Chapter 2
It’s Just Another Day
To say Elias was sore when he woke up would be an understatement. Getting hit by a freighter on the interplanetary beltway would have felt better. It was like someone had beaten the hell out of him with a pipe, left to take a lunch break, and then came back to continue the beating for another few hours. It was his least favorite thing about working with Mark, but he was happy to take a day of this over the radiation sickness.
The hardest part was getting up. Eyes first. Open.
Nope.
He sighed. It would be great if the paralysis would wear off before the sedative, but it never did. Eyes, open. Still no. Mark’s minuscule snores were coming from his right, the coffee table, most likely. At least he had managed not to fall off of the couch when he passed out. The amount of times that he woke up with stabbing neck pain from landing in an awkward position...
“Ok, eyes. Open up, you cunts, or I’ll cut you out the next chance I get.”
That was what Elias wanted to say, but all he managed to produce was some groaning mumbles. On the plus side, his eyes seemed to understand the message anyway, as he was now staring at the plain white ceiling of Mr. Lavigne’s smoking room. Not a tobacco stain to be seen, nor the purple swirls of royal odyssey, for that matter. The dossier on Merrick had stressed the man’s love of the hallucinogen. How the hell did they keep it so clean in here?
Snaps and pops, muffled by his boots, filled the air as he curled his toes. It felt amazing. He followed it up with his fingers, curling both hands into fists, every knuckle pulling until it popped.
“Oh, fuck... That’s nice.” Still slurred, but at least it sounded like words this time. With great effort, he turned his head to the side. “You fucking wanker.”
Mark was passed out on the table, as he thought. Nestled inside of an overturned tumbler, his little legs were in the air, with shining wings half out of their casing. He looked for all the world like he was dead, were it not for the snoring and the occasional twitch of a leg. What got Elias’s attention though was his gun. It was an all black vintage hand cannon with custom inscription, his father’s gun, which was currently in pieces on the table. Mark had removed the energy core, a miniature fusion drive. He’d also taken apart the ammo cartridge and removed the remaining charges. The core and charges were crumbled around him in the glass like a tiny, radioactive rock nest. A cozy bed for him, a death trap for anyone else—not to mention the cost to replace the core. They would be having a serious talk about who was paying for that later.
His hand slapped the leather of the sofa as he swung his arm over his body. The thing weighed a ton in his state. With a groan, he leveraged it to push himself into a sitting position. The room tilted sideways with his view, but straightened back out after a minute of deep breathing. He’s managed to avoid being sick the last six times, and he wasn’t about to start that up again now.
“Mark.”
The bug’s leg twitched, his snores continuing.
“Hey!” Elias lifted a heavy leg and kicked at the table. The glass Mark was using as a bed rolled back and forth, dropping a few pebbles onto the wood. “Wake up!”
At this point, if he didn’t already know better, he might have thought that Mark really was dead from the lack of response he showed. The open decanters on the table—the ones that hadn’t been shattered anyway—told the real story.
“Lush,” Elias mumbled, grabbing an empty glass and filling it with alcohol. He leaned back into the cushions of the couch, resting the glass on his thigh after taking a swig. Brandy. It always tasted like perfume to him, but never smelled as nice. His dad used to give him some on special occasions when he was a kid, holidays mostly, mixed in a mug of hot chocolate. The corner of his mouth raised as he stared at the caramel-colored drink. It tasted like shit, but what the old man didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him. He downed the rest, tossing the glass onto the table. It slid across the surface and off the other side. “Alright, let’s get a move on, eh?”
The room spun when he stood. Not as bad as when he first sat up, more like a mild hangover. He picked up Mark’s glass with his fingertips, tilting it upright. The pebbles half buried the bug inside.
The distance between the hangar and the smoking room was longer than it had felt the previous evening, but the walls of the hallways provided a convenient crutch when he got tired. The shuttle bay was another thing altogether. Barbara was parked at the opposite end, the walls wide and distant. He almost didn’t make it to the first stack of crates with how severe the shaking in his legs became. Sweat was soaking his shirt underneath his jacket and running down his neck.
“Fuck,” he sighed, breathing heavy. A nap sounded really good to him right about now, but not yet. Spotting an empty cart, he stumbled over to it as soon as the twitching of his muscles subsided enough to make the distance. Leaning on it was much less effort than walking on his own. Mark’s glass bounced around with every bump on the floor as he rolled the cart toward the Barbara Anne. His boots dragged against the studded metal tiles, never quite leaving the surface with each step he took. They arrived in… Well, they eventually arrived.
Climbing onto her wing with Mark’s glass in one hand, he stumbled through the hatch into the ship, falling into a workbench opposite the door with a grunt. Several wrenches clanged against each other, one bouncing off of the desk and onto the floor. At the back of the ship he stopped, his knees hitting the floor hard. He had meant to kneel down, but he supposed falling got him to the same place in the end. The fusion drive was beneath the last floor panel against the back wall, next to the bunks. Blue light lit up the inside of the ship when he opened it, less blinding than it should be. The drive was surrounded by a layer of pebbled micro cores and ammo charges. As gentle as he could with his shaking hands, he poured the glass into the compartment, the new pebbles joining Mark’s larger horde. The bug didn’t wake, but snuggled close to the ship’s drive, his little body wiggling to sink himself deeper into the rocks.
“Job well done, mate,” Elias whispered. The panel shut with a click, the blue glow of the drive staying in his vision long after the light was gone. He waited until it faded away before he stood back up.
It took a few minutes of shuffling around the hangar with his cart to find the charging cables, and then drag them over to Barbara. He plugged them into sockets located on the underside of the ship, next to a leaded window. The glow of the fusion drive surrounded by stones was visible through it, as well as the ass end of one colorful beetle pressed against the glass. Sliding out from under the ship, he rolled the cart back to where the cables were attached to a wall panel and started the charge. Barbara’s underside glowed with the increase in energy.
“Now, onto more important things,” he mumbled to himself, directing the cart back to the windowed door at the other end of the hangar.
Several hours later the charge was finished, the bullet holes in Barbara’s hull were patched, and the cupboards of the Merrick Lavigne were raided. He was able to abandon the cart after the first forty minutes, other than using it to bring some items to his ship. Removing the cables from Barbara, he dragged them a fair distance away to avoid any unfortunate accidents on their lift off. Just one more thing before they could leave.
On one side of the shuttle bay was an airlock. Thirteen bodies were covering the floor in a grid, hands folded over their chests and each face covered with a square of cloth. Supplies were limited, so he had to improvise by cutting the squares from flags and sacks he found around the cruiser.
“Sorry our paths had to cross like this, boys. It was nothing personal. We all have our jobs to do, right?” He whispered a laugh, then grimaced. “You shouldn’t have been here, too young for this line of work, but I get it. Jason,” he addressed the body laying at his feet, “I’ll make sure your parents are taken care of, any siblings you might have…”
Clearing his throat, he rubbed a hand down his face and turned to the body on the far right: the commander. “You’re a piece of shit to recruit these kids, but you died in battle with your men all the same. For that, you have my respect.” Elias took a step back over the threshold of the airlock. “Good fight, you all.” The airlock door slid into place at the press of a button, sealing shut with a hiss. The bodies of the men were still and silent through the tiny porthole window. Elias’s finger hovered over the ejection button. “Helix, guide these kids safely into the next life.”
He pressed the button and turned away. There was no need to watch them drift into the oblivion of deep space. Seen it once, seen it a million times. On the way back to his ship, he stopped at Merrick Lavigne’s body, which was now in the center of the hangar. This one had to stay. He was positioned the same as the others, his clothing charred beneath his hands and a white square of fabric over his face.
“Maybe you deserved your end, I don’t know. I’ve met few rich men who didn’t deserve worse.” Pulling a note from the back pocket of his pants, he tucked the bottom edge of the paper underneath the man’s hands.
Contract fulfilled by the Amnesiac.
Thanks for reading chapter 2 of Amnesiac Assassin. Friendly reminder that this is an experiment with uploading a first draft as I write it. It will be far from perfect, but should be a fun way for you to see how my stories and writing evolve from first draft and onward.
The most fun thing about my first drafts is that I also don’t really know what’s going to happen. I am a pantser. If you’ve never heard of the term, it means that I don’t plot out my stories beforehand, but I make them up as I’m writing them. Each sentence can bring a new surprise with it.
I did have a vague idea of who Elias and Mark were as characters before starting this story, and where they would end up at the end, but that idea is already being changed with each chapter I write. For example, I had no idea that Elias would have so much empathy for those he kills, but as chapter two evolved it ended up feeling so natural that he would. Like, of course he would. What was I thinking? haha
I’m currently working on the next chapters, and it is such an adventure. I have a feeling I’ll finish this story on my own at this point, even if you vote for it to stop. Though, if you don’t vote for it to stop, be prepared for the inevitable collapse around the midpoint. I always mess up my first drafts there. Hopefully I don’t this time, as I’m being much more careful while I’m writing to try not to back myself into a corner, but we’ll see.
Anyway, enough rambling. I hope you enjoyed chapter two, and this look into Elias’s character. If you’d like to see where the next chapter will take us, vote yes in the poll above, or leave a comment to let me know. If you’d like the story to end here, vote no.
Bowie has emptied our coffee reserves!
Until next time.
I think this is a great sci-fi story, very original and fun! I hope you continue it. P.S. I am also a pantser.😉
This is such a cool story, I've never read anything like it! Mark is so cute, and the glass is a fun detail!