# a siren song for dave a cyberpunk body horror as rejected from seize the press webzine warning descriptions of violence and extreme body modification intro. you can get any trade you want in the megacity. buy anyone's time services - even ir life. but the body's inner sea always remembers ![[king-visuals-geeEm7c-RN0-unsplash.jpg|600]] photo [king visuals](https://unsplash.com/@king_nemuel?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText) / unsplash **1//** david j. mamet 34 has been casually murdering sex workers at night in the eastern sector with bored indifference for several months. if ey were ever to explain himself one might easily conclude ir's frustrated when there's nothing on holotv by day ey teaches coding to megacity immigrants and lives alone in a gated (read white only) community to the fashionable west. always polite and neatly dressed dave isn't fussy about the age height or gender expression of ir 'subjects' - all mere scientific objects of ir detached urban study nobody talks to dave at work; when they're certain ir's not around they whisper among themselves about ir dead beady fish eyes. dave got the initial idea for ir hobby while lurking for months on a toxic ocean parasite-eating disorder 'recovery' forum. (don't look it up dear researcher; you don't want that weird shit on your global search history) while existing without detectable humane intelligence dave displays a modern criminal's animalistic survival instincts and always takes the basic precautions. ey pays in cash chips wherever ey hunts and wears instant spray-on gloves and 3d soft-printed hollywood skin masks crudely sourced from the inane shows ey watches. often while repeatedly squeezing ir crotch. the last time out ey looked like that scientist creep from starship troopers. "a real fascist sci fi classic," says dave tonight dave stands by the window in ir apartment naked and alone staring out into the receding dark and its pinprick lights. ir stomach growls and feels bloated. ey talks out loud to the megacity itself "blind space apes falling forever through the your churning guts right into the terrible undersea palace where i reside in the beautiful robes of oceanic brilliance.." ey silently hates them all ey thinks of himself as a poet of the unseen ocean - a modern neptune in fact strong sea tentacles exuding from ir handsome face - an ancient benthic entity feeding (as ey must) on the dull the stupid and needy. unlike dave of course - ey imagines ir own violent needs as all natural **2//** the local megacity 808 police franchise don't care about murder and mayhem. surges in violent crime and death - citizens faintly terrified and constantly on-edge? no problem. "as long as it all stays within predicted corporate range." the on-screen stats update in realtime but never quite move over the thin blue line threatening negative press attention. a report which might then shift onto the mahogany desk of that new liberal district judge whatsherface still word gets out eventually as dave's been busy. someone up the chain is bleeding fresh local talent. according to local rumor it could even be the alleged kingpin of officially sanctioned crime - the head robopig himself. whoever it is they want answers fast - along with a conveniently detached head. doesn't matter whose. as long as the cash keeps moving down at the station the chief sits alone in ir spartan armored office on 90th floor puffing on ir second imported cuban cigar of the day while idly flicking through the recent crime scene photos. grunting with a mixture of practiced apathy and mild distaste at pain-contorted faces and twisted bodies. ey reads a line from the report. according to forensics on page four it involves 'something bizarre involving mutated marine parasites..' or some other equally random weird shit. the chief shakes ir heavy head "gotta admit that's a new one," ey snorts. whatever; officers still take copies of reports home for gruesome souvenirs. the chief frowns upon the practice despite ir own collection of unique reading materials. ir dick suddenly twinges in ir tight uniform; ey wonders what the hookers looked life 'before.' this recent batch of megacity 187's still remains unsolved on some rookie's desktop. just another digital file stuffed with daily horror and street grease soon shunted downstairs to archives and gladly lost forever among the dust and the red eyed mice. that suits the chief just fine. who needs the hassle? another lazy month staggers by. dave still feels tense with an unnamed frustration and continues to kill without visible emotion. as the human life ey takes struggles in ir strong grip a sense of excitement and danger temporary fills ir senses. but nothing lasts. and nothing on the news about ir work either - at least not on the quality channel zero ey subscribes to. meanwhile dave receives several thank yous from immigrants successfully hired by local firms "who even sends greetings cards anymore?" asks dave. ey quietly burns these with a cheap lighter in the staff toilets scrubbing ir hands with bleach till they sting. "filthy aliens have diseases and they eat pets." the big hologram pumpkin said so on social. since dave looks up to authoritarian figurines with as much humanity as ir such divisive political sentiments seem entirely plausible **3//** patty is lean jacked 18 year old street muscle for hire ir clients sent by ir anonymous industry contact mr. joshua. mostly bland debt collection gigs or 'job lozenges' as they calls them. something to idly suck on to pass the time - punch the clock until real life decides to make an appearance "hasn't happened yet," thinks patty. a slow steady role but not without the odd perk. the last mark who resisted ir charms patty shocked with ir taser hand implant bright chrome connectors visible in the fingertips. the mark woke up ten minutes later in a pool of ir own fast cooling piss clutching ir testicles and sobbing like a grandmother - ir secure wall safe now empty ir blond pubes lightly singed "it's always the blandly handsome ones" says patty to nobody perfectly serious **4//** bad vibes all round this rainy tuesday morning. a funeral cloth thrown over the shuttered rooftops and the algae gardens of the ceaseless megacity sprawl. driving at steady 65 to meet ir younger brother for ir annual fruitless chat about family and responsibility patty spots a dead bird on the highway. both wings broken. they turns away from the sight ir heart suddenly stung with a nameless sadness ten minutes later and mr. joshua calls with terrible news. "they were found dead last week in the eastern sector. that's all anyone knows or wants to say. patty i'm so sorry-" "sam." patty's stomach drops; they brakes hard barely managing to steer to the hard shoulder. drivers hammer ir horns as they pass mere inches away road spray and wet trash lashing angrily against the armored sides. they sits in silence listening to the white noise and ir thumping heartbeat. struck with an acute unreality. everything suddenly looks fake dreamlike - a cheap stage play run by clueless amateurs; one vast long abandoned movie set left to rain and slow ruin over a thousand anonymous years an artificial intelligence patrol drone soon floats down alongside ir car "do you need assistance driver?" patty looks up at a large hovering metal disk. annoying red and blue flashing lights twin 20mm electro-arc cannons - and a banana yellow smiley face sticker over one optical sensor. probably put there by foolhardy street punks "i'm fine," they says. no response. they shouts. "fine!" "processing please wait," the drone replies. "this is a controlled access expressway. leave immediately or face a traffic violation." "..i just skidded," patty says feeling weak. the drone finally floats off with a low bleep "plastic brain dead basket," says patty they stares out at the whole sorry spectacle. thinking about ir life trying to take it all in. years of dreaming about escape; the endless traffic the greasy neon megacity smear. the ceaseless grind. the hopeless convoluted mess and warm metallic stink of it all. an absurd impossibility made smooth smart concrete flesh. escape to where exactly? nowadays everywhere is exactly the same giant dead mall. drowning in the everydayness of it all patty then remembers ir contact joshua still waiting awkwardly on the line and they makes a decision "thanks for telling me j. say goodbye to cally and the other girls." they catches herself in the mirror a pretty strong-jawed face wet with tears." a pause. "i won't be coming back this time." a low voice replies "patty wait-" but they just tells the car "end call," speeding away into the sunken morning fog. deep shadows of the hypercorporate megaliths loom far above - ir black rain slick mirrored glass reflecting ir newly found emptiness. true psychic zero like some lousy in-garme achievement **5//** patty's full body augmentation at the black clinic cost ir everything they'd saved for the past five years - including ir old life. the lab techs stared at each other smiling faintly raising ir painted eyebrows at ir bizarre medical request - extreme even for them. "but the tech is available the price is right yes?" and so they operate with skillful glee even with flair and artistic delicacy. it takes two weeks floating weightless inside a oxygen soaked growth vat before everything finally jells and patty can leave ir insides feel funny. the first time ey's physically sick they sees small unidentifiable white blobs pulsing on the dirty pavement. ir teeth feel loose in ir skull. they tries finding the chop shop again to ask about post surgery care but the brothers have already moved. "expensive cheapskates," curses patty they found dave soon after however. or rather ey found ir it was pathetically simple. despite the bruises and police intimidation all it took was a hot meal and a kind ear and the jennies opened up to ir about the murders. told ir everything - all the grisly details. how there was water everywhere. how the corpses still twitched and jerked after death. strange movements under the surface - like most of megacity life and so for eight nights straight patty stands alone on a popular pick up spot in the eastern sector wearing the minimum necessary and they simply lets 'killer' find ir target again. dearest sam on the eighth day and a cloudless evening ey just walks right up and ey smiles real fresh and clean. just like they feels now and forever **6//** dave thinks ir's holotv-tripping again they'd made no special plans to hunt this glorious urban evening. yet here they are again; the same desperate faintly distressed street beast they'd transformed into something new and strange. yet this time somehow a little older a little more feminine. possibly more exciting like so many megacity dwellers dave often feels ir whole life unreal; hyper-mediated. as though viewed on an impossibly ancient crt monitor used for modern retro garming. faintly 'scan lined' - at times a little 'chromatically aberrated'. a certain 'at-once-removed' aesthetic that's hard to pin down. "rezzed again," says dave suddenly breathing heavy ir beady eyes rolling and blinking in an playful fit of dazed confusion; part performative part neurological ey approaches the street creature with caution unable to truly process what ey sees yet clearly noting the same firm dancer's muscles - ir sweat glistening spine in particular forcing a shark's smile from ir thin wet lips. a live tv show running in ir empty head "hello beautiful. remember me? yes that's right.. i'm dave." patty instantly clocks ir brother's murderer. medium height bland holotv soap opera looks. too well dressed for these parts. and well off since ey immediately offers triple the regular going rate for a straight no haggling "it's your lucky night handsome" purrs patty but behind ir pretty smile there's a keen scientific death staring out ten miles from behind dark kohl painted eyes. dave doesn't notice this however - really just another anonymous subject himself. and so together they walk off hand in hand into the trashy neon signposted night **7//** finally some payback. now alone in the old japanese love motel by the station patty gives ir what they now terms the full treatment. much like they got at the black clinic. ir own personal siren song; the entire weighted love of the silent heaving body of the ocean brought indoors for terrible delight and edification immediately after they locks the door behind them patty gently shoves dave onto the giant mattress and jumps on top crossing ir strong legs beneath ir. ey laughs. "heavy for your size," observes dave with practiced detachment. patty also remains poker faced slowly taking both dave's arms they suddenly twists them inward one-eighty degrees. a bright sound of sticks snapping in wet blankets. despite the shock dave moans with pleasure both palms now facing upward. ready to receive loving grace. "this is um new," ey says ir voice shaking slightly patty imagines what sam went through. the silent anguish. the acute rage of it all fused with the inability to express it to it's limit it's then patty decides to fully opens up to ir client - just like other jennies do each night on filthy mocking streets of shame. grief without limit and cheap mass terror. only this time they is the 'feeder' as they say in the martial arts; the one who issues power first without pause - the one who sets the pace who dominates. all while the other player desperately plays catch up this is not a dance however; this is a slow systematic underwater feeding frenzy dave watches with wide-eyed concern as a crimson red vertical slice or deep cut suddenly creeps up patty's body from ir sax to roof of mouth - what ey can only describe as 'a biological network of living light' appearing in the slowly widening gap. or at least it seems so from dave's now horrified perspective. ey manages to croak out a response: "the flock is this..?" ey instinctively tries reaching up to grab at patty's swollen breasts - 'make things normal and fun' like last time and the many times before - but ey just can't move. ey starts to struggle as patty's entire chest begins to hollow out a rapidly draining bag of cold wet sci-fi flesh. dave finally lets out a strangled cry delirious with fear without much effort patty turns fully inside out. dave all but looses ir mind as ir entire skull finally inverts folding outward with a wet slap. all ir teeth pop out like ceramic candies and fall down onto ir sweating face. what looks like a giant semi-transparent ceramic white jellyfish lined with pulsing embedded strips of neon then flop down over dave with a watery schlupping sound - smothering ir utterly. caressing ir with pain oozing into ir screaming mouth and eye sockets hot blood begins to spurt from dave's every pore as billions of freezing cold sub-millimeter fractal aztec blue stingers start to break ir down before quickly ingesting ir whole. drawing ir deep inside - forever deeper. the thousands of mutant marine parasites swimming in dave's gut that ey forced fed himself rapidly shrivel and die to grey hollow ribbons of undersea nothing once patty was done with ir dave looked like a deflated skin sack washed up on an anonymous shoreline. eyeless and slack jawed one hell of a job on the part of the chop shop brothers too among ir finest work. only dave's memories remain intact. a silent screaming within ir cells that even to this day feels to patty like some distant undersea echo. a call for help perhaps - an endless drowning. long forgotten sailor days of an old wild life - a piece of psychotic drifting woman-hating ocean trash that nobody will miss. and not a drop of blood left on the spotless damp sheets still rippling on the bed with the stale city breeze from the open window. as though freshly arrived from chew's chinese laundry just around the corner **8//** three weeks pass without incident. and no calls on ir phone. "the creep had no friends what a surprise" notes patty. now living in the warm comparatively luxurious expanse of dave's apartment patty suddenly recalls ir terrible thoughts about sam and they begins to cry - but then stops feeling oddly confident as they also remembers something new useful "sweet" they says. "i can also code now." a week later and they'll apply for ir cushy programming job. everybody they'll meet there will think ey's lovely and kind. which they is. patty looks down at ir carefully compiled shit list. looks like the chief is next. "robopig," says patty. "i think you're up next for the full treatment" // republic of bob