"Forgive me, Father. I have sinned."
47 waited for a reply. It hadn't been long since the last time he'd been in the Catholic church. The priest turned to face 47, and looked at the assassin intently.
"Son, you haven't a need to be here. You are a genetically engineered clone. You have no soul. You cannot be saved."
47 had heard this before. Every time he came to talk to his best friend, the high priest. Still, he could not help the feeling that he wasn't alone in the world, that there was inevitably a higher power, and that there was some chance he could make it in an afterlife.
"I killed 3 men last night, Seth." 47 felt more comfortable using the priest's first name. 47 looked deeply saddened and ashamed, as he usually did when he confessed.
The priest had always been able to sympathize with 47. Although mentoring the hitman was against his teachings and ethics, he had always been intrigued with 47's situations.
"This was at the drug bust in New York, right? I thought that was just a one man hit. It sounded routine to me…what went wrong?"
"Others came to visit. Like they knew it was coming, Seth. I could barely get him alone, and when I got the hit, they were on me so fast."
"You said that you killed 3 men. Were they the only ones that saw your face?"
"No. One man got away. I hunted at night, so it was much too dark to look around for too long. I couldn't find the survivor. I can't be sure if he saw my face or not."
The priest got suddenly nervous. "That could be some very bad news. The last thing you want is to have a bounty on your head in a mobster family."
47 frowned. He had already figured that part out. "The timing that night was completely wrong. They knew I was coming."
"How can that be?" The priest was shocked. "The agency is usually so good at timing the hits right. They had to know people were coming that night. What do you think the problem was?"
"Diana." 47 grimaced. Diana was the woman that he loved, but it could never work. She was human, and humans did not love clones. Diana worked for the agency, and briefed 47 before all his missions. "I suspect that the agency has undergone some…changes that I was not made aware of."
Seth stared in disbelief, understanding exactly what 47 was suspecting. "Don't jump to conclusions now, son. I doubt that an assassin agency has put up a bounty on their best hitman."
47 looked down, pondering the situation. "You can't trust everybody, Seth."
"Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. You may be right, son, but keep an open mind. Trust the agency until they give you reason not to."
47 smiled for the first time that day. He checked his watch, and stood up. "I'll be back tomorrow." He said, "I've got some business to do."
As 47 swiftly left, Seth examined 47's clothing. That was the most weapons he had ever seen in a church…
