Glitch

2

"Fuck!" I scream into the sky. I'm back on the roof of the Hotel Max. Something always has to go wrong. My fingers brush the spot on my forehead where a bullet should be lodged. Kaleb's voice comes on over the walkie talkie.

"What happened there, Kyree? The street cameras didn't give me a good view," he says tentatively. I violently grab my walkie and shout into it.

"I forgot about the fifth fucking bodyguard!" I say. "He shot me in my goddamn head!"

"Darn it," Kaleb says. "Ok, how many times is that?" I do a quick mental count.

"Six," I reply. It's never taken me that many tries before. The buyer is probably furious.

"Oh... man. That's not good. Do you think they might like... you know... " Kaleb trails off.

"Terminate us?" I hear a gulp on the other end of the line. "I mean yeah, who knows? I honestly don't even care. They can do whatever the hell they want." I fume. "I knew we were in over our head on this job, I need more upgrades!"

"Hey now, don't talk like that, man. And you don't need those stupid upgrades. Take a second to relax. Soak up some sun. You need it. Then get out there, get it done, and get home. Ok?" Kaleb says encouragingly. I chuckle, glancing at my milk white skin, which has proven immune to the sun's rays. I, like all of us at Killtec, am virtually pigmentless. My hair is the color of a white sand beach, and I have eyebrows to match. Even my lips and cheeks lack the lively red color that all my targets seem to have. In fact, the only pinprick of color you'll see on any killer is in their eyes, which are all a deep indigo, bordering on purple. I don't know who was in charge of designing us, but they definitely had interesting taste.

"Buy me Upgrade C42," I say, ignoring Kaleb's words. There's a quick silence as he locates the upgrade I'm looking for.

"C42? Kyree... that's like, really expensive..." he warns me. "You'll drop in the rankings." It's always about the stupid rankings.

"And I'll go back up when I destroy this job," I counter. "Buy it." I wait for Kaleb to confirm the purchase. Suddenly, my body feels light as a feather. I smile and rise into the air a couple of feet. What a feeling. The flight upgrade is almost never bought, mostly because it's ridiculously expensive. Before this job, I was ranked twelfth in Killtec's system, and I had two million Koins. Upgrade C42 costs about 600,000 of those koins. If I don't kill Mike Lachlan on this try, I'll lose that money, and probably get terminated too. And in case you're confused, termination means death.

"Ok, let's talk logistics here," Kaleb says over the walkie. "We've got one shot at this, so let's not screw it up like the last six times." But I'm not listening. I walk to the edge of the Hotel Max. Breathe in. I can see Lachlan walking out the courthouse. Breathe out. I jump off the edge and take flight. I make a beeline for the attorney, diving straight down. He's still ten steps away from the car. I can make it. I pull off a perfect landing less than a foot behind Mike Lachlan, and before anyone can move an inch, I wrap my arms around his head and snap his neck.