I look down at my watch and realize I have no watch. I had no real indication whether I was in the future or the past, but this sort of adrenaline rush I was feeling was not something I ever felt whenever my brain would shift to a memory, so if even if this is a memory, everything in my body is telling me that I need to take this seriously. The warehouse seems to be completely abandoned except for the few boxes we were hiding behind, the assassin, and, of course, the turret. I can’t get a good look at the assassin, but I finally get to see the two people on either side of me. On my right, I see a short black haired man with dark, thick glasses, a white suit, and clutching onto a black briefcase. He looks Asian, but I can’t really tell as the most real identifiable thing on his face are the glasses. The woman to the left of me seemed to be wearing camouflage fatigues, but her bright red hair sort of betrayed any sort of stealth she was hoping to obtain. She also seemed to be holding a pistol, but the pistol looked sort of small and translucent.
“If I just had a clear shot, this could be all over,” the red haired lady said through her teeth.
“Maxwell always does underestimate these guys, but this is ridiculous,” the glasses man said under his breath.
“So…my name is Josh, I know this isn’t the best time for introductions but. I think if we are going to survive…”
“Shut up! Neither the time or the place!” the lady said while trying to stick up what looked like a power bar over the box. Before the power bar had even two centimeters showing behind cover, the turret shot the bar right out of her hand. She then proceeds to let out a long string of expletives while looking through her bag.
“Wouldn’t do that if I were you!” the assassin yells to us from several meters away, “Just wait for few minutes, and this will all be over.”
“Well, as long as we have nothing else we can do for the next few minutes, my name is Ken, nice to meet you,” the glasses man introduced himself, ”Not my real name, mind you, but I bet that ‘Josh’ isn’t your real name either.”
“Not entirely sure, to be honest,” I say, embarrassed.
“Haha, don’t worry, all names do is deceive anyways. Better to name ourselves now that we know who we are, than stick to something our parents decided when they didn’t even know who we were, right?” Ken says with a smile.
“So nobody brought a chaff grenade?” the lady says as she gives Ken a dirty look.
“No, KATE,” he emphasizes as he looks in my direction and gives a little eyebrow raise, “my specialty is negotiation, so weapons of any kind would be contrary to my mission.”
“Great, just great. If I was paired with ANYBODY ELSE on this mission, this would be over already, but because I had to be paired with a,” Kate looks at me, “dead weight, and a,” Kate looks at Ken,” a lounge singer with a briefcase, now we will either be dead or be fired!” Kate then gives a frown and crosses her arms.
“Don’t worry Kate,“ Ken says over-empathetically, “if we don’t die, I’m sure Maxwell will give us jobs as janitors or something.” Ken smirks as he turns to me, “She is always worried that she is going to be fired. No idea why, it is not like our jobs are highly sought after. Maxwell is lucky to have talented people like us!”
“Highly talented, huh?” Kate scoffs, “All you do is offer cash and run away if things get too hot. Do you usually go in a suit? Does that impress anybody?”
“You wound me Kate, you positively wound me, but I must be doing something right if I have the highest conversion rate on the team?” Ken says smugly.
Kate says nothing and looks through her bag again. I am not entirely sure why I am here, but I think the purpose was to learn what these people do. I close my eyes and think
Why did I pass out in Maxwell’s office? Why did I ‘wake up’ here, of all places? Is there a reason or is my brain just misfiring? I try and remember what Maxwell said right before I went out. There was the video about anti-assassination that I didn’t see, and then there was talk about bodyguards, or something. Wait, it wasn’t just about bodyguards, it was about how they worked, their protection. Assassins use old sniper rifles because, why? Oh right,
ID Protection
Then the light bulb in my brain lights up, and I realize what I must do.
“Give me the gun,’ I say to Kate.
“F--- no,” she responds.
“Uh, trust me?” I mean to say more confidently.
“What in the hell are you thinking?”
“Well here goes nothing. Mr. Assassin man?” I yell out, “I want to talk!” I pause to see if he responds, and there is none. I slowly raise my hand above the box to the horror to the two people next to me. Luckily, my hand is not shot to smithereens, and then I finally use that pooling adrenaline in my system to run quietly towards the assassin.
“What in the world?” I hear Ken behind me say, and I can only imagine the face on Kate’s face.
I see that the assassin and the turret are actually on a higher level than we were behind the boxes. I climb up the stairs as fast as I can and before I get to the top, I see the automatic gun turret staring me right in the face. It is facing me, but a flashing red light near where I assume the bullets come out of may be what is causing its problems. As I sneak closer to the assassin. I see that he is aiming his beat up looking rifle halfway out the window, and has large headphones on his head. At first I think that they are to deaden the sound of the rifle when it fired, but the closer I get, the more I can hear a loud techno beat coming out of them. Something switches on in me again, and I realize that other than the turret and the rifle, he assassin has a handgun in his belt. I quickly slide to kick the rifle out of the window, and grab his handgun at the same time. “FREEZE!” I yell as intimidating as I could.
“HOLY SHIT! You scared me!” The assassin says as he knocks off his headphones, “I was so close too.”
I was caught off guard at the casualness he seemed to take my ‘against all odds assault,’ but before I could respond I hear Ken behind me, “We would like a discuss a deal with you!” I can hear him walk towards me, and then a few seconds later I hear a second set of steps running up the stairs. I hear a distinct crash, I want to look, but I still have the assassin in my sights with the pistol I just took.
The assassin stands up and lazily remarks, “By the way, dude, that gun totally has no bullets.” I feel my face turn red and someone pushed me out of the way.
“I assure you my gun is loaded,” Kate says as she aims right at him.
Ken then says behind her, “Either you accept our deal, or my associate will shoot…” Kate interrupts him and shoots the assassin with what looks like a dart to the neck. “Oh what the hell Kate!? You know the preferred method is to leave them conscious! Oh, whatever, I’ll call the cleanup crew.” Ken goes down the stairs and makes a phone call.
“That was impressive Josh, I underestimated you,” Kate says while holstering her gun, “So how did you know that the turret was jammed?”
“Intuition?” I said the first thing that came to my head.
“Well, I thought your ‘reputation’ was a load of crock, but it is refreshing to see another pro on the field. Sorry about earlier, my name is Kate,” She holds out her hand.
I was about to return the handshake when I felt the blackness take me over and I heard “not again!” as I fell to the ground.
As I begin to wake up, I feel a gloved hand on my shoulder, “I see that my film wasn’t very interesting for you,” the red vested man goes towards the TV to turn it off. I wake up and realize that I am back in Maxwell’s office.
“How long was I out?” I ask exasperatedly.
“The film was about thirty minutes, so about that much I suppose,” he answers.
My body feels fresh and fine (which is strange seeing how hard and wooden this chair is) but my mind is racked with questions. Was that the future? Was it the past? How was I able to assault that assassin? Seeing as it was all ‘a dream,’ I don’t think asking questions to anybody is going to help me.
“You know, I spent a lot of money making that video. I was excited that I finally had a reason to show it again, but alas and alack, I guess someone of your experience would find this all boring.” Maxwell states as he puts the TV and the video back in the compartment in the wall.
“What experience? What was I famous for?” I ask.
“It stands to reason that you wouldn’t remember. Josh, you were, arguably, the best anti-assassin in the world. It was rumored that you were so good that you actually became one of the UWG elite, and when I saw your letter, I thought the whole thing was a joke. I still have my…reservations, especially with your memory loss. For all I know, you could just be some random man named Josh! Either way, I have no idea what really happened to you, and I don’t think you do either.”
Well, that may explain why I was able to get that assassin, but it brings on even more questions. If I was part of the UWG, then why am I here now? Was I thrown out? Did I escape? Mind is filled with so many questions. Before I can process anything though, Maxwell stands me up.
“Let's get you some fresh air and meet the rest of the crew, shall we?”
I had a hunch that I met most of them already.
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