Target Acquired

The Agent

"Target is within sight. Cleared to shoot?"

"Agent 24, you are cleared to shoot."

BANG!

"Mission accomplished."

***

The sniper rifle lay on the desk between two adults, each wearing black, although the clothes they wore couldn't have been any different from each other. The man wore an expensive suit over a black shirt, and a pure black tie completed the outfit. Dark sunglasses lay forgotten off to the side, unneeded in the dim lights of the room.

The woman, in contrast, wore black form-fitting clothes with her windbreaker, normally kept zippered to keep it from interfering with her movements, hanging freely as she slouched where she stood. Her mission was complete so she was now off-duty; at least, until another job was required.

The man dismissed Agent 24 and turned his attention to the rifle, ignoring the woman's lazy salute. He would call someone from their weapons department soon to have it taken care of. Law enforcement would have found and catalogued the bullet by now and, even though it was unlikely, they could match a future job to this one. Thus, the rifle would go into long-term storage until such a time that the risk was over, or the Institution found a need to frame someone or leave a trail.

But those matters did not concern him. Right now, his duty was to file Agent 24's report and wait contact from the other agent under him whose mission was to end within a few days' time.

He made the necessary call and sat down to type up his report. He hardly noticed the rifle on his desk anymore, only acknowledging its disappearance when he looked up an hour later, his finger poised over the send button. He allowed himself only a moment of amusement at his trademark "intense focus," then forced his attention back to the report on the screen, checking it for any errors.

"Agent 24... June 3rd made contact with... gained target's confidence... discovered best location for target take-out... successfully smuggled weapon into the party... received clearance to take target out... Mission accomplished."

He didn't bother looking through it again before he confidently sent the report to the next link in the chain. He had been doing this job long enough that even a once-over was unnecessary; any more than that was purely excessive.

An alert on his computer dinge, alerting him to the arrival of a message from the Top. He smiled in anticipation. One mission ended, another began.

***

Agent 24 strolled down the busy hallways, hands shoved in her pockets, intentionally oblivious to the workers bustling around her but giving her a wide berth. It was easy to tell the Agents from the other workers in the Institution; the Agents had dead eyes.

It wasn't as though Agent 24 was unaware of this, no, she was quite familiar with the lifeless aura causing the void around her in the hallway. In fact, if she looked or felt any different, it would mean she was on a mission. Her training had emptied her of naturally-occurring emotions so that she could "equip" what emotions she would need in order to accomplish her mission. Most spies in this field were caught because the emotion they were displaying was not the one they felt. But you can't catch an actor in the act if they aren't acting.

Unfortunately, this had the side affect of a certain listlessness while at the Institution in between missions. If you did not naturally feel pleasure, then what did you feel in your natural environment?

She came to the junction in the hallways where the right corridor led to the training grounds and the left led to the "living quarters" which held the Agents' bunks and kitchenette, as well as the "social room" where the Agents could at least pretend to be normal. Usually conversations there mostly consisted of asking about the success of missions- those who failed their missions were never seen again- and familiarizing themselves with the identity of each other so that if they saw each other while on the job, they wouldn't mistake them for enemies.