LIBERO
I have two different names.
The first one is the lovely, lovely Svetlana. Perfectly fitting, from my (frankly, quite gorgeous) body to my (beautiful) crystal-clear blue eyes. It has roots in Russia and I couldn't love it more than I already do.
The second name is "Blondie".
Blondie. Blech. If there's anything that makes me scowl, it's that name. Unfortunately, all of the dirty low-ranking employees of the Agency call me that. I get called out to on the street as "Blondie", simply because I have blonde hair. Even Ciro jokes at me, telling me it was borne from my sheer loyalty to him.
I'm not "loyal", and I'm certainly not a "Blondie", either.
So my name is Svetlana. I'll scream it at people if I must. S-V-E-T-L-A-N-A. If it's too long for you to possibly pronounce (Heaven forbid you strain your vocal chords!), then you can call me Lana. Just don't do it overmuch.
Now, to my knowledge, blondes are slightly rare in this grotesque little boot camp I find myself imprisoned in. This does not give people justification to stop using my proper name. I'm not a "Blondie". I'm a Svetlana. A fabulous, talented Svetlana. If I were a "Blondie", I'd be a weak, mindless drone like the rest of them.
Today, I have a job to do. Jean threw enough hissy fits that Ciro caved and now we're to go out at approximately eleven PM and bust an illegal transaction of chemical bomb materials between some sort of gang or...something. I often don't catch a lot of what Signore Wanker says, but Ciro told me it's going to take place in the ghetto in some smelly alleyway where nobody will find you but a bunch of undercover government agents.
More importantly, accompanying us will be one of the other "Blondies" of the Agency, Triela.
She and her handler are going to kill the original receivers of the bomb stuff (probably going to drop their carcasses in a trashbin) and take their places undercover. I'll be in a tower or something with a sniper rifle in case it "gets out of hand".
Awesome. Great. This was arranged because the receivers are a dark-haired man and a blonde-haired woman. I could've fit the bill, but my hair isn't the right "shade" and I'm "too tall". Whatever. Let the real Blondie do it, I probably won't have to lift a finger.
So yeah. All day I've been waiting in my dorm. Waiting, waiting, paint my fingernails, practice guitar, waiting, read magazines, waiting, waiting... Petra actually suggested I clean the dorm, but then I told her to eat the heel of one of my stilettos and she sort of made this stupid face and left. Hahaha.
I strum my guitar and sing. Oh, what an enchanting melody that pours out of my vocal chords! I could be an opera singer, if I weren't bound to this horrible job.
The door opens.
It's like a shorter version of me, just with longer hair, smaller boobs, and it's wearing a men's suit. For half a second I think it's a tiny butler. Then I realize it's one of the girls who lives here. She's a bit cute, almost as if I had a little sister with some serious fashion dilemmas. She smiles and offers her hand in the manner of a true 'professional'. "Hello, I'm Triela."
Triela.
Whozat.
...oh, wait, that girl I'll be working with. Right.
"Svetlana, Lana for short," I recite. "What do you want?"
Taken slightly aback, this Triela says, "Oh, I just... I just wanted to get to know you a bit better."
"Good luck," I snort, running my fingers idly across my guitar strings as Triela just stands in place, looking around the room and trying to desperately find a talking point to cling on to. I could laugh.
"...You play guitar?" she asks, grinning. "That's unique. Most of the girls here play orchestral instruments."
"I don't really need to know how to play it, it's just something to do to pass the time," I reply. "This place is so boring."
"Is it really..."
"Yes, it is! All your kind do for fun is shoot at things. Sometimes I worry about Petra; I think she's becoming just like you. Always practicing, always going on missions, always improving herself to serve these people. I know it's something we have to do, but... Why do it? I want more out of life than a good score or a large kill count. I want the tastiest gelato, the most expensive clothes, and freedom. Freedom to do what I want, when I want, and how I want to." I pause for a moment. "But why the hell am I telling you this?"
Triela stares at me with her wide blue eyes for several minutes that I can't be bothered to count. She stutters.
"Forget it," I say, sitting up. "I shouldn't even be speaking with you, anyway. You're nothing but one of those mindless hunting dogs."
I stand and leave my guitar on the bed. As I walk over to my vanity table, the words start slowly tumbling out of Triela's mouth when I have my back turned. Pathetic.
"M...m...mindless hunting dogs?" she repeats. Her voice trembles with anger that's just begging to come out. Oh, what a pent-up little girl she is. I bet she plays friend like this all the time, not expecting Svetlana to turn the tables on her. What an idiot.
"Mindless hunting dogs, yes. I see you have some form of comprehension," I answer, fixing my blush in the mirror. "You obey your master, am I right or am I wrong?"
"He's not my 'master'," Triela bites out furiously, turning around to meet me. I look back at her with boredom.
"Then what is he?"
She falters. "He's...he's something. I-I don't know yet. But he isn't my master, I know that."
"I think, inside, you know it's the truth, but you don't want to admit it." I sigh melodramatically and smooth out my curls. "I almost, almost feel sorry for you. You have it so bad that you have to be in denial."
"I'm not in denial," Triela replies.
"You're clearly in denial about being in denial."
She opens her mouth to respond but I hold a finger up, silencing her as I add, "And, let me guess, you're about to deny that you are in denial about being in denial."
"I wasn't."
"Oh, dear, just leave already," I tell her. "You're best suited to the shooting fields. A target is your best friend."
"Fine!" she huffs, turns, and leaves.
&&
It's creepy to go from the comfort of ones own Ferrari to a bleak, unoccupied rooftop and stare at two freaks in black coats through a scope. That's exactly what the hell happened to me, and that's exactly what the hell I'm doing right now.
Ciro sits on the ledge, swinging his legs in the air like a damn five year old. Must be nice, to not have to squat on the jagged pavement, waiting on tenterhooks in case shit gets out of hand. He breathes in the fresh, humid nighttime air and grins at me like some kind of fool on drugs.
"I know this sucks for you," he whispers, still beaming like the morning sun, and I could swear he's mocking me in some manner, "but it'll be all over soon. Here come Hilshire and Triela, look."
I turn my head and peer through the sights. Sure enough, that Blondie and her boring handler are coming down the sidewalk, right towards those freaky dudes in black. One of them reaches into their coat. I'm not even tempted to warn her.
The man relaxes and removes his hand. Farmer on the Hillshire (hahaha, look at me, I'm so funny) and Blondie shake the hands of the two guys I'm meant to cap tonight. Or maybe not. I'm not even sure why I can't just shoot the duo and be on with my life. Ciro said something about they're going to try and "get some answers" out of these two pricks. Probably about some kind of...important crap.
Well, now I really know why we couldn't have gone undercover. I'm shit-poor at interrogation. Whatever, I compensate for it with everything else.
Besides, what's one skill compared to like...twenty?
Something warm comes in from behind me. I look through the corner of my eye.
Ciro.
"Er, uh..."
"Shhh," he whispers softly. "I just wanna see what they're doing."
"You could've, you know, asked me to get up and move," I hiss, feeling my cheeks burn. I can still see Triela's mop of blonde hair, but distracting as it is it can't take my mind off the fact that â HANDS.
"You're cold," Ciro murmurs, assessing the temperature of my arms. He stands up, leaving me bewildered on the ground.
I would slap him.
I struggle to get back to my kneeling position in front of the sniper rifle as Ciro turns to the ledge again, watching the transaction quietly.
Several minutes pass. Or at least, I think it's several. Neither of us dares to speak. I watch as Blondie down there chats up one of the idiots.
Suddenly, she puts a handgun to his head, wrestling him firmly around the neck as if she were holding him hostage. Hilshire points his own pistol to the other guy's head and yells for him to "put his hands up" or whatever. Some cop jargon. The guy complies.
"They seem to be handling this fine," I mutter, yawning. "I don't even know why we..."
Gunshots and a shriek.
I instantly grasp the sniper rifle and search around. I see a body crumpled on the ground and, unsurprisingly, it's Hilshire's. Triela must have fired her pistol off in surprise, because the man she was holding hostage is dead on the ground with a pool of blood around his head that's spreading rapidly. She rushes to Hilshire's side.
"Lana, shoot the other man," Ciro commands.
"I can't find him."
He leans over the side of the building. "He's running this way. Svetlana, go down there, quickly!"
My body leaps to action instantly. I grab my submachine gun off the ground and race to the ledge, following the man with my weapon's barrel. I fire, but my shots only manage to trail him.
"Don't be an idiot â jump down after him!"
Mount the ledge, hit the ground hard, jump up, give chase, shoot. I could never control semiautomatics very well and my bullets just go everywhere.
The man leads me through the deserted ghetto. Eventually, I speed up and grasp ahold of his lapel, hoisting him up in the air.
He snickers. "Run, Blondie, run," he taunts at me, reaching into his coat and pulling out his own weapon.
...you asshole.
"I'm not a 'Blondie'," I murmur, holding my gun to his ear. He does the same, and the presence of cool steel feels oddly soothing.
"If you shoot, I'll shoot," he says.
"Try it. I won't even shoot you afterward."
"Yeah, 'cause you'll be dead!"
"If you really think so..." I lower my weapon. "Go ahead."
Having no other choice, he squeezes the trigger.
I can feel it, certainly, but it doesn't hurt. It never hurts. I just stand there, blood pouring out of my skull, as the man is flabbergasted.
"Wh...what the hell is this?" he blurts out.
"Magic," I spit back, pointing the Beretta PM-12S back against his head.
He laughs nervously at the close proximity he is to death, and says, "Well, at least the last thing I'll get to see before I die is a hot chick. You're pretty good-looking, for a Blondie."
I pull him closer.
"I swear to god, if you call me Blondie one more time, I will purposefully see to it that your head gets smashed into a brick wall and your body so mangled it's unidentifiable. I am not a Blondie. Understood?"
"If you say so, Blondielocks," he snorts. "See, I didn't call you Blondie that tâ"
Blood.
Smoke in my eyes as he falls. My hands and front are dappled with red spots.
"Asshole." I unload a few rounds into his face, permanently destroying any possibility of the forensics from figuring out who this unlucky son of a bitch was, and roll his carcass into some nearby bushes.
&&
By the time I get back to our building, it's well-past two o'clock. Hilshire is gone, and so is Triela. The sniper rifle is packed away in Ciro's Ferrari.
He looks at me.
I look at him.
"You look like a mess."
"Tell me about it."
"Did you kill him?"
"Yeah."
"Alright, good. Jean's probably gonna chew our ass out for letting Hilshire get hurt, though." I can detect a bit of irritation in his voice.
"Why? It wasn't our fault, it was Triela's." I stow my SMG as Ciro leans against his car.
"We'll get blamed either way. Sometimes I want to quit, but I gotta tell you..." He opens the driver's side door. "The pay is really good." He closes it.
"Did you ever buy that watch you wanted?" I climb in the other seat.
"Yep." He pulls up his sleeve a little and shows it off to me.
"Nice."
We're quiet for several minutes.
"So, what was all that about earlier, with the hugging and the colds arms and such?"
"There are some things you just don't talk about after the fact. That's one of them."
"...Oh."