Thread: The Songs Are No More (Chantho/Misanthropic)

The city is diseased. Everything about the culture and the people is coated in enough rot to make doctors quail at the idea of doing anything about it. That is why everything is glossed up and made to look so pretty, because rot is perfectly okay if no one sees it. Yet sometimes the corruption drives people out to reclaim the small, pristine wonders of the world. That is why Damien was running after the single mother through back alleys and drug addled hookers desperately seeking some kind of release. Damien was not visibly troubled thanks to his mask, a generic model of the Repoman that had been handed out after that notorious backfire of one of the surgical soldiers years back. His suit was impressive and it didn't let any of the filth he walked on into it, boots crunching over empty zydrate bottles like they were nothing and pushing past rusted metal and broken glass to allow him a quicker path than the woman who had to focus on not dying thanks to the environment on her hunted run. It was both the suit and the environment that ended the hunt early with Damien's prey stepping on the glass seal of a syringe and the glass embedding itself in her foot. Damien caught up to her and placed his large bag of warrior-surgery tools down as he began to prepare himself for the work. Please no! I just don't have the money! Johnny had to get a replacement knee! I will have the payment, I promise! Please! PLEASE DON'T DO THIS! Damien used to feel sorry for people, and in a way he still did. Yet he still pulled out the scalpel and slammed the woman's head against the wall as he pressed the knife to her face. Well, it technically wasn't HER face anymore, but one of the grand Pavi Brand Fetish-Skintastic Masques that were so in vogue. Of course, hers was the previous popular model that were filling the vats of synthskin that reworked the masks into the newer model. It showed she really wasn't an addict and perhaps she just had fallen on bad luck. Still, he had a job. The masks had been made to be removed with simple surgical skill as those who followed the eponymous maker of the masks switched their faces out almost as much as he did. This is what happened when medicine was almost as much fashion as a life saving operation. The face ripped off with a sicking sound along the lines of wet cloth being ripped in half and was drowned out by the pained scream from the woman. Damien placed the face in a bag and looked down at the woman weeping tears and blood. There was a chance she could survive, one of the rare ones who could survive a visit from a repoman. She most likely wouldn't. The place was filthy. She was covered in grime and now her body was exposed. Damien turned and walked off, leaving the woman to writhe in the alley and howl with impotent pain. He had long since learned how to drown out the cries. His feet took him to a tall and imposing building, his special repoman key giving him access to the special employee entrance of his kind. He stood in silence as the elevator music, a bastardization techno remix of the final Blind Mag performance, played. He stepped off and went to the returns office, placing the face down on the table in front of a slightly overweight woman who was busy playing with her fiberoptic hair, changing the color from brown to purple. Ah, Damien, good job. Such skill. And such a shame too, she only had two payments left on it. Ah well. She tapped into the computer, her fingernails clacking against keys as a little chit of paper printed out, Here is your commission slip, don't spend it all in one place. Damien took the paper and walked away, his mask hiding his hatred for the woman. She was the niece, grandniece?, of the people who had supplied his medical school payments and ended up forcing him to work in this job. He walked into the employee locker rooms and dropped his bag with a crash. Work was done for the day. With the helmet off Damien looked a lot less imposing. His skin was nearly albino white thanks to a case of vitiligo that he had inherited from some great-grand relative way back in his past. He could easily have any type of melanin injected into his skin and thus emulate any race but he knew better than to try that path. His eyes were a dull brown which further hindered attempts at figuring out his natural race, as was the brown hair that hung limply in his eyes. As the suit cum armor came off he didn't seem like the typical repoman recruit. His muscle had been built up solely on the past two years hunting down organs and parts in the streets. He had been a simple man hoping to become a doctor. He placed those thoughts away as he hung his suit up in the washing department and began to clean off his helmet. He sat down on a bolted down bench and looked at his reflection in the helmet and wondered for the nth time how it had all come to this. Still, there was always the upside. He WAS a doctor. This was a side job that paid off his debts interest free, unlike the rest of his work. He opened his locker up and placed the bag inside it before noticing the single vial of zydrate he had left in the top where he placed his helmet. He briefly thought about taking it now but remembered the party he had to go to and thought better of it. He just needed a nice shower and maybe a good meal.