Services: A Tale Of The Sunstorm.

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Shadowmask
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Services: A Tale Of The Sunstorm.

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The stealth drone hovered over the backyard of the suburban house, its camera zooming in close to its subject:

A boy, kneeling on the lawn, in one hand a praying mantis, the other a pair of tweezers.

Holding the insect close to his expressionless face, he slowly ripped the legs off the mantis, then once that task was completed, immersed the body in a jar of water that lay on the grass in front of him, until the insect stopped struggling and was still. A thin smile played across the boy’s face.

The next day:

“Hey Davis!” Javier, also known as "J" called out across the bustling studio of Mediastream, “Come take a look at this, think we have a winner here!”

Davis looked up from his editing station and walked over to J's terminal, where the balding heavyset man was reviewing the drone footage room from yesterday. Davis was a young handsome man with long blond hair and an infectious grin. The smile charmed many who meet him at first. However those who knew him well dreaded the smile even more than anything else on earth.

Even when he was in a towering rage, Davis was always smiling.

“Check this out,” J said, excitedly as he clicked the play button. “I reckon we got ourselves a classic Type C.”

Davis watched the replay and nodded. “Yep, definitely Type C, he will be moving onto small animals next, I bet.”

Davis grabbed a chair and sat down. “What backstory have you got on him so far?”

J pulled up a file onto the terminal screen. “Lets see, we have a 14-year-old kid, only child, with a single parent mother. Never knew his father.”

He scrolled down. “Mother is a christian fundamentalist, one of the Seven Thunders to be precise. Breastfed the kid until he was five months old. Typical boring crap."

Davis leant back in the chair. In the future, people would look back on this time as the ‘Era of Surveillance’, where nothing could be hidden unless you were the rich elite. Still, it made their job a hell of a lot easier, which was to make a load of money off human misery.

Davis liked to think they were performing a necessary evil, like a safety valve on the pressure cooker that was modern society.

That made what he did a little easier, and although sometimes he might not sleep well at night, he did sleep in a large mansion in a secure gated community next to a cosmetically perfect wife.

J was talking again. Davis focused his attention on the screen.

“I’ve run the algorithms, and the computer is coming up with a 93 percent chance of activation by the age of 25.”

“Those are good odds,” said Davis, rubbing his chin. “Put a flag on his file and we’ll check back in a few years.” Dave stood up and clapped the other man on the shoulder. “The fans are gonna love this one. J, good job as always”

J grinned. “Thanks."

Davis returned to his desk, where he was currently editing the latest true crime documentary, to be released later that month.

This one was a typical Type B case, a nurse who had been stealthily killing cancer patients by injecting air into their IV drips. A pretty mundane ‘Angel of Death’ scenario, but Mediastream had gotten onto her pretty quick so the broadcasting and publishing rights hadn’t cost an arm and a leg.

Davis didn’t think ratings would be that great, but they had managed to get some decent footage from the hospital and the journal the nurse had written, so it would be worth syndicating to make a bit more profit.

Mediastream’s documentaries were some of the highest rating reality shows on the Internet, and that is all that existed on mass social media these days, but things had been a little lean of late and they needed a big high-profile case.

Such as the latest craze: Sunstormers.

Davis considered J’s latest find. Type C cases were always male, of low to average intelligence, with suppressed trauma from childhood caused by a family member and would exhibit acts of violence around the onset of adolescence. The victims were usually female and involved sexual violence or torture before death.

However what Mediastream really needed was another Ted Bundy or Richard Ramirez or even better a crazed sunstormer like the notorious pyrokinetic Harold who had burned two people alive at Federal Plaza more than six months ago. Some, including quite a few sunstormers, believed that Harold was some sort of superpowered martyr. Others like Chicago police officer Helen Paladino aka Gravity Cop or late Freefall, who was one of the very few sunstormers who went public about her powers, thought Harold was a monster that didn't deserve sympathy.

Davis thought and chuckled. Ah, they don’t make them like they used to. Imagine if we could have got those guys to sign, we would be drowning in royalties!

This was the crucial moment, the first contact. He found most of the time the killer was flattered, both by the money offered and the chance at infamous immortality, their name remembered long after the victims had been forgotten.

Most of the time.

Davis has heard all of the arguments and criticisms from censors and the like over the years. Coming up with nonsense such as:

“Do you know what it’s like to lose your parents in the most hideous way, and then to have their violation watched again and again by your millions of depraved fans?”

To which his usual answer was:

“Look, we don’t make these killers, we just make them famous. If not us, then someone else would. Now f@$! off and let the rest of us sin in peace.”

Of course, they couldn’t use all of the footage, some of it had to be slightly edited as the material was a little too graphic for the damned censors. But sooner or later, the complete and explicit footage will be leaked and make its way to the dark web and the notoriety of that boost the ratings tenfold.

Still the mercy killing angle will play well, considering all the victims were terminal patients anyway, make for some nice wholesome family viewing.

Davis was just finishing off the credits for the nurse documentary when one of the interns came rushing over, flustered and red faced.

"What is it?"

"We got a…private request. Special order…from the inner circle…"

Davis perked up at this. The money from Mediastream was good. But almost of the staff made even more money…..providing other "services" to the public. Especially the part of the public with deviant tastes and seemingly limitless bank accounts.

Such as those who dwell on the Dark Web…

"Snuff film or private sex party?"

"Both. They want another sunstormer."

"To fight? Arranging death matches is difficult if not impossible. Plus we have to locate and capture sunstormers."

"No…..this time around they want Freefall."

"Paladino? I've already told them many times that she is off limits… for now. They really want a war with both the CPD and the feds?"

"I know that but they continue to insist. According to the online polls from an estimated 8,000 active members, 76 percent of our "private" audience want Freefall to be sexually violated live on the web then eliminated, also on live. 58% favoring slow disembowelment with a blunt instrument or a chainsaw and 20% requesting her being fed in a swarm of fire ants…

5% are undecided or neutral about the whole kickstarter thing and the last 17 percent are furries. And you know that particular bunch of sick bastards want to see Paladino paired up with an animal of some kind. "

Davis frowned. "Still too risky."

"Half a million dollars from some of our fundraisers says otherwise."

"They need to make a better offer. Even Paladino isn't worth that much. Two million dollars then maybe we'll consider it. Until then the Circle will have to be satisfied with what we give them."

Davis smiled more broadly than usual. The intern trembled slightly in fear at the cruel smile. He silently prayed to whatever god still existed in this wretched world that he won't become the next course of "entertainment" for the twisted Sunbathers.

"Assemble the film crews. Tonight we hunt sunstormers for our adoring fans."

The End.
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