FSE

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~December 2011~

In the future you wouldn't think that swords would play any role in combat but I find the combat of centuries past enthralling. Nobody ever sees it coming. The switch from gun to blade. Maybe I'm just nostalgic, for a time period I was never a part of. Maybe I want to bring back the old ways where combat had more depth, more honor and more skill. You can show off with a gun by hitting a target at 800 yards in the black, but you can swing, spin and slash a blade with a flair that would make a break dancer green with envy. Then again, when I think about the combat of yore I sometimes forget that they didn't have the abilities I possess. Nobody had inorganic limbs or body modifications and there certainly was no such thing as telekinetics. No, maybe I don't really wish I lived in those ancient worlds. The sword, however, stays with me. I think I enjoy fucking things up with my mind far, far too much. The ability is not without disadvantages, overuse does tend to give me severe migraines that can last for hours or even days; so I try to avoid using it too often.

Now, my blade of choice would have a knight of the round table screaming 'witch!' faster than a nuclear bomb smashes atoms; which is pretty fucking fast I might add. There are blades of similar design but I paid handsomely for this mean bastard. It appears normal enough, rolled polnium sharpened down to a width of five molecules. Not the sharpest around but it houses a little bonus feature, harnessing the power of ultra high speed miniscule vibrations. No, not the kind your girlfriend would love; the kind that will end you easier than a snapped high-tension wire can cut you in half. The handle is a carbon fiber-carbon nanotube mesh with a high capacity power supply filling the hollow hilt; balanced and light weight. The sheath automatically sterilizes the blade with ultraviolet rays when the sword is fully inserted. That is not the end of the genius; a power button that is biometrically encoded to my DNA is the only way to start up the fun. I call her 'Buzzsaw'. You'll understand why in just a few moments.

Aside from my blade weapon of choice I also carry an equally ancient type of weapon. A cartridge fed machine pistol that shoots, get this, pieces of metal using gunpowder. Yeah, the shock you're feeling is the same they do when they realize they just got shot by something terribly loud and equally barbaric. I don't doubt some people I've killed thought I was an insane caveman that stumbled upon time travel. Of course my defensive body armor is up to modern standards, quite capable of stopping lasers, and offers some protection against pinpoint microwave weapons. My philosophy is to never really need the armor, it's more of a peace of mind kind of thing. Plus it makes me look more badass, blacked out and menacing. I suppose you've probably had enough of my rambling and think I'm materialistic. In that you would be correct but I'm not vain, just passionate. About killing people.

It is my job after all. Think you can afford me? I would laugh if you were a comedian.

Right now I find myself inside the mansion of some rich and powerful head honcho of some I-don't-give-a-fuck corporation. The usual. My current client wants me to 'put the fear of god' into the target by sending him to see God. The contract is kind of a funny story really. You see, the guy I'm here to 'put the fear of god' into first hired me to go after the guy that I'm currently on this mission for. Thing is, the guy I'm after now didn't pay as much as the guy I'm working for currently but was sent after by the guy I'm coming for now. Confused yet? I had the gun to his head and we did some spur of the moment bargaining and came out of the office with a new working relationship. It really is quite amazing what a little bit of cold metal to the forehead can do for those difficult negotiations. I could try the same thing again tonight and see how high I could get either of them to go but, I'm getting tired of being the go between for two feuding dickbags. One guy just got lucky I decided I was tired of the little game after his turn to up the ante.

You might be thinking that it can't be that hard to walk through some dudes house and find him laying in bed watching TV, ready and waiting to be stabbed and you would be wrong. The level that I work at involves targets with home defense contractors. This guy happens to employ Domicile Defense Inc. for protection. They are a smaller, more specialized home defense contractor and the guys they hire are a couple cuts above the usual goons. My target is no small timer and is very serious about not becoming dead. It really is a shame all that money he spent isn't going to do him any good in the long run. Not a very smart investment in my opinion. What money can buy is quite mind numbing if you try and picture it but you easily lose sight of all the things money can't buy.

I would use myself as an example but, obviously, enough money can buy me.

It isn't very often that I intentionally let the alert go out that I'm coming for my target. The layout of his mansion made it a perfect set piece for such lack of grace. Every once in a while I will allow myself to partake in the delicacy that is close quarters combat. In most cases I prefer stealth and precision but I'm allowing myself to utilize speed and intensity for this fat bastard. You might be thinking that by going in loud the cops are going to get involved real quick. Lucky for me the laws are in my favor when home defense contractors are in the equation. If you can afford your own defense force that is allowed to kill in defense of their client if they are in any perceived danger (they can get away with killing you for looking at the client funny) you obviously don't need the police. There are poor people who can't help themselves after all. Now in this case the police will get involved after I'm gone; they aren't going to overlook the slaughter I'm about to bring but they aren't going to come running either. They know the high stakes games that Big Money plays and they aren't too enthusiastic about getting involved.

While I might be going big, I start off the job silent. Move under the cover of twilight, find a tree a little too close to the absurdly tall perimeter wall that some grounds keeper failed to cut back, jump on over and head for a rarely patrolled back door. Don't think I just jumped into this head first. I spent several days observing the habits and demeanor of the guards. When they change shifts, common access ways and patrol routes. My client gave me blueprints to the mansion and I studied them as if I was getting ready for the most important test of my life. Which could very well be true if the shit hit the fan blowing in my direction, hence the memorization. The door entered into a small laundry facility, several sets of washers and dryers along the wall with a folding table in the center. A steam press and sewing machine took up the adjacent wall. A load of laundry rumbled off balance in the washing machine, spin cycle, permanent press, probably some expensive clothing that was hand wash and the maid was being lazy.

I cracked the door that would enter in a main hallway open and waited. A lone guard walked, without a care in the world, around a distant corner and was moving in my direction. An idea appeared in my head that made me crack a devious smile. I turned the dial on the washing machine until a tick before the buzzer would sound that the load was finished, set the volume to max and repositioned behind the door. The guard passed by when the buzzer shrieked like a banshee. I heard a grumble and the door opened slowly. The light was out and I could hear him fumbling for the light switch. He found it and the room filled with an incandescent glow from a single naked bulb. The nice suit wearing thug strolled up the the washer, lifted the lid and cursed, something about the washer being a piece of shit. He opened the washer mounted dryer and began throwing the soaked clothing into it; wouldn't have to worry about the wet laundry for much longer.

Now before I kill him I'm just going to throw out there that I am a teensy bit of a sadist. I also have a habit of lying. Basically I'm a horrible person and take pleasure in the suffering of others. I felt like striking first with my 'kinetics. The open lid of the washer slammed down on his hand first, which kind of surprised him. It was comedic the way he stumbled back after the dryer door smashed into the side of his head with a resonating thump. The noise my sword makes when vibrating is beyond the range of normal Human hearing but I have seen animals cringe away from it. Now there are some defense contractors that spend their own money on augmentations beside what their employer offers, such as improved hearing. Apparently this guy sprung for those ear augs because he spun around, despite having been smashed in the head, when I started the blade. The aural advantage didn't do much for his legs with the blade barely registered either tibia on the way through his thighs. Cuts so clean a surgeon would be envious. His scream was more of an extended grunt when the fall to the floor knocked the wind out of him. Shock was setting in fast as his body began to realize it was losing blood quicker than an alcoholic can shotgun a beer. I let him bleed long enough to question his career choice before I sank the blade through his chest, heart and wood floor beneath. To use the cliché, 'like a hot knife through butter.'

The cleaning lady was going to be pissed and this was only the first mess. The night still very young.

I left the room and slinked down the hallway the way the guard had come. There were various side rooms but none were part of the planned route and could be safely ignored. I did consider confiscating a bottle that looked expensive from the wine room I peeked into but decided I could stop by on my way back out. A set of stairs lay on the side of the hall that traveled up to the next floor. I knew a guard stood near the door because it could be seen from over the perimeter wall. The picture windows may be lovely but they sure blew for concealment. A trinket of some sort sat on a decorative table a couple feet away and I snatched it up. Back in high school I had played baseball for a couple of years so I still had a decent fastball. The lovely piece of junk flew up the stairs and exploded against the door, shattering the silence like a nuclear bomb. I pressed up against the wall out of view from the stairs and waited. The speed with which the door flew open, knob probably putting a hole in the wall it slammed against, made me appreciate the guard. He certainly seemed to be engaged in his duty. Several obscenities came out of his mouth and something about his lazy coworkers. These guards sure seemed to be filled with hate and discontent tonight. Pieces of whatever it was I threw at the door crunched under his feet and the stairs moaned in pain as he descended.

He was being careful, his steps deliberate and precisely placed. The sound of metal rubbing against leather as he withdrew his weapon from its holster alerted me to his suspicion. When the tip of his toe graced the second to last step I swung the blade. From my observations none of the guards seemed to be gifted with height so I aimed for about the five foot eight mark, accounting for the height of the two stairs and was still a little high. His eyes widened in surprise as the blade struck just below his chin, severed two vertebrae, all the arteries in between and cut through the dry wall on the opposite side. His body dropped with a distinct lack of grace, spraying the wall in front of the stairs with blood just after I vacated the danger zone.

Oops. A little too much power.

The headless body crumpled at the bottom of the stairs, blood quickly soaking the lush carpet. Luckily it was easy to dislodge from the studs in the wall. Now there were only fourteen guards remaining. Whether they all died or not depended on if any decided to abandon their benefactor. I carefully stepped over the enlarging pool of blood, body included, and quickly made my way up the stairs. The room was empty when I quickly peeked out. It was the living room and completely silent. Footsteps made by expensive Italian leather shoes on oak hardwood echoed to my ears when I stepped out. I figured I'd do one more guard quiet like and moved swiftly down the hall left of the door. My back pressed against the wall at the junction where my hallway met the hallway the footsteps emanated from. When I judged the footfalls, each a gunshot in the night, to be about two feet from the corner I spun off the wall into his path. I decided I would be a good sport and let him at least get his weapon up, maybe yell a couple of threats before I toyed with him.

I try not to listen very hard to what people say to me when they're being rude about it. He did have a quick draw I will admit but I have a far quicker vertical slash. His gun hand popped off his body like it was removable, clattering to the floor while I followed through with an upward slash from the pelvis up to the shoulder. I cringed slightly at the feeling of tip of the blade scraping across his pelvic bone and ribs like a fleshy xylophone. This guy had a strong set of lungs on him! I swear the neighbors a quarter mile away could have heard him through the sound deadening glass that sided the hall. A single gunshot echoed down the hall, a bullet hole through the forehead. I thumbed the sword off and carefully found the sheath across my back, sliding the blade home after wiping it off on the guards pin striped suit jacket. A guest bedroom was a convenient few feet away and I quickly disappeared into it.

A hot minute passed before several pairs of feet thundered into the hall. I could hear them on their radios, talking to somebody somewhere about the gunshot. The chatter became fervent when they saw the mutilated corpse. Now I know some operators that like to let their targets stew over things. I prefer to get it over with quickly. With that in mind I popped out of the door way like a jack-in-the-box with my pistol leveled in the center of their bottle necked group and held the trigger. Small flames sprouted out of the top ported compensator as two dozen rounds rocketed out of the barrel in three seconds. A few rounds went high but the spray incapacitated all three, their ablative optical fiber weave armor doing nothing to stop the hollow point bullets that left caverns a shotgun slug would be proud of. I was a little surprised that none of them were still sucking air. A nudge with my foot ensured they would all remain silent. The magazine wasn't empty but close enough that I reloaded and slid the mag into a pocket on my trousers.

With a fresh set of rounds loaded I jogged down the hall, passing the junction that lead to the living area. Up ahead was a door that entered into the back of one of the mansion's kitchens. Had I gone to the exact opposite side when I left the basement area I would be heading into the dinning room. Room is a bit of an understatement, it's more like a cathedral. One of the bonuses of the time of night is the lack of civilian work to get caught in any crossfire or raise the alarm. Much easier to sneak around when there aren't any maids that want to break routine because they forgot they needed to use the bathroom. The door into the kitchen had no knob and swung open on heavy duty hinges; my favorite kind, quieter than a dead body and with all the lights left on. While I had the floor plans I had no idea what the inside looked like and if I were to have a dream kitchen it would look exactly like this one. A cathedral for a dinning room necessitated a kitchen that wouldn't look misplaced in a four-star restaurant. Gleaming steel everything with white everything else accents. It would take a fleet of cooks to properly man this place.

I didn't come to the kitchen for a midnight snack on my way to killing the target it just so happens to be a shortcut to the side of the house I need to be in. A set of stairs in the kitchen leads up to the next floor, a way for the bedrooms to get prompt room service. Unfortunately I wasn't the only one that knew about the backdoor. Feet were pounding down the stairs with no regard for sound discipline. I mean what if some guy was waiting just beyond the door and if they had been quiet they might have got the jump on him? I crouched behind a counter and used it as a platform, arms outstretched along the cold surface with the muzzle of my pistol on the door at chest level. The door that opened from the stairs into the kitchen looked like flimsy wood and I thought it might be interesting to see if I could kill the guards before I actually saw them. I love new challenges.

The moment the polished brass knob rotated I tensed my arms, squeezed the trigger and grinned like a mad man who just got his very own padded room. I couldn't hear anything over the thunderous staccato reports of the pistol but the wood was splintering beautifully. Slivers ranging in size of splinters to railroad spikes danced through the air in slow motion. My ears rang long before the slide locked to the rear and the last copper casing's hollow clinking across the steel counter top stopped. I reloaded quickly in case more guards followed. No noise came from beyond the door so I opened it carefully. It scrapped across the floor and nearly broke in half. The sight beyond the door was so intense it almost made me, of all people, gag.

Three bodies were sprawled in various poses. One had toppled down the stairs, one at the door was flat on his back and a third slumped against the wall. The stench was already horrid and blood was pooling like a garden hose had been left on. The most mutilated body was the guard slumped against the wall, shoulders upright without the weight of a head to bring them down. If you dropped a watermelon from a four-story building it would look the same as his gray matter splattered on the white wall, minus the green speckled rind. Pieces of hair and skull painted an abstract art tour de force. The other goons had gaping holes in various places, nothing noteworthy. I had to tiptoe over the blood to reach the stairs, holes gouged into the wood and walls. My foot was hovering above the last step and the landing was so small the door opened over the step, which sucked because the door slammed open. The guard was just as shocked as I was but his hand didn't get smashed between the doorknob and wall. My gun hit the floor with an empty thump and with admirable speed he raised his own pistol.

While I wasn't particularly strong in hand-to-hand combat I could hold my own and knew some disarming techniques. I grabbed the wrist holding the laser pistol with my left, pulled him off balance towards me and carried all my weight into his gut, just below the ribs with my right. The impact didn't help my almost smashed hand but the blow to his diaphragm left him choking for air. He held onto his pistol valiantly until my knee broke his nose with a sickening crunch that I felt through my trousers. I took the pistol from his hand so easily he might have handed it to me. He struggled to stand and wobbled from side to side, blood streaming down his face. His malicious gaze met my own, I rose the pistol, squeezed the trigger and a hole appeared in his throat. With his spinal cord severed the hollow shell of flesh crumpled. The nice thing about lasers is the intense heat cauterizes nearly any wound and makes death nice and clean. That is precisely why I refuse to use them. Death is a horrible, grotesque event in my line of work and nothing should be done to mitigate that fact, to make it less meaningful.

I stepped over the body and entered a long hallway, doors on either side leading into the half dozen rooms. Those were just the rooms on this wing on the house. It was such an unnecessary waste it made me sick to my stomach. That is just another example of what's wrong with me. Living in excess has a bigger effect than killing. I suppose a guy has to have his priorities, even if they're ass backwards. Checking each room was time consuming but it is important to make sure nobody is going to sneak up on you. No more guards had come for me yet but my mental tally left only six remaining. It was unlikely that the ones at the front gate would come into the home, not very smart to leave all posts unguarded in case there were more infiltrators after all. There were normally two at the front gate which left four more, most likely, protecting my target. If they had any idea how their brethren were being slaughtered they weren't about to leave easily defensible positions to push their luck hunting me down. The increase in difficulty was negligible.

The next step would require a little bit of planning before execution. It was unlikely that he could walk in and chat before letting the hurt flow; no doubt they were shoot first, ask later at this point. The layout for the targets master bedroom was interesting. Two rooms preceded the bedroom and they were the secretary's office and his office respectively. I figure the second office, the target's, is where the guard would be waiting. Trying to instill a false sense of security when the first office was empty. The layout allowed a person to come in without having to travel through the entire house, it was the front of the house relative to the main gate. I could have gone in front front door but where is the challenge in that? A man should enjoy his work so much that it doesn't feel like work.

I stepped lightly and arrived shortly at the secretary's office door. It was solid, dark and heavy, perhaps the walling was heavier duty than the rest of the house. This would require a little finesse. I slid the current magazine free, ejected the chambered round as quietly as possible and pressed a different mag in. This particular one held some of my favorite bullets, red tipped and nicknamed 'confetti.' I love these mean little bastards. These particular bullets had little penetration but exploded on contact with enough force to blow six inch holes through most normal walls. They wouldn't do a whole lot to somebody on the other side but a direct hit would fuck somebody up in the worst way.

Before I strolled into the office and got blasted, if they didn't follow my plan, I opened the door and jumped back. The walls in a house don't offer any protection from laser fire. When nothing was forthcoming I stood in the open door, leveled my pistol in a one handed grip and held the trigger, sweeping from one corner to the other. It was quite a sight. Dry wall aerosolized, wood exploded into splinters in all directions. The wall was swiss cheesed with thirty-two new jagged holes. I caught glimpses of four separate shapes and one face, eyes the size of dinner plates and mouths slack. One very well might have just shit himself. While they tried to recover their wits I used my telekinesis to pick up an eight inch splinter of two-by-four and projected it at a guard, skewering his left eye and brain. When he fell face first onto the end of the wood I almost cringed. One guard had recovered and was aiming his weapon at me and I dove away. The air burned in a way characteristic of a laser weapon set to beam, extending the firing time to several seconds to create a solid lance of deadly light. Burning wood mixed with the smell of ozone. A black, pencil thin line the sign of the damage inflicted on the wall. I popped into view long enough to force the weapon around on the guard nearest to him. The beam seared the flesh, amputated his arm and burned through half his torso before the weapon overheated. I always loved making them kill each other, it is one of my favorites.

Now that I think about it, I have a lot of favorite ways to kill people.

The scene was powerful enough that it distracted the two, thoroughly horrified, guards long enough for me to close the distance and unsheathe my blade. I avoided touching my thumb to activate it and slashed to his side. He put his arms out like that would stop the blade and lost them. Without power it took a little bit more effort to get the desired effect but he wouldn't be recovering from a strike the slid through half his abdomen. Like an idiot the last guard moved in and I'm not even sure what he thought he was going to attempt, but I pulled the blade straight back and out. While he staggered, croaked and tried to stop the flood of viscera I spun, swung up and then down at an angle on the other guard. The blade carved through flesh and bone from between the neck and shoulder down to the sternum at a forty-five degree angle. Oh how the blood gushed with fury from that wound. He fell to his knees as if his messiah had just appeared before him. I put my boot at his collar bone and jerked the blade out unceremoniously. Air wheezed from his lungs with his dying breath. The disemboweled goon had blacked out if he hadn't died yet.

The target might be a little upset before I killed him that I destroyed his office. Oh well.

I took a deep breath and slammed the last door between him and him open. He was sitting up in a bed entirely too large for a single person, arms crossed and looking at me like I was an asshole for waking him up.

"Was it entirely necessary to destroy my home?" He asked, insouciant.

"Not really, no." I replied tersely.

"The damage you caused is going to come out of whatever you're asking this time."

"There is no more bargaining." At this point fear began to creep into his manner, helped along when I reloaded my pistol with my last magazine.

"Now there is no reason to be so obdurate." I was getting tired of talking to this fat fuck.

"I hope you've made amends with your God." I saw no reason in giving him time to grovel, to try and weasel his way out of this any way he could. Listening to such weak men dishonor themselves to avoid death was the worst part of my job. The pistol barked twice and two rounds thumped into his lumpy chest. I turned and walked back through his shattered office, his breath labored as he slowly died from the internal haemorrhaging. I stopped only long enough to wipe my blade on a clean section of a dead guard's suit on my way out the front door.

I wondered how long it would be before I was the fat fuck with a price on his head.

Well, minus the fat part.