Eschatology, Bitches!

With my partner out of the game, a busy work weekend coming up, and e- mail bitch-slaps from the guy I was trying to track down, it was necessary to get my ass in gear to hunt down and kill the Team Leader we had been assigned.

And as it turned out, he lives in the mother fuckin' 'hood.

Being the oh-so white girl from Detroit that I am, I thought I would be able to, you know, blend in with surroundings. I mean, I know the words to most mid-nineties rap songs, can totally chug a forty of St. Ides, and look somewhat good in a wife beater... gang-banger, schmang- banger, I was going in, neon colored squirt gun in tow, to shoot my target.

As I hid behind a tree a few steps from my target's door, the congregation of wily kids down the street were yelling and hitting their prized jalopies with beer bottles, baseball bats, and other sorts of materials, looking, as they say, "hard". They were a half a block up, far enough to avoid rape, assault, and most of their shitty reggaeton and well-past-prime early 90's club music, but they still scared the shit out of me.

At one point, Foolio and company sped off, screaming something about a "mother fucker" and "popping a cap", and to my relief, there was silence.

I could devote my time to staring at my dude's door instead of praying for my life.

That was, until the "pop! pop!" of gun shots rang out a few streets away, then approaching squealing of brakes, and the rumble of the neighborhood thugs peeling back to their hide-out.

Seconds later, a bleeding, shirtless kid and his older, taller mentor of gang-bangery walked by, stopped less than two feet away from me (at this point I was crouched down hiding behind a car) and discussed how the shirtless kid had just successfully fucked someone up and how "dope" the series of events had been. It was a proud moment for both of them...and a terrifying one for me.

I suddenly got the feeling that no matter how many renditions of "Gin and Juice" I could perform, these kids were dumb asses, BLEEDING dumb asses, and I was then ready to get the fuck out of there.

I hopped in my car, and lit the last "surveillance cigarette" of the day.

"I'll sit here five more minutes", I told myself.

Halfway through, there was movement at my target's door. I couldn't believe it. Two girls emerged, suspiciously looking for potential assassins lurking near his house. Moments later, there he was, or at least I hoped it was him, shuffling out his front door, ready to stroll down the street.

I turned on my car, and slowly drove past the hoodlums who were, strangely enough and quite literally, dancing to what I could make out as, "James Brown Is Dead", by L.A. Style, in the middle of the god-damned one-way street.

I pulled up to the main road, hoping to catch up with my target a few blocks up, if not on his side street, before he could get in a car and drive away... and there they were, casually strolling up the street to Blockbuster.

I didn't want to blow it...I hid my gun, and casually followed them into the store. They were looking at the new releases, and I was poking around in the "family" section.

My heart was pounding, and all I could think was, "I hope that's him.
I'm going to feel like such a fuckin' jackass if I shoot the wrong
guy in the middle of a video store."

I turned the corner, and with my mini neon green gun, let a few squirts of a sad, air-filled stream splatter on the sleeve of his jacket.

"Uh, you're dead..." I said in a somewhat questioning tone.

He gave a sigh of relief, and said, "Thank God. I thought this was never going to be over!"

We discussed the lack of blog-having, the fact that his target lived outside of the city, that my previous was a complete douche- bag, and that no one in their right fucking mind would ever want to park their ass in his neighborhood, especially in the middle of the night, armed with a super-soaker.

It was apparent that 24/7 assassin-oriented-living proved to be too much for him by hour 2,016.

I snagged his card, and skipped off to my car to tell Bagman the great news-- I had survived my stake-out, and while a somewhat boring kill, three more chumps had been eliminated. Hoorah!

Maryanne.

It started on Monday, a quick kill to a team member because I did not read the blog to find out who was the Team leader. The kill was sweet and it felt good to be in the game. My guy had spotted me, but I fled the scene when my cover was blown, only to return after a lap around the block to find the silly geezer had locked himself out on the first day of street wars! I quickly seized the moment and got him good in the stomach.

My Team leader was a different story all together. After stalking this girl for hours and hours starting from Tuesday afternoon at her home and Wednesday at her office like a pedophile at the school gates I had waited and loitered. It was not until Thursday that I actually got close to wetting her. She had just returned for the night and it was go time. I saw her get out of the car and like a school boy getting his balls wet for the first time it was over before it even started. She was back in the car and off again wheel spins and all.

Friday was a wash as she had spotted me in my disguise stalking her on her city block then waiting several hours outside her home for nothing. But then Saturday came, oh sweet, glorious Saturday! The sun was out and I was ready for some serious hunting. After a week of emails back and fourth/phone calls/dressing up, dodging the day job, there she was like an innocent bunny that had just seen the fox and I ran like a rat down a drain pipe to catch her. One shot- Miss. Second shot- in the back.

Job done.

Next!

7:06am

"You lookin' for hydro?"

I am stunned. My accomplice is crouched behind a car with Apophys and I am sitting on the ground between two others across the street with Aqumentus poised; this gentleman is asking me is I am looking for hydro.

"You want to get wet?"

He is huge, the way you think of mountains as huge, he is loud and he is coming my way. I must look confused because he starts to laugh. I don't know what he wants and he is not my target. When my accomplice and I slipped into position in the street outside of Big Daddy's house were were not spotted. It is only now the he has seen me.

He is not my target, he is asking me if I want to get wet and he is approaching rapidly.

If I unleash on this guy and he is not part of our unique sect I am pretty certain I will have my apology accepted by way of clenched fists and the anger of a life under the law. I assume this because for the past three days we have been here and for the past three days we have seen a massive police presence in the neighborhood.

"Hydro, dog - you tryin' to get some hydro?"

In point of fact I am. Yes, large intimidating guy barrelling toward me with your hand in the front of your pants and the type of gate Sean Combs works nights in the mirror to perfect, I am looking for hydro. I have no idea what you mean by this, but I mean that I am looking to engage in water warfare. Though I am not, indeed, looking to get wet, as it where, I am definitely looking for hydro.

I have said nothing aloud thus far and my confusion seems to have lit him up.

"Chronic? You wanna' chief? You smack that shit? Whatchu' lookin' for?"

Fuck. I think I get it and it scares the shit out of me. Didn't Denzel Washington ask Ethan Hawke, in Training Day, if he gets 'wet'? Wasn't that a reference to PCP? Is this guy asking me if I want to purchase angel dust?

My experience with narcotics is limited almost completely to films. I have never done an illicit substance in my life. In fact, up until my first meeting with His Venerated Eminence the Mustache Commander, the only alcohol I had ever consumed came in cough syrup or breath spray.

"Naw, man."

I say 'naw' because it seems contextually appropriate. I'm already a white dude sitting on the ground between two cars in the middle of the street in this gentleman's neighborhood, so why I consider that a 'context' at all is beyond me but at this point I am starting to fear for my actual life.

I look over to see if my accomplice is seeing any of this. I am met with a stare that says 'if that giant motherfucker takes one more step toward you I am jumping over this car and going for his throat' and I am the more confident for it.

"We're lookin' to kill a bitch. White dude. He'll be comin' out soon. Fucker's gonna' get it."

6:00am

We've just pulled up into Big Daddy's neighborhood. We have watched him do this routine for two days. Sometime between now and 7:45 he will leave his apartment unarmed and make his way to his vehicle alone. Unarmed and alone.

We were going to take him yesterday but were seconds late on the decision and realized that the attempts had a chance at failure too great for this stage in the game. Today, however, he will meet his end.

My phone starts vibrating. It is Eternitygirl. I do not answer. She is likely wondering why I am not home right now, getting ready for work. She, likely, has just woken up and found the bed beside her empty of me. She leaves no message, no 'hello, wonderful boy'. Things like this have been sapped from our relationship over the two and a half weeks. Our lives are procedural now; we always know where the other is and our hands are always accounted for. Sleep comes at the cost of security and each day we sleep less. Contact is a matter of factual recursion and those little loving procurements we have come to expect from one another have been replaced with the business of killing.

4:48am

I re-watch the video. You see, Big Daddy made a video. He wants to win 'best visual kill' and couldn't bear to keep it in his pants until the game is done. My vast ability to look into the lives of my victims brought me to this video and it is a veritable gold mine. His face can be seen. His accomplice, whom I had incorrectly assumed was a gentleman, can be seen. His car. His daily routine. Most valuable, however, is his kill strategy.

I watch as he has his accomplice burst from hiding to attack his target and in the confusion gets in his own shot. I watch as the victim is faced with attack from two sides and seems frozen at the prospect. I re-wind and watch again, a plot of poetic justice gaining pace in my head.

The end of this video, though not as tactically informative, does provide a bit of intrigue. You see, after his kill, Big Daddy gloats that he will get his next victim. Get her even it it takes an eternity. This ham-handed statement is made as pictures of my fiancee splash in and out to some absolutely terrible music.

Once I kill him I will have to face her.

7:08am

I am trying to explain to my new-found drug dealer friend that I am not actually trying to kill someone, a task he had offered to help with for a few 'bones', as he called them (is it really, merely, all about the Benjamins?). If the last two days are any indication, I have about twenty-five minutes to get rid of this guy before Big Daddy comes out to his car.

"It's a game. I shoot this guy and he gives me his card, then I shoot who he was supposed to shoot and so on and so forth until I win. There is money involved, it is just for fun - no actual killing - and I absolutely NEED to be secretive about this."

He is telling me that I am in a drug corridor, that the police are out looking for him and his type and if they find me on the street like this I will be snagged. Worse, he points out, my accomplice and I look like undercover police. So much so, in fact, that he approached ready to put me down and take off. I am luck, he says, that I didn't get plugged this morning by the cops or the crooks alike. He goes on to say that if I had come up on him all sneaky as I was doing...

In an instant my target is looking me right in the fucking eyes. Where the hell did he come from? I am sitting on the ground, Aquamentus at the ready, there is a giant gang banger in front of me and it is twenty minutes too soon for any of this to be happening.

He is walking briskly to his car and will not take his eyes off of me. I try to act as though this isn't suspicious, me sitting there on the ground across from his car talking to the local drug element. He is going to get in and drive away. He is going to call, SMS or email, as he has in the past, to gloat of his escape. It is going to hurt like goddamned fire.

I glance over to my accomplice who has had his eyes on my gang banger debacle from the start. He is protecting me and doesn't at all notice my target.

"A motherfucker gonna' shoot you if you creepin' around the hood like that..."

Then it happens. Just as Big Daddy opens his car door my accomplice leaps over the car. The target has been seen!

Apophys, Dire Maul of Anacreon, is loosed upon Big Daddy as though the fist of some great ancient god. My accomplice is sprinting, having slid over the the trunk of his cover vehicle, and a searing stream of wet death crackles in the air. Just as Big Daddy closes his door he is hit, and hit well. His shoulder is made a mess of and so too is his arm. In his extreme momentum my accomplice overshoots Big Daddy's car and leaps into the air a leap of victory.

In the car Big Daddy swears. I am up and walking toward him as he pounds the steering columns and dashboard. The gang banger is smiling wildly.

Contrary to his gloating communication, arrogant video and current rage at being hit, Big Daddy opens his car door and admits defeat. In a deeply gentlemanly act he congratulates my accomplice and offers him a hand in victory.

"Yeah man, thanks. There's one thing, though..."

My accomplice spies me walking briskly toward them. Aquamentus, the Little Death, is unsheathed.

"I'm not your assassin."

A short look of recognition strikes Big Daddy's face. He is shaking hands with, in the open, someone that is not his attacker.

A few short steps away I fire Aquamentus.

"I am."

The gang banger adds, "This is your target? Yo, dude, you just got SMOKED!"

Poetic justice served, the two man attack reenacted for its progenitor, we shake hands and part ways. Back in our vehicle I realize that this has all happened twenty minutes early. I realize that Eternitygirl, who - had this taken as long as we had expected - was to be long gone by the time I returned is still at home.

I am 5 minutes away and she is leaving for work in ten...

To Be Continued....

Where did he go? I had just seen him running down the stairs, I behind him with my gun drawn. I ran westward on Van Buren St. while the rest of my team, two other agents ran east towards State. My heart was pumping pure adrenaline; blood and oxygen were in short order and quickly running out of whatever supplies my body had left. I quickly glanced around to prevent being shot first, although my even bigger fear was that I might accidentally get nervous and shoot someone other than my target.

He couldn't have gone this way, my gut instinct told me so, maybe I was such a good hunter, I could smell his fear in the other direction… so I backed around the way I came and tried to catch up to the rest of my team. I run across the street as cars almost mow me down, I don't care, my prey is near and I am ready to destroy him. I see some blue, police line "do not cross" barriers, the wooden kind they use to hold back mobs of people and quickly jump over them like a fucking 250-pound kangaroo, as I land, weapon still in hand, I hear someone go "Shhhh…" and I turn around to face…….

Someone familiar… ah, a co-worker, someone I knew in my normal 9-5 job, someone that did not know about this dark side of me. I managed to yell out a "hey" as I kept running… the target was nowhere to be found… I ran further north, hoping to spot him; I glanced behind me quickly on the off chance that…… oh lord, he was right behind me about half a block down. How the hell? I was quickly learning that what you see in the movies is not what happens in the real world. This was unrehearsed and intense. Kill or be killed.

I pretended not to see him and walked up a bit, I knew I was too far for either of us to have a clear shot at each other, so I hid. A large advertisement bolted to the sidewalk hid my large frame. Gun still drawn. Sweat running down my face and down my chest, adrenaline consuming me as if my body was gasoline and it, the fire and yet not a soul seemed to notice this "dance of death" happening in front of them. You'd be surprised how many people are oblivious to situations happening right before their eyes.

I ran around the sign, peeked and noticed he could not see me; I was now running in the street towards him, hunched as to not be spotted. He was eyeing a set of stairs leading into the subway but for some reason, would not go downstairs. Why?

20 feet, 15 feet, 12 feet, 8 feet….. I was closing in fast. Shit! He spotted me, no time to think! Stop, aim carefully, exhale and shoot, just as you were taught. I squeezed the trigger only to find that I missed him by 8 to 12 inches! I started attempting to follow and realized I almost fell forward! This was not an ordinary staircase; this was an exit escalator, leading up! No wonder he had taken so long to decide whether to go down or try another form of escape. He was gone. The rest of my team followed in hot pursuit, going off to locations where we thought he might be found, I however decided that this amateur assassin would call it a day and go back into the shadows, before the local law enforcement, of which there was absolutely no shortage in downtown Chicago, decided I needed to be off the streets.

Numerous Attempts…….

And / or surveillance activities were performed over the following days by members of my crew of which I cannot speak in detail. A few days went by, before we had our second, real attempt.

As I stated before, many covert ops took place in the interim but I believe you want my report to detail the meat and potatoes of the operation.

We were unsuccessful in our attempts at his place of residence and decided to bring the war back near his job. We decided that despite other casualties [of war] which could arise, today was the day, this crew would prevail.

I walk into his place of business and say hello to him, does he not recognize me? It appears not.

"Chris?"

"?"

"Are you ready for today?"

"Ah…. If we must have another go at it, I guess so"

"Good. I will be waiting for you outside"

I did just that. When he walked out of his job, I walked and talked with him both of us wondering, who would die that day I'm sure. We waited for the train together, like old pals. His phone rang, apparently his girlfriend was wondering whether he was safe. I thought it to be, rude of me to listen in so I tried my best to occupy myself with other details, never losing focus of my target, however I did catch one very pleasing comment that he said to his love.

"I'm just standing here waiting for the train…… with my assassin. Yeah, he's here with me".

Ah those words filled me with joy. We sat across from each other once on the train, making small but meaningful conversation. I was truly impressed by my target and had grown to respect his prowess at being so elusive. 20 or so minutes went by as the elevated trains made its stops throughout the city. It started to fill with more and more people, making it evermore difficult for me to be 100% sure I would not lose him, were he to try and exit quickly. At the next stop I saw him eyeing the doors nervously, there were way too many people between him and I; I was sardine #6 and he was at the number one spot, how would I ever make it off the train in time!? Ah… good thing I was not carrying out this operation alone. He bolted out of the train and onto the train platform, I used brute force and shoved people out of my way, feeling a mound-full of flesh as I pushed someone, her breast was in my hand. How convenient. Focus. I exited the train behind him and chased him towards the stairs leading down to the street. My fellow agent, well aware, was also behind us. When we got to the bottom of the stairs, we split up and ran after him. After 6 minutes of walking mindlessly, looking under cars, in alleyways and pretty much anywhere else I thought a person could hide, I received a phone call from my operative.

"He got me."

"What?! Fuck!"

"Yeah, he got me; meet me at Chicago and Orleans"

"On my way"

We met and as I walk towards Agent Snoopy Spy he says:

"Yeah man, he got me……"

"Dammit, I cant believe this!"

"………but not before I GOT HIM!"

"Ah! You bastard! You got him! Fucking A! This is awesome!!!"

And this is how "The Truth" was taken down and we were one step further into a world of espionage and assassination within the Shadow Government.

Agent Nightshadow