Assassin Hunter

by Drew Briney

  But what were those scenes flashing through his mind? They felt like memories. But they didn’t fit what he knew to be true. His heart vehemently objected to his reasoning but what did that matter? Emotions were for the weak. He’d mastered his long ago. He’d swallowed them, choked them thoroughly, suppressed them for years. Why they were surfacing now, he didn’t know. All he knew is they were unwelcome and confusing.

  He pounded the chair’s arm and stood back up, jaw clenched and resolve in check. If he had to wait an hour until the conference room was full, he’d do it motionlessly sitting behind his magma rifle. And if that didn’t work out, he had a second set up on the roof ready to go.

  JI ANNA

  ANNOYED, VAYA SAGE HUNKERED NEAR THE LEDGE OF THE BUILDING, hooded, underneath a heat reflecting blanket, and carefully observing the layout of the conference, waiting, hoping for a more perfect set up. He’d waited at least a half hour in the hotel room before surmising that the brotherhood had changed their meeting room last minute and his remote backup was now the only method of ensuring a clean attack. Lady luck was clearly expressing her displeasure with him today and it appeared that a nasty breakup was inevitable.

  Nevertheless, he waited patiently, magma rifle in hand, settings re-optimized every several minutes as lighting conditions changed. Dusk was approaching. Eight brothers were in the conference room, which was informally split into two sections. Ji Anna appeared to be napping in a room down the hall.

  Waiting for eight ducks to neatly line up in a row seemed an unreasonably high expectation but something told Vaya Sage to patiently wait for a better opportunity so even when everyone’s positions looked decent, he did nothing. Eventually, they’d sit around a large table or in chairs facing a whiteboard or in some other quasi-organized fashion. When they did, he’d shoot as linearly as possible: whomever was closest to the doors nearest Ji Anna would go down first. That would keep them from alerting her about the attack. None of the others would be able to take cover in time. Magma lasers would burn through the walls or glass in complete silence. The bullets would follow milliseconds later, and the process would be relatively unheard from a distance with his MTM silencer snugly in place.

  The brotherhood was habitually careful about keeping their meetings uninterrupted. By the time authorities were alerted to their deaths, Vaya Sage hoped to be long gone and moving on to his final three targets. Chances were, they’d be more difficult than these nine combined. Word was probably already spreading that Midi Ella wasn’t responding to calls about her non-appearance at the conference and the death of the other two wouldn’t have gone unnoticed. All things considered, Vaya Sage had been surprised to find everyone else at the conference.

  From what he could tell using heat vision filters, they were snacking and schmoozing. Visuals suggested only two or three were packing. That left Vaya Sage puzzling for several minutes. He couldn’t make any sense of it.

  Suddenly, heads were turning and bodies behind the room divider started moving toward the larger room with a window. It was the moment he’d been waiting for. One of the tallest brothers, Tomi Da, most likely, stood near the door by the hallway, undoubtedly stationed to ensure no unwelcomed guests interrupted their meeting. Vaya Sage took him out first. Supremely confident, he didn’t bother to wait for bodies to begin crumpling before moving to the next target. Three went down quickly before what appeared to be the presenter, lunged toward an exit. He went down next. Four left. Two of those drew their weapons. One took cover behind some sort of desk or cabinet.

  Cute.

  Magma rifles would easily penetrate several layers. Set to shut off the instant they hit fleshy objects, Vaya Sage simply trusted he wouldn’t miss his targets. If he did, the lasers could burn through possibly a dozen walls or objects before losing their intensity, which would set hotel guests on high alert as they would begin reporting the presence of holes in walls, appliances, etc. If not bullets. But he wouldn’t miss.

  Because the one target was hunched over and difficult to clearly discern with the heat vision overlay, Vaya Sage took out the man taking cover behind the cabinet or desk with two shots. If he missed the heart, a lung puncture would keep him down. After everyone had been hit, he’d take backup shots if anyone moved. Three left.

  Clearly aware of the situation, two raced toward different doors at the same time. As planned, Vaya Sage took aim at the one headed toward Tomi Da first. Two. A firm grip on the door, the other brother fell down before he could open it. One. For a moment, Vaya Sage couldn’t find the last brother.

  Playing possum. Best move you had …

  Vaya Sage began shooting each crumbled body a second time to ensure their deaths. Because he was being systematic about the order he shot the fallen, the final brother deduced his fate, rose up, and raced to the door. Seconds later, he was laying motionless on the ground for the second time as Vaya Sage finished his second round of shots.

  Glancing toward Ji Anna’s room, Vaya Sage verified she hadn’t moved and wasn’t moving.

  Too easy, he gloated as he packed the rifle, rolled it into an oversized duffle bag, and hid it and the heat reflecting blanket underneath a large piece of folded canvas that looked like it hadn’t been moved in many months. He’d try to gather the weapon later but if the police scoured the area before he got his chance, it probably wouldn’t matter. He was wearing thin gloves and he’d planted misleading fingerprints all over the rifle. By the time DNA evidence funding approval went through, he’d be in another state tracking down the last three brothers.

  Hopefully it wouldn’t come to that. If all went well, he’d be back later in the evening before forensics determined shootings came from this particular rooftop. He’d burned a couple low powered magma holes from the hotel room to throw the forensics team off track. He hadn’t shot any rounds so they’d only melted the glass, nothing more.

  If the brothers hadn’t been too noisy during the attack, he might have a half-hour’s head start before police came snooping around. On the other hand, if Lady Luck wasn’t feeling overly guilty for bruising his ego earlier, he’d probably still be on the rooftop watching them arrive. That would still give him ample time to disappear unseen.

  Despite the initial success of his hit, Vaya Sage’s gut ached as he raced down the stairwell. He ignored it as a disruptive nuisance, dismissed it as an echo from Midi Ella. But it didn’t go away and by the time he’d picked up a small stash of equipment from the garden area below, Vaya Sage felt so unnerved that he was grateful he’d decided not to take Anna out as impersonally as the others.

  He couldn’t put his finger on it but intuition constrained him to ascertain the situation up close. He clenched his jaw, crumpled his brow as he thought about it. Ji Anna had ordered hits on innocents. He should have been happy to take her out whether from a distance or from up close, gruesome and gritty or clean and untraceable. It shouldn’t matter.

  But it did.

  As he made his way up the stairs by her room, something continually tugged on what little remained of his conscience. And something nagged at him to check at Tomi Da and maybe the other brother by the conference door to make sure they were down. It seemed foolish, unnecessarily risky … necessary.

  As Vaya Sage passed Ji Anna’s room and made his way down the hallway, he slipped on another thin glove to inspect the fallen as he continually scanned the area for any signs of commotion or trouble. Everything was deathly silent, just as he preferred. Either the conference room had good audio insulation or the brothers never made much of a commotion. He presumed the latter was most likely. Assassins tend to be quiet in dangerous situations and not prone to panic.

  He entered the conference room and surveyed the area for any signs of movement before pushing the door closed and hovering over Tomi Da’s body. A large, crimson stain decorated his unmoving chest. He kicked it. No reaction. He kicked Toma Da a second time, watched for any signs of breathing or eye movement. The corpse didn’t move.

  Dead. No question. />
  Still, he couldn’t leave. Uncertainty plagued his mind. Vaya Sage knelt next to the body and pressed his palm against Toma Da’s chest. Nothing happened. Although feeling unreasonably doubtful, he followed his intuition and placed all of his weight onto the corpse, tightly squeezed his fingers. Instead of feeling the body, he felt the pads of his fingers pressing hard against the carpet.

  That was it.

  Mental implant.

  With no real body underneath his hand, Vaya Sage could only assume the entire hit was nothing more than a test. But why? He’d expect payment and with eight men down, that amounted to a large stash of money. Why waste all of that money on faux hits? Vaya Sage considered testing the other bodies the same way but began to worry that his diversion had already lasted too long. And ultimately, it didn’t really matter. He needed to take out Ji Anna.

  As he rose from the floor, Tomi Da’s image remained as if it hadn’t been exposed for what it was. Torn with cognitive dissonance, his brain still refused to release this false image and it didn’t look like a memory laying on the floor. It still looked real. And considering he’d never heard of any viable technology allowing “memory” implants to be installed only to be triggered later, under some future condition, Vaya Sage grew more unsettled than he would have imagined. He shook his head, glanced around the room out of habit.

  Tomi Da’s hands clutched an old school ento-fiberoptic invisibility cloak. Vaya Sage grabbed it, put in on, and pulled the large hood over his face as he headed out of the room. As he casually walked to Ji Anna’s room, he met eyes with a passing maid who smiled his direction. He smiled in return. Like I thought. As soon as she disappeared down the hall, he threw the worthless cloak aside. He wondered whether it had been deliberately placed to compromise his caution or to simply get him busted.

  Grimacing as he contemplated possibilities and trying to put together other messy pieces of this puzzle, he pulled out his lavamag blade and inserted it between the door and the door frame of Ji Anna’s room. He pushed a button and waited briefly while it quietly buzzed and whirred. Dark, bluish steam intermittently rolled away from the door and then quickly dissipated. When it was all gone, the air smelled fresh, almost minty. With a slice of the bolt melted away, Vaya Sage turned the knob and opened the door without a click.

  Vaya Sage quietly stepped inside. The moment he closed the door, he donned night vision glasses and tried to twist the silencer out of habit. It wasn’t there. He didn’t need it but had momentarily forgotten. He took a deep breath and exhaled. Unaccustomed to needing to calm his own nerves, Vaya Sage fumed over his unusual temperament.

  He hadn’t expected to use the glasses until later that evening but for some reason, every light source in the room, including the windows, had been covered with a black film Vaya Sage wasn’t familiar with. It was virtually cave dark in the room with the door shut.

  Anna was likely asleep.

  If he hadn’t already awakened her, this would be an easy hit.

  Stay silent. It was a reminder he really didn’t need but the thought passed through his mind anyway.

  Vaya Sage rounded the corner to the bedroom, gun aimed and finger all but twitching near the trigger.

  On her side and facing towards him, Ji Anna lay asleep, uncovered by sheets, in a night gown, and as vulnerable as a child sleeping in a bear cave. Hand tickling the trigger, Vaya Sage flippantly aimed and pulled. A familiar buzz pierced the air. Ji Anna gasped. Her body tremored and then rested lifeless.

  He pushed the gun into its holster, approached the bedside, and rolled Ji Anna onto her back so he could press hard against her chest like he’d done with Tomi Da. He squeezed with his fingertips and felt her ribs.

  That’s it.

  He wouldn’t kill her.

  Yet.

  Vaya Sage checked her pulse. Steady but slow and growing slower. He removed the drugged dart, pulled out a vial of blood from his deepest pant pocket, and poured it over her heart. Then he crawled over a chair in the darkest corner of the room, draped a throw over his body, and called in the hits without initiating visuals on the holo-unit: “Nine down. Verify whenever. I’m out.”

  Treiliki answered: “You’ll find a dirty bag covered with rocks behind the bush next to the west hotel door. Well done. You didn’t disappoint.” The holo-unit chimed when she ended the call.

  Vaya Sage pulled out a live gun, twisted the silencer snug, and sat waiting, carefully retracing the past few weeks. A sultry teen with otherworldly eyes walks barefoot on pine needles with no sheath for her blade. Psionic blast and unreal voice. ZN5 unit. Easy hits, at least one of which was a mental implant. The cloak wasn’t real. Memories of Ji Anna were vague, sourceless and she lay on the bed dressed like a faithful companion, not a heartless assassin. No weapons adorned her bedside. Nothing blocked her room entry. Midi Ella’s hit came with horrific memories that didn’t match reality. What did it all add up to?

  A small picture, wrapped in a nondescript black frame, discretely peaked out of Ji Anna’s purse. He grabbed it, returned to his concealed location. A young blonde played barefoot, hair fluttering in the wind. Vaya Sage turned the picture over. Taped to the back was a strikingly beautiful woman that deeply moved his soul. He remembered the photo but not the woman. A dozen nondescript memories flooded his consciousness but he couldn’t place any of them. Lightening blue eyes, bronze skin, black hair, and a killer smile. She was an older version of Treiliki. Erased memories, he realized with horror. But why? He turned the picture over again and studied the young blonde. She was younger but she bore the same visage, the same eyes. And she was barefoot. The Treiliki he’d recently seen was a mix between this photo and the woman he couldn’t quite remember.

  He recalled training sessions on memory alterations: they could be disheveled, glitchy. Minds hadn’t been mapped perfectly. Experts doubted it could ever be done. To selectively erase details, to add pieces that hadn’t been there before, to place just the right amount of details into false memories to assist in merging them with real memories … it couldn’t be done without making some mistakes. He gritted his teeth as he rejected uninvited emotions welling inside.

  He sat motionless, ground his teeth, waited for the bonus hits he’d only briefly contemplated as one of the eventualities that could have arisen from this day’s work. They wouldn’t be long. Treiliki would have reserved rooms for them at the same hotel during the conference just to verify the hits. Whoever she was, she was sophisticated enough to not trust photos, live video feeds, or other technologies that could easily be modified in real time. She’d want undeniable proof from her own, trusted men.

  Two entered. Vaya Sage counted their footsteps, removed his night vision glasses, and squinted. Dead men standing. The first turned on the lights, quickly spotted Ji Anna.

  “Tucked into bed,” he said with a chuckle as he checked her pulse. By now, it wouldn’t be discernible to human touch. “Perfect as expected,” he spoke into his holo-comm. “Out.” The image faded, the holo-unit chimed.

  As the second man entered the room, Vaya Sage pulled the trigger twice and watched both men fall. He stood up, placed Treiliki’s picture in his pocket, and walked over to Ji Anna. He hefted her over his shoulder and exercised great stealth as he wound his way back to the hovercraft. She’d be out for hours. By the time she awakened, he’d have his other gear, the dirty bag, and a quiver full of questions.

  Vaya Sage felt like a well written letter on perforated paper - an encrypted message obscured by numerous holes in all the wrong places. At least his stomach was calming down. Perhaps he’d done something right. He didn’t know what he’d ask Ji Anna, what she’d know, or what this was all about but his next step was to find out whatever he could about his untagged memories. With monies from the last hit, he’d have enough to get an illegal, full scan but he’d have to do it far from here. And he’d have to go into hiding. With two of Treiliki’s men down and three of the brother’s at large, she’d be hunting him down and if Lady Luck sided
with Treiliki this time, Vaya Sage didn’t expect he’d come out of the next round in one piece.

  Minutes later, Ji Anna lay in the passenger seat, feet resting on Midi Ella’s corpse and head resting on the gear from the rooftop. With no signs of security anywhere, Vaya Sage wondered again whether any of his hits had been real targets. He pushed on Midi Ella’s head with his foot as he stepped into the hovercraft, put enough weight on her to determine that she was real, grit his teeth. Satisfied, he instructed the hovercraft to fly back to the hotel and to stay under all speed limits.

  While flying, it occurred to Vaya Sage that if any of the other hits hadn’t been real, the magma laser holes could have burned innocents and his shots could have killed or severely injured innocents. He hadn’t thought to check the wall behind Tomi Da for burn holes at the time, wished he’d been more astute about that detail when he’d had the chance, considered the possibility that the magma-rifle was a memory implant as well. Groaning, he reached around Ji Anna’s head, grabbed the barrel through the bag, and tried to bend it with all of his strength, telling himself it wasn’t real so it should disappear. It didn’t.

  Vaya Sage took a deep breath and sighed as he looked at Midi Ella’s body. Notably paler than earlier in the day, she still looked stunning. Involuntarily, he shivered and buried his head in his hands, wished he could undo what he’d done.