he hurried along the dark footpaths within the alleyway, frightfully aware of the precarious situation that he is in. the litter-lined street was boxed in on both sides by the high brick walls of delipidated buildings, like some narrow urban ravine. the stink of the sewers engulfed his nostrils - the pungent aroma of oils, fats, phlgem, decaying algae and food. a long cylindrical object, looking very much like a soda bottle dropped from his hands into a gutter. his boots splashed from potholes to potholes in the twilight of not a moon or mercury-incandescent bulbs, but of ambient light pouring from the neon signs advertising products that usually dont deliver.
the boss was waiting for him at the dead end. nobody but the incredibly stupid or the incredibly brave chooses a meeting place of which there is no chance of escaping. but the boss knew. he trusted his courier would not do anything to endanger his own life, and the life of his lover, of whom the boss, by proxy of his loyal underlings, has control over. the boss was a repungent man, wearing a suit that accentuates his extreme obesity. a stranger to deodorant, he blended in perfectly with the smells of the alleyway.
the guards were in a relaxed state, but uncomfortable in their polyester suits. only one of them was lucky enough to be the designated driver for the night, and so endured only boredom as she waited in the airconditioned comfort of the car. each of them were handpicked from young, as they roamed around the streets controlled by the boss, and they owed him their upbrining, no matter how skewered it was. prostitution and pimping by 14, drugs at 18, tasting the sweet adrenaline rush of their first kill soon after, and the sour afterglow as it leaves you. some of them never made it past their first gangfight, but the ones that made it were always harder, tougher and infinately more suited to the job of ensuring the longlevity of the boss. after all, what good is a corpse to a living person, except as a testimonial that we're all very much mortals no matter how much our money, power or fame makes us think otherwise?
the briefcase jounced along the thigh of the courier as he turned out of the last series of bends that will lead him to the boss. he missed his lover terribly so, and could not wait for this job to be concluded and to have a reunion. paying no attention to the little dots of laser sights that painted his torso, he slowed down his pace as he walked calmly towards the boss. his eyes were taking in the environment just like how his teachers used to teach him, each painful lesson seared forever into his mind, like a branding iron on the hide of a bull. he calculated angles, ambush points, potential covering positions, some of which looked promising on the onset, but will prove a fatal choice as the rotting woods yielded to the relentless propulsion of copper speeding at 800 feet per second. the guards were trained killers no doubt, but the courier was trained to be as close to a personification of Death as possible.
the boss appraised the lanky man who walked slowly towards him. in the business, the boss often could tell from the way a man walked how he felt inside. his trusted courier, walking slower than usual seemed to be preoccupied with something. he fiddled with his fat jowls, glancing at his guards for reassurance. nothing would go wrong. they could cut any man in half before the boss even had a mind to take cover. besides, this courier was someone whom he'd used on many occasions, with good results and no disappointments.. much unlike the product that the billboard behind him was proclaiming, he thought.
the courier stopped. 10 metres away. red laser trails were still roaming around his chest and he bit down on his molar.
when the glass covering his rear molar, on the right side of this lower jaw, shattered - 3 things happened in quick succession. exposed to saliva, the mirco-circuit within the glass ampule collapsed into itself and trasmitted a single long burst of coded message on the 2.4 gigahertz band. the cola bottle which the courier dropped previously contained eapproximately 1 kilogram of high tech plastic explosives surrounding a crude but efficient radio receiver which was in turn connected to a detonating cap. the radio receiver was mated via 2.4 ghz to the micro-circuit within the courier's molar and when the coded transmission was received, a small electric current was passed on to the detonating cap, which caused it to create a small powerful blast that destabilises the chemical constituents of the main explosive compound, decomposing the plastic explosives and creating an explosion that left one side of a building crumbling and a roar of heat, light and sound.
enough heat light and sound to distract the guards for a heartbeat or two. but that was all the courier needed.
sidestepping left and flicking a concealed switch within the briefcase, he executed a perfect cartwheel, dodging the first volley of gunfire which zipped through the empty space that the courier once inhabited. he flung the briefcase across in a graceful arc towards the windscreen of the car, the big sheet of glass immediately registering the impact with a cracking sound and a resulting spiderweb. upon hitting the windscreen, the shock-sensing relays contained within the briefcase detonated a smaller yield of the same plastic explosives that was used in the inital blast. the female guard in the car never had the time to finish the curse that was formed upon her lips.
the courier, already recovered from the first cartwheel, took the time that the guards were using to realign their sights to reach within his suit and withdrew two long throwing knives. with a quick glance to his right, he flicked forward his right arm and the knife found it's home in the forehead of the first guard. throw with such force it was buried to the hilt.
with the second volley of gunfire about to erupt, the courier took two steps to the wooden crate left on the side of the alley and jumped up upon it, and off it - doing a backflip which faced him, albeit upside down, with another guard who was covering the only exit of the deadend. another flick of his left wrist. the guard dropped, his machine pistol still equipped with a 30 round mag. his left eye gazed out lifelessly, pupil fully dilated. his right eye is the new home of a 9cm throwing blade.
stunned, the remainder of the guards, which numbered 4, began to run out of their concealed positions in the bid of getting a clearer shot of this, evidently very skilled, courier. they were practioners of the art of killing, and chose to fire only very discriminate shots. a decision which would ultimately and inevitably, lead to their deaths as the courier was counting upon the very training that prevents them from filling every single cubic inch of the area with hot flying lead. after all, you could dodge calculated shots if you knew the calculations, but you could never predict where random shots would end up.
the courier ran in an awkward pattern, seven paces towards the body of the killer who was guarding the exit. bullets whizzed past him, and gaps where his flailing arms once were. he looked like a spastic kid running in the special olympics, but every move was calculated to mislead the killer's next point of aim. two paces, he dropped his right shoulder to avoid a bullet beind fired from behind,crouched low and pumped his right leg. the courier fliped down upon his back, right hand scooping up the machine pistol, aimed and squeezed the trigger. 3 rounds exited the barrel of the pistol, 3 rounds entered the mouth of the guard furthest from him, sliced past his lips, shattered his teeth, ripped his tonsils and spiralled through his spine at the base of his skull with kinetic energy to spare.
the boss was speechless as he saw his guards, his esteem guards, being mowed down with silent precision, and with absolutely no pause on the part of the courier.
the bodyguard nearest the courier realised his life was over when he heard the fatal click of a firing pin finding an empty chamber. very soon, two rounds were nested like comfortable hamsters in the soft tissues of his lung, and a third exploded within his windpipe. he would live in agony for the next minute as he suffocated and choked in his own blood.
the courier was up and running by then, towards the two hired guns that stood before him. jumping as the guards fired simultaneously, he flung the machine pistol towards the face of the guard on his left, twisted his body sideways so as to present a smaller target for them, and punched out with his left arm, connecting solidly with the cheek of the guard on his right. when a machine pistol flies towards your face, you instinctively duck and that is what the guard did, and the courier used his lowered shoulder as a stepping stone, planted his right foot squarely and executed a perfect 180 degree kick that connected with the other guards temple, which folded under the steel toed boot. the last guard looked up with both a mixture of grudging respect and hatred.
the courier smiled, the only emotion he allowed himself after the whole time, and ducked just as the boss fired his personal sidearm straight into the courier's back. the well aimed round, finding nothing to stop its onward trajectory, found solace in the left cheekbone of the final guard.
the courier picked up the machine pistol even before the guard finished twitching, spiralled around and squeezed the trigger, and held it down. 25 rounds flew towards the boss, a man with a girth so wide it really was like trying to shoot the side of a barn. except that a man like the courier never misses.
the courier walked calmly towards him, and in the last moment of vividness granted to the boss, he realised the reason why the courier he most trusted would finally betray him in such a spectacular fashion when he could've easily disposed of him in more discrete ways.
the boss was waiting for him at the dead end. nobody but the incredibly stupid or the incredibly brave chooses a meeting place of which there is no chance of escaping. but the boss knew. he trusted his courier would not do anything to endanger his own life, and the life of his lover, of whom the boss, by proxy of his loyal underlings, has control over. the boss was a repungent man, wearing a suit that accentuates his extreme obesity. a stranger to deodorant, he blended in perfectly with the smells of the alleyway.
the guards were in a relaxed state, but uncomfortable in their polyester suits. only one of them was lucky enough to be the designated driver for the night, and so endured only boredom as she waited in the airconditioned comfort of the car. each of them were handpicked from young, as they roamed around the streets controlled by the boss, and they owed him their upbrining, no matter how skewered it was. prostitution and pimping by 14, drugs at 18, tasting the sweet adrenaline rush of their first kill soon after, and the sour afterglow as it leaves you. some of them never made it past their first gangfight, but the ones that made it were always harder, tougher and infinately more suited to the job of ensuring the longlevity of the boss. after all, what good is a corpse to a living person, except as a testimonial that we're all very much mortals no matter how much our money, power or fame makes us think otherwise?
the briefcase jounced along the thigh of the courier as he turned out of the last series of bends that will lead him to the boss. he missed his lover terribly so, and could not wait for this job to be concluded and to have a reunion. paying no attention to the little dots of laser sights that painted his torso, he slowed down his pace as he walked calmly towards the boss. his eyes were taking in the environment just like how his teachers used to teach him, each painful lesson seared forever into his mind, like a branding iron on the hide of a bull. he calculated angles, ambush points, potential covering positions, some of which looked promising on the onset, but will prove a fatal choice as the rotting woods yielded to the relentless propulsion of copper speeding at 800 feet per second. the guards were trained killers no doubt, but the courier was trained to be as close to a personification of Death as possible.
the boss appraised the lanky man who walked slowly towards him. in the business, the boss often could tell from the way a man walked how he felt inside. his trusted courier, walking slower than usual seemed to be preoccupied with something. he fiddled with his fat jowls, glancing at his guards for reassurance. nothing would go wrong. they could cut any man in half before the boss even had a mind to take cover. besides, this courier was someone whom he'd used on many occasions, with good results and no disappointments.. much unlike the product that the billboard behind him was proclaiming, he thought.
the courier stopped. 10 metres away. red laser trails were still roaming around his chest and he bit down on his molar.
when the glass covering his rear molar, on the right side of this lower jaw, shattered - 3 things happened in quick succession. exposed to saliva, the mirco-circuit within the glass ampule collapsed into itself and trasmitted a single long burst of coded message on the 2.4 gigahertz band. the cola bottle which the courier dropped previously contained eapproximately 1 kilogram of high tech plastic explosives surrounding a crude but efficient radio receiver which was in turn connected to a detonating cap. the radio receiver was mated via 2.4 ghz to the micro-circuit within the courier's molar and when the coded transmission was received, a small electric current was passed on to the detonating cap, which caused it to create a small powerful blast that destabilises the chemical constituents of the main explosive compound, decomposing the plastic explosives and creating an explosion that left one side of a building crumbling and a roar of heat, light and sound.
enough heat light and sound to distract the guards for a heartbeat or two. but that was all the courier needed.
sidestepping left and flicking a concealed switch within the briefcase, he executed a perfect cartwheel, dodging the first volley of gunfire which zipped through the empty space that the courier once inhabited. he flung the briefcase across in a graceful arc towards the windscreen of the car, the big sheet of glass immediately registering the impact with a cracking sound and a resulting spiderweb. upon hitting the windscreen, the shock-sensing relays contained within the briefcase detonated a smaller yield of the same plastic explosives that was used in the inital blast. the female guard in the car never had the time to finish the curse that was formed upon her lips.
the courier, already recovered from the first cartwheel, took the time that the guards were using to realign their sights to reach within his suit and withdrew two long throwing knives. with a quick glance to his right, he flicked forward his right arm and the knife found it's home in the forehead of the first guard. throw with such force it was buried to the hilt.
with the second volley of gunfire about to erupt, the courier took two steps to the wooden crate left on the side of the alley and jumped up upon it, and off it - doing a backflip which faced him, albeit upside down, with another guard who was covering the only exit of the deadend. another flick of his left wrist. the guard dropped, his machine pistol still equipped with a 30 round mag. his left eye gazed out lifelessly, pupil fully dilated. his right eye is the new home of a 9cm throwing blade.
stunned, the remainder of the guards, which numbered 4, began to run out of their concealed positions in the bid of getting a clearer shot of this, evidently very skilled, courier. they were practioners of the art of killing, and chose to fire only very discriminate shots. a decision which would ultimately and inevitably, lead to their deaths as the courier was counting upon the very training that prevents them from filling every single cubic inch of the area with hot flying lead. after all, you could dodge calculated shots if you knew the calculations, but you could never predict where random shots would end up.
the courier ran in an awkward pattern, seven paces towards the body of the killer who was guarding the exit. bullets whizzed past him, and gaps where his flailing arms once were. he looked like a spastic kid running in the special olympics, but every move was calculated to mislead the killer's next point of aim. two paces, he dropped his right shoulder to avoid a bullet beind fired from behind,crouched low and pumped his right leg. the courier fliped down upon his back, right hand scooping up the machine pistol, aimed and squeezed the trigger. 3 rounds exited the barrel of the pistol, 3 rounds entered the mouth of the guard furthest from him, sliced past his lips, shattered his teeth, ripped his tonsils and spiralled through his spine at the base of his skull with kinetic energy to spare.
the boss was speechless as he saw his guards, his esteem guards, being mowed down with silent precision, and with absolutely no pause on the part of the courier.
the bodyguard nearest the courier realised his life was over when he heard the fatal click of a firing pin finding an empty chamber. very soon, two rounds were nested like comfortable hamsters in the soft tissues of his lung, and a third exploded within his windpipe. he would live in agony for the next minute as he suffocated and choked in his own blood.
the courier was up and running by then, towards the two hired guns that stood before him. jumping as the guards fired simultaneously, he flung the machine pistol towards the face of the guard on his left, twisted his body sideways so as to present a smaller target for them, and punched out with his left arm, connecting solidly with the cheek of the guard on his right. when a machine pistol flies towards your face, you instinctively duck and that is what the guard did, and the courier used his lowered shoulder as a stepping stone, planted his right foot squarely and executed a perfect 180 degree kick that connected with the other guards temple, which folded under the steel toed boot. the last guard looked up with both a mixture of grudging respect and hatred.
the courier smiled, the only emotion he allowed himself after the whole time, and ducked just as the boss fired his personal sidearm straight into the courier's back. the well aimed round, finding nothing to stop its onward trajectory, found solace in the left cheekbone of the final guard.
the courier picked up the machine pistol even before the guard finished twitching, spiralled around and squeezed the trigger, and held it down. 25 rounds flew towards the boss, a man with a girth so wide it really was like trying to shoot the side of a barn. except that a man like the courier never misses.
the courier walked calmly towards him, and in the last moment of vividness granted to the boss, he realised the reason why the courier he most trusted would finally betray him in such a spectacular fashion when he could've easily disposed of him in more discrete ways.
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