1

All the land between me and my destination is black. It's midday and I'm the only break in the never ending atramentoussea. To my immediate left I spot a small shrub, its leaves turned black – how it continues to thrive I do not know, it doesn't appear to be dying, but, looks are deceiving.

To my right and in the distance are mountainous peaks, also of a black nature, stories have been told of the dangers that lie there waiting for their next curious meal, maybe one day I'll seek the truths in the mountains, not today though. One of the most pertinent and elaborate folk lores regarding the mountains is that of the Obsidian Generator – that which turns all in its radius black. But alas, I do not have the time to spare to seek it out, my mission is far more primal, far more vengeful than that. The state and colour of the land doesn't effect what I need to do now, so the black land can remain black for a little while longer.

My destination is roughly two days from me in the direction I'm now walking in. I have been travelling for nigh on a month to get here, driven by my seemingly insatiable appetite for vengeance. Seemingly insatiable in that I will soon satisfy myself.

Time grinds slowly when all around is black. Though the land and all that is built or grown from it is black, it is easy, for reasons unknown to me, to discern between the ground and what is on it. Ahead of me a lone leafless tree gently sways in the uneven breeze, black as charcoal is its bark as dead as dead is its roots. Yet, there it is, behind me now as I pass. A black on black so easy for my eyes to extricate between the two, so difficult for anyone to explain. Many have ended themselves trying to comprehend what has befallen the now aptly named Black Desert, so long has it been since the darkness came, that the original name of the desert has been lost, along with the colours that once lived here.

I take a swig from my water capsule. A small metallic grey cylinder with a few plastic buttons and a small LCD screen displaying the contents of the capsule. The LCD reads water, my taste buds agree. The buttons beneath the screen can be used to change the contents of the capsule, given time to remix the fluid. A handy little accessory to have when travelling through a desert, I picked off two corpses I created a ways back, one of the many things I now own that have been obtained in such a way.

Hours pass like days alone in the desert. Thanks to my endless supply of water, the usual pitfalls related to being in a desert don't really apply to me. Another of the dangers of desert travel is the sun. That yellow round ball of fire in the sky, many miles away, beating down on the poor souls of Earth with ever fervent tenacity. I, luckily, don't have to worry about that pitfall either. Many moons ago, before the darkness, even before the annihilation, I paid for a procedure that is most rare in these parts of the universe. The procedure I speak of is known as CRF or Cyborg Re-Fitting, I shed my skin like the snake I am but took myself into a new shell, a stiff ceramic-alloy hybrid skeletal casing. Best decision I made and the best $50 million I spent. Desert travel would be infinitely worse without it.

The Darkness, I've explained – to the best of my knowledge. The Annihilation, I haven't. Usually a grim topic with the normal survivors of Earth, but, I'm not normal and I rather enjoy the melodramatic edge Earth and the majority of Earthbound humans demise holds. Roughly 112 years ago, 25 before the darkness, the space exodus had begun.

Space travel had advanced from periodical explorations by unmanned vessels, to manned space stations, to inflatable space holidays, to the last and most impressive, near light speed travel. With the new discovery came the first team to leave our solar system and return, a group made up of three females and three males; two Americans, two Britains, one Russian and one Australian. A distinct demographic missing, wouldn't you think? At the time the lack of Asians represented was seen as a mere computer error, now, it is looked upon as an apocalyptic human error. Of course, there were no complaints on the voyage out of the system, with the Asian conglomeration crossed fingers and hoping for failure. But, when the first signal reached earth on an all access frequency, with the then considered perfectly heroic and dramatic, “Earth, we're coming home!” message, is now seen as the four words of death. Days after the Asian's own scanners spotted the ships re-emergence within range, a brief barrage of nuclear war heads were sent to various capitals and large cities around the globe, pretty much fucking everything up. A small percentage of unedited humans survived, ninety percent of the cyborgs, robots and other techno-doohickey's that weren't hit by a direct blast also survived, I was one of them. My wife and child weren't. Neither was my Dad, but we weren't talking, so, I didn't really notice that loss.

2

The town I'm heading to is now known as Piceous, no idea what it was called before, despite my enhanced memory, place names of the before times rarely remain.

Why I'm heading there is simple, as previously mentioned, vengeance. Not only my own, but roughly 6 billion people share my quest. In the town I have been informed lives one of the remaining Asians whose order it was to push the button. I intend on rendering Imarai To completely incapable of pushing any more buttons or doing anything, ever again. It's my self-decided duty to ensure that his death is a slow and painful one, luckily for those that have gone before, I have had a lot of practice in perfecting this art.

Though I like to see myself as a very prepared man, how I'm going to torture Imarai To hasn't been fully decided by myself. I have run countless programs within my cyber-aid, a small device lodged within my brain that can handle number crunching, or in this case, scenario crunching. Using a old database of movies, books and actual criminal cases as reference, I've run through thousands of possible ways of not only prolonging his life, but making it as painful as possible. My personal preference for this is to play it by ear, it really depends on the conditions in town and which side of the bed, or desert in this case, I wake up on.

After three hours of walking, I finally come upon a decrepit shack. I un-holster one of my guns, my personal favourite, my Xilt340. A small metallic plasma blaster, perfect for melting people's faces or robot's circuitry at close range. Slowly I edge towards the shack's barely hinged black door, no windows to peer in through, so I decide the door needs to be removed with a sharp boot. Stepping slowly in front of the door, I pull my leg up to my chest and thrust it through the door, literally. Sometimes I forget the strength of my cyber-aided legs. I step back and shake the door off my leg, luckily for me, the shack is as it appeared, abandoned.

I enter.

Now, I'm ready to assume that everyone has been in a old shed, shack or even disused out-house, everyone knows the smells associated with them and the kind of things that can be found within. This particular shed isn't too much different to all those other ones, its only differences are in its colour, unnaturally black and the small orange plastic shovel neatly placed in the very middle of the small room within. I ponder long and hard over what could the purpose of this relic be, in today's apocalyptic world, who could possibly find a use for a orange plastic shovel, not only that, but one that was brought from outside of the black zone.

Puzzled.

I spend an hour pondering the origins of my new friend, the orange shovel, which I like to refer to as Shovelly. Needless to say, it gets lonely in the desert, even for a cyborg. I envision a small child, travelling with their parents through the black desert, clutching to its favourite toy in the whole world, the small plastic orange shovel. Soon their travels bring them to the relative luxury of this dishevelled shanty and they set up camp. Night befalls them and all around, the darkness ever enveloping. Noises travel that much more at night, sounds of galloping and a form of retarded yodelling wash over the shed and the family within. Soon, as the sounds get closer, the Father realises the danger in those sounds and grabs Wife with Child and leaves as quickly as possible. Child balling the whole way, leading the desert marauders right to them, slaughtered, beheaded, trophies taken, left to rot. All because of one stupid little plastic orange shovel that I call Shovelly.

Imagination runs riot in the desert.

Night soon will be upon me, being of the more robotic nature than your average man, my need for sleep is relative, more mental than physical. I like to keep to a normal human day, at least six hours sleep or standby mode as it is, but, it allows me to reflect on all that has been before and all that will soon be, ever the thinker.

Before I set my self in to standby, I set up a perimeter of detection wire and one auto-gun on top of the shack, its weight being almost enough to topple the shack, but not quite. I'm 94% sure that if it fires, it'll bring the shack down with it, but, I like to run risks every now and again. The gun and tape are for the imaginary marauders, since I began my travels, I've met no one, seen no one, but, that doesn't give me the right to be sloppy.

3

As giddy as a schoolgirl I awake. Only one days travelling left, I set upon the direction and get walking at top speed. Sure, I could run for half the day, but, that wouldn't be very human of me.

The night flew by without any trouble, no marauders out for new bounty. I decided to leave the auto-gun set upon the shack, in case someone is following me, but mostly for shits and giggles when I head back this way in a few days, hopefully to a scene of bloody murder, oh how those cheer me up.

A brief check of my inventory tells me I could do with updated weaponry soon, a town so far removed as Piceous probably won't have an updated armoury, but, it might have a few villagers willing to trade.

Tamarai To, the name rolls off the tongue like all other Asian names. Tamarai. To. Simple, easy to say. Makes my job that much easier, I've had to hunt down a Russian before, a paid gig, somebody else's vengeance, those Russian names are too god damn hard to pronounce, even for a cyborg! Since the nuclear destruction over-wrought the world, the percentage of Asians increased ten-fold. I'm not one of those slinty-eyed bastards, I hail from England, but, every other person in this fucked up world is of Asian ancestry. One thing that could be construed as a plus point to the deaths of 6 billion people is that racism against blacks and Mexicans is pretty much non-existent, the world – that is the small percentage with normal eyes, is united against those of the slinty eyed nature. How many times through history has a nation of people been judged by the actions of one or a few people of their ilk? Hitler? Fucking hate those German bastards! All the way through till the 1990s did that undying hatred for a time long in the past and the actions of a few people. Now we hate the Asians, for the actions of Tamarai To and his cabinet of powerful yet destructively short-sighted brethren. Any normal train of thought would have brought most people to the same conclusion, using multiple nuclear war heads on the world was a bad idea, not Tamarai To and company, no, they thought it was a brilliant idea, all because they weren't invited to a space trip.

Short-Sighted, Inconsiderate, Genocidal Pricks.

Ever seen a robot or cyborg get real mad? It's a rare thing among robots, but, cyborgs are pretty much human, I mean, we have our days where we're more robot than human, but, those are kinda like technical menstruations, a once-a-month kinda thing.

It's mid-afternoon, I can see it! It being Piceous. On the horizon is a grouping of buildings, at this distance, it's hard to figure out how many buildings, even with my enhanced 20x vision. I decide to bring up the pace, so I can get just outside the towns borders to plan my entrance.

A bird is circling above me. I look around, nobody near. I pull out one of my guns, an antique that I found a few weeks back, I've been wondering if it works any more. My memory banks sifted through the database of guns from the 21^st Century and came up with the fact that this little gun is a Auto Mag Corp Model 180 .44AMP, naturally, all those stupid little words meant nothing to me. What in the hell is a .44 AMP anyways? Their were some notes with the entry on the gun, said it had a slight futuristic feel and design to it, whoever wrote that didn't see the future too well. The bird, still circling overhead, obviously of the opinion that my minutes are numbered. I set my sights down the barrell of the gun and pull the trigger, forgetting to cock the little thing first.

Stupid.

Cocking the gun and sighting the bird once more, I fire. A loud sqwauk or quack or some kind of bird related noise ensued and the bird fell a few meters away from me. Despite the antiquity of the gun, its sighting and firing was still in good order, a perfect head shot, Mother would be proud.

It's getting dark. Well, darker, if that was even possible, which it is, I'm rambling, I need a drink. I pull out the capsule again, the contents of which I changed to Mountain Dew a few hours ago. Despite its name, it didn't taste anything like dew of mountains, those idiots back in the 21^st Century really could come up with some stupid naming. I take another swig of the liquid, pretty sure that its thirst quenching capabilities parallel the chances a paraplegic has in beating the wiring out of me. Which, if record goes to show, its three – nil to me. That thought brings a smile to my face, throughout time, the male of the species has been far more amused by others pains than the female of the species, for which I am glad, couldn't do my job without it. How or why I got in to a fight with three paraplegics on three separate occasions will have to be a story for another time. I set my thoughts of beating the already crippled aside and turn it to more pertinent issues, such as the best way to make my entrance to Piceous, my sources tell me that the town is full of rat bastards and general low life scum. My sources are usually right, so, I'm thinking the most fun mode of entrance would be what is referred to as, guns blazing. Normal people might take issue to this, What about the people who are innocent people?, those assholes would cry, in reply, “Nobody is fucking innocent these days” would follow the two bullets I'd be answering with, fucking hate preachy assholes.

I reach what looks to be a safe distance from the town, the buildings are easier to see now and I can also see faint shadows moving in about the shadowy town. All this blackness is starting to confuse me. When I first set foot deep within the blackness, I tried all my varying vision displays, to see if any would be better than all black, nothing helped.

Quickly I run in a circle with detection tape again, of which I have very little left and create a good spacing radius. If anyone trips the wire, not only will the wire explode, but it'll also alert me too, pretty handy shit to be carrying. After I made sure the perimeter was made secure, I unleashed my terribly unreliable tent, popping its cannister, out flew the now open tent, floating and stabilising roughly thirty centimetres off the ground. For reasons I can't even begin to imagine, the designers thought a floating tent would be cool. You don't even want to know how many times I've woken up miles away from where I set the tent up, strong winds are thankfully non-existent in the desert here.

Darkness fell over an hour ago and I'm sitting thinking or computing if you like, in my nice, semi-cosy almost stable tent. My plan is still not a certain. I really like the idea of shooting first, it saves the asking of questions. But, there is this tiny little thing inside me, I tried deleting it, as it didn't seem to be systems critical, but, it wouldn't delete, I found its function though, supposedly its my compulsory Morals-Stack, fucking bullshit thing. First thing I do when I get back to Big City, is to get that fucking thing taken out. Now, to come up with a some-what morals-compliant plan. Its difficult, when your intention is to murder someone. Even if that someone is responsible for over 6 billion deaths, as some idiot asshole once said, “Two wrongs don't make a right”, I prefer my version, “Two wrongs makes me feel better”.

Finally I settle on an approach of caution, but not against blowing someone's head off if they don;t tell me what I want to hear. I decide the first place to check is a hotel, get a room, state my intention to stay awhile, then, I'll rattle some cages, probably in the general direction of one of the whore houses.

4

Cyborgs can have and enjoy sex just like humans. Robots can have sex but don't enjoy it, they don't enjoy anything, they are robots. I wake up with a raging hard on, like most normal men of the world. I decide that if I don't pay it any attention, it'll go away. It takes an hour. An hour of sitting around and waiting, ignoring your penis, is pretty boring. I could have gone into the town, but, my entrance did not involve having a boner, that wasn't the kind of entrance I wished to make. I could have also jacked off, but, decided that I needed all the testosterone/balls I could get for the killing and decided to keep a hold of my little fellows for a while longer, that's what the whore house is for!

I pack up camp, the tent hadn't moved in the ill smelling breeze, so packing that away was easy. Re-ravelling the detection tape without setting it off, was a little more tricky. Not even my hardened cyborg chassis could survive that blast – it was one of the tasks I didn't want to risk with a hard on, added another half hour to the day.

All packed up, I set off in a medium paced saunter towards the town. Eyes fixed ahead, scanning the town. Even my binocular vision gleams me no great information on what lies before me. Children running around chasing a dog. Women beating clothes. Men beating women. The usual, what I've come to expect from these middle-of-nowhere towns.

I walk, staring ahead, don't notice a rider on a monobike fly past overhead, missed his salutations too. Lucky his salutations was in the form of a tip of his hat and not a pulse of his blaster. In hindsight, I probably should have paid more attention to my immediate surroundings, but the allure of the black town was quite something.

The town itself, now that I approach nearer, is what you would imagine a town in western to be. A tavern, a bar, two whorehouses, some residential buildings and a general store make up the bulk of the town. These spread out in a circle surrounding a semi-demolished statue and a well, as I approach the very edge of the town, I see a young lady bending over to reel in the bucked from the well, I glance away, hoping that fleeting glimpse wasn't enough to reawaken Mr. Happy just yet. Fortune shines on those that follow the righteous path, or something like that, as my penis remains slack and hiding.

I enter the town in-between two residential buildings, through the window of the left house I see two young children, diligently studying some text screen. So, the town has some limited technology.

Interesting. Looks most certainly can be deceiving.

Now, standing off centre of the town, I can see all the buildings much clearer. All bar one black in nature. A house on the far side is built of pure white panelling. Two robots are painting its sides, I'm guessing that's a full time job for them. I come to the very quick and over assuming conclusion that the white house is where Tamarai To, all mighty dick head resides.

I withdraw my weapon, with intent on shooting all that stand in my way, but, I decide against such brusque actions and re-holster the blaster. I should go to the hotel first, see what I can find out. It might not be his house, he can't be that stupid, surely? Even if he is, I have no qualms about killing the stupid.

I scan the buildings around the town, I spot a slightly dilapidated building with a sign out front that reads Dark Tavern, with such a wonderfully imaginative name as that, how could I possibly not want to stay there? I swagger in the fashion known to be moved in by gun-slingers, my direction, the tavern. A dog whips past my legs and three children run following it, I smile, I'm glad I didn't come in guns blazing, wouldn't want to hurt that delightful little dog.

The tavern's exterior only differs to the others in that it has a sign out front, stating its name – the name being unique to the town – and that it has a set of swing doors, metallic in nature. I've seen these doors before, designed to act in the fashion of the old west wooden versions, but that much more reliable. How or why someone created these things is beyond me. I step up the three steps and push through the metal swing doors, a relenting sigh issued from them as I pass on through, almost as if they we're pissed off by my intrusion, I think nothing of it other than if things go south quick, I'm shooting the doors too.

Within I'm greeted by one ugly son-of-a-bitch, all smiles and all ugly. I ignore the poor bastard, harmless as an old fart. I also decide that he is on the list of shooting, to put him out of his misery. To my right and slightly ahead of me is the bar, behind which is a fat man with black hair. Behind him is a huge selection of fake bottles. I notice before him is one drinks dispenser, obviously of the same designers as my drinks capsule. To my left are a set of stairs leading up to what I assume is the rooms. Underneath the upstairs balcony are tables, all black with the exception of one table, which is white – gleaming in the interior lighting, as if freshly painted.

Aside from the ugly greeter, there are two more customers. One really, unbelievably, so god-damn old woman sitting at an unplugged electric piano, playing her heart out. I praise all that dictates this world for the foresight to unplug the piano, I hate pianos, I would have killed her for sure. Well, I still probably will kill her, but, for different reasons, along the same lines as ugly. The other customer is conversing with the bar lord, I decide to head on over to the bar and get a drink. Easier to inquire about a room if I'm already a customer.

I walk over to the bar and plonk myself into one of the freshly polished black bar stools, surprisingly comfortable on my rough buttocks, a welcome change to desert. The bar man scarcely notices my arrival, but his friend notices me and nods in my direction, I smile a almost genuine smile and tip my hat. He returns the favour. The barman walks on over.

“What'll it be, Stranger?” asked the Barman.

“Vodka-Coke, lots ice no lemon” I replied.

“Girly drink” muttered the Barman as he walked back over to the dispenser to program in my girly drink. He'll die for that one, rest assured.

The Barman walks back carrying a glasss with what could be considered vodka and coke with one ice cube and a god damn lemon. I decide that shooting him in the face right now isn't the best course of action, yet. “Thanks” I say dryly and take a sip.

“Welcome. What brings you to Piceous?” asked the Barman, with a splashing of actual interest.

“Bizness” I reply.

“What kind of business?”

“None of yours. How much for a room in this fine establishment?” I enquire, changing the subject.

“Normally 500 RMB. For you, 600” replied the Barman, ever going up my hit list.

“Nice. I'll take a room, pay a day in advance. Might be staying longer though, that a problem?” says I as I withdraw enough cash to cover the room and the drink, no tip for this fucker.

The Barman, stunned by my willingness to pay the extortinate price, quickly grabs the cash and wobbles over to the key rack on the other end of the bar. Quickly wobbling back, he places the key on the table. As another gesture of willingness to cooperate with me, he grabs my drink as I was about to have another sip and throws it away. He runs over to the dispenser and returns with the drink I ordered, funny little fat barman now has fleeting images of a distant future life, I think otherwise.

“Thanks” I say, with as much audible lying as possible.

“Your in room number 5. Best room in town!” states the Barman, don't believe him.

“Even better than the ones in the white house?” I ask, not one for subtle changes in topic.

“I wouldn't know, never been there” replied the Barman after much consideration and eye contact with everyone in the building other than me.

I decide that further enquiries into the white house should be saved for later, I leave a small – oh so very small – tip and head towards the stairs.

As I pass the man at the bar, he wheels on the spinning bar stool and steps to confront me, I smile a wide smile, the kind of smile I reserve for moments of extreme violence.

“Where ya from Mr Stranger?” asks the man from the bar. Upon closer inspection I find this man to be of very little significance to my mission and story and subsequently wish to be rid of his presence quickly.

“Over there” replies I, pointing my finger diagonally to the right in front of me, just like a well trained dog, the man turns to look. I steer myself past and up the stairs before he turns to realise what a schoolboy error he just made. Me, laughing all the way to my room can't wait to kill every asshole in this place.

5

After much frantic twisting, pulling and turning, I finally get my room door open. To the sounds of laughter from down stairs, I enter my new, temporary abode. Before me is what could definitely be described as spartan. A bed, a dresser with mirror above. An en-suite bathroom, as spartanly designed as possible. The one nice thing I see is a view screen, I head over to it to a sign that reads, “Terible Sorry – Not Function Nemore”, three out of five words isn't bad I think to myself, better than some towns I've been to.

After situating myself in my room, placing my few non-essential possessions in the draws provided, I start to think about my next move.

I haven't confirmed that Tamarai To lives here, nor have I confirmed that he is still alive. There have been rumours that he died choking on a bra strap – but I think that got mixed up with an old TV show in which a character's wish was to die in such a manner – easily done I guess.

I decide that another walk around town will help, maybe someone or something will stand out, other than the white house of course.

Standing on the tavern veranda, having endured the swing doors sighing once more, I survey the town. The children that passed me before are still chasing the poor dog. The women that were previously beating clothes are now being beaten by their husbands. Those that were being beaten are now beating clothes, just a little bruised whilst doing it.

Two houses to the left of the white house is the town's General Store, or as the sign would have me believe, “The World's Best All Purpose Store That Sells Practically Everything You Could Ever Want”, its a long sign. I decide that investigating the store would be a good course of action, to see if they have in stock that guitar I wanted when I was sixteen, somehow, I think the sign is lying.

I step off the veranda, past the galloping children, around the well and straight into the general store, all within thirty seconds. The town, being small allows for quick movement, but, the powers that be here will most certainly know of my arrival, I really should act fast.

The general store is a big let down, as hyped up as the sign was, it couldn't be anything but an anti-climax. I'll spare you the details but needless to say not only did they not have the guitar I wanted, they also told me nothing I didn't already know. An old couple run the place, they'll be dead by dawn.

Looking more and more like a simple enter white house, kill everyone, exit all happy kind of mission, I decide to throw my hesitation out the window and head over to the white house. AS I pass the building between the general store and the white house, I see the plush innards. Women in varying degrees of fornication and men getting much joy out of it, I find myself staring at the whore house.

Joy. Jubilation. Boner.

A brief detour, or, what I like to call an interlude in the narrative.

Much better. Three to my one, most enjoyable. Still, they all have to die eventually, I'll save the pretty one for the last.

After that release, I decide that heading to the white house is now a must, for I am growing tired and I wish to be rid of this town today.

I walk around the rear of the whore house, so I can get a look at the white house from another angle. The two robots are painting the house around the back now, the parts they haven't got around too yet show the faintest of black speckling across them, making it obvious that within a few days the whole thing would be black.

Throwing caution to the wind, I head on over to the two robots, quickly concealing my weaponry. Robots are notorious for their inabilities to keep secrets well, all programming can be unprogrammed. I happen to be pretty good at it.

“Evening Gents” I call out to the robots.

“Good Evening Kind Sir” replied the nearest robot, clearer the talker of the couple.

“What a fine paint job. Might I enquire what paint it is?”

“You most certainly can. It is white paint, sir” replied the robot, no hint of irony. Well, at least it replied truthfully.

“How often do you paint the house?” I ask.

“Every day, all day, contiunously around the clock. We just go around and around and around and around and around and”

“Quite. Who pays for this?” I ask, gently feeling around for my blaster, at the sound of his name, I waste the robots.

“and around and around. Our owner and master instructs us” replied the robot, not the answer I was looking for.

“Oh, you mean Mr Bilton?” says I.

“No” replied the robot.

“Who then?”

“I'm not a liberty to tell you” replied the robot once more.

“Oh, what kind of man would not wish himself known, especially as he is the sole owner of the most fantastic house in the desert!” elaborately spewed I, in the hopes of befuddling the robot.

“Well, if yer must know mate, our boss here, he's a little wanted if you catch my drift, the slinty eyed bastard yer see, hes hiding out like. Real sneaky our boss is” replied the robot in a weird old London, cockney flavoured accent.

That, was all I needed to hear. I unsheathed my laserblade and cut the robot a new one. Unholstering my blaster I quickly put it in silence mode and blew the other robots head in. Both fell to a pool of oily-shiny liquid and frayed wiring.

So, Tamarai To, owns the only white house in a sea of black. Luckily for me my two modes of dispatching the robots didn't cause too much noise, the sounds of the desert wafted in on the mini-carnage before me.

Semi-knowing that the coast was clear out front, I reared back around to the other side of the whore house and back around to the middle of the town, just to be on the safe side.

Lucky for me I did, the two robots must have been surveilance as now three heavily armoured, armed to the teeth cyborgs were standing on guard outside.

Bollocks.

You can tell a cyborg from a robot easily, chest movements. Cyborgs still need to breathe. I can take one out with my rifle, but the other two would react insanely fast, immediately knowing where the bullet came from. Although I'm pretty sure of my abilities, I can't be sure of theirs, taking two heavily armoured and armed cyborgs on tête-et-tête is not something I would advise anyone.

A grenade would do it, a perfectly timed grenade. I decide this is the best method, throw a grenade timed to explode as soon as the three are in range, then come out firing.

I pull out my one and only grenade, hence the need for restocking, I program the specks of this explosion, quickly withdraw my blaster and place the sword hilt in between my teeth. I launch the grenade, crouch for two seconds, jump out from cover and start firing. The grenade, still in mid-air, the three running towards me firing, missing. The grenade explodes, takes two apart. The one furthest away from me, reels as the blast removes its right arm. The arm holding its gun. Quickly it shuts off the blood flow to that arm, the spouting blood ceases. It withdraws another gun from its pockets just as I sight and fire, its head in a blast of red explodes. Children, noticing the fire fight had previously stop to stare, probably too close, one getting covered in blood. They all run away to their respective houses to hide.

I get up from my crouching position, reload and start moving towards the house. No signs of movement from any of the cyborgs. They were heavy duty, not many around these parts I thought. Can't be too many more, surely.

Now I'm nearer the front of the white house, I see that all the windows are spy proof, no matter what vision I use, I can't see in. It would have been nice to know the layout inside before going in, guess that ain't gonna happen now. Gun in right hand, blade in left, I head through the white picket fence surrounding the house. The white grass now covered in splashes of red, very pretty.

As I step on the first step a small man flings himself out through the door with his right foot heading for my head. I never understood why people of power would employ little people to protect them, I swat the small bastard to the ground, uncoil my blade and swish through his neck. I place the hilt in my pocket and pick his head up. Backing away from the house to the edge of the fencing, I launch the head into one of the upstairs windows. The skull cracks and brain matter remain on the unbroken window. I swear, it sounds like the word shit.

Having failed on the window smashing, I decide I don't have time to waste on explosives, I head back up the steps and through the door. I'm presented with a cosily designed corridor, to the left of which a stair case ascends to the second floor. To my immediate right is a small closet, opened – presumably where they stored their ninja mini-man. To my left another room, I step cautiously towards the door, aware of any danger that may be behind me or from the staircase, I swivel around the half opened door into the next room.

Nothing.

I head back through the door I came from and decide to go up the stairs. As soon as I step on the first step, an explosion takes out the remaining steps.

Fuck.

Quickly I step back three paces, as two burly fat men came running out with massive meat cleavers. I drop those two stupid bastards with the plasma gun.

Chefs.

What remains of their heads looks decidedly like spaghetti bolgonese, reminds me I'm hungry.

I step past the now broken staircase, knowing that I can easily jump that distance, but, decide to clear my exit before going up there.

Through the door that the two chefs bundled out of, I find the kitchen. Nobody remained with, something bubbling on the stove, I take the spoon and taste it, some awful broth like substance within, I spit into a great big wad of mucus bobs on top now, probably bettering the taste.

A connected door to my right leads me through to a living room, in the seat of which is a young man. I decide that talking now is a little redundant and shoot the shit out of the chair and the man. Nothing happens.

Balls.

I realise my error just as he is upon me and beating ten balls of horse shit out of me.

Holographic display, stupid me.

The real little Asian guy, having had quite enough of his punches, I launched the little fucker back towards the now empty space where the chair was. He lands perfectly into some martial arts stance. Now, I'm not a martial artist in shape of the word, artist is rarely a word anyone would connect with me. But oh how I love brawling with these wiry fuckers.

All kicks and thrills but no real pain. Rule one of street fighting, don't spin kick, please, for the love of all that is unholy, no spin kicks. Luckily for me, this guy don't know shit about fighting, only artsy-fartsy fighting. He takes three tip-toe steps and spins towards me. I quickly pull out my LaserBlade and cut his out-thrust leg off. Blood shoots everywhere, mostly on me.

No cyborg.

The blood continues to poor as he hops towards me, pain obviously registering on his face, but an undying loyalty to his master controlling him. I decide that lopping off his other leg might turn to be hilarious, so I let him get close, close enough to punch me in the face.

He punches me in the face.

I cut off his other leg.

Ever seen a body that once had roughly a meter of leg holding it up suddenly descend to the ground, having lost its legs? No? It's fucking hilarious, you should have seen his face. At first, upon hitting me in the face, his gob was wide with glee. Suddenly he realised I still had the blade, gob retracting into a pre-emptive snarl. Blade cuts through flesh, muscle, veins, bone. AS it proceeds through those stages, his face wracks with more and more pain. Suddenly, as gravity decides it wants in on this joke, his torso and arms plonk to the floor, in a splash of blood.

I laugh. Hah.

“You fuck!” screams the Asian assassin with no legs.

“Just did thanks” I replied, from the school of Arnie one liners. Real book, look it up.

I take the blade, turn the heat up. Kick the guy over onto his back, much to his distress, arms flailing to push him back upright, I chop them off real quick. Cauterizing the arms as it goes, no blood now.

I run the blade over the leg wounds, he screams, I laugh.

Now before me I have a torso and a head, still related by flesh and bone. The jaw is yapping in pain. Not going to get much sense out of him like this, time for our good old friend, Mr Drugs.

I pull out a hypoject of some shit that would've made Ghandi do the conga with Hitler. I inject it into his neck, instantly his mood changes, his face changes. His gestures didn't change, he has nothing to gesture with any more.

“Where is Tamarai To?” I ask.

“Upstairs” replied the limbless man.

“Cushty” I reply as I lop off his head, pick it up and throw it against the window. The window smashes this time. Safety glass, will break from the inside, nice.

There is an unwritten rule in my line of work. If someone tells you what you want, you should be nice to them. I'd underline should, as I will probably go against that pretty soon. If that pin-pricked guy had told me some bullshit, I would have left him there with an autoject full of the same drug he had before, keeping him alive for up to 48 hours. Could you imagine that? Pretty cool, huh?

Having had enough of this room, I head back to the broken stair case. Launching ahead of me a spy-cam, I can see that there is nobody at the very top of the stairs. I go around the corner, take three steps back and take a running jump at the top of the stair case. Luckily for me there is enough space at the end of them for my roll to come full around and I land on my feet, spinning as fire picks holes above my head.

I turn to face the fire and unleash my own firings, suddenly the shooting stops. I stand up. The man that was firing at me is now headless.

God I'm good.

I rectify my present screwy clothing alignment, to keep up appearances and reload my gun. I notice a hole in my arm. Luckily for me I have self-repairing skin, nano-technology rebuilds my skin at an alarming rate, sure, it wouldn't have helped the limbless assassin, but it can heal gun wounds easily.

“Is there anybody out there?” I call.

No reply.

I walk down towards the only door on the landing, its a few meters ahead of me and on my left. I open it.

Clap. Clap. Clap.

The clapping is from two hands being brought together and being pulled apart. They are coming from a man I instantly recognise. Quickly I launch the already prepared knife at his leg. The knife I speak of has a instant-paralyze poison infused into its metal, upon flesh – non-nano flesh – it paralyzes the whole body, with the exception of the head.

Direct hit.

“Congratulations” says Tamarai To. A look of resignation in his face, the kind I run on.

I take a bow. “Thank You, I assume there is nobody left in your house?” I ask, knowing full well there isn't.

“You assume correctly. Now, please end this quickly.” pleaded To, unconvincingly.

“No such luck I'm afraid Tamarai To, this is going to get pretty nasty, I'm afraid you'll be around for a good while yet” I said, the anticipation so clear in my voice, giddy once more.

“Do what you must” said To, closing his eyes, I set to work.

First of all I stripped him of his clothing, pleased at the sight of his small Asian penis.

“This explains all the big nuclear weapons now doesn't it” says I, again from that Arnie book.

Naked before me, I remove a multitool from my pocket. This amazing tool can be anything you program it to be. State of the art back when things were being manufactured. I set it to pliers.

I start with his right foot, I take the pliers to his small toenail and rip it off.

He screams.

I move to the right foot and rip the small toenail off this foot too, for symmetry's sake.

He wails in agony.

I repeat this till all the toes are now bloody, toenail-less nubs of flesh. I quickly cauterize the wounds with my blade and chop off all the toes.

He screams.

At this point in the proceedings, I give him a small dose of Mr Happy-Drug. Then I take the end of my blade, grab his penis, stretch it to a real man size and place the hot blade to the end of it, gradually putting more pressure towards his body.

Sizzling penis.

I stop halfway through, I need a drink. I pull out my drinks capsule and take a big swig of Mountain Dew, most refreshing.

I get back to work. I leave the now tiny penis and head to his hands, I decide that Tamarai To would look better with six less fingers and no thumbs. I glue his arms to his seat and glue his hand in a upright position, his palms facing himself.

I cut off on both hands, with the hot blade, his fingers except the middle one and his thumbs.

Before me I have a man. A man with no toes, half a penis and he is flipping me off with both hands, because those are the only fingers he has. I glue them in place.

I laugh again. I swig again. I change the capsule to whiskey, lets make a party of this.

I return my attention back to Tamarai To.

“How is it hanging?” I ask.

He wails and screams some more.

The answer to my question is a lifeless nub of flesh that used to be his penis, its hanging to the right.

“As you can't see, To – wait, that's an ironic name – you lacking toes and everything, I'll call you Tam from now on. Well, as you can't see what is left of your penis, Tam, it's hanging to the right”

As with all people in my position, throughout time, I cannot resist making it even worse for this monster before me, by throwing in witty comments, comic relief in an otherwise horrible task, well, horrible for anyone but me, this is an all night laugh riot for me.

“Ever play Tic-Tac-To?” I ask.

He screams, but to me the scream is in the affirmative as opposed to all the previous negative screams.

I quickly carve out a game on to his left thigh.

“I'm noughts” I say.

He screams in the negative.

“OK, you can be noughts, I'll be crosses, damn picky slinty eyed fucker”

I take top left, he takes middle – reluctantly after much coercing. I take bottom right. He takes top right. I take bottom left. He realises his inferior Tic-Tac-To skills and I finish the game with a huge cross, crossing out the game board.

“That was fun. Wanna play again?” I ask.

He screams in the negative, too bad, what I have in store now is far worse.

I take a quick breather. This would be a perfect time to smoke if I were a smoker, but, I'm not smoking will kill yer. I take a swig of the now ready whiskey.

Hits the spot.

I take the multi tool and program it to be a scalpel, a rusty one. Wonderful tool this is.

I pull his eye lid back from his right eye and begin to slice the eyelid away, he wriggles a little too much. I stop half way, pull out the blade.

“Don't fucking move, you'll ruin the look I'm going for!” I shout, genuinely distressed by his movements, as I do have a vision in mind.

I take another hypoject from my posket and drug the fucker up, he goes to happy land very quickly.

I continue, taking the rusty blade through his eyelids, blood pouring into his eyes. I imagine his vision now having a slight red tint to one side. I finish the removal of the flap of skin, I put it on his forehead.

“The right side is definitely your better side right now, better even it out” I say, so witty.

I take the rusty scalpel and this time zig-zag through his eyelid, the effect is fucking awesome, I wish I had done it to the other eye now, slightly disappointed.

“You're truly a beauty to behold, Tam”

“You know, you really didn't have to press the button. You just weren't invited to one space party, I'm sure you would have been invited on the next one. You had to go and kill the world, didn't you?”

Kick – in the half penis.

“My Wife”

Punch – nose shatters.

“My Son”

Tears welling, fight back. Head butt. Ow – wrong move.

I stagger back, disorientated by the use of my head. “My Dad”, I walk over to the window and smash it, letting in some fresh air.

Surrounding the building is what I guess the whole town. One woman steps forward, “Thank You” and the all join her in doing so. I put a thumbs up and a shit eating grin on my face. Then I return to the work at hand.

I take the scalpel.

Slice his balls off, considerably large balls I must add, in relation to his penis, they are gargantuan.

I change the scalpel to extra shiny, precision work here. I cut out flaps in his pectorals.

I stuff a ball down each cut. I get the hot blade and cauterize the wound.

Tamarai To. Man with no toes, no balls, half a penis, no eyelids and small pre-teen breasts.

I laugh.

“Right, Tam, this is the end. Your only friend now, the end. I'm going to bring you back, don't scream. Here is your chance to apologise to the world” I say.

I take a hypoject and pump full of some really wicked stuff, it'll keep the pain away but bring him back, he won't feel pain – his mind will be the epitome of clarity.

“So, Tam, whatcha got to say?” I ask.

“Sorry...?” says Tam tentatively.

“That's a good start” I make encouraging gestures with my hands, a sort of rolling of hands.

“It's all I have. Please, end it now.” says Tam who then shuts up.

“Well, I guess there isn't much you could say”

I take the blade and cut his ears off, cauterizing the wounds instantly.

I take a repair patch and place it on his nose. Will take three minutes to rebuild his nose.

I wait.

Nose complete, I take the blade and slice his nose off.

The clarity drug is wearing off, he'll start screaming any moment now.

I cut his hair off and a few layers of skin on his head.

He screams.

I laugh.

Boredom is something everyone suffers from eventually. I begin to suffer from it, there is only so much you can do to a man.

“The End” I say with such melodramatic emphasis I should win some kind of reward for acting, if there was such a thing any more.

I take my blade and plunge it deep within him, I repeat all around his torso and legs, careful not to sever any important things, like the heart.

After roughly fifty holes are made. I've created a most grotesque thing.

A man, no toes, no balls, half a penis. Full of holes. Remnants of small breasts. No eyelids, no ears, no nose, no hair, barely a scalp. Tamarai To.

I laugh. About as just as it could get in this world.

I step away from the body. Take one last look at it. Grab it and throw out the window to the cheers, cheers that soon drift into retching and heaving.

I laugh again, there are a lot of weaker stomachs than mine in this world, like everyone out there.

I pause, reflect, laugh once more. Then descend with a jump down the stairwell and out the front door.

A change of heart. I won't kill the town. I walk past the crowd, everyone I met previously was there to watch. The crowd splits before me as I walk back the way I came. I pass the barman, I wink at him, he kinda smiles.

I make it through the crowd, turn, throw a dart at the barman that nobody notices, I disguise the move as a wave.

I leave.

The barman collapses.

I return to the shack.

Three dead bodies surround the shack, with bounties far exceeding their apparent wealth.

I pick out the plastic orange spade, look at it, and let out when big laugh that turns into a sob.

I sit, relax and laugh some more.