It was almost over.

That’s what I kept telling myself. Of course, being “almost over” included dealing with one of the most feared assassins of all time. The Caesar was an old man, but looks could be deceiving, and I was about out of steam. Well, almost. The encounter with Lucita had left me feeling charged, as if sparing her from a fate I myself had put her in was somehow a moral triumph. The human brain was strange like that. I felt like I’d done the right thing, and I’d had only a few moments of that in my five-year lifespan.

Walking down the meat processing plant’s main corridor, past conveyor belts of stinking meat, I held tight to my machine gun. I wasn’t afraid of the Caesar. All he could do was kill me, but I found myself edgy and nervous in a way I hadn’t been during my other kills. The walls were almost completely broken down between me and my emotions now. That threatened to make me sloppy, and there were only two fates for sloppy assassins: death or imprisonment.

Marissa, meanwhile, was following behind me with her own stolen machine gun. It seemed her close encounter with Lucita had left her a little more cautious. There was also a sense of alertness to her movements around me and I wondered if she was thinking I might have deliberately put her in danger.

Perhaps I had.

“That was a bad idea,” Marissa said. “You should have killed Lucita.”

“Yes it was,” I said. “But I didn’t.”

“You really think that’s going to make the world a better place?”

“I think it made me feel better about myself and that’s all that matters.”

“If you say so, Chief.”

“Let’s just get to the roof.”

We were heading to the three-story metal staircase at the end of the assembly line. It led directly to a doorway that opened up to the plant’s helicopter pad. With good luck, the Caesar was still there. With bad, he’d taken off or gone to check on Marissa, only to find his men killed and it time to depart.

Either way, I wanted to finish my contract. Biondi’s organization was destroyed and his family was shattered. Killing him was tying up a loose end, but it was also the crowning achievement of my career. Even if I died tonight, this would be a mark I’d left on the planet—and few people could say they left one.

“Lucita almost killed me,” Marissa said, continuing our conversation as we reached the staircase.

“Yeah, she almost did.”

“Is that all you’re going to say?”

“Sorry you almost got your neck broken?”

Marissa muttered something obscene under her breath. She was angrier than I expected, given our circumstances.

“What was that?”

“I called you a whoreson.”

“Perhaps. I wouldn’t know.”

Heading up to the rooftop, neither of us said another word until we reached the doorway. Gently opening it, I peered out into the night to see the Caesar sitting alone in front of a fifteen-million-dollar Falcon-1236 chopper, equipped with Black Technology stealth jammers and an arsenal of advanced weapons.

The Caesar was staring at the helicopter with a very displeased look on his face. It was a beautiful night with the moon full in the sky and the stars visible all around it. We were in the middle of the countryside and there was no sign of civilization for miles.

“You might as well come out and get this over with,” the Caesar muttered. “I know you’re out there.”

I kept my gun trained on him as I stepped out. “Don’t try anything.”

“Or you’ll kill me?” the Caesar said, his voice positively dripping with contempt. “I think we’re past that point.”

“You’re right.” I got a nasty smile on my face. This would be one of the rare kills I truly enjoyed. “I’m surprised you’re still here.”

“You can blame your co-conspirator for that.”

“I may have disabled the chopper before I came to see you,” Marissa said. “Nothing permanent, don’t worry. Just enough to make sure you didn’t get away.”

“She’s a slippery little snake, isn’t she?” the Caesar said, turning around. “Is Lucita dead?”

“No,” I replied. “She’s not.”

“A pity.”

“Goodbye,” I said, half-smiling.

“You’re not even human,” the Caesar said, shaking his head. “Don’t act like—”

That was when a dozen bullets from my machine gun went into his chest. I also made sure to shoot him in the face to guarantee that he was he was really, most sincerely, dead. One minute the Caesar was the bane of the Society, the next minute he was just another corpse in a building full of them.

“Well, that was anticlimactic,” I said, looking down at the mutilated body.

“Death rarely has triumphant music playing.”

There was nothing worth taking from him, not even a cellphone full of numbers to investigate. “So, is this where you shoot me in the back?”

This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

“You really don’t have any trust left in me at all, do you?”

“Gross betrayal tends to do that.”

Marissa looked away. “I suppose that’s fair. Have you given any further thought to my offer?”

“Was it an offer or a threat?”

“An offer.”

Marissa put down her gun on the ground. “This is a chance for you to do something good for the rest of the world, and protect your coun—”

“It’s not my country.”

Marissa sighed. “Then—”

I interrupted again, tired of the games. “What do you know about me? Now.”

Marissa crossed her arms. “I know Daniel Gordon is dead and the Letters Project was designed around bringing back soldiers, as well as agents who were too valuable to lose.”

Dead? Really? “Uh… huh. That’s…”

“Crazy, I know.”

“The word I was looking for was impossible. Black Technology can do a lot of things, but raise the dead isn’t one of them.”

“His parents were Marcus Gordon and Rebecca Gordon. A Caucasian and African American couple who were both scientists for the project. They pulled a lot of strings to get him involved. Both worked for the Karma Corporation, though, and he was heavily involved in missions for them, anyway.”

I stared down at the ground, processing all that information. It was a lot to take in. “Was he married?”

“Yes, to Barbara Anne Gordon with one daughter. Her name was Kathy.”

The names meant nothing to me. “What happened to them?”

“She remarried. The daughter is in junior high now.”

I held my breath for a moment, contemplating all of this. “You knew this all the time. You dropped bread crumbs when—”

“You tried to manipulate me into finding out information for you. Don’t pretend you’re innocent in all of this. We both played each other. You can call me whatever you want, or kill me, but don’t pretend for a second you’ve been wronged. You wanted to find out your true identity knowing exactly how much danger that would put me in.”

I half-raised my machine gun up, ready to shoot her and free myself from this curse I was laboring under. I then tossed it to one side.

“You’re right. I don’t get to call you out. That doesn’t mean I have to forgive you, though.”

“I’m sorry I wasn’t the perfect little brainwashed damsel you hoped I was.”

“I never wanted you to be brainwashed. I just thought you were the one person in the world I knew who was out of the system.”

“No one’s out of the system, not really.”

I nodded. “That’s true, at least. To answer your question, I don’t know. I’m a killer because that’s literally all I know how to be. I want my memories back not because I give a shit about who this Daniel Gordon guy was, but because I want to see if I can be something else. If I ever had the potential to be something else. I don’t mind being a killer; it’s what I’m good at. But I wanted the possibility to choose to be otherwise. If I go with you, that’s not happening.”

“If you don’t go with me, you’ll be hunted for the rest of your life. The government is going to find the Society and either bring it to heel or shut it down. The Letters are too dangerous to let run loose. Your only option is to submit or die.”

“If I do, I’ll be putting myself in the line of fire until I’m dead. Or are you promising there’s an expiration date for this offer? At least with the Society I had the option of retirement after ten years. Here, I’m going to be working off my debt to Uncle Sam and Betsy Ross until I’m in the ground. If I run, at least there’s a chance I can stay one step ahead of you.”

Marissa was silent for a moment. “I wouldn’t look for you.”

“You wouldn’t have a choice.”

“I do have a choice, G. That’s the difference between working for the NSA and the Society. I’d lose all of my privileges, my rank, and my clearance, but I have that choice. You could find something else to do with your life. You’re smart enough to do that. Find someone else to love and make a living doing something other than killing. Hell, empty out your frozen bank accounts. I can use my rootkit in Delphi to give you every bit of money owed to you.”

I was surprised at the offer. “Why help me?”

“You saved my life back at the airport.”

“That’s why you care?”

“It was the first time I realized you weren’t just playing me. That you really did give a shit about me, enough to risk your life.”

That… hurt. “I fell in love with you a lot sooner.”

“Yeah, that was the point.” Marissa turned away. Looking to the helicopter, she asked, “Are you coming or not?”

That was the question, wasn’t it? If I was going to go off on my own to do whatever it was I wanted to do, then now would be the time to do it. Did I really want the answers Doctor Gordon would be willing to provide? What I remembered of my parents now told me that both were lunatics rather than the kind of people I wanted to know.

If I believed Marissa, and I did, there was no family waiting for me, either. Daniel Gordon’s life was over, and if there was any chance I was going to have a “normal” life, then it would be by forging a new one, rather than trying to remake the past. But I couldn’t do that. I was a killer, born and raised.

My entire life might only consist of five years’ worth of memories, but they were glamourous ones of danger, excitement, power, and wealth. I didn’t want to work for the International Refugee Society anymore, but I wasn’t sure I could give up its benefits, either. It was a disgusting revelation about myself, but futile to deny. I also wanted to be with Marissa or whatever her name was.

Fuck.

In the end, curiosity made the decision for me. Not the wealth, not the power, not Marissa, or even the knowledge that I was never going to be anything other than a murderer. I had to follow this through to the end, and that meant getting the answers I needed from Doctor Gordon about just who Agent G really was. If that meant being the government’s dog, then so be it.

“God bless America,” I said, climbing into the passenger’s seat. Marissa followed into the pilot’s, showing yet another quality I hadn’t expected. “You sure you know how to fly this thing?”

“Yep.”

“I’ll take your word for it.”

“You better. Otherwise we’re walking.”

Marissa started the vehicle up and we began our journey to the Palace of Miracles. Neither of us spoke much during the trip, allowing us time to adjust to recent events. I was still bruised and battered from my torture at the hands of the Caesar and wanted to do nothing more than take a long hot shower before sleeping for a week. That wasn’t an option, though, and I wasn’t sure I’d ever sleep soundly again.

Lucita would perhaps try to track me down once she managed to call someone to transport her to a facility capable of repairing her cybernetics. I’d humiliated and misused her. I had the feeling, though, that she wouldn’t actually try to kill me. Not because there was any sense of affection, but being a free woman would have its own appeal.

Besides, with the government cracking down on the Carnevale, she was now one of the world’s most famous assassins rather than one of its best. Hers would be a face splashed across hundreds of magazines and posters, with the Italian government unlikely to let her actions slide once they determined the Carnevale was responsible for Mondo’s death. I wished her luck, though. I hoped she managed to loot the Carnevale’s accounts and find some island somewhere to live out her life surrounded by sexy swimsuit models every bit as attractive as herself.

Maybe she didn’t deserve happiness, but really, who did?

“How much longer until we arrive?” I asked about half an hour later.

“Not long,” Marissa replied.

I caught sight of our destination from a warm orange glow in the horizon soon after. This caused me to lean up and stare. As we approached, I saw a plume of smoke trailing up from the mountain where the Palace of Miracles was located. It was surrounded by a division of the Italian army, everything from tanks to APCs to troop transports having moved up the tiny road to encircle the Caesar’s base.

They’d arrived early.

“Dammit,” I muttered. “We’re too late.”

“No,” Marissa said, sighing. “We’re not. We’re right on time.”

Contacting the troops below, Marissa gave a password and brought us down to rest among the attacking force.