The Great Below

The First Assignment - Part 1

Three days later the snow came. It covered everything in one swift fall of six inches, ushering them from one season straight to the next. The only reason Octavia knew about it was because her first assignment had arrived. She sat in the passenger seat of Alex's sedan, looking down at a .22 caliber Ruger Mark II in her lap and waiting to die.

Her dad had collected guns. She didn't recoil the way some women might – the way her mother had – because his tall floor safe had always stood ready in his study like a beacon of protection. When she was old enough, he'd taught her to shoot with the little ones. Tiny revolvers that looked like toys, even in her little hands. She had never thought to shy away from them.

Her dad used to joke that when she brought her first boyfriend home to meet him, he would show that unlucky kid every gun in his safe. Octavia would laugh. She would ask, to put the fear of God into him?

No, he would reply. To put the fear of me into him.

It was too bad he hadn't been around when Victor came. He might have helped.

Alex had rolled his window down a few inches to have a cigarette, but the smoke still swirled inside the cabin of the car. They were in a parking lot shared by two office buildings. Not skyscrapers, but still impressive against the flat, Illinois landscape. She suspected they were in Oakbrook, which had a less-famous skyline full of corporate offices. Alex turned, next to her, preparing what she feared would be a pep talk.

"You should put that away," Alex said. "Someone might walk by and see it. Plus, it's like I said. You shouldn't need it. Those are made for close-up work."

She thought of the Remington in the long case in the trunk, the one with the scope and the stand. It wasn't that she wanted to die. She couldn't see any way around it. She wouldn't kill an unarmed stranger, but Alex seemed to think she was bluffing. She was going to fail this assignment, and then he was going to have to—

"Is there anything you want to go over?"

She handed the gun back to him. "Yeah," she said. "What do you use the room full of tubs for?"

His forehead creased. "What?"

"On the night of the test. That room behind the Infirmary is just bathtubs. Why?"

"Is that really what you want to talk about right now?"

Octavia chewed the dry skin around her fingernails. On her tongue came a taste like shoe polish.

"Okay. There's no cemetery down there, no crematorium. It wouldn't work." He flicked the cigarette butt out the window and closed it, turning off the car. "That's how we dispose of bodies. The ones our clients don't want found."

She'd been on her hands and knees on those dirty, crooked tiles. Maybe soon, she would be in that room again. She stared out the windshield at a dwindling number of cars in the lot, probably because work should have ended hours ago. The buildings ahead of them were mostly dark.

"You can't think of this as the first time, Octavia. It'll psych you out. When you grabbed my gun and fired at Nick in that room, you didn't know they were blanks. That was your first time. Please," he said, and his hand came over like it might rest against the shoulder of her black pea-coat.

She pulled the handle and started to get out before he could reach her. Maybe he was right and for better or worse, she did have it in her. She could assemble and prep the rifle, like she'd already done now dozens of times in training exercises, and then all she would have to do was make one tiny adjustment. She would have to kill a man. The distance and the scope were just padding, a way to put the truth at arm's length. Victor would have compartmentalized it, would have told her that killing this one man could save her life. That it was the obvious choice.