“We want you to prove your loyalty to the organization. Here’s your rifle, ammunition, and a list of target areas. Who you shoot in those areas are entirely up to you. Make sure to leave one of these symbols behind when you leave.”
Sniper rifle with a silencing sheath. Scope. High power, small bullet ammunition made to enter cleanly and exit almost as clean as the entry. If I aim carefully I can hit three targets with one shot as it passes through the first two and bounces off the third. A map of underground sewer systems marked with connections to the handdug tunnels. Face mask. Matte poncho. Three black cloth patches with a stitched symbol in bright red thread.
The symbol was for a competing organization.
I get it. I’m expected to kill someone in each area and then drop the symbol framing the other organization for the murder.
I think the real purpose is to gauge how callous and bloodthirsty I am. I’m known for escalating violence, after all. Let’s see just how gratuitously violent Weaver can be. Let’s give her an opportunity to act without consequence.
I take the gear and look over the areas. “Done.” As I leave I see the three masked committee members giving each other glances. Of concern or of glee, I could not tell. Their body posture betrayed that one of them was looking forward to the carnage, one of them was very worried, and the third is a master poker player.
I memorized the body structure of the unreadable person. I was sure I would encounter them again very shortly.
I took my personal pathways to the first shooting point, but I didn’t step out of the shadows just yet. I hung back, half in this world, half in the spaces in between. Just enough to watch what happens, not enough to be seen.
“She’s late.”
“She’ll be here. She accepted the assignment.”
“But she’s not here! Think she went to one of the other points first?”
“They’re sealed off. She has to come here to complete the assignment. Give it a few minutes before declaring her a failure. Weaver doesn’t give up.”
“You sure that’s Weaver? I mean, it’s a common name, and we don’t even know what her markers are.”
“Dead right eye, scarred face, blackened right hand, black feathers. That’s her.”
“A lot of people could cover themselves like that. I mean, she’s a [redacted]! That’s public knowledge! We only see that because she wants us to see that. What if that has been a mask this whole time and she’s really something else? What if there are a whole group of Weavers, like a guild of Weaver, and they are all using that same appearance to hide their identities? What if who we think is Weaver is a plant by a rival org?”
“Have you been roiding up again? God damn, your paranoia is irritating! Stop it! She was vetted before she came to that table. There may be many Weavers, but that’s the only Weaver we need to know. And it doesn’t matter if she’s guilded elsewhere or not. The moment she drops a person, we own her.”
Yup. That’s what I thought it was. A fucking setup. I did agree to the assignment, but only because I saw a loophole I could exploit. I had to shoot one person in each area. But there was no explicit requirement to kill, and no explicit requirement to wound. Only that I shoot at least one person in each area.
I stepped from the shadows around the bend of the tunnel. I was still out of sight of the observers, but now my noise could betray me. As I materialized, I realized to my horror that while I was watching the observers unnoticed by them, I was being watched myself by someone else.
I nodded silently to the person across the tunnel. They were cloaked in darkest shadow with a face mask that betrayed only a humanoid form. When they opened their eyes, I recognized them as the third committee member. Ke nodded in acknowledgement of my greeting.
I spread my hands to show lack of aggression. Ke spread kir as well but then held up a single finger asking me to wait a moment. Ke reached in kir robes and withdrew some scraps of cloth. Ke held them out for me to see and to take.
These black strips were embroidered with my host organization’s symbol. Where the rival orgs’ symbols were roughly and quickly stitched, these were embroidered professionally and by hand.
«Weaver does not kill indiscriminately nor without cause. I trust you to uphold the organization’s honor.» Kir words whispered neatly in my mind, leaving me with a poker face of my own as I sought to identify who in this realm could perform these feats. Realizing I was greatly out-classed, I accepted the offered symbols and bowed deeply at the increased responsibility.
I looked towards the bend in a gesture, then raised my eyebrow in a quizzical fashion. Ke nodded and answered without sound. «They are not your problem. But I promise you, they will be dealt with accordingly. I tolerate no brutes in my ranks.»
I bowed shallow in acknowledgement, then bowed again deeper in submission to my assignment. The masked figure bowed kir head in response. Ke closed kir eyes and disappeared back into the shadows. To my sights, I was alone again. But I knew ke was still there, invisible to me and to the formal observers now loudly bitching about how severely late I am.
I came around the corner. “Why didn’t you tell me there would be complications? The other two are sealed off and I couldn’t get access!”
“Surely that wouldn’t be a problem for you, Weaver. You can just ‘port around the obstacle, right?”
Away from the grate to the outside I started assembling the gear. “Except once I accepted your organization’s mandate, I became bound to your organization’s forces. Whatever my superiors have sealed off, I can’t get past until released from my assignment or my superiors have opened.” I gave them both severe stink-eye as I chambered a round. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have work to do.”
The sewer grate gave me a good view of the shopping plaza. So many people. So many potential targets. I took up position and settled in for a long wait.
Behind me the observers grew impatient. They wanted to see excitement. They wanted to hear the screams of the frightened. They wanted the rival orgs to be blamed for chaos and indiscriminate violence.
Behind them, the master watched us all.
A shout on the plaza grounds. A purse-snatcher backhands his victim and wrenches her tote away. People start to confront him until he pulls out a knife and brandishes it. Now people are scrambling away.
Time slows down. A moment of opportunity presents itself. He holds the knife outward with the side of the blade fully presented. Behind the blade is a large tree.
I take the shot.
The knife spins cruelly out of his grip and slices the same hand that was just holding it. The tree shudders as the barely deflected round whispers its request for union into the trunk. Everyone stops and watches the free falling knife clatter to the ground.
The silence is dismissed with a determined punch to the purse-snatcher’s jaw. The newly minted hero takes the purse back to the recovering woman. Someone realizes a gun was fired and panics. The plaza begins to clear with chirps of gossip and uploading selfies. There are murmurs about gangs not tolerating petty crimes in their holdings.
As I back away from the grate, I pin one of the embroidered symbols to the side. The police will follow the trajectory declared by the tree and the position of the knife to the grate. And when they inspect the tunnel, they will find the symbol.
The observers follow me from the sewer tunnel into the side tunnel. As I seal the connection between them, they start berating me for not completing the assignment properly and questioning my identity.
“You weren’t supposed to save anyone! How is that going to make the population submit? And you left one of our symbols? Where did you get those? You’re working for a rival org, aren’t you!” The observer raised a hand to strike me but an unseen force gripped him and threw him down the tunnel instead.
The master stepped out of the shadows again but still kept kir face covered. «Weaver did as Weaver does. I would expect nothing less from her. Did you really think I would not know about your attempts to hire her? Did you really think you could hire her without my knowing, my funds, or my connections?»
The other observer started to try and run away but several more org members came out of the shadows around us and seized him. I was at a loss of understanding how I did not sense them before. The all black cadre brought the two observers to the master and forced them to their knees. I took the hint and started to kneel myself.
«No, Weaver. You do not kneel. You are not sworn to me.» The master’s inaudible voice gently stopped me. «You are released from the terms of your assignment. Do not count this a failure, as you have completed the task I required of you despite not knowing of it.»
I bowed and placed the gear before me. A cadre member took possession of it at once. I held out the three crude symbols of rival orgs, and the two remaining embroidered symbol of the master’s org. A second cadre member bowed deeply before taking them gently from my hand.
«Let us part here, Weaver. The less you are involved with my organization after this, the better for us both.»
“I agree, Master.” I bowed once more in farewell and departed the dream.