Agent G: Saboteur

by Phipps, C. T.

  “I don’t think so,” the leader of the Yakuza said, raising his right hand.

  He was in his late twenties, his tattoos looking newer than the other men in the group. His posture was also different, more disciplined, with a half-dozen signs of serious military training. It was a stark contrast to the others, who had likely had no education but the streets, as unforgiving a sensei as that might be. My attention was soon focused on the small gold wedding band he wore, which was now vibrating. “I’m packed for people like you.”

  My gun became extraordinarily hot in an instant and I was forced to drop it. He stretched out his hand and grabbed it.

  “Black Technology?” I asked, holding my burned hand.

  “More like Gray,” the Yakuza leader said. “It’s the Wild West out there lately. Now you coming or—”

  I looked down at my feet where a rusted paint can lay and proceeded to kick it into the face of the Yakuza leader, taking advantage of my enhanced speed and strength to start punching and kicking into vital spots across the human body. Letters practiced a unique form of combat called Battle Angel, which was a mixture of Krav Maga, Kali, and Marine CQC.

  It was about beating the shit out of someone in rapid succession so he couldn’t get up to retaliate. It was a handy fighting technique when used by a normal human being. When done by a cyborg, it was a nightmare.

  I honestly don’t think the first three saw me coming before they were on the ground groaning in agony with a fourth down as he tried to stab me. I could have taken them all down if I had more maneuvering room, but the downside of my situation occurred when one of the two remaining Yakuza went for his gun, taking a step back only to fall back over the edge.

  I reached to grab for him, still hoping to minimize casualties, when the fallen Yakuza leader wrapped his chain around my neck and pulled me back. The one I was trying to save fell downward, a dozen floors, disappearing as he screamed. The Yakuza should have been unconscious or dead from the blow I’d dealt him with the paint can, but he pulled me back with the force of several men.

  “Bad move,” the Yakuza leader said. “Now taste the Raiden.”

  Right before the chain around my neck electrified.

  He held it around me until my body shut down.

  Or at least my brain did.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Memories. I had so few of them, so few I could call my own, and almost all of them were full of violence and despair. Emptiness. I wish I could have called up memories of Marissa or even S, but their shared betrayals left only bitter emptiness where there should have been love and affection. Instead, my dreams only fell back to an endless series of missions and assassinations. It was a rare person who could say they knew exactly what to do with their life, but I existed for a single purpose.

  Killing.

  In my dream, it was less than three weeks ago, and I was already spreading out my services from the President to worse people. In this case, I was doing a hit for the Russian Bratva in exchange for Hernando’s location. They were fully capable of eliminating most individuals in the country, but this one was a bit beyond their powers. It took place in a leveled town of Dagestan called Kizilyurt. Once it had been home to over thirty thousand souls, but an insurgency sponsored by the Conglomerate had resulted in the town falling to terrorists, only to have a government (Dagestan or Russia) bomb the hell out of it. It was still disputed who’d essentially turned it into a ghost town.

  Walking through the location was a singular experience as, while the fighting had died down, it was still equivalent to traveling through a city-sized cemetery. Hundreds of apartment buildings, schools, and offices left as they were that fateful day when they’d been turned into targets. I wasn’t a superstitious man, but being at the heart of a massacre of twenty thousand people, I felt surrounded by restless spirits.

  I was heavily bundled up, and a light snow fell upon me. I was lugging a heavy Steyr HS .50 anti-material rifle and a backpack full of supplies. The Steyr wasn’t a product of Karma Corp or Black Technology but a weapon of Austrian manufacture my employers had provided me. I’d modified it myself this time and also custom-made a single bullet for maximum armor penetration followed by a second for accuracy.

  My target, this time, was Pieter Akhmadov. He was a Chechen freedom fighter or terrorist, depending on what your politics were. The Russian mob had been, unwittingly, funneling a lot of weaponry and supplies to his organization through intermediaries. The Society had been financing his organization, translated roughly as Freedom’s Pride, for some time to make trouble for the Russians. The idea was the FSB and military would fail to reign him in until the government was forced to call in the Society, which would then wrap up his organization in a few days.

  That would lead to vast amounts of gratitude as well as new work opportunities for the Society in a land which traditionally used its own assassins. With the Society’s withdrawal, it had gone out of control, and all its connections feared it was going to be exposed. It was my job to clean up the mess.

  Walking through the overgrown weeds and gravel, I checked my backpack for food and water before climbing up the side of a rusted Ferris wheel that had been without power or maintenance for thirty years. And I waited. For two days. The satellites which carried my signal to Strike Force-22 were out of range and I was alone with my thoughts the entire time. Given Pieter and his group could appear at any time, I couldn’t read or distract myself. Instead, I slept in short controlled bursts and contemplated why I did what I did.

  Did I do it for money? No. I could have retired on what I had by now.

  Morality? No.

  Simply because I was good at it?

  That wasn’t it, either.

  I only realized the reason when the Society’s AR-27 Whisper stealth chopper carrying Pieter arrived. It was so silent I almost didn’t hear it coming, but it settled down to meet with Thomas Beckham, one of the Society’s mid-level bureaucrats. Beckham was meeting Pieter on the dull gray snow-covered rooftop of the civic building with a gaggle of hangers-on, which should have been an easy shot from my position. Unfortunately, they’d landed the helicopter between me and my target. Sheer unlucky coincidence.

  But one I’d prepared for.

  Taking in wind speed, the likely positions of both men, and a hundred other factors, I shot two modified bullets in rapid succession. The first blew a hole in the side of the cockpit and then second went through both Pieter and Beckham’s hearts. Even I was impressed by the results. More so by the fact that I was three and a half kilometers away before they even thought to check the half-collapsed cathedral I had stood. Why did I do what I did? Because I simply didn’t know anything else. It was thinking about that successful sniper mission that put me in mind of my current clusterfuck of one, even as I was awakened from my musings by someone throwing an old cold drink in my face.

  “Gah!” I said, suddenly awake.

  I was tied to a chair in a perfumed hotel room. I suspected I was in the Hotel Tenkawa, which was right down the street from the construction site. It was less luxurious than the Hotel Ozara Kobu and done up in a Western style with a king-sized bed, shag carpet, and a very bad view, as the window directly faced an adjoining building’s concrete.

  The latter made it perfect for a wary assassin, though, and I had to compliment whomever had brought me here.

  There were two Yakuza present with the door to the bathroom open.

  The first was the leader of the group that had taken me down, looking bored. The second was a younger man who had his fists balled up as he looked at me, a murderous rage in his eyes. I’d seen that look before and knew it was a man who wanted to kill me, personally, for revenge.

  Strange—I’d never seen him before in my life. He wasn’t one of the group of thugs who’d attacked me on the construction site roof.

  I attempted to contact Marissa but found the signal for my transmission jammed. It was another sign this group of Yakuza had access to technology they shouldn’t have
. The thing was, if Persephone was behind them, I wouldn’t have been brought here. I’d have been double-tapped in the back of the head or reprogrammed.

  Strange.

  I got my answer as to who was responsible for my incarceration seconds later when one of the world’s most beautiful women stepped out of the bathroom. She was Italian, tall, blonde, and athletic, yet curvaceous in a way that defied the artificial measurements so popular in American cinema, instead invoking a statue.

  I preferred dark-haired women generally, and give Priyanka Chopra the number one slot on my list, but Lucita Biondi was up there. She was dressed in a white robe that just barely opened to her right leg and her hair was wet from the shower. I was in the hands of one of those assassins who might be better than me. One whose father I’d killed.

  “Hello, Lucita,” I said, taking a deep breath and wondering if I was going to be tortured again. Lucio Biondi had used electricity during our last meeting, fully intending to free me from my genitals before killing me.

  Lucita walked over to a Keurig she’d set up and began fixing herself a cup of coffee. She used homemade cups and scooped the grounds from an unmarked tin can. “I’m glad to see you’re finally awake.”

  Her friendliness was as unnerving as any threat. “Killing terrorists in Russia.”

  “Call of Duty fan, huh?” Lucita asked, absently.

  I stared at her then shook my head. “No, this memory was real.”

  “Was it?” Lucita cocked her head to one side. “Can you trust anything you remember when they can just go inside and reprogram what’s there?”

  The truth was, I couldn’t. So I didn’t speak.

  “I thought not,” Lucita said.

  That was part of the nightmare I endured every day. The knowledge that I couldn’t trust what few memories I did possess. I had the worst of both worlds. Not enough memories to develop a coherent lived-in life, and a scattered few that could be changed by the person with the right codes or machinery.

  Thankfully, at least as far as I knew, the International Refugee Society was the only part with access to the latter. One of my chief worries was that by acquiring people like Persephone, President Douglas would be able to change me at her leisure. It was the only hesitation I had at bringing her back in alive.

  “Coffee?” Lucita asked, gesturing to the Keurig.

  “Sure, why not,” I said, wondering where this was going.

  That was when the angry Yakuza exploded. “Why are you talking to him like this? He killed my brother!”

  “Did I?” I asked, genuinely surprised.

  “The man who fell off the rig,” Lucita said, looking between us. “The one you tried to save. He wants you to die horribly for it.”

  I closed my eyes. “That’s a fair cop.”

  “Hitoshi,” Lucita looked at the Yakuza leader. “Would you be a dear and take care of Juro?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” the Yakuza leader, Hitoshi, then wrapped his chain around the younger man and proceeded to electrocute him.

  Unlike me, though, I doubted he would get back up again.

  “Thank you,” Lucita said. “Put him in the bathroom shower stall and leave us be. I’ll send someone to fetch the body.”

  Hitoshi gave a nod, then dragged the corpse to the bathroom, leaving it as Lucita instructed, closing the door, and departing.

  “That’s loyalty,” I said, confused as to what was going on.

  “Not really,” Lucita said. “Saito Hitoshi is an undercover operative for the Public Security Intelligence Agency. We’ve been working together for several weeks and developed an odd friendship when I helped him settle a debt with a rival operative. Said operative killed his lover, a Zainichi Korean prostitute. He’s now with me until the end of my work here.”

  “Sounds like quite a story.”

  “Life is made of little moments like that.” Lucita finished making her two cups of coffee. “Cream?”

  “Yes, please.”

  “Blasphemer,” Lucita said, pouring it anyway. “It ruins the flavor, as my father always said.”

  “He was a coffee connoisseur in between terrorism and torture?” I tested my bindings, wondering if I could get them loose.

  “He was Italian,” Lucita said, smiling. “So yes.”

  “So, are we going to start with torture, or just get to the execution after you explain how much I ruined your life?”

  Lucita sat down on the edge of the bed, holding her cup of coffee.

  “You can break those bonds easily. They’re zip ties.”

  I did, surprised. Cautiously, I asked, “What is this?”

  “When you infiltrated the Carnevale six months ago, I hated you for using me. I hated you for killing my father, destroying the organization, and getting me tortured. I most of all hated you for sparing my life. I thought it was you showing just how much contempt you had for me as an assassin.”

  “No, it wasn’t.”

  Lucita took a sip of her coffee. “I realized that after spending the first few months on the run. I’d lost my fame, my fortune, and my legacy, but that forced me to confront some genuinely hard facts.”

  “Such as?” I asked, still not sure if this was a trap or not.

  Lucita stared at me. “My father never accepted me for what I was. He called me a deviant and a monster. I was horrifically abused and made to feel like it was deserved just because I was born one way and chose to become another. Even when I gained enough independence to know he was a monster for it, I believed it was worthwhile if I became ruler of the Carnevale.”

  “Accept being beaten, raped, and tortured as long as it makes you queen?” I asked.

  “Yes,” Lucita said.

  I shook my head. “I would have been pissed off at being raised to be an assassin in the first place.”

  “You were raised to be one as well,” Lucita said. “Are you angry at your creators for making you a killer rather than one of the killed?”

  “Some days. Also, I find that killers usually die by violence. The whole ‘live by the sword, die by the sword’ business.” I found it better than the alternative but wasn’t about to tell Lucita that. She might consider it permission.

  “True.” Lucita looked down at her cup of coffee. “With no kingdom to inherit, I realized you had done me a favor by killing my father. Furthermore, you had given me my life back. For that, I have decided to pardon you for your transgressions against House Biondi.”

  I blinked. “Just like that.”

  “Oh, I still might kill you, but I am willing to give you a chance to make me an offer.”

  I smirked. “An offer, huh.”

  “I’ve been an independent contractor for the past few months, working primarily for the Italian government, and now I’m on loan to the Japanese. I have been trying to track down the Society’s leadership-in-exile, and I’ve successfully done so with one of them.”

  I blinked. “We’ve failed to have any leads until now despite the entire United States at our back.”

  “So I’ve heard. I imagine if you were doing this yourself, you would have tracked them all down and killed them by now. They have high-level friends in the government keeping them informed of your movements.”

  I gritted my teeth and grumbled something about loose lips sinking ships. “You realize the Taniguchi clan is working with Persephone.”

  “Indeed,” Lucita said. “I managed to ingratiate myself with the Society by offering my services to her for looking for security leaks. I managed to pick you up at the cheesecake factory and followed you to the construction site. I confess, it was as much by chance as anything. I was coming to get a cheese wheel.”

  I laughed. “So, my cover is blown.”

  “Hardly,” Lucita said. “They’re reporting to their bosses about this now, but those are all my plants. Honestly, I was debating whether to hit Persephone tonight. She has a meeting with another member of the Tribunal. I need someone who can help me take down their bodyguards, though.”

&nbs
p; “Can you trust the PSIA?” I asked.

  “Not at all,” Lucita said. “Which is why everything I’ve told them is a lie.”

  I smirked. “I should have done that.”

  “Yes, you should have. Government work exists for the purposes of serving the interests of the assassin, not the nations which employ them.

  Remember that and you might go far in this world.”

  I sighed. “It sounds like you’re making me an offer.”

  “Yes,” Lucita said, climbing onto my lap. “I’d like to work for Strike Force-22 with certain considerations.”

  I felt my body respond to hers.

  “I think we can arrange that.”

  She kissed me on the lips. “Good.”

  Lucita slipped off her robe.

  Chapter Fourteen

  The sex was enjoyable but emotionless on my part. I needed Lucita, and the fact that she needed me meant it was important we sealed the deal with more than just our words. I didn’t know how much more sex was than words, but it felt like something more, and that was perhaps why we did it. Besides, it was a bit of comfort for both of us.

  Another rainstorm began as we lay together in the bed, the water dropping down on the side of the window. I debated contacting Marissa to let her know I was all right, but I couldn’t. I needed time to decompress. There had been a time when I would have been able to do all of this with the mechanical efficiency of a machine, but that had passed.

  That was the reason the Letters existed, after all. If we didn’t have pasts, didn’t have families, didn’t have attachments, and didn’t have beliefs, then we were the perfect killing machines. I knew Letters who had wiped out whole families and poisoned children. They were dead now, thankfully, but they could have easily been me. Even if my hands still bore innocent blood.

  I wondered what it must have been like for Lucita, who had a father, a mother, family, and a home—only for all of it to be profoundly fucked up.