Fade to Grey

“He, too, has been changed in his turn, Transformed utterly: a terrible beauty is born.” – W. B Yeats

It had been four years since he was press-ganged into the program. Four generations had passed since the Great War, the third to be deemed the Last. A third time for the world to be consumed in flames. That was their proving ground, their birthplace. When the supersoldiers and their battle armor fell out of use, when the skyscrapers rose from the ashes with the ASA Phoenix, a new type of operative was needed for a new type of battle ground. Between the corporate’s fine designer suit and the commando’s blood-smattered combat chassis, a tactical gap screamed for attention. From the same technology that incarnated 21st century action heroes into a military reality, they were born. Their frail appearance, their ghostly features and their utter coldness conjured their name: Spectre.
Most had died off since the war and there were only a few left in this world that would sell their body, as well as their soul, for the mixed blessings of a manufactured special agent. There was power, some said, in their line of work. Changing destiny, moving unseen in a world where information, and those who controlled it, reigned supreme. He had been given a choice, all those years ago, to save his family from the broken down homes of the Dirtwalk by not saving himself; to offer up his identity and his humanity, so that others may live in comfort. He would be swallowed up in the years to come, slipping from the stark white reality that had been carefully weaved for the public. Just beyond the veil, in the cracks of the façade, the shadows lay and this – this realm of darkness and illusion – would become his home. .
Tonight, after four years within the belly of the beast, under the great steelwork of the New Aurora Dome, he finds himself in front of an Auroran Security Agency building. Its sharp corporate architecture rose upwards into the night sky like a sword of light; the lights here never waned, for their business was the business of the city and there was no time for sleep in their constant vigil. The environmental units hum dully in the distance, like some forlorn beast of burden, carrying the comfort and survival of the entire city on its back. The chill of the night brushes against his skin and through the regalia of a pretender. It skitters up a skirt, crisply pressed and ending just above the knee, and into a loose white blouse, burying its cold fingers deep into an already cold heart. The hollow click of black heels echoed on the concrete walk leading up to the building, drawing the wary eyes of an armed patrol at the building’s entrance.
Thirteen was old enough for Americorp. At that age, new teens were just feeling the world past their parents. They had schooling if they were lucky enough and learned enough on the lower tiers of the city if they weren't. Escape was easy, simply moving from the grasp of one parent to another. But your new parent is a commanding officer and the rest of your family is a corporation. There are faces in the conglomerate, sure; faces that are only looking up, because they have nowhere else to go but the top. Faces that are looking skyward, and if you get close enough, they'll find the fastest way to knock you down to whatever shit hole you climbed out from. There is no rule but success in the corporate family. If you aren’t climbing, you’re clawing for a ledge or falling off of one. Find a handhold? Chances are that there is someone eyeing your desperate grasp from across the city with a bolt-action named after an ex-girlfriend.
To pass under the wary human and electronic eyes of the ASA’s evening shift, with their trusty anti-personnel sidearms pressed against armored shoulders, proved to be simple enough for this woman. Even in the past, when she worked for those that owned this building, the man beneath was known only to those that held power or had no desire to live. In the guise of another person, she enters the building now and her presence is certainly felt within the receiving foyer; the presence of a woman - so dressed as to catch the eye - was a drastic change to the cold, straight-laced confines of this corporate hub. The eyes of the late-night security team, mostly young men straight from the academy, followed her. Even the heads of the two women on the team glanced in her direction before snapping back to a guarded attention. The rumors had been spreading like fire through the blue-collar ranks for weeks now. Around the watercooler, the rumor-mill had been busily churning; the hot ticket around the office was that one of the local COs had gotten himself a new secretary. She was drawn in from the lower echelons and was, perhaps, a bit under-qualified for the administrative work, they would say in soft whispers and allusions. As for her pretty face and her captivating body, not even a grunt needs to have a briefing on the reasons why.
This one certainly did not. The young guard looks her over, pressing in closer to the secretary’s body than is needed as he runs the scanning wand over her person. One of the female security members rolled her eyes, knowing full well that the sniffer could probably detect something on the secretary from across the room.

‘Hey, Reg… your enthusiasm interfering with that sensor? It won’t work any better inside her clothes. Get a move on.’ says the heavily-armed and higher-ranking officer.

The obtrusively ‘eager’ guard flashes his female superior a little sheepish smile and cycles his hand, signaling the front security desk to let the secretary through to the next check point. The secretary returns the smile with a light-hearted wink.

Tonight, he would play the role of one Olivia St. James and it seemed as if everyone in the building already knew the part better than he did. Through the remaining check points she passed, black heels clicking against the marble tile and over the emblazoned seal of the ASA just before her destination: the security desk. The officer-of-the-watch, leaning next to the counter, says something indistinct to her, probably a vain attempt at suavity towards the boss' girlfriend. Ms. St. James replies with a light giggle and a playful slap to the guard's chest. A bright feminine smile and an identcard are flashed to the operator behind the station counter.

The security operative smiles brightly for eleven at night and simply says, 'Right over there, Ms. St. James. Mr. Harker is expecting you.'

‘Damn. Harker is getting sloppy with this affair.’, thought the man behind the woman’s smile. The operative behind the desk didn't even log her entry. ‘Anymore slips like this,’ he thought, ‘and I might actually walk out of here alive.’

It was almost dream like in its surrealism but the laser-targeted stares of the guard staff would stir her from the illusion. Remembering her role, the secretary headed for the next check-in desk, waggling her fingers in a friendly wave to the pair of guards behind her.

He knew what dreams were; slivers of reality that, once slipped into the mind, proved troublesome to remove. The years of training, all hyper-recorded and locked in the subconscious, would crack open the door once in a while and announce their presence. Late at night, no matter where he slept, the heat and hum of the city would wash over his pale, altered body and he would begin to sweat. Even the slightest trace of that stench, that foul odor of engineering, of manipulation, would stir up scenes from the past, flashes of what he had long forgotten. The first days at the foundation, with its hospital taste in fashion, would burrow into his mind and cling like a steel insect, driving needle-prick talons into his sleep and would trade the peace of oblivion for living dreams.

That same stench was here, clinging to the sharp angles and cool military tones of the hallway. She could feel it again, the cold touch of metal against pale skin and the bee-sting prick of the needle during the many 'treatments.' Wave after wave of anxiety began to build within, tensing muscle and pumping blood quicker in preparation. Her walk, casualness feigned, carries her over to the express elevator and the accompanying station beside it. Her face began to flush a healthy glow, limbs falling into line with the shift of blood, their flesh and bone slowly stripped of heat as if being thrust into icy water. She leans, as if unsteadied, against the ash-grey security booth. The guard's black gloved hand reached out and rested upon her shoulder, his voice barely competing with the pounding she felt within her skull as the blood continued to be rerouted and chemicals pulled strings from within like hidden puppeteers. The guard, a young man dressed in the black uniform of an ASA officer, moved out of his booth to support her, ducking beneath the counter and grabbing her by the elbow. His words were rendered indistinct by the beating of her heart ringing around in her ears. On instinct, the ASA ident-card came up with in her right hand like a warding gesture against the man. She belonged here, the official looking card said, just leave her alone. Recognition blossomed on the young man’s face and he glanced around warily, fear of unemployment clawing at the back of his mind. He slipped a hand hurriedly around her waist and started to help her down an access corridor by the elevator and an off-duty lounge just around the corner.

She had slipped in and out of consciousness several times during the ordeal, not quite remembering just how she found herself in a comfortable chair with a cup of coffee in her hand. It was a bleak little room, filled with nothing but a coffee machine and a compact shoe-box workstation. The guard leaned over the seated secretary, fanning away at her face with commander-fearing enthusiasm. With growing clarity of thought, she leans her head back and met his eyes with a smile. Thoughts drifted through her mind.

‘It’s going to be a long night,’ the ghost-of-a-man thought from behind her feminine wiles.

She drew herself up to her feet, wobbling slightly for dramatic effect as she moved towards him. The cup of coffee was set aside, the warmth it brought her hands fading fast as she placed her chilled fingers against his cheek. The slightly damp chill of her fingers drew quite a surprised sound from the guard.

‘Uh, Ms. St. James... Your hands are like ice.', he said.

A devious smile curled her lips, ‘I know, hon, why don't you close the door and help me warm them up?'

Her other hand slipped slowly behind her back; slim fingers gently brushing against the rubberized handle of a concealed ceramic tanto. The guard makes another sound but doesn't utter a word further, his gloved hand reaching behind him clumsily to close the door. The soft whir and click of the lock echoed around in the little room. As his head was turned, the chemical stress trigger clicked inside of her mind again. His throat lay exposed so neatly.

‘A cut there, and there… that’s all it would take,’ whispered the voice inside her head, causing her lips to tighten into a cold, lustful smile.

Blood began to rush back into her brain and cold fingers began to tighten around the hilt of the long knife hidden beneath her evening jacket. The guard began to turn, pressing himself against the door slightly as if the dream-like apparition before him would turn to vapor and slip away from his grasp. A strange smile played across his face, very similar to the one she already wore. It was fiery, lustful and vulnerable… and he found all of this mirrored back at him with a sharp tempering of single-minded coldness.

She pressed up against him bodily and set a slim hand to his heart, 'Such a sweetheart to help me like that...' Her sharp green eyes rose, meeting the lusty glare in his. 'So handsome, too.'

Hands gloved in the ASA standard started to sink towards her hips. Her tongue peeked out slightly and moistened her lips. She knew the moment was close.

A beat.

The chemical torrent fueled muscle and nerve alike, slicking them down with enhancers like a greased rail. With a soft click and a whirl, the blade was produced from its sheath at the small of her back. The ceramic blade sparkled slightly in the fluorescent lights, its matte finish worn off in places from use. The hard back edge rose in a grand arc towards the guard's throat, time seeming to slow as years of training and muscle memory took over. Her slim hand darted violently to his wrist, twisting it with mechanical efficiency and slamming it hard against his chest. With an upward arc, the flat mune of the blade broke his windpipe. On the downward stroke, the tanto's chisel point, sharpened with near manic precision found the soft spot just beneath his ear.

The heavy, black uniformed bulk of the officer slumped against the woman as she coldly withdrew the knife from his neck. In a fluid motion, the knife was returned to its hidden sheath, blood and all, and the secretarial assassin was faced with the weight of the dead. Aided by gravity and restrained by slim hands, the body was soon brought down to the floor with minimal noise. The lock whirred again as it was thumbed secure and she knelt down by the body.

The slit in his neck, concealed by the line of the jaw, was relatively clean. Blood drifted lazily from the paper-thin wound. The damage to the nerve bundle had been a less-messy yet sufficiently fatal stroke. She ran a finger along his jaw as she observed the wound before she stood up. A wiry smirk crossed her lips as she started to undress. Forged feminity is cast aside in a flurry of officewear, padding and heels, revealing the truest person within the capricious shell. He is of diminutive height without those black heels, of svelte build without padded and billowy clothing, and dressed in a skintight bodysuit of darkest black material. This new enigma disposes quickly of the women’s clothing, tossing it into a nearby garbage shoot. He hunches over the man and glances to his watch.

‘I need to hurry,’ he whispers to the corpse.

Within moments, he has clothed himself in the regalia of a man named J. Salitori. The black uniform fits relatively well. This shift was specifically chosen based on the dead man’s height, and the need for padding is minimal in such a tailored outfit. In the past, a similar jumpsuit had belonged to him but the dress-black was never emblazoned with any corporate logos or even a stripe of rank as this one was. The jumpsuit is quickly zipped up. Black-nylex webbing, the standard material for a standard holster, supports a GS6A machine pistol and it is slipped over his shoulder, double clasps carefully buckled at the chest. A service belt riddled with pouches is slung around the hips, heavy clips of ammunition shifting the bulk to his lower back. From within the padding he had used for Ms. St. James’ infamous chest, he produces a trio of compact items: A mask of photoreactive synthskin, a slim black box and a case of contacts.

The synthskin mask is prepped by pressing a mole-shaped tab on the inside of the neck. Quickly, he places the mask over Salitori's face. A little flash of light rolls across the mask, signaling its completion as it takes a ‘picture’ of the former guard’s face. Tiny networks of fibers woven into the mask adjust the marvelous combination of artificially grown skin and holographic technology. A quick glance is cast to his watch before tugging the mask over his face and long silver hair. He pops the soft blue contacts in and dons the sharp black patrol cap. With a sense of finality, heavy black boots are tugged on and tied before he glances down at the peacefully dead man. With a slow shake of the head, he places the transceiver earpiece into his ear and starts to drag the now-nude corpse out of the room.

The service corridor is barren and cold like the depths of a morgue. Perhaps they designed it this way intentionally, subconsciously wagging a finger at the faithful employees to remain so until their deaths. Quickly, eyes flick to his watch and he begins to quicken his pace. Guard turnover is occurring at this very moment, people are checking in and checking out, switching over before the next shift. The man rushes down the hall, passing locked door after locked door. The next was open, and consequently, never locked, as this large industrial-grade copy room serviced the entire building 23 hours out of the day. Poorly oiled wheels squeaked under the strain as the unnamed man dumped the corpse into a large mail carrier and covered it with a drape. With restrained rush, he carted the corpse-by-mail to the freight elevator and leaned against the wall by the panel. His eyes swept along the corridor’s ceiling, tracking the timing in between sweeps. A glance to his watch and a hand slips into his pocket.

‘Two minutes,’ he grins, his thumb depressing the trigger on his EM-bubble generator.

He turns to face the elevator’s panel and gloved fingers run over it. His knife, slightly cleaner than it was moments before, is used to force open the panel and deft hands play at the wires and boisterous electronics.

‘Twentieth floor and then lock down… set,’ he murmurs to himself as he carts the mail-basket into the interior of the elevator and then exits.

His hand snakes around to the inside and pushes a glowing button labeled 20, causing the portcullis-like door to come sliding down. Fingers slip back into his pocket as he rounds the corner, heading back to the security desk by the main elevator. His timetable was crucial to keep and as he approached the security desk, his Salitori-blue eyes looked down at the watch on his wrist. Gently glowing numbers of emerald began to tick down as he slid into the big executive-style chair at the console. 11:59:57. 58. 59. 12:00:00...

The ASA workstation suddenly hums to life, indicators and alarm lights flaring up like a digitized X-mas tree. A calm female voice starts to speak from the workstation, gently dolling on in a precise computer tone.

'Alarm. Alarm. Floors ten and twelve. All sensors reporting. Motion, electromagnetic and atmospherics triggered. Report to all units. Initiate C&C operations, code 7. Alarm. Alarm...'

The droll alarm danced with the continuing beat within his head. The reactive trigger still wasn't receding and the little man knew that he would be running hot for the rest of the night.

‘If the guards don't kill me, I might die just from the effort,’ he thought to himself.

These feelings felt familiar to him; the feeling of sweat pouring down his back and the cold sting of blood trying to flow back to where it belonged. He had felt this way in the past, and the memory was still a fresh sliver in his mind. He had felt this way in Harker's office just before his first assignment. There were about six of them then, each one brainwashed, altered, corrupted and each one assigned to the Auroran Security Agency.

Mr. Harker had looked right at him during the climax of the first speech, staring at the last member of the group through those cold corporate eyes and saying, 'If you go off the reservation, you no longer exist.'

Fingers flew across the console, making sure all of the personal coms on station were keyed into Salitori's transceiver. He slipped from the chair and started to head for the executive express elevator with a deliberate pace. Gloved fingers dial up full broadcast to all of the guards in the building, tapping against the tiny buttons of the transceiver’s face, and the man cleared his throat. A simpleton could look like a person, given the aid of technology, but a master, a manufactured machine for espionage could -be- someone else. His voice was clear and commanding, dancing with minor inflection and accent just as the dead guard's had. As he entered the elevator and swept Salitori's cardkey across the access terminal, he intoned coolly.

‘All units, this is Salitori on the ninth floor. We've got motion and atmospheric alarms tripping on ten and twelve. All units secure exits Adam through David. Madison, meet at eleven to escort Harker topside. I don't want any mistakes people, this is not a drill.’

He was inside the belly of the beast, traveling upwards in the pneumatic elevator to the eleventh floor. Harker would be waiting at the end of the short two-story trip; waiting behind an oaken office door with a brass plaque. The old man was probably checking his gun and smoking his last cigarette, pondering his own death and how he would make whatever sorry-son-of-a-bitch-subversive’s life miserable if he met him face to face. Madison would be waiting there as well, waiting for a comrade in arms, an old friend from the academy. He slips Salitori’s ID card back into his front pocket; the movement of his arm slightly reveals the sheathed tanto beneath the material, suspended at the small of his back.

The elevator doors slowly parted and he stepped down the hall, passing office after office in quick stepped succession. Around several corners he walked, moving through security cordons and executive-pass areas. Madison stood at Harker’s door down the hall, brandishing his firearm at Salitori before he confirmed his identity.

‘He’s on his way out, Sal… any idea what’s going on?’ Madison asks.

‘No word yet, security is still tracking the changes.’ replies Salitori, reaching over with a black gloved fist to knock on the door.

‘Mr. Harker, it’s time to go.’ A salute is snapped to the superior officer and is held until the black-suited man returns it. ‘Transport is waiting on the roof. We are going to keep following C&C #7 until an update is broadcast on our condition,’ he says calmly as his CO exits his office, still adjusting his suit jacket and the holster beneath it.

‘Let’s go,’ replies the black-suited man, moving forward as the guards fall into step at his flanks. As they head down the manicured halls to the secondary elevator, their transceivers all crackle to life simultaneously.

‘Unit 3, point bulletin on recent entrant Olivia St. James. Hold on sight. Her transponder sequence has gone off-grid,’ intones the dispatch operator.

‘Looks like we’ve got a suspect’, says Salitori as he starts to pick up the pace, urging the pyramid formation forward into a jog. ‘It’s not safe here, sir, we need you on the first flight out. Madison, take point. Get that elevator open.’

The man named Madison breaks out into a run down the hall towards the elevator, the sound of heavy jump-boots pounding against the carpet rhythmically drowns out the subtle click of a safety being removed. A security card is pulled from around his neck and he swipes it hurriedly over the buttonless console of the elevator. The narrow hallway had only one entrance and Madison’s machine pistol was held up, trained on the far end of the hall past the pair rushing towards the elevator from a dozen yards away. His breathing was fast, thoughts whirled through his head and his finger rested against the gun-casing just above the trigger. With a quick breath in, he shouted down the hall, his voice echoing on the open transceiver.

‘Clear!’ he yelled as the pair bolted towards him.

The whirl of events failed to surprise Harker, but the name announced over the radio certainly might have, considering the look on his face as he continued to run. His heavily polished shoes drummed in time with the man next to him before they reached the elevator. The CO lifted the collar of his suit coat as he ran, yelling into the lapel as he slowed and turned about in the slick coffin-like elevator.

‘This is Harker, I need a full report now! Find St. James and keep her –alive-, I don’t want an incident.’

Salitori brandished his firearm down the hall as the first set of elevator doors began to close. Shortly after, the second pair of armored doors slid over both sides of the entrance, locking the elevator down from ‘tactical interference.’ The two officers grow statuesque as the elevator starts to rise, flanking their superior like guard dogs, guns trained on a point just beyond the triple-thick doors. Bright radium-green numbers tick slowly by as they travel the nine floors to the building’s roof and helipad.

Inches away from Mr. Harker, the man within the guise of a humble guard remains still in all but mind. His mind pounded fiercely with a chemical cocktail, blurring together components of reality and memory as the enhancers coursed through his veins. His mind would drift, drawing forth images from his weeks of preparation. A brief flash would take him to the preparation of his costume, drawing information from the real Olivia St. James in a ‘chance’ meeting over a cup of coffee. Another flash would take him to a small grey room deep in an office building. A psychologist would be looming over him; a mellow voice had washed through him like a drug twice a week. They had to convince him that he was the crazy one; that the urges he felt were entirely in his head.

‘I… don’t want to kill people, Doctor Mizalde.’, he would say in his half-trance on the plush company sofa. ‘I have to.’

‘You have to do what, Sergeant?’ said the black-suited Harker, glancing sidelong to his slightly murmuring guard. ‘Focus on the task at hand; we’ll be out of this building in no time and clean up will handle the rest.’

Salitori’s attention suddenly snapped back to reality and he conjured up a quick nod to his superior officer in acknowledgement of whatever he had said. ‘Of course, sir-‘

‘What do you mean you can’t find her? Look, damn you! She has to be in the building somewhere,’ hissed Harker into his lapel as the elevator slowed at its destination.

Beneath the guard’s exterior, the thoughts of the chameleonic assassin began to clear akin to a waning fog. Like a tri-vid drifting through endless channels of memory and the snowy wastelands of static regret, his mind began to crystallize on the single image before him. As curtains on the stage which he so loved, so open the elevator doors on perhaps the final performance of his life.

‘It will end tonight.’

Outside in the artificial calm of the Dome’s night air, a Security Agency hybrid hoverchopper waited, stirring the air around it with its whining turbines and gently thrumming air intakes. Through the armored glass cockpit window, the pilot can be seen gesticulating urgently to the trio, urging them to get onboard. The engines groan in protest as they are revved up to take-off speed, causing a downdraft to rip through the trio and cast their garments aflutter as they exit the elevator with their black-clad arms shielding squinting eyes.

Tick.

Time seems to slow as jump-boots shift quickly against the all-weather material of the helipad. One of the soldiers breaks free of the formation. In a whirl of black, Madison stumbles back into the elevator, his Adam’s apple ruptured by way of a deviant’s elbow. The Chief, in his corporate black, turns in shock at the sound, martini-pickled fingers slipping into his jacket after his service pistol. Like a stray, vicious animal, Harker’s heart crawls up into his throat as he whirls about; its insatiable pumping beating around in his head while the bead of his gun fails to find a target.

Tick.

‘Madison, down. Elevator, open… then it must be… Salitori!’ Wary corporate eyes shift with bird-like speed as he surveys the scene; thoughts flicker through his head like the rapid movement of his eyes as he whips around, sweeping the roof with the barrel of his gun.

Tick.
From behind the Chief, arms burst forth like black cloth tentacles, wrapping around his right arm and tightening in a lock. Harker’s eyes widen as he tries to struggle away; black gloved fingers of someone else’s hand slipping around the pistol and slithering around the trigger. With a smooth jerk, the weapon is forcibly aimed and a trio of anachronistic shell-casings hit the helipad before clinking away under the force of the hoverchopper’s exhaust.

Tick.
Madly pawing at his throat like a siren straining against silence, the collapsed Madison can make no sound as the crimson flowers blossom upon his chest and horror-stricken face. The mechanical irises of the security elevator whir into place; slab after slab after slab lock around the sullied corpse. Gunshots, blood and violence will keep the elevator locked down; its intuitive circuitry keeping the slim, armored coffin sealed off from the rest of the world until the threat has passed.

Tick.
An anguished grunt leaves Harker as an elbow is slammed into his stomach, causing the vice-like grip around his pistol to slip away as he slumps forward. A black-garbed force launches with hammer-like subtlety into the back of his knees, wheeling the corporate officer backwards until his vision is filled only with the dome high above. In a whirl, a body sits atop Harker’s chest, its knees pressing violently into his shoulders. He can see only the black of the night sky and the jumpsuit. The name tag at its left breast declares in all its plasticine glory, ‘My name is… J. Salitori.’

Tick.
The sleek, polished barrel of Harker’s service pistol rises above his eyes; the gunmen draws a bead in the distance; The pinned suit squirms beneath the assailant as casing after smoking casing is ejected into the air and comes clattering down around his head. Reinforced glass slowly buckles under the salvo as the shots barrel into the hoverchopper’s cockpit window. After the third shot, the weakened glass gives way like a popping soap bubble and the pilot slumps forward onto the controls. His head hangs lifelessly suspended from the neck by a line of interface cable from the back of his seat.

Tick.
Harker’s pistol is tossed away with a clatter on the helipad and the heavier, standard firearm of the ASA guardsmen is pressed against the man’s paunch. The black clothed figure, Salitori, for all intents and purposes, hunches over to look at his commander. Thin, gloved fingers slip inside his uniform jacket and there is an audible click; com-traffic breaks apart and grows silent like a storm’s eye. Armored knees press harder into Harker’s shoulders.

‘Two minutes,’ murmurs the guard.

Thoughts course through Harker’s mind and he starts to squirm, looking up at the attacker in the half-light. His eyes squint and he struggles to breathe.

‘Who the hell are you!? What do you want!?,’ he grunts.

The figure only leans closer down, body bending like a serpent’s coil. A fell grin grows upon its face, illumination from the helipad’s spotlights catching it at odd angles.

Revelation slips over the COs features. It had to be her.

‘Goddamnit, Olive… what in the hell are you doing? You don’t have to kill people to see me, baby. You could have come up and see me like you always do.’

His face changes in sudden realization that it might be an entirely different purpose on her mind, ‘Honestly, Cassandra meant nothing to me… it was just a couple of drinks!’

The butt of the machine pistol cracks against the COs jaw and he starts to realize that this might not be his sweet secretary after all. Blood trickles from his split lip and he coughs weakly against the helipad as the figure begins to speak.

‘Shut it, Chief… your security here makes me sick...Your guards don’t bother to check her in, so why would they bother to check her out? They wouldn’t know if she left or not… and one night she happened not to leave. Do you see where I am going with this, Chief? Am I going too fast for you?’

A dark, sinister grin crawls over the man’s lips, contorting his synthskin façade to the limits of disguise.

Harker yells in a wash of anger and sudden recognition. It wasn’t her. ‘What did you do to her, you bastard!?’

Several stories below, the search for Olivia St. James had come to its conclusion. A supply closet not far from the executive offices was opened and several ASA officers had gathered over a fallen, female corpse.

‘Suspect found, bag and tag…’, they would say over a com-channel that neither Harker nor his assailant could hear. They would call for clean-up soon after, collecting samples from her body and the single blood stain on the far off wall. An Academy fresh grunt would pick up the pistol from her hand and notice a data disk that had fallen out of her purse. Blackmail, they would call it later. A conversation recorded in intimate moments and the last attempt by a desperate woman to climb the corporate ladder.

‘Oh, nothing special. A number twelve, I think you used to call it.’, whispers the smug looking guardsmen as fingers trail to his own neck.

A ghostly-pale face, almost like that of a child’s, is revealed as the façade is torn away. The ASA security cap is set down by Harker’s head and the shredded synthskin is tossed onto it. Torrents of hospital white hair pour down around his shoulders and the man leans forward again. Consumed in hair and facing a visage from the past, the black-suited man begins to struggle vehemently. All color drains from his face, matching the pale hue of the hair around him.

‘You… Raven! No, you can’t be here.’, yammers the former-employer in shock. His protégé is armed and actually touching him. The kid was supposed to be a ghost by now, dead and erased. A bad dream…

But the machine pistol at his kidney was definitely not a dream. Raven’s black-gloved hand wraps around Harker’s throat and throttles his head back against the helipad.

‘That’s not my name, you bastard… I had one before you stole it! But don’t get me wrong, you’ve given me a lot, chief… made me what I am today. Molded me into your perfect little tool, swiping me across all the doors you couldn’t open like some hacker’s key card and then… you threw me away… so this is divine providence, isn’t it, sir?’

The pistol slides up to the prone man’s chin, his face strained as he tries to lift his head up but the pressure of the barrel forces it back down.

‘Command wants you out of the picture, complete erasure… every suit and slimeball you’ve tainted over the years is going to have a date with the 13th Key before the unit is disbanded... the ASA needs to be bled, chief, and you made just the set of knives to do it.’

The man looks desperately around as fingers wrap around his black tie and hauls his lulling head back up to the assailant’s eyes. His eyes shift with bird-like fear over the spectre’s face; his mind awhirl as death looks him in the eye.

‘I thought they had already scraped your body off the street.. why didn’t you report in, we could have resolved that problem easily if you had called us.’, he says desperately in choked squeaks.

The man called Raven hoists Harker up by his slim executive tie and growls like an animal, bearing his teeth at his former employer. ‘Cut the crap, Chief, no more gambles, no more finessing, and no more lies and drugs to shut me up. Your worthless words won’t make up for you took from me!’

The spectre would remember the times with her. There would be steel-etched memories of passion and violence from his years in the Company. These were the memories they let him keep or those he could salvage from the brainwashing cocktail and self-enforcing psychology they used on him. Their bodies would be entwined one moment and the next they would be running. Bodies would litter the floor, the stench of blood would stir his combat reflexes but through all that he managed to stay attached her. Was it the adrenaline? Was it love?

He began to flush. His stare became blank. His pulse began to race.

The prone Harker observed his former student and smiled slowly.

Memories continued to flood back. There was a flash. The same sting of adrenaline and sweat would wash over his mind. She was there, they were close. Flesh pressed against flesh.

Her lips moved slowly, ‘Do you love me?’

‘Yes.’

He couldn’t stop himself. He didn’t know where she got the knife. His arms moved as in a dream. The pale man could only watch as his body fought against the only woman he ever loved. Pain creeped into his skull and he looked blankly at the floor. There was so much blood. Was it yours, my love? Are we going to die?

She was there, looking at him from the grip of death. Her eyes were filled with oblivion. Those cold, killer’s eyes did not belong to the blood-flecked smile she gave him.

‘I’m sorry…’, she breathed.

‘Who was it?’, he asked, his emotion draining away like the blood on the floor.

‘Did you enjoy what I cooked up for you, lover boy?’ interjects a desperate man’s voice. The black-suited Harker laughs weakly, slightly choking as he tries to struggle free from the distracted spectre, ‘She was a plant… expendable, just like you… but you just refuse to die!’

Anger rose within the pale man, fueled by memory of love and hate. A series of flashes lit up his face and a rain of shell casings littered the helipad around his commanding officer’s limp body. He couldn’t recognize his former employer anymore, his face shattered and broken like the monster he was inside. The monster that had done so much to him and to those he loved. Or thought he had loved.

The pale face contorts again in anger as he stumbles back away from the body, hastily getting up. A few more rounds cause hazy red mist to rise up in puffs from the dead man’s chest. He can’t stop himself, it just isn’t enough anymore to have him dead.

His tanto is slipped from behind his back and he lifts it high, screaming like an animal, ready to rend the body from stem to sternum.

‘No, I can’t…’, he says, flicking the knife point first into the ground by Harker’s shattered face. ‘It’s over… nothing more needs to be done to this man.’

The machine pistol clatters to the ground as the spectre steps over the fallen officer’s body. It was time to complete the illusion and time was beginning to grow short. Hard green eyes swept over the operations watch on his wrist. Segmented display bars for some sort of instrumentation began to grow shorter like a slowly devoured circle on the watch’s face. He glances down, looking at the sundered artificial face of Salitori on the ground.

‘You’re going to be a hero tonight. Did you know that?’ A weak grin creeps over his face as he picks up the former disguise.

Within the neck of the remaining mesh-work of the mask, a little mole-like lump is pressed. Like a sheet of paper consumed by flame, the synthskin and circuitry start to decompose rapidly and it is casually tossed aside onto the helipad. It leaves no trace, much like the steps of its former owner as he makes his way towards the squat service elevator. That bars grow shorter still on his watch and the com-interference bubble finally begins to wane, drawing crackles and half-words from the transceiver in his ear. Fingers play across the control panel of the service elevator. With a groaning woosh, the doors part, revealing the mail cart and the gruesome parcel it bares. The pale man, in a stolen ASA uniform, enters the elevator and reaches up to disable the single surveillance camera in the upper corner by the door. A simple twist of the finger disconnects the camera just prior to his transceiver crackling to life.

‘…come in Salitori, come in! We’ve got reports of gunfire on the roof and elevator access has been cut off, is Harker secure, repeat, is Harker secure?’, came the call from the dispatch officer.

The radio had been restored but all was proceeding smoothly. He leaned over and pushed the close and stop buttons on the elevator’s console. Without the breeze from the outside, the smell of the body began to grow stronger. The smell of death washed over the spectre as he threw back the canvas sheet covering the cart. He leaned into to pull the body out and started to speak, still using the fallen Salitori’s voice.

‘…it was him. He pulled a gun on Madison, said something about people watching him… and he just shot him… our own damn CO.. he started waving that pistol around, took out the pilot… then the bastard stuck me.’, spoke the wounded sergeant Salitori.

The dead body was reunited with its original uniform. Salitori was dressed in black; fitting, perhaps, for his own funeral on top of the building where he had served for so long. The spectre, his slayer, stood over the re-dressed body like an art critic. They would believe. No, they had to believe. He turned his eyes away, focusing on the elevator’s console once again. 2 minutes and the elevator would restore completely, taking it down to the ground floor and unlocking it.

‘…Sal, what’s your status? We’ve got tech working on the elevators but it’ll be a few minutes, can you hold out?’

Thin, muscular arms, sheathed in black slipped around the fallen officer and hefted the dead weight onto straining shoulders. The spectre quickly exited the service elevator and moved towards the helipad with the body in tow. As he walked, he spoke, the effort of the exercise adding believability to his words.

‘It’s all secure up here, Cappy… get the medipods up here. Four bags should do it…’

He laughed weakly, just enough for the transceiver to pick it up before he dropped the corpse face down onto the helipad.

‘Here the man had fallen, here he had died doing his job. You’re a hero, Sal. And you’ll get the funeral I’ll never have.’, whispered the thoughts within the assassin’s mind.

‘Four… Sal, no!’, screamed the dispatch officer in the dead man’s ear. ‘Get those pods up there now!’, he would shout to the others behind him, the soldiers and comrades of the fallen officer. ‘Damnit, soldier, hold on!’, yelled the voice of a desperate man. The last words the assassin would hear as he ran towards the edge of the roof, leaving his carefully laid carnage behind.

The edge of the helipad grew closer and closer with each fleeting step. Lights from the Nexus and a thousand voices roared upwards along the side of the Auroran Security Agency. Tri-vid commercials yelled to the populous, people yelled at each other, and the lights bound them all together. The city never slept. The lights never went out.

And as he fell towards the salvation of the Skywalk and its spider’s web of metal and polymer, he would slip from the darkness into the light and her airy blanket.

As he clung to the steel rigging and cables, a hundred meters from the black-suited family he was now helping to cleanse, he would think as the people did.

As he dressed in the shadows and moved into the streets as one of them, he thought.

As he faded slowly into the grey world of uncertain tomorrows, he said quietly:

“He, too, has been changed in his turn, Transformed utterly: a terrible beauty is born.”


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