Subjection

[Aardvark]

I could feel the seat altering beneath my flesh. Moulding itself to my body. I could feel the millions poured into the design of the seat. If they could make a couch out of this stuff, they'd recoup their losses overnight. But, to my knowledge, they hadn't. So here I was, enjoying one of the most comfortable seats I'd ever had the fortune to sit upon, in the unlikeliest situation that I could imagine on the spot.

 

Any application form that has a space for occupation took me time to fill. As part of my occupation, I always had to tell people my occupation was whatever occupation would least likely arouse suspicion from them. In the past, I'd put a whole series of cover jobs, including accountant, customer service officer, patent clerk, advertising executive, delivery boy, ranger, cleaner and, just once as a joke, professional assassin. This received a hearty chuckle from the attractive receptionist, who then handed me the white-out and asked me to answer correctly. My reply of "Ok, I'll lie, just for you" confused the simple girl, but my charming manner had her hooked all the same.

 

I was strapped into the seat. Millions spent in seat technology. I really did wonder what fraction of that went into designing the restraint. It felt secure, if a little tight, but I'd grown up to never trust anything unless I'd personally checked it. In this situation, as with all situations involving theft of government property, I didn't really have the time to perform a hundred and one point safety check. So I had to trust whichever third world child they'd paid to craft the restraint.

 

Yes, I was a hitman, an assassin, a removalist, a cleaner, a pacifier, any number of other names given to the role, just to soften the blow to those many individuals who still couldn't admit to the world at large that men like me were a necessity. Having never met a professional hitwoman, despite hearing quite a bit about them, I refused to acknowledge the existence of female assassins. Infact, the stories I'd heard reinforced my opinion that women could only be second-rate murderers and never qualify for the title "Assassin", which I wore with pride. Women. They can have their stories. Sure, there were stories about me. But my name wasn't on any of them. I didn't appear in the cast list at the end. And I'm not a rabid fanatical religious zealot. Honest.

 

I gripped the controls of the vehicle tightly, easing it in the direction of my target. I knew what I was doing, but I never felt easy just before carrying out a contract. I think it was the last few remnants of my conscience trying to regain control of me. The unease being caused by my mind trying to suppress that nagging little voice. So I had to concentrate on everything. Every second, every step of my plan. Ensure everything went without a hitch. I was aware, all too aware, that the weakest part of any plan of mine was myself. Blame for human error can be placed quickly when you work alone.

 

Most assassins were individuals. Working alone, using their methods and signature techniques that could be spotted afterwards by someone with keen senses. There were the occasional assassins who worked in pairs or groups. But these were few and far between. Usually close siblings who compliment eachother, making sure the other one doesn't screw up. I liked to think of myself apart from most assassins. Sure, I work alone. Sure, I use my own methods, but the only technique I employed was get the job done any way possible, as quickly as possible, with as little as possible linking me to the client. I was still alive, unlike too many assassins before me, so I believed my methods were working.

 

The target wasn't far off. She was expecting an assassination attempt, as she had beefed up security around her for this public address. She had bodyguards around her, armed with automatic weapons and the finest training her country could offer. Through the crowd that had gathered before her were plain-clothed guards, on the lookout for suspicious persons carrying high explosives. In the buildings surrounding the city park were snipers, highly trained operatives able to acquire, anticipate and eliminate a target within half a heartbeat. I'd thought of merely posing as one of them for this contract, but that was too easy for me. And escape would be rather difficult if anyone was watching the watchers.

 

Early in my career, I'd discovered that the only things the media and the public take real note of were high profile killings and acts of terror. Sure, law enforcement officials might spend a few weeks working to catch the killer of a small-time businessman who crossed someone really powerful, but they lose interest quickly. That time goes quicker when you're not in the country. But high profile killings cause public outcry. Larger agencies work longer hours, making the lives of people like me harder. Acts of terror, on the otherhand, are written off as the work of extremists. The government agencies then merely find a third world country to blame and either declare sanctions or declare war. Sure, it could be considered barbaric of me to combine high profile with terror, but it got the job done and it kept the heat off me.

 

The console ahead of me registered distance to the target I'd set. It also registered two pursuers, but both were minutes away. They wouldn't catch me, not at this speed. I armed the FighterPlane's missiles and targeted the base of the building my target was opening in the name of some charity. I had no idea who she was. Not my country, I didn't care. I didn't care who wanted her dead or why. All she meant was a couple million in my various bank accounts world wide. I fired the missiles and watched them crash into the podium, engulfing the woman in an intense fireball. At the last moment, I pulled up, banked north and afterburned away. Another contract completed successfully.

 

The mail arrived that morning. In it, an issue of a newspaper from a country I'd visited on business a few weeks earlier. Today I was a corporate executive on extended vacation in Fiji. As the native girl I'd picked up the night before bustled around the kitchen of my hotel suite, making my breakfast, I went through the first few pages. Apparently, they'd linked the brutal attack on Senator Mary Spencer to some small island nation near the middle east. The President had ordered a retaliatory strike against this nation as a warning to all others. I chuckled and turned the page. This was what I really wanted to see. Mr Adam Brekker, high profile businessman and known political enemy of Senator Spencer, died of a heart attack in his family home. What the newspaper didn't say is that his chemical induced heart attack could've been averted for a mere two hundred grand.

 

Yes, I'm brutal, but I'm alive, rich and don't tolerate people cheating me on principle. The only principle I've ever allowed myself

[Merelas]

Wow. That was very good... ingaging, giving insight to the mind of an assassin.

 

The only thing I noticed was that the word "sure" was used several times. Some possible grammatical errors, but I don't remember what they were now. Just try to stay away from "sure," a little bit