The three doctrines all operators had to follow:

1. The order is absolute.

2. Don't question the order.

3. There is no such thing as failure.

I, Operator number 46, have now consecutively broken the only laws I had in my life.

6 hours prior to Operation #746 -

I looked at my hands, the tools of my trade, battered and scarred from years of abuse. To think that this would be the final time I would have to take a life. I looked up and observed myself from the reflection of the window. Gray hairs poured over my headband, covering not only a deep scar running parallel from eyebrow to eyebrow but also numerous wrinkles. My eyes, perhaps once glimmered full of hope, now are dull and lifeless. I have aged. To think, I survived the last 5 years completing operations with a 1 % survival rate.

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"Finally, I can be free," the words escaped my mouth. My pilot flew on, no reaction.

I continued: "This shall be my final operation."

The pilot continued facing forward, flying across the ocean. No need to get attached to someone on a suicide mission much less someone who is about to exit the order.

I reach for the operation file again. From afar it almost looks like an invitation to a high class dinner party from a sick billionaire: a thin sheet of obsidian coated on both slides with gold leaf. Aside, of course, from the red handwritten letters that filled the card. Digrafid Cipher. How fitting.

"For my final mission to remind me of my first mission," I droned on to the pilot, "I have truly grown old."

For the first time in 16 years of missions together your pilot reacted. A slight turn of the head and 2 words spoken to you by other people multiple times:

"Don't die."