"47…" The words lingered in 47's mind, tinny and far away. The voice was almost teasing, like how you enticed a dog. "47, where have you gone off to now?" The voice came back again, clearer, but it evoked an emotion rarely felt by 47.
Fear.
He had just then realized that he could see, his vison cleared progressively, and he straightened his neck. "Good, I know this pain bothers you, but keeping awake, feeling it in your very essence will make you stronger." 47 saw his face, recognized it immediately and his fear grew. An uncomfortable dread rose in his chest and throat, he wiggled slightly, but didn't dare attempt escape.
Dr. Ortmeyer. Father to him and the other clones. He was overseeing an injection. 47 didn't know what was in those massive syringes, but it was green, and intensely painful. That's why he had opted to pass out instead of endure. What was pain? Strengthening? Hardly. Pain, useless pain. He wished he could shut it off, flip a switch and feel nothing. But he couldn't and this was real and happening and he couldn't do anything about it.
47 felt a numbness in his limbs as conscious feeling returned to them, and then the numbing slowly waned into pain. Throbbing at the points of insertion, stabbing everywhere else. He scowled, clenched his jaw and glanced hatefully at under it all. He eyed a separate syringe as removed it from his arm, obviously it was some type of stimulant to keep him awake.
47 then began to prepare himself, he barely heard Ortmeyer request the "second" injection, but hadn't need to. He knew what came next, the red syringe. The first time he felt it, it was like the first one multiplied by ten. The stabbing and throbbing becomes more intense and a new searing pain would soar through his veins. If he didn't pass out willingly, this was usually where it happened regardless. However, this new stimulant made him feel awake, almost energetic which only amplified his current pain. He was going to feel it all and he knew it.
The doctor next to Ortmeyer came forward, Red syringe in hand. He knelt down, wiped 47's arm, and rested his arm with the syringe on one of 47's restraints. He pushed the needle into 47's arm, which he barely felt. It wasn't the needle that hurt, it was the actual liquid itself. 47's breath became erratic as he eyed the needle. He had been told that looking away helped, but how could he? A moment passed, 47 looked at Ortmeyer, then the doctor, then ortmeyer again.
"Do it."
47 then eyed his arm again, and then the doctor, who for a moment looked back before he pressed in the plunger. 47 instantly felt it, his head shot back and he cried out, loud as he could, like he was subconsciously trying to drown out his pain by deafening himself. Then he woke up.
His eyes shot open, his back and neck twitched him slightly up, and sweat drenched his body and bed, but the highest trained assassin in the world almost immediately settled back realizing he was dreaming.
47 recollected his composure, straightened his back and stood from his bed. 47 walked to an adjacent room and looked for his sun hole. A light shined through at a near 45 degree angle, telling him It was early morning.
He moved back to where his bed was, collected the shorts and shirt he had set out last night, and went out.
He had been staying in an abandoned warehouse a little ways from an American city. Not nearly as decrepit as some of the places he had stayed, but he didn't care. 47 didn't care about much. He just did. Perhaps he had some semblance of a conscious as he never went out of his way to kill people for no reason. Only those in the way felt his wrath, and it was merciless.
Or perhaps it was that he wanted only to keep his record as perfect and clean as he could with the ICA. 100% target efficiency. Every person ever put on a kill order and put in front of 47 had died. That was his purpose, his calling. But even he made mistakes, sometimes he didn't account for a variable or missed a shot, or had no way of preventing something, so he had to improvise.
That was another one of 47's trademarks, improvising. Sure, any half-wit can pull a trigger or sneak about, but it takes a true assassin who can get themselves out of a bad situation. Thinking again about what he cared about on his run, 47 thought about something else he truly enjoyed, which was the spicy cool feeling he got when he drank liquor. Whisky, vodka, whatever. It all made him feel good. But he was smart, and knew to rarely indulge himself in such things. His last drink was nearly four months ago.
Brandy, aged five years. Nearly half a bottle and he knew the rest would need to be thrown out. 47 stopped reminiscing as he got closer to a gas station on the sidewalk. He checked his wrist-pacer. It recorded he had gone 4 miles in nearly 28 minutes. His mouth moved to make a scowl, almost a full half second before he returned it forcibly to his normal expressionless state. He felt that he could've gone faster had he payed attention.
It was of no matter, next time. He moved slowly a moment, feeling his lungs burn as his breathing normalized and waited till he could eventually breathe through his nose again. Strong, full inhales and exhales. He was drenched in sweat, nearly his entire white shirt was slightly darkened by it. When he decided he had waited outside long enough, and headed inside the gas station.
He was immediately met by the gazes of 4 other patrons, including the store clerk. But they quickly returned to what they were doing. 47 subconsciously made a note of their appearances, as well as the layout of the store from his most immediate vision. It wasn't intentional, he didn't feel threatened but by now it was just a natural reaction to new environments.
47 was there for one thing, food, and he wasn't about to head back to his hideout only to drive back into town, so he had to settle for whatever was here. He grabbed a bag, threw in as much "Just add water" and nutrition bars as he could, and moved to the back of the checkout line. Patiently, he moved forward with the rest of them until it was his turn.
Just as he dumped the items on the counter for the clerk to scan, two more patrons entered. The clerk's entire body moved, and 47 assumed the same of the others already in the store, but he only eyed at them, just over a second and returned his gaze to the clerk. The two were men, one white, the other Latino. Very urban and inner city looking.
The clerk then returned to scanning 47's items. But as he got close to finishing, 47 heard a squeaky voice behind him say, "Look mom! can we buy him?" and the store clerk half-scoffed, half-laughed.
47's head turned so he could see the child and mother in his peripheral, but the rest of his body remained solid like a statue. The mother said to the child, "shush! Leave the man alone." Then looked to 47 and said, "I'm so sorry sir." And awkwardly smiled at him.
47 looked forward again. The clerk had finished ringing him up and gave him his total.
"That'll be 39.68 sir." But 47 rose a finger in front of himself, looked off to the side and grabbed another item. He looked for a few seconds, decided what he liked and returned to the counter, placing a blue baseball cap labeled "Lakers" on the counter.
The clerk scanned it and gave him his new total. "45.13 please." And 47 retrieved his wallet. He only had Hundred's Because he preferred fewer bills. One of the patrons, the white one man whom had recently entered, glanced at 47 for a moment then continued shopping. 47 saw it, he basically saw everything, and he tensed though not visibly.
47 payed the clerk, collected his change and put on the cap backwards before leaving. He had come in, grabbed a bag full of items and left without saying a word, as was usual even on missions. He barely spoke at all or to anyone. Only Diana Burnwood, his ICA handler had ever received the pleasure of having a prolonged conversation with him, and even then…
47 made his way back down the sidewalk towards his hideout. He walked back to his hideout, running would be awkward with the bag of food anyway. He had gone nearly a mile, without a single car going by. Then, a white 80's sedan passed him, went barely a quarter-mile before U-turning and heading back up the road towards 47.
47 got a feeling, a bad feeling. He went forward as though everything was normal until the car got closer and closer, and he could confirm his suspicions. It was the white man with the Latino man driving. They came up most of the road normally, but turned sharply and nearly crashed into 47, driving up and over the sidewalk.
47 had to jump out of the way and drop all of his food to avoid being hit. A quick glance in direction of town told him that no one had seen it, and likely no one would see these two thugs kill him. If he had been any other man, of course, they would probably get away with killing him, but since he was who he was, he would be getting away with killing them.
47 jumped to his feet and prepared for anything as the two stormed out of the old car. The Latino pulled a gun from his pants, and the white one, a knuckleduster. The Latino one began, "Alright muscles, you best pull out them dollars quick or we'll take em' off yo corpse." 47 put his arms at his sides, made himself un-threatening, and spoke in a calm, cool voice.
"No one has seen you, no one will nor will I report this to the police if you turn back now."
"Yeah right Barcode, you ain't escaping this, jus' let it happen."
And that was it, all the reason he needed to bury these two. They had recorded a key identifying feature of him and that was absolutely un-acceptable. 47 looked back towards the city. No one was in eye distance, nor was there any cars on the road. All clear.
"yo puta, you in fucking space or what? Break out the scratch."
47 only returned the man's gaze.
"yo, you fucking deaf?"
The Latino got closer as he got more and more frustrated.
"Oh, I see, you be eye ballin' me, is that it?"
47 prepared himself, the Latino was only a few feet away now and getting closer.
"Well I got something to tell you motherfucker," The Latino cocked the gun's hammer.
"This here's a fucking gun, and-"
47's hand shot up with lightning speed and his right foot stepped in to balance. He grabbed the gun barrel with one arm and swiftly slapped the man's hand with his free arm, releasing the gun from his grip.
The white thug had just begun to throw a punch by then, so 47 had no time to change the handgun's position so he could fire it. He ducked under the forward punch and tossed the gun as far as he could in a split-second, shot up and wrapped his right arm around the thug's right arm. Then he placed his left forearm on the man's back at the shoulder-joint, and positioned himself behind the man.
47 then placed his left leg behind the man and pushed in on his knee, bringing him to a kneeling position. Then, finally, he used his left arm to break the man's right, and kicked him over to reduce the threat. By then, the Latino had come to his friend's side and had punched at 47. 47 saw it, but knew he didn't have enough time to avoid it, so he instead, dipped his chin low to his chest, brought up his arm to cushion and tried to lean back as far as he could.
It connected, he reeled back a step, then pushed the man back before he could get off a second punch. The Latino thug then brought his hands up, threw a few punches, mostly misses, and was met with unstoppable flurries by 47, but it wasn't quite enough. As the two shifted positions as the fight progressed, 47 noticed the white thug was on his feet, trying to pick up the gun with his left hand.
47 ran over and kicked the white thug in the head, retrieved the pistol and pointed it at the fast-approaching Latino thug who stopped dead when he saw the semi auto Glock pointed at him from a kneeled firing position.
The Thug raised his hands, opened his mouth and stuttered before saying, "Listen this was a misunderstanin' man, we'll go man, no cops, okay?" 47 stood and approached the man, but kept his distance.
"o-okay man? Oka-" the Latino ran the opposite direction. 47 swiftly pursued, flipping the Glock around so the mag was upwards, and the barrel pointed towards his elbow.
Despite having a three second lead on 47, the Latino wasn't nearly as fast. 47 jumped on the man, then swiftly brought the Glock down on his head, using it to batter him unconscious.
He then put the Glock in the back of his shorts before dragging the man back to the car, which was still running, and placed him in the trunk. He found the white thug only a little way up the sidewalk. He had been having difficulties getting away after being so beaten.
47 walked swiftly to the man, who after looking back to see him approaching tried to break into a run, but simply toppled over himself. 47 grabbed the man's legs and dragged him to the car.
"No!" the man exclaimed and tried to reach out and grab something, anything to slow himself. He couldn't get anything.
47 brought the man to the back of the car and put him in the trunk, receiving slaps and pushes as he did. Then 47 stood at the back, putting his hands on the top of the trunk, just about to slam it down when the white man sat up and swung his leg out.
47 pushed him back in.
"No!" the man tried to escape again. Expressionlessly, and with one hand, 47 proceeded to push the man back every time he tried to escape.
"No!" 47 pushed the man back.
"NO!" 47 pushed him back again with one hand
"C'mon man, you can't kill me!" the man cried desperately and looked up at 47's cold, emotionless eyes.
47 stood there a moment as the man had stopped moving but his leg was still in the way. Then he pulled out the Glock and pointed it at the man. He groaned, looked worried as ever, but willingly brought his leg into the car.
47 shut the trunk and gave a quick look over the scene to make sure he hadn't left anything to chance. Aside from a small amount of blood on the sidewalk, there would be no evidence it had ever occurred. 47 retrieved his groceries then began down the road in the thug's car.
Only another mile down and he could hear loud banging coming from the trunk. Obviously, it was the more conscious of the two. He checked his mirrors for cars, then immediately pulled off the road, got out of the car and opened the trunk.
The white man hobbled out, screaming "HELP!" 47 had decided that was enough, he grabbed the man from behind and threw him in the back, grunting from the exertion of force. This time, he retrieved the Glock, turned it the way it had been with the Latino and beat the thug unconscious.
He got back into the car and drove the rest of the way without interruption.
