This is a story about an original character of mine named Suede. Suede
is an X5 assassin. He is proud and strong and like all X5's he's searching
not for his next victim. He's searching for himself. As with all the
children of Manticore, he wants a place in the world. He just doesn't know
where to look for it.
Suede's Story
I am not the Team.
"Good morning Mr. Sanazi," The secretary said. "How are you today?"
"I'm fine Cassidy. How about yourself?" The tall man said. He smiled down to the girl, his teeth bright and gleaming within the dark border of his very dark skin.
"I'm doing well, thanks for asking. Mr. Devy would like to speak to you before lunch about the Dalton Genetics situation." Cassidy said, offering a sympathetic smile. "He said it wasn't extremely urgent but he's playing nine holes after lunch with Mr. Dalton and wants to run over a few things."
"Thanks, Cassidy. Give him a call and tell him I'll be there in about twenty minutes. I'm going to check my e-mail and get settled in before I head up there." The giant Nubian winked and headed into his office. "Hold my calls for now. Thanks," he said as he closed the door to his office.
He walked over to the big oak desk. He was going to miss this place. Three more weeks and he would have to give up this desk and corner office for a small cubicle in the barracks back in Manticore. Three more weeks and he would finish his assignment and become just a number again.
The eight months spent in setting up the hit was more than enough time, but he had milked it for all it was worth. Listening to 822 and 494 discuss the outside in almost happy terms had left him with more than a little jealousy about getting out. It wasn't that he hadn't been out, he had. He had never been in Deep Cover alone though, always military engagements in some weird country where he was required more often than not to exterminate teenage rebels or poorly trained terrorist cells.
The deep cover missions were the cream of the crop and once Sandoval sent you out on a DC Op, you never had to look back. It was just the way of things. Only the best got the solo missions. 822 had been on five solos. 494 went out on three, but something twisted him on the last one and they jammed him up in psy-ops for no good reason that anyone who knew him could figure.
When he came out, there was something different about him. Something dark and dangerous had taken over. He no longer cared about anything. 494 had grown cold and distant. Manticore liked that in its operatives.
Now, though the mission was winding down and Abuti Sanazi would simply cease to be in about ten days, two weeks at the most. The two men he was sent after were coming together. Today, they were going to discuss business and share their first round of golf. It was time to report.
"No Calls," he heard Cassidy say as he closed the door with a wink to the young secretary. She smiled and waved. He would miss her most of all. The door to his office clicked shut and he latched the lock just to be safe. Turning to his desk, he pulled out his laptop, setting it on the desk as he walked toward the window. He pulled a small electronic satellite dish out of his briefcase and aimed it into the southern sky.
Returning to his desk, he sat down and opened his laptop. The screen lit up a few seconds later revealing Sandoval's stone face staring at him. "You're late X5-682." Sandoval said. "Report is five minutes overdue. Explain."
"Can't help extra moments with my secretary and a longer than usual list of contacts for the day. I have a meeting with Mr. Devy in fifteen minutes and will most likely be invited to their golf game today. I will study Mr. Dalton and report tonight on what I learn."
"Do your meeting with Mr. Devy but decline his invitation to play golf. We have learned that Mr. Dalton will be meeting in private with Angelo Devy tonight in his office, in your building. The meeting will take place after the golf game at approximately 7:30 this evening. You will meet them in the hall. Make sure they enter the offices alone then find an alternate entrance. Once you have secured another entrance, then you will terminate both men and meet at these coordinates at midnight for retrieval."
"This is sudden." 682 said. "May I ask.?"
"No you may not." Sandoval snapped. "You have your orders. Carry them out and proceed to the rendezvous." Sandoval stared into the camera, looking just past X5-682 head. "Session is logged. Carry on." Sandoval said to no one in particular.
Abuti Sanazi, actually X5-682, a child of Manticore was stunned; he closed his laptop, absentmindedly walking over to the window to retrieve the small, portable satellite unit. He pulled it from its position and walked over to his desk. His first assignment, his first solo assignment had come to a close. He looked down to the floor for a minute before turning to the mirrored door to his private restroom. He looked at himself, from his clean shaven head down over the dark glow of his face to the expensive suit he may never wear again. Even his shoes had that liveliness about them that couldn't be found in Manticore barracks or cells. He liked being Abuti Sanazi. He liked being something other than what he was.
"I am." he started to say, but the truth was simple. He didn't know what he was. He knew what he had been. He had been a child, born and raised to kill or be killed. An assassin trained without emotion or concern for anything but the mission. For a long time, for a very long time, he was just that.
He remembered the words he had heard in a movie he had watched that night six months ago when his 'friends' had that bachelor party and invited him. It was an old classic from way, way back in the day; a Vietnam War epic about man's struggle with himself over what it means to be a man. The words screamed in his mind now, repeating themselves over and over again.
"I wanted a mission. for my sins they gave me one, and when it was over, I'd never want another."
The words echoed as he stared into the mirror. He thought about Captain Bill and how that character mirrored his own heart of darkness. What would become of him when he went back to Manticore? What would he be? How would he feel when he got back to the little 10 x 12 cell that all field ops got after their first mission? Sure, it would mean he'd get his own command, complete with a squad of his own or maybe he'd be picked for future missions, but what would it really mean?
It would mean he'd be isolated. He'd sit at the table alone during meals waiting for other returned solos to join him. He'd get privileges that others didn't have, but they weren't privileges he wanted. He wanted this suit. He wanted this office.
These shoes.
The broken city of Seattle he was assigned to.
BEEEEEEPPPPPP!!!!!
The sound startled him. He spun ready to attack the nearest person, but quickly realized that he was alone in the room. Suddenly thankful that he had locked the door, he realized that it was Cassidy. He walked over to the desk and pressed the button.
"Yes Cassidy," he said.
"Mr. Devy is here to see you." Cassidy announced.
"I'll be one minute." X5-682 responded, once again becoming Abuti Sanazi as he shoved the portable satellite relay into a drawer and closed his laptop. He pulled off his sport coat and tossed it over the back of his chair as he walked over and unlocked the door to his office quietly. Pulling the door wide, he smiled his best smile and looked into the eyes of the CEO of his company.
"Mr. Sanazi," Angelo Devi smiled, holding out his hand to shake the dark man's hand. "I was wondering if you'd be interested in playing a round of golf with me this afternoon."
"I'm afraid I cannot. I've received a bit of disturbing information just now and I have to go down to San Francisco. My. mother," he said the word roughly. "She's been rushed to the hospital." He lied.
"I'm very sorry to hear that." Angelo Devi said pulling his hand away from Sanazi's. "I hope everything turns out well."
"I'm sure it will, but I'm afraid I have to go now. Cassidy, would you please reschedule my appointments. I'll call you when I get to Frisco and let you know my schedule after I arrive. Mr. Devi."
"Please, call me Angelo." The CEO said.
"Thank you. Angelo. I'm very sorry."
"Family emergencies take priority in my life as well. Hell, if my wife didn't have an emergency at least twice a week I might actually believe something bad had happened to her." Devi laughed. The man that would for a few more minutes be Abuti Sanazi laughed with him.
"If you'll excuse me, I must be going."
"Of course," Devi watched the tall man head out the door of his office and turn down the hall. He turned back to Cassidy before leaving. "See to it he gets whatever he needs when he contacts you later. and send something appropriate to the hospital when you find out where she is."
"Yes, Mr. Devi."
X5-682 looked down at the tools on his bed. There wasn't much there. He was wearing a deep brown pair of loose fitting pants and a black shirt underneath his vest. A line of razor sharp knives were strapped to the front of his vest on either side and he held a small pistol in his hand. He stared at the H & K as it caught the faintest reflection of his eye in the darkened room. Almost silently, he shoved the clip in and breathed out as it locked into place.
"Just like breathing." He sighed. That was the kicker. Mission mode had kicked in. He was full of the intensity he knew only as a child of Manticore. A genetically engineered soldier.
An assassin.
A killer.
With that final, devastating thought, knowing he would be returning to Manticore tonight, he took one last glance about the sparsely decorated room. There wasn't much there. He wouldn't be giving up much. He knew Manticore would come and remove any trace that he had ever been here. He knew his existence would be forgotten. The only thing he truly regretted was the contact with other people.
He had seen it on the face of 494, heard it in the words of 822 sitting at the lonely table in the mess hall where the officers and solos sat. They had understood something he was only now beginning to see. He didn't understand it yet, but he was beginning to. It was becoming clear at a frightening pace.
He was just like the knives on his vest. He was the gun in his hand.
Just a tool.
The hall was dark, and silent. X5-682 moved quietly through the shadows avoiding the arc of the security cameras. He could have walked through the front door. He could have come up to his office on the elevator and walked down the hall on his floor without questions but he had been wearing a suit lately. He was out of practice.
He stood underneath the main hall camera slowly shifting from one hall to the next. He counted the seconds in the arc, watching closely to everything around him.
Fourteen seconds would be more than enough time for him to get to and then into the maintenance room. From there it would be a short, silent crawl through the vent toward the main office. 682 watched the slowly moving camera arc away from the hall to the one he had just come from.
Fourteen.
Thirteen.
Twelve.
Eleven.
He reached the maintenance room. A few quick flicks of his wrist with the lock pick tools and he hears the pins inside the lock slip into place. Still counting the last few seconds, he slips into the room and closes the door just as the camera reaches this hall.
Turning to the small room, he finds the ceiling access panel waiting for him. It gives easily and he pulled himself up into the ventilation system. His direction is to the right, then take the first left and he will be right over the room with the two men he has been ordered to kill.
The movement is simple. His days were spent working. His evenings spent training. It takes no effort for him to move quietly, efficiently through the vents and into position over the roof.
He scans the room below him. Two men sit on a couch. Two young girls, no more than twenty, are standing in front of the two men, moving slowly to music barely audible from the stereo on the wall. The TV is running the latest political and financial news, also barely audible. The men are laughing. The girls are mostly naked, but still wearing heels, touching and feeling and moving. They are lost in each other, a conditioned reflex to make the event more acceptable. 682 shakes his head, reaching for the grate.
A weird hiss, followed by a crackle and some slight popping reaches his ears. He follows the sound as time seems to slow down. His head hears everything outside of the television as if in a long tunnel. The crackling and popping continue and he finally remembers what it is.
A broadcast.
It's a satellite hack from Seattle's very own, resident cyber- journalist. X5-682 smiles, remembering when he heard his first hack. It had taken him by surprise. The restaurant where he had been interviewing for the position fell into an eerie silence as all eyes turned toward the TV on the wall to watch the words.
Now the words shouldn't mean anything to him. He was still reaching for the grate on the vent, still hearing everything from far away. His mind was trying to focus on the event he had come here for. It would not succeed.
"Do not attempt to adjust your set. This is a streaming freedom cable hack of the Eyes Only Informant Net. This hack cannot be traced. It will not be stopped and it is the only free voice left in this city." The disembodied voice of deeply shadowed eyes called out the familiar introduction. X5-682 gripped the wire grate panel of the vent in his fingers and waited.
"This hack is being beamed across America to those known as X5. You have been compromised. You're in danger. You know what to do." the altered voice said. The voice spoke words from that place where the eyes existed, staring into X5-682, speaking directly to him. A phone rings somewhere in the room. Roger Dalton answers it.
"I repeat to those known as X5. Your locations have been compromised. You are in danger. You know what to do." Eyes Only repeated the words. "This hack will repeat every hour on the hour until all of you have reported in. This has been a streaming freedom cable hack of the Eyes Only Informant Net. Peace. Out."
"It's security. There is a man downstairs named Ames White. He says he's from the NSA and that a contract has been placed on my life. The assassin is in the building."
"WHAT?" Angelo Devi asked, startled?
"Security is on the way up with a picture of him. It's Sanazi." Dalton says.
"That can't be." Devi started, but was interrupted by a sound from the vent. Both men looked up to the panel. The girls screamed and ran from the room.
"Who's there?" Dalton demanded. Security burst into the room and Devi pointed to the vent.
"UP THERE!" Devi shouted. "SANAZI! YOU CAN'T GET OUT OF HERE!"
"THE NSA HAS THE BUILDING SURROUNDED!" Dalton shouted.
Security guards warily removed the panel and checked the dark, smooth ductwork with their weapons and flashlights. There was nothing there.
Downstairs, two minutes later, X5-682 was setting the body of an NSA agent on the floor and checking the main hall of the building. There were eight agents standing around. Some were waiting for elevators to open with weapons drawn. Some were waiting with phones in hand for reports from each floor.
The former Mr. Abuti Sanazi located the director of the operation. He was a short man with a hard edgy look to his face. He was on the phone talking to Roger Dalton and assuring him that his team had been tracking the assassin for a couple of weeks.
682 understood why the operation had been rushed at this point. It was irrelevant to him now. The question on his mind was Eyes Only. How did Eyes Only find out about the operation? He had heard the rumors about the man and his operatives. Everyone heard rumors about Eyes Only, but that's all they were. They were just rumors.
Now however those rumors seemed just a little bit more than that. Now those very rumors had become something more than rumor. They had become a fact. The dark eyes with the disembodied voice did indeed see everything.
A break in surveillance presented itself and 682 phased through a shadow, heading for the side exit of the building. There would be guards, but nothing he couldn't handle. He stepped out of the door. The street was busy. Police flashers illuminated the evening in a revolving, strangely purple-ish haze.
Two guards stood outside the door. They were watching three cops harassing the dancing girls from upstairs. They were laughing. He walked up behind the two NSA guards, snapping a neck in each hand and disappearing into the night.
Three hours later, he was standing on the roof across the street from the downtown apartment Devi's company had supplied for him when he first 'moved' to Seattle. The apartment wasn't a big one or a fancy one like that Fogle Towers he had visited once for a party held by one of the companies VPs, but it was his home. It wasn't permanent and he had long ago accepted that. Now, though, he stood watching NSA agents, and Ames White, the short guy seriously lacking anything resembling a personality, currently held a pair of his underwear up with a pencil.
682 laughed. After all that had happened in the last few hours, he couldn't help laughing. He would miss those silk boxers. They had been a birthday gift from his secretary Cassidy on the day she believed to be his birthday. Even though he didn't know his birthday, it had been the ONLY time anyone had ever given him anything. They had meant a lot to him.
He turned and headed across the rooftop in the shadow of Fogle towers, jumping from one roof to another before going down to ground level and crossing the mostly deserted street away from his former residence. An Aztek screeched out of the underground parking garage below him heading directly toward his position. He hurried across the street, catching a glimpse of a man and a woman in the front seat of the blue on blue vehicle. They looked perfect together. A handsome man and a beautiful woman heading off to whatever adventure awaited them struck him suddenly and he suddenly felt a loss within himself.
It was as if something was missing in his life. Something he couldn't even begin to understand. He watched the Aztec run a red light and turn on a far corner heading away from his view. He checked his watch marking the slightly less than two hours to his contact.
Procedure in a compromise was simple. He was required to report in. It would be a one sided conversation and then he would be contacted within 72 hours and given orders. It was that simple. He would make his report in approximately two hours and then he'd have three days completely to himself.
When his phone rang, he was startled. He quickly turned the ringer off and ducked into the nearest alley, staring at the phone. It rang ten times before he answered it. It would be Manticore. It would be Sandoval.
"Report," Sandoval said when 682 answered.
"X5-682, AYE!" He said. "The mission was compromised. Eyes Only broadcast just seconds before the target received a phone call from an NSA agent named Ames White." He started his report, but Sandoval interrupted.
"Why did you not complete the mission?"
"The mission was compromised, Sir." The X5 said. "I was prepared to enter the office with the two men as soon as the women left. They were entertaining the men, but the hack interrupted them and within a minute security came through the door of the office. I had no choice. I would have been in the room and captured if Eyes Only hadn't made the hack. I fully intend to redeploy."
"You will await further instructions." Sandoval said. "Follow procedure to the letter and you will be contacted in 72 hours with instructions. Session is logged. Carry on. Sandoval out."
X5-682 slid to the ground against the wall behind him, pulling his knees up to his chest. It was a dark alley and he was a darker man. It was as good a time as any to catch some sleep, collect his thoughts and figure out how to proceed.
There were a lot of questions running through his mind and he let each of them drift away in their time until only a few remained.
How did Eyes Only know to warn him? Why did Sandoval break procedure and contact him? How did an NSA agent know about a Manticore assassin?
There was one question on his mind that he couldn't even begin to understand. Of all of the thoughts running through his mind this was the strangest and most difficult for him to accept. It didn't register that Eyes Only had warned the assassin and not the target. He didn't really care about that short guy. He had accepted a long time ago that Sandoval was a creepy, little man himself.
No. The big question on his mind, the one causing him the most trouble and making this whole situation hard for him to deal with was more confusing than anything he had ever endured.
What would Cassidy think of him when she found out that he was an assassin?
Suede's Story
I am not the Team.
"Good morning Mr. Sanazi," The secretary said. "How are you today?"
"I'm fine Cassidy. How about yourself?" The tall man said. He smiled down to the girl, his teeth bright and gleaming within the dark border of his very dark skin.
"I'm doing well, thanks for asking. Mr. Devy would like to speak to you before lunch about the Dalton Genetics situation." Cassidy said, offering a sympathetic smile. "He said it wasn't extremely urgent but he's playing nine holes after lunch with Mr. Dalton and wants to run over a few things."
"Thanks, Cassidy. Give him a call and tell him I'll be there in about twenty minutes. I'm going to check my e-mail and get settled in before I head up there." The giant Nubian winked and headed into his office. "Hold my calls for now. Thanks," he said as he closed the door to his office.
He walked over to the big oak desk. He was going to miss this place. Three more weeks and he would have to give up this desk and corner office for a small cubicle in the barracks back in Manticore. Three more weeks and he would finish his assignment and become just a number again.
The eight months spent in setting up the hit was more than enough time, but he had milked it for all it was worth. Listening to 822 and 494 discuss the outside in almost happy terms had left him with more than a little jealousy about getting out. It wasn't that he hadn't been out, he had. He had never been in Deep Cover alone though, always military engagements in some weird country where he was required more often than not to exterminate teenage rebels or poorly trained terrorist cells.
The deep cover missions were the cream of the crop and once Sandoval sent you out on a DC Op, you never had to look back. It was just the way of things. Only the best got the solo missions. 822 had been on five solos. 494 went out on three, but something twisted him on the last one and they jammed him up in psy-ops for no good reason that anyone who knew him could figure.
When he came out, there was something different about him. Something dark and dangerous had taken over. He no longer cared about anything. 494 had grown cold and distant. Manticore liked that in its operatives.
Now, though the mission was winding down and Abuti Sanazi would simply cease to be in about ten days, two weeks at the most. The two men he was sent after were coming together. Today, they were going to discuss business and share their first round of golf. It was time to report.
"No Calls," he heard Cassidy say as he closed the door with a wink to the young secretary. She smiled and waved. He would miss her most of all. The door to his office clicked shut and he latched the lock just to be safe. Turning to his desk, he pulled out his laptop, setting it on the desk as he walked toward the window. He pulled a small electronic satellite dish out of his briefcase and aimed it into the southern sky.
Returning to his desk, he sat down and opened his laptop. The screen lit up a few seconds later revealing Sandoval's stone face staring at him. "You're late X5-682." Sandoval said. "Report is five minutes overdue. Explain."
"Can't help extra moments with my secretary and a longer than usual list of contacts for the day. I have a meeting with Mr. Devy in fifteen minutes and will most likely be invited to their golf game today. I will study Mr. Dalton and report tonight on what I learn."
"Do your meeting with Mr. Devy but decline his invitation to play golf. We have learned that Mr. Dalton will be meeting in private with Angelo Devy tonight in his office, in your building. The meeting will take place after the golf game at approximately 7:30 this evening. You will meet them in the hall. Make sure they enter the offices alone then find an alternate entrance. Once you have secured another entrance, then you will terminate both men and meet at these coordinates at midnight for retrieval."
"This is sudden." 682 said. "May I ask.?"
"No you may not." Sandoval snapped. "You have your orders. Carry them out and proceed to the rendezvous." Sandoval stared into the camera, looking just past X5-682 head. "Session is logged. Carry on." Sandoval said to no one in particular.
Abuti Sanazi, actually X5-682, a child of Manticore was stunned; he closed his laptop, absentmindedly walking over to the window to retrieve the small, portable satellite unit. He pulled it from its position and walked over to his desk. His first assignment, his first solo assignment had come to a close. He looked down to the floor for a minute before turning to the mirrored door to his private restroom. He looked at himself, from his clean shaven head down over the dark glow of his face to the expensive suit he may never wear again. Even his shoes had that liveliness about them that couldn't be found in Manticore barracks or cells. He liked being Abuti Sanazi. He liked being something other than what he was.
"I am." he started to say, but the truth was simple. He didn't know what he was. He knew what he had been. He had been a child, born and raised to kill or be killed. An assassin trained without emotion or concern for anything but the mission. For a long time, for a very long time, he was just that.
He remembered the words he had heard in a movie he had watched that night six months ago when his 'friends' had that bachelor party and invited him. It was an old classic from way, way back in the day; a Vietnam War epic about man's struggle with himself over what it means to be a man. The words screamed in his mind now, repeating themselves over and over again.
"I wanted a mission. for my sins they gave me one, and when it was over, I'd never want another."
The words echoed as he stared into the mirror. He thought about Captain Bill and how that character mirrored his own heart of darkness. What would become of him when he went back to Manticore? What would he be? How would he feel when he got back to the little 10 x 12 cell that all field ops got after their first mission? Sure, it would mean he'd get his own command, complete with a squad of his own or maybe he'd be picked for future missions, but what would it really mean?
It would mean he'd be isolated. He'd sit at the table alone during meals waiting for other returned solos to join him. He'd get privileges that others didn't have, but they weren't privileges he wanted. He wanted this suit. He wanted this office.
These shoes.
The broken city of Seattle he was assigned to.
BEEEEEEPPPPPP!!!!!
The sound startled him. He spun ready to attack the nearest person, but quickly realized that he was alone in the room. Suddenly thankful that he had locked the door, he realized that it was Cassidy. He walked over to the desk and pressed the button.
"Yes Cassidy," he said.
"Mr. Devy is here to see you." Cassidy announced.
"I'll be one minute." X5-682 responded, once again becoming Abuti Sanazi as he shoved the portable satellite relay into a drawer and closed his laptop. He pulled off his sport coat and tossed it over the back of his chair as he walked over and unlocked the door to his office quietly. Pulling the door wide, he smiled his best smile and looked into the eyes of the CEO of his company.
"Mr. Sanazi," Angelo Devi smiled, holding out his hand to shake the dark man's hand. "I was wondering if you'd be interested in playing a round of golf with me this afternoon."
"I'm afraid I cannot. I've received a bit of disturbing information just now and I have to go down to San Francisco. My. mother," he said the word roughly. "She's been rushed to the hospital." He lied.
"I'm very sorry to hear that." Angelo Devi said pulling his hand away from Sanazi's. "I hope everything turns out well."
"I'm sure it will, but I'm afraid I have to go now. Cassidy, would you please reschedule my appointments. I'll call you when I get to Frisco and let you know my schedule after I arrive. Mr. Devi."
"Please, call me Angelo." The CEO said.
"Thank you. Angelo. I'm very sorry."
"Family emergencies take priority in my life as well. Hell, if my wife didn't have an emergency at least twice a week I might actually believe something bad had happened to her." Devi laughed. The man that would for a few more minutes be Abuti Sanazi laughed with him.
"If you'll excuse me, I must be going."
"Of course," Devi watched the tall man head out the door of his office and turn down the hall. He turned back to Cassidy before leaving. "See to it he gets whatever he needs when he contacts you later. and send something appropriate to the hospital when you find out where she is."
"Yes, Mr. Devi."
X5-682 looked down at the tools on his bed. There wasn't much there. He was wearing a deep brown pair of loose fitting pants and a black shirt underneath his vest. A line of razor sharp knives were strapped to the front of his vest on either side and he held a small pistol in his hand. He stared at the H & K as it caught the faintest reflection of his eye in the darkened room. Almost silently, he shoved the clip in and breathed out as it locked into place.
"Just like breathing." He sighed. That was the kicker. Mission mode had kicked in. He was full of the intensity he knew only as a child of Manticore. A genetically engineered soldier.
An assassin.
A killer.
With that final, devastating thought, knowing he would be returning to Manticore tonight, he took one last glance about the sparsely decorated room. There wasn't much there. He wouldn't be giving up much. He knew Manticore would come and remove any trace that he had ever been here. He knew his existence would be forgotten. The only thing he truly regretted was the contact with other people.
He had seen it on the face of 494, heard it in the words of 822 sitting at the lonely table in the mess hall where the officers and solos sat. They had understood something he was only now beginning to see. He didn't understand it yet, but he was beginning to. It was becoming clear at a frightening pace.
He was just like the knives on his vest. He was the gun in his hand.
Just a tool.
The hall was dark, and silent. X5-682 moved quietly through the shadows avoiding the arc of the security cameras. He could have walked through the front door. He could have come up to his office on the elevator and walked down the hall on his floor without questions but he had been wearing a suit lately. He was out of practice.
He stood underneath the main hall camera slowly shifting from one hall to the next. He counted the seconds in the arc, watching closely to everything around him.
Fourteen seconds would be more than enough time for him to get to and then into the maintenance room. From there it would be a short, silent crawl through the vent toward the main office. 682 watched the slowly moving camera arc away from the hall to the one he had just come from.
Fourteen.
Thirteen.
Twelve.
Eleven.
He reached the maintenance room. A few quick flicks of his wrist with the lock pick tools and he hears the pins inside the lock slip into place. Still counting the last few seconds, he slips into the room and closes the door just as the camera reaches this hall.
Turning to the small room, he finds the ceiling access panel waiting for him. It gives easily and he pulled himself up into the ventilation system. His direction is to the right, then take the first left and he will be right over the room with the two men he has been ordered to kill.
The movement is simple. His days were spent working. His evenings spent training. It takes no effort for him to move quietly, efficiently through the vents and into position over the roof.
He scans the room below him. Two men sit on a couch. Two young girls, no more than twenty, are standing in front of the two men, moving slowly to music barely audible from the stereo on the wall. The TV is running the latest political and financial news, also barely audible. The men are laughing. The girls are mostly naked, but still wearing heels, touching and feeling and moving. They are lost in each other, a conditioned reflex to make the event more acceptable. 682 shakes his head, reaching for the grate.
A weird hiss, followed by a crackle and some slight popping reaches his ears. He follows the sound as time seems to slow down. His head hears everything outside of the television as if in a long tunnel. The crackling and popping continue and he finally remembers what it is.
A broadcast.
It's a satellite hack from Seattle's very own, resident cyber- journalist. X5-682 smiles, remembering when he heard his first hack. It had taken him by surprise. The restaurant where he had been interviewing for the position fell into an eerie silence as all eyes turned toward the TV on the wall to watch the words.
Now the words shouldn't mean anything to him. He was still reaching for the grate on the vent, still hearing everything from far away. His mind was trying to focus on the event he had come here for. It would not succeed.
"Do not attempt to adjust your set. This is a streaming freedom cable hack of the Eyes Only Informant Net. This hack cannot be traced. It will not be stopped and it is the only free voice left in this city." The disembodied voice of deeply shadowed eyes called out the familiar introduction. X5-682 gripped the wire grate panel of the vent in his fingers and waited.
"This hack is being beamed across America to those known as X5. You have been compromised. You're in danger. You know what to do." the altered voice said. The voice spoke words from that place where the eyes existed, staring into X5-682, speaking directly to him. A phone rings somewhere in the room. Roger Dalton answers it.
"I repeat to those known as X5. Your locations have been compromised. You are in danger. You know what to do." Eyes Only repeated the words. "This hack will repeat every hour on the hour until all of you have reported in. This has been a streaming freedom cable hack of the Eyes Only Informant Net. Peace. Out."
"It's security. There is a man downstairs named Ames White. He says he's from the NSA and that a contract has been placed on my life. The assassin is in the building."
"WHAT?" Angelo Devi asked, startled?
"Security is on the way up with a picture of him. It's Sanazi." Dalton says.
"That can't be." Devi started, but was interrupted by a sound from the vent. Both men looked up to the panel. The girls screamed and ran from the room.
"Who's there?" Dalton demanded. Security burst into the room and Devi pointed to the vent.
"UP THERE!" Devi shouted. "SANAZI! YOU CAN'T GET OUT OF HERE!"
"THE NSA HAS THE BUILDING SURROUNDED!" Dalton shouted.
Security guards warily removed the panel and checked the dark, smooth ductwork with their weapons and flashlights. There was nothing there.
Downstairs, two minutes later, X5-682 was setting the body of an NSA agent on the floor and checking the main hall of the building. There were eight agents standing around. Some were waiting for elevators to open with weapons drawn. Some were waiting with phones in hand for reports from each floor.
The former Mr. Abuti Sanazi located the director of the operation. He was a short man with a hard edgy look to his face. He was on the phone talking to Roger Dalton and assuring him that his team had been tracking the assassin for a couple of weeks.
682 understood why the operation had been rushed at this point. It was irrelevant to him now. The question on his mind was Eyes Only. How did Eyes Only find out about the operation? He had heard the rumors about the man and his operatives. Everyone heard rumors about Eyes Only, but that's all they were. They were just rumors.
Now however those rumors seemed just a little bit more than that. Now those very rumors had become something more than rumor. They had become a fact. The dark eyes with the disembodied voice did indeed see everything.
A break in surveillance presented itself and 682 phased through a shadow, heading for the side exit of the building. There would be guards, but nothing he couldn't handle. He stepped out of the door. The street was busy. Police flashers illuminated the evening in a revolving, strangely purple-ish haze.
Two guards stood outside the door. They were watching three cops harassing the dancing girls from upstairs. They were laughing. He walked up behind the two NSA guards, snapping a neck in each hand and disappearing into the night.
Three hours later, he was standing on the roof across the street from the downtown apartment Devi's company had supplied for him when he first 'moved' to Seattle. The apartment wasn't a big one or a fancy one like that Fogle Towers he had visited once for a party held by one of the companies VPs, but it was his home. It wasn't permanent and he had long ago accepted that. Now, though, he stood watching NSA agents, and Ames White, the short guy seriously lacking anything resembling a personality, currently held a pair of his underwear up with a pencil.
682 laughed. After all that had happened in the last few hours, he couldn't help laughing. He would miss those silk boxers. They had been a birthday gift from his secretary Cassidy on the day she believed to be his birthday. Even though he didn't know his birthday, it had been the ONLY time anyone had ever given him anything. They had meant a lot to him.
He turned and headed across the rooftop in the shadow of Fogle towers, jumping from one roof to another before going down to ground level and crossing the mostly deserted street away from his former residence. An Aztek screeched out of the underground parking garage below him heading directly toward his position. He hurried across the street, catching a glimpse of a man and a woman in the front seat of the blue on blue vehicle. They looked perfect together. A handsome man and a beautiful woman heading off to whatever adventure awaited them struck him suddenly and he suddenly felt a loss within himself.
It was as if something was missing in his life. Something he couldn't even begin to understand. He watched the Aztec run a red light and turn on a far corner heading away from his view. He checked his watch marking the slightly less than two hours to his contact.
Procedure in a compromise was simple. He was required to report in. It would be a one sided conversation and then he would be contacted within 72 hours and given orders. It was that simple. He would make his report in approximately two hours and then he'd have three days completely to himself.
When his phone rang, he was startled. He quickly turned the ringer off and ducked into the nearest alley, staring at the phone. It rang ten times before he answered it. It would be Manticore. It would be Sandoval.
"Report," Sandoval said when 682 answered.
"X5-682, AYE!" He said. "The mission was compromised. Eyes Only broadcast just seconds before the target received a phone call from an NSA agent named Ames White." He started his report, but Sandoval interrupted.
"Why did you not complete the mission?"
"The mission was compromised, Sir." The X5 said. "I was prepared to enter the office with the two men as soon as the women left. They were entertaining the men, but the hack interrupted them and within a minute security came through the door of the office. I had no choice. I would have been in the room and captured if Eyes Only hadn't made the hack. I fully intend to redeploy."
"You will await further instructions." Sandoval said. "Follow procedure to the letter and you will be contacted in 72 hours with instructions. Session is logged. Carry on. Sandoval out."
X5-682 slid to the ground against the wall behind him, pulling his knees up to his chest. It was a dark alley and he was a darker man. It was as good a time as any to catch some sleep, collect his thoughts and figure out how to proceed.
There were a lot of questions running through his mind and he let each of them drift away in their time until only a few remained.
How did Eyes Only know to warn him? Why did Sandoval break procedure and contact him? How did an NSA agent know about a Manticore assassin?
There was one question on his mind that he couldn't even begin to understand. Of all of the thoughts running through his mind this was the strangest and most difficult for him to accept. It didn't register that Eyes Only had warned the assassin and not the target. He didn't really care about that short guy. He had accepted a long time ago that Sandoval was a creepy, little man himself.
No. The big question on his mind, the one causing him the most trouble and making this whole situation hard for him to deal with was more confusing than anything he had ever endured.
What would Cassidy think of him when she found out that he was an assassin?