"Assassins" by Emma Kathryn

Assassins

Emma Kathryn

Part of the building now.  Hell, she had been there that long it felt that way.  She lay still; body pressed against the warm stone of the flat roof, as the hot midday sun shone down on her, roasting her within her leather coat.  Her short jet black hair, with its deep pink streaks, hung over her untouched human eye, blocking her sight.  It was shifted in annoyance, trying to tuck it behind her ear – why did she get it cut so damn short?! – giving her a clearer view of the entrance to the conference halls.  The black cars with their tinted glass were beginning to pull up.  Not long now.

            “Shining Angel, this is Smoking Dragon, do you copy?” a familiar male voice said through her earpiece, causing her mouth to twist into a grin.

“Smoking Dragon?” she laughed as she toyed with her rifle.  “Good God, Vee, get a grip!”

“Shut up, Keyta, and play along!” Vee moaned in her ear.  She laughed again.

“Code names are just so cliché…”

“Quiet, woman, now where are you?”  Keyta sighed playfully as she reached down into one of the many pockets of her black cargo pants and produced a compact mirror.  She tried to angle it to reflect the sunlight, revealing her position to Vee with a winking light.

“Good position,” Vee noted jealously, obviously spotting her.  “Directly opposite the conference halls?”

“Yeah,” she answered, tucking her mirror away.  “What about you?”

“I’ve got a really good view actually.  Really good.”

“Well, unless it’s of my phenomenal ass, it’s not as good as mine, is it?” Keyta asked with a satisfied grin.  There was silence coming from her earpiece.  “Is it?” she asked again with her wicked tongue.

“You’re a bitch of hell, Keyta,” he growled in her ear.  A growl she took more comfort in than anything else in this cruel world.

“Only because you’ve made me, Vee, dearest,” she informed him brightly.

“Damn right I did!” he replied almost proudly.

Keyta shifted herself slightly, becoming increasingly uncomfortable and impatient.  This was beginning to wear her down.  All this damned waiting, it was driving her crazy.  Even in spite of this human-machine hybrid she had become.

“Burning up in your coat?” Vee commented in her ear.  Keyta had a glance around, her face reflecting her confusion.  Either he was highly intuitive or withholding information.

“Yes…” she replied slowly as she tried to find him.  “Where are you?!” she asked, closing her right natural eye while her mechanical one scanned the area thoroughly for any trace of her partner.  The metal shutter, which now acted as an iris, refined Keyta’s line of sight, but still no sign of Vee.

“A good assassin never gives away his position,” he quipped.  “Unless you’re open to new experiences, that is…”

“In case you’ve forgotten, we’re failed science experiments, not assassins.”

“Keyta, bear in mind that those experiments were done to make us mindless, super-soldiers,” Vee said seriously, rendering Keyta silent.  “Today we are assassins,” he added flippantly, “and who’s to say we wouldn’t have ended up assassins if we’d been completed?  I’d have made a damn good assassin.”

“Yeah, you would,” Keyta told him, her eyes still on the entrance.  “So where are you then?”

“I’m not telling you!”

“Vee, we’ve worked together for as long as we’ve been like this; stop with games.  I cut my hair for you, God damn it!”

“Ooh, tense are we?” Vee asked, his wicked sense of humour piercing her ear.  “If you really must know, I’m three buildings along to the left of the conference halls.”  Keyta looked around, counting the buildings and finally finding him.  She grinned widely when her eyes landed on him.

“I can see you,” she sighed in child-like sing-song.  He was lying on a roof higher up than her and while any other human would have not been able to see him, Keyta could.  But then she spotted his rifle.  It was twice the size of hers.  “Hey!  Why is your rifle bigger than mine?!”

“Because I’m a man and you’re a silly little girl,” he told her matter-of-factly.

“And you’re clearly over-compensating.”

“Hell, we could leave right now and I’d prove you wrong, good and proper.”

“Tell you what, if you can make me human again, I’ll screw you ‘til you lose the feeling in your legs.”

“I’ll hold you to that.”

Keyta opened her mouth but suddenly she saw the entrance doors began to open and she instantly dropped the games.

“Wait, Vee, I’ve got a visual,” she said unsmiling and serious.

“Which one is it?”  Keyta watched and waited.  Six figures proceeded in leaving the conference halls; four bulky men all in black, a young woman and a man in his forties. The man was grinning widely but the girl’s face was expressionless.  Keyta’s heart leapt in her chest.  She began to sweat but her internal systems quickly cooled her down.

“Tannor,” she said, rather quietly.

“Tannor?  Do you want me to deal with this?  You don’t have to, Keyta,”

“No,” Keyta snapped urgently.  “I can do this.  And leave Riva.  This can be a lesson for her.  I want Tannor; you mess with my body, I shoot you in the head.”

“I’ll bear that in mind.”

“Actually, Vee, how bout we both take him?  You know, surprise him from both sides?” Keyta asked as she lined up her sniper rifle and took careful aim of her target.

“Sounds like my kind of plan!” Vee answered with a grin.

“On the count of three…”

“Keyta, girl, quickly!”

“…One…”

“…Two…”

“…Three,” they said simultaneously as the metallic finger of Keyta’s robotic hand tightened round the trigger, squeezing it and releasing the bullet from its dark prison.

Neither Rive nor any of Tannor’s four bodyguards had the chance to do anything as Professor Tannor was shot twice in the head from two different directions by two unseen assassins.