How to Raise an Assassin

CHAPTER 4: TIME TO DESTROY OUR RIVALS

I woke up in the situation room.

No, not the one in the White House. My father modeled his after the real situation room he once visited on an intimidation contract he was hired to carry out. I wish I had more of those. All you had to do was show a target that you mean business and could've killed them but will instead spare their life if they follow these simple demands that the contractor delegated.

The fact that I woke up here meant that something either important or really dangerous was happening. I've only been in the situation room once when my brother died.

I still remember my mother crying, and my father yelling at me. I've never seen him so angry before in my life. "Hesitation is weakness in our field. And look at what your ineptitude cost us."

He got closed to my face, his eyes stinging red with anger. His sandy hair was a trench of gray follicles lining a ridge in his hair. His full beard, usually trimmed with precision, was wild from rage. His calloused finger pressed against my forehead as he growled. "You did this to him. You killed your brother."

Although today no fingers were being drilled into my temple, the fear of what was to come remained.

"Look who's finally awake," my sister grunted in the black plush chair next to mine. "Look Zay, you need to take your hits with more grace like I do." She cupped her hand beneath her chin like some sort of angelic model posing for some tabloid magazine.

"Are you okay sweetie?" My mother asked from the head of the table. She sat beneath a seal that resembled the RC logo. It showed a sickle balancing an entire city upon its precarious blade. When I once asked my mother about it, she said that the RC keeps society running. "I hope daddy wasn't too rough on you."

I rubbed my neck. It throbbed like a flu-like body ache. My father could cut through bricks with a slice like that. Knocking me out was him going soft on me.

"Let it be a repetition of an earlier lesson I spoke in this exact room," he appeared from behind me. He placed his hands on my shoulders, massaging them just a bit before leaning in to whisper, "Never hesitate."

He kissed me on the cheek. I rubbed my cheek against my shoulder.

"Now, before you stopped short of finishing the job, I did notice your reflexes have ameliorated gracefully. I was impressed enough to invite you in on the next big family project we'll be working on."

He stepped in front of the room and the lights began to dim as a projector illuminated images on the wall. "Project Tartarus." He stood tall in his gray suit and white tie. He held a laser pointer and flashed it onto the wall.

"For over many years the Reapers have been in constant battle with a group of degenerates that believe that the reins of society should be given to the weakest among us. In that time period our organization has struggled to mitigate this problem, first through negotiation, then through manipulation, and even all-out war that flooded the south side. None of that worked."

He examined the room. "But the RC has been going about this wrong. For years we have been trying with diligence to behead a beast with a rubber spoon. What we should have been doing instead is starving it."

The slide turned to a field of crops swarmed by locusts, an image bluntly referring to our rival gang: the Locusts. If we existed to protect those who have the most to lose, then they existed to fight for those who have nothing to lose.

"Countless heads of the Locusts have been killed by our group, but killing the lead insect does not stem the swarm. We must uproot the very fabric of their power."

The image changed to a gif of charred fields of wheat, burned by people wearing hazmat suits and spraying geysers of fire at fields of crops. "We starve them. We ruin their feeble grasp on social security. And when their future has been erased, the present will fade alongside with it."