Cerebral Exchange :: Chapter 6 :: PROFESSIONAL

The entire structure of La Tête Vide trembled with the throb of 1000 trance-amplifiers. Its walls were painted fluorescent by its pulsating hypno-screens, its floor shaking with the thump of a swarm of mesmerised dancers. The nightclub stood at the center of a massive hypnotic-entertainment empire. Every evening, the rich and famous of the upper city flocked here, driven to it by an uncontrollable need. They flooded into its halls and eagerly fell under its spell. The overpowering soundwaves were impossible for an undefended mind to resist. Mixed in with the thought-suppressing visual displays, there was nothing any guest could do but be turned into another enthralled dancer.

You could tell the newcomers from the experienced - the ones who had been dragged here for the first time despite the rumours. The first experience was always overwhelming. They drooled as their bodies helplessly swayed and stomped with the others, their eyes trying to hold out against inevitably glazing over. Bit by bit they were falling under this club’s power, experiencing the thrill of giving over their minds to this strobing machine. So much tantalising risk in giving into this place’s control. By the end of the night, the initiates would become a permanent part of its partying throng, dedicated to returning here and rejoining the mindless worship like all the others.

The Deliverator looked down upon the swaying masses and plotted her next steps. Infiltrating the nightclub had been easy, there were so many unguarded access points that she’d been spoilt for choice. Now she stealthily perched upon one of the many catwalks that hung from above, the hypnotic lights ineffectually reflecting off her helmet. To her, these low-level, neuro-disruption devices were nothing more than gimmicks that her protective equipment could easily shrug off. It was the mind-erasure rifles that the guards were carrying she was a lot more concerned with.

So far, she’d counted and tracked about 50 sentries wearing black suits with visors and headsets to match. So brazenly they swung about their weaponry, but it was not like the guests were coherent enough to care. The Deliverator had studied their movements too; sluggish, overconfident, untrained. La Tête Vide really had cheapened out on its security, but then why spend more to suppress already mindless party-goers? The guards didn’t even look mind controlled, the poor things.

Enough mock pitying, there was a job to do. The so-called ‘Empress’ was the target of this operation. Ha! Empress of what, a small-time string of nightclub establishments? HexCorp could consume that ten times over and still have room left for seconds. The Deliverator shook her head, she was losing focus again. Figuring out where the sovereign with an ill-informed ego was located hardly required investigative prowess, however. A large box hung from the very top of the hall, its octagonal windows overlooking the entire nightclub with a 360-degree view. There was a clear route forward to it as well, the multi-leveled balconies offering a pathway straight from the lowest level to the awaiting ‘throne room’. That there just happened to be a few dozen armed employees and a swarm of dancing zombies along the way was simply an inconvenience.

The Deliverator sighed, stepped off the catwalk and dropped 150 ft to the dance floor below.

About halfway down the first alarm sensor triggered. A red glow consumed the club, and 50 alerted visors locked onto The Deliverator’s speedily descending position. The beats and screens kept throbbing on though, the swaying trance keeping its unbreakable grip on the club-thralls. Not even a HexCorp drone, her boots and heels emitting purple pulsations as the energy cells within comforted her landing, could disrupt them from their mindless bliss. So inescapably deep in the bass, so lost in the uncontrollable movements of their bodies - their expressions so vacant as they stared at the screens above which controlled them like puppets.

The Deliverator, her latex-coated form reflecting the colours of the club so vividly, calmly walked forward as she removed her new toy from the holster on her hip. Her Hive Mxtress hadn’t been kidding when They said she’d like it. A custom-made, mind-reformatting, anti-thought combat pistol now graced her hands. With double-blast, neuro-disruption charges, it would first disarm the target’s brain-augmentation defences before immediately hitting them with a second mind-reformatting charge. Against that, there was little a victim could do but collapse into a drooling heap on the ground whilst HexCorp slogans played over programming installation screens in their now-empty minds.

The first two blasts erupted out, shooting across the nightclub as bullets of condensed, purple energy. As they made impact upon the target’s forehead, they visibly fried their victims’ brain’s defences and purged their thoughts. The guard croaked, her rifle clattering to the floor, shortly followed by her body. The Deliverator stepped past her twitching form, analysing the platoon of guards that were hurriedly converging on her position from the balconies above. There was a reason why she hadn’t been fully reprogrammed like the other drones. She had had something that they didn’t, something that her Mxtress had determined to be quite valuable - an instinct that allowed her to perform in a very specific way. When she got into that zone, she was almost as lost as the mindless dancers that surrounded her. Raising her weapon and ascending the staircase to the first balcony, now it was her mind’s turn to drop.

...

It was like she was watching herself from a dream as she darted between the slow beams that emitted from their rifles. Two targets ahead. Shots fired. Shots connected. Targets neutralised. One above. Shot fired. Shot connected. Target neutralised. She rolled through a group of dancers and took cover behind a hypno-screen before her target’s bodies even had a chance to hit the floor. She twisted on the spot, three approaching sentries. Shots fired. Shots connected. Targets neutralised. They were such appallingly inaccurate guards too, they didn’t deserve this high-powered weaponry. Already several dancers had become casualties to incompetency and The Deliverator knew how merciless that type of mind-erasure could be. One wrong move and she’d be - Two on the left. Shots Fired. Shots connected. Targets neutralised - an empty vessel for the club to reprogram as it liked and sell off to the highest bidder. Consciousness, or a lack of it, was currency on the Cerebral Exchange. She jumped up and kicked off a pillar, grabbing onto the handrail of the next balcony above and swinging herself up onto it. Four Approaching. Shots Fired. Shots Connected. Targets Neutralised.

The Deliverator was beginning to pant as she ran up one of the remaining staircases, past the heap of incapacited guards that she was leaving in her wake. Despite the skirmish, the throbbing dance was still going on as overpoweringly as ever. The whole hall kept thumping to the exact same beat as another two guards took aim, missed, and crumpled over like all the others. They were the last things standing in her way, as she rounded a corner and burst through the double doors leading into this Empress’ lair.

“Ah, a HexCorp kitten! I was wondering who could be down there, forcing me to go on another recruitment drive.” There she sat upon a plush, black sofa, wearing the exact same black suit, visor and headset that adorned her guards (or what was left of them, anyway). Her hair was a deep blue, kept long with a straight fringe. Around the room, mindless dancers continued the same swaying that populated the levels below. They probably didn’t even know they’d be led up to the very top box, nor that they were currently in positions for the amusement of the most powerful figure in the hypnotic-entertainment industry. The Deliverator stepped forward, her pistol at ease by her side.

“Let’s make this quick, shall we, Empress? We know you’ve been trialling illegitimate HexCorp technology experimentally in your establishments. Consider this a cease and desist notice. If you’re nice enough to tell us exactly how you got our invaluable R&D schematics into your so perfectly manicured mittens, then I might even be kind with how I choose to enforce said notice.”

The handgun raised back up, the shimmering latex body of the Deliverator now looming over this lowly monarch. Her visor, indifferent, reflected the Empress back at herself - a reflection that turned into a smile and a hand trying to wave away the seriousness of the predicament.

“Okay, okay, you win! Oh kitten, you are causing me so much trouble. Scratching up my furniture and knocking over vases. I’ll tell you what you want if it means you’ll at least leave the curtains alone. Though I should warn you… our informant, she’s a total brat. Definitely one that has to be handled roughly, if you get what I mean?”

The Deliverator chuckled. “Do tell.”