✔ᵉⁿᵍˡⁱˢʰ Ghost Story - American Assassin✔

shot 01

Dying. Just dying. Anyone who had ever run a marathon knew what Nathalie meant. The biggest mistake you could make was to sit or lie down, because you couldn't get up after that. Only she hadn't run twenty-five miles or forty-two kilometers, she had endured one electric shock after another. She did not want to know if that was really allowed, or even healthy. Surely it had been nothing of the sort.

•••

While Nathalie paced the room with her gun raised, Hurley stood behind a series of monitors from which he could closely observe the action. Both with and without holograms. The first monitor showed Nathalie's full profile, the second showed Nathalie moving around the room without the holograms, the third showed her with the holograms and a fourth showed everything from her point of view.

"New candidate sent to you, sir?" a man in his late twenties asked as he joined Hurley at the monitors, which only caused Hurley to let out an amused chuckle, "Yet she's supposed to be going through the simulation."

"The little girl wouldn't even notice if you tried to kill her in her sleep," Hurley crossed her arms across her chest dismissively, standing up straight and looking at Nathalie disdainfully, "Her program won't last her a day, let alone a week. She's not special, and no talent show is going to work with her. One of Declan's standard people."

"How many strikes is that now?" with a knitted brow, Ronnie took his hands off the table and looked at each of the monitors, wrinkling his nose as Hurley pointed to a number in the corner of one of them, "Well, at least she's got ambition or a certain amount of stamina. Thirty-one in eight and a half minutes. This will go on for a while until the end. The fun of the next few days is guaranteed."

"Without talent, it's not worth shit," Hurley replied emotionlessly, typing in a new modification for the simulation and waiting for the first reactions, "Congratulations, at least she doesn't drop the gun when she gets electrocuted. Wow, pretty awesome. I'm impressed. I wonder what would happen if it was a knife cut or stabbing, huh? You can't send someone like that anywhere safe."

A babysitter was just what this fashionista needed.

•••

Still visibly shaky on her feet, and the trembling that still refused to go away, Nathalie dragged herself up the stairs. The training facility was underground, not directly under the house, but rather in the direction of the adjacent forest, which was at the back of the house. She had no idea how much time had passed while she lay motionless on the floor. A long time. A very long time. An eternity.

It had only been the first hours after her arrival. The first. Not days, weeks, months or years, just a few hours. Hours. And Nathalie was done. Totally done. There had been quite a bit in the files about Hurley - about his own training back then; his missions; his practices; his character; the demands he made of his own candidates; the awards he had received; the psychological profile; and, of course, his time in the Navy, which included training people there.

People like Hurley were to be watched. Really be careful. With that kind of person, with that kind of training, it could backfire very, very, very quickly. All the more reason to be wary of them.

Nathalie would like to fall into bed and never get up again. No matter if she still had a job to do here or not. Unfortunately, she could not. There was a job to be done today. This was not what Nathalie had imagined. Not at all.