Congratulations on Killing the First Person You Meet!

When the door opens it’ll be a young man, no older than nineteen. He’ll be clean shaven with blue eyes full red lips. He’ll look content, like he’s had a rough life and he’s finally found something that doesn’t just hurt constantly to do, even if that thing is kind of horrible.

You’ll loop the rope around his neck in one fluid gesture and yank him off his feet, collapsing his windpipe with the force of the motion instantly. You’ll keep pulling as his feet scuff the ground just to be absolutely sure, just to be thorough. They’ll stop after less than a minute, panicked scrabbling fading into one last kick.

On his body you’ll find cell keys, a taser and an ID badge. Not much, nothing of real use. He must’ve been unimportant, this young man, barely worth clothing. You’ll have hoped to find a gun or something, something that you could really use to fight, but this will have to do, you’ll think to yourself, pocketing the taser.

You’ll set out into the passages of Dr. Lasercut’s base, moving slowly, stopping and hiding each time you hear footsteps. Five times you’ll avoid detection and barely stay your hand when you notice that the footsteps belong to more than one person. Moving this way it will take you two hours to reach Dr. Lasercut’s office. No search parties will impede your journey, a further testament to the unimportance of that poor, lonely young man already fading into the stone below.

As such you will be largely unexpected when you slip into Lasercut’s office. He’ll be on the phone, yelling at someone about cable installation times or something. The sound of your own blood in your ears will be too intense for you to be able to focus on just what’s coming out of Lasercut’s mouth.

You’ll slowly, carefully creep around the room in the plentiful and somewhat conspicuous shadows populating it until you come to rest just behind Lasercut, watching the hairs on the back of his neck, still not hearing the phone conversation. You’ll watch him hang up the receiver in slow motion, watch his hand tap the desk in a rapid pattern, hearing nothing, only the tap, until he turns towards you and says “Hello Agent Secretassassin.”

“Huh?” you’ll say, still in the shadows, eliciting a cruel laugh from Lasercut. You’ll move towards him with the taser but he’ll spin in his chair, a cutting-laser pointed straight at your chest.

“Not so fast, Agent Secretassassin,” he’ll say, a smile splayed across the functioning side of his face. You’ll lick your lips.

“It appears we have reached an impasse,” you’ll say, lowering the taser.

Congratulations on Killing the First Person You Meet!