Chapter
3 – Slaughter of the Sinful
I drive the drunk criminals to one
of the hotels they operate in the poorer area of Meridian. From the memories
I’ve seen, these criminals have managed to buy cheap or abandoned buildings due
to their connections in the real estate business and city government. It’s also
thanks to these connections that they can take ownership from the poorer owners
of the buildings they target and evict their inhabitants. Once I’m done with
these people, I’ll confront those corrupt businessmen and men of law either personally
or through Raymond. In the meantime, my focus remains on the criminals before
me and this specific hotel. From the outside, it appears unremarkable, but the
basement conceals the true luxury and sin.
Here, I find degenerates gambling,
dealing in drugs and human trafficking, trading formulas and drugs to make
people superhuman, making weapon deals and testing them on captives, drinking
excessively, and indulging in all kinds of disgusting lustful behaviors.
They’re pigs. Each and every one of them. My hands can’t help but shake as they
itch to enact justice upon them, and my mind rationalizes every excuse to let
loose the weapons of divine justice. At this point, who am I to deny God His
just due?
I let my dark power take its hold
of me and let justice do as it wishes, while silently praying for mercy on the
scum here and the innocent people who are caught in the middle of it. As
darkness overtakes the room, I can’t help but laugh hysterically, knowing what
is coming.
“Beg for mercy, while you still
can,” I say between laughing. “Judgment has come for you all.”
The criminals either stand or sit
in place, confused about what is happening or too out of their minds to do
anything because of their drunkenness. Some grab their weapons or ready their
powers for a fight, and others uselessly try to leave through elevators and
doors that are locked. Those whom I allow to leave find themselves in a pit of
darkness and nightmares where they are tortured by their vices. The screams
coming from these places outside the room frighten everyone as they either hide
or search for me in the room. Picking and choosing my prey, I take some in the
dark and leave them cramped in the cages they put people in with scum like them
until there are thirty or so people per cage, each one ready to burst with
criminals unnaturally fit into them.
The scum who were shooting at
people for target practice get lined up and get shot against a wall themselves,
the superhumans and scientists in room have their bodies burst and mutate in
unnatural ways, while still managing to live, and the drunkards and drug
dealers feel the effects of overdosing and overdrinking as they start throwing
up everywhere, defecating themselves, and suffer painful seizures. For every
other simple criminal, a bullet through the head from my pistol or a simple
stab through the throat from a devil of their own from the dark suffices.
Despite the horrifying and painful fates these people face, most are kept alive
until they either repent or refuse the opportunity for mercy and die. Looking
into the memories of each of them, I find mental pictures of the New Boss and
hear his voice. He dresses in a simple black and white suit, has gloves on his
hands, and keeps his face hidden by a simple, featureless mask. It’s admittedly
smart so that no one can ever recognize him and he can make people dress up as
him to act for him, so he doesn’t always have to directly involve himself in
anything.
One of these body doubles is on the
lower floors of this building. I make my way to him, punishing criminals along
the way, freeing captives, and teleporting them out of the building. He thinks
he is safe in his office and can act like the New Boss to get the better of me,
but he’s mistaken. The man sits in his chair as relaxed as possible, thinking
about what the New Boss said to do in situations like this.
Wanting to mess with him to get
into his head, I whisper using his voice, “This fool doesn’t know who he’s
messing with. The New Boss gave me his entire playbook for every situation and
his arsenal of people and weapons, so there’s nothing I’m unprepared for.”
“Except for me,” I say in my voice
while appearing behind the imposter and getting in his face.
He pretends not to be as startled
as he is, even though he nearly jumped out of his seat. After taking a second
to collect himself, he thinks about the New Boss’s playbook, then says, “So,
you’re the nuisance causing a ruckus in my business.”
“Hahaha! Do you think you act as
tough as your boss? Be honest with me and let’s cut to the chase. Where’s your
boss’s base of operations? Where can I find the New Boss?”
“I am him-”
As he speaks, the imposter’s jaw
unnaturally expands as he spits out a rat the size of an infant child before it
returns to normal. This also reveals his face, a simple one with no hair or
eyebrows, something that all the imposters are supposed to do to make their
identity and the New Boss’s identity more secretive.
“I’m certain that the New Boss
wasn’t some petty criminal who ratted out his fellow scum to the police and
kissed up to his bosses. Keep up this act and you’ll have more rats coming out
of more uncomfortable places,” I say.
The imposter’s composure is broken
as he is visibly sweating, uncontrollably shaking, and vomits on the floor.
Because of his hesitance, another rat bursts from him, this time from his
stomach, which stitches itself together after the rat tears itself out.
“Okay…okay,” he says while nearly
crying. “The New Boss doesn’t stay in one place for long, not even in his
places that are connected by underground labyrinths. I’m sure you can read the
entire list of places I know he’s been since you can read my memories.”
“Yes, that’s a long list of places,
and you’re not even sure if he’s told you every location.”
“Yeah, it wouldn’t surprise me if
he had other locations or simply hides in some public and obvious place in
plain sight.”
“Well, I have a start and a way to
check out every place. Thank you for your help. Now, you’d better repent and
never commit another sin again, or else you’ll be visited by those rats again.”
I laugh at the impostor as I leave
the office and the hotel. I then relay what I’ve learned to Raymond and what my
next plans are.
“I see. That makes things more
complicated to get this guy in one night, doesn’t it? Even if I have my men
raid every location, the New Boss will catch on that his operations are falling
out from under him, will escape the city, and hide until he thinks it’s safe to
return,” Raymond says.
“True, but I remember seeing the
kinds of people that the New Boss regularly meets with. Even if the New Bosses
that I’ve seen in people’s memories were impostors, they’re still people the
New Boss did business and met in secret with,” I say.
“Are you planning to go after an
official in government or business? That’s going to be a nasty amount of
paperwork for me to hand in the morning, kid.”
“If it gets me closer to the New
Boss, I will. I’ll try to make it look as favorable to you as possible by
disguising myself as an impostor, so they’ll more easily talk to me. It can all
be chalked up to criminals acting as they usually do, which is true, isn’t it?”
“Alright, just be careful and keep
it as clean as possible.”
“Yes, sir.”
Using the impostor’s car, I make my
way towards the suburban outskirts of Meridian, where the impostors of the New
Boss were taken. In the impostor’s memory, there were people there who were
told each impostor’s identity and memorized their faces so they could tell the
real New Boss from the fake ones. Parking outside their luxurious
upper-middle-class house, I see that a charity party is going on. With my
disguise, I’m able to walk into the party and then get into the private area
when I reveal my face and the name of the impostor I just interrogated. Ah,
there’s my target of this perverted show of false virtue.
I’ll have to make this quick. These
people use their charities as a front to make riches for their criminal
endeavors. Even those who run orphanages make their profits by selling off
children, who no one knows and have no documentation. Seeing me in the room
staring at them from a short distance, the corrupt businessmen and women put on
fake smiles and approached me, wondering what I was doing here.
“I was invited here, was I not?
Besides, no place in Meridian can be locked away from me,” I say.
“Of course. Would you like a
drink?” one of them asks.
“I’m here for business, not
pleasure. Have you not heard of the police raids happening?”
Turning on the TV in the room to
the news, I show them what is happening in the city. As they watch, I read
their memories to find the location where the real New Boss would be in an
event like this, and to see if any know his real name and face.
“Well, it’s a good thing you’re
here and not in the city. You’re always three steps ahead.”
I pull my pistol from my suit
jacket and nod towards enforcers of the New Boss’s rules, who also pull out
their concealed pistols. Everyone is now on edge, and yet, they seem to be
composed per the New Boss’s orders and training. They all seem to know what’s
coming next.
“Which of you squealed? Remember
the rewards for tattling on the traitors and the weakest links,” I ask.
While everyone gives an account of
their actions, I whisper thoughts urging people to either run, defend
themselves, or kill one another in their voices. I have them admitting that
they’re guilty one after the other, and people start shooting one another. As
this happens, I gather information on the New Boss, a lot of which is
contradictory and doesn’t add up. Going into the more public area of the
private party, I extend the madness there and make the criminals think the
guests and each other are cops. By the end of it, I make the criminals see what
they did and allow them to kill themselves.
None of the information I found
about the New Boss adds up. It’s all rumors, what the impostors tell one
another, and the different stories the real New Boss has told other people.
Maybe he really is an elusive shadow that I can never truly catch, or perhaps…the
mystery is the truth. Getting an idea, I travel through the light and dark to a
house that’s a common factor in most of the stories of the New Boss. Gambling
on this guess is all I’ve got, and if I’m wrong, then the New Boss may never
stop coming back to torture Meridian and its people.
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