This is a side story to [Blinded], but can be read on its own. This is set after the first anime and the CD drama, but before Glühen. Farfarello and Nagi have both left Schwarz.
"HMIW" is an idea from a book which has now been banned from further publication under a court order. I'm simply using the idea, and I stress this: murder is a crime; I'm not encouraging anyone to do it.
Read and review, please?
HMIW
... the best professional partner you can have is a woman. But she has to be a full-time partner, and she has to have the following qualifications:
1. Good looks and a seductive attitude
2. Superior intelligence
3. No children or close family ties
4. Total dedication to you
5. A totally vicious nature towards "outsiders"
6. No conscience
7. The mental and physical capability of defending herself and pulling her own weight.
From such a woman, you can expect:
1. The ability to get almost any mark based on her good looks, seductiveness and willingness to go to any lengths to help you.
2. The intelligence to help you plan successful jobs and to provide you with continuously stimulating conversation and companionship.
3. Sex on a regular basis without danger of blowing your cover.
4. An unflinching back-up due to her emotional attachment to you.
... Assuming you have been fortunate enough to find your HMIW (Hit Man's Ideal Woman), you will, from time to time, require a partner to assist you on a particular job. The need may arise due to the mark's use of bodyguards or other defensive procedures, an inaccessibility that must be overcome through diversion, or even language barrier.
Whatever the reason, the partner you select will be a man you can trust and who can be depended on to cover your back. He will meet the same rigid requirements you have set for yourself and will not be lacking in basic common sense. He will be discreet and not a braggart. He will be self-assured to the point that you won't have to worry about his ego. He will be totally business-minded while doing business and will not be sidetracked by women or other pastimes. And when the job is going down, he willingly pumps one or two of his own bullets into the mark to ensure equal responsibility.
Whether male or female, you partner is equal to fifty-fifty compensation. Everything should be fifty-fifty. Equal pay for equal risk and equal responsibility. This is an insurance measure for both of you.
- "Hit Man: A Technical Manual for Independent Contractors", Rex Feral
I hate choices, decisions.
I like to have everything set for me, scheduled for me, so all I need to do is execute. Rape the minds, pull the trigger. Bang bang bang you're dead. Call me lazy if you want. Call me obedient. You can call me Brad's dog. I don't give a shit about what you think.
Sometimes I think I could be the perfect HMIW.
If I was born a woman, of course. Which, fortunately for me, and Brad, that I wasn't. Or maybe it's unfortunate. Who knows. If I tell him this, he'd be shocked at my way of thinking and lecture me on it. Not on my way of thinking, but on the kind of shit I read to know about HMIW. He despises those theories, writings. He despises everything. And everyone. And me.
Perhaps he hates me. He hates being stuck with me, a precog and a telepath trying to watch over each other's backs. Safety in numbers, or a target easier to locate, depends which way you look at it.
"You hate me, don't you."
I don't look up from what I'm doing as I throw the random comment at him. He knows I'm talking to him. There's only two of us now, who else can I be talking to.
Brad is cleaning his .9mm Ruger. He glances at me, puts it down, and walks over, watching me as I dry the fertiliser, soaked in denatured alcohol, on the frying pan.
"You represent my - our lack of freedom."
Because seeing each other reminds us there are several hundred people, psi's and non-psi's, hunting us down, hoping to get the $20million bounty on each of our heads.
It's nice to know I'm worth a hundred times what an ex-KGB normally get for a kill.
"I know. But you haven't answered my question."
"It sounded more like a comment than a question to me."
"You can always deny it."
Just a typical domestic scene. Cooking stuff on the hob, talking to him, it's like I'm making us dinner or something. Except if this goes wrong we'll be dead or at least lose some limbs.
I don't wait for Brad's reply. I take out the blender - thank god they have one here - and pour the mixture into it.
"I don't hate you."
"You really should go to another room. If this goes off - "
Brad presses "blitz" for me. "I said, I don't hate you." We watch the blades grind the granules into powder. "And if this goes off, if you lose your arms or legs or die, then there's no chance I'll live, anyway."
Oh, I feel important.
To my left is the nitromethane. And glass bottles for our C-4. In front of me, the blender. To my right, Brad.
"Suppose the electric scales in this kitchen are wrong." We took this house. We chose it for its remote location and we busted in and we killed everyone in it, piling the bodies in the study. We're staying here until we come up with the next plan. Or until the bodies start to stink. "The measurements are wrong and when I mix the stuff in these bottles they will blow. We'll be dead. Now tell me the truth before we die."
Brad looks amused. He always does when I try to ask him something.
"Don't give precogs hypothetical situations. It's stupid. And I thought I was blunt enough: I don't hate you."
"Oh fuck you." He knows what I'm asking, and he isn't telling me what I want to hear.
He isn't giving it to me. No promises, no nothing. Nothing on what will happen after we get out of this, if we get out of this. Nothing on what he wants to do, or what he'll do with me. He says he doesn't hate me, but he doesn't like me either. He doesn't like me enough to involve me in his plans for the future. Him and his fucking future.
And what do I do? After all these years we finally get out of it and we go separate ways and I know nothing except how to fry some minds and kill people using anything from a pencil to a pistol. I get to fucking choose how to live my fucking life - I did tell you I hate making choices. I hate the feeling when I just want a drink and I stand in front of the machine and they have like, twenty to choose from but I don't know what I want. I just know I want a goddamn drink. Have some water, that's always good for you. Maybe an energy drink, that'll keep you going. Juice has vitamin C. Choices choices. I can panic in front of a drinks machine. I don't feel a thing when I snap someone's neck but I panic in front of a drinks machine. Brad would know and he would walk over and choose something for me. He understands my problem. Do you know how difficult it is for someone to understand and not think I'm pathetic?
Now it's like, no Schuldich, you're not part of my future. You choose your own drink now.
Not hating me isn't good enough. Not for me.
"Schuldich, your hands are shaking."
I know, I know. "I'm not going to waste any of this nitromethane shit if that's what you're implying." That stuff is hard to find, and we haven't got enough of it.
Brad stands behind me and massages the back of my neck because he knows my head's hurting and his touch eases it. He fucking knows everything.
"Are you hearing things?"
I ignore him, trying to concentrate on pouring the mixture into the bottles. And then I stop. I'll just kill both of us if I continue.
"Schuldich."
I can't help leaning into his hand. He wins, he always wins. I'm never going to hear what I want to hear. "My head." Oh god it hurts. Oh god.
I feel him suppress his own powers oh so fucking gently, then he puts both his hands on my head, fingers running through my hair.
"Better?"
//I won't survive on my own.//
The hands pause, and they move again, fingers rubbing at my temples now.
//I can't live like that. I'm gonna die.//
"You won't get any more headaches if you don't live with me." Brad replies, despite knowing perfectly what I mean.
//Am I going to be the sacrificial lamb to your freedom? Just tell me, I don't mind. I just need to know.//
"I told you we're getting out of this together."
//And afterwards? Will you kill me afterwards?// Or are you going to let me live my own life now? I don't want my own life. Fuck the choices.
"That's -"
//Coz I'd do it, you know. I'd do anything.// For you. //I can be your HMIW. But you must make the decision for me. You must pull the trigger for me. It has to be you.//
"... When did you read that sort of crap, Schuldich?"
//It has to be you.//
He stops again. Hands slowly move from my head, back down to my neck. "No. I won't do that."
I hate you.
A hand moves over my shoulder, and fingers the scar near my collarbone from the time we were almost killed by another precog, years ago.
"I don't want your blood on my hands."
His hand is trembling.
I don't know how to digest this. He has killed so many, but he doesn't want my blood. He doesn't want to kill me. He would kill anyone, just not me. Shit. What a fucking romantic. Oh god. I don't need this now.
"But how about what I want?"
After all these years, can't you just do one thing for me?
"You don't know what you want. You never do."
"Oh fuck you." I spit the words out, feeling my body tensing up yet my knees starting to give. Brad pushes me out of the kitchen and makes me lie down on the sheepskin, by the unlit fireplace. "Crawford you sonovabitch, no one's ever taught you to put your toys away when you finish playing? You aren't taking me with you but you aren't finishing me off either. You're just going to fucking hang me out to dry. You don't even want to waste two precious bullets on me."
Shit my head hurts. My skull's going to crack.
I can feel Brad trying again, looking for that level, that frequency in his power, that will shut me up. I use my arm to cover my eyes as he does it. The light hurts me eyes and my head.
"I'll hire you to kill me, I'll pay you just like a normal deal." I tell him.
"You don't have 20million."
Oh, very funny.
"To answer your question, Schuldich, you aren't my toy, so I'm not putting you away." He's getting there, the pain's going down. I hear myself whimper. "You're going to lead a new life like Farfarello and Nagi. It's going to be a new beginning, not an end."
It's gone. Yes. I gesture for him to stop right here and he does, our powers no longer interfering to rip my brain into bits but now comforting, soothing to my mind. When he feels my forehead - like a parent looking after his kid, for god's sake - his hand is cool. My heartbeat slows down as calmness wash over me. He is using what little empathy he has on me.
"Shit." I think I've been rambling.
Brad moves around to my other side, lighting the fireplace. I take a moment to wonder how he does it so quickly, then realise it's gas-operated.
"Crawford, the smoke - "
"This house is remote enough. And if there are people in the house they would light this too."
Of course, just common sense. My mind still needs some time to recover.
I remember what we've been talking about. Something I'd rather not confront him with. But did I really...?
"What have I been talking about?"
"Something about toys, 20million, and being my HMIW."
So I did, really.
Brad gets up, takes his pistol and revolver and gives them to me. "Clean these for me, I'll finish the C-4."
"No, you do it."
I just want to watch him do it. There's something about him when he touches his guns that always makes me stare. After a moment, he sits down beside me to resume his work.
"I thought you want to be the HMIW." He sighs, at the sort of shit I read and at my laziness.
I laugh. "I don't want to be. I am."
"I do have reserve on you being one." He glances at me, smirking. "The 'superior intelligence' criteria."
Ouch, how nice of you. "I thought you'd be more worried about the 'sex on a regular basis' thing."
"That too."
For a while I just watch him do his work, face lit and slightly flushed from the warmth of the fireplace. My eyes begin to close. I always get damn tired after I get those headaches.
//It's going to be a new beginning, Schuldich.//
I summon just enough energy to lift my head slightly and look at him. He glances at me once, then his gaze falls back to the gun in his hands. But I know his attention is on me.
I smile, my eyes sliding close again.
//You are my ideal partner. You'll do as I say. You'll live on until I make the decision. Until I permit you to die.//
I hate choices, decisions.
//Ideal partner, hm?//
I like to have everything set for me, scheduled for me, so all I need to do is execute. Rape the minds, pull the trigger. Bang bang bang you're dead. Call me lazy if you want. Call me obedient. You can call me Brad's dog. I don't give a shit about what you think.
//You shall not die until I decide you should. Are we clear?//
I have a precog who will schedule everything for me. Even my death.
//Yes, Crawford.//
Sometimes, I really think, I am Brad's HMIW.
[end]