“Yo, man, get your f#cking hands off my boy! Are you crazy?” Mark lashed out at a Death Row Infantry-man while standing up from kneeling in front of his son. “Touch my boy again and I’m gonna break your f#cking hand! You need to back the f#ck up!” Mark shoved the soldier back while giving the man a murderous stare.
Lukas hugged his father in a tight embrace after watching him cuss at the soldier. The child wanted that warm moment back with his dad again, and he didn’t want to see his dad get upset. It comforted the little boy to feel his father’s hand caressing through his hair. A soft, resounding sentimental gasp came from the crowd of prisoners when Lukas hugged his dad. The sentimental gasping mostly came from women prisoners.
Irena became impatient while waiting for her selected prisoner to step into his robotic exoskeleton suit, which would help her prisoner fight against 2Pac. 2Pac was Princess Death Row’s robot. She modeled the machine after the late rap star. Princess Death Row made her way over to Mark and his son with her long flowing black dress dragging behind her.
“What’s going on over here?” There was a dead gentleness in Irena’s voice. She felt a slight breeze of affection come over her when she glanced down at Mark’s son. She tried to reach down to touch Lukas’ chin, but the boy moved away from her hand. “I won’t hurt you, baby,” Irena told the child, smiling down at him.
“He knows your reputation, lady. He knows you’re a killer,” Mark spoke to Irena while looking the woman straight in her eyes.
Irena giggled while shaking her head, “I’m not a killer. I’m just a businesswoman.”
“Yeah, a businesswoman who killed my boy’s mother. You fed her to those creatures and made me and my boy watch,” Mark snapped back at Irena. He became annoyed by the amused smirk she was giving him.
“Listen, honey, I know you’re still angry about what happened to your wife two years ago, but there are things in life you have to move on from. I am giving you your freedom if you win this fight. You and your child will be free. You need to focus,” Irena spoke to Mark like a football coach.
Mark wanted to do a few things to Irena, but the man kept his emotions in check. He rolled his eyes at her before putting his attention back on his son, giving the child a slight smile. Mark loved looking into his son’s eyes because it gave him hope. He could also see his wife through his son’s eyes, since his little boy shared his mother’s eyes.
“I promise, your papa is gonna win this fight for you. You’re my little Homie, and Papa isn't gonna let anything happen to you," Mark whispered down to Lukas, while stroking his hand down the side of his little boy’s face.
“I love you, papa,” Lukas uttered, wrapping his arms around his father after his father kneeled in front of him again. Lukas never looked up at Irena as he rested his chin on his father’s shoulder and closed his eyes. The little boy tightened his arms around his father, hoping it would keep his father there with him.
It was an impactful embrace, and Mark wanted to keep holding his son. He enjoyed the warmth of his son’s head resting against his shoulder.
“Alright, I’m coming! Just let me have a moment with my boy!” Mark barked at Irena after she placed her petite hand on his shoulder.
Irena smiled while watching Mark stand up after holding his son for three minutes. She took Mark by the hand and guided him over to a robotic exoskeleton suit he needed to put on.
“You must wear this robotic suit to fight 2Pac,” Irena told Mark. “The suit has a lot of unique features including Ghost Mode.” Irena pointed at a silvery button on the side of the robotic suit’s arm.
“What the f#ck is Ghost Mode?” Mark asked with a slight raspy irritation in his gravelly voice.
“Ghost Mode is a feature that will allow you to become untouchable, but only for five seconds,” Irena explained. “After pressing the button, the suit sends out a magnetic pulse that will disrupt the electrical charges between the atoms in your body, making you a spirit for only a few seconds. You’ll be able to walk through walls or walk through punches, but only for five seconds. And you’ll only be able to use the Ghost Mode feature twice.”
Mark listened to Irena explain the features while looking at the robotic suit’s innovative design. Mark thought the robotic exoskeleton suit looked like RoboCop, only without the cop inside the suit.
The suit had a metallic black texture with a helmet connected on top of it that covered half of the user’s face. There was also a red light bar on the eye part of the helmet that gave the suit its futuristic RoboCop similarities.
“You have a vector high energy machine gun that emerges from the suit’s left arm. You also have a tectonic laser sword that retracts out of the right arm of the suit. It’s kind of like a Star Wars lightsaber.” Irena giggled while trying to explain most of the suit’s features to Mark. Princess Death Row could see how Mark wasn’t fascinated by the suit he was about to put on, but she didn’t care.
“Is this sh#t already on, or what?” Mark asked after stepping into the heavily armored suit and looking around for a power button. Mark’s large muscular frame fitted into the dark metallic robotic suit easily. The man felt a little surprised that sitting inside the suit reminded him of sitting in the driver’s seat of a classic 1986 Porsche 959 that he once owned.
“Just lean your head back into the helmet part of the suit and the suit will activate,” Irena told Mark while folding her arms.
“Oh sh#t!” Mark shouted, and his body flinched when he leaned his head back into the helmet of the suit and watched as the robotic suit embraced his body like a mechanical coat. The lower part of his face and his wide neck were his only exposed body parts. Mark felt like the Marvel Comics hero Iron Man, and he became startled when he heard a computerized female voice speaking through the suit.
“Hello, my name is V. I am your assistant. You are now combat-ready. I checked the integrity of the suit and there are no system corruptions. All of your weapons are online and ready for operation.” The female robotic voice sounded natural.
Mark smirked a little as he walked around in the suit and admired how the heavy-duty robotic armor molded well with his colossal frame. Wearing the suit made Mark feel powerful. It made him feel confident about winning the fight against 2Pac. Mark used to be a software engineer, so he understood a little about the operating system that controlled the suit. Mark had his doubts, but he tried not to show it. He’d been in fights before, but not with a man that was a machine.
Mark had been in a lot of fights with guys at nightclubs and in prison when he was younger. But this was a different fighting experience for him. Even though Mark knew he was getting ready to fight a robotic 2Pac, he still felt he could win. He had to win this fight for his son.
Mark and 2Pac were now facing each other like two boxers in the ring. 2Pac and Mark were standing inside a room called a Virtual Materialization Simulator. The Virtual Materialization Simulator, or VMS, was a computer-operated room. The room could produce a realistic simulated environment using tiny 3D printer lasers built into the room’s ceiling and its four massive white walls.
A prisoner could choose what kind of environment they wanted to fight their robotic opponent in, and the room would produce that environment based on the prisoner’s choice. Mark wanted to fight 2Pac in a Miami nightclub setting. He watched as the tiny 3D laser printers inside the room’s walls built the inside of a dark massive nightclub with emerald-green flashing strobe lights and holographic 3D people, who were dancing around Mark and 2Pac to the beat of EDM fused with Latin hip-hop.
“Hey, Pac, you ready to get your ass kicked!?” Mark shouted across the way at 2Pac, who stood motionless with his muscular titanium alloy plated arms folded in front of him. “I know you can hear me! We don’t have to fight each other! Just because that lady built your ass doesn’t mean you have to always do what she tells you. You’re an intelligent robot. I know you can override those system files inside that metal, bullet-resistant skull of yours!” Mark spoke to the robotic 2Pac, and he received no response from the armor-skinned, bald, cybernetic man, who was shirtless, wearing sagging blue jeans.
2Pac also had a nose piercing in his left metallic nostril and a glistening gold chain with a crucifix hanging around his neck. The machine was a replica of 2Pac. Princess Death Row copied every detail. Mark breathed slowly when the robotic 2Pac raised his hands and adjusted the black bandana around his head. This was a systematic protocol that 2Pac would perform every time he would get ready for battle. It was written into his program files.
Mark had never seen technology so advanced and lifelike. He tried not to be impressed by 2Pac, but it was hard. It was hard not to be amazed by a metal man-made in the image of a dead rap star Mark admired growing up. He could see how the robotic 2Pac was much bigger and bulkier than the real 2Pac. He thought the robot looked like a chrome statue of the rap star. 2Pac’s eyes reminded Mark of Bi-xenon headlights on the front of a luxury car.
A cybernetic 2Pac was something Mark thought he’d never see in his lifetime. He never thought he’d have to battle a shirtless metal man who had tattoos engraved into his body. To Mark, 2Pac looked like a bad boy version of C-3PO from the Star Wars films. Mark heard the cybernetic 2Pac talk for the first time.
He knew it was time to fight when 2Pac opened his mouth and said to Mark through an eerie whispering digitized voice of the rapper–“It’s go time, motherf#cka.” This was another system protocol written into 2Pac’s program files.
Mark brought up his robotic suit’s ammunition blockers, which were two triangular-shaped energy blast proof shields. The two shields activated themselves and they arose out of both of the robotic suit’s arms. Mark tried to block the gunfire coming from two 3D printed handguns that 2Pac pulled out of two mechanized pockets that emerged from his abdomen. The battle began as a gunfight, and so far Mark held his own against 2Pac. He activated his nuclear-powered energy sub-machine gun and fired away at 2Pac.
The blast from the machine gun knocked 2Pac off his feet, but only for a moment. 2Pac’s body had minimal damage and his upgraded flexible nanobot armored skin held its integrity well.
Mark kept shooting even when 2Pac took off toward him at full speed and tackled him. Mark felt like a car hit him, but the robotic suit absorbed most of the inertia from the impact.
Now on his back, Mark had to put the armored suit to work, and he used it to block the reinforced, flexible titanium that covered 2Pac’s four knuckles. Mark tried to block every punch that 2Pac attempted to bring down on his half-exposed face. One punch from 2Pac slipped through. The metal man’s fist contacted the top part of the robotic suit’s hyper-alloy helmet. Mark had to get 2Pac off of him and he knew if the robot punched him in the face, he would break every bone in his jaw.
“He’s so cute,” a young woman said to Amy while pointing at Amy’s little boy. The woman sat across from Amy inside a luxury car dealership’s waiting room. “Thank you,” Amy acknowledged the compliment the young woman gave to her son. “He’s my only baby,” Amy stated with a giggle. She gazed down at her son, Omar, who was sitting on his mother’s lap playing a video game on his phone. “I have one of my own, but he’s grown up now,” the woman told Amy with her eyes still fixated on Amy’s son. She giggled when Omar looked up from his phone and waved at her. The woman, named Jenatrix, waved back at Omar while also blowing him a kiss. “I was going to wait till tomorrow to schedule an oil change, but I decided to service my car today and get it over with," Amy told the woman while breezing her fingers through her son’s trimmed, curly haircut. She fell into a conversation with Jenatrix while reaching into her purse. “Oil changes can be a bitch,” Jenatrix stated
Paul was sitting in front of a gas station behind the wheel of his lavender-metallic 1990 Lexus LS400. The assassin tried to figure out how he would dispose of a dead body, which he placed in the trunk of his sedan. It was ten o’clock in the morning, and right now Paul was getting ready to get out of his car to grab a cup of coffee. He had a slight hangover, and he needed something to wake him up. He was sitting inside his car, listening to Dr. Dre and Eminem, and trying to decide on the right time to get his latte. Paul hated crowded public places. He didn’t want to get out of his car to get his coffee because of all the people he saw marching in and out of the convenience store. Paul wanted his coffee, so he tried to ignore dealing with a store full of customers. As Paul sat in his car watching people walk in and out of the gas station, he could feel a female presence lurking inside him. He couldn’t stop the presence from taking over his voice. “You moron!”
Amy held her son in her arms. She stepped through her front door to see two men in black militia uniforms standing in her living room. The men were mountainous, resembling two dark towers standing beside her sofa. They had machine guns strapped to their chests, and skull masks kept their faces concealed. Amy didn’t expect this. She didn’t expect one man to snatch her son out of her arms. There was a fight in Amy’s living room. Amy punched and kicked at the man who tried to take her baby. She saw the soldier’s handgun, but she didn’t give a damn about getting shot. Amy snatched the mask off the man’s face. She kept punching the man until she fractured his nose. A bullet grazed her arm, but she kept brawling with the man. The adrenaline racing through the mother’s veins gave her the strength to crush the soldier’s throat with her fist. Amy used to be a mixed martial arts fighter. All of her training came back to her after the soldier assassin attempted to snatch her ch
Amy knew that the man who shot her husband was a white supremacist. She knew the killer targeted her husband because he was black. Amy thought about how the man never apologized to her in the courtroom for what he did. Instead, he told Amy, the judge, and the jury, that his gun went off by accident. He said he didn’t shoot Bryan on purpose. Amy thought about how the man said that Bryan killed himself by grabbing his gun. Her blood boiled when the disgraced police officer looked at her and said that her husband didn’t suffer. He told Amy that her husband died instantly, which he thought would give her a peace of mind. Amy became enraged, and she ran so fast toward the disgraced policeman that the bailiff couldn’t grab her. The disgraced police officer slowly stood up and folded his arms when he saw Amy charging toward him. He saw Amy as being a harmless, young, and beautiful woman who wouldn't be able to handle a man twice her size. Amy thought about how she w
Amy thought about her husband again while she was driving. It was the only thing that kept her from panicking. She thought about when she first met Bryan at a local grocery store and how she did something terrible to her future husband. She struck Bryan on the heel of his foot on purpose with her shopping cart to get his attention. Amy felt like a stalker for following Bryan all around the store before she tapped him with her shopping cart. She saw a strapping, handsome man walking around the store, still wearing his white paramedic uniform. Bryan was gorgeous on the outside, but there was something on the inside that also attracted Amy. She could see a gentleness radiating through his crystal brown eyes. He was sexy and was as big as a pro football player, but he had alluringly gentle eyes. Amy would often fantasize about looking up into those eyes. She would fantasize about making love to her husband again. Every night she would wear a silver negligee that Bryan bo
“Come on, Pac, I know you can hit me harder than that! You hit like a pussy!” Mark trash-talked the robot as he struggled to use his suit’s mechanical strength to block 2Pac’s hammering blows. Mark got 2Pac off of him when he blasted the cybernetic man in the face with his machine gun. Sparks flew from 2Pac’s face and chest from the hot white energy emerging from the machine gun. Mark returned the favor by running toward 2Pac and ramming his body into him. He used all the thrust power in his suit to tackle 2Pac. Mark and the metal man went through a concrete wall that led to another section of the simulated nightclub. He threw down his fist on 2Pac’s metal jawline after the dust cleared from going through the concrete wall. “You think you’re the only one who can throw down!?” Mark roared down at 2Pac while nailing his opponent repeatedly in the face. At first, Mark had the advantage, but things went downhill when 2Pac clamped a small hexagon-shaped device on
This was how 2Pac killed most of his victims. He would do it efficiently and cleanly so that the prisoners wouldn’t suffer. The fighting tournaments were planned for elaborate executions and 2Pac was Princess Death Row’s executioner. Disguising an execution as a fighting tournament gave a lot of prisoners false hope, thinking they could fight their way to freedom. Mark was one of many. Out of all the deaths, Mark’s death was the cleanest. After executing Mark, 2Pac recorded the decapitation and stored it in his memory cloud database. He kept other recordings of sinister executions in his database. After 2Pac killed Mark, the simulated young partygoers and the nightclub setting inside the stadium-sized room shut down like a smartphone screen being turned off. The Virtual Materialization Simulator’s four massive white walls returned, and the millions of tiny 3D printer lasers retracted back into the walls like a power antenna on an old 1980s Cadillac. A silence echoed
Amy had regrets. All she wanted was to hold her baby again, and she was mad at herself for not protecting him. Amy remembered how she contemplated suicide after having a miscarriage. She assumed she would never have another baby. She felt too ashamed to tell her husband that attempting to kill herself in the living room of their home wasn’t the only time she tried to take her own life. Guilt consumed Amy when she thought back on the night she tried to shoot herself and threatened to shoot her husband if he tried to stop her. Amy admitted she had problems before she became pregnant with Omar. But it seemed like when she found out she was pregnant again, everything in her life felt like it was changing for the better. It was like giving birth to a cherub when Amy saw Omar coming out of her womb and heard him crying for the first time. She would never forget how Omar looked up at her after the nurse placed his tiny body in her arms. He didn’t cry that much. Looking into her bab