The Devil's Smile

Chapter 1

The mourners were standing a little way off from the freshly heaped earth over the empty coffin plate of my brother. The android pall bearers (Pallers) were waiting in their black metallic beauty further allowing us to mourn the disintegration of my sibling into nothingness. My father had a stoic look on his face trying to keep it together for the sake of my mother, and my mother was weeping uncontrollably clutching the lapels of his leather jacket. The sub-zero temperatures made it difficult or all to stay but not me. The concrete path glistened like white quartz but it was nothing more than just that, concrete. All this beauty lying all around over the odourless putrid stench of death which made our lives emptier than before. But the air is fresh unlike the graves lying all around in this old cemetery.

I walked over to the Pallers and they turned towards me with their gaze flickering on their black glassy faces. I inserted the price of their services in the slot that came out of their abdominal cavities. Now the Pallers could use it for their improvement and further updating of softwares, as was deemed necessary by their owners. They bowed and then trudged towards the cemetery storage room where their accommodations were.

It was quite some time before my parents moved away from the grave site and we all walked together towards our family car. All the visitors had left by then not being able to withstand the inhumane piercing cold. That was one good thing that my parents had done while altering the genes when I was nothing but an embryo, they had asked the scientist in charge to make me resistant to everything physically. My father tells me that my brother used to be hospitalized almost every month due to his lower immunity and resistance so they did not want me to suffer the same plight.

There were a lot of emotions that I had been feeling since the last few days when my brother disintegrated rapidly before our eyes on the eve of his twenty-first birthday. But the predominant amongst them were rage and the need for retribution. And the best part being I could not express them to my parents who already had lost one child.

As I told the GPS our destination with a detour at two streets away from the final destination of our home in the suburbs I faced the inevitable question.

“You do know that guests are coming over for the funerary ceremony of your brother. Where will you be going now?” asked my father since my mother was too crestfallen to notice these things.

“I have had enough of my share of people today Dad. I need some time alone, and I am going to Dwayne’s house. I shall be back soon, within afternoon,” I replied.

“Just be careful Red. We already have lost too much. I don’t know if we can bear if something happens to you at this tender age,” said my Dad and my mother looked up with her big brown eyes, tear stained cheeks and the dark pouches under her eyes made my heart ache.

“You are not going to lose me anytime soon Dad, you can take my word for it. This is my promise to both of you guys,” were my words before I descended from the car and walked towards the safe haven for me and my best friend. It was a loft which we had built together and decorated from scratch. I opened the door with my key and entered to the beeping and the flashes of the multiple machines connected all around in the room. Today where every single home was protected with voice detection, finger-print scanning and biometric locks we had decided that going the old fashioned way would be probably the best one.

“If you are thinking of breaking any single one of them Red, trust me I am going to feed you alive to the rogue drones!!” came out the voice of my best friend from back somewhere. I could not think of doing anything else other than smashing everything at the moment but I knew that Puck was not to be taken lightly when it came to machines. I could not say anything else but at the moment a sense of dread came over me suddenly, what if the death of my brother is not a stray incident? What if it has happened before? What I the same fate was waiting for all of us. And I slid down on the floor with a thud.

When I opened my eyes I could see a sock hanging over my face and it smelled so worse that I almost gagged.

“Good that you are awake Red. I have got something and trust me you are not gonna like it, so wake up and buckle up,” said Puck, who did not like this Shakespearean nickname he had gotten from his English mother and I was the only one allowed to call him that.

“If you make me smell your soiled unwashed socks ever again Puck, I am going to redecorate your body so nicely that you will wish that I had left you in the claws of the rogue drones. You know I am good with knives, don’t you now?” I said as I removed the sock with one of my pretty little things and flung it back to the end of the room and glared at the house-bot who immediately moved away from my sight. My parents were not aware that I was one of the best underground fighters where there were no rules in the ring. These fights were absolutely illegal since now all the fights took place in between the bots and the owners could upgrade their systems with every fight that they won. But I had to use my genes for some purpose right? After all a girl was only that what her parents made her of, wasn’t it??

“You can threaten me all you want, but when you are here instead of that dog-arena of yours trying to let off your rage then it must be because you need my help, so are you going to listen to me or not?’ asked Puck, unfazed by my threats. Again he knew, that I was a sucker for a pretty face and would never let any harm come to him.

I nodded him to go ahead and he grinned. But my expression changed his look almost immediately.

“I have hacked into the records of the hospital and found the cause of death for Blue. It would be wrong to say that I have found the cause but I have found this that the records are classified and so are hundred and twenty-nine deaths this year. And ask what is the most interesting thing about all the patients?” prompted Puck rubbing his hands with glee.

“What? But before you answer that Puck, will you please stop laughing and being so happy about this entire thing? I just buried my brother a few hours back,” I said trying to keep a leash on my rage.

“Technically Red, we all lost Blue, not just you and your fam. He was a big brother to me as well, and we lost him that day in the hospital when the doctors could do nothing to stop his decay. Face it Red, you buried an empty coffin plate, not your brother,” said Puck, who was looking at me with an intensity which made me rethink the whole affair. But I could not cry, I did not cry ever.

“There is something fishy going on Red, and take my word for this, it goes on quite deep. So what do you want to do? You want me to check out more or we can go to the funerary ceremony going at your house where I can make a speech about Blue,” said Puck, with his brows raised.

“If I had to go to the ceremony then I would not have come here Puck. Shut up and hack those records,” I replied as I got up from the bunk bed and sat beside him.

“Done and done,” said Puck as we both peered into the monitors.

On finding out the death certificate of Blue, the reason of death was given as self-decay due to genetic malfunction. We both looked at each other and then Puck started pulling out all the other records of the deaths in this year and in every case the reason of death was the same.

“Is it just for this year? Or it goes on from long back? I mean what I am trying to ask is are these kind of genetic malfunctioning normal?” I asked my bestie who was biting his nails anxiously.

“This is not looking good at all Red. The records have been sealed by a company named PiMicron Technologies Limited,” he replied as I looked carefully at the logo of the company on the screen and tried to remember where I had seen this one, because it looked so familiar!

“Don’t tell me you cannot go past the firewalls of a private org Puck,” I said breathing on his neck.

“I can Red, you know I can but we are doing something very illegal you know that right? This is a Federal crime and if we are caught then…” said Puck, as he chewed on his nails even more while I patted his back softly.

“All we do is illegal Puck, someday soon even breathing would become illegal. I need answers and so do all those people who have lost their kids. Who knows if the same fate is waiting for all of us? You still did not tell me what was the common factor among all the deaths this year,” I said as he opened up several file in rapid motion.

“Look at the age column,” said Puck and I found that all the victims were aged twenty-one.

Six days later, instead of packing my gym clothes I packed the only dress in my closet in my gym bag and walked out of the front door leaving my mother with the assumption that I was going for my sports-ed classes. I made a stop at the loft and changed into a party dress that too in red for the first time in my life of my own volition.

“Don’t fret over it girl, you have a figure and a face which would bring back a dead man alive and I am gonna work my magic on it so that the boy we want is going to say yes to everything you ask him to do,” said Puck, as he blow-dried my hair and applied make-up. It was excruciating for me to sit like that but all was fair in love and war and this was war.

“I never thought that I had to go to any party like this ever,” I said as he opened a tube of liquid something and applied on my lips, probably gloss.

“I would kill for the connections you have man, I would have never missed a chance to party like you do every single freaking weekend. Now you remember everything about that son of a b***h correct? And you remember that you need to say opposite to almost everything you will normally say to a man and please don’t get into a fight Red,” pleaded Puck, who was already dressed up for the evening.

“Puck you do remember that you are a maths and computer whiz and I am the one with the resilience and eidetic memory so even if I want to forget all this nonsense I actually cannot. Now let’s hit the road,” I said as I swatted his hand like swatting a fly.