Protectors of Political Correctness

Author : Callum Wallace

Venomous flashes of blue and pink light ran across the thin plasteel veneer keeping his face separated from the filth in the room. Bass rumbles continued to shake up through his feet as the music of the nightclub continued, but the filters on his helmet managed to, blessedly, drown the worst of the heathen cacophony out.

More solid movement amongst the sporadic dance of light beams took his attention, and Torvald turned, watching with disgust as two frightened female revellers tried to scurry away, clutching at small, impractically sized handbags. He raised his pulse rifle and fired a quick salvo, disintegrating the two harlots into ash and powder.

He flicked a smudged mote of ex-harlot from his armour, and turned. A man was, apparently, trying to burrow through the grubby tiled floor and escape. Torvald leaned down close, bringing himself level with the creature. He saw the subtle curve of his face plate reflected in the beast’s sunglasses, and wondered idly as to why such shades would possibly be needed inside. At night.

Torvald knew he deserved death for this crime alone, and nodded. He ended the farce with a shot from his pistol, bathing the pitiful thing in a cleansing orange fire.

A double click of radio static told him that Omega had moved into the lower levels, and he straightened up, waving once to his troop. They readied themselves, taking aim at the vaulted doors that lead to further depravity below.

He counted to three and blinked into his HUD, bringing up the controls for the troop’s shared radio frequency.

Something operatic.

He opened the com channel and spoke serenely. “Alpha. Fire.”

As the door to the lower level burst open like a boil, and the denizens poured through like so many wriggling, infected maggots, the first strains of Wagner’s Valkyries began to play through the soldiers’ headsets. They opened fire, lances of furious blue energy crackling through the air, weaving amongst the club’s multi-coloured strobe lights, cutting the dancers down, turning screaming men and women into nothing but carbon scoring and heat vapour.

The men and women of the Protectors of Political Correctness did their work, removing the diseased cells, destroying the revolting putrescence of unbridled adultery, drinking and vice, their emotionless faceplates gleaming indifferently. The air was soon hot with the smell of the purging flame, and the soldiers moved forward, trapping their quarry and stamping it out with the appropriate authority and lack of pleasure expected of such men and women of Rights and Virtues.

All were equal.

All were to be cleansed.

It was Correct.

And, as the clubbers and dancers ran, eyes rolling in terror, mouths flapping emptily as they tried in vain to escape, he couldn’t help himself; beneath the faceless helmet, under the emotionless uniform, that Proper, White, Sheening armour that protected his body from corruption by the hedonists and voyeurs, the perverts and the drinkers, he broke one of the most sacred rules:

Torvald smiled.