Misdirection

Part I, Chapter 2: Old Friends

ANTONIDAS

"If you're not gonna answer any of my questions, could you at least loosen these handcuffs, miss?"

"Just shut up and do as I say. Now keep walking. Please."

I was being forcibly pushed down the street by Edith, my supposed employer. Where she was taking me, I had no idea.

As we walked, I could hear people around the block cheering. People outside of their apartment complexes were screaming things like Finally! or Justice is served! and my favorite one, Hang him!

Usually these particular kinds of comments didn't phase me. They're all just a bunch of randoms anyway. Yet, even still, their words cut like glass.

This was the first contract I had personally failed. Four years of contracting experience leading up to one big failure on my part. Sure, maybe there was a 'plan B' that this girl had up her sleeve. But with Antonidas, there was usually no need for another plan.

With Antonidas, you'd just point at your target, and he does the killing. That's what Antonidas would do. Antonidas is a trained professional.

...But what would I  do?

No, I stopped myself. I wasn't going down that road today.

We eventually reached an old, concrete warehouse with no windows, locked only with a card panel. Edith slipped a card key through, and with a beep, it popped open.

Upon entering, she immediately shut the door behind her. "Okay, you can turn off your little 'Hollow gear' now," she said as she removed my handcuffs. "I just hope it's not too damaged.  They really did a number on you, you know."

"Don't worry," I said as I willed it to deactivate. My armor instantly reverted back to being just a regular 'spandex'. "It's projection tech. It regenerates." I wiggled my wrists around to get some circulation in there. My hands were turning damn near purple.

I scanned my surroundings.

It was a grey and empty room with nothing but a wooden table and some chairs in the middle. A lone fluorescent light flickered at the center of the ceiling, providing an occasional light that got annoying real fast.

"Edith - is that your name again, Edith," I whispered. "What are we doing here? What happened to killing that guy? ...Am I still getting paid?"

The short red girl calmly waltzed over to the table. She took a seat and patted the table. "Have a seat, Antonidas."

I nodded, acknowledging her complete dismissal of my question, and decided to pull up a chair for myself.

"So," she began. "There's been a slight addition to your contract."

"Oh, yeah?"

"Yes. Nothing bad, pretty straightforward."

"Okay. What's good?"

"Your original plan was to discreetly enter the region and assassinate the CEO of Myna in order to bring myself into the position of power to control the corporation from the inside."

She waved her Assistant CEO card around. "As the next line supervisor for the Myna company, this would have given us unlimited access to their assets, in order to provide more resources for us in the Virtua Company homeland."

So she works for Virtua, I thought to myself. She must be loaded with cash.

She crossed her legs. "That plan failed, obviously-"