As Good, As Heartless
The Informant has turned Traitor.'
That is all my Employer writes on the message slip. I have never seen him. I only know that he is male, the leader of the Corporation, and my Employer. I am clever, but not that clever.
I know what to do. I have to take his information from him. Then someone else, an Eliminator, or maybe even an Exterminator if he's lucky, will come and take his #life from him. I am heartless, but not that heartless.
He must know that I am coming, because he moved the Meeting up three hours ahead of schedule. I will have to hurry now. I have the skills necessary to complete this Task, but now I require chance on my side. I am lucky, but not that lucky.
The Informant is speaking quickly to the person in the Meeting with him. I know there are only two of them, according to the heat sensor in my eyepiece. A sense of crippling worry rattles through me, and I am forced to remind myself that stopping the Meeting was not my Task. I am fast, but not that fast.
The air duct creaks slightly under my left knee (I am light, but not that light), and the conversation below stops. My lungs freeze mid-breath, and I keep as still as I can; any movement could alert the pair below to my presence. They cannot know. They will not know.
I am good, but not that good.
There are shouts for security. Someone, either the Informant or his counterpart, yells that I have a gun trained on me, and to come down immediately. For a split second, the voice is nearly breaching the barrier of familiarity, but truly? He wants me to come down? I am stupid, but not that stupid.
I stay right where I am, sliding imperceptibly backwards until I feel the drop in the duct. I fasten the end of a roll of steel cable to the top of the duct, then slide over the edge backwards. My hand goes to the emergency .45 I keep...somewhere...on my person, and I kick the side of the duct out on the second try due to lack of leverage. I am strong, but not that strong.
The wall gives, aluminum rends, and plaster crumbles to dust as I swing myself through the small opening, rolling to a stop in front of the pair. There is no gun in sight. Due to the look of horror on the Informant's face, I assume that he wasn't actually expecting me, and that prospect is just a little terrifying. The man with him is one I've seen before in profiles, in pictures, in person, so many times before. I am at least that good.
He is Thomas Clarke. He is also my father.
"Casey!" He shouts, and somehow, his voice is the same. He was dead, and his voice is still the same, for God's sake.
I try not to flinch because no one has called me that, not since I was sixteen, completely alone, and had nothing to lose. I can't help the way my shoulders tense, though, and I can't say anything. There is nothing I can say that will describe the tumultuous uprising of feeling and emotion that I can feel oozing out my pores. It is all I can do to keep the expressions off my face. I even try to restrict the feelings to that of anger and anger alone. I am stoic, but not that stoic.
"This was the only way. I had to make sure you completed your Task, and only your Task. Come now, Casey, you must—"
My posture straightened slightly, and it all clicked into place. The only man who knew of my Task was my Employer. Yet this man, my father, spoke of it as though he knew it well. So either my Employer has kept my father hidden from my view and kept him updated on all my Tasks or—or there is no Employer.
There is only Father.
This man, the man who was proven psychopathic, narcissistic, and even a bit schizophrenic by several psychiatrists. The man who built me up only to tear me down. The man who destroyed my home, my school, my #life.
And my mother. He pinned her to the ceiling like a butterfly with nails, staples, tape, needles, anything he could find that would keep her there without hurting her. And then he doused everything in gasoline, my siblings included, and let it all burn. And he left me to live.
I am cool-tempered, but not that cool-tempered.
I let the snarl curl my lips, and I hiss through an arger-restricted throat, "No. You don't get to call me by that name."
The Informant looks both terrified and confused. So slow on the uptake. He opens his mouth, but I train the gun on him, and pull the trigger. I am patient, but not that patient.
The Informant's corpse slumps to the floor, but my gaze never leaves Father.
"You shouldn't have done that, Casey." He knows I will not shoot him.
"Yeah, maybe." He is wrong.
The Exterminator (so the Informant would've been lucky) arrives half a minute later to me sitting cross-legged on the floor next to the two corpses that I put there. He looks at me, then at the bodies pooling blood on the floor, then at me again. He sighs. "You shouldn't have done that, K-C 301."
"Yeah. Maybe." I say. He is right.
Maybe I am that heartless after all. That heartless, that good.
He approaches, and I let him. I know what is coming; how could I not? He kneels beside me, pulling me to him a bit. His deft fingers slide to the three buttons at the back of my neck, pressing them gently, just enough to activate them. He apologises briefly, but I cannot respond; the second button deactivates my speech abilities. The Exterminator's lips touch to my forehead, a last caress, the final button pressed, and I...can feel...my internal programming...slowing...to...a…
fin
