CHAPTER 3. The Girl with the Empty Smile

Warehouse

Creed Toddler, Lyanka Virerma, and Judith Strava fell silent after a heated argument. Outside the large windows, sixteen staff members were moving toward their vehicles, never to return. The woman with white hair cast one last glance at the pile of reflective vests strewn across the carpet, right in front of the office door.

«Have you told Rolen yet?» Judith asked, her fingers already back on her laptop.

«Yeah. I think he was fucking.»

Creed sighed in irritation. He hadn’t stopped rubbing his face with his rough hands.

«Uh-huh. And what if he doesn’t answer? Is that it for the two of you?»

«There’s no point making a scene right now,» Judith noted.

«True,» Lyanka agreed with a huff. «Although… I didn’t see this coming either. This could mean a major standstill.»

«‘Could’? Those people have already said they’re leaving!» he shouted.

The office landline rang. Judith grabbed it and wedged it between her shoulder and ear without stopping her typing.

«Yes. This is Judith.»

«What the hell was that call about earlier?» the voice on the other end demanded. Rolen sounded surly. «What’s going on there?»

«Sixteen staff members just resigned. They’re walking out on the company; they’ve abandoned their posts.»

«Why!?»

«They claim Miren’s dismissal was unjustified. They disagree with it, and they’re leaving in a show of solidarity.»

«… I’ll be there in twenty minutes.»

Judith hung up on him. Lyanka toyed with a pen on the desk, watching her colleague speak. She possessed great composure and always kept her nerves in check whenever a problem arose. It was the exact opposite with Creed, who would fly into a rage at the slightest setback in the Production department and easily spread that tension to his workers.

Later…

Rolen noticed the meeting of workers, now former workers, in the company parking lot. He didn’t look at them. He drove his car into the covered parking spaces on the right, which were better protected. These were the spaces designated for offices.

Before entering the company, his legs stopped for a moment. He almost turned around and confronted them, wanted to hear from them why they were willing to throw away his career and salary to please Miren. But he shook his head and headed to the office.

Because deep down, he didn’t have the courage.

Office

«Damn it! You finally showed up!» Creed shouted. Rolen adjusted his watch strap and looked at his team curiously.

«What happened? Keep it brief, please.» “That’s what Judith told you,” the white-haired woman replied. “I think they’ve been angry ever since you terminated her contract. They’re not happy working without her.”

“She didn’t even have a power stamp, I don’t understand. She was just an operator.”

“She got along well with everyone in the company. She was like… the ‘golden girl,’” Creed said bitterly. “And what am I supposed to do without sixteen people with power stamps?” Rolen scratched the back of his neck and slowly leaned against Judith’s desk. The woman had stopped typing; she remained thoughtful, glancing at the operators outside.

“So all those bastards had power stamps.”

“Those who didn’t are stuck on the production lines. They can’t do anything if they don’t come back… Should I tell them to go home?”

“Yes,” Rolen concluded. “But do it by walkie-talkie. I don’t want you moving from here.” Do you think Miren could be behind all this?

One of the «structurers» had been creating a bad atmosphere for some time. They’ve finally teamed up. There they go.

(Structurers = in this work, the structurers are the workers who have magical powers—to a greater or lesser degree, it doesn’t matter—and who also use them to build or improve the structure of the objects created in the company.)

Rolen’s jaw tightened as he clenched his teeth, seething with rage. He cast one last glance at the window; the group was still moving away. He felt a twinge of anxiety. He disliked situations that spiraled out of his control. And having the entire team of structurers leave so abruptly would only delay the work. They were doomed for the week. Delayed orders forced last-minute scrambles to speed things up—schedule changes that, more often than not, resulted in a spike in quality complaints. He rubbed his head of thick blond curls, almost tugging at them.

Judith. Judith always knew the answer. That was his immediate thought.

He walked over to his most valued employee. She glanced up from her screen for only a moment before resuming her typing, offering nothing more. Rolen smiled at her.

«What are you working on? Can you get us out of this mess?»

«You’re the director. I was expecting *you* to tell *me* what to do.»

«I know,» he said, his pride slightly stung. He straightened up, tensing his posture. «And I will, but I want your take on it.»

«Forget about profits this week; we aren’t going to make them,» she stated calmly. «We’re going to take a loss. We need to hire another team of structurers, and they aren’t easy to find. The human operators we have left need to get a head start on the mechanical work. But for that to happen, they have to be willing to work overtime.»

«They will; they always get paid.»

«They don’t always *want* to work the hours,» Lyanka remarked from the other corner. Rolen ignored her.

«In any case, you need structurers. The moment the client realizes the workforce lacks the mineral composition they requested, there will be complaints. We have a good relationship with our clients… they’ll put up with two weeks of substandard quality,» the dark-haired woman said, clicking her tongue as she pulled her hands away from the keyboard. She then interlaced her long fingers, rested her chin upon them, and looked up at him with a smile. But business dealings are going to leave you and Lyanka hanging by a thread.

My work is always the one that takes the biggest hit, the white-haired woman thought heavily. She decided to let them talk and stop intervening.

“Creed can put together a new team.”

«You’re going to have to delegate the factory line work to third parties. Creed can’t be in three places at once. And he’s the one who needs to provide the basic training.»

Rolen nodded slowly, hesitant. He liked hearing that, despite a setback of that magnitude, Judith kept her cool. Nothing ever seemed to rattle her too much. She let out one last quick huff.

«One more thing… you’d better contact your lawyer. Just in case. I don’t know where they’re all marching off to… but rest assured, those workers could cause trouble.»

«I know.»

Rolen got to work. With his priorities clear, he knew where to focus.

But there was essential organizational work to be done, and—much as it bruised his ego—he couldn’t keep his humans working normally that day; every synthetic construction route had a point where the structurer’s intervention was required.

Hours later

Rolen’s penthouse

It had been an exhausting afternoon. And the morning promised to be even worse. Fresh out of the shower, he considered calling one of his female acquaintances. A hooker for a quick blowjob would have sufficed, but when his body signaled just how tired he was, he reluctantly abandoned any thought of calling them. Instead, he tried to distract himself with another of his personal rituals. He made a strong cup of coffee—no sugar—and grabbed a laptop. It was the «laptop of horrors.» He would spend many nights staring at it, waiting for a reaction from himself. A question hanging in the air: *Will I throw up this time?*

At home, he could be himself. He could humbly discern the kind of person he was—and the kind he would have liked to be. Otherwise, all that remained were fragments of humanity, growing more disjointed by the day. No matter how he tried, the pieces of his behavioral puzzle no longer fit together. He was adrift… in waters where only rage and pleasure stirred the tide.

He set the laptop on his lap and unzipped some files. They were videos—some short, others longer. His heart began to race, little by little, just looking at the icons—snippets from the videos themselves, glimpses of their content. One featuring a washing machine caught his eye, so he clicked on it. A few seconds later, adrenaline surging, he stared at the washing machine in the video as it churned up scraps of flesh and a mass of bloody fluid. The executioner was kind enough to add detergent to the dispenser, and fresh bubbles swirled whenever the mixture slammed against the drum. Wet hair was visible among the remains. A crooked finger bumped against the glass before spinning away again. Throughout the process, a low, soft voice could be heard. A woman’s long legs crossed the frame, passing in front of the washing machine without paying it any heed. But then, he heard other screams—female ones. The camera’s sharp vibrations suggested a physical struggle was taking place. Meanwhile, the human carnage entered the spin cycle. Rolen fast-forwarded the video, but nothing filled the frame but that pinkish slurry—until, finally, the woman’s long, slender legs reappeared. He could see nothing beyond her tight jeans. The stranger struggled to open the drum, and suddenly the machine spat the entire mess of flesh and vomit onto the floor like a glob of spit. The sight made Rolen’s stomach turn—especially when a kick sent a head skittering through the clumps.

Then, her voice could be heard from off-screen.

“It really is useful,” she said—apparently speaking into an audio recorder. “The drum and door materials are acid-resistant… the floor is disintegrating.”

*They’re my products… BBG products.*

At that exact moment, he closed the playback window and opened another file.

This one followed the classic style he was more accustomed to seeing—at least at first. A woman lay fully restrained by safety straps on a metal platform—something like an autopsy table, but fitted with psychiatric-style restraints. It wasn’t the first time he had seen those elements, nor that room. That was what made it a real video. An authentic video… because Rolen already recognized some of the locations. It wasn’t the work of an imitator. It was a video retrieved from the dark web, bearing a «seal» designation—meaning the executioner in question held power.

In the video, a plump blonde woman was sobbing. Her tears dripped onto the table. A rag was stuffed into her mouth. Her pitiful whimpering intensified when she saw the executioner approach and lean in. Only his hands were visible in the shot. He gently removed the rag and caressed her face with his fingers. The girl was begging in English to be let go, promising she wouldn’t say a word.

They always say the same thing, he thought, watching impassively. The tender caresses of the fingers ceased. Nails dug into her cheeks—nails that elongated and pierced her cheekbones, forcing a scream from her. They tore the skin, carving four bleeding gashes with a newly synthesized mineral. Claws that drove deeper and deeper until her screams turned into a shrill, grating sound. They reached the collarbone, but could go no further; it was the first solid obstacle. The hand then tensed, and bands of bluish skin—along with the claws—expanded. The material gained strength, taking on the appearance of hard crystal. It was a process of sustained creation: a mineral substance that fused the protruding nails and formed a ring that clamped onto the bone. A tugging began, and the girl screamed in mounting distress, kicking wildly. Whoever was carrying this out had no intention of making it quick. The tugs were slow but excruciating as the victim writhed. She should have realized—after pleading and whimpering for what was likely hours—that such behavior didn’t elicit pity, but rather fueled the urge to inflict pain. Rolen blinked. In a split second, the claws lengthened further, and the hand clamped shut around the collarbone. It yanked at the bone and, with a sharp, sudden pull, snapped it—much like opening a cupboard door. The woman screamed—almost howled—her eyes wide. She grew frantic, thrashing and drooling as she screamed for help. The hand continued to pull, seemingly dissatisfied at not having snapped the bone in two places. The collarbone remained connected to the coracoid process by tendons; the tearing force had only severed one end, and now the bone protruded from her body like a parasite slick with flesh and blood. It resisted leaving the body to which it belonged. The assailant’s other hand—devoid of synthesized claws—appeared from a different angle. He made a move to assist in the task, but the woman’s deranged screams seemed to hold him back. He chose instead to keep twisting the protruding collarbone—now transformed into a sort of crank for inflicting pain—turning it in the same direction until the tendons could no longer withstand the torsion.

The girl had already screamed herself hoarse and was drooling, yet she still had enough breath left to cry for help. The hand retracted its claws. They resumed a human appearance and became stained with blood as the hand manipulated the torn-out bone like a drumstick. Rolen knew the pain being inflicted heralded a fatal outcome. Such careless brutality was a prelude to death. The victim had entered never to leave alive; that much was clear. He took a slow sip of his coffee and let the video play on, without fast-forwarding or pausing it. The tormentor vanished for just a moment. He grabbed the broken collarbone and shoved it into her mouth, gagging her. Rolen couldn’t help but see the resemblance to a dildo. It forced her to struggle, yet the battered bone didn’t just gag her—it scraped against the roof of her mouth. He pulled his hand back to admire his handiwork, but the girl tried to dislodge the bone with her tongue. He then pressed it in even harder to stop her. Rolen couldn’t help but feel it against his own palate—the pain of something rigid scraping him. He swallowed his coffee more carefully. The captor churned the bone and forced her mouth open so violently that it came as no surprise to see fresh, glistening blood splatter onto the table. Then he tossed the bone aside, and the hands vanished from the frame once more. The girl kept weeping, tasting the fresh wounds with her tongue. Rolen focused on her chest area, where the carnage lay exposed. He had seen content before where tormentors pushed their prey to the absolute limit of pain. The commentators and avid consumers of such crimes judged victims based on their endurance and pain thresholds. But this particular video didn’t play by those rules. Something told him the harm wasn’t being inflicted out of curiosity or for study. It was pure pleasure. And the video was already years old. Before surfacing online, it was merely a re-upload that someone had retrieved. Subsequently, others recorded that same re-uploaded video and livestreamed it to their followers, speculating on the executioner’s identity or discussing investigations regarding the victim. While some users simply commented on the sadism of the footage, others speculated based on reports of missing women whose facial features appeared to match the victim’s. Since the video was salvaged from a live stream, Rolen had to settle for having the awkward comments visible along the side—comments from users who no longer existed or who had altered their accounts and IP addresses. Hands came back into the frame. He adjusted the forehead strap to immobilize her, and then the length of those arms became more apparent. Long, too, just like the fingers and tendons. He forced her mouth open with a device she didn’t have time to examine closely. The camera angle—positioned to the side to focus on the victim—made it impossible to identify the object. But she did recognize the next tool: dental pliers. That was when she knew—in the pit of her stomach, in her throat, and in her very ego—that she wouldn’t be able to endure this the way she had endured what came before. She forced herself to watch. There was no preamble. The girl was panting anxiously, her blue eyes wide and fixed on the device. She couldn’t close her mouth, so nothing stopped her tormentor from clamping the pliers onto one of her front incisors.

The one that shows the most. Fuck.

There was a certain expertise in the movements of those hands. He had done this before. Rolen set aside her coffee cup and looked at her own hands. The girl mumbled a pleading phrase through her obstructed mouth, but the person listening hadn’t said a word yet. He simply continued his private spectacle, for his own benefit alone. The tendons stood out sharply on his clenched hand. The movements went up and down, then side to side—there was no gentleness. Amidst frantic screams that—this time—chilled her to the bone, she watched in horror as he managed to rip the tooth out, root and all. And he proceeded immediately to the next one. To her own surprise, Rolen felt the urge to vomit. She fast-forwarded the video by tapping the right arrow key. Quickly. He didn’t want to visualize the full extent of the torture. The screams fluctuated in volume but never ceased. That inhuman, unanesthetized pain eventually roused him, reminding him that his stint as a monster remained pathetic. A ridiculous neophyte. A laughingstock to people like John and his audience. That infuriated him. He wanted to be like them, too. But whenever he thought he’d moved up a rung, someone more experienced would remind him he was still a rookie. An amateur spectator. As the video neared its end, the metal bowl held a small mound of bloody teeth. The woman’s mouth had become two gum-lines riddled with holes, and her face and neck were slick with blood. Yet she was still weeping. Her cheeks flushed from the strain and her voice gone, the girl kept crying. Rolen swallowed hard as he watched her. He fast-forwarded. Hands dumped the bowl’s contents into her mouth, and the final horror began. The video had already pushed past Rolen’s threshold for the gruesome; this only deepened his revulsion. He felt pity watching her choke on her own teeth. She couldn’t keep them down and struggled to breathe through the panic. He skipped ahead again; he couldn’t bear to watch for more than a second at a time. A metallic blow struck her forehead. He fast-forwarded further. Her face was mangled and bloodier. She was still making nasal, gurgling sounds and jerking spasmodically, but the noise made his blood run cold, so he skipped ahead again. The girl was dead now. Disfigured by visible contusions. Split forehead, broken jaw. Mouth full of teeth. Vacant stare. Silence. A relief. Abruptly cut short by a final blow to her face that completely flattened her nose—and made him jump on the sofa. He slammed the laptop shut. Another wave of nausea hit him. He stood up and paced back and forth across the spacious room.

It’s a damn incisor. With a conical root. Watching it slide out of the hole in the gum and leave that empty socket behind… ugh.

“The Girl with the Empty Smile”—that’s what he’d named the video. He dragged it into a folder and made it invisible after typing a few commands.

His coffee had gone cold. It tasted like shit when cold. After letting the content sink in a bit more, he stepped out onto the balcony. It was spacious, giving him the sense of fullness he needed. He took a deep breath and fixed his eyes on the slab of tissue anchored to the wall. With a burst of rage, he lunged forward and unleashed a shard of blue crystal. It shot out in an irregular shape and cracked upon impact with the tissue. His mind had to focus on the forms. He clenched his strong fist, his anger just as intense—or worse. He had never been able to control it… though he hadn’t tried in years. It required concentration and a deep study of the material—a material that never behaved the same way for any two users. That was the main source of his professional frustration: workers with neither money nor status—even on a small scale—could control it at will.

He thought back to his adolescence, when he had still tried to understand his own body. He had attempted to read up on it, but there was little knowledge regarding his specific biological makeup.

And that is how genetics causes a magnificent power to go down the drain.

Using it was as simple as pushing a button, yet his state of mind was the deciding factor. The truth was, he didn’t know how to control it, no matter how hard he had tried in the past. He approached the tissue and caressed the newly synthesized blue blade. It was warm but fragile. As he pulled it free, it shattered completely. After tossing the fragments off the balcony, he decided to go get some rest.