The Assassin Chronicles

A Better Life Part 3

In the two seconds that it took me to complete the whole maneuver thousands of things flashed through my head.

I was about to become a murderer, wanted for taking the life of another man. Why was I doing this? For the money? Was money more important than somebody's life?

Soon the portion of my brain that tells my other half of the brain to shut up stepped in. I was thinking too much about this.

Suddenly I heard a muffled thump, what was that? I looked down to see my finger on the trigger and my target on the ground ten yards away spurting a leak of red. I had just killed this man; his life had ceased abruptly because of me.

Enough thinking, right now I had to get out of here; already people were looking around with worried glances for any sign of this poor man's murderer.

I stowed the gun inside my suit jacket and pulled out the cell phone and began my routine as I walked down the street. It seemed so simple, but there had to be more to it than this. Was I really going to get off this easy? No one had even realized it was me, were they totally brain dead?

But for the moment I had to concentrate on the fact that they still hadn't figured out I was responsible for the incident two blocks behind me.

The first thing on the agenda was getting out of this district, I had to get back to Sector 6 and then make contact with ponytail man.

*****

I must have picked the worst time in the history of the gravtrain to try and get a ride. Everyone was going home from work or coming in for the night shift, so I was stuck on the platform, waiting for an open seat on the freaking gravtrain.

As I sat on the hard concrete bench on the platform I watched the daily news on the holovid placed over the platform.

Most of it was the usual; the economy over in Junon was going to hell and the troops out in Wutai wanted to come home, what else was new?

But then something did catch my eye, news from 5 that's where I'd been this afternoon, and where I'd completed my gruesome task.

"Just this afternoon a man was found dead on the street in Sector 5. It appears he was shot in the back, and most likely died right away." Said the newswoman.

Holy shit, this was on the news. The cops would be out looking for someone to put the blame on. What if I hadn't covered my tracks well enough, actually I hadn't covered my tracks at all. So I was wide open, but what could they trace me to? The few people on the street that may have seen me, the mousy little sales clerk? Who would be the one to blow my cover?

But suddenly I heard the faint hiss as the gravtrain pulled into the platform. I could make this one, if I hurried.

I had to wait as the stream of people poured off of the train, trying to push me out of the way. Then suddenly the light above the door flashed from red to green indicating that we could board the train.

After much pushing, shoving and a few punches in the stomach I secured my seat.

*****

The ride back to 6 was about twenty minutes with the late afternoon traffic so I had a lot of time to think.

I was a murderer, plain and simple.

But somehow it didn't seem to bother me, for some reason I felt no guilt whatsoever.

How could that be, I had just killed a man in cold blood? Why did I not feel guilty for that?

Could it be that somehow this job was meant for me? Was I meant to be an assassin? A ruthless killer who got paid to do it? What kind of a job was this? But it didn't matter anymore, because I knew that from now on this was my job.

I was meant to be an assassin.

Suddenly the steady thrum of the gravity engines died and the train came to halt.

The emergency lights flickered on and a pre-recorded message rang out over the intercom.

"Please do not panic. We are experiencing minor technical difficulties which should be absolved soon. Please do not panic. We are…"

What the hell was goin' on?

Then I looked down into the forward cars.

Shit! The cops were searching the train! I had to get out of here fast.

I quickly yet casually walked to the back of the train. And there I found what I was looking for, an air vent.

The train cab was a scene of chaos with everyone panicking so no one noticed me pop off the air vent hatch and disappear from the train.

After securing the air vent I hopped off the train and realized that I was totally lost. I was standing in the middle of a pitch-black tunnel with no clue where to go.

It looked like the cops had stopped all of the trains in this tunnel. But unless mine was the first they were inspecting then there must be another train that was ready to get back on its route.

I listened carefully and confirmed my suspicion; I'd heard the steady thrum of gravity engines very close by. Meaning that a gravtrain somewhere was ready to take off.

I saw it down at the end of the tunnel, the emergency lights were shut off and the train's engines began to thrum steadily. I sprinted for that train; it didn't matter where it was going as long as it got me out of here.

But three cops, apparently assigned to guard the tunnel blocked my path. It was time to relieve them of their duty.

I pulled out my gun and with a muffled thump one cop took a shot right in the stomach. Before either of the other two could call back up I had made sure they wouldn't be guarding anything else again for a while.

The first guy had to have been a rookie, or the city training program wasn't what it used to be. The kid never even had time to get his hands up. A punch to the stomach disabled him momentarily and then a little tap on the head with the butt of my gun made sure he wouldn't be bothering anybody for a long time.

My last challenger must have been the senior officer because he was at least smart enough to get his gun up. But all the bullet did was make another mark on the tunnel walls, for I was too quick to fall into that trap.

I figured that this guy deserved a little bit of special treatment, seeing as he'd try to take my head off with a bullet and all.

Apparently he was only trained to use a gun because he never even had time to put up his hands before I kicked him in the ribcage. A smile of satisfaction spread across my face as I heard a few cracks.

Had I become someone who reveled in other people's pain?

No time for thinking now, this guy wasn't unconscious yet and there were probably more cops on the way.

Just as my opponent staggered to his feet I delivered a punch in the nose and another kick in the head. He'd feel that in the morning. I grabbed his gun and ran to catch the already moving train.

As I chanced a look over my shoulder I was greeted with a shower of bullets. I managed to dodge all but one, which buried itself in my left arm.

Dammit that hurts!

I had to ignore them for now, or I'd never catch the train. With the last little burst of energy I had I sprinted for it and leapt for the little platform on the back of the last car.

I reached out with my right arm and found a bar on the railing. I pulled myself up and collapsed momentarily on the platform.

I studied the senior cop's gun and found that something was stuck to the butt, a palm sized explosive!

Holy shit, this could really do some damage.

Suddenly another shower of bullets spattered across the back of the train. Okay now they were asking for it.

I yanked the explosive off the gun, pulled the pin and threw it with all my strength in the direction of my friends, the police.

As the train sped out of the tunnel I heard a distant explosion and that part of the tunnel lit up momentarily with a bright flash. Now no one in that tunnel, aside from a few passengers would be remembering my face.

As the train sped off through the city I closed my eyes and relaxed into a light sleep, the hardest part was over.

*****

A week later I sat in the basement of ponytail man's building.

"I want my money, I killed your man. I held up my end of the deal, now you hold up yours." I said to ponytail man.

"I'm sorry but I can't do that." He replied.

"Why the hell not!"

"Please do calm down, getting excited won't get you anywhere."

"We'll see about that."

At this point ponytail man's face became a little paler and he motioned for his bodyguard to come over.

"Now I understand that you held up your end of the deal. And I planned to hold up mine but you see a few difficulties have arose."

I just stared right into his eyes.

He swallowed nervously and continued.

"I didn't think that this would be all over the news. I thought that you might approach this in a subtler fashion."

"I have my ways, you have yours."

"Yes I understand that, but do you think destroying a section of the tunnel was necessary?"

"Those cops were pissing me off, they deserved to get their asses blown up." I said, while still feeling the slight pain of my wound I'd received in that tunnel.

"Whether or not they deserved it is not the question. You almost killed ten train loads of people!"

"But I didn't, I only killed those asshole cops."

"That is not the point, the point is that…" I never gave him time to finish the sentence.

"The point is that if you don't give me my money right now then you'll pay the consequences!"

I cooled down a little for the next statement.

"I'll put this to you plain and simple. I want my money; you told me you'd pay me it. And I don't think you know what I do to people who don't hold up their end of the deal."

All ponytail man did was pale a little more.

I pulled out both of my guns and pointed them right at each of the men's heads.

"Let's try this again. You give me my money, or I blow your fucking brains all over this cellar."

"Get the man his money." Ponytail man ordered the bodyguard.

As the bodyguard walked over into the back to get the money I kept him in my sights the whole time. He came back with an envelope with 1,000,000 gil, all for me.

As I walked out I never turned my back to them. I kept them both in my sights with both guns drawn.

*****

I walked all the way back to 7 and sat down at the barstool where this had all started about a week ago.

As I nursed my drink I thought over what my life had become.

I'd shot a man and killed probably ten cops. No big deal, they were in the way, and the man must have done something to merit his death.

A week ago this would have bothered me that I was thinking like this. But now it didn't seem to matter.

Because now I was an assassin, and if there was a better life out there for me somewhere, then it would have to wait.

Author's note- That's the end of my Close to the Ground trilogy. I do plan to write more about Reno before he joined Shinra. Also if you enjoy sci-fi check out A Better Life, which is basically the non FF7 version and the original. I'm going to be taking a little break but I will post more assassin stories when I return.

Anya's note-As long as Diego writes the original sci fi stories, I'm going to keep converting them to Final Fantasy 7. I hoped you liked this one! (By the way, that last part was really Renoish, wasn't it?.) And check out my stories too!!!