On The Road, USA
Turns out, once the man in the picture, Richard Brody, found out the Association had wanted to assassinate him, he went on the run. Usually we can find people through street and store cameras and old fashioned detective work, but Richard was extremely careful. Hades had asked what his crime was, but there wasn't one. He was an extremely smart man, and had found out about the Association on accident. He had started writing articles about us and sending it to news stations, but with our intelligence everywhere and the fact that no one believed his tall tales of a secret government with a league of highly skilled and trained assassins. There was an attempt on his life, but he escaped. I don't know how, and the agents responsible were obviously executed. In the Association, mistakes were not tolerated. We were on our way to the last person to see Mr. Brody, his ex wife.
It was a long drive from New York to Nevada, and my partner kept looking at me.
"What?" I finally snapped and turned to face him in the cab of the truck.
"It's just troubling," he started, then stopped after a hesitation. "I don't want to offend you."
"Ha!" I scoffed, "Hades, if you have something to say, just say it. I'd rather people be blunt with me than hide what they're really thinking."
"Alright," he hesitated. "It's troubling how you don't seem to have a moral code. You seem to be able to kill anyone no matter what they've done. This man, he obviously has to be silenced, but he doesn't deserve death. I don't get how you could just be okay with killing him, point blank."
I was shocked. This was the most I've ever heard Hades speak, and the first time he was one hundred percent serious. It took me a minute to think of what to say, and all I could come up with was, "I'm just following orders." The rest of the almost forty hour drive we spent in silence, with the rare occasional chat about where and what to eat.