Chapter One.
He felt like in some spaggethi western as he stood there in
the emptied street, the light rain dampening his long, black
raincoat and his long, black hair, both waving in the
whistling wind. Yep, just like the final showdown scene, in
which the hero is facing the villain for a final match. The
old western town was replaced with a neo-western metropolis,
and the rolling bushes were symbolized as roaming rats,
scattered wherever there's trash, which is basically all
over. He felt the usual adrenaline rush and tension, and the
confidence the target he's facing is as good as dead, the
confidence of a man who's been doing these kind of showdowns
for a living for the past 13 years. He was pretty busy most
of these last years, when his body count had grown from a
two figure number to a three figure, and then he had lost
count. He used to count them at first, as if to torment his
aching conscience, and by doing so attempting to put the
conscience to ease. It seems that his conscience had lost
interest in him nowadays, as most other feelings have. Cold
drops of rain slid down his cold hand, and on the cold steel
of his gun, if you could call it that. To compare this
weapon to the common concept of the word "gun" was like
comparing a piano to a brain-synth. A gun could injure, if
put in the right hands. This weapon was lethal. The other
guy was armed pretty good himself, as the big hole in the
corner of the street's wall proved, a black mark behind
which the man in black was dodging behind for the past 14
minutes, 34 seconds and 103 milliseconds. Those Hitachi
Digital Internal Assistants were pretty accurate, or so
promised the advertisement that appeared every 60 minutes, 0
seconds, and 0.4 milliseconds. He should pay his pal Roger a
visit and have that fucking advertisement removed off the
DIA. It was a new model he just got, and the advertisements
virtually could not be removed, unless you knew people like
Roger, expert digi-phreaker by occupation. Actually, he
would have prefer being at Roger's a lot better right now,
with a can of cold Nukecoke in one hand and a cigarette in
the other, while Roger is working on his DIA. Actually, he'd
prefer being anywhere but here. Shit, he thought to
himself, stop whining or you'll get your ass shot down. As
if to approve, an orange ray of concentrated plasma flew a
meter and a half in front of his dripping face, close enough
to feel it's heat. Is it possible that I'm getting too
fucking old for this?, he wondered, but let the thought die
in his mind. Thought's like that get you killed. Better
focus on this guy who's after my ass right now. Actually,
it was HIM who's after the other guy's ass, but basically,
it all came down to who's the last to stand, at the bottom
line, who's quicker and smarter. Survival of the fittest. He
should have suspected when the contractor said it's "as easy
as takin' down a naked gran'ma tied to one of 'em fuckin'
trees", but offered a payment only tough cases are worth.
Now he's stuck here in a gun fight that's taking too long.
He stretched his extending right eye over the edge of the
street corner, and folded it back quickly. It was enough to
see a number of troubling images: First, the bastard didn't
even bother to hide. He just stood there in the middle of
the street, like some indifferent suicidal scarecrow.
Second, the moment the extended eye appeared behind the
wall, the bastard aimed his weapon at it, which hinted
certain progressive upgrades in the neural field. Third, the
bastard was about 2.5 meters tall. That's not really an
advantage, except for intimidation purposes maybe, and along
with those other two things he noticed, Roberto Lee Cohen
was pretty fucking intimidated. The bastard. He
strengthened his grip on the weapon. He gives me the
creeps. No time for the usual gentleman slick-style. It's
gonna be the dirty way, Roberto pointed to himself, his
inner voice seemingly trembling. He switched the weapon to
grenade mode, set it to heat-seeking, and fired four
grenades. He added another two, after a few milliseconds,
just to make sure. He then heard four explosions, then
another one, and then silence. Weird, he thought. I
couldn't have counted wrong. He ran a replay using the DIA.
No, I didn't. That's odd, the grenades are set to explode
on impact or on zero movement. He carefully took another
quick glance. This time he saw a picture much worse. The
bastard was holding the grenade (in his fucking  hand!!!),
giving Roberto a moronic grin. Roberto took another look,
only this time he didn't retract the eye back. The target
held the grenade, and as Roberto looked, it exploded in his
hand. For a moment he was lost in a mushroom of fire and
smoke, but after the smoke faded away, to his disgust,
Roberto saw him still standing there, unharmed, this time
with his weapon aiming straight at Roberto's eye. He could
nearly feel the laser target on his eye, and before he
managed to withdraw the eye, the monstrous target (who's
the target here, really?, he wondered to himself with
growing panic) squeezed the trigger button, and the vision
from the extended eye turned static, while the other one
catched the whole picture of it blown off in a pulse of
orange plasmic fire. He retracted what's left of the eye,
now a smoky chunk of twisted metal. He shot my eye! The
sonofabitch shot my motherfucking eye!  His fear turned to
rage. That Refa'el Industries' cyber-optic eye had cost him
two contracts, and a month worth of living  on the bare
minimum of food and water cans. His rage turned to
frustration. Grenades were one of his most powerful weapons
in the available arsenal, and the only ones he could fire
without actually having to eye contact the enemy. The DIA
briefly ran the target's profile, again.

Name: Kenneth Beatme
Age: Unknown
Affiliations: None - freelancer
Constant location: Unknown
Cy-enhancements: Unknown

Too much secrecy even for me, he thought. He again began
to wonder why didn't he smell something fundamentally sucked
from the mere beginning. Well, he figured, no point
bitching on it now, is there? Might as well find a fucking
solution, and get this target over with. He leaned back
against the street wall, and thought for a few milliseconds,
his breath visible through steamy clouds, quickly snatched
away in the furious wind. He glanced at a graffiti, talently
drawn on an opposite wall. "You're fucked", it said, and
Roberto almost nodded with bitter agreement. He used the DIA
to dial the Central Police Army, using the scrambler chip to
disguise himself as a Mrs. Sarah Loafmeat. "Oh, god, please
send help! There's a huge monster attacking innocent people
here, and, oh GOD! It's firing again! The terror! The
terror!". I should take some fucking acting lessons, he
thought, and searched the empty street. Streets seem to
empty themselves when this sort of action is taking place,
but still he found what he wanted. He aimed his weapon at
the unfortunate figure who's happened to wonder near the
scene, and fired two rounds of plastronic bolts at it,
making it a smoking well-done steak. Sorry miss, he
apologized, mostly to himself, suppressing the already far
suppressed sense of shameful guilt. A few seconds later a
booming hover patrol arrived, and after examining the corpse
from above, the fearsome Mr. Beatme, and browsed over a pile
of garbage under which Roberto was hiding, it wasted a
considerable amount of firepower on poor Kenneth, who was
soon sent to a higher dimension, probably a sorry-ass one,
where all the losers end up after their sorry lives come to
a sorry end, Roberto thought grimly, almost wanting to cry.
The hover craft vanished with a booming rocket-engine roar,
and Roberto came out of his stinking haven after the
cleaning pod was done polishing the street from the bodily
remains. "Another job well done", he said to himself
cynically, without the trace of a smile. Actually, he really
felt like crying.

His sadness dimmed an hour later, and after the 3rd bottle
of Alco-Wholic. The DIA beeped inside his inner eye,
notifying him of a call from one Sha'hid Smith. That
son-of-a-thousand -bastards contractor, he thought, and
ordered the DIA to leave a message to the caller, saying
"Just transfer the fucking money". He was certainly not in
the mood for the kind of conversation he would manage with
the contractor, and was obviously too drunk to think of the
proper, inevitable insults he would throw at him. After the
3rd try he commanded a call block to the DIA, preventing
that specific person from interrupting. He glanced at the
bartender, a human one, that's why he liked this place so
much. No computer or electroid would ever replace the warm
coldness a human bartender can give, although they'd do the
bartending job a lot better. He ordered another bottle. The
bartender delivered it, with the usual "Christ, get a job"
look on his face. Roberto was still wearing the garbage from
the pile he hid under, and with his single-eyed glance, his
reflection in the bar mirrors reminded him of the old
pirates he used to read about as a child, specially with the
black burn stains around his wrecked eye, similar to a
pirate's black eye patch. An unemployed pirate, maybe.
"Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of fucking rum", he told the
bartender, which gave him a solemn look of indifference, a
glance that only well trained, human bartenders are capable
of. The DIA beeped and blipped again, and Roberto was ready
to turn the entire fucking thing off, as he saw a blue
blinking notification light inside his eye, indicating a
caller from the personal list. He only had 4 people in that
list. One was Roger Jelly, the second was Aim-At, a
digitized secretary Roger installed for him, to monitor and
infiltrate calls from contractors. The third was his
colleague, Anne Organic, a much more successful assassin
and, sharing the title with Roger, his best friend. And the
fourth person... His heart is still stuttering at her
memory. The only women he had ever loved, and still does,
even though he hadn't seen her for over 5 years, and who he
believed, hoped - still loves him, wherever she is. Sharron
Cest'toi, the woman he was with for 3 wonderful years, over
5 years ago, who'd left him for a bigshot, rich (and
probably corrupted) weapon designer for Fisher-Price. He
followed their joint success and happiness for a while,
mostly through the public media, but also through his vidfon
conversations with Sharron, their only connection since,
which only seemed to become as long as they became bitter.
Friendlier than ever and longer than ever, but bitterness
overrun, mostly his, and not surprisingly. So he kept
following them remotely, distinctly, bitter and lonely, both
envious and happy for them, until... until that...

But you dont want to think about it now, do you. He
checked the caller's id. It was Anne, and he was more than
willing to accept a call from her, so he did.
"Blessings, infant.", she greeted with her regular nickname
for him, being almot 45 years older. Judging from the view
he got of her through the DIA, he would grant her with no
more than 20 years of age, if he hadn't known she was over
80. Being rich, she could afford all sorts of treatments and
enhancements he, and most other people, couldn't. In fact,
most of her body was no longer organic, but a cybernetic
mixture of flesh and metallic machinery, brain and tiny
digital micro-processors, veins and electric wiring, blood
and lubricants. Cell manipulation treatments had given her
back her youth, and she used her honorable experience and
immense wisdom to surprise those who thought of her as a
"young chick", instantly taking the advantage over them.
"What blessings?", Roberto replied. "If there is any supreme
entity at all, an entity which spreads and delivers
blessings, the bitch is either ignoring me, or my turn
hadn't come yet." A smile spread across Anne's face.
"Bitter as ever, I see. I'd suppose a person should outgrow
such childish emotions. Really, there isn't one good reason
to be sorry for yourself." Now it was Roberto's turn to
grin, and seeing that (she could only see his lips and lower
body, through a camera lens on the tip of his nose) she
began to mildly giggle, an honest, cheerful sound which made
Roberto's heart flicker.
"Unless of course you don't have money to buy new clothes.
Judging from how the one's you're wearing looks, you
certainly need to freshen your wardrobe." She stopped the
giggling.
"Is everything ok with you,", she asked with concerning
seriousness,
"have you had a rough day?", she answered herself, seeing
him hesitate on the answer.
"What happened, was it a contract that went wrong?"
"Heh, wasn't too far from that, actually. I had to work a
bit harder, and far more dirtier this time to ice that
sonofa bitch. But it's not only that, it's...I feel...I, I
sense..." he felt too confused and embarrassed to express
himself properly, and she immediately sensed that.
"Wait. Let's say, my place, 30 minutes from now, so I can
change into something more comfortable." That was pretty
amusing. She wasn't wearing anything.
"We'll sit over some coffee, and talk this over more
properly. How does that sound, Robert?"
It sounded pretty divine to him, imaging the coffee, REAL
coffee, not the synthesized crap he usually settled with. He
felt an enormous gratitude, and suddenly became very tired.
Of living, perhaps.
"Sounds cool, Anne. Thanks."
"Good." She replied. "My place then, 30 minutes from now.
I'll go and have the water boiled. Cy'a." The screen went
blank, and disappeared from his inner eye sight. He looked
around, and was surprised to find the bartender glancing at
him with interest. That's odd, he thought, the bartender
should know that whenever an eye turns blank-silver, it
means the person is having a vidfon call.
"What is it?", he asked the bartender in a tired voice, more
tired than he meant it to sound.
"Nothing." The bartender said as a small grin spread on his
face.
"I just thought, it must have been something serious. It's
been a long time since I've seen and adult shed tears like
that." He said, and after a short pause, during which he
seemed to examine Roberto's stunned face a bit further, he
added: "And with that single eye of yours, well, it seems
it's been leaking enough from the good eye to support the
one that's missing."

Chapter Two.
"Promise me you'll be careful", she said with a grim,
serious look, as she always did before I went out on 'a
task', "Please, promise me you wont get yourself killed."
"Sharr", I answered solmenly, "I promise I will, and I
promise I wont, and I promise I'll be home before the clock
beeps midnight". In spite of the smile and the confidence I
had in myself, a saddening sense of seriousness embraced me,
as if somewhere deep down I knew something was gonna happen.
I kissed her goodbye, let her hold me longer than usual,
then gently drove apart, and stepped out into a hot summer
day, ominously dark even though it was late noon. The
metropolitan buildings, inconceivably huge if you weren't
born beneath their shadows, combined with the polluted
atmosphere, didn't allow bright summers, unless you were
rich enough (and you had to be pretty fucking rich) to live
in one of those Higher-State flats, high enough to be above
the smog. Me and Sharron lived halfway up those huge
buildings, a level named Midway-Section. A few more 'tasks'
carried, and we'll breath much cleaner air, and maybe even
be able to sunbathe. I stepped out to the elevated street,
and imagined her looking at me leave, a tall man, black
long-haired, always in a black Italian suit (thank God these
never got out of fashion!) and, at nights, a black thermal
raincoat. Watching as I'm seemingly being swept away with
the human current, all those mid-class people constantly
looking up to the Higher-State levels, each with his own
image of richness and success, looking as if they're drawing
energy from this paradise, energy to go on, to keep trying
to advance higher.

And somewhere out there, was my target. Robin Smith-Lee, a
legend and role-model to all women, or so it seemed, was an
executive member of the Progressive Female Rights direction
of board. Under this pretentious title hid a hurt women,
who's been a victim to a violent gang rape several years
ago, after which she was brutally taken, apart of her
dignity, of all her sexual organs with a sharp metablade.
After a few years of rightful sprawling in her own painful
memories, her sense of lost femininity and  emptiness in her
heart, she grabbed a hold of herself and founded the PFR
group, known for it's violently extreme feminist opinions,
mostly against rapists and sex offenders, but also towards
all men in general. I didn't get all that information from
the media, or from the hit-file I was delivered, with the
assistance of the sweet Aim-At of course, from the
contractor. Oh, no. The contractors merely gave you a 3D
picture and some informative background, only the info you
need to perform the hit at best. Hell, they don't even give
you a fucking name. No, I had to do some research, as I
always do, to get this kind of detailed background, and the
further I investigated  the more I had to suppress the sense
of guilt which had risen in me even before I performed the
assassination, maybe because I knew I was going to do it
anyway, or maybe because I've killed so many of those people
before, important people whom I appreciated, respected, but
regardless pulled the trigger.

The hit went perfect. A micro shred-arrow fired to the
center of her forehead, in the middle of her 'Sexual Abusers
to Castration' campaign speech.
"...sexually frustrated, hungry beasts, and we are their
naturally taken-for prey, when all this is funda..." She
must have then felt a sudden sting, like a poke of a tiny
niddle in her forehead, and it was as if she had suddenly
lost her words, and was pretty dazed from the fact that she
had. Then the tiny arrow expanded itself inside her skull,
inflating, until her brains were bulging out of her ears and
eyes and mouth. "It has to state a harsh fact", the
hit-file's comments section noted. "It has to leave an
intimidating impression". Oh, it did. But I was 5
kilometers away, an 0.3" Sniper Hollow-Tube already packed
in my silver business suitcase, quietly heading back home,
undisturbed by anyone, even the speed-crazed military police
hover crafts that whisked by in the streets. Only as I got
home, it was when the real trouble started. Sharron sat on a
sofa in front of the TV wall, her face sick-white, moist
with fresh tears, emanating from her deep blue eyes, the
deepest that I ever had the pleasure to see, and as they
fixated on my own black ones when I entered the room, they
were also wider than I've ever had the troubling experience
of seeing. I dropped the suitcase, alarmed. It took me a
single glance at the TV to realize nothing had happened to
her. Almost anything, at least. On the wall was a picture of
an elderly women, in her mid 60's, a face that radiated a
lot of pain, and yet fierce strength. The face's unique,
crude ugliness only seemed to give it a certain beauty, like
of an ancient rocky mountain. A still picture of the excited
face of a woman, just before she was violently assassinated
during a campaign speech, as the TV reporter was
dramatically raving, and so I ordered the TV to shut off,
and it slowly faded the picture to black, the glitter in the
woman's eyes was last to disappear like a sparkling glare
from some oblivious dark hell. Sharron's mouth opened, but
it seemed she was unable to speak, and for a terrible moment
she looked just like Robin Smith-Lee did, a miniature arrow
nailed inside her brain from a distance, inflating... But
then she moaned, and just shook her head slowly in
disbelief, still speechless, new tears running down her
blushed cheeks. I didn't have much to say either, at least
nothing that didn't seem too stupid, so the best I came up
with was this:
"I'm sorry. Did you like that woman?" Maybe the stupidest
thing I've ever said, maybe the biggest mistake of my life,
and definitely the only words I regret ever saying. And boy,
what deep remorse that is. It had an indifferent tone, the
words of a policeman informing someone her mother was just
raped and murdered, the same tone a drunk husband would use
on his numb sensed wife after beating the crap out of her.
"Are you completely fucking disturbed?!", she bellowed at
me. "How could any human being, intelligent human being,
ever do such a thing? Criminals, rapists... maybe I could
understand, and even live with that. But Robin! That, that
incredible woman! She was so...so....Oh, I don't know why
the fuck do I even bother." And with those final words she
began weeping again, and went sobbing to her, our, room,
locking the door behind her. I could easily continue this
argument, but I held myself from doing so. I loved Sharron,
and didn't want to begin yelling at her. I didn't want us to
fight because I fucking loved her, and that's why I felt
this terrible unease. She KNEW what my occupation was, and,
I don't know, was she able to live with it for, what, for as
long as it paid off our fine mid-level flat, the expansive
meals we had together, the expansive clothes and
cy-enhancements, for as long as it didn't so brutally clash
with her sleepy conscience? And where was that conscience
when I killed all those other people before? It wasn't the
first time my acts were shown on TV, or actually the
consequences of my acts. True, I was a lot less active than
in a few years later, but does the number really matter? I
don't think so, and I could have told her all that, if it
wasn't for that reason, that damned illogically consuming
emotion. Love. If it wasn't for my love to Sharron, my
unwillingness to hurt her even by making her confront
herself, if it wasn't for all that... Maybe we'd still be
together. But since that day matters began to deteriorate.
We hardly talked since, and except my daily 'good morning's
and her occasional ones, the urban flat sank into cold
silence. Finally she left me, and even though my heart was
shattered seeing her leave, a part of me sighed with relief.
Like her, I was unable to bare this situation anymore. She
got married to that rich weapon designer a few months later,
and settled in with him in his fancy flat on the roof of
Fisher-Price Weaponry, the 3rd tallest building in the
metropolis. After two months, driven by enough courage,
frustration, and a considerable portion of booze, I gave her
a vid-call.
"Hey Sharr. It's me." She looked beatiful and vital on the
screen, and my heart was filled with both joy and a terrible
sense of loss.
"Oh, hey Rob!", she smiled. "How's the manslaughter
business doing?"
I smiled back. Her smile was as honestly friendly as her
words. We talked  for about 3 hours, and the rest is
history. I began feeling a lot better after our remote,
digital reunion, although I still ached her departure, and
felt as if a part of me had gone with her, the part of my
soul in charge of emotional positivity. And a year later
everything ended, more brutal and violent than I could have
ever imagined. It was at that same day,
when...when..."When

Chapter Two.
are you planning to get off? Next summer?", the hovercab
driver's electronic voice drove me out of my bitter-sweet
remembrance, shaken at first but quickly sharp sensed as
ever.
"Sorry", I replied, and reached for my credit card.
"No need, pal. It's a pre-paid ride." the voice stopped me,
so I nodded, and stepped out. As always, I was stunned by
the beauty of this level, a heavenly penthouse like the
sweetest of dreams. The sun was shinning up here with all
it's glory and warmth, brightening the images of the clean,
metallic streets, the glorious architectural man-made
trophies, a reassuring sight to all those who dare spite the
will to once become a part of this seeming hallucination.
Everything was made of reflective metal, polished just
enough to shine under the sun, but not to blind you, the
streets, the building tops, the cars, even some of the
people's suits, were silvery. Silver paradise, that's what
they should call it. Everyone were calm up here, never the
rush and hurry often seen in the lower levels, Mid-Way, or
even the bottom disgust, to which they call New York. Those
dark sewers, where all the garbage from both the upper
levels is thrown, where all the poor people live, the
unhealthy, the outcast, the rats. If here, if Higher-State
was paradise, New York was certainly hell. Anne lived in the
top of the Sony building, for whom she was working
undercover as a model, even though Sony had also sent her on
a couple of hits or three. The building I was standing in
front of, only able to see it's last 20 floors, having the
rest reach down and down to Mid-Way section and even further
down, to it's roots in New York. I headed towards the
entrance, glancing up at what I imagined was the 17th floor,
where Anne resided, although the building was designed so
amazingly twisted, you really couldn't tell between
neighboring floors. The elevator stopped in Anne's floor,
and I stepped out to a waiting lobby, calling Anne in her
InVide terminal. There was no answer. Instead, the two huge
metal doors just opened, slowly, and inspired by them I
slowly walked in.