Chapter 2: Just another day at work
Without a moment of hesitation, Rachel reached for her wrist launcher and pointed it at the fat man's neck. Triggering the launchers auto-fire function by clenching her fist, a poison dart was shot out of the end of a small opening. Upon making contact with the man's neck, the man let out a loud, somewhat forced sigh and tried to waddle a few steps toward Rachel. Rachel could see than man couldn't have been older than 30. He only had a few wrinkles and bright, energized green eyes. Above his fat double chin was a thick beard which seemed to hide a big mole that was just underneath the right side of his lip. Suddenly the man's eyes closed and he fell to the cold, steel floor with a loud thud. His knife impacted the ground seconds later.
"Ok everyone, stand back!" The police officers said as they were busy shoving people aside to see if the man was truly unconscious. One officer lifted up his arm and dropped it in a somewhat clumsy manner. The other officer rolled his eyes and pulled the now empty poison dart out of the man’s neck. “Poison dart, high quality… you don’t buy this on the lower city markets…” The officer mumbled to himself. Suddenly he turned around and looked at the crowd of people, some of them already getting back to catching their airship. “All right all of you! Who does this dart belong to!?”
Several people looked at each other, puzzled. Some of them were talking about a ‘blonde haired girl’ but were surprised to realize she was nowhere to be seen…
Behind a big newsstand, Rachel waited for the officers to leave. She could she several people being carried away by the two officers. The cops never took too kindly to people not answering their questions, even if it was obvious they didn’t even know what was really going on. She sighed as she pulled her sleeve over her wrist launcher to conceal it. She quickly headed up the stairs to terminal 1. She was already late, she couldn’t afford to waste any more time…
The airship was 2nd class, built in 1956 and contained few luxuries. Most of the people that were accompanying Rachel on this ride were simple civilians who had a job in one of the city’s skyscrapers. As Rachel looked out the window she could see some other passing airships, some apparently first class, as a mother told her children. “You see Tim? That is an airship, first class, top notch engineering. It is similar to the zeppelins from earlier times, but thanks to intelligent design and science, it can fly much higher and is much quicker.” The kids smiled and continued to ask their mother all sorts of questions, ranging from silly to surprisingly intelligent.
All passengers were suddenly interrupted by the Airship’s onboard telescreen. “Attention citizens, the Fürher of Nazi Germany Dietrich Benjamin Hitler…” Rachel always considered it odd, Hitler’s second name was Benjamin, maybe his father just hated him, or so she thought. Why else choose a Jewish name? “…Has acquired surprisingly advanced technology comparable to ours. Our spies tell us he has reverse engineered our airship technology as well as our basic android designs, and adapted them for basic warfare.” Rachel looked at the images accompanying the message. Basic blueprints of airships. Footage of prototype androids. She smiled as she remembered one of her earlier bounty hunting missions. It involved hunting down a prototype android in order to acquire its advanced CPU. She was working for a crime lord at the time, who planned to use the CPU in order to create more advanced defenses for his stronghold. Rachel could remember the androids clumsy reactions to her movements. Back then androids were no more intelligent than a baby, they couldn’t even speak.
Then, the telescreen continued: “..The Institution will do everything in its power to prevent the Nazi’s from using this technology, we will ensure the continued stability of this great nation.” Rachel rolled her eyes, she wasn’t a great nationalist and all this pep talk coming from the telescreens only served to annoy her.
After a while, the telescreen had run out of propaganda to spill out. Much to Rachel’s surprise, she had already arrived at her intended destination, sector 13B. Luckily, this airship station wasn’t as crowded as the first one, and there were no lunatics with knives running around. Rachel took the elevator up to the 144th floor, her intended destination. She quickly remembered what she knew about her contractor. Garrus O’Neilly, a wealthy man, 45 years old and a high ranking politician. From his official profile from the BBC website, Rachel found out he had black hair, brown eyes, and a small blue tattoo on his right cheek.
As Rachel left the elevator, she was now standing in a lobby and was greeted by a receptionist. She brushed back her dark brown hair before shaking Rachels hand. “Greetings! This is Garrus’ office. How can I help you?”. Rachel knew she shouldn’t tell the receptionist too much, as she could pass on any info she told her to the police if they ever started to ask questions about her contractor. She had been on enough missions, only for her contractor to be exposed to the police and arrested. “I… Mr. O’Neilly asked for me to come.” The receptionist nodded as she pointed Rachel to a large, bronze door. Rachel carefully opened the door, careful not to damage the beautiful figures imprinted in the gold.
She was now standing in a large room, probably the office of O’Neilly. The room was dimly lit, most of the light coming from a fireplace to Rachel’s right. Next to the fireplace was a comfy chair. Next to the chair was a big bookcase and next to the bookcase was a desk with plenty of paperwork on it. Suddenly, a dark figure rose out of the chair next to the fireplace. Rachel could tell it was O’Neilly because she could make out the small blue tattoo on his cheek. O’Neilly turned around and adjusted his tie, his eyes focused on Rachel.
“You must be Rachel. You’re late.” Rachel sighed, this was one of those grumpy politicians who wanted everything to be perfect, and always bitched like a little child if it was not.
“I.. ran into some trouble back at…”
“I know child, I watch the news. Surely one escaped lunatic can’t cause that much trouble can he?” O’Neilly said as he grabbed a bottle of wine from his desk and poured himself a glass
Rachel was amazed. How did he know of the trouble she ran into back at the Airship station? Hell, why didn’t he get straight to business?
“Tell me, miss Dollabella… How would you kill one of my fellow politicians?”
Rachel considered the question to be very odd and out of the blue. She scratched her wirst as she thought of a suitable answer…
A) Do it quietly of course... Try to minimize casualties, incapacitate instead and don’t try to set off any alarms.
B) Try to sneak in and assume the identity of one of the guards, than make the kill and sneak back out. No one will suspect a thing if all goes right.
C) Go in and hack the security systems, using them against the guards. After security has been dealt with, no one will stop you from making the final kill.
D) Take a difficult route straight to the targets office and deal with him there. Security will probably come to investigate. But I will be long gone when they arrive on the scene
I must mention that each action may or may not have negative consequences (eg, everything may not go smoothly)