PROLOGUE: Day 0
One.
Two.
Three.
Five.
Ten.
Fifteen.
The smartwatch — abandoned on the desk in his room — had been ringing for fifteen minutes by then.
And Pond, of course, was ignoring it.
He’d had a bad day — not that there could be that many good days in a hitman’s life —, he didn’t feel like answering anyone, least of all his companions.
Because he was certain that if he picked up the smartwatch, he would read “Urgent: Meeting in the common room”, or “Urgent: Jasp.er, new assignment”.
No, it definitely wasn’t the time.
He was focused on hitting the punching bag as if it had just personally insulted him.
He hoped to remain in that peace of his — if it could even be called that — for a few more hours, but fate had already decided to give him anything but peace.
The sliding door to his room opened.
A maximum-security door that opens this easily?
Someone had clearly cloned the keycard.
As the door opened, he immediately pulled the gun from where it was wedged into his belt, so that he could point it at the door.
As soon as he saw who was on the other side of the door, he lowered the gun: he should have expected it, who but Santa could have cloned the keycard?
Pond put the gun back where it was wedged into his belt, and resumed repeatedly hitting the punching bag, with his back to Santa — “What do you want? I’m not in the mood”.
Santa took a few steps forward, enough to enter the room, but just enough to remain at a distance from Pond.
“Aou has been calling you for almost twenty minutes, come downstairs or the King will get angry” — He said it in a less-than-serious tone, to mock their companion’s control freak tendencies.
Tired of ignoring him, Pond turned toward him again, this time leaning his back against the punching bag — “And what does he want?”
“A request came in, it didn’t specify who was supposed to carry it out, so he’s calling you so we can all discuss it together”.
Pond huffed, he knew how these things ended: an hour-long brainstorming session, completely pointless when all they had to do was vote by a show of hands.
He started removing the boxing wraps he had around his hands and wrists, as quickly as possible — the sooner he went there, the sooner the torture would end.
When they reached the common room, Joong was sitting completely sprawled out on a chair while staring at the ceiling, while Aou was in front of the monitors, reading some messages.
It was Santa who announced their presence in the room — “Here we are!”
The two of them turned toward Pond, looking him up and down.
“Just in time, we’ve just received a second assignment” — Aou said, turning his gaze back to the screen.
They all moved closer to the monitors, reading what they displayed.
The request came from an anonymous sender, and the messages were decidedly vague.
Anon:
Is this Jasp.er?
Jasp.er:
Yes
Anon:
11pm, tomorrow, behind the abandoned hospital.
Jasp.er:
Who?
Anon:
P.
After he had finished talking to the anonymous sender, Santa immediately started fiddling with the keyboard, the mouse, anything that had to do with technology and those messages.
“We’ve never received anonymous requests, how am I supposed to trust this?” — Pond said, looking at his companions and crossing his arms — he was decidedly skeptical.
“I’m trying to trace the IP address, or anyway anything that might lead me to the identity of this anonymous sender, but the software won’t cooperate.” — Santa didn’t take his eyes off the screen for even a second as he spoke — “I can’t bypass the system, and yet they’re just simple messages.”
And just as he said that sentence, another message popped up on the screen.
Anon:
Stop trying, you won’t find me.
“Fuck, how did they notice?” — It was Aou who spoke.
“If Glitch can’t break into the anonymous sender’s profile, I assume there isn’t much else we can do. We might as well accept the meeting and be done with it” — Joong finally spoke, and of course his words weren’t helpful.
“What if it’s someone undercover? If they caught us, we’d end up in prison.” — Aou said, replying to Joong.
But it was just as the two of them were about to argue that Pond stepped in — “Might as well take the risk”.
Silence fell and everyone turned toward him.
Sure, going from “I don’t trust this” to “might as well take the risk” was quite a leap.
Even he didn’t really know why he had suddenly changed his mind, it was as if his instincts were telling him to do it, to meet that anonymous person and accept the assignment.
How strange.
He never followed his instincts, he preferred to be reasonable, not to take risks.
“Have you gone crazy?” — Aou said, suddenly, confused — “Did you hit your head?”
“I think that, for once, I’ll follow my instincts” — He said it calmly, as if it were no big deal.
That sentence of his triggered several reactions: a laugh, complete with a joke, from Joong, an even more confused expression from Aou, and… Santa;
Santa had remained serious and had gone back to staring at the monitors, while fiddling with something he held in his hands.
Slowly, he turned and stepped forward, holding what he had in his hand out to Pond: an earpiece with a microphone. — “Put it on when you go, so we’ll be able to hear the conversation, and if anything happens, we can get there in time”.
Pond reached out to take that contraption from Santa’s hand, looked at it for a few seconds and then put it in his pocket.
22:57
“Is this thing on?” — He had touched it about ten times, he had probably turned it on and off the same number of times.
“If you would only stop touching it! It was working perfectly when I put it in your ear.” — And there was Santa’s voice, straight against his eardrum — “I can barely hear because of you, what did you touch?”
And it was true, his three companions were stationed in a van a few blocks away from the abandoned hospital, and they were hearing everything in bursts, even the computer was acting up.
“Look, I can’t hear well either, it’s probably just this thing that doesn’t work properly. You gave me a defective one” — Pond retorted, while walking through streets without streetlights — or rather, there were streetlights, but the only one that worked kept flickering, doing nothing but annoying him.
“Not at all. It’s your fault. Now stay focused, are you sure no one is following you?” — Santa said, trying to fix the audio from the PC he had with him.
“No one is following me, these streets are completely empty.” — He replied, suddenly stopping. — “Anyway, I’m here. But there’s no one here.”
Pond said it calmly, unaware that his companions were no longer able to hear him, the connection had dropped, and Santa was doing everything he could to reconnect to the microphone — “Pond! Fuck!”
Santa couldn’t understand what had happened, he kept trying to fix things, until the screen turned black, and until the image of a mask appeared on the monitor.
That was the moment he stopped: he understood that whoever Pond was about to meet wanted nothing to do with the other three.
In the meantime, Pond was standing, leaning against a wall, having already been waiting for five minutes.
Until he heard footsteps.
“Naravit Lertratkosum, born on the first of February two-thousand and one. Twenty-five years old, unmarried, no dependent children, and no family members who can be located. Also known as Pond, or the Grim Reaper. What do you prefer to be called?” — The voice was unrecognizable, it was impossible to tell whether it belonged to a man or a woman, since it was disguised by vocal effects.
Pond stiffened on the spot, how could they know all those things about him?
“Who the fuck are you? Show yourself” — he said while trying to reach for the gun under his jacket.
The figure emerged from the shadows, revealing themself: they were wearing dark, loose clothes, which concealed their figure, and a mask made of shattered mirrors, in which Pond could see himself reflected but appeared distorted.
“If I were you, I’d behave” — The anonymous person said, raising their wrist to show a peculiar watch wrapped around it — “It only takes me a second to blow up the van with your friends inside. Shall we see who’s faster? You shooting me, or me killing all three of them.”
Pond looked at them for a few more seconds, and decided to listen, folding his arms across his chest.
He didn’t know whether that person was bluffing or not, so it was better not to take the risk — “Let’s keep this short, tell me who the target is and how much you’re willing to pay.”
The anonymous person moved closer, while still maintaining a safe distance.
“It’s not an ordinary request. It’s complex and will take time.” — they said, beginning to explain. — “The target is the CEO of Tang & Co., Phuwin Tangsakyuen, but you won’t just have to take him out”.
Pond raised an eyebrow, gesturing with his hand for them to keep talking — “I need you to extract some information from him, so you’ll have to earn his trust. You’ll have to get him to tell you where all his company’s files are, then you’ll have to steal them and deliver them to me.”
The anonymous person hadn’t finished speaking, but Pond interrupted them — “Are you telling me that I have to personally interact with the target? Not a chance, that isn’t part of my job. I kill targets, I don’t make friends with them.”
“I don’t care. This is the assignment, and you’ll have to kill him on a specific date, exactly 365 days from tomorrow, not before and not after.” — The anonymous person was visibly losing their patience — “Either you do it, or within a few hours the police will receive four dossiers, one for each hitman.”
“And how am I supposed to get close to him, then.” — He said, annoyed that he couldn’t refuse the request.
“Don’t worry about that, I’ve already taken care of it. You’ll have to report to the company tomorrow morning at eight o’clock sharp. I’ve registered you as Phuwin’s new personal bodyguard. You’ll spend the entire year glued to his side.” — they said, fiddling with their phone — “As for the most important things, I sent a file containing everything you need to know to JASP.ER’s contact”.
At that exact moment, Pond’s smartwatch lit up, signaling a notification.
“I’m willing to pay two million for this assignment”.
Pond, with no choice, didn’t speak, he simply nodded, accepting the assignment.
A few minutes later, the anonymous person had left, and Pond had picked up his phone to read the file that had been sent to him:
TARGET IDENTIFICATION
Full name: Phuwin Tangsakyuen
Date of birth: July 5, 2003
Age: 23
Nationality: Thai
Occupation: Chief Executive Officer
Company: Tang & Co.
Position: CEO / Direct heir
Current residence: [address]
Marital status: Single
Known family members: immediate family members died years earlier, leaving only his two cousins: Supha Sangaworawong (Est) and Pattraphus Borattasuwan (Bonnie).
TARGET PROFILE
Height: 1.80cm
Blood type: AB
Languages: Thai, English, Mandarin
Education: Graduated in Information and Communication Engineering
Known medical conditions: None known
Following that, there was more personal information, such as his personality, his habits, his routine, the places he visited most often.
At the end, some photos were attached: they showed a young man, clearly in his twenties, blond, ordinary.
Nothing more than a simple target.
He continued reading the file, when Santa’s voice returned to pierce his eardrums. — “Pond! Are you there?”
Pond jumped at the unexpected voice, then composed himself and replied — “Did you hear what they said?”
Inside the van, the three of them looked at each other, and this time it was Joong who spoke — “Pond, whoever that person is, they’re dangerous, they stopped us from hearing your conversation. The connection dropped, it only started working again now.”
“Yes, they’re definitely someone dangerous, but I accepted. I’ll explain when I get there.”
And he started walking toward the van, unaware that he had just accepted his own death sentence.
