From: gibson@latcs1.lat.oz.au (Evan Thomas Gibson)
Subject: Mortal Wounds
Date: 15 Sep 1994 00:42:16 GMT


Mortal wounds : Memoirs of a Reaper  		
					Copyright 1994 by Evan Gibson

	It was a busy night. Who am I kidding? It was always a busy
night. What was it about the dark that caused mankind to aspire to
such depths? Perhaps they thought that no-one saw what they did
out of the light. Perhaps they were of the opinion that somehow the
shadows clouded the vision of whatever beings weighed their
actions and passed judgement  on their souls. Whatever they
thought, they were wrong.
	There were some that always watched, and they took special
care to notice nocturnal transactions. It was a busy night, and death
smiled in the shadows, but I couldn’t help but smile with her. For
what could death be, but a woman, an avatar of femininity, that
could steal your soul with the slightest caress, make your heart skip
more than a beat and leave you short of breath... permanently. And
it was to this delightful creature that I pledged my existence, offering
such little gifts as I could find and hoped met with her approval.
Courting the one being I could be certain I would meet. After all, I’d
already had a run-in with the tax man.
	But despite my efforts to romanticise the situation, the reality
was fairly easy to put into words. I killed people. I never liked the way
that sounded. Callous, cruel, uncaring. I was convinced I was
basically a good man. The memory makes me laugh, because I’m
still convinced, no matter how much evidence has arisen to the
contrary. I preferred to think of myself as a reaper. It sounded like a
more legitimate career, almost spiritual in some ways, harvesting the
earth... Still, I was good at what I did, whatever you decided to call it.
	That particular night had begun much as any other in this part
of town; the respectable folks all safe in their respectable houses
and the curfew reckfully ignored by the lawless majority, the police
too smart to give more than a token attempt to enforce it. The bars
conducted their usual orchestra of human interaction and reaction,
and the occasional discordant brawl marred the otherwise flowing
melody of our fair and lovely lives. Sarcasm aside, there was also a
chill in the air, an icy finger pointing towards the winter soon to come.
The cold can make a man do strange things, and it can be just as
effective at shortening tempers as the most sweltering of summer
heat. It was not a particularly wholesome time to be out. It was the
kind of night to catch your death... or someone else’s.
	I flicked the remains of my cigarette into the alley, stepped
out of the doorway and reached out my right hand to tap the large
man on the shoulder. He was quick, and had already grabbed the
arm that had touched him by the time he realised his mistake. The
gun in my left hand spoke up and emphasised the futility of his
position. Ambidexterity can be a real boon in this business. I rifled
through his wallet, took the cash to make it look like a mugging, and
held his bodyguard license up to the intermittent streetlight. Nice. I
smiled and the picture on the license mirrored my face as I slid it into
my pocket.
	I began whistling and started to stride out of the alley,
stopping for a moment and looking back, as the chill in the air gave
me the strangest sensation that someone was watching me.
Perhaps my mistress was keeping a closer eye on me than I had
thought. The smile left my face at this self-flattering and at once
uncomfortable thought, and I guardedly continued on my way,
keeping an ear out for noises behind my back, but I heard nothing

					*****

 	The contract had come through the usual channels, the
purchaser’s credit rating run through a gauntlet tighter than any
banks. They could pay, indeed they had, and I was employed once
more. It seemed simple enough, send some old guy to early
retirement. Probably hired by some incautious heir, greedier than
they were patient. Still, the person footing the bill was of little import,
the job was the important thing. It had to be clean and artistic,
couldn’t do to have my reputation tarnished, like my soul. Shouldn’t
be too difficult, good security, he had the best in fact, a mixture of
human and machine competence that could only be compromised by
an inside job, but the walking corpse had been getting careless,
perhaps subconsciously begging Charon for a midnight boat ride. I
smiled at the thought, mythology was one of my few other interests,
it was amazing how often people perpetuated the mistakes of their
ancestors.
	The distinguished gentleman I was to erase was appearing at
a benefit function that night, and it seemed that, due to an
unfortunate accident in a darkened alley with a gun, I must needs be
his escort for the evening. I picked the limousine up from the usual
depot and drove it sedately to his mansion. The computer at the gate
scanned my card to find out who I claimed to be. It then scanned the
car and my person and anything else it could get it’s sensors on, just
to reassure itself but the skin grafts on my hands, taken from the
dead guard almost a week ago and speed-grown, successfully
fooled the DNA sampler, and it let me in with electronic reluctance.
	The car smoothly pulled to a stop out the front of the house
and the old man folded himself into the rear seat. For someone
who’d be dead by the end of the night he didn’t look half bad. I half
smiled, raised my hand and spoke over my shoulder, the cuffs of my
suit slipping slightly down my arm, “Evening, Sir.”
	His neatly angled face blinked in quiet confidence, “Evening,
Jonathon. To the charity, please.” I gave a start, thinking I had been
recognised, but quickly remembered that the real guard’s name was
Jonathon as well. Too much of a coincidence for my liking.
	I smiled, hiding the scowl behind my eyes, “Certainly, Sir.”,
and accelerated the car to speed. The dust on the road swirled into
little piles of darkness as we passed.

					*****

	My hands were itching. The immuno-suppressants I’d been
given to allow the skin grafts to take were fading early. I’d have to
have a little talk with my doctor, such shoddy workmanship could get
me caught. I dare not scratch, someone might notice. From two
steps behind, deliberately failing to be inconspicuous, I acted bored
as the target wandered around oblivious, shaking hands and being
obvious and wealthy. I was kept busy trying to look threatening, a
supposed visual deterrent to people such as myself. The irony kept
me amused.
	Absently glancing at my watch I smiled inside, outwardly
aloof, any second now.
	Bang on time a rifle-shot rang out from an upper balcony. My
weight carried the old man to the floor, the bullet barely grazing his
shoulder, as some faster moving guard nailed the would-be assassin
between the eyes. A wall of hardened bodies and colder eyes almost
immediately escorted a medical team to my charge’s side, the
doctors professionally checking the wound for poison while they
manoeuvred him onto the stretcher. He was being airlifted to the
hospital, with me by his side, not two minutes after the “incident”. I
shook my head in memory of the batched job, the amateur should
have taken the bodyguards actions into account, and he never
should have missed that shot from so close. I smiled. Still, his
incompetence had been what I’d been paying him for.
	A true professional used a touch of finesse, tied up the loose
ends, and left someone else with the blame. Two out of three
already, and the night was still younger than I. I refrained from
smiling on the outside, and tried not to scratch my hands. Someone
might get suspicious. I looked with concern at the old man. Would he
survive long enough for me to kill him?

					*****

	The hospital room was much the same as any other.
Clinically designed to ensure that patients wanted to get out as
quickly as possible. Psychologically supposed to aid healing. being
easy on the budget and simple to sterilise. A myriad little reasons all
rolled up in one, to justify the sad vision of some overpaid and
probably certifiable architect. You’d think so much wealth could
afford a nicer place to heal themselves, for the rich tend to hold on to
life with more tenacity than the others, if only to prevent their funds
being distributed to the myriad cockroaches that crawl the earth and
scurry over any corpse.
	Still, this place suited my purpose as well as any other. It was
a private room, the doctors had left my charge to rest, and I was still
on duty. The night was unfolding pretty much exactly as I had
planned it, it seemed that the bullet had been poisoned and though
they were quite sure that the blood purification they were doing
would neutralise it, no one would be terribly surprised if he took a
sudden turn for the worse. After all if you were looking for a place to
terminate someone, where better than a hospital? People died in
hospital’s all the time.
	The old man was muttering little shreds of reality, phrases
such as, “failure”, “if you want something done right”, “longing for
peace” and “so long alone”. The medicos assured me he was
delirious. His curiously discoloured hands, now unhidden by the
gloves he’d been wearing, grasped the sheet firmly, his eyes almost
seemed to focus and he asked quite distinctly, “Am I my brother’s
keeper?”, before lapsing back into apparent insensibility. I wondered
why he hadn’t had the mark on his hands repaired, it was certainly
within his wealth. I shrugged, curiosity was not a trait to be
encouraged in this business, and who could fathom the eccentricity
of the upper echelons? Still, I wondered who he thought had failed
him.
	The time seemed right to make my move. Checking the
position of the surveillance camera once more out of the corner of
my eye to make sure I was out of sight, I flicked the electricity switch
for the blood filtering thing to off. After four minutes the old man’s
breathing became forced, and soon after that I turned the power back on,
running out into the corridor and calling, “Help! Help, he's stopped
breathing!”.
	Half an hour later I was walking out of the hospital, after
being patted on the shoulder numerous times and told, "There was
nothing you could have done..."” I almost burst out laughing. Almost.
They didn’t have a clue. As far as they were concerned, the
murderer was already a statistic. I felt a deep and abiding sense of
satisfaction. I had done well, I couldn’t help but think the delight of
my life must be proud of me.

					*****

	I had a talk with my doctor. He was quite sorry the immuno-
suppressants had worn off early, but assured me that the red
patches had nothing to do with the failed skin-grafts. Yeah. Right. As
if I believed that. He won’t be making any mistakes like that again.
I’ve talked to a few physicians about having the marks removed, but
they say there is nothing they can do. Identifying disfigurements are
a hazard in this industry. I could wear gloves to hide it, but I just wish
it didn’t look as if I had so much blood on my hands.
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