Chapter 1: Deliverance
The Atlas cityscape rises far into the night sky, its lights of life visible to any ship passing by. The government's war on individuality just a few decades earlier speaks nothing of its citizens now; Atlas citizens have put their intelligence towards beautiful and massive forms of expression. The skyscrapers are their thrones, the neon "Welcome!" signs their paintings, and the nightclubs show that they, at least to some extent, are like everyone else.
This is at least the case if you live in the richer areas of the kingdom. The division in wealthy and poor is like a fault line. Right beside one of the wealthiest areas in Atlas, the Skyview Hills, is a ghost town, to which a name exists but none remember. Skyview Gardens is a restaurant on the edge of Skyview Hills. Although its food is excellent, it has the misfortune of a terrible view after people abandoned the nearby area. From Skyview Gardens, you can see that the ghost town may not be a ghost town yet: One factory complex, walled on all four sides, contains a well-lit trailer in which four men are just beginning a match of medium-stakes poker. A good two kilometres away from the factory complex, yet still in the ghost town, is an abandoned apartment building. In the top floor of this building are two men, lying down and clothed in black cloaks.
One of whom holds a massive bolt action rifle.
Flint, the man with the rifle, glances at his partner, Gecko. Flint asks, "Have you finished setup?"
Gecko gives a small nod. By their sides is an array of equipment deemed necessary for their work. A compact machine labelled with steel letters as the "Bullet Compositor" has three sliders colour coded as blue, red, and yellow. Each slider links directly and neatly to an appropriately coloured tube, each tube bearing a snowflake insignia. The entire contraption culminates in a bullet-shaped mould. Fortunately for the men in the poker game, the Bullet Compositor is currently offline. The Bullet Compositor lies outside a large case, a case also meant for the folding components of the Deliverance rifle. A few gadgets have been taken out of the case as well, namely an anemometer and a rangefinder, both of which are in Gecko's hands. The last thing of note is the Atlas government's seal on the case, although the seal has been scratched out.
Directly in front of the two men is a photo. A full-length portrait of a man with not a single detail missed: The shadows in the creases of his hazel eyes, the slightest inconsistencies on his grey hairline, the scratches on the backs of his leather gloves, the slight weight bias on his left combat boot, the wear on his robe, and the hybrid gun-sword on his back. They are all there. The photo contains a caption which states, "Huntsman suspected of smuggling weapons from Mistral. Likes to play poker on Saturday nights in a factory hideout near Skyview Gardens." Beside the photo is a match.
Through their earpieces, Flint and Gecko hear another one of their partners—Storm—say, "If you guys are about to 'party,' Maverick and I are gonna pay the bill." Storm and Maverick, the last two members of the team, are just about done their stay at Skyview Gardens. The teammates communicate through miniature radios on their collars. Flint, the sniper, and Gecko, the spotter, could definitely handle the assassination on their own, but where there's gun smuggling there's guns, and guns are money. Storm's idea. Maverick goes along with the team because this Saturday night just happens to be free for him.
Gecko says, "As long as you don't get in the way. You might be waiting for a while, though, because I just heard from command that we may have a complication." Gecko pauses, as if asking Flint to interject, but Flint does no such thing. Gecko continues, "One of the men he is playing with is an undercover agent. The police refuse to tell us which one it is, but if we kill him by accident we're finished."
Flint says, "So?"
"It means I can't just give you a 90% flame dust round and have you blow up the entire trailer, because the undercover agent will die."
"Not an issue. We can go for a bit more ice dust than usual, and pierce the target rather than blow him up."
"That's the problem. Command suffers from an ice dust shortage, so we have to go for a flame dust shot."
Flint zooms his scope, looking so far into the trailer that it seems like he's actually there. The poker game is one with chips, and the four men have roughly equal stacks. Flint says, "If we get the target by himself, we can just blow him up with a flame round. It's also possible that if the undercover agent leaves the trailer, we can blow up all of the men anyway. I assume there's no problem if we kill everyone besides the undercover agent?"
Gecko says, "Positive, although I doubt we can figure out who the undercover agent is."
Flint looks around some more. Two of the four men have handguns, one of them a magnum and the other much more reasonably sized. Looking at the remaining two men, Flint says hurriedly, "Hold on a second! Does the target have a twin or something?" Gecko looks at Flint with confusion before looking at the trailer through his binoculars. "Yeah," Flint continues, "great luck for us, the target has an identically dressed twin. I'm not sure we could ever figure out which one of them is the real guy. Screw getting the target alone. And killing both twins without nailing the undercover agent is too difficult."
"That's ridiculous. Should we call it off?"
"No, we just have to figure out who the undercover agent is."
They wait in silence for about half an hour, staring at the men. The poker chips are still distributed roughly equally. The silence breaks when Storm says, "I'm in the alleyway behind them. You guys planning on shooting or what?"
Although quiet, they could hear Maverick mutter, "Idiot." However, mutters are still louder than silence, so it blares into their ears. "By the way," he says, "I'm going to go home. Bye." Maverick disconnects from them.
Storm says, "Ah, the joy of the party."
With that, silence returns. In the meanwhile, Gecko turns on the Bullet Compositor. He switches the blue slider to 10%, the red slider to 40%, and the yellow slider to 50%. Gecko inserts a metal casing into the bullet mould, and a very faint whir emanates from the Bullet Compositor. The mould fills up steadily, until finally the bullet takes complete shape in front of the bullet case: An icy tip, a glowing red body, a yellow of faint electric current, and a metallic rear filled to the brim with initial propellant.
Gecko gives the cartridge to Flint and says, "10% ice should protect the flame dust from combusting mid-air. 40% flame is enough payload to blow up that trailer. 50% lightning should maintain enough velocity to eliminate all bullet drop at 2 kilometres."
The Deliverance rifle, as a breech loader, could have the cartridge loaded directly in. However, subsequent shots are out of the question; Gecko does not even bother making a second round for Flint. Flint loads the bullet and says, "At this rate, Storm will have to sit in the alley until sunrise."
Gecko says, "Too bad we can't clearly see the wear on the target's clothing. We could identify him based on that."
Flint says, "Now that you mention it, the undercover agent might have something that only a cop would. Any ideas?"
"The undercover agent can't possibly be a huntsman graduate. No graduate ever joins the police force."
"Well, the target and his twin are both huntsmen, telling by their identical longswords. The other two both have pistols, which are standard issue in the police force. Doesn't tell us anything."
"Yeah, they both have handguns. Wait, your scope is better than my binoculars. Can you see any differences?"
Flint pauses for a moment and answers, "One of them is bigger than the other."
Gecko lets out a grunt and says, "Could have told me earlier, Flint. Dust magnums are currently class 3 prohibited weapons, because they can detonate like bombs. No undercover agent would ever carry one. They could get away with holding a small caliber pistol, but the higher-ups would never allow an agent to carry a class 3 weapon."
"Looks like I need to look up weapons laws."
"No, you just need to look up something other than shooting people."
Their plan is now clear: Wait until the undercover agent leaves the trailer, and then light the remaining three men up. Just another hour later, the opportunity presents itself.
Flint says, "He's out of the trailer. Find out the wind speed."
The undercover agent has just gotten out of the trailer, cigarette in hand. He walks a short distance away before trying to light it, but fortunately he struggles with his lighter.
"Damn it, damn it." Gecko mutters as he scrambles to determine the wind direction and speed using his anemometer. The agent manages to light the cigarette and puffs out a cloud of smoke.
Another twenty seconds, tops.
Gecko says, "Fifteen kilometres an hour towards 300 degrees. Adjust your scope counterclockwise by 3.3."
Ten seconds left. The agent seems nearly satisfied, a good smoke to round out the midpoint of an intense poker night. Flint hurriedly adjusts his scope by half, one, one and a half degrees. The agent, content with smoking half of the cigarette, strolls back towards the trailer. Flint has fully adjusted his scope. He aims into the centre of the poker table and places his finger on the trigger of Deliverance.
Imagine, as a young boy, hearing of all of the amazing things huntsmen have done for Atlas. As an athletic child with a sense of justice, you would know your life's path.
Imagine, upon reaching your second year, that your kind wasn't welcome anymore; Dedicated snipers have no chivalry or honour, they say. You aren't wanted at the academy anymore.
Imagine, as you join the Atlas military, that you have finally found your place. A team of four. Aiding Mistral in secret, Atlas military eliminates barbarians in the Mistral wilderness. Unfortunately, huntsmen are taking over your role now, and individual soldiers are now nothing more than cannon fodder.
Being accepted into secret service? Now, that's a godsend. The military may be losing its honour. The huntsmen may become the new national pride. Shooting national threats, civilian or huntsman, is a prideless undertaking, but in the end...
"...I'm the one who gets to kill you."
Flint squeezes the trigger. The Deliverance sucks up the atmosphere in a joyous wind. With a high-pitched pulse, the dust propellant explodes, releasing the pressurized air back into the surroundings, and launches the bullet through the air. The yellow streak bolts towards the trailer, a faint blue dust also in the mix. The wind slightly curves the bullet's path, giving the yellow streak the appearance of a crescent moon.
Crack! The bullet keeps going, just another short distance to go. There is a small amount of ice dust left, barely enough to protect the bullet as it smashes through the trailer window. There is naught left but a 20 gram rod of flame dust as the bullet strikes the full house, the undercover agent just a few steps away from the entrance of the trailer.
Not a moment after the impact do Flint and Gecko scurry to pack up their equipment. The conclusion is obvious without even looking: The trailer incinerated, three men dead. However, secret service doesn't protect you if you get caught by the police force, owing to political stink, so their own lives are at stake. Flint folds the stock, folds the barrel, and detaches the scope. Gecko lights the match and burns the photo. Gecko shuts off the Bullet Compositor, stows it away into the case as Flint stows the folded Deliverance as well. The pair also shove their cloaks into the case, with only casual clothes left on their bodies. With that, all they have to do is flee into the night.
Meanwhile, Storm says, "By the way guys, I got bored, so I'm hanging out with Mav. See ya."
All in a night's work. However, as Flint and Gecko flee the scene, Gecko receives a phone call from a private caller. He answers it as they run.
"So you guys finally leaving? We just compensated you for the stuff you bought, y'know. Anyway, if you four boys watched the news, you would know all about the serial killer on the loose. Meet me tomorrow noon at my office. See you later!"
Their work is never done.