Damnation Code (William Massa) - William Massa Page 0,10

he drove a knife into Michelle’s sternum until only the hilt protruded. There had been no hesitation, no dramatic pause, just a robotic precision. Her still-paralyzed body jerked as the blade eased through skin, muscle and bone. The notion that six inches of steel could so easily vanish inside her body seemed surreal, a nightmare beyond her imagining. It couldn’t be true… but it was.

To her surprise, she experienced no pain at first. Adrenaline actually masked the damage. Then the big man withdrew his knife and blood streamed from the terrible wound. The first waves of agony washed over her.

Michelle understood that any help would come too late. At the rate she was losing blood, she’d be dead in minutes. In various war zones she’d seen enough people perish, both military and civilians, to know that her fate was sealed.

Talon’s face filled her mind as adrenaline surged through her body and her pulse quickened, the increase in blood pressure only hastening her demise.

Her dear Talon. She knew her death would devastate him and for a moment she was more concerned about the man she loved than her own safety.

But the horror was far from over.

It was merely beginning.

Like a school of piranhas descending on live prey, the other knife-wielding monsters plunged their daggers into Michelle with psychotic fury.

In and out, again and again.

Michelle exhaled blood and let out a guttural cry that seemed to intensify her killer’s frenzy. The indifferent electronic eyes of their cellphone-cams continued to capture every detail of the bloodbath.

***

Robert Zagan, CEO of Omicron Technologies, entered a sleek, 800-seat auditorium. It was a cavernous chamber appointed in warm woods and brushed steel. Zagan headed for the stage. The company normally used the assembly room to make announcements or even hold press conferences, but today’s secret gathering served a far darker agenda.

About eighty seats were filled at the moment. Zagan’s audience consisted exclusively of computer engineers, the best and brightest this Silicon Valley tech upstart had produced in the last two years. Their open laptops glowed in the dimly lit chamber like electronic fireflies, the sickly phosphorescent light of their LCD screens bathing their faces in an eerie spectral green. With their hoodies, the programmers seemed like cyber monks tapping away at the secrets of a digital universe. It was an apt analogy, considering what they were working on.

Zagan stepped up to the podium and faced the assembled computer-engineering talent before him. Unlike the coders who favored jeans, Converse and flannel, Zagan was clad in a stylish black suit. His sleek, ascetic features were complemented by a lean, almost gaunt physique — the product of a strict vegan diet and rigid exercise regimen. He’d prematurely gone bald in his mid-twenties and began shaving his head. This only added to his severe presence.

Omicron, like many tech companies that revolutionized the industry and then the world, had come from humble beginnings. Just a few years earlier, the company had consisted of a staff of six. Spurred by rapid growth, Omicron now counted nearly one 300 employees on its 10 acre campus. Its tablets and phones had leveled the playing field and given its competitors a run for their money.

To Zagan’s mind, that was just the beginning. The best was yet to come.

Zagan spoke into his mic, uttering esoteric words in the ancient Egyptian liturgical language. The giant screen ignited with quick shots of the hooded figures inside Michelle’s apartment. They formed a circle around the helpless woman sprawled on the spray-painted carpet.

The frightening tableau live-streamed in crisp HD through the auditorium on the coders’ networked laptop screens. They pounded the keyboards harder.

“I pledge your soul to my master,” Zagan proclaimed and the powerfully built killer at Michelle’s side repeated the CEO’s ominous words. His gleaming blade encompassed the length of the auditorium’s mammoth screen, Michelle’s terrified features reflected in the broad expanse of steel. When his gloved hand drove the knife into the hapless woman’s chest, her scream shredded the silence of the auditorium.

The faces of the employees registered no emotion. Their eyes did glitter with feverish exhilaration as Michelle’s final moments flickered on their screens. Fingers flew over the keys, coding in syncopated rhythm with the thrusting blades onscreen as the grisly murder fueled their work. It was as if their workflow kept adjusting to match the speed and intensity of the stabbing knives.

Zagan surveyed his audience with growing satisfaction. He glanced at the big screen, where Michelle’s bloodied features loomed. Her eyes were glazing over. As death claimed