A week later, the candidates went on to experience the gas chamber. In the classroom, the recruits were educated on how to use a gas mask—how it could save their lives anywhere if used properly—to help build their confidence about being in an environment with a potentially hazardous substance.
Each recruit spent approximately three to five minutes, and it was perhaps the longest three to five minutes of their lives in the chamber—depending on how well they wanted to cooperate. The recruits entered the gas chamber with their masks donned and clear, but once the doors were sealed, the masks came off. The first task was to break the seal of their mask, which would allow them to breathe in a little of the gas. Just as the tearing eyes and coughing set in, they were instructed to put their masks back on.
Cristal had never before felt anything like the first whiff of that gas in her system. It felt like her lungs wanted to explode and she wanted to pass out from the inhaled fumes.
The next step was to break the seal again, but only this time, they would set the mask on top of their heads. This was the time when everyone felt they had lost control and panic started to set in. The recruits’ eyes were now filled with tears and the coughing got worse because the gas was in their lungs.
The gas started to burn their skin a little, similar to sunburn. It was agonizing. Some fell to their knees, crying out for help. Five minutes inside felt like hell to everyone. The Commission wasn’t lenient to their recruits. They strongly felt that for one to truly want to survive, they had to almost experience death, and know what it was like to die.
Cristal’s face was in complete anguish. It felt like the heavy fumes from the gas were eating her alive. Some were scared to remove their masks and shout out their social security number and name. Everyone quickly realized they wouldn’t be able to leave the smoke-filled room until they completed the exercise, and they regained some of their sanity.
When the exercise was completed, everyone filed out of the gas chamber with their arms spread out to their sides. Their eyes were watering as though they had just stepped out of the shower, and they coughed uncontrollably as they prayed that they would never go through anything like that again.
Day Seventy-Five
Cristal was highly trained in almost everything. This new chapter in her life was unbelievable. She was a completely different woman. The Commission had molded her into the perfect assassin. She was almost speaking German and Spanish fluently. She was becoming an expert in hand-to-hand combat. She’d learned how to shoot and kill with accuracy. Her etiquette was on point, she spoke eloquently, and her computer skills were more advanced than ever before. Her ninety days of training were coming to an end. It had been a grueling process, but Cristal knew it was going to be worth it.
Fourteen recruits were left standing.
Now she had to pass the test of empathy.
One by one, recruits were tossed into a single room.
Cristal was thrown into the concrete room with no windows, no furniture; it contained only emptiness and two doors on both sides. There were cameras above watching her every move. She was handed a loaded pistol and told to wait. Dressed in her white jumpsuit with her hair pulled into a long ponytail, fashion felt irrelevant to her. The instructors were observing her. She was told this was one of the final tests she needed to pass. So far, Cristal had passed everything with flying colors. Her physique was phenomenal, and her mind was sharper than a samurai blade.
Cristal stood in the center of the room holding a .9mm Beretta. It felt still and dull. She looked around—nowhere to go and nowhere to hide. Her actions inside the room were recorded and watched closely.
There was a loud buzz, and the door on the opposite end opened up. A man was pushed into the room. The door shut behind him. Cristal looked at him. He was dirty and black, his tattered clothes soiled with stains, and he gave off a heavy foul odor. His beard was unkempt and scruffy. He also appeared to be drugged up and helpless. Probably too high to protest whatever was about to happen to him.
Cristal could smell him. He stank like a garbage dump. She scowled. The man wandered around the room like a leaf blowing in the wind. He stumbled a few times and used the wall for support.
“Kill him!” a voice crackled through the intercom.
It was a direct order. She couldn’t show any empathy. This was still her training. He was only another obstacle she had to overcome. A human life didn’t matter. Cristal cocked back the hammer to the .9mm and approached with a scowl. She outstretched her arm and aimed at the man’s head. He was oblivious to the danger toward him. Cristal couldn’t hesitate. They were watching and waiting.
The man turned and looked at Cristal blankly. He seemed like a simpleton—just one less stupid muthafucka on this earth to be concerned about. She fixed his eyes on the man and fired a hot round into his forehead.
Bak!
The homeless simpleton dropped to the hard ground like a sack of potatoes. He lay dead by Cristal’s feet, crimson blood pooling underneath him.
“Well done,” the voice boomed through the intercom.
She passed.
She was ready to move on to the next phase.
Murder was now in her blood.
Day Eighty-Five
Cristal was placed into another dreary concrete room with the .9mm in her hand. She expected it was going to be the same test like before, another killing, but who would it be this time? She looked around the room and the smell of death permeated her nostrils. It was a kill room. Blood stains from previous murders decorated the hard concrete ground.
The Commission had brainwashed her into feeling no remorse for the murder she committed. It was only a job to do—a task, like taking out the trash. In her mind, it was for a good cause. He was a homeless man anyway, a blight on society. No one was going to miss him at all.
Since day one, the Commission had control over her. They sculpted Cristal into a stoic machine, ready to spill blood on their command. She gripped the gun tightly and stared menacingly at the opposite door. She was waiting for the next victim to be pushed out so she could shoot and kill.
The room buzzed loudly, indicating the door was about to be opened. This time, an unknown person was pushed into the room. It was a female, but her identity was concealed with the potato sack over her head. She wasn’t homeless like the last victim. This one was well-dressed in a skirt and heels, and she was shapely.
Unlike her last kill, this woman appeared scared this time, highly aware that she was in some kind of danger.
“Please, let me go. I just want to go home,” she cried out.
Cristal stared at her, emotionless. She remained silent and observed the woman’s movement. Even though she couldn’t see who else was in the room with her, the woman moved around the room frantically, feeling some kind of alarming presence and running into the wall and falling down to her knees.
“Kill her!” the same voice from before crackled through the intercom.
Hearing this command, the unknown woman became hysterical and frantically pleaded for her life.
“Please, don’t kill me! I have children. I have two daughters,” she shouted out.
Cristal raised the gun and aimed it at the frantic woman, but before she could shoot, the voice through the intercom spoke, saying, “What if this person was someone important to you, a parent, a friend, a family member. Would you still pull the trigger for money? If you truly loved this person, would you still murder them for money?”
Cristal hesitated for a moment, thinking about what the voice said to her. She had some assumptions. Who was the face behind the potato sack? Could it be someone she was close to or someone she loved greatly?
“If it was your beloved Grandma Hattie, would you still pull the trigger for the Commission?” the voice asked.
Cristal’s heart jumped thinking about her grandmother. She dwelled on the question for a moment. The gun
still aimed at the woman.
On her knees, begging for her life, the unknown woman hollered, “Please, I don’t want to die! I don’t want to die! My kids, I’m all they have.”
Fuck it!
Bak!
The bullet ripped through the woman’s skull like it was paper thin. She dropped dead, face first against the ground. Cristal stood over the body and fired again.
Bak! Bak! Bak! Bak! Bak!
It was overkill, but the Commission was proud. She had advanced and proven herself. Now she was ready to begin life as a sleeper agent for the Commission.
Day Ninety
The last day of training wasn’t a celebration. There was no ceremony, no congratulations, but merely a transition into a different and darker world than the one they already came from. Out of the thirty recruits in the beginning, only thirteen made it through the program. They were now highly skilled assassins. They were to be given further instructions and assigned to a new location away from their old.
Cristal was ready to leave and start a new life as someone different. She was still Cristal on the outside, but inside, she was deadly. The past ninety days had been pure hell for her, but it had all been worth it to become the threat that she was today.
Cristal became shocked when she saw them again: Tamar and Mona. They made it. They’d survived the rigorous training too. It was a somewhat warm feeling to see familiar faces again. They were relieved, but also knew what they’d all done to get the position they received. The women didn’t greet each other with hugs and kisses, but with emotionless gazes and respect. But Lisa was missing. It was announced that a few applicants were dismissed from the program, but there were a small handful that were so advanced, they were relocated to another program because they were going to receive additional, intense training.
Lisa? Cristal was shocked to think that it was Lisa who had advanced. It wasn’t possible to know who hadn’t made it and who would advance into becoming a lone wolf. Lisa seemed to be weaker and reluctant—how was she able to advance and become a lone wolf, when they all had to work in groups? Or had she not made it through at all?
Fourteen
Cristal and the others found themselves twenty-four thousand dollars richer after the ninety days of intense training. It was the most money they’d ever seen at once. The recruits were more than happy, but it certainly wasn’t the millions they wanted to make.
Everyone was young, ambitious, and ready to make their bones.
They owned her now.
They warned everyone.
Cristal and everyone else were given an overseas bank account, a new name and identity, and a set of rules to follow during their transition back into society. Cristal was instructed to live her life mostly in the shadows—no excess or extravagant living. You couldn’t stand out: no kids, no attached boyfriends, definitely no marriage. A solitary existence. They were told by the Commission that until their twenty-fifth birthday, they wouldn’t be allowed to live a normal life.
At twenty-five, everyone aged out from the organization. After their twenty-fifth birthdays, they were free to live their lives however they wanted. They could not have children or get married before they aged out; it was repeated to them continually. If so, then there were repercussions.
There were so many rules to follow, from their way of living to how they spent their money, and Cristal absorbed it all into her memory. She didn’t want to fuck this up.
On their last day, the speaker for the Commission this time around was a black woman with a British accent. She held court with the young, trained killers ages eighteen to twenty-three. Her name was Malkina, which came from “Grimalkin,” meaning “an evil-looking female cat.” And Malkina looked hardened and deadly. She’d made her bones with the Commission long ago, and now was the teacher instead of the killer.
She fixed her cold, menacing look on the thirteen deadly souls that remained, and announced, “The organization will contact each one of you when needed. We come first; everything else is not imperative in your life. We do not accept failure from any of our people. When you are needed, you will be contacted through a message. You will do us this service, and after the job is complete, funds will be deposited into your bank accounts. Everyone works in groups if necessary; the same faction you arrived with. Some of you will be lone wolves…but every one of you will kill for us. One final rule: You will not commit any murders unless they are sanctioned by the Commission.”
Cristal stood expressionless with her peers in the room as she heard Malkina speak with assertiveness, and there was no forgiveness for mistakes in her tone. If anyone had any complaints, they didn’t dare to voice them. They only listened and understood what was expected from them. Within the twelve weeks they had grown to trust the elaborate organization and believed anything that they were told.
New locations and apartments were given out to everyone, along with vehicles and stipends for daily expenses—all paid for by the Commission. Even though their bank accounts would show large sums of money after they completed a job, their overseas accounts were set up in such a way that they wouldn’t be able to access them until they aged out of the Commission and, perhaps, lived a normal life.
Cristal received her folder and it showed that she now had a small 700-square-foot condo in SoHo, Manhattan. She smiled at her new location. She was out of Brooklyn, and was thrilled that she was able to remain in New York. She also was given a new Honda Accord to drive around in. It was something modest and inconspicuous. She was ecstatic to move in right away.
Tamar was placed in a co-op in Harlem, a place she was very familiar with. She was given the same Accord for transportation. Mona was placed in a co-op in the Bronx, and assigned a Civic for her own personal transportation. She wasn’t too thrilled about being in the Bronx; she didn’t know anything about the borough. But she couldn’t argue with the Commission. It wasn’t a democracy.
Immediately, Tamar and Mona felt slighted and jealous that Cristal was chosen to live in a better neighborhood while it felt like they were still slumming in the ghetto, especially Mona. It left a bad taste in their mouths. They suspected that Cristal received a better living place because she’d fucked E.P., and that he’d somehow put in a good word for Cristal.
...
Cristal walked into her new SoHo condo in disbelief that she actually had her own place and a new life. SoHo felt like the perfect neighborhood for Cristal. Nestled in Lower Manhattan, SoHo was notable for being the location of many artists’ lofts and art galleries, and for the wide variety of shopping, ranging from trendy boutiques to upscale stores.
Her spacious condo was located near the cast-iron buildings on Grand Street between Lafayette and Broadway. Cristal adored the hardwood flooring, the floor-to-ceiling windows, and enough space to park her new car. She was eighteen years old and was already on a serious come-up. The only thing she needed to do was furnish and decorate her place, get adjusted, relax, and wait for further instructions from the Commission. From her understanding, a message to do a job could come from anywhere at any time. She had to be ready.
After doing some minor cleaning, she ran around her brand-new condo with a huge smile and did cartwheels in the empty living room. The little girl in her came out—like being home alone. She went to the window and gazed outside. Living in Manhattan was a dream come true. From the eighth-floor window of her condo, she watched people rushing by on the crowded sidewalk, traffic in gridlock on Broadway, numerous shops lining the city block, and more noise echoing into her apartment than Yankee Stadium. She closed her windows to breathe in a little silence.
She had her twenty-four thousand dollar stipend to spend on anything she wanted. The Commission took care of her rent and other minor expenses. It was her petty cash fund for food, clothing, and maybe some entertainment.
Cristal gazed out the window, and her mind became fixed on her training on the Farm. They had co
mpletely brainwashed her and desensitized her to violence and bloodshed. It became easy to watch gory videos of hundreds of people getting slaughtered and not feel any sympathy for the victims. Killing had become the norm for her, along with apathy.
She thought about the two lives she had taken at the Farm. Pulling that trigger came so easily to her. Cristal took a deep breath and snapped out of her daydream. She wasn’t in any rush to go back to Brooklyn. She didn’t miss that life. Like a butterfly breaking away from its cocoon, now she could fly, now she could live. She felt like somebody—a powerful somebody that people didn’t want to fuck with. With the skills she’d so quickly attained, she felt like Neo from The Matrix. There was this feeling of wanting to go out and do whatever she wanted. She was warned to stay out of trouble; remain humble and low-key.
The rest of the day was spent cleaning and getting to know her new place and the neighborhood. It was late September, and the cool, evening air was a welcoming comfort. Cristal exited her residence and became swallowed up in the city that never sleeps. She went window shopping at a few boutiques, and then she went in and out of some stores, buying a few trinkets for her condo.
She made a stop at a quaint café on the corner where she sat nestled in the back, sipping on a latte, eating a piece of red-velvet cake, and thinking about her family and friends. She thought about her Grandma Hattie heavily. She missed that old, caring woman. Considering the person she was now, it was going to be hard to be around a woman who was a saint when she was trained to be a sinner.
Cristal watched the city from her seat. The people, the crowds, the cars, it was all passing her by. The sun was fading and fall was approaching. She sipped on her latte and just thought about the future. While she sat in the privacy of her mind and in her own world, she suddenly noticed someone watching her from across the room. His noticeable stare disturbed her daydream. Cristal gazed back at this towering and hunk of a man. He was standing next to another attractive male. They were on line waiting to make an order at the counter. Cristal looked at him, and there was a presence to him—an air of power about him. He had dark, deep-set eyes and his skin was milk-chocolate smooth. His goatee was thick and groomed nicely.
Murdergram, Part 1 Page 14