Bop
Another lab rat to the waste bin. He picked up a syringe,
listening briefly as lightning crackled outside, thunder shaking the whole
house for a moment. Then he carried on, oil lamp swinging overhead as the
summer storm blew threw the window. He preferred the fresh air to work in; it
was refreshing, something to keep his mind from becoming too stressed. Stress
meant mistakes. Mistakes meant failure. He certainly had enough of that to go
around right now. He dumped the poor, dead, creature into the trash, its limp
form joining several dozen of its comrades. The process had been repeated a
dozen times now; why wasn't it working?
He walked to his desk, sitting down and gazing into the various
test tubes and flasks filled with varying liquids. He had to isolate just the
right mixture, the precious concentrations of a dozen some chemical substances.
Thousands of different combinations; what would work? Would it work at all? He
wasn't so certain, but he had to try. It was his only chance at proving
everyone else wrong, after all. He muttered to himself, some obscenities to
those who had tried to hold his work back. Didn't anyone see the potential in
it? The dead did not care what happened to their bodies, nor would the dying,
soon enough. He was trying to help the world, couldn't anyone see that?
He extracted a new mixture, then pulled out another rat. The
pitiful creature squirmed, but it couldn't escape. He pricked it with the
needle, the dose going directly into its system. Then he sat it down, and
waited. Waited for a sign of success.
The creature convulsed, twitching back and forth as its very body
was transformed. A tentacle sprung out of it, then two, then three, then a
whole, writhing mass. It lost its fur as its skin turned a hideous dark gray,
blotchy and oozing with slime.
Oh, success.
Speaking of bang bang, that’s the sound my weapon
is making as I pull it away from some guy’s head. Who is he?
Doesn’t matter. What matters is that he was supposed
to be dead. And now he is. No mess. Flawlessly executed. Like I said, clean.
Now comes the quick part. Well, I actually did part of that part
already. You just didn’t see it, ‘cause you’re apparently not as
quick as I am. But that doesn’t really matter now, I
guess. What does matter is where I am. It’s some skyscraper. Can’t tell you which one, sorry. But I’m on the roof, and so
is the dead guy. But who cares about him.
I step back into the stairwell, taking the steps two at a time all
the way to the ground floor. Because honestly, who uses elevators? Those things
are like freaking cages, man, steel cages suspended by a bit of metal string
over a thousand-foot drop to your death. Elevators. Bad.
Anyway, like I said, I’m on the ground floor.
I slip out the stairwell door and weave my way through the lobby, fast enough
to get out of there but not so fast to attract attention. Obviously. Who do you
think I am?
A bus is pulling up just outside the building as I shove through
the revolving door. I knew it would be there. That’s kind of the point. I hop on. Another efficient elimination. Ha.
Alliteration. Bang bang.
I opened one eye drowsily, peering into the gloom. What was that
noise?
Tick . . . Tock . . . Tick . . . Tock . . .
I sat up, rubbed my eyes, scrutinized the clock. Half-past three
A.M.
Tick . . . Tock . . . Tick . . . Tock . . .
With a splitting yawn I stumbled to my feet. I reached above my
head to yank the pantleg of my roommate’s pajamas.
“Did you leave the
television on again?”
“Hunnngh?”A head popped up, swiveled around, garbled something about
chessmen, and fell over once more.
Tick . . . Tock . . . Tick . . . Tock . . .
I stumbled down the hall, lighting lights to banish the shadows as
I went. That was a voice, and a monotonous one, at that. But where could it be
coming from?
In the living room, I leaned low over the television with the
attentive examination of an inebriate before deciding it was thoroughly off. I
sought the radio in the kitchen.
Tick . . . Tock . . . Tick . . . Tock . . .
Wearing the radio like an earmuff, I judged it silent. The battery
case broke open as I tossed it back on the counter, ticked. Still the sound.
Where the—
The lights flickered like possessed fireflies. I waited for
them to calm down again, but they didn’t. Whatever capricious
demon had taken control of them wasn’t going to let go—until they did.
Pop.
Tick . . . Tock . . . Tick . . . Tock . . .
Now in the dark, I felt my way back toward the bedroom, muttering
under my breath. Maybe the sound was my roommate talking in his sleep and I
hadn’t realized it . . .
Tick . . . Tock . . . Tick . . . Tock . . .
What was going on? The logic of this groggy mind was not up to the
task. I could only wish it had been.
Tick . . . Tock . . . Tick . . . Tock . . .
“Your time has come . .
.”
A shiver ran up my spine.
“Tock?”I whispered. “Is that you?”
“Tick—”came a shrill voice from the bedroom.
I broke into a run, bashing against walls and unseen furniture as
I rushed back to the room. But when I arrived, it was too late.
Tick . . . Tock . . . Tick . . . Tock . . .
The room was empty.
“Your time has come . .
.”
By Ilyusha Brockway
8:00 AM: Set up stand, commence trade for next eight point five hours.
4:30 PM: Head to home on outskirts of town, going to small workshop in back, work for next few hours.
8:30 PM: Call it a day.
The Matoran did very little besides this, each day. On Monday, he'd spoken with a Toa. Marfoir had listened in on the conversation, bouncing the sounds back off of a hard stone plaque that the Matoran had made. Marfoir had been hoping to learn something useful from this, though all he'd learned was that the Toa was broke and would have to pay Akhmou back some other day.
Getting in debt...what a fool, Marfoir had thought. He'd said he could come back within the week. That had been two days ago.
Hopefully he wouldn't come back too soon. Marfoir checked his taskpad, turning away from the scope. 4:10 PM. Time to move. Marfoir put the scope back in its case, with the rest of the rifle; he wouldn't need it after this.
By 4:20, he was at the Matoran's home, hidden near the entrance to the workshop. Ten minutes until the kill. Marfoir had none of his weapons on him, now, besides a knife; they were all hidden at his hideout farther out in the desert. The only other item he carried was a waterskin, a towel, and a special project that Marfoir had been working on over the last two days, one that would be necessary for the murder.
Ten minutes of waiting and Akhmou arrived, unlocking and opening the workshop, leaving the door open, as he always did. He wanted to hear if anybody was coming, so he could quickly head out to help them. Soon, he'd be unable to do that. Marfoir quickly came up behind the Matoran, his knife quickly flashing at Akhmou's throat, the towel moving quickly to catch the blood that flowed out from the Matoran's jugular vein.
"Shh, shh," the Vortixx murmured, while the Matoran he held slowly died. "Let go, Akhmou, let go. Your time in this world is done, now be free..."
He slowly lowered the Po-Matoran to the ground, slipping the item that Marfoir had been working on into his hands, giving him time to look at it before he died. An item whose brothers Marfoir had grown familiar with when he first joined the team he worked for, getting to look over one for his first assignment.
A small tablet, with three Matoran letters carved into it, one that had been a staple at various murders for a while, now.
-----------
The Garbage-Man
By
Nick/Grantaire
Were
there tears in my eyes when I let you fall, you must wonder, or was that just
me rubbing my eyes from weariness?
I
suppose I could ask myself that question every night, but I don’t. I used
to. When I was no more than a boy and when I had a heart: when seeing the sick
or the suffering made me want to help them.
But
poverty is poverty, and a community just can’t bear access waste. So they chose
me to remove it. Why? Because I threw both my aging parents over a cliff, one
after another and they too feeble to even run. A year later my brother went as
well: too crippled to work. He had to go. Things like that don’t go
beneath notice: it’s against the rules of our community, but who is there to
enforce it and who cares to? Only if there’s real threat will the men stir.
It
was the aunt of one of my childhood friends this time: I’d seen her
growing up, a sweet lady who was always kind to me. I guess her loving nephew
couldn’t bear to kill her himself, so he had me do it.
I
don’t mind any more. Now when I peer down into the fog-filled
gulf it’s more to wonder what happens to all the bodies tossed
down there than to mourn what I’ve just done. It’s custom for generations: so much
custom that its legality is never even thought of. But no one wants to do it,
no one except for those people who honestly don’t give a damn.
People
like me.
Maybe I don’t like it, but I don’t grumble about
it: someone has to rid our community of its dead weight, and it might as well
be me.
-----------
By SonicBOOM
It's a magical world, ain't it?
I get a thrill whenever I do this. Of course, I'm not your conventional hitman. Most sane people wouldn't even consider me that, they'd refer to me as a butcher. Except I don't butcher meat. I butcher people.
It's a thrill, getting my blade into someone's throat. Hacking open their jugular. Slicing open their bodies and shredding every one of their vital organs. Oh, that gives me shivers down my spine. It's so good.
And right now, I'm about to do it on my biggest target.
This country's been in a bad position right now, and while I don't particularly like politics, I have enough sense of the stuff to say that much. There's a tumor, growing, growing, just ready to engulf the entire nation and drive it to its knees.
I was hired to remove that tumor. You might have guessed it was a major politician I had to erase. You'd have guessed right. Don't do that in the future or I may have to gut you too.
On second thought, do it. I want to gut you.
I'm walking in, heavy security everywhere. Can't bust out the big guns right now. Or blades. Whatever fits your bill. Point is, I can't. Not in this building.
It's Washington D.C, 1 AM, pitch black outside but not inside. People are walking everywhere, walking past huge guys with thick sunglasses and bodies straight from a male model magazine. And suits. Don't forget those.
I honestly wonder why people don't pick more cleaver-resistant uniforms.
So far, somehow, no one's noticed me. That's good, it means I'm still in my prime. Or rather, that my cloak is. I'm just gonna walk over to this vent over here, pry it open, get in, and chuck the thing around like a ghost's holding it. One or two handmaids faint, thinking it's a ghost. A security guy gets smashed in the head and joins them in dreamland.
That's when the whole thing blows over. Oh the chaos I love causing.
I'm in my vent, knowing this wasn't the plan. I was supposed to get a simple kill on my target. But a tumor spreads to other cells. Getting rid of one cell won't get rid of the others. I need to get rid of the whole thing. And by the end of the night, I will.
Bingo, right door. I kick it open and drop down, taking down a desk as I go. There he is, still half-undressed, his wife right next to him screaming. They were getting ready to leave. I'll make sure they'll stay.
I take my cloak off. No point killing if I don't let them know who did it, right?
The guy gets a fear in his eyes, a familiar fear.
“Don't. Please. I have children and a country to run! Don't do this!”
But why would I not?
My cleaver's out, he's looking at it. The wife's crying now, going to get her kids to safety.
Before I kill him, I say one word.
“No.”
And by then the core, the root, the President knows it's too late.
I tear into his body, ravaging it, cleaving it open and destroying everything. Think of the most mutilated body you've seen and multiply it by 10 in value. You'll get my handiwork.
The wife's pulled out a handgun. They haven't banned those yet. Guess what, lady? Cleavers fly too.
She figures that out after she's dead, her head severed from her body. I leave her, having a strict policy against women. As do most hitmen. Don't ask, or I'll have to murder you. Only kill, don't mutilate.
By then the whole White House is in panic. I set out to calm everyone down, my cleaver glistening with blood.
And an hour later, everything's silent. The Red House is in flames too.
I'm a scientist, and I just found the cure for cancer. I'm a doctor, and I just cured the cancer. I'm a savior, a hero, and I just saved the world.
I've eliminated the tumor.
I got my pay.
I saved the country.
But more than that, I had fun. So much fun.
It's a magical world, ain't it?
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