.

Carlos says, "'Ey, doc! So it's like this, baka. You know that little pip-squeak fence that just left?" His Latino accent is thick and forced sounding.

Tim continues to smile and nods. "Sure."

Carlos leans over and says, "Big Pappa's gonna need some help with him."

Tim glances over at Maria, who is picking at the dirt under her fingernails with the tip of a switchblade knife, then back at Carlos. "Help? Well, I'm not sure how I can help, but if Big Pappa's asking, then I'm sure we can work something out."

Carlos nods slowly and says, "Whiz, doc. Whiz. Wouldn't want what's been goin' on around here to get out, eh, chombatta?"

Tim's head is spinning as he lets the Sinners out. Apparently, someone in debt to the Sinners has taken out a job with Allsafe, and Big Pappa is protecting his investment. This leads to a meeting with a corpie, who has hired the fence, Hammer, and farmed the job to him. The Sinners want to make sure they can stay one step ahead in the complex game, so have appealed to his sense of wellbeing and continued ability to operate the way he does on Sin street to give them the paydata instead.

This initial suggestion doesn't work for Tim, because it means not getting this nova hot tech Hammer is offering, and while he isn't above doing what is necessary, he thinks there can be a compromise that would allow him to still get his end of the deal. Instead, he suggests he would be allowed to go through with the deal and get his otherwise irreplaceable paydata but would put a tracking beacon on Hammer's piece, and give them the tracker code for the beacon. This would allow them to follow the paydata wherever it went and pull it out when they could do so safely. He would package it such that they couldn't easily separate the data from the tracker, and no one would notice it unless they stuck it in an X-ray. It would make the data a little harder to access without some specialized equipment, but that seems like it could be a good thing, given the circumstances. He needs to cover his own ass if Hammer comes back around asking questions, but he already has something in mind for Hammer. Besides, and he doesn't mention this to them, he is particularly interested in seeing where the paydata goes himself on his own tracker. Something about all of this is screaming at him to pry it open and rip its bloody secrets out.

The Sinners have accepted the compromise. Now it is time to get in and get the data. The ToxPower datasilo looks like a glistening silver cylinder 512 feet in diameter and 8,192 feet tall. Commercial locations invariably are architectural mirrors of their physical analog within the city, or artistic architectural feats of engineering outside city limits, all designed to orient the visitor and give them a sense of location and familiarity with real life. But utility stores have no need for such niceties as a door, and windows, or even floors or ceilings, so they tend to be simple geometric shapes with all the effort going into organizing their interior, which in this case is a data archive for offsite storage.

It is located well above the city, hanging there in the stratosphere in exactly the way gigantic silver cylinders don't. He has bought ten minutes of sightseeing time on an advertising satellite that will take him within range to run a few passive identification programs on it and collect some data on its configuration and operation without setting off any proximity alarms. Tourists eat this kinda stuff up, and ToxPower gets a cut of the revenue. The first 8 minutes of data collection are uneventful, but in the 9th he sees exactly the spike he is hoping to see: a burst transmission from the city.

Normally an intercepted datapacket would be of no value to anyone because it would be encrypted with military-grade encryption requiring a massive quantum computer to crack. Plague, however, is not your typical deck jockey. He takes the datapacket, loads it into a quantum payload, and sends it off to massive quantum computers in orbit for cracking. The cost for such an operation is considered by most of the world to be entirely prohibitive, in that it would consume the annual GDP of a third-world country in a matter of minutes if charged at full commercial rates, but Tim has secured some special access by being a regular consumer and has used it to hack their billing system to give a few shadow accounts a load of credits. The shadow account will be flagged for an audit after a certain threshold of computing power has been used, but not before he gets the results out. It also won't be terribly useful except on older systems with insecure designs.

The datapacket is encrypted with a set of credentials that the receiver is expecting. These credentials are only good for sending datapackets. They don't work for an actual user, and the ICE well understands the difference, but if the credentials can be recovered, he can at least send datapackets of his own that look like they came from the original sender, and the receiver won't know the difference between his packets and the real deal.

While the datapacket bakes in low earth orbit, he gets busy building one of his own. Datapackets like this one are split into two channels: the channel for the data and one called a control channel specifying what should be done with the data. He pulls up some tech specs and begins crafting a custom datapacket of his own using the commands from the spec. Just as he is finishing the datapacket, the decoded credentials come back from their job in orbit, which he loads into the datapacket, encrypts the whole thing, and smacks the compile button. Real hackers hack their way in, battling through layers of deadly ICE, but Tim has just spent 800 quadrillion yen he doesn't own to be invited in. Most hackers don't ever have access to massive scale quantum compute farms since they were reserved exclusively for corporate research and development, who are willing to foot the bill.

Plague then sets up a hook: a hook is a low-level system call that allows a programmer to intercept a piece of data when you know exactly how and when the data will be sent. He sets up a few last details, then unpauses an old black and white twovee he was watching earlier, puts his feet up, and waits. The twovee is one of his favorites, about horribly archaic medical technology being used in an exceptionally ill-advised experiment with unexpected consequences. "It's alive! IT'S ALIVE!" is the dialogue from his favorite scene, which he shouts in unison with glee when it comes on.

About 20 minutes later, at timestamp 09:37:78.44.20, ToxPower initiates a databurst to synchronize with their offsite backup datasilo. That datapacket is intercepted by the hook set by Plague for this precise timestamp, which normally would invalidate the packet, as anyone receiving it would do so at a later timestamp, and would know it had been intercepted from the mismatched timestamps. At that same timestamp, Plague's deck sends a forged datapacket, one destined for the datasilo, knowing that this is the interval at which they do these burst transmissions.

Plague's datapacket is scrutinized by the layers of ICE surrounding the ToxPower datasilo, sniffed and prodded to see if it contains anything it shouldn't, then forwarded to the librarian demon for execution. The librarian is an older program and doesn't concern itself much with security. It is just supposed to synchronize the data, organize and store what comes in, and send out what is requested. Newer versions are loaded to the gills with their own countermeasures and security integration, but older designs take an outer wall/inner garden approach and count on the near impossibility of getting past the outer wall without proper credentials. They haven't considered the ramifications of a biologist with virtually limitless funding. That, and he has gotten lucky they haven't retrofitted it with a newer version librarian.

The librarian parses Plague's datapacket and, following its instructions, begins searching for the requested data on the control channel. Finding it in the index, it pulls up the file and drops it in an outbound mail message, which it forwards to the mail department for delivery. The next instruction replaces that data file in their archive with an identically sized file from the data channel full of zeros, thinking this is an update to its backups. Another command and the librarian retrieves the original datapacket from ToxPower out of the hook and executes all the commands from it, making it look as though the authentic datapacket has actually arrived and been dealt with accordingly. Finally, following the last instruction, it deletes the logs of the first three things it has done. The log will look otherwise normal, and it is unlikely timestamps will ever be compared to notice the discrepancy of a few cycles. Such a simplistic approach would never work on modern architecture, but these datasilos built at the dawn of the city are so old and poorly maintained because of the low value it isn't worth the upgrade cost. He knows it won't work again as soon as they figure out what has happened. They will assume the credentials have been stolen, and nothing will be left to point at him.

At timestamp 09:37:78.46.20, exactly two microseconds later, Plague's inbox dings with a new message. He pauses the twovee, downloads the attachment, sends a copy to a chip on his deck, and jacks out.

Tim grabs the chip and the tracking beacon, writes down the tracking code, wraps it up in some scrap carbon fiber, lines all five sides of a half-inch cubed silicone mold with more carbon fiber, and drops the wad in. He mixes up a small batch of rapid dry epoxy, fills up the mold with it, and adds a top piece of scrap carbon fiber. The person who actually wants the worthless data will need to spend to get it out, but this technique isn't unheard of, and special machines with magnetic imaging and medical-grade lasers normally used to cut tumors out have done the trick in the past.

He sends a message to Hammer, "Ready when you are," then walks back to his desk where his deck is to jack in but has to pause as he does so. The deck has suddenly started making a high-pitched whine like a vector thrust spooling up for takeoff, and black smoke is pouring out of it.

"Yes hello! It's the doctor from Hack 'n Slash clinic. So terribly sorry to bother you, Judge Preston, but I would like to report a cybercrime."

"Yes, that doctor."

"Yes, Judge Preston. That doctor."

"Yes, I remember."

"Yes, Judge Preston. It's my deck, you see. I fear it's been hacked."

"Unfortunately, I don't know, Judge Preston, but I assure you that whatever is on it is something that would not do well to be outside of my control."

"No Judge Preston, of course not."

"No I..."

"Of course Judge Preston."

"Very good then, Judge Preston. Be seeing you soon."

The Hack 'n Slash is a small clinic in the central area of Red on Sin street, just south of Fuller. It doesn't have any drugs so as to not present a target for thieves, but if you are willing to be operated on with no painkillers and can pay up front, the doctors there will jam whatever parts are falling out of you back inside and suture you up. The official policy as displayed prominently in the lobby through a series of motivational posters is, "Treat 'em and street 'em," "If you can't pay you die today," "Pain: It's what hurts," and, "Absolutely no refunds under any circumstances. Not even death." Tim picks up the occasional odd jobs there, and Preston owes the doc a favor from a prior injury he had dealt with that Preston had wanted to keep off the official records. Preston has given Tim a business card with his number on it, and as is typical when dealing with Judges, it feels like Tim is the one who owes the Judges a favor.

Judges are an uncommon sight on Red, having given authority over local law enforcement to local security corporations long ago, who had gladly accepted the money for doing literally nothing. As a result, a HJF Cruiser outside the clinic does not go unnoticed by the locals, but there isn't much they can do unless they want to pick an unwinnable fight. Preston is his usual display of formality as he strides into the clinic, his black armored uniform sucking in light in the dim lobby. His helmeted head hides his expression behind his impenetrable visor.

Tim sees him coming on the cameras from the office and is waiting in the lobby. He beckons to Preston anxiously and says, "Right this way, please, Judge. Thank you for coming! Can I offer you anything? I fear the water here isn't any good, but I can go down to the general store if you would like."

Preston just shakes his head and strides briskly into the back office. Tim shuts the door behind him, locks it, and turns to face the Judge, who is already speaking. "This had better be earth-shatteringly important, doctor."

Tim picks up his deck from his desk and says, "Of course, Judge Preston. It was hacked. There's no telling what files were taken. I just need to know who it was that last accessed it."

Judge Preston says quietly, "And what was on there included... the incident?"

Tim looks surprised and reassures the Judge, "Oh goodness no, Judge! No, I don't keep records of such unimportant events. No, this was of a more personal nature."

The Judge nods and says, "Alright. Secure ID number and last used address?"

Tim rattles off a stream of numbers, which Preston taps into his handheld HJF Tactical Computer. After a second he says, "Uh, huh. Got it right here. Any other crimes to report?"

Tim smiles broadly and says, "No, that was it, Judge."

Preston nods, then spins on one heel and starts striding for the door, holstering his tac-comp as he does so. Tim looks after him a little bewildered, then finally speaks up, "Excuse me, Judge, I didn't catch who it was."

Preston stops and turns back around to face him. "I didn't say."

For a second, they just stand there, staring at each other. Preston starts to turn back around to leave when Tim's face brightens with a broad smile. "Of course! How rude of me. It is the Judge's Gala next month, isn't it? Perhaps a donation of one hundred thousand yen would be in order." Tim reaches into his pocket, produces a credstick, and anxiously taps on it.

Preston just stands there unmoving, not saying a word. Tim glances up from the chip and goes to hold it out, but receiving no reaction, retracts it and says, "One hundred fifty?" Preston still doesn't move. "My mistake. Two hundred then." Tim fiddles with the chip some more, then holds it out again.

Preston's body is so still it could be a corpse. "You wouldn't be trying to bribe a Judge, would you?" he growls throatily.

Tim spreads his hands and says, "Certainly not! I just thought it more efficient to make my yearly donation now, but if you..."

Preston cuts him off. "Make it a million," he deadpans. Tim hesitates for a second, then makes the adjustment on his credchip and holds it out. Preston produces one of his own and swipes it near Tim's chip, causing both to emit a quiet beep. He glances down at his tac-comp again. "Coordinates are the southwest corner of Gibson and Town, which is the New Rose Hotel, but..." He waves the tac-comp in a quarter circle around him, orienting at one point. "Not there. Hold on." He slowly raises the tac-comp again, his visor swiveling up to track it. "Two hundred fifty feet above it."

Tim asks confusedly, "Gold level?"

The Judge shakes his head and says, "No. Gold is two hundred eighty feet up at street level. That's Paradise."

Tim shakes his head and says, "With all due respect, the New Rose is four floors, Judge. Are you saying the signal was hacked?"

The Judge sighs and says, "Let me guess. You bought a feelie at the Midnight Market and ran it on your deck instead of just using a player like a normal person, right?" Tim can only shake his head, suddenly feeling lost in the conversation. Judge Preston says, "Right. It's that, or you did some sightseeing recently with your scrubbers down and just weren't paying any attention to your surroundings, but I didn't take you for the touristy type, or someone dumb enough to go outside the city with your dick hanging out. Either way, the signal points right at Paradise, which means you got hit by the Ancients."

Tim stares dumbfounded at Preston. "Paradise? Ancients?"

The Judge nods. "Yep. We get a call maybe twice a week like this. Hacker group that targets Wilsons out scanning for datapackets near the dome and buying feelies at the Midnight. They infect the system, targeting weaknesses in the stock AIs, then wait for the user to jack out. We've tried to take them down a few times now."

Tim slowly asks, "But...?"

Judge Preston pockets his credchip and says, "They roam the underside of gold, using whatever junk they can find to cobble together to make hanging walkways and floors. It's all unstable catwalks, rope bridges, and traps. It's suicide trying to go up there. They string fiber for miles and use signal amplifiers to mask their location. Sure, the signal terminates at some piece of infrastructure designed to service gold, but your deck jockey could be miles from there, and is long gone by now. Not only would you not find them there, you would fall to the street below just trying to get there, assuming you could find a way up. You never see those cases, doc, because they just splat on the pavement. Nothing left to work on. Take some advice and just buy a new deck before I change my mind about bringing you up on bribery charges." He turns on one heel and marches out.

Immediately after leaving the clinic, Tim hears a loud shout from outside, "I bet you've got some nice scars, Judge! Or did the vats take those from you too?" followed by a burst of automatic gunfire. Preston's voice booms out over amplified speakers in return, "Stop, or I'll shoot!" then a massive boom, and silence. Tim waits inside the clinic for a few minutes, then peeks outside. The HJF cruiser is gone, and some Sinners are dragging a fresh body out of the nearby alley. It's missing its head and blood is pouring out in a stream, staining the street red behind it. Tim runs out and grabs the feet of the corpse, and together they drag the body into the clinic for harvesting.

"Alright doc, let's get rooooolin!" Hammer has changed into black jeans, a black Mayhem tee-shirt, and black boots, which, with his dark features, make him a small shadow in the doorway. He stumbles inside, holds a finger up to Tim, and says, "Just a minute, I gotta pee."

Tim spreads his arm and says, "Of course! Of course. By all means," as Hammer shoves past him. Hammer stumbles over to the small wastebasket in the room's corner, unzips, and lets it fly. Tim puts one hand across his brow and the other on his hip and sighs quietly.

Hammer finishes up, shakes it off, and zips up as he turns around. "Ok, doc!" Hammer slurs. "Got your paydata, and I'm ready to get chipped!"

Tim studies Hammer, who can barely remain standing. "Are you ok?"

Hammer nods enthusiastically and gushes, "Oh yeah. Just had a little scare, but the chooch took the edge right off! I'm all set to get chipped."

Tim grins and says, "Very good, then. Right this way." He leads Hammer deeper into the building. "Right through here." He steps into a small room and pulls aside a trap door.

Tim takes the money and the chip and chuckles. "Yes, yes. That's good. Right this way. Watch the ladder now."

Hammer lurches forward toward the trap door. A trapdoor? Wow, this guy is the real deal, thinks Hammer. He stumbles to the hole, sways, and looks down. He sees a ladder going down through a shaft of industrial concrete. Cool, I never knew the fixer sent me to a real pro. But he is a doctor, after all, so that makes sense. Hammer starts down the ladder.

Tim gently places a hand on Hammer's shoulder. "Allow me to go first. I need to switch on the lights. Don't want you falling down there." Tim steps carefully through the opening and holds on to either side as he descends. Hammer watches the doctor disappear down the hole.

"Ok," Tim calls. "You can come down now."

Hammer grabs the edges and swings his boot around, searching for the first rung. He finds it, then brings his other leg around and starts to climb down. He can see Tim at the bottom, smiling up at him. Hammer continues down the ladder.

At the bottom, Hammer turns and surveys the space. It's about the size of the room upstairs—say 12×12—but the walls, ceiling, and floor are constructed of parts of shipping containers welded together and painted a dull gunmetal gray. There's a large sink in one corner, and next to it, a clear plastic shower curtain hanging from the ceiling. In the center of the room sits a steel table, with leather straps hanging off the sides. A bright collection of surgical lights is suspended above the table. There's also some odd pipework, with sealed openings. Chains and hooks hang from the ceiling in odd places. The room has a chemical smell, with a faint metallic hint, like blood.

"Well, what do you think of my operating theater? Impressive, isn't it?" Tim's hands are clasped in front of his chest. The grin on his face is almost disturbing in its intensity.

Hammer sees the leather straps on the table. Kinky, he thinks. But they'll need those, I s'pose, for if I move or somethin' while they operate.

"Very nice, Doctor. Very... professional."

"Thank you." Tim holds onto the 's' for a moment too long.

Hammer looks back at the table, finally noticing a drain built into the floor beneath it. That'd be for the... fluids? Blood? Whatever. He's really gone all-in on this ripper doc thing. It looks a lot more like a torture chamber, though, thinks Hammer.

"So what now?" Hammer asks as he walks around the table.

"Oh! We need to prepare you for the operation. Please, take off all your clothes and hop up onto the table. I've got a gown for you." Tim pulls a disposable surgical gown from a plastic storage bin and shakes it out, holding it up for Hammer.

"Oooo...K." Hammer pulls off his tee-shirt, then sits on a nearby chair to pry off his boots. Standing up, he wobbles a bit, steadies himself, then shucks off his pants. Then he pulls off his socks and, after a second, his underwear too.

He shivers. It's cold down here, and the alcohol in his system isn't helping with temperature regulation anymore.

Tim smiles broadly. "Why, my dear Hammer! It's where I keep the expensive cyberware, of course. And the tools needed to get it chipped. You want the good stuff, don't you? That's what you are paying for?"

Hammer nods incredibly eagerly and jams his hand in his pocket, producing a wad of yen. "One hundred kay, doc! In cash, like ya said." He presses the wad and a tiny datachip at Tim.

Tim takes the wad gingerly, as if it might suddenly bite him, and pockets the money, then carefully pinches the chip in between his index finger and thumb. He motions to the trapdoor on the floor. "After you then. And my deck is on the fritz just at the moment so I haven't gotten to dive into it just yet but tomorrow morning I'm buying a new one, so I will know then. I assure you I haven't forgotten our deal."

The underground tunnel is dimly lit as Tim leads Hammer down it. Hammer blathers on loudly as they walk down the shadowy corridor. "That's drek about the computer doc. Still an end to clone updates? Can you believe it? Guess that's why you are cutting me such a bargain, huh? Man, I can't wait! You know what I'm going to do? I'm gonna..."

The first door they come to is closed, but as they walk past it, a chorus of women's voices all ring up at once. "HELP! HELP US! PLEASE HELP! HEEEELP! HELP!"

Hammer glances questioningly over at Tim, who explains, "Forgive me, I was watching a twovee before you arrived and forgot to pause it." Hammer nods and meanders down the hall into another room, this one with a metal table and large adjustable lights staged above it. Tim sets down the chip he has been holding on a clean countertop, then walks over to the operating table and pats it gingerly. "Hop up here and lay down," he says.

Hammer eagerly nods and climbs onto the table, then slowly lays down, all the while bubbling happily away. "You got it, doc! You know, I bet no one even knows this place exists. You could hide a small army in here! I bet it even has sewer access, doesn't it? You know I did a deal in the sewers once? Guy called Buzz used to live down there. Said he survived on rats. Can you imagine? I can't. No, give me vat pills over sewer rats the size of a small child any day. I hear they get even bigger, you know. Hey Doc, what's with the restraints? That's awfully tight."

Tim glances up briefly from where he is securing Hammer's wrist to the table with the built-in leather straps and explains, "For your protection, of course! We wouldn't want you to get hurt, would we?"

Hammer nods gratefully and gushes, "Good thinking! Hey, you listen to Mayhem doc? Chipped Down Killer? That's what I'm gonna be. People are gonna think twice before fucking with me from now on. SamJam is my favorite, but this is different. What's this called?"

Tim, having finished securing Hammer, turns on some music. "Opera, my dear Hammer. Opera!" He opens a toolbox and begins setting out chromed handheld tools of assorted complexity on a tray next to the table.

Hammer listens in silence for a few seconds. "What language is that, doc?"

Tim smiles broadly as he fills a few syringes with liquids from different vials. "A dead language called Italian. Haunting, isn't it? Ok, hold still now." He inserts one of the syringe needles into Hammer's immobilized arm and depresses the plunger.

Hammer turns his head to the side to watch and asks, "Painkillers, doc?"

Tim locks eyes with Hammer for the first time, his warm smile turning into an icy grin. "A little cocktail of my own making. Not painkillers. No, that was a mixture of betaphetamines and paralytics. Pain enhancers, my dear Hammer! I want you to experience this to its fullest potential! They should be quick acting too. The dosages are well beyond the suggested amounts!"

Hammer looks confused, and tries to protest, but finds his jaw suddenly gummy and his tongue unresponsive. "Hnnnnnnnnnggggg! Hnnnnnnnnnnnaaaarrrrrrrrggggg!," is all he manages.

Tim leans over Hammer's face and hovers above him. "And I see the paralytics are working nicely! Excellent! Now, let us begin!" He takes a pair of scissors and begins cutting Hammer's Mayhem tee-shirt down the center of his chest. Then he grabs a large multi-pronged instrument with a small display on its top from the tray, raises it above Hammer's chest, and plunges its thin prongs a half inch into Hammer's abdomen and rib cage. The display on the device illuminates, and Tim taps away at its interface, selecting some options and disabling others. The machine hums slightly, and Tim grabs a series of vials from the cooler behind him and begins slotting them into the device.

"Safety's disabled. That will allow me to override the dosages." Tim grins as he taps away on the pad. One vial in the device empties itself into Hammer's body. "That was more refined adrenaline than your body will produce naturally in its lifetime." He presses another button and a different vial drains. "And that was enough hormones to make a herd of elephants stand at attention. Can you believe they used to roam completely wild not fifty years ago, Hammer? You would envy their strength if you saw one. They could crush you under their feet and not even notice." He turns to the tray and grabs a large syringe full of a glowing blue liquid, and an 8-inch needle on it. "This, my dear Hammer, is the secret ingredient." He slots it in the device on Hammer's chest, and it locks into place with a twist and soft click. He takes a step back to admire his work. Hammer's body starts convulsing involuntarily, straining helplessly against the leather restraints and thrashing around. Weak moans and guttural attempts at screaming are all he can manage.

Tim crosses his arms and says, "Perfect. You'll be ready soon. Normally your body would just metabolize what it could and you would piss out the rest, assuming your heart doesn't explode first. Fortunately, the device in your chest has overridden your brain's natural cardiac rhythm and is correctly regulating your heartbeat to ensure maximum efficiency while keeping you very much alive. My little concoction contains nanostims that will transport the hormones directly into your muscles and stimulate growth at what I can only expect will be an exceptionally alarming rate. All in the name of science! It's through these types of sacrifices that we learn the most, and your contribution is something we are better off with. The Sinners want this cleaned up nice and tidy, but they didn't specify how. They just need you out of the equation. And since we can't have your clone activating, you are my new little pet to play with. Now, are you ready? This, I expect, is going to hurt. A lot."

He steps up to the table where Hammer is locked in battle with a force straining every muscle on his body to its breaking point, and presses a button on the display of the device. The plunger locked in its slot starts to descend, the needle sliding dead center into his chest. The plunger activates, and the iridescent blue liquid flows out of it and into Hammer's body.

All the while Tim sings along loudly with the music, his high-pitched voice a shrill wail.

"Fortunatissimo per verità! Bravo! La la la la la la la LA! Fortunatissimo per verità! Fortunatissimo per verità! La la la la, la la la la, la la la la la la la LA!"