The Battle (DO NOT POST)

[lyle]

'Like flies, these goons were like flies.' The De-liberator grimaced from behind his rotten and destroyed fortress of a table. The past minute had been all too hectic- and now there was a searing hole in his lower abdomen, crying its river of blood. So even flies can get to you sometimes.

Yet suddenly another set of foot steps appeared as a door opened near the end of the hallway. Had the person opening said door been more quiet- the near deaf gun hand wouldn't had heard him, or her.

'Wouldn't that be great, my life is to be ended with a woman pulling the trigger.' Immediately he chastised himself for thinking in such an old way, though he realized too that it was probably the adrenaline.

The footsteps seemed to stop, and as quietly as he could, De pulled himself up slowly. Coast is clear- eight dead bodies and a floor filled with little spent clips and bullets. 'Wait- one of them is still moving,' not a drop of remorse was felt as the 'hero' raised his small machine gun and clicked its trigger. Yet the gun wouldn't budge, apparently it'd had enough. So the overly eager pistol was brought up instead and then tied up the loose, bloody end on the floor.

Hunching over a bit, De lugged himself over to the room's door, and rested against it. His ears perked up as he tried to tune into the comings and goings on the other side of the wall.... what was that? It was bloody quiet, but there was something else there... chaotic- refusing to be controlled.. ahh...

Fear.

"Who are you?" he shouted.

[Aimless]

With a grace that could only be described as solemn, he held himself against the wall near the door, listening to the slight buzzing of a flourescent light trying it's damnedest to keep lighting up the life of whoever was inside; if anyone was still alive inside.

He continued to listen as a clicking sound was heard, and then a throwing of metal *He was discarding his primary weapon.* and then a relatively loud boom as someone was finished off. He held his breath, but he could feel his bad knee shaking, the cold metal of the gun in his hand at odds with the sweat that beaded around his head.

He said nothing at the bait, instead swallowing hard, the lump in his throat behind the layers of fat that had built themselves around his form. He gripped his fingers tighter before responding at all.[/i]

"You know who I am. You took that pot shot at me. What the fuck are you trying to do to me?"

[lyle]

The other side of the door- De's eyes widened, yet instead of instinctively reaching around and killing the man, he slumped against the wall again. Had he not been wounded- his mission would be complete.

Yet, who's to say his shot would've hit in the first place? Fate, was this? Maybe he'd play this one out..

"I'm the reason you'll never walk through a dark alley way again- as good as the grim reaper if you're concerned. I equalize, and frankly, things aren't lookin too equal on your side of the fence. So I'm going to tear it down, and then tear you down. Got it?"

Get ready.

[Aimless]

"No you're not."

He shifted slightly, moving away from the door so that if the man let loose with a volley without a real target, he could still easily dodge away. He was sweating more profusely, his own mortality staring him in the face, the form of this assassin the most terrifying thing he's ever had to deal with.

He didn't barge in, in fact he moved slowly towards the door even as the stand off continued. He didn't want to fight this man, he didn't know the man's situation. He expected that he wasn't at peak performance, or else he'd already be dead. He leveled the gun towards the door, now standing fully in front of it, the metal trembling in his hand. One last final swallow, his throat undulating under the fat of complacency.

"Go back to the hell you came from!"

He let loose with a barrage from the pistol that shredded through the door, splintering and splaying the wood with unheard of force. The pistol kicked with each consecutive shot, but his wrists were strong, long trained to hold back the recoiling force of the pistol, the man using his immense weight to control the barrel and the bullets to aim where he wanted them.

[lyle]

The subject was old, fat and nothing of a policeman- though that last one was probably a bad thing. Policemen tended to have the eye but they also tended to be idiots, least the ones round here. This one though had shown some tact in his acension up the city's political ladder- but at the same time that could've been green.

"Then again I'm just over thinking," whispered the assassin hero- right before he flipped around the door and aimed for the closest thing in range. It so happened that was exactly his enemy, who managed finally in his life to stand up to something- least the proper way.

Eyes windened and bullets discharged as both men emptied their respective clips into each-other. Bones collided with hot metal and turned to mush, flesh seared off leaving no trace of its existence. Their voices, silent- only the sound of gunfire permeated the air around them.

...double-kill!!

end.

.begin

[Aimless]

The data com beeped to life. A multicolored LED went off with every single color it knew, alerting the man that the message was very, very important. He grabbed the small brick, what in a past time was a 'cell phone', now known as a Data Communications Receiver and Sender, a data com, or colloquially, a DC.

He flipped through the screen, hovering in mid air above the device. He flicked past a message from his ex-wife, and another from his coworker, both message containing the same stupid forwarded message; "Oh my god look at these cute kittens!". Snore. They were probably sleeping together.

He pulled open the message that set off the alert, a heads up from his boss about a new contract. He had work! Hurray! He threw the DC onto his bed as he jumped into the sonic shower, beginning his day.


An hour or so later he was into his PT, his Personal Transport. A small ball with three wheels that connected to an overseer computer network which handled all traffic throughout the city, one such net that was connected to another overseer computer than managed intercity traffic, which then connected to a state overseer computer that managed interstate traffic, which then connected to a final computer network of 10 computers, all of which spoke only with each other and their selected subordinate computer, handling road travel throughout the entire country.

A lot of computers!

He sat and read through the days articles, all of his news streamed directly to his DC, which connected to in-transport holographic displays, which threw all of the information up into the air in front of him. He swiped and pawed through the articles, finally moving over to his Personal Data Assistant.

"Shirley."

"Yes sir?"

"I need my schedule for the day. I've got to add in this meeting with the boss. You'll need to handshake with my personal key code. Override access Steak Gellato Zero Zero Four Three."

"Connecting, sir... Connecting... Connecting... Connected. You've established a secure connection with your schedule sir. The assassination of Maximilian Kurechenko is scheduled for today at 3. Should I over write?"

"No. Push it to 3:30, he should still be where he said he was."

"Yes, sir."

"Put in this meeting at 11. I don't think it will take more than the hour. Monitor my DC's GPS location to account for any tardiness."

"Yes, sir."

"Oh, and bring up maps 3 Epsilon through 6 Gamma. And then open up a message to my ex wife thanking her for the junk mail. And sort through my articles for any mention of Maximilian. And throw on Ave Maria, Schubert. And please lower the lights. And let's get to the office on time, handshake protocol override Alpha Alpha Zero One Three."

The computer didn't respond. Delay. Hmm. Might be time to upgrade.

"Yes, sir. Traffic Overseer has granted us access to priority traffic. Establishing route... Route accepted, engaging."

The transport pushed forward, the g-forces negated by the layer of shock resistant gel that separated the enclosure and the transport. He arrived at work not more than 13 minutes later, his car docking directly into the Elevation Unit which rocketed him straight upwards towards his office's floor. Arriving and departing his transport, he strides confidently to his office, his secretary smiling at him coyly as he stepped into his office.

To his surprise, there was his boss.

[lyle]

"You're here."

The boss- a firm man of ancient standards and the resolve of the famed lion. He was something of a single character amid a play of robots and old even in today's standards where age is nothing. But he was no Shakespearean Homer; if anything he appeared like the foolish and beyond reason- a modern Romeo.

His eyes were scanning the small portfolio before him, "And you're probably asking, what am I doing behind you're desk." He flipped through to find a picture, his hands scaling the taboo manila cache. He loved it. It almost even got him off, showing his desire for all things old, all things rebel to the endless clicking, ticking and calculating world he now... sat in? He couldn't even remember the last time he'd gone for a nice walk, or drive. It was like his business had been replaced by a more effective, subtle natural culture.

"Things aren't going well- I need to get things moving with this file," he said. A change had been made, and it hadn't been messaged. The boss knew this pissed off his underlings, as he fashioned them, but he felt it necessary to keep them on their toes. "Things will get... hairy if we don't move forward. Do you understand?" He slid over the manila folder, imagining his employee would find it steaming with poison and little concoctions of death-- though he wasn't too far gone.

On its inside was a photo of a man, no Maximilian Kurechenko, but a shorter, thin dark haired young man. He appeared no more than sixteen- though legally an adult. Something was strange about him, this 'Jim6.' The page read on...

[Aimless]

Name: Jim Croenburg

Alias: Jim6

Description: Mousey. Lean. Apathetic. Solitary.

Mission: Target is a high value computer kingpin. Responsible for more data interruptions and cyber crime than any other two hackers combined, Jim6, as he was known on popular internet site 4Chan.org, committed his first crime at the age of 13, stealing the identities of over 700,000 people through a simple worm that he attached onto popular merchant site Amazon.com which tracked all purchases and saved their information, and also checked all former sales and their saved information, including credit card information.

He know ran a cyber empire that had tentacles in all continents, including antarctica (He owns a server that filters ip addresses with it's own satellite stuck in geosynchronous orbit). He is currently ramping up an infiltration of the US Government, intending to take down their cyber defenses so he can pilfer the names of thousands of secret individuals who work for the government, and then intending to sell them back to the US at exorbitant prices, or to the highest bidder outside of the US.

Your mission is to assassinate this individual. This will be troublesome. He lives almost constantly secluded at the top of his tower. This also can't be done in an overt fashion. Signs of his death getting out before we're ready could signal another cybercriminal to take his spot at the top and would only serve to stem the tide momentarily.

No extraneous casualties. Keep it minimal. The less the better.

[lyle]

"Some rise to the top, huh," said the boss. He wasn't too happy about this one, he disliked how a 16 year old could somehow be a threat to the world. Plus he wasn't the type to go out and save civilization either. Fuck em, he thought.

"So yeah, if you could finish this by the end of the day, that'd be great." He stood up from the desk he'd bought for this office, wondering if it seemed a shade off that it originally was. His hands turned round its smooth contours, trying to find some old semblance in its ashy oak. But there was nothing there for him, so he shuffled off to the window- thinking of jumping. He'd hit the ground pretty hard from his bastion in the sky.

"I want you to kill the little guy and show him a rough time." It all had changed, cars, roads, buildings, jobs, politics, people, even the damn wood. Ughh.