The Man between my crosshairs (girl X assassin)

Chapter 8/Mother

Center to ground elevator/Zoe's Orbital Habitat/Mercury L5/Sun system

A/N - Thanks for a wonderul boot up of our new book! After the initial blast of the opening, we are introducing some ongoing characters and getting the plot set up. 

Why Chevalier D'Eon insisted on being called Mother, Zoe didn't know. It's hard to fathom the mind of an arch assassin who then sees the light and decides to become a transgender assassin's mentor. Zoe didn't mind, Mother was as close to a friend as she had. Friend, confidant, trainer, mentor and yes perhaps Mother. While Zoe was still a dog assassin, Mother was also, her link with Dark Orbits. Mother would turn up with Zoe's targets and over the years had discussed attack strategies, escape & evasion plans, you know girl stuff. These conversations included sentences such as "Don't use the gun be the gun" and "Use of a thermo-nuclear device is hardly assassination... No, Not even when you drop it on him. Your target is not road runner and you are not Wile-Cyotee."

Mother's ship had hard-docked with the Sphere's rather underused docking port on the central axis of the sphere. After checks the blast doors had opened to the hub's elevator area. Mother came in smiling. She had blonde hair piled on her head. She was tall, as slender as she had no right to be. Her skin showed the claw marks of time. She exuded the sense of fifty year old woman, if you excluded the fact she could strangle a whale if she needed to. 

"Mother!" Shouted Zoe as she launched her self in zero gravity to the rather surprised form of Mother for a huge hug.

"How is my favourite daughter?" said Mother.

"All the better for seeing you. How's my favourite mother? Do you have a hit? Tell me you have a hit You have a job don't hit?" said Zoe eyes wide open. "Yes you have a hit!!!"

"Now then dear. These things are best discussed while not bobbing around like a demented party balloon." Mother said.

Mother had a high haughty pitched body voice which sounded like she had discovered her female identity, by watching to many 1950's boarding school movies.

"Well if your here with another mission then I feel just like a party balloon and it's time to party.party.party" Zoe said punching the air.

She jumped up and in the low gravity was able to jump and do an entire double somersault from standing. Mother knew Zoe had practised a trick where she could somersault in earth gravity while still hitting the centre of a target with a bullet or a knife.

The elevator closed its doors and Mother drifted over and sat on the soft seats. She arranged her skirt and waited for gravity to return. It was a shame humanity had not invested in more time in words for moving in zero gravity. You could float, You could drift but Zoe moved more elegantly and agile like a silver fish shoaling in the back star light sea. Zoe put the elevator to fast descent. It was normal to ask your guest how fast you wanted gravity to return. Zoe knew Mother wouldn't say 'fast decent' but Zoe gave into her excitement.

"Today I'm Zoe by the way. She's a bubbly twenty one year old from the outer rim. She likes cooking, animals and zen-photography." said Zoe. "she's so cute she think's Brazilian is a number somewhere between a billion and a gazillion."

Each hit required a new identity, a new name, a new background story, new hair, new clothes, new look. Zoe would try her new persona on Mother checking it for believability. Once a new identity had been created Zoe would live as that character every second of every day until the mission was over.

They sat there as the elevator descended and gravity slowly got stronger. As gravity returned and Zoe felt like she like she was a freshly beached small seal. Mother spoke.

"Oh I'm glad. I must confess I was getting tired of Samantha." Said Mother "Hashtag this hash tag that. You really managed to capture that valley girl self absorption. "

"Well I was aiming for self-reflection but self-absorption will do." said Zoe calming down as gravity returned to her body.

Mother was the only person who had seen Zoe's different disguises. There was a little bit of the real Zoe in each one but only Mother could bring all those different names together and spell who Zoe really was. 

As they descended from the hub of Zoe's space colony they were able to see the views from the glass elevator. The elevator clung to the top of the huge can that was Zoe's world. It reached from the middle where the docking point was down to the 'floor' which was the huge curved surface of the inner curve of the can. This high up you could see the forest, the river, Zoe's assault course, firing range and the house. Everything was just like a piece of New England countryside except wrapped round the inside of a tin can and lit with solar-lumire. Normally Zoe ran the colony at higher than Earth gravity - it was an easy way to make you strong.

Zoe got up offered her hand and Mother took it and got up.

"Now dear you last hit... causing three trillion Bitcoins worth of damage to Earth's tallest building isn't in the best interests of maintaining our secret societies what shall I say... "

"Shadowy existence." offered Zoe. "Well, we would get more work if you could google us. It's a real pain I can't even put down 'planetary assassin' down on my passport."

They followed a path from the elevator point to the house which appeared to sick out of the sides of the mountain wall which was the side of the sphere.

"As an assassination service, we are supposed to act invisibly and with discretion. I told you after that incident involving the Prada shoes and the anti-matter bomb, a good assassin does not use weapons of mass destruction," said Mother as they wove their way between plants.

"Siri can you tell the house to change the weather? More Thursday September day in Seattle." Said Zoe to her robot. The sun was tuned down and a number of clouds appeared for shade.

Zoe looked back at mother "As I said the last time, I don't see the problem. The bomb I used only killed one guy and the contract said it had to look accidental. If the guppy* insisted on having a collection of historic antimatter super colliders it was his own fault. I would regard the whole thing as a surgical strike."

Mother nearly rolled her eyes as they passed a small lake.

"Tell that to the people who are still working to fill in the massive crater you left behind." said Mother stopping and looking around "Speaking of creator you really must get around to some gardening this place. This habitat It's a terrible mess."

"Yeah well I'm busy. Programming the garden bots isn't Zoe's thing she isnt' good with technical stuff. It's a cuteness thing. " Said Zoe.

In reality Zoe could reprogram a pulse rifle and reassemble it blind fold in a methane snow storm on Titan with nothing more than a hairpin while playing footsie with a cybernetic bear, but that was a story for another time. It was the sort of story you needed higher blood levels of vodka to listen to than we have time for. The pair continued on through the overgrown garden to Zoe's house set by a stream which ran through the colony. 

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A/N Is the whole rotating habitat too confusing? We 💕 hard-scifi.