Daemon

dent in the drywall.
    Frangible rounds still amazed Mosely. The bullets were made of compressed ceramic powder. They retained their hitting power if they hit soft human tissue, but they disappeared in a cloud of dust if they encountered an unyielding surface – like a wall. They were designed to contain a shoot-out within the room where the shooting was taking place, and they also eliminated the risk of ricochets. This last part was of particular concern when you were spraying seven rounds a second in a room ten feet square.
    The bloody fat man slumped and fell onto the floor with a thud that shook the room.
    Mosely heard movement in the next office, farther in. The squeaking of a desk chair.
    ‘Mav? What was
that
?’
    Mosely advanced quickly, both hands gripping the pistol. No need to worry about their calling the police. Their phones were out by now, and their cell phones would already be jammed.
    He stepped into a larger office area containing two desks and a bank of windows looking out onto the back parking lot. A young man stood behind a desk, hand reaching into the center drawer. A look of disbelief on his face. Mosely ripped out a longer burst this time. With the suppressor it sounded like a muted model airplane engine. The wall, windows, and drop ceiling were now spattered with blood. Smoke wafted away from the gun barrel.
    Mosely turned as another man screamed in terror. The man ducked behind his desk, dragging a phone with him.
    Shit
.
    Mosely popped the smoking barrels off and clicked on a new set. He advanced, gun ready, and could hear the man sputtering in terror as he tapped at the dead phone. ‘No! I’ll give you money! Don’t!’
    Mosely came around the side of the desk and aimed his gun down at the man cowering against the wall.
    ‘No! Please!’
    Mosely hesitated.
Goddamnit
. It could not be left undone. There was no question.
    ‘No!’
    Mosely emptied the barrel into him. The man slumped sideways behind the desk, in a pool of blood, his body twitching. Mosely loaded the last barrel and retraced his steps – putting another couple of shots into the heads of the other two men. He spoke into his headset. ‘Task complete.’
    There was a pause. Then The Voice said, ‘
Confirmed. Two thousand network credits. Demobilize
.’
    Mosely tapped a sequence of numbers onto a four-key pad on the bottom of the gun and tossed it onto the top of a nearby desk. The weapon started to sizzle and smoke, then the plastic bulk of it began to melt – along with its circuitry.
    Mosely took a small semicircular device off his tool belt. The thing resembled a small traveling alarm clock with a rounded bottom. He tapped the same four-key code into the device, then tossed it into the center of the floor, where it rolled around for several moments while Mosely exited the way he came in.
    As the device came to rest on its rounded bottom, a pocket laser beamed bright red light onto the stained drop tiles of the ceiling – creating a marquee-like sign in large glowing red letters. The letters spelled out the message the Daemon wanted to send – the message associated with operation 4-9-1-5:
    ALL SPAMMERS WILL DIE

Chapter 39:// Closing a Thread
    Reuters.com
    Spammers Massacred , Thousands Dead – A daring and well-coordinated attack launched Monday morning may have claimed the lives of as many as 6,000 prolific spammers in 83 countries . Over two hundred died in Boca Raton, Florida, alone. Authorities are still reeling from the magnitude and sophistication of the strikes. The assailants left behind the same message: ‘ All spammers will die .’
    Since the attacks, ISPs report up to an 80% reduction in the amount of spam clogging Internet servers.
    Sebeck sat in the sterile visitor’s room near Lompoc’s death row. His wife, Laura, sat across the table from him, looking down. To Sebeck’s surprise, there was no bulletproof partition separating them here. His last visitation would be face-to-face. Two prison guards stood watch over them from the nearby door.
    Laura looked up. ‘Are they treating you well?’
    Sebeck grimaced. ‘They’re going to kill me this evening.’
    She seemed unsure how to respond.
    Sebeck just waved it aside. ‘It’s okay. Normal conversation doesn’t really work in here. Don’t feel bad.’
    She sat thin-lipped and tense for several more moments. ‘Are you afraid?’
    Sebeck nodded.
    ‘I don’t know what to do, Pete.’
    ‘I’m sorry about the pension and the life insurance.