by Drew Briney
She looked through the window, directly at him. Her expression was somewhat ambiguous through the heat vision overlay but Vaya Sage would have sworn she looked scared. And yet, he was absolutely certain she wouldn’t be able to see through his camouflage at this distance. Nevertheless, she lunged to her feet, nearly spilling her hot drink in the process, and took a step to run.
In rapid succession, Vaya Sage shot three drugged darts and watched Lady Luck flirt with him a little.
“She’s down,” he announced.
“You—”
“I didn’t kill her,” he clarified. “I drugged her, same as you.” A second may have passed before he added, “It’s possible I OD’d her but I doubt it.”
Ji Anna gasped quietly, appeared to bite her tongue for the first time that morning.
“Take off your camo-throw and head back to the hovercraft. I’ll stay in touch.”
“I—”
Vaya Sage glared hard enough to silence Ji Anna, at least for a moment. As an afterthought, he handed her the magma-rifle he was now wrapping in his own camo-throw and said, “Here. I’ve got backup,” and patted his breast and pant pockets.
“I’m going with you,” she insisted. While Vaya Sage shook his head, she added, “Treiliki prefers female bodies but if you go alone, you’d be a terribly dangerous body for her to inhabit—”
“Really?” He scoffed, shook his head. “You believe—”
“Humor me,” Ji Anna interrupted. “One last time. Let me walk you through this.”
Vaya Sage sucked in a deep breath and sighed with exasperation as he wracked his brain for any excuse as to why tagging along was a bad idea. Catch-all excuses that it was easier to not have extra baggage on a hit wouldn’t fly and truth be known, that part really didn’t matter to Vaya Sage - so long as she didn’t talk much. He could handle any problems between Treiliki’s apartment and his current location easily enough. This wasn’t a tough part of town. He’d probably run across fewer ruffians abusing prescriptions than old people on meds in this part of town.
Shaking his head, he took a long shot. “The moment I command, you have to stay no less than ten feet behind Treiliki at all times and remain silent. No exceptions. Any evidence you’re there and she may not cooperate with my interrogation.” He paused, scratched his two-day stubble with his right hand. Then, failing to come up with anything else, he looked at Ji Anna for her answer.
She just smiled.
Half under his breath, Vaya Sage grumbled “all right,” and started making his way to the hovercraft to dump the excess gear. When Ji Anna started to place her camo-throw on the floor, he stopped her. “It’ll be easier to not be seen if you’re wearing that,” he said.
“But won’t it make me sweaty?” she protested. “She might …”
He didn’t bother with an answer, closed the door to the hovercraft, and walked away. He heard the locks automatically engaging the moment they detected he was a full five feet away from the hovercraft.
*** ** ***
VAYA SAGE SAT PERFECTLY STILL IN A SMALL CHAIR ONLY A FEW FEET in front of Treiliki as if he hadn’t already been sitting there for three hours straight. He’d only plugged her with two darts but even the full grown version of Treiliki wasn’t very large. He supposed he was lucky she hadn’t died. Or maybe not. He hadn’t found any evidence of high tech brain scanning gadgets in the apartment - there was nothing, really, that showed much care for technology at all. It seemed extreme. Her apartment resembled something out of some antiquated 2D video more than it appeared similar to anything he’d ever seen in person. It felt more like a museum than a home.
But being quirky does not a mage make.
Ji Anna had been excited to find some photos of what appeared to be ancient writings and had offered them as proof of Treiliki’s mage credentials but the world database didn’t have any matching writings so Vaya Sage had concluded that she, like himself, had developed ideograms to protect her secrets. But neither reason nor logic seemed to hold any sway in convincing Ji Anna of her superstitions.
He secretly promised himself to have an AI service look into it as soon as Treiliki was dead. Probably, that wouldn’t go far in convincing Ji Anna of the truth but at least he could show her that the scratchings didn’t say anything about fairy wings or dragon scales.
He fiddled with the picture of Treiliki. She’d aged a little since the picture was taken and she’d dyed her hair a deep blue hue that looked black unless the light hit it just right but otherwise, she matched the photo. Before, he’d remembered only the photo, not Treiliki herself. But now, disconnected memories were surfacing.
These, he reminded himself, could be his subconscious trying to reconcile false memories with his own perceptions of reality. Memories were faulty that way. He wouldn’t allow himself to forget that as he struggled to separate memory implants from real memories from erased memories from potential amalgamated memories - all of which made his reality little more than a theoretical realm only fit for philosophers.
Those thoughts notwithstanding, as Vaya Sage looked at Treiliki in person, he couldn’t help believing that he’d met her before. When he’d tied her up, he’d noticed her scent conjured up a half dozen memories he couldn’t shake. If they were trustworthy, Treiliki had been an old lover or perhaps a childhood friend he’d later kindled a brief romance with. She’d seduced him, spent several days with him, and then had left him alone, wondering whether he’d lost love or whether he’d been played a fool.
In hindsight, he guessed the latter.
She’d used their relationship to take advantage of him, to modify his memories, to use him as a puppet assassin, to take out the very people he’d aligned himself with. At least, that was what Vaya Sage veered toward believing. He couldn’t be certain but it made more sense than believing she was an elite mage hiding behind some clandestine government protection program. Unintentionally, he rolled his eyes as he looked around the room.
When he looked back at Treiliki, she was staring at him with wide eyes as if she’d never been drugged at all. He recoiled, shrunk back in pain and fear as he had once before. Two or three heartbeats later, he fell to fetal position, trembling and wishing he’d taken out Treiliki with a live round but even as he tumbled into despair, he found hope in one simple thought.
The pain isn’t real.
There was no such thing as a psionic blast, no such thing as magic. There was only technology and if there was such a thing as mind control technology, his body wasn’t really hurting. It was an electrical illusion, a thing he could push through. So, he closed his eyes and imagined himself in a serene area of the woods, basking in peaceful pine scents and musky odors familiar to him, sipping on a fruity otai and holding hands with Midi Ella. The last image was unintentional and threw him into a temporary downward spiral of despair and heartache.
He retrained his mind to other happy thoughts, noticed the pain was diminishing some, becoming more tolerable but the difference was nearly too subtle to be encouraging.
Never one to lack resolve, Vaya Sage focused his mind on other cheery memories. He remembered jumping out of a plane for the first time, diving off a high dive when he was a boy. He thought of his first girlfriend, his first hovercraft, his first black belt. Soon, he’d riveted his mind so thoroughly on these things that psionic pains ceased altogether.
He looked up, squared his gaze firmly on Treiliki and puzzled over her expression. Was that compassion? Regret? Longing? As he wondered what she was feeling, a spike of pain resurfaced, threatened to become a lifelong companion. He angrily clenched his jaw, raised himself to one knee, but the pain worsened and tossed him back upon the floor like the unwanted toy of a child. He scrunched into fetal position and began the process all over again. Crater Lake. Multnomah Falls. The sequoias. Yosemite. First date at Thors Well. First kiss with Midi Ella. His stomach cramped.
Blast it!
Parasailing, laying in tall grasses in the mountains, sailing on the ocean. As he thou
ght these things, he began raising himself off of the floor, tried to ignore the musty smells of the old carpet, riveted his attention on happy thoughts instead. The smell of the ocean, running on wet sand, wind in his hair. He was standing now, eyes closed. Another spear of pain went through his left leg.
The pain isn’t real.
He was walking now, walking behind Treiliki where she couldn’t see him. He felt more resolve now, sensed fear coming from Treiliki, wondered how he could discern that, ignored the train of thought.
“Where is the backup of my brain scan?” It may have been a foolish way to begin a conversation but he needed to break her mental resolve as well.
His body seemed to freeze for a moment, threatened to fall back into seizures. Mount Raineer. Redwood forests. Zip lining. Cuddling with Treiliki near the Chillon castle in Switzerland. She caressed his back as the sun set over Lake Geneva. They’d been sitting on the rocky shore, debating whether or not to venture into the waters.
Vaya Sage punched Treiliki in the back of the head. It didn’t knock her out but he instantly felt the difference. No pain threatened to overtake him. He felt sluggish, as if he’d suffered the worst beating of a decade. But he also felt the onset of an adrenaline rush. He punched her again.
“Where’s the backup of my brain scans?” he shouted.
Treiliki was shaking her own head, appeared too dazed to be able to answer.
Blast it.
He had an idea. He grabbed a fist-full of her hair and squeezed as he tugged on her head to raise it a little.
She responded by throwing her head backward and trying to make eye contact. Intuitively, Vaya Sage pushed her head away and punched her a third time, this time softer and on her cheek so it wouldn’t affect her consciousness much. Then, he cuffed both of her ears until he knew they’d be ringing intensely. That would keep her disoriented.
Briefly, he noted how he hadn’t heard a peep from Ji Anna. So far, she was good to her word. He removed his lavamag blade and carefully aimed it at the base of Treiliki’s skull, pressed the button, and plunged. Her head dropped, lifeless as expected.
Strange, unearthly mists swirled and flickered as random micro-explosions threatened to burn everything within a few feet of Treiliki’s body. The floor rumbled and an unholy shriek coerced Vaya Sage into covering his ears and bending his knees while silently shouting thoughts to himself. Whale watching. Listening to an eagle’s call. The smell of fresh, baked bread. The charming accents of children in Montreal. But none of that mattered. The shriek continued as if he’d done nothing and the only real smell he could detect was something akin to spent shotgun shells.
Soon, this dissipated too and the room seemed as normal as before. If museums were ever normal. Vaya Sage took a deep breath, slowly walked around Treiliki, grabbed her hair, and raised her head so he could look more carefully at her face. Surprisingly, she looked as peaceful as he could have imagined and there was barely any trace of blood. The lavamag blade melted everything as he’d expected. Unsurprisingly, the result didn’t smell as minty as normal. He drew closer to Treiliki, pressed his cheek next to hers, breathed in deeply and deliberately before giving her a kiss on the lips. He was neither surprised nor disappointed when he recognized her taste. He ‘cois kissed her cheeks.
“What are you doing?” Ji Anna asked, clearly disturbed.
Vaya Sage breathed in deeply a second time. “They say smells are sometimes the most important key to our memories.” He closed his eyes, waited. Several memories were already surfacing, none of them significant, but each of them meaningful. They’d attended the Montreux Jazz Festival, meandered along the walkway between the festival and the Chillon castle, discussing their homeland and their dreams for their country. He knew now she’d lied a thousand times. Faint memories of staying at a youth hostile and sleeping one night on a beach. They’d visited a memory physician somewhere. She’d promised him the most exciting evening of his life. Only he didn’t remember any such thing. There had been no tag. That must have been when she’d altered his memories.
“We need to go.” Ji Anna sounded unnecessarily urgent.
Basking in a sense of relief, Vaya Sage acted out of character and waxed agreeable. “Agreed,” he said. “Let’s go.”
“What do we do with the body?” she asked.
He handed her a brown spray bottle. “Twist the nozzle to stream. Aim the spray at her body. Pull the trigger twice. Nothing will happen. Put it in her lap.” He waited for her to follow the first portion of his instructions before gathering up a few items he’d left on the floor by the chair where he’d been sitting.
“What does it do?” Ji Anna asked.
“It releases a brown bacteria-laden sludge that eats mammalian tissue.”
“That’s really specific.”
“That’s necessary with my job.”
“What about other evidence … DNA—”
Vaya Sage held up an aerosol can and motioned for Ji Anna to leave. As soon as she left the room, he fingered his way through simple prompts on a panel, set the spray to release in two minutes, and followed Ji Anna into the hallway. He closed the door with finality, as if ending a season of his life. Neither of them spoke a word for several seconds.
“I’m sorry for all that’s happened,” Ji Anna said. She looked pensive. “I’ll report Treiliki’s death, make sure you’re exonerated for whatever unauthorized killings are reported, and we’ll get you payment for Treiliki as fast as I can get it cleared.”
“Thank you,” Vaya Sage said without expression. He wondered over her magnanimity in ignoring Midi Ella’s fate. He hadn’t told her what had happened but still, it showed a strength of character he hadn’t seen in many years, if ever. He admired her for that.
But that didn’t keep him from keeping his own secrets. He didn’t tell her about the universal funds cards he’d found in Treiliki’s apartment or how he wondered if the card screen was accurate. He’d never seen so many numbers on one screen before. “I’m feeling like I need a vacation,” he announced, rubbing his shoulder where the muscles remained tight and stringy from Treiliki’s psionic blasts - or whatever they were.
Ji Anna sighed. “Me too.” She said nothing for a few minutes, nearly sent Vaya Sage into cognitive dissonance over her newfound silence before asking, “Where do you think you’ll go?”
Vaya Sage grinned in satisfaction, looked far away into the clouds. “That’s easy. I have a hankering for jazz. Festival season starts soon in Europe. I think I’ll do a tour.”
And I’ll find answers there, he thought. There was a little place in Switzerland that especially tugged at his interest but before then, he’d find a blackmarket brain scanner, learn whatever he could, separate fact from fiction, and then piece together whatever he could before hitting the jazz scene. He grinned in satisfaction as he thought about it. He couldn’t undo what he’d done but at least he could figure out what had happened and enjoy life as best as he could. If card screens were accurate, he might be retiring.
“I forgot you liked jazz,” Ji Anna said as they rounded the last corner on the way to his hovercraft. “Midi Ella liked jazz, too.”
Past tense. She was guessing but it wasn’t exactly an unsolvable mystery.
The sound of her name tore at his soul, seized it. Maybe he’d pay someone to erase memories of her. Or, maybe he’d just erase the memory of her death and have it replaced with something easier to bear. He couldn’t think about that now.
“Yeah … yeah, she did,” he said, remembering how she’d played piano for him when they’d been a thing and remembering how they’d listed to old Chick Corea songs as often as any of the newer players he liked better. Emotions began to well inside, feelings bent on cherishing her memory. But Vaya Sage couldn’t live like that. He never would have been able to serve his country if he allowed himself to be soft like that. He’d given that up so that others could experience that freedom but he couldn’t afford that luxury.
Unless he erased those memori
es as well, every hit, every death. He could become a retired jazz saxophonist. He wondered if that was wisdom or foolishness. Either way, he couldn’t think about those things now. He needed to get his mind somewhere safe, anywhere but in the present … or in the recent past. Perhaps, he concluded, all he could safely think about was the future so that’s where he trained his thoughts. Den Hague, Berlin, Montreux, Vienna, Fontainebleau.
He looked into the clouds again, grateful Ji Anna wasn’t saying anything.
The hovercraft lock disengaged. Anxious, Vaya Sage quickly jumped in, engaged the engine, and gave it instructions to return to his hotel. He’d be checking out early.
Ji Anna was slower to climb into the hovercraft.
At first, he wondered why but he noticed she was carrying her shoes and socks. That explained her brief delay.
She neatly placed them in the corner farthest from his own seat, briefly rubbed her feet, and began tracing patterns on the flooring as she sat back in her seat and buckled up. She sighed as she looked out the passenger window and then chuckled softly, absentmindedly as if musing over some distracting memory.
Vaya Sage guessed Ji Anna was trying to divert her mind from recent events, turned to offer a supportive grin. But it quickly disappeared when he saw a reflection of otherworldly eyes flashing in the passenger window.
Ji Anna’s eyes looked normal when he leaned forward for a better look. Vaya Sage traced his thoughts back to the all-too-familiar man at the licensed memory physician’s clinic, didn’t know whether or not he could trust anything he saw. He shook his head as the hovercraft launched, sighed, and traced the edges of the universal funds card in his pocket as he imagined a leisurely, peaceful future that somehow felt more surreal than he would have hoped.
I hope you enjoyed Assassin Hunter!
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