The boy sat, knees curled up to his chest, and watched Odin put together a long gun Odin called a rifle. An assassin's rifle. He looked around at the apartment. A lumpy mattress was up against the cracked wall. On the other side of the room, a small, dirty, refrigerator sat next to a sink that spit out brown water. Next to the door were two suitcases. One for the rifle, the other containing what few things they had. Another apartment. Another job. It was the way life had always been.
Odin pointed the rifle at him, hugged it to his shoulder, sighted and pulled the trigger. There was nothing but a soft click. The boy stared into the mouth of the gun and wondered why he wasn't afraid. Others were afraid, but there was no fear in him. Sometimes it felt there was nothing in him at all.
"Someday I'm going to make you flinch, kid," Odin said, lowering the rifle. The boy shrugged and turned his gaze out the dirty window. An Earth city rose into the air, glass shining like stars in the afternoon sun. He watched out of the corner of his eye as Odin brought the smaller suitcase over and began to take apart the rifle. The man was working carefully, gently, as if one wrong touch would break it.
"Oh yeah. Happy anniversary, kid," Odin said. The boy turned his head to look the man full in the face.
"Anniversary?"
"Yeah. It's been a year since I found you. I'm guessing
you're probably five now so it really should be happy birthday shouldn't it?"
"Hn," the boy said, turning his
gaze back to the window. Birthdays… A part of him remembered how much fun they
used to be. Used to be…but they wouldn't be now.
"I still remember that day. Do you?"
"Not really."
"Wouldn't think so." Odin put the last remaining pieces of the gun and snapped the suitcase shut. Then the man disappeared from his eyesight and the boy heard the squealing of the mattress. Outside, birds fluttered past the window. The boy watched them until they disappeared into the blue sky. He wished he could go up there like they did. It would be fun to fly.
"Didn't have anything back then. Five years after leaving
the alliance and I still didn't know up from down." He laughed softly. "I was
so pathetic. I had promised myself I was going to stay out of it. But at that
point I couldn't even buy food. So I took a job. A simple job. But it would
keep me alive one more day. So I blew up a building. Leveled the entire block.
Funny thing is, the rat that was supposed to be exterminated wasn't there.
Found out a few days later that he'd left early."
The boy looked down at the dirty
floor. He'd never seen a building blow up. But he knew what it must feel like.
All he could remember about that day though was snow. Dirty gray snow and…and
he hurt. It was a sad memory but he held it close to him. It was good to be sad
sometimes. It was better than being nothing.
"Don't you hear what I'm saying, kid?" Odin said. "That
building was probably yours. Or one of the ones caught in the blast. I'm the
one that did it. Don't you feel anything at all?"
The boy looked deep inside himself.
All he felt was the same. What was he supposed to feel? Sad? Scared? The boy
reached down and fingered the laces on his shoes without answering. He didn't
know how he felt.
"You don't care do you? You are a demon spawn. The only time I've ever seen you cry is when you were little and throwing a fit. You used to smile a lot back then."
"I can't believe I ever smiled," he said to himself. He didn't realize he'd spoken his thought until Odin snorted.
"I'm starting to think I imagined it myself."
There was a long silence. The
boy began to trace patterns in the dust on the floor. This was the worst part.
The waiting. They couldn't do anything until the right time. Everything had
been planned and one little mistake could ruin the whole thing. He didn't like
to wait. Waiting was boring. But there was nothing else to do. Nothing except
shoot people.
"Odin?"
"Mm?"
"Do you have any family?"
There was a rustle of cloth as Odin sat up.
"Where did that come from?" the man asked. The boy shrugged. He didn't know. He just thought he wanted to ask. Something inside him wanted to know.
"Yeah. Once. A million years ago," he said, lying back down.
"Not anymore?"
"Nope. An assassin doesn't have
any family, kid. An assassin doesn't have anyone. No past. No future. Just the
present. And if you're really good, no one will know when you're gone."
"Gone?"
"Dead, kid."
"Oh." The boy looked outside the window. The clouds would know. The clouds always knew. They knew everything. He looked back down and sighed a little. They didn't like him anymore.
---
The street was busy. The boy sat on a bench, kicking his feet and watching the building on the other side of the street. Errol Daico was supposed to come out soon. The boy could remember his face. Narrow and thin with two tufts of hair sticking up on either side of his head, and a bristly mustache. A rat face. They were going to extri…men…eat… kill another rat.
The building had a long covered walkway outside of it. It went almost up to where the cars dropped people off. When the target came out it, Odin would only have a short time to fire before the man went into his car. It was the boy's job to keep Odin informed. He had a little thing attached to his collar so he could speak to Odin and another little thing in his ear so he could listen to what Odin had to say. The boy liked his job. It was much better then shooting people. All he had to do was pay attention to the building and tell Odin exactly what was happening.
Across the street, the doors opened. The boy sat up and watched. There were two men, dressed in black, looking around carefully. The boy knew what they were. He'd seen many of them before.
"The guards are out," he said, keeping his voice low.
\How many are there?\ Odin's voice sounded like it was small and far away.
"Two."
\Well he's got a lot more then that.\
The guards nodded and one of them spoke something into a phone. A shiny black car pulled up a few seconds later.
"The car is here."
\Confirmed. Keep a close eye,
kid. Daico isn't far behind.\
The two guards went up to the car and stood in front of it. The doors opened again and a few more guards came out. In the middle was Daico. The boy leaned forward a little, heart pounding.
"The target is in view."
\How many guards?\
"Twelve all together."
\Tuh. Figures. All right kid. Where are they?\
"The first guards are almost out of the walkway."
\Right.\
One of the guards slapped a black shoe against the sunlit sidewalk. Then looked up. Suddenly a gun was in the guards hand and a loud cracking sound filled the air.
\Shit!\
"Odin!" the boy cried.
\I'm all right, kid. But the mission's blown.\
Some guards had come around the car and were firing into the air. The other guards were rushing Daico into the car. The car. If he could stop the car… The boy jumped off of the bench and tore across the street. A car was coming at him from the other way. It began to screech as it tried to stop. The boy picked up speed. The black car was starting to leave.
\What the hell are you doing?!\ Odin shouted. The boy didn't have time to tell. He flung himself in front of the black car. There was a loud honk and an even louder screeching sound that made his ears ring. The boy saw a glimpse of the driver's face before everything exploded into hurt. It was all black and he was flying. Flying. There was the loud pop of a gun and then he hit something hard and was lost to a world where it didn't hurt anymore.
---
The boy woke up slowly. First he could feel the cool sheets over him and the strange way his arm was bound and levitated. There was something up his nose too. It didn't hurt…but it felt funny Then, slowly, soft mumbling voices floated over him and a quiet beeping. The voices that grew clearer the more he listened.
"They say he jumped right in front Darcia's car," one woman
said. "So the driver had to stop. And right after that Darcia got shot."
"And just what are you trying to
say?" the second woman said. She sounded a little angry.
"Well… I mean there is a rumor going around that this kid was involved with the assassination."
"Don't be ridiculous. He can't be more then five. Not even in grade school yet, the darling."
"I wonder why in the world he was running across the street
anyway?"
"Oh, he probably got excited
about seeing the body guards. You know how little boys are. Anything in a black
suit wearing sunglasses is 'in' nowadays.
He's lucky they didn't shoot him."
There was a long silence. The boy could see gray on his eyelids. So Odin had completed his mission. The boy had done a good thing then. Maybe…maybe Odin would be proud of him.
"Oh, he looks like he's waking up," the first woman said.
"Don't worry, the medication's ready. All you have to do is syringe it into the tube like I showed you."
"Like this?" the first woman asked. The boy wasn't awake long enough to even hear the other woman's answer.
For a long time he was wrapped in warm, cozy darkness. There were no nightmares, no hurt, just black. After a little while, he slowly came awake again. There were no voices, just the quiet beeping. He opened his eyes to a strange ceiling. The boy looked around the room. There was a chair by a window on one side, on the other all sorts of machines. A pole with bags hanging from it was beside the bed. The bags had tubes in them which ran all the way down into the boy's arm. The boy's other arm was lifted high into the air and wrapped in hard white stuff.
The boy knew what this place was. He could remember coming somewhere like this before a long time ago. There had been a woman lying on the bed, with a white face, looking so much like a spooky skeleton that it had scared him. Someone had once told him that this place took care of sick people. That didn't make any sense though. He wasn't sick. He didn't even hurt anymore.
The door opened and a man wearing a white coat came in. He was carrying a little silver board and there was one of those cold metal things around his neck. The boy frowned. A doctor. He hoped the doctor wasn't going to give him a shot. The man smiled behind his brown beard and the boy immediately liked him. Doctors who gave shots didn't usually smile.
"Well good morning…and how are you feeling today?" the man asked. The boy thought to say 'good' but he couldn't get his mouth to move. When he finally was able, his voice was scratchy and grumbly. The doctor smiled and patted his hand.
"That's good. I'm sure you feel a little woozy and wobbly, but that's only natural. It'll pass once you've gotten better."
The doctor looked at the bags on the pole and wrote on his board. Then he checked the boy's eyes and tongue. Then he looked at the fingers of the hand lifted in the air. Then the man gently touched his side, asking if certain places hurt when he touched them. Finally the doctor straightened and was again smiling at him.
"Well, it looks like you'll be okay. Would you like to know what's wrong with you? It could be scary," the man said. The boy nodded. He didn't think it would scare him. Nothing scared him anymore. The doctor looked at his board and frowned a little.
"You have three broken ribs, your arm is broken in two places. You have a sprained ankle, a moderate concussion and cuts and bruises all over. All in all, you're lucky. Even if the man had been driving a little slower, being hit like that would have killed any other child your age…or at least put them into the hospital for a long time. You should never run across the street like that, understand? You have to have an adult hold your hand so it will be safe."
The boy didn't understand. Odin never held his hand when he crossed the street before. Odin had never held his hand at all. Odin was a grownup so Odin should know if he had to hold the boy's hand or not. He sighed a little. Grownups were always so confusing.
The door opened again. The boy's heart smiled as Odin came in. Yay! It made him happy to see someone familiar. The doctor turned toward Odin.
"Can I help you, sir?"
"No. I just wanted to see my son. Is he too bad off?"
"He'll survive," the doctor said in a suddenly angry voice. "You really need to keep a closer eye on him. He could have been killed."
"I know. I know. I'm not letting him out of my sight again, you can believe that." Odin came to sit in the chair beside the window. The doctor gave him an angry face for a good long moment, then left. When the door shut, Odin rolled his eyes and shook his head.
"Arrogant bastard. I hate the people that do the whole, holier-then-thou, routine."
"What's a thou?" the boy asked. Odin laughed a little.
"Good to hear your dumb questions again, kid. You've been out nearly a week. I really thought you were a goner this time. "
"Did…did
I help?"
"Yes. You were a big help. But never help in that way again, understand?"
The boy nodded. Odin leaned closer to him, resting his arms on the bed and putting his face right next to the boy's ear.
"I'm going to take you out tonight," the man whispered. "I'd leave you in here if I could but some people are starting to take too close a look at me."
"Will I be better tonight?" the boy asked. Odin straightened and shook his head.
"Not by much."
"The doctor said that I would be…woozy and wobbly…until I get better," the boy said. Odin laughed again.
"'Woozy and wobbly' huh? What are they shooting you up with in here? Whiskey?"
"They didn't shoot me," the boy said, wondering exactly what the grownup was talking about. He was so sleepy all of a sudden. Odin flapped his hand.
"Ah, never mind, kid. Don't worry being 'woozy or wobbly'. I'll take good care of you," the man said. Of course. Grownups always took care of kids. The boy closed his eyes. He wanted to go back to that warm dark. Right before he fell asleep completely, he felt someone gently touch his hair.
~~~
Notes: On three now. One… Two… AWWWWWW ^_^
Disclaimer: I own all rights to Gundumb Thing. Gundam Wing however is much better and unfortunately I don't own that. ^^; Ah well. You can't have it all.
Night~Mare