“Leave the glass.” Syers hissed at the waitress.

“Yes sir.” the waitress answered quickly, leaving the new double scotch and the two empty glasses that sat before him.

Syers ignored the waitress as she scurried across the floor of the restaurant, instead turning his attention back to the window he was facing. Outside the crowd was already forming, thousands of people slowly lulling into the square. They were funneled into the large grass park across the street, standing in front of a large wooden grand stand. The grandstand was temporary, built two nights earlier for just this event, but was still large and impressive. Massive speakers lined the park, starting from the corners of the grandstand, and spread out along the perimeter, getting smaller as they stretched to the end of the park. The only two speakers that stood on the stage were at least 20 feet tall. From inside the restaurant Syers could hear the various sound checks being made on the system.

In one massive pull, Syers sucked down the full double scotch and slammed the cheap glass onto the table top. He tried not to wince from the burning sliding down his throat but couldn’t. Still too sober. He raised his hand up to the waitress and motioned her over. He caught her shooting a glance at the bartender before making her way to his table. He decided to ignore it for now.

“Would you like another one sir?” she asked pleasantly enough.

“Yes.”

She glanced down at the three empty glasses, hesitated, but then turned back to the bar without picking them up. Syers looked back outside. Mingling with the crowd was the security, both obvious and plain clothed. He recognized several of the faces he saw, even some of the undercover ones. They made their way through the crowd, eyeing any potential target or problem. Syers sneered at the situation. They had been reduced to hoping for a miracle. The security was out there in force just hoping that they stumbled on to the threat that they all knew existed.

Syers looked down as the waitress placed a new drink before him and turned to leave. He grabbed her arm gently, enough to stop her but not enough to hurt. She looked somewhat scared anyway when she turned to face him. With his free hand he picked up the drink and drained it, leaving the glass in line with the others. She just looked down at him, wrestling with her own thoughts.

“Another one?” she asked.

“Yes.” he said simply and let her go. She left.

They all knew the threat out there. Even worse, is they knew exactly when it was going to happen, and worse still who it was going to happen to. Syers was also pretty sure they knew how it was going to happen too. The how was a little fuzzy, and Syers had thought that if they could figure out the exact how they would be able to stop it. But as of now they still hadn’t, and with the speech going off in less than an hour, and the assassination taking place within the first half of the speech, it was too late. With much review Syers had decided that sobriety would be a hindrance in this case, and with any luck would be seriously intoxicated by the time he had to go. In less than an hour, Syers would be joining the rest of the security patrol, hoping to stumble upon anything that would prevent this. The only difference being for the most part, no one knew he would be there.

In an hour and a half, the Arch-Bishop Gabriel would more than likely be dead. Syers stared off absently at the religious propaganda that had been spread across the stage. Crosses, candles, portable holograph boxes that imitated old stained glass designs. All the standard stuff, strewn about the stage, all set up in a way that your eyes were drawn to the center of it. The flicking of the candles, the flow of light in the holograms, even the crosses were angled in that direction. Even knowing the trick of the devices, Syers felt his eyes falling into the trap and sliding onto the massive altar that took up most of center stage. Syers couldn’t help but admire the altar, a massive chunk of mahogany wood, carved intricately with various scenes of the churches self proclaimed centuries of history.

“Too bad your brains are more than likely going to be decorating it Gabriel boy.” Syers mumbled, not meaning for the waitress to hear it as she came up behind him with his drink. From the look on her face it was obvious she had. Syers decided it wasn’t worth the effort to either make excuses or to try and assure her of anything. Instead he took the drink from her hand and shooed her away with a flicking motion of his other hand. As she hurried off, he turned, prepared to ask for a bottle so as to be finished with her idiocy, but decided against it at the last second. The bottle would probably kill him, and there was still a job to be done.

Reaching out Syers gripped the full glass of scotch but didn’t drink it, instead stared off at the altar. He didn’t need to review the folded up map and spec that were inside the back pocket of his jeans. He memorized every detail on those papers. Not that there was a lot to memorize. In fact there was painfully little to know about this. That was the frustrating part. At 12:30, Arch Bishop Gabriel was going to have an attempt made on his life by the Church of Bablyon. The method was simple and just as known. Members of the Church were going to use a recently stolen porta-transport, of the military 2nd class type, to teleport in one or more members of their church on to the stage, and kill Gabriel in front of what was expected to be 100,000 followers who happened to be gathering in the square now. Of course in the Church’s mind, the most important witness was Gabriel’s supposed God, who they hoped beyond a doubt would not stick his fingers into their murder attempt. It went without saying that any form of divine intervention would prove them wrong, but Syers was not counting on it.

Syers twirled his glass in slow circles while he ran through possible scenarios for at least the 100th time. The scotch ran along the inside edges of the glass, sliding nearly to the rim, then taken by the next wave and dragged into the center. None of the scenarios made any sense. The particular transporter they had stolen had built in defense mechanisms that prevented the transport of any form of weapon. The military was very quick in realizing the incredible potential these porta-transports had, especially if they fell into enemy hands. To prevent mass disaster, most of them were designed to scan and decode every object being passed through to other locations. A massive list of items that the military deemed as possible weapons were bounced back to the original location automatically. Standard fire arms, blunt weapons, knives, chemicals, explosives; even most forms of disease, were neutralized during transport. An even longer list was set to time- delay entry. An individual would need to wait 10 seconds for the item to appear, thus eliminating any ability for an immediate surprise assault with some obscure form of weaponry. These defenses were only built into the portable teleporters, any of the standard booths could carry nearly anything, but were also coded depending on the pre-set destinations.

The scotch slid down easily, barely causing a wince as it poured into his stomach. Syers flicked his hand at the waitress behind him. He pushed the glass across the table into line with the rest of the glasses. Staring off he tried to visualize what would suddenly appear on to that stage at 12:30. Imagining what might appear was infinitely easier than trying to imagine what could logically appear. They only had one shot at this. The residue from the transport would allow the military to be at the origin within minutes. So they must have some idea how to pull this off. How to get on that stage and actually kill Gabriel in less than two seconds. The two seconds it would take for the 20 or so snipers positioned throughout the park to blow apart the invader. Syers could not think of any weapon not on the non-transport list that could accomplish this. The only scenario he had come up with that made any sense was teleporting in a martial artist that could kill him in one punch. But that just seemed too stupid. Too much faith in someone to actually beat the snipers’ cyber inbreeding. No. That wasn’t how they were going to do it. Syers just knew deep down they had something else planned. Something more dramatic, more symbolic than a ninja popping onto the stage. This was not meant to be a simple murder. This was supposed to be a message.

Syers sighed and grabbed the replenished scotch the waitress had just placed beside him. The crowd was nearly at capacity now, everyone nearly there to see Gabriel who was set to speak in about five minutes. Syers stood slowly, titled forward dangerously before catching himself on the end of the table. Peripherally he could see the waitress watching, wondering if he’d fall over. Steadying himself with his free hand, Syers pitched his head back and finished the last scotch. He tossed the glass onto the table, causing it to skid across and knock the rest out of their neat line. Twitching his head, he adjusted his jacket, feeling his holster press neatly against his chest. Reaching into his inside pocket that rested over his blaster, he pulled out his uncovered money roll, and pulled out two $100 bills. With a flick of his wrist, they followed after the tipped glass, and landed across its mouth. Tucking the remaining bills back into his jacket he proceeded uneasily to the front door.

Syers paused before the door, placing one hand on the door handle for balance. He pulled a pair of sunglasses from his front trouser pocket and placed them over his eyes. There was a low click, as the slid into place with the grooves under his ears. Suddenly he was immediately immersed into the babble of the security for the event. The crowd took on a new look, most of the spectators remained the same visually, but some suddenly wore a light blue halo that outlined their heads. The halo would suddenly flash red, then move onto another one, as the next security guard spoke into their microphone. Syers took a moment to absorb the situation, getting an idea for the layout of the security and who seemed to be in charge. Syers knew that even though he was linked into their closed net, he was invisible to them, and would appear as a normal pedestrian.

Opening the door, barely hearing the low bell tingle from the door, he walked unsteadily across the street and towards the outer fringes of the crowd. Even with the constant droning of the security check points and updates, Syers could hear the steady build up of the crowd as their hour approached. Glancing casually over his shoulder, Syers saw five more blue halos scattered across the roof tops of the buildings behind him. Turning back to the stage he made his way to a part of the crowd where there was very little blue.

There was suddenly a loud roar that completely drowned out the noise from the security feed. Syers looked up and watched as his client strolled across the stage, beaming a pearl white smile that shown even from back here. Despite himself, Syers had to admire Gabriel’s ability to look confident despite the situation he knew was out there. Syers continued to make his way forward, pushing aside screaming and clapping worshippers, that wouldn’t get out of his way on their own. Syers caught many disgusted glances shot his way, no doubt from the reek of alcohol emitting from his body. As the initial excitement from the crowd died down, Syers felt the increasing tension over the security net. For several seconds the noise was incomprehensible as most of the halos turned red, everyone talking at once, the nervousness getting contagious. Syers paused, staring intently at the haloed heads, and finally saw the black halo he had been waiting for, as a single voice suddenly cut over everyone else’s, turning all the halos blue simultaneously.

“Bring it down.” the voice said across the net. The halo vanished, leaving the blues to chat among themselves, each flashing red in turn as they did.

Syers adjusted his course slightly, weaved his way through the electric crowd, heading towards where the black halo had appeared. If things got out of control, he could take out the black halo, the guy in charge. The net would collapse for about 10 seconds until all control was re-routed to the second in command. Syers had no doubt that even in his drunken state, 10 seconds was enough. Now that he was close enough to the leader’s position, who of course was dressed plain-clothed and so was impossible to identify for sure, (Syers had his suspicions) Syers turned and focused on the stage where Ga

Either the alcohol or the ever approaching deadline was making Syers sweat as his eyes took in the crowd. The sweat was bad enough that even he could smell the alcohol emitting from himself. He ignored the growing space around him, as the people stepped back slowly from him while still not pulling their eager eyes from Gabriel. Watching the crowd he saw nothing that struck him as odd. Everyone was so intently focused on the show that he couldn’t even look for someone showing an unusual amount of interest for the stage.

A loud sigh released from Syers, the only remaining option he had been able to come up with was quickly becoming necessary. With only five minutes left, Syers turned to the stage where Gabriel was still speaking adamantly. For someone who must know how close to death he is, he was putting on a valiant effort. Gabriel’s lack of worry wasn’t making Syers’ task any easier. Knowing that this would be tough, Syers had known that he would need to be heavily intoxicated to do what he was about to do. Rolling his shoulders gently, Syers tried to relax, focusing on the stage. Focusing on Gabriel, his client. His client suddenly turned target.

Morgan was smiling. He was grinning like an idiot and he knew it. It didn’t seem to matter though. Everyone around him had the same lost smile plastered to their faces as they stared intently at Gabriel. There was a difference though. The people around him were smiling and crying in joy because what they were seeing was a prophet, a messenger, someone who claimed to speak directly to their God. This was as close to divinity they could get while still being able to walk the Earth. Gabriel was their God. Morgan was also smiling due to a religious revelation. The second Gabriel had walked out he had tried his hardest to wipe the grin away but was unable to. The joy that ripped through every ounce of his being at this moment was just too much for him to suppress.

“Show us how you are not afraid to die.” they had demanded of him.

The urge to giggle was nearly too much to suppress but Morgan managed. Cold shivers ran through his body, causing him to visibly shake as he stood there in sheer bliss. Morgan’s smile grew even larger, imagining that each shiver was due to a laser target floating over him, and then passing on. Slowly, lovingly, he caressed the hand-held device that rested in his coat pocket, the object those targets sought. If anyone knew what he held in his pocket he would be dead within seconds. The only question would be if he was torn to shreds by the thousands of zealous viewers or if the snipers bullets would annihilate his body first. Morgan was truly in Satan’s den right now. And he was smiling.

His fingers danced gently across the panel of the handheld, making only slight adjustments to the coordinates it held. Gabriel was orchestrating his speech exactly as planned. Dancing slowly and predictably to the exact point of his own death. Morgan had watched this speech a countless number of times both live and in holos. So far Gabriel had only deviated from his usual speech by about two seconds, and Morgan had already made all the necessary adjustments.

Another shiver wracked through his body. Morgan found himself looking up over his shoulders at the rooftops of the buildings across the street where there were certainly snipers planted and scanning the crowd for the assassins. He had no real concern for Gabriel’s security. They had a plant within the security net that had assured them that the security knew nothing more than what they had made clear themselves. Gabriel was to die at 12:30. With nothing else to go on, Gabriel’s security was just going through the motions hoping to stumble upon anything that might prevent this. As long as Morgan did nothing stupid, they wouldn’t find anything until it was too late. Of course Morgan would die then, but he was prepared to.

A low pitched whine of excitement did escape Morgan’s lips as Gabriel hit the seven minute mark. Within seven minutes Morgan would be activating the device. His hand was slick with sweat as he played with the hand-held more now, gripping it tightly. Running his hand along the side of the object that within six minutes would allow his God to channel his fury through, transforming Morgan into the divine hammer that would strike Gabriel down before all his heretic followers. Morgan would be the one to unmask Gabriel, showing him to be the false prophet he truly was. Morgan didn’t even hear the low laugh coming from his throat. The laugh coming from the knowledge that nothing was going to be able to stop him and his divine mission. Not the so called security, not this mercenary that had been hired without even security’s knowledge, and most of all, and most reassuring, not even this supposed God all these poor bastards were worshipping.

Morgan took the sudden screams coming from his left merely as a moment of revelation for the worshippers. Somehow they had come across the same conclusion as he had years ago, that their God was false and their prophet was truly doomed. The screams spread, growing higher in pitch, Morgan felt the tears rolling down his cheek. His God truly was merciful, spreading his message even to the heretics, possibly sparing their tortured souls from an eternity of damnation. It wasn’t until the single shot roared out from the audience that Morgan stopped smiling. Before him, on the stage, the man he was determined to destroy, the man he was prepared to sacrifice his own life to bring down, was now being hurtled across the stage in an explosion of blood. Morgan’s own divine fate flashed before his eyes.

“God help me.” Syers mumbled as he reached out and activated the scrambler on his sunglasses, rendering him invisible to the glasses that security also wore.

Sobriety quickly roared to the forefront, as Syers pulled out his blaster quickly, feeling it slide comfortably into his palm. There were screams from behind him as the auto-targeting system within his glasses honed in on to what Syers was focusing on. More screams from in front and to the left. Scowling fiercely, Syers pulled the trigger, the recoil lifting his left arm slightly, the shot ripping over the noise of the speech. The speech which was abruptly cut short and overloaded as the blast impacted into Gabriel. There was a second of tremendously loud feedback, Gabriel’s microphone being shredded by the shot.

Syers watched as Gabriel’s left shoulder disintegrated into an explosion of blood and flesh. The force of the blow sent Gabriel off his feet, his right foot kicked wildly high, practically over his head. Gabriel crashed into the altar, his head and upper body pitching backwards over the top of it. He hung there for a moment, the remains of his arms covering his white robe, so bloodied you could not make out the red cross anymore. He fell to the stage, landing on his knees, then slid to the floor without a sound.

Syers whirled around, watching the crowd desperately, looking for someone else who might be panicking. Most of the crowd had run away from him, leaving a few trampled spectators in their midst. The crowd was too packed in to get too far, so it only took a second for Syers to dive back into the rushing mob. Through his glasses he could see the yellow crosshairs of the snipers targeting systems running over the crowd, most of them concentrated around his area.

“You bastard!” someone screamed to his left as Syers felt someone plow into his side, a blow landing in his stomach.

Without looking down, Syers brought the butt of his gun down on the attacker’s head, hearing the crushing sound of bones. One other tried the get heroic, charging Syers as the other attacker slid to the ground. As Syers fired another round, devastating the man’s knee, Syers finally saw what he wanted. He knocked the wailing attacker aside, and broke into a run, charging towards the front of the stage.

Up ahead, Syers saw a man frantically punching numbers into a handheld device. Syers tried to push his way through the crowd to get closer but it was too tight. The man was looking around desperately, obviously confused by the sudden turn of events. His face was a picture of torment, his eyes bulging from their sockets. Syers reached over a spectators shoulder, aiming his gun over the screaming heads and fired a wild shot. The man dove to the ground as the blast pounded the stage behind him. Lying on the ground, he looked up and continued punching something into the handheld. It suddenly dawned on Syers that the handheld was for the transporter. The man was trying to put in Gabriel’s new coordinates.

Syers found himself being pushed away from the man by the rushing crowd, most of them not even realizing that he was there with a gun in the confusion. He was being jostled too much to use the auto-targeter so was forced to squeeze off two more hip shots. The man jerked wildly as one of the shots ripped into the back of his leg, the other missing way wide. Syers prepared a fourth shot but suddenly found himself falling over backwards, as he was driven into a fallen spectator.

The air rushed from his lungs as he crashed to the ground, landing on his back, his feet still pitched up, leaning on the spectator’s back. Syers sucking in minimal air, gasping heavily, was forced to cover his face as the mob ran over him. What little air he had, left him in a rush, as another fell over, driving her knee into Syers’ exposed stomach. Syers shoved her off of himself roughly, sending her sprawling to the side. As he tried to roll over onto his knees, another foot kicked his head, sending him down again. The combination of the alcohol and the lack of oxygen made it nearly impossible to focus on the crowd rushing over him, crushing him beneath their feet.

Syers knew he had no time. Knew that this mistake could probably lead to the death of his client. Wishing he’d had more to drink, he brought the blaster up and began firing madly into the crowd. People were launched away from him as the heavy blasts poured into them. The screaming reached an intense pitch as people tried to get out of the way danger. Since most of the crowd only knew there was danger and didn’t know where it was coming from, people were pushed right back into the path of Syers’ blaster. Somehow through the chaos, Syers felt the spray of blood rush over him, and knew that he hadn’t caused it. Suddenly focusing, he saw the yellow cross-hairs swinging madly over the crowd around him, the sniper’s bullets sweeping over the screaming crowd.

Finally able to breath, Syers rolled to the side, onto his knees and tried to crawl away from the quickly thinning madhouse of spectators. Jumping to his feet, he stood looking for the man with the hand-held. He kept walking away from the riot, knowing that he was invisible from their systems, but still afraid that he might get hit with a stray shot. He glanced quickly over to where Gabriel was being helped off the stage by two security guards. Gabriel was weakly scanning the crowd, his entire side covered in his own blood, looking for any sign of his assailant.

It was sheer chaos over the net, nearly every halo was flashing red as security screamed in panic their laser tracers randomly rolling over the crowd, almost lazily bringing down civilians in the madness. One of the guards holding up Gabriel was suddenly blown backwards as three lasers ripped over the crowd from the roof tops, pouring into his chest. Gabriel tumbled to the stage as the second guard instinctively dropped to a defensive crouch, firing shots of his own back at the roof. Despite desperate protests of the net leader cutting across the net, the guard was quickly hidden behind laser targets and struck down himself. Gabriel began to crawl.

Focusing on his task he looked back to the ground and immediately saw the man, lying where Syers had left him, still entering something into the hand-held. With a clear shot, and hardly any interference, Syers brought up the blaster quickly. His auto-tracker immediately found the man’s head, which Syers promptly fired at. The roar of the blaster and the concentration of the shot masked the scream that emitted from the stage area. As the blaster echoes died, Syers heard the shrieking for the first time and felt his stomach clinch into a tight ball immediately. Dreading what her already knew was happening he turned to the stage, where the screaming was just hitting reaching a new pitch.

On the stage Gabriel was performing his final act before the thousands of horrified worshippers who stared raptly at the horrific creation that had formed. Gabriel’s upper body was writhing madly, his face contorted with utter agony as he howled and shrieked. With each spasm his head crashed onto the front of the stage, but he kept going, still screaming, still writhing. On (in?) him there was a woman who was smiling triumphantly. She was kneeling upon (within!) Gabriel’s spasming body, swaying in rhythm with his jerking. Gabriel’s face, battered from the repeated blows to the stage, was now dripping blood, spraying it wildly across the stage. He continued to shriek, spitting blood and foam from his swollen lips. Syers felt the alcohol rolling in his stomach, but tried to hold back the vomit as he brought up his blaster.

There was no need. The woman’s body was suddenly surrounded by a mist of her own blood as the sniper’s rained down onto her. Syers watched as the holes ripped open across her kneeling body, her body swinging back with each shot, but not falling over. She couldn’t fall over, it was physically impossible. The screaming was growing hoarse, and Gabriel’s spasms slowed as she finished her intrusion ( infusion) into his body. All of her body, below the knees was now fused within Gabriel. The two as one, finally died, their blood, flesh, and bones mingling within each, her body nothing but a bloody pulp defiantly still prone despite the onslaught. Gabriel finally flopped to the stage, no movement except the occasionally twitch of his wrist.

Syers found himself slowly walking backwards, and absently placed his gun back within its holster. Instincts overrode the shock, as he began making his way out of the park, mingling back in with the stunned audience who stood utterly still, seemingly frozen, possibly awaiting something else. Maybe some final message that all was still well, and that this was actually a sign. Somewhere along the way he vomited heavily, emptying his stomach of the scotch across someone’s shoes, but he continued out of the park, leaving his client sprawled across the stage in a pool of his assassin’s blood.

Copyright 2000 Harry Raden

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