Special Place to Call My Own

I saunter through the streets, watching people cower at my passing with distanced eyes. As well they should. I know they wonder what my next target will be. It could be anyone, their decrepit grandfather, their eight year old daughter. The orders of the Blood Sisters don't always make sense, but we always follow them.

I'm not out to kill anyone this time though, just walking around. I'm off duty and I'm bored, so I'm heading to one of my favorite spots. Reaching the end of the parkade I start climbing. Straight up. I clamber over wreckage, remnants of another age where what I was would have been a criminal, assassination would have been barbaric, or at least thought so by the ignorant masses. I don't really believe assassins were ever out of business to tell you the truth. We always seem to be able to find work, power is paranoid.

Barbed wire catches hold of my legging and I stop to carefully untangle it. I sigh at the small hole the wire has made, I don't have enough clothes that these kind of things don't matter. Ah well. I fold my legging over so the hole is inside and won't catch. I'm almost at the top. Reaching the last obstacle, an out-jutting wall, I hook my arm up and around, finding a little depression way back on the ledge with my fingers before I push myself off from the debris and hang in mid-air for a split-second. Using muscles conditioned from physical training no sane person should have had to endure I pull myself up using my arms.

I'm the only one that can get up here. The training program of the Blood Sisters is quite intense but even so, not everybody can accomplish the agility and strength I'm able to use. Must have come from all the mountain-climbing as a child. They don't take virgins, a fact which I find vaguely amusing but indelibly practical. They often recruit from whore-houses, reasoning that those girls are already hard. If you fail their training program they give you the means to start a new life and send you on their way. Or you can stay, if even after your past of being raped and fucked by complete strangers you still possess a carnal appetite. You can go into a different training, receive a tattoo on your arm, be assured of distinguished clientèle. Their trainees are known as some of the best courtesans in the new world. Just don't call them whores or they'll cut your tongue out. And they'll still take your money.

I'm standing at the top of a city of ruins, out where no one can reach me. There's a Coca-Cola sign nearby, it always reminds me of my father who used to collect coke memorabilia. I'm glad he's dead, I would not want him to see me as I am now. I make an interesting picture, all dressed up in lace and leather. Any Blood Sister who saw me would recognize my status immediately, would recognize me immediately. I have no idea how I became so infamous but I did. Some days I wish I didn't.

Tears sting my eyes and I tremble. Memories always hurt, and there's no one up here to see me cry. I don't allow myself many moments to reminisce, can't, I'm the best assassin the Blood Sisters have, this is my life now and I actually like it, but I can't cry.

I feel a vibration from the riding crop I always carry around with me, I installed a communicator into it because I refused to carry around some bulky piece of trash, I have an image to maintain after all.

'Kara, you there?'

'I'm here.'

'We got a job for you, up to it?'

'Always'

'Where you at? I'll send transport'

'Up near the sign'

'I'll send a copter then.'

'You do that.'

I wiped my tears and straightened myself out slightly, stretching my muscles, I shift my hips and reach up with the riding crop behind my neck. a predatory look in my eyes, I show off to no one. They'll be here soon, and they'll get a perfect picture of their lead assassin, just like they expect.