Chapter 3

"You did very well Richard."

The grainy, distorted voice of Nemesis always caused Richard to grow a little uneasy. It wasn't the sound, but just the fact that he had absolutely no idea who he was really talking to. Richard didn't like the fact that he knew even less about this strange man? now than what he thought he knew before he even began corresponding with him.

"Thanks, but I'll be honest, I didn't kill Toad. I got lucky I guess."

"I know Richard, but I hired you to take care of him, and before you left, Toad was dead. Whether you were directly responsible or not doesn't matter, it was a successful hit."

"Well thanks."

It also bothered Richard to talk over the phone so openly because he always assumed his line was tapped, if not by the officials, then by someone who'd be happy to turn him over to the officials. But during his first conversation with Nemesis, Richard was assured that any conversation he had with Nemesis was completely secure. It was actually the only aspect of Nemesis's operation that was explained to Richard. It happens that when the line of communication was open, the conversation was actually secured in a signal that would show up as nothing more than distortion, and a program on Nemesis's end would have a 'conversation' with itself using Richard's voice, altered to be talking about normal worldly matters with different persons, chosen by Nemesis before calling. Apparently, Richard was busy planning an upcoming date with a girl named Naomi Cals.

"I do not like to waste your time, so let us get to the real matter of this call."

"I'd appreciate that. But I have to say that I'm surprised at how quickly you got ahold of me for another mark."

"I surprised myself Richard. But when trying to choose who I would have conduct this mission, I had to be very careful. I expect this will be the toughest mission I have put out yet so I needed the very best person I knew. Don't let it go to your head Richard, but you are the absolute best, and I have every faith that you can successfully pull off this target."

Richard felt a little giddy from the compliment.

"Who is my next target?"

Nemesis told him, and Richard's exhaltation was quickly replaced with a sinking feeling of dispair.

"You have to be kidding! How am I supposed to kill him?"

"Don't fret Richard. Get ahold of the supplier for the necessary equipment. You have six months to complete this mission. I have just sent you another Email containing the known details about the location of the Mark. I expect you will need to get ahold of some of your contacts to find out some necessary information, but this is all well within your power. I am ready to send you a sum of ten million American dollars. Would you like it in one of you're existing bank accounts? Or do you need to set up another one?"

Richard was a little stunned and caught only half of what was just said after he heard the number 'ten million'. That is the largest sum he has ever heard of anyone getting paid for a single hit. He quickly got himself back to the conversation because he didn't want to irritate Nemesis at this point (as if he ever wanted to irritate Nemesis).

"Don't worry about it, just today I set up another twenty overseas accounts. I'll send you the information right now."

Richard turned to his computer and opened up an Email and quickly wrote in the bank account information and clicked 'send'.

"I just sent an Email to you."

"Thank you Richard, you will have the money within the hour. I expect you will conduct this mission quite professionally and I look forward to hearing of your success."

"Have a good night."

"You too Richard."

The line clicked off and Richard fell into his chair sighing. He had absolutely no idea how he was going to pull this one off. Oh well, there is a solution for everything isn't there? It just takes time, and although this isn't the largest window of opportunity Richard's been given, it's still a hell of a lot of time. I has to be enough time, since although Nemesis doesn't give easy missions, so far as Richard could tell, they were reasonable requests, relatively speaking. Richard decided to sleep on it and start worrying tomorrow. Even still, such a publicly known target was a huge risk. Richard had never participated in a political assassination before, and this wasn't a political assassination, but the target was so well known it might turn out to have big political ramifications. That fact made this target a very uncomfortable target for Richard to pursue.

Richard got undressed and climbed into bed. He didn't bother to eat, he had lost his appetite from his conversation with Nemesis. It surprised Richard that the world had progressed so far that such mutants were now viable targets. Richard didn't fear much in the way of public outrage, there was still to much fear and prejudice towards mutants that the general, unspoken concensus among people would be "One less to worry about.".
Richard closed his eyes and despite how much he tried to comfort his own mind and tell himself it was possible, he just couldn't seem to wrap his mind over the target himself.

It was Eric Lensherr, Magneto.

To be continued....

I hope you enjoyed reading it, and whether or not the rest of the story makes it on here will depend on the reaction of you, the reading public. I implore you to be honest so that the story will indeed improve with each new posting. Please know that I already know the rest of the story so although your welcome to make plot suggestions, it's unlikely they will be incorporated, but I am interested in the actual writing skill, plot holes, badly written paragraphes, or particularly well written portions. I look forward to hearing from you and feel free to Email me your hate-mail for this blasphemous perversion of the X Men universe. *smiles* Have fun, and I'll look forward to getting back togethor with you in my next installment.