Suprise. That was an emotion she had last felt a long time ago. So long ago that she almost did not recognise when it came.
37 was alive.
There he was, her target, streaming live from a safehouse in Prussia. She was alone, in her apartment miles outside the Harbor, staring at the transluscent screen hanging above her wristwatch. He was blabbering on about an attempt on his life and a declaration of war as if there wasn't one already going on. Afterwards, the Mainstream journalist blew things out of proportion by saying it was a supposed start of open cross territory war.
The five dictators on the planet had silent unspoken rules. There was war but never a direct invasion and attack. Just some revenge attacks and mini guerilla warfare as each territory grew their ammuntion and forces. In her now apparent failed assassination of 37 she had taken a few dozen troops down with him. It was the biggest on land attack in a while.
And it would have consequences.
The communicator on her wrist watch vibrated. The Commander was calling.
She slid the icon to the right and a hologram of his face popped up. She realised immediately it was a recorded message, probably pre-programmed to come to her the moment the Mainstream story ended.
"We have a lot to discuss me and you V169. Quite a lot. Right now the President is hard on my tail asking for answers, so I am heading over to the White House to come up with something. Don't say anything to anyone about that mission. It's not your fault, and I very well know you didn't miss. You never do. Hang tight."
The hologram then disappeared. Of course it was not her fault. She had identified her target and shot him in the head. No human could survive a proper headshot, definitely not from an M48.
Something was terribly wrong, and she had fallen straight into the eye of it.
The Commander had told her not to talk to anybody else. Who else would she talk to? Even at the Harbor it was only him she spoke with while receiving missions and reporting them.
The watch vibrated once more. An alert this time; she was apparently about to have visitors.
She never had visitors.
On opening the door she came face to face with a shrewd looking young man, possibly in his early twenties with a dirty brown trench coat in his hand. Her watch vibrated to inform her of an electronic device hidden somewhere under that coat. She knew she had to be careful with what she said to this one. Or what she didn't say.
"Good evening miss. Do you go by the names of Vivian Renault?"
"You have to be more specific than that. Everyone on this street is probably going by those names."
He managed to produce a sheet of paper from under the coat that was surprisingly not crumpled or folded.
"It says here that it is you that I am looking for."
She grabbed the paper from his hand and skimmed over it. Not a detailed description but just something used while enlisting into the Vanguard army.
"What exactly do you want, Mr..."
He held a hand out for her to shake as he replied. "Mr Barrow. Lewis Barrow. I am an intern journalist at Mainstream Media."
That was enough for her. Contact with Mainstream was the last thing someone like her should do. If they ever got their dirty hands on her actual files, mission reports down to training schedules and Vanguard training reports, it would affect the entire Vanguard, probably the world. Thirty six was not a small number when it came to high profile assassinations, a good number of which had been blamed on other parties.
She tried to shut the door but he wedged his boot between it and the frame.
"First of all that is so cliché," she said, "And if you don't move your foot in the next five seconds you'll lose it."
"Sorry. But I have to speak to you. I have discovered a... discrepancy and someone else has to know about it."
"You think someone is after you because of what you know?"
He lowered his voice after looking around suspiciously. "I think I might even have been followed."
Under normal circumstances he would have lost his foot at that moment. But he looked genuinely scared. Not to mention his heartbeat was off the charts. She didn't know whether to attribute that to herself or whoever he thought was after him.
Stepping aside, she let him in. He sputtered a thank you and hurried in. "Lock the door, we might not have long."
"Maybe you don't. I do."
"Please."
The word was genuine for sure.
"Fine." She crossed her arms. "I am not supposed to speak to anyone at the moment. So I won't answer any questions. What do you know?"
He held up a blue memory chip, with the distinct Mainstream initials 'MM' on it.
"May I?"
He was referring to her watch. There was no way she was giving him access. As far as she was concerned it had a program that would route all data on it back to Mainstream.
She shook her head and pointed to the television hung up on the wall. Televisions were outdated as everyone had moved on to the transparent screens or holograms, most of which were designed by Mainstream Tech.
Mainstream is rather huge. The owner; one Vincent Alba aka trillionaire and probably richest man in the world took over the family business some decades back. It was comprised of Media, Tech, Fashion, Airlines and most importantly Arms. They made basic weapons, which all the other groups built onto. Except the Vanguard. It was rumored that Mainstream attached too many strings to their sales.
The television was a Hisense smart model, forty two inches. The only reason she still had it was because... well she was not entirely sure why. But she had kept it.
It took a bit of searching but they found where the chip went in.
There were files on it. One for each of the five territories. The first was for Cafri, then Prussia, VanGuard, Stralia and London. She scrolled through and once again felt surprise.
Army protocols, defense plans, building architecture, economic, social and military statistics. Basically everything one needed to know about the southern territory.
"Is this the same for all the other four?"
Lewis nodded solemnly. "But that's not what I wanted to show you. Well it was, but not exactly this."
It was her turn to lower her voice. "What could be bigger than this? If Mainstream has this, they have the world in their hand!"
"This is actually the only copy there is. Such information doesn't get exposed long enough to be copied. This was stored deep within Mainstream Tech databases."
"Then how did you get it?"
"I had help from a friend at Mainstream."
She breathed out and braced herself. "What is it?"
Lewis opened the Vanguard file.
"This one was like the the others, though my buddy discovered a deeply hidden file. Hundreds of layers of encryption protecting only a few terabytes of data."
"Get to the point."
The folder name was F.O.X. That alone was enough to make her stop Lewis. "Have you seen the content of this folder?"
"Yes. I know what you are."
"Who else has seen this?"
At that Lewis eyed the door, and took a few steps away from her, then scanned the room quickly, checking for any other exits.
"Get real Lewis. If you know what I am then you would be dead by now if I wanted you to. You probably came to me because I am the only one in that folder you could find. But I am guessing you didn't do that on your own. Who else saw?"
Lewis still didn't reply.
"Your friends are in much more danger than you are. You have my protection, they don't."
He perked up at that. "I do?"
Her watch beeped. They were out of time.
The missile was directed away from the Hisense but close to them according to her judgement. They wanted the chip undamaged. Fire and debris was not going to hurt her as much as it would Lewis so she pulled him behind herself.
Seconds later he was coughing on the ground below her, although struggling to move.
"Stay down if you want to live long enough to save your friends."
"The chip."
She rushed over to the television and pulled it out, squeezing it into his palm. "If you lose it..."
Lewis was just staring, and she didn't need clarification from the reflection in his eyes to know hers were glowing. "Through the kitchen, bottom left corner. There is a trapdoor that will take you somewhere safe till I come get you."
He didn't wait for her to say it twice and he stumbled off, losing his footing a few times. Her watch beeped again—there was another incoming missile.
The second one landed exactly where Lewis had stood moments ago. If she had stayed too she would have taken some damage. But by the time it had landed she had been already moving towards Lewis. He was back down on the ground from the force of the explosion. He looked really vulnerable and that meant her attention would be divided, which was never a good thing. She ushered him through the kitchen before whoever it was decided to send another bomb at them. She shifted the carpet out of the way. The trapdoor had an old-fashioned padlock on it. No time looking for a key. She ripped it off with her hand then pushed Lewis slowly down the stairs.
"Hey, what about you?"
"I can more than take care of myself."
Her entire personal armor and weaponry was back at the Harbor so very well out of range. If their attackers knew who she was and that she was here, they would keep firing from a distance. If ignorance was on their side and they marched down here, well.
A buzz alert notified her of the latter.
She loved her watch.
They were six in total, heavily armored and equipped with Mainstream weaponry. No body parts exposed, position of guns and formation related reasonable experience and expertise. These guys knew what they were doing. And they were no ordinary soldiers.
But neither was she.
They split up into three groups of two. Those to the right moved slowly towards the kitchen. She stood right behind the door, breath held.
The muzzle of his gun showed first.
Wow, she thought. That was designed to do real damage, silently.
Next was a probability. If he decided to immediately check behind the door she would be forced to act prematurely. If he waited for his partner, that worked better for her.
He chose to wait for his partner. She couldn't say luck was on her side; in this game it was either right or wrong, black or white, dead or alive.
She grabbed him around the neck and slammed him back, at the same time shutting the door. His partner turned and hesitated to shoot.
That was his wrong, his black and it would be his death. She snapped the neck of he that she was holding, then pushed him towards the other. She had taken the gun from him and didn't hesitate. As she later placed her fingers on their necks for a sign if pulse, very well knowing she wouldn't find one, ( as I said no human could survive a proper headshot) she wondered if she had overestimated her attackers. Carrying guns whose fire power was high enough to tear through the armor you were wearing was not very tactical. Unless they didn't expect to find someone good enough to take a gun from any one of them.
With a weapon at hand the other four weren't too far behind. She however knew they had to leave as soon as possible. She would have taken Lewis to the Harbor, and he would have had more than enough protection there. But with the data on that chip, she couldn't let even the Vanguard get their hands on it.
As she sat down in the rubble next to the six dead men on the ground there was the one thing going through her head. Those memories were clear as day, the needles, the tests, the pain. That was something that had to stay in the past: she had to destroy the chip.
"Lewis, get up here."
After a few seconds without reply she went down herself. It was a basement of sorts, in case of a need for a quick unseen exit.
Lewis had apparently discovered that too owing to the fact that he was nowhere in sight.
He had run away from her, so she guessed he was above average on the IQ chart. No one smart stayed long around her.
Going out there alone was placing himself in imminent danger. But rather that than her. She had learnt years ago that she tended to have that effect on people. Finding him wouldn't be a problem. But getting him alive would. The chances of that crossed with him still having the chip were less than zero.
"Track most recent memory chip in proximity."
Seconds later the red blip appeared. Wouldn't be long now. She could still bury her past before it caught up with her.
Again.