Fire Wall (Book 1: The Fall)

6 | The Hacker Hitman

|  L's point of view, 4 years ago: 2282  |

The girl gets up from the table in the Cyber Cafe and begins packing up her belongings. Laying on a skyscraper three miles away, I zoom in on her with my sniper rifle. My mask's facial recognition highlights her figure in red and text glows above her head reading her name: Raven Voltcon. Her dark hair brushes across her cheeks as she climbs onto her bike, skidding over her red lips. She's beautiful, I'll admit it. 

It's too bad. I wouldn't be killing her if Colton, my superior and the leader of Central Phantom Divison, didn't want me to teach her father a lesson. Adam Voltcon is an annoyingly persistent Watchman. He's been hot on our tail ever since we shot up the South Haven Capital Headquarters. Our act seemed to strike a nerve with him of all people and he's been keeping tabs on us ever since.

He stormed three of our hideouts, stealing confidential information about our plans and arresting Phantom members with valuable technical assets. Furthermore, he even stopped our bomb attempt in Ivory Harbor. They were little setbacks to us, more like bug bites than bullet wounds. We have more numbers than he'll ever know thanks to social media and the power of mob mentality. The people know that we're on their side.

How dare he stand up for Haven. The blood on my hands is nothing compared to the blood on Haven's. They killed hundreds of innocent people. We're killing the guilty thousands. After I kill his daughter, he'll know his place and step down unless he wants t lose his wife next.

I pick up my telescreen and connect the cameras around me to all media networks. Using my anonymous accounts, I set the recordings to live stream. Sure, the video will be taken down quickly, but it won't disappear from the internet. People will share it with their friends, and they will share it with their friends, and so on. Soon my act will be known over all of Haven. Another Phantom demonstration in the spotlight. Haven will be put in their rightful place. That's what they get for tampering with the chip and trying to make us their slaves.

Once I set up the video, I pick up my sniper rifle. Just as I anticipated, the girl is now leaving the building at 4:00 pm. It's time.

I turn off the lock on my gun and its hilt glows red. Tilting my head, I take one last look at her. She smiles walking out the doors, making me wonder what she's looking forward to. Whatever it is, it doesn't matter now. Her life is going to get short and there's nothing she can do about it. I smile letting out a slow breath and my finger curls around the trigger.

"Goodbye, Raven."

Something slams into the side of my barrel, throwing my shot off by a mile. I turn sharply and freeze seeing a foot two inches from my face.

"You missed," A man growls.

He kicks my mask and his foot lands between my eyes, smashing hard into my nose. My face throbs and blood trickles down my nose. How did my mask not pick him up? He should have shown up in my back camera unless he's got a hacker looping the surveillance. It doesn't matter, I tell myself. I'll get rid of him and finish the job. I always carry through on a hit. 

I roll and push myself onto a knee, pointing my rifle at the shadow standing above me. The man's dry voice is filled with amusement.

"Hope I didn't break your face."

I narrow my eyes trying to see through the blurry waves. My vision adjusts and I immediately recognize silver hair and sky-blue eyes.

"Frockin' Adam Volt!" I smile savagely behind my mask, "I'm going to splatter Raven's blood in front of you."

His gun barrel clicks against my helmet and my mouth parts seeing a double of him beside me. The body in front of me shimmers and I scoff realizing he tricked me with a simple 3D hologram. A stupid move but a genius move.