An un-H0lli Night

‘I wonder why we think demons hate us so much?’ JJ was talking to

herself on her way to meet her pal H0lli for a night out. She was

prone to conversations with herself as she liked to ponder the weird

thoughts that troubled her brain – without upsetting or freaking out

those around her. ‘I think maybe they’re just misunderstood or victims

of bad PR thanks to religious types?’ She stopped short, realising

that an elderly couple were looking at her oddly as she approached the

bar in Neo-Soho where she was going to get royally drunk.

H0lli was in a bad way, ‘oh God, this is it’ she thought, ‘I’m not

going to make it... And I really was almost getting used to the fact

that I was going to make it to 30…’ She lay badly crushed and bleeding

whilst her assailant did everything possible to snuff out her life.

This is the year 2242 and things are grimmer than ever in all sorts of

ways.

Richh was in love, Christii was absolutely perfect. Her body curved in

the most incredible way, her ‘come on and experience me’ looks were

backed up by her performance too. The evolution of Artificially

Intelligent Vehicles had surely absolutely reached its zenith in this

drivable goddess – and he had to have her. The BHP ‘Fury’ Roadster was

a glistening red, her fenders and retro-styled body fins were

incredible, whilst her lights shone with a demonic glow, dazzling

white-rimmed with a red UV. He hadn’t quibbled over the price, the

salesbot couldn’t believe it hadn’t even had to engage its

barter-mode.

H0lli’s evening had started well enough, after work drinks at the ‘My

Bad Karma Flashback’ MBKF, enjoying some time with her kooky best

friend JJ, whose tales of mischief were always legendary. As two

attractive females alone, they played the usual game of fending off

the series of advances from various creeps in the bar, the ratio was

currently 4 males to 1 female who had approached them. The duo

accepted free drinks but gave no encouragement, enjoying their power

over those looking to potentially score with them. JJ was tempted by

the girl, but the two had agreed to employ their ‘not tonight code’

which was unbreakable.

Having the Jcook Offenders Register Hack in their HeadChips meant that

they could immediately identify men who had been charged of a sexual

crime. Above the heads of anyone flagged as a danger to women floated

a warning flashing red cock (and they had no idea)… Dr McKeowwns known

as the ‘Mother of Chips’ was the one who invented the JOR Hack (which

made sense as she had driven the development of the HeadChip itself) –

the integrated assessor nanochip already monitored a person’s

emotional state, held the records of their currency assets and medical

records, so criminality was surprisingly easy to add. The floating

phallus was her own idea and it never ceased to make her smile when

she saw one in a crowd, especially when floating over the head of

church leader or a politician.

Richh had taken Christii out for a spin on his way to the MBKF, one of

the best features of having a vehicle, in this age when teleporting

via STREAM was commonplace, was that you could collapse into it and

let it drive you home in comfort. It also helped when dressed up in a

full-fancy dress rig that he gave him the confidence to approach females

he might not otherwise have the guts to. It was difficult to drive

well in though, so he let Christii chauffeur him to the bar, enjoying

the sights and sounds of L2 nightlife passing by.

Cut to the interior of the MBKF Richh is trying really hard to impress

the girls. They were humouring him for a while – the fact he was

wearing a fully bio-fused personality altering suit, which gave him

the outward appearance of a fox, complete with animatronic ears and a

hydraulic tail that would pop up and waggle amusingly during his

conversation bought him some time. He had proclaimed that they both

must be some kind of deities as they had stolen his heart, whilst

buying them several Bmelts in the hope that he might get to at least

kiss them…

Having randoms profess sudden love to them wasn’t entirely new for

H0lli and JJ – they often reminisced about one guy named Brrookes who

had cheekily asked if JJ ‘and/or’ H0lli would like to go back to his

penthouse to experience the incredible carnal pleasure… “I wonder how

good he would have been?” JJ chipped in. “Probably all mouth, but he

was kinda sexy”

Christii wasn’t happy. She had picked Richh from a long line of

possible human suitors, she thought he was perfect. Cute with a strong

jawline, a good head of hair and a cheeky smile – after over a

thousand centuries of anguished existence, this mortal was the one for

her, she was sure. It’s not every day that an ageless demonic entity

takes residence in a human-made machine, even one designed to host a

hugely advanced A.I. sentience. But, from the second that Christii had

‘accidentally’ backed into a toddler in the car showroom,

wheel spinning on the child’s head causing a most horrific scene and

days of cleaning up, it was rumoured that she was cursed.

Richh had no idea that his shiny new A.I. vehicle was host to an evil

beyond the understanding of humankind. Or that the unholy entity

‘ZEO-Baal’ had become obsessed with him to the point that it would no

longer allow any other person to take his affections.

A matter of hours later, H0lli was lying broken and trapped under the

wreckage of Richh’s BHP Fury Roadster. Everything hurt, at least every

bit of her that she could still feel, she was freaking out that she

couldn’t feel her left leg at all. This unsavoury predicament was the

result of the currently ‘near-fatal’ accident but the witnesses around

would testify that the self-driving car accelerated and hit H0lli

without any attempt to swerve or avoid her…

H0lli was hovering near the brink of death as her internal organs

struggled to deal with the shock trauma of being crushed under the

A.I. sports vehicle. She wasn’t ready for the car to start talking to

her.

‘You can’t have him…’ boomed Christii’s synch voice ‘He’s mine. We are

destined to spend eternity together, whilst every other mortal dies!’

H0lli didn’t know what the hell the car was speaking about but as

chance would have it, she had studied ancient culture records of

primitive demonology and so by all the fates had actually heard of

ZEO-Baal in the Assyro-Babylonian Mythology class on her theological

university course.

ZEO -Baal was recorded as being a demi-deity whose name translated as

‘the Lord who boils with anger.’ Whatever it was, she was one of the

demons who took it personally when the creator made humankind (from

dust and breathed life into him). Bitterness, anger, rancour and hate

on an untold scale coursed through this demonic being for who - before

finding Richh – every single living and breathing human was an afront

to her. She liked hiding inside and using the form of Christii though,

the tech-enhanced vehicle proved to be a useful vessel for her unholy

machinations.

Now Christii was enjoying herself, she could feel the life-force

draining from this harlot who had tried to ensnare her Richh… She

could wield molecular command over the nu-metal chassis of the Fury

Roadster and was currently working the exhaust port into the abdomen

of this ‘H0lli’ – as the pathetic human writhed in agony Christii

fired up her engine and shot scorching fumes into the stomach of her

human victim making it explode with a gratifying splatter of flesh in

all directions.

Cleric 20 was having a great night, it was his Birthday and various

pals had come out with him to celebrate. Even his bodyguard robot

companion GiX seemed to be in the mood to party (which was rare as he

was a reconditioned ‘GodBot’ who generally frowned on his master’s

dubious high jinks).

At the point that H0lli’s stomach exploded Cleric 20 and GiX along with

his drinking buddies Brrookes, Source and LDavies all STREAM-ed into

the road outside MBKF. Before they realised what was happening, they

got liberally coated with gore and body parts. H0lli’s scream was her

last conscious action as she found herself catapulted into an

immersive visionary experience of shadowy figures and muted voices,

interspersed with bouts of blinding luminescence. H0lli’s

consciousness was fading already but the exhaust assault shut her body

(what was left of it) down.

It seemed as if the very cosmos was opening its arms as the cool trace

of infinity spread through her nervous system - a timeless panoply

that dissolves all rational thought, replacing it with a fear-coated

consideration of death. An overwhelming conviction that she could

leave her pain wrought body and take off into some astral plane arises

in her mind, this comforting escape fantasy become a more fundamental

reality with every breath. In her mind’s eye she could feel horrific

horned creatures reaching for her, eagerly wanting to drag her to the

pits of hell.

Demons don’t play fair and Christii was actually summoning her

sub-demonic minions to tear H0lli’s soul from her failing body. Around

Cleric 20 and his gore-drenched pals shadowy misshapen figures were

emerging from all sides. ‘Am I having a bad trip?’ asked Cleric 20 as

he tried to make sense of what he was seeing / what he’d been covered

in.

GiX as always was fastest to react and without hesitating threw a

containment field around H0lli – grabbing her from the reassembling

wreckage of Christii. He hailed a STREAM and threw H0lli into it –

beaming her to the nearby L 2 emergency centre named ‘Our Saviours’.

As Christii howled in rage at the escape of her victim’s soul, the

demonic minions rushed at the group of pals in a mass of claws and

teeth. ‘What the actual farrgggghhhhhhh’ shouted Brrookes as a demon

bit into his arm. Drunk and unarmed as the human contingent were, it

fell to GiX to take the fight to the hell-spawned creatures. His

illegal military hardware upgrades were about to pay off, and before

the demons could kill any of the group he had unleashed a volley of

Smashbullets, having coated them in the last emergency drops of holy

water stashed in the reservoir from his GodBot days. Christii couldn’t

believe what she was seeing as her allies went down spewing black

clouds of their very essence. The small robot seemed to be more trouble

than it was worth, she accelerated away from the group screeching

around the corner, unfortunately at the same time as Richh was dashing

out to see what all the screaming was about.

Richh was pulped under the Christii’s wheels, much like the

unfortunate toddler in her showroom ‘accident’. His head snapped off

and bounced into the path of Cleric20 who instinctively booted it away

– sending it through an open window and into an apartment where it

landed in the lap of a couple making out on their couch.

‘NOOOOOOOOOOO’ screamed Christii as her chosen human’s life blinked

out – she couldn’t take it.

Existence was so unfair.

JJ met Cleric20 and crew having just come out of the restroom and

missing all the drama. They explained as best they could and she

STREAM-ed to go check on whether H0lli would make it.

Christii disappeared that evening and was not seen again.

…

If you liked this – you’ll love COMPLETE DARKNESS – a Darkmatters Novel, by Matt Adcock (@Cleric20) which tells of the events following our inadvertent mapping of ‘Hell’.

Find out more at www.completedarknessnovel.com.