Machines by Jason M. Green (iphone ebook reader TXT) 📕

cut open vertically and there were large holes scattered over her torso that appeared to have been made with surgical precision. A quick glance at the wounds told Jobe that many of her organs had been removed, and the smell of antiseptic clinging to the area around the body told him that it had happened recently. The amount of blood splattered around the vicinity of the body told Jobe that the young woman had still been alive when her organs were removed, and she had not been dissected postmortem. Off to the right he noticed a wet spot on the ground that wasn’t blood, and a quick examination told him that it was cold water, likely from condensation caused by some type of small refrigeration unit being set on the ground. Based on the evidence before him, he knew that the young woman who was laying dead at his feet had been the victim of freelance organ harvesters, whose numbers had grown in recent years since the demand for organs had grown due to the deplorable living conditions in some areas, the effects of various chemicals that had found their way into the ground and air in some parts of the country, and the various random acts of violence that many people fell victim to nearly every day. He thought for a few seconds on whether or not he should call the police to report the crime, and then decided against it since they likely wouldn’t take the time to seek justice for the young woman. So instead he picked up her fallen phone and used it to send a text message to one of the news hotlines he had heard about, and that way at least people would know about what happened and the police would have no choice but to put some effort into an investigation.
After sending the message, Jobe looked down at the body again and shook his head at the idea of a group of people ambushing someone and removing their organs just so that they could make money from selling them. He sighed in disgust at seeing a sign attached to a post across the street that advertised places where people could donate organs in exchange for monetary compensation. With a guttural noise, he crossed the street and tore down the poster, shredding it with his hands. Then he tossed the shreds into the air and began to walk away. He didn’t get far, though, before he heard someone shouting at him, and he turned around slowly.
“Hey! What do you think you’re doing?” shouted a male voice.
Jobe completed his turn and glanced at a group of six people who were all wearing long coats. There was a patch in the shape of an eye on each of the coats, and he knew that they were members of one of the vigilante groups that the police had been unofficially allowing to patrol some of the crime-ridden areas so that they wouldn‘t have to send their own officers. Jobe pretended not to hear the man at the front, who appeared to be the leader, and he began to turn back around. Then he heard someone shout out something about a dead body, and he knew that he wasn’t going to be allowed to leave peacefully.
“Did you do that, you sick bastard?” the man at the front shouted. “We don’t put up with that kind of stuff around here.”
Jobe turned around with great caution and looked at the bats, pipes, and lengths of wood that the vigilantes were carrying. “I did not kill her,” he replied.
“Then why do you have blood on your hands?” another of the vigilantes asked as he used a metal pipe to point at Jobe.
Jobe glanced down and saw a smear of blood on his hands, which he knew he must have picked up when he turned the body over to examine it. “I was just checking to see if there was any chance she was still alive,” he replied in as meek a tone as he could manage.
“We don’t believe you!” the leader shouted, as he raised a spiked bat up to his shoulder. “I bet you cut her up like that.”
“Yeah! You’re probably an organ-legger,” another of them shouted.
“I would never cut a person apart like that,” Jobe responded, still trying to seem meek. He noticed one of them approaching slowly while brandishing a length of wood. The young man wasn’t trying to hide his intentions, and Jobe casually moved into a better position to deal with the inevitable attack. “I am telling you the truth.”
The leader shook his head. “I really doubt it.”
“I guess we’ll just have to beat the truth out of you,” the young man said, mere seconds before he swung the piece of wood at Jobe’s head.
Jobe effortlessly ducked beneath the piece of wood, and then he threw himself backwards as someone swung a pipe at him. Before he had time to get to his feet, the leader swung his spiked bat, and Jobe rolled to the side to avoid the blow. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw sparks from where the spikes connected with the pavement, and then he was on his feet again. “This has all been a terrible misunderstanding. I just want to leave peacefully.”
“Yeah, well we’re not going to let you do that. You see, it’s our job to deal with anyone who breaks the law around here, and you‘re one of those people.” The leader spun the bat around a few times.
Knowing he wouldn’t be able to shake them up like he did to the one police officer, he resigned himself to fighting back if necessary. “I really do not wish to hurt any of you.”
“You? Hurt us? That’s a laugh. In case you haven’t noticed, we’re the ones with the weapons here,” the leader said with a laugh.
Jobe thought about the gun he took from the police officer, but he doubted they were enough of a threat to warrant using a gun, and so he just stood and waited for them to attack him.
“You’re dumber than you look,” the man with the piece of wood said, as he swung at Jobe again. However, this time his swing was blocked by Jobe’s left forearm and the palm of Jobe’s right hand struck him in the solar plexus, knocking him backwards and effectively putting him on the ground.
“Screw this!” shouted one of the men who was wielding a pipe. He came in swinging, and was shocked when Jobe twisted sideways beneath his swing and struck him with a kick that knocked the pipe out of his hand and left that appendage numb.
One of the men who was carrying a regular wooden bat swung for Jobe’s head, but missed completely, as Jobe dropped low and took him down with a sweeping kick to the legs. The leader yelled for the other two to attack, but they stood still, and he shouted profanity at them. Then he rushed forward swinging his spiked bat.
Tired of wasting his time with the vigilantes, Jobe put up his arm to block the swing, and he succeeded, but some of the spikes were driven into his arm. He didn’t let any pain show on his face and he stared at the leader impassively while blood oozed around the punctures. “You have managed to draw blood, and so I must now view you as an actual threat instead of just an annoyance.”
The leader looked at Jobe, then at the bat, and then back at Jobe’s face. His eyes got wide, and then he released his grip on the bat and ordered a retreat. Those of his men still standing grabbed the ones on the ground and dragged them down the street as fast as they could.
Jobe watched them leave, and then he pried the spikes loose from his arm. He grimaced in pain as he tossed the bat aside, and then glanced at his injuries. “It is a good thing I heal quickly,” he muttered, as he wrapped his bandanna around his injured limb and resumed heading towards his destination.

After walking the streets for nearly fifteen minutes, he reached a comm-booth and plugged in his HPD. Then once the booth was ready and the HPD was booted up, he pressed the sequence of keys required to transmit a coded message to a specific online bulletin board that he used for sending messages to his partner, and a few seconds later he disconnected his HPD and started walking the streets again.
About a mile later, he turned a corner and walked down a dark alley that led to a dead end. To the left was a rusty door, and Jobe opened it after a quick look around to make sure he wasn't being watched. Behind the rusty door was a keypad that Jobe used to unlock another door, which opened inward when the right code was entered. He then walked inside and closed the door behind him.
Jobe glanced around the dark interior and listened for the sounds of any intruders, but he didn‘t sense any, so he said, “Lights.” The voice-activated lamps responded to his voice, and came on to reveal a small room that contained only a cot, two lamps, a folding chair leaning against the wall, and a long, battered desk cluttered with assorted computer equipment. He walked over to the desk in the rear of the room, grabbing the folding chair from where it leaned against the wall, and unfolded the chair in front of the desk. Then he removed the wig he was wearing and tossed it onto the cot, revealing hair that had been cut close to his scalp until it was only dark stubble. After peeling off the strips of adhesive that had been holding the wig to his head, he sat down in the folding chair.
He removed a small black box out of the top left drawer of the desk. Then he removed and uncoiled some cords from inside the same drawer and plugged them into the four ports on the front of the black box, into the ports on each side, and plugged one in the back that he also connected to a small computer. From inside the top right drawer of the desk he pulled out a small timer and plugged it into the side of the black box. Finally, he turned on the small computer, flipped up the screen, and plugged all the cords from the four ports on the front of the small box into the four ports at the base of his skull, making sure to match up each of the input and output cords with their respective ports.
Jobe used the computer to access a military database currently being run by all of
the governments on Earth. He used some top-secret access codes to break into those systems beyond the ones that civilians were allowed access to, and the timer hooked into the side of the small black box, which was set for five minutes, began counting backwards as he passed beyond the areas of public knowledge.
Moving his fingers across the keyboard at speeds beyond the capabilities of
normal humans, Jobe broke through security measures that the government considered state-of-the-art, and accessed top-secret databases that contained many things the general
public was never supposed to know about, and some things that most of America’s allies were not even supposed to know about. He searched until he found the area that allowed access to files that were used to program the automated constructs the military created
and utilized during the last war, and then he chose the files that he had need of and began to download them directly into his brain.
The timer kept counting down, and Jobe decided to speed up the download