One
I sprint through lesser-known streets and back-alleys, making sure to keep my path unpredictable, because I know law enforcement can’t be far behind me. I quickly check my pocket, making sure that I still have the syringe. It’s there, green liquid sloshing back and forth as I run. The sounds of the city are faint through the endless deluge on the metal of the skyscrapers that tower thousands of feet above me. I continue running, my carbon-polymer shoes slapping the carbocrete pavement. My goal is to get to a specified location nearby and inject a target with a virus I have in the syringe. Suddenly, an influx of information in my head announces a mental notification from my employer. A deep voice changed by a vocal intonator fills my mind.
“You are pursued, yes? You shall receive no help from me, as you have not carried out your mission,” they say.
“What?” I demand. “Sir, I need an escape route.”
“All right. I’ll detail the location of a secret access port to the light-rail, but only if you inject the target first,” the voice replies.
I decide to take my chance and survey my surroundings. Ahead of me, the alley continues until it meets up with another street. To my left, the door to a closed bar. To my right…
“Freeze!” the white and red uniformed law enforcement officer shouts. He holds up a rifle, and the barrel glows.
Stupid LEOs, I think to myself. They always give the perp too much time to react. I reach down, grab a knife out of its sheath on my ankle, and fling it at him. His eyes go wide, and the knife impales itself into his forehead to the hilt, as his head snaps back. Blood sprays the alley, and he falls limp to the ground. I have no time to feel guilty, as it’s only a matter of time until reinforcements show up. I turn away and run down the alley out into the street, careful not to accidentally step into any puddles for risk of giving my presence away to any civilians. I get out onto the street and stop. It’s a lot more crowded than I would have thought. People are walking around, eating vendor foods, jogging, and riding their BWVs. How do people enjoy the rain this much? I must not have realized that there was a public park in this sector of Vozu. I quickly pull up the map application mentally and check where I am.
“Sh*t!” I whisper to myself. “I must have gone horribly off course.” I recalibrate the navigation system and surprisingly my target is nearby in the park. I start towards the target, weaving my way through crowds of happy people, taking group photos, having picnics, and generally being extremely inefficient. They’ll all die soon though. The virus has killed almost eight million people, and it keeps spreading. But not fast enough. That’s where I and the other Children of the Depths operatives come in. We keep it spreading.
I finally arrive at the north end of the park and look around. My target should be straight in front of me. Surveillance shows that he is around 5’ 1”, wearing a three-piece suit, and should be hard at work on a computer around this time. I look around, and there he is at a covered table, diligently working away. Why would my employer want this man to die? I thought we were purging the planet of inefficient nobodys. I shouldn’t question my employer’s motives though. I start towards the man, acting as inconspicuous as possible.
“Hey there!” a jubilant voice pierces my thoughts from behind me. I whip around, and standing in front of me is what looks to be a 16 or 17-year-old girl, wearing fairly usual clothes and some sort of school cap. She holds a manila envelope and waves it in my face. “You look like you have some money to spare, mister!” she chirps, “How about donating to the 21st sector school district?”
“Umm, I, uh…” I stammer. I need some way to get rid of her. It would be easy to just make it look like she had a Hemorrhagic Stroke… I briefly consider this, but just then, I see a patrol of 5 LEOs walk into the park. I can’t make too much of a scene here, but I also have a mission, and I’m losing valuable time. My employer sounds like he isn’t willing to pull many more strings higher up, so I am definitely on a time limit. There’s only one way to do this without attracting the attention of law enforcement. “All right,” I say cheerfully, and after rummaging around in my black trench coat, I pull out a fat wad of Qyrks. “How much do you want?” After saying this, I turn around quickly, to check on the location of the target. Sh*t. He’s walking away, towards the exit of the park. I can’t lose him now, not without risking blowing my cover.
A delighted gasp turns my attention back to the girl. “You mean it?” she asks. Without waiting for a reply, she continues. “How about 750 Quark?”
Realizing that it will take forever to count out 75 Qyrk, I sigh and say, “I’m on a tight schedule, alright? Why don’t you just take all of this.” I shove all of it, some 1000 Quark, into her hands and walk away, ignoring her ecstatic thank you’s.
Carefully, I make my way quickly towards the target, who is about to reach the park exit. As I run, I look left and see that the LEOs are questioning some civilians. Suddenly, one of the women being questioned turns, and points straight at me. I break into a run, and the LEOs begin to chase after me. I sprint towards my target, quickly catching up to him. He hears me and turns around, eyes widening as he too begins running. This was not supposed to turn into a full-blown chase, and by no means should it have to be a shootout. Luckily, I’m catching up to my target, so I reach down and pull out the syringe. If all goes well, I should be able to make it to the light-rail access port my employer detailed. I come up on my target and pull back my arm. Then I swing the syringe into his side, hoping it will pierce into his stomach. I am rewarded with a ding in my mind, so I press the button on top of the syringe and watch as the virus filled liquid empties, disappearing into the target’s body. He topples, eyes glassed over, but I know he isn’t dead. To spread the virus our targets have to be alive.
“Halt!” one of the LEOs screams. “Put your hands in the air where we can see them!” I don’t, and instead, I grab the syringe out of the man and take off running. It’s just about a quarter-mile to a lesser-known light-rail access port where I can make my getaway. Unfortunately, that’s a quarter-mile of being chased by law enforcement. As I reach the exit of the park, I hear the sounds of T-46 Blaster Pistols warming up. I run faster, hoping I can round a corner and get out of the range of their shots, but I’m not fast enough.
The dreaded sound of lasers sizzling through the air reaches me, and I duck just in time to see multiple shots hit the metal of the park fence, melting through it, and leaving gaping holes. I know that they probably won’t make the mistake of missing me again, so I reach over my shoulder and unstrap from within my trench coat, my H-62 Submachine Blaster Rifle. I pull it out above my head to in front of me, then set the stock near my shoulder and toggle the safety. Then I pull the trigger and unleash hell. Super-heated blaster bolts fly out of the gun and slam into the LEOs. They are all thrown to the ground, weak city law enforcement armor melted, as I swing the gun left and right.
When I’m done, their smoldering bodies lie on the ground, dead, and I silently add 5 more casualties to my list. I hear the screams of the civilians in the park as they run away from me, but that shouldn’t be an issue. Like before, I don’t take the time to feel guilty, because just then an Ambulance Drone drops from the highway of speeders and ATGTs above me, and begins scanning the unconscious body of my target. That’s good, because once he is taken to the hospital, the virus will easily spread to other patients, and most importantly, hospital staff. I watch until the drone picks up the body, and flies away. Then after putting away my weapon, I run off, away from the park and out onto the streets.
Start writing here…
