Jay and James the Jameson Scions were not having a good morning. It was hard work enough running a gang with countless underlings who all thought they could make meaningful contributions by waving around guns and fake lightsabers. On top of that however they had a younger brother.

  A very problematic younger brother who seemed to think he was still in line to both inherit their positions, and had a tendency to lash out whenever he got angry; which was whenever he didn’t succeed at something. It didn’t help that Derek was utterly incompetent. He was very much not in line to ever inherit their positions as the gang would probably kill him in less than a day if he ever took over.

  The brothers would have liked to teach Derek a lesson, but nothing seemed to be able to get through his skull and a lifetime of relying on them to fix every single one of his itty little problems or major fuck ups had left the man… incapable of learning.

  Due to their inability to fix him Jay and James had taken to doing the next best thing, pointing him at other things they couldn’t fix and hoping one day he would not come back. They would have got rid of him long ago if it hadn’t been their fathers dying wish to take care of him.

  James shuffled around in one of the large throne like chairs that had been constructed from welding a mountain of decaying car chassis together. It was terrible to sit on, but looked cool as fuck. He let out a sigh, “Do you think it was a good idea to kill the old man?”

  Jay's lips went thin, “Years of planning went into that takeover, you know he was planning to dismantle the gang at the peak of its power. Plus he was too kind at heart, he was gonna buy the remains of the Underschools charity out of bankruptcy. It would have lost us all favours with the Undertakers.”

  James scratched the side of his neck under his cybernetic implants, a nervous tick that had turned the skin raw there. “He was fun to have around though, I mean don’t get me wrong it was fun to kill him too, but it feels like something’s missing these days.”

  His brother didn’t respond and instead idly extended a short sword from a hidden compartment in his forearm, still stained with the dried blood of their father, which he’d refused to clean since doing the act. There was a whine in his arm somewhere and a motor seemed to get stuck for a moment before continuing—splitting his hand down the middle and rearranging his fingers around the grisly blade.

  “It’s sticking again,” stated James, “You could spend this month's points to get it fixed.”

  “Or I could get a second one in the other arm,” said Jay looking at his remaining boring human arm.

  “These things are so very experimental, I’d ask for it to get fixed before going about modifying yourself further.”

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  Before James could nag him further, Jay stood up, “I’m going to go examine the subjects.”

  James shrugged and made a gesture, “You’re welcome to, but I think I shall stay here, I don’t like looking at their pitiful expressions.”

  Jay adopted a predatory smile and licked his still extended arm blade, “One day you will change your mind brother, that's the most delicious thing they have to offer.”

  Leaving his brother, he vanished off into the abandoned halls of the old hospital, past flaking paint and rotting wood that had once been installed as part of an effort to make the place look futuristic and spacey. It had done its job while they were growing up, but decor wasn’t really at the top of the twins priorities right now.

  He walked past men stationed at various doors, some of them giving him a thumbs up, but others shivering and standing just that bit straighter. The ones that had resisted their takeover had learned their lesson, however they’d need to do a lot to get back in good graces.

  After descending a few floors he got to the basement, which had once held radiotherapy equipment from an era ago. The machinery had of course long since gone, but the heavily lead lined rooms were perfect for their new purpose of imprisoning and soundproofing.

  Jay pressed his face against the reinforced glass seeing a family of four inside huddled under UV lights. Each of them looked like there was something severely wrong with them. Their newly green skin seemed to stretch around their semi starved bodies. Their expressions were haunted and a line of red welts showed where they had itched themselves over and over during the transformation process. They had been here for weeks and lines of scar tissue from previous welts were visible everywhere they weren’t wearing clothes.

  This was his favourite group of subjects because he didn’t need to feed them, the Undertakers said the serum he had injected them with would turn their skin into something like leaves, filling it with chloroplasts and allowing them to derive sugars from light. They also didn’t need to breathe anymore as a side effect. Jay fondly remembered when he had blocked off the ventilation system of the room, how they had rolled around clutching their throats before they grew accustomed to it.

  He moved on, staring at the occupants of each room in varying states of psychopathic delight. He was only half way down the hallway when he heard shouts coming from above.

  Jay began sprinting towards the commotion, some cybernetic miracle in his chest pumping his system with enough adrenaline to jump over cars. He darted up the stairs and for a moment blanked.

  “Is that… a skeleton?” he muttered in confusion as a naked fleshless figure stared at him from across the hallway and made some clacking noises by opening and closing its jaws rapidly. The man began laughing as he ran forward and shattered its skull with his sword arm.

  In opposition to what he expected from every movie he had ever watched, the skeleton didn’t collapse and instead grabbed at him blindly until it managed to hug him. “Why aren’t you dying?” he yelled in frustration, shattering more of its bones until it was a mess of splinters painfully pressing into him which eventually fell to the floor.

  Jay breathed heavily as five more ran through the door, clacking their jaws at him in a fashion that made them almost look mad.

  “Fuck me.”

  +++++

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