Twitcher: An Illustrated Dystopian Cyberpunk Tale of Revenge and Redemption by Kaleb Schad

Author:Kaleb Schad
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 2019-01-26T22:00:00+00:00

The cackle of the plastic tarp. The slap of waves from the wharf. The rattle of the child’s shaking body as he was forced back on the steel table echoing the rattle of Tyler’s heart. These were the sounds he heard, or imagined hearing. He knew there was a line somewhere here. He couldn’t see it, but he knew once crossed, he couldn’t be who he had been any longer, he couldn’t wrap himself in those gentle lies any longer.

“Please,” said the boy after Tyler told him what was going to happen. “But how will I write my name? I’m sorry.”

“Maybe we can just go,” Tyler said to the woman. “What difference does it make if he sees us coming?”

“For whatever I am. I’m sorry.”

“You think Staern’ll just send a crawlbot and a couple of soldiers next time? Now that he knows a JACKK is escorting him?” She said it with a sympathetic smile on her face. Another mask to hide behind, this one of helplessness.

“I don’t want my arm cut off,” the boy said. His voice was climbing.

“You think they’d even let the boy live? Obviously, they’re controlling something inside of him.”

One of the surgeons pulled his cart closer.

The boy looked at the saws on it. “Oh, please, sir,” he said to the soldier who’d been guarding him since they arrived. “Help me.”

“Maybe the Twitcher is right,” the soldier said.

Sara turned a furious glare on the man. “Go,” she said. The soldier shrugged and walked toward one of the parked vans.

“Let’s go,” she said to the surgeon.

“No,” the boy shouted. “No!” He tried to sit up, but Tyler held him down.

“Please, Mr. Tyler.” He whispered, the words spilling out, desperate, chasing each other. “I’ll do anything you want and if they’re tracking me, I’ll run and I’ll lead them away from you so you can go and hurt Mr. Staern and I’ll hide and they’ll never find me and then you can sneak in and nobody will know you’re coming because they’ll think you’re with me, but I’ll be hiding and they won’t be able to find me because I’m really good at hiding, I hide all the time and even ask Mr. Fahrs, he said I was good at hiding when a logging-bot almost saw me. Please, please, please.” The last pleases were little more than cracks.

Tyler could feel the thwump, thwump of the kid’s heart, the scattered, seizing breaths, the rigid terror. He tried to remind himself that this boy was designed for killing, that if Staern had his way, the boy would massacre tens, even hundreds of thousands, including other children just like him, who would never have a chance to beg for their lives. He tried to remind himself that within two days’ time, the boy would be dead anyway and then he wouldn’t feel any of this.

He tried to remind himself to not care.

“I was in a scary time once when I was your age, too,” Tyler said. He brushed back the boy’s sweaty hair, then rested his hand on the boy’s head.

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