SL Huang - Up and Coming - Stories by the 2016 Campbell-Eligible Authors

Now this would be very interesting.

“Isaac Kopper, a twenty-eight year old fusion core engineer was found dead in his home earlier this morning at his house on Laker Avenue. The victim had skin from his face removed by what is suspected to be a homemade surgery device. Security drones report no signs of forced entry. It is uncertain if the grizzly surgery was performed post-mortem. In other news, Chief Execute Ryan Kurtman has stated that funding towards—”

Kopper tuned out of the propaganda as he started to think. He could very well have told them if it was post-mortem or not. He had sliced the throat of the man formerly known as Isaac Kopper before skinning him. The operation had taken a lot longer as it was his first time, but he had managed to successfully skin and assume the identity of Isaac Kopper. From there on it was just a matter of finding the right person with a high enough Asset Level and had special permission to travel. He was surprised to find that Mr. Kopper did in fact have a lot of close acquaintances with these requirements, one of which had been willing to open the door to someone who was wearing his friend’s face. He almost didn’t choose Anders, but then he did a little rifling through some files and the decision cemented itself. He was corrupt as they came. He’d hurt the innocent, hurt women, hurt the defenseless. Just skimming the files made Kopper’s stomach flip. And with the right credits in the right pocket the man breezed through it all without a second’s thought.

He didn’t fool himself into thinking he’d done some great deed. But he’d sleep just a little better knowing Anders was finished.

‘…the leader of the terrorist organization known as Octam has been identified as Lauren Nior. According to witness accounts, Nior committed suicide before the Spec Ops Squad was able to capture and question her. This has been verified by an autopsy.’

Lauren… Kopper felt a needle plunge into his heart. He had been planning to take her out tomorrow. He’d even been considering marriage. He had been there for her on every crazy suicidal job she could dream up. Now she was dead.

If I had been with her…

No. He couldn’t go there. There was nothing he could have done. It was a small comfort in knowing that she was already gone and wasn’t in some dark room facing interrogation. But he knew she would never have killed herself. She would have gone down fighting to the last second, just like she always did.

All he could do now was get the hell out of here. For the both of them.

*

The face of Saul Anders gazed back at him in the mirror as he examined his new face, fingers trailing down the telltale lines left behind by the suction mask. They would fade away in an hour or so, just like they had when he had been Isaac Kopper.

He had to leave. He discarded the suction mask, bed sheets, tubes, into the shredder. Contrary to its name, the shredder would actually heat up to the point where anything—or anyone—inside it would melt into nothing in seconds. It was the perfect way to destroy the evidence. Anders stabbed the inconspicuous blue button next to the hatch. A whirling sound commenced, and at the bottom of the shaft, the evidence was hyper-heated, melted down into liquid and drained, where it would flow to into a giant sewer, destined for the underground waste pit on the outskirts of the city.

It was hard to throw the skinning device away. Lauren had been working on it with her techies down in the lab, and had dropped it off at his place a few days ago for safekeeping. It was the only thing he had of hers that was left.

But it had to be done.

I’m sorry, Lauren. His hands were heavy as lead, but he picked up the machine and dropped it into the shredder, ready to be melted down.

Everything that he had touched was wiped down with a thick cloth drenched in a mild acidic substance that burned away microscopic-size chunks from the surface of the said subject. You could wear a face, but fingerprints were another thing entirely.

He made sure there was nothing incriminating left lying around before heading out the door, wiping the door handle clean and closing it shut behind him with a heavy click. A gathering of drunk party-goers had clustered near the foot of the stairs, bottles of Council approved alcohol clasped in their hands.

What if they knew Saul Anders? It was just luck that him and Kopper had the same shock of blond hair, but Anders’ was jet black. He was half tempted to dart back inside and find some hair dye, but it was too late now. Besides, this could be a test. If something was out of place, he would know soon enough. Better here than staring down the wrong end of a gun.

He ambled past them, his heart lodged in his mouth. He prayed they wouldn’t look too closely. Thankfully, they were too drunk to pay any attention. They gave him the briefest of nods as he headed out the door, the vicious cold wind biting at his face. So far so good.

*

Preferring not to traverse the labyrinth of back alleys, dark streets and shady market stalls that led the way to City Central, Anders caught a transport pod, depositing a few credits into the slot as he climbed aboard, barely earning a glance from the driver as he punched in his requested destination. The pod was empty, bulletproof windows and brown leather seats pristine and clean. You never saw pods in this condition in the low-assest zones or in the City Central. It seemed they were only reserved for the wealthy suburban areas and the people with the money to pay for them.

Anders started out the window, glancing at the neat sprawl of houses and apartments, lovingly designed and built with polished wood, boltglass, rich steel and pure metals, all lavishly dressed up in pure paints and fine alloys, pristine marble swimming pools and gardens of perennials, clipped hedges and looping gravel pathways. They traveled closer and closer to the City, the view started to decline, offering rows of rectangular apartments with gap-toothed windows, slathered in flaking grey paint, connected with a network of rusty steel and eroded concrete.

And he was leaving it behind for good.

He had been planning to leave for a while. He told Lauren that there was only so much to be done fighting the government. He saw it bit by bit. Everything they did, everything they destroyed, everything they spread, every effort they made barely seemed to make a dent in the Council. And if it had an effect, they’d brush it off and rebuild themselves, twice as strong. He explained how relocating somewhere else where the Council had a looser grip was a hell lot safer. But she had been determined to stay and continue fighting against the Council, to finish what they started. For a while he had listened, but as time wore on he saw it gradually declining. He didn’t know why she didn’t see it. Dedication to the cause, he supposed.

And it got her killed in the end.

And he wouldn’t be sticking around to join her.

He might have been a heartless bastard, but he wasn’t going to be a dead one. His stands were stained just as much as her’s. He wasn’t going to add to it.

They were approaching the city now, soaring skyscrapers, gigantic billboards and flashing holodisplays clogging the night sky. Colour-coded cables slithered up walls and across roofs, strung up in a suspended web. The streets started to narrow as people swarmed around the pod, some of them stepping directly onto the bitumen road, painted a deep gold by the overhanging street lamps.

After nearly half an hour of crawling through the uncaring crowds, Anders hissed, ‘Can’t you go any faster?’

The driver gestured at the milling crowds zigzagging on the road. ‘I ain’t mowing dozens of folks down for you,’ he said. ‘Sorry.’