The Assassin, The Mystic, and God's Gun

A.N.: Don’t let your kids read this. It’s got murder, adult themes, sexual content and all the things that make life fun. This is, while not my first story, my first post. Con crit would be appreciated. Don’t torture me about grammar please, my wife does so regularly.

On another note, future installations of this story, of which several are already written, will be exceptionally graphic, containing sex (most of it the unwholesome variety), torture and a slew of other things you may not like. If you have any squeamish tendencies I would recommend that you not even start reading this.

The Assassin, The Mystic, and God’s Gun
By ViciousBastard
Chapter the First.

The dance club went suddenly quiet. Sam smiled like a demon in that brief quiet moment. It was the moment in which all the herd realized a predator had slunk into its very midst. It was a smooth, cool feeling, standing over his victim, in the middle of a crowd of people who looked at the scene, silently obsessed with it.

The techno-magic torches along all the walls still flickered, with gouts of red and blue foxfire arcing out and panning around like an ancient laser lightshow. One of the wide beams ripped across him bathing him in a hellish red glow for only an instant, sending a disco ball effect off of the force cannon in his hand. It’s transparent, crystalline shape acted live a multifaceted prism, and all eyes were drawn to it.

His left hand, which had been empty, produced a simple crystalline spike which snaked out and took the woman his first victim had been speaking to in the forehead as she stared at him dumbly. He let her fall as a shrill scream replaced the magically synthesized music that had only moments ago been shaking the club, and moving the bodies of those in it.

The alarm had risen, and was followed by more of the same, and suddenly, the herd was moving. People were being trampled and crushed against walls and sound crystals.

Sam felt alive amidst the chaos he’d sown. He watched them run and stumble, screaming and yelling the whole way. He sighed thoughtfully as he used his thumb to push the lever that would open the force gun. The weapon flipped open at the breach with a clicking sound. Sam dropped another ball of crystal into the breach and slammed it shut. He lurched into the crowd, who’d forgotten he actually existed as anything more than the trigger which ignited the forced exodus from the dark confines of the club.

He let the current of the herd draw him out of the building. He smiled as he exited the building and a bouncer noticed the weapon in his hand. The muscle bound bruiser reached for him, but had a fist sized indent punched into his chest as the resounding crack of the force cannon incited further panic in those around him. The bouncer collapsed, writhing in pain, and holding his chest.

Sam stepped over the fallen giant, feeling a small bit of sympathy for him. Even a non-lethal charge from a force cannon could cripple, and the pain wasn’t something to take lightly. He turned down the street, and disappeared into a wall of curious onlookers, who’d been enjoying the diversions of downtown.

He pushed through them until he found a familiar face. She turned and walked down an alleyway. He followed her into a back alley apartment complex and up the stairs into a perfectly empty and immaculately clean apartment.

Once the door was closed she picked up a heavy trash bag from the floor and after unfolding it opened it in front of him. He tossed the force cannon into it after opening the breach and shrugged to her quizzical expression. “Can’t stand the damned things,” he commented as he started disrobing and throwing the articles of irritatingly trendy clothing into the bag. “They’re only useful in high class, high security areas like that, and even then…”

Once he’d thrown everything he was wearing and carrying into the bag and standing naked in front of her she said; “I’ve heard you prefer more destructive methods.”

He leaned over as she ran a bizarre looking metal comb through his hair with a cable leading into her jacket pocket attached to it. He could feel his scalp tingle as the comb systematically destroyed and localization nannites that may have become lodged in his hair. He knew the apartment was a dead zone, and that she’d masked him the moment she laid eyes on him.

“So, how bad are you sisters going to gouge me this time?” He asked conversationally as she pulled out a wand and began sweeping it around him while mumbling some sort of chant.

She held the wand end to end between her palms and closed them while concentrating, causing the wand to evaporate. “We’ll discuss payment before you depart.” She said evenly.

He honestly couldn’t begin to understand how the Sisterhood did what they did. They were all purpose mystical, and mechanical backup for hire on a per contract basis. He had to admit that he’d liked all the ones he’d worked with, which was several. They were all a little strange, or maybe otherworldly was more fitting. They helped him gather information and analyze it. They’d do magical or mundane tweaks to his gear, help him in complicated subterfuges, and handle the clean up afterwards if necessary, and on the straight laced, law and order saturated planet he was currently on he certainly needed clean up.

There were a few things they wouldn’t do. One, they wouldn’t screw him, figuratively and literally. He’d never tried the literal part, out of a sense of professional respect. Two, they wouldn’t step out of the bounds of the contract. He’d never found cause to complain about that, as different contracts had different prices, and could be altered to tailor fit special situations. He’d found the contracts to be fair, and equitable, and more than workable if one used a little bit of forethought.

Three was the big one. They wouldn’t pull a trigger, ever, under any circumstances. They wouldn’t be there when it was pulled either, period. If you needed a trigger man, you contracted a merc, end of story.

Sam waited until she’d finished the debugging and imagined all the nanites who’d thought to craftily penetrate his skin and become lodged in his tissue. No such luck for them. They were probably being broken down and recycled by his territorial nanites. She held a nanite dispenser over him, covering him with a thin cloud of the little buggers, who would insist he’d spent the entire night in the red light district.

She walked into a backroom and returned a few moments later with a segmented vacuum packed parcel. She dropped if at his feet unceremoniously and disappeared into the same room once more.

She returned when he was half dressed in his own clothes, ones that conformed to his own tastes. Heavy, non-descript boots, instead of garish shoes with foxfire gimmicks whenever he took a step. Fairly plain looking grey cargo pants with a variety of odd and ins stuffed in the pockets, as opposed to the obnoxious fluorescent green tight pants with gaudy and completely useless talismans sewn onto them which seemed so popular on the planet he’d found himself on. A simple black T-shirt instead of the red and yellow, baggy checkered thing that turned his stomach to look at. Over that he wore a bomber style jacket.

He found his lock blade in the inside pocket and clipped it over the inside of his right pants pocket. It was the only weapon he carried, out of necessity. He would have loved the old days when he’d had a ship of his own and an armory of weapons to choose from, and when he landed on a planet that had a weapons prohibition he could leave them on his ship. However, his ship had been atomized the year before during a daring and contracted high speed rescue and escape. He frowned as he recalled how nice it had been to have his own ship, and how shitty life had become without one. He wanted a ship, and the desire burned his insides.

He was drawn from his nearly erotic desire to again control his destiny, by virtue of having his own ship as the sister held a small vacuum pack plastic package out to him. He nodded and took the package. He ripped it open and studied the contents. A few I.D. cards with various alias’s with corresponding talismans to glamour him into looking, sounding, and being the people in the pictures. There was a battered-looking credit card as well. He quickly started secreting the various items into a few concealed pockets about his person.

She said a few simple sounding words and his features melted back into his own. She held up a mirror and he nodded. He was glad to be rid of the obnoxiously good looks of some rich kid who’d spent a small fortune to have himself body sculpted.

Sam looked like himself once more. Indeterminable in age, rugged, muscular, with two days worth of stubble and wild brown hair. He had blue eyes, which weren’t the good kind of blue, but rather the murky blue that no one wrote poetry about, or mentioned when they talked about their dream girl, or guy. The only redeeming quality of his eyes was their shape. When women told him he had nice eyes it had nothing to do with their color.

His cheek bones were high, and made his cheeks seem hollow. His lips were fairly average, in that they were a slight pink in color, and neither full, nor thin, but rather the comfortable medium. His nose was sturdy looking, and while not long, seemed to be the most prominent feature. It was his chin which he liked the most. It wasn’t large, and square, which seemed to be fashionable in high society, but rather it looked fairly strong with a shallow dimple, but added a certain strength to his otherwise mundane looking face.

His eyebrows were thick and seemed heavy over his eyes so that it always seemed he was peering out from under them. His forehead had a few lines from stress etched into it, the highest one split by a widow’s peek. He tended toward short hair out of habit, despite the demands of fashion which pressured for long hair on most civilized, or enlightened planets, like the one he was on at present. He was not fashionable however, and tended to shave the sides and back tacking it up high, and leaving four or five inches on top. With his hair being thick, and fine at the same time it would refuse any attempt to tame it, and hence looked wild, with tufts shooting out at odd angles, while other bits would lay down at some of the strangest angles.

After situating everything he ran his fingers through his hair and said; “Thank you for not leaving me trapped in the body of a moron. I felt like I was going to fade away.”

She grinned, as one of the things the sisterhood had in common with him was a heartfelt disdain for extensive body sculpting. “I take it you’re finished.” She said evenly.

He nodded and said; “I guess so. I don’t think I’m forgetting anything.”

“Would you like to take care of payment in the regular way?” She asked him evenly.
“Yeah.” He said with a nod and turned to leave. “If you could do one last thing for me…”

“That depends.” She replied to his back as he stood with his hand on the door knob.

“See if y’alls networks knows about a ship I might be interested in.” He said and looked over his shoulder towards her.

She nodded and said; “I’ll have a search contract sent to your account.”

He chuckled and said; “If I’d asked you to go to the store and get me a beer would I need to sign a contract too?”

“Would it be before, or after you walk out of that door?” She asked with a mild grin.

“Alright.” He chuckled and threw his hands up. “Send me the contract.”

“Certainly.” She replied.

“Oh, and by the way.” He said as he opened the door. “Thank for all your hard work.”

She seemed at a loss for a moment, but quickly recovered. Thanking the sisterhood was considered frivolous, wasted breath, but Sam was who he was. He wasn’t a murdering criminal with a heart of gold, or so he claimed. He was as bad as they came. Ruthless, brutal, dangerous, legendary, and a slew of other more colorful adjectives were used to describe him.

No one knew him though. He was the boogie man. His actions attributed to hundreds of fictitious entities through the centuries. No one lived for thousands of years, so none thought that it could all be one very old man. No one had ever caught him, although there had certainly been close calls. No one knew what he really looked like, or what his name was.

The women of the sisterhood were the only ones who knew who he was, and the only ones he could associate with openly. He was on their special client list, having worked with them off and on for nearly two centuries. Generally solar governments ended up on that list, or planetary criminal organizations, but never an individual. They’d spared no expense investigating him behind his back, learning more about him than perhaps even he knew.

He’d been pissed, outraged that they’d violated his privacy, and thought they were planning to use everything they knew about him as leverage. He had skeletons in his closet, large, nasty ones. They didn’t, however. They made it a habit to investigate repeat high risk customers concerned about infiltration of their ranks, possible setups, or other schemes.

They’d found nothing that would lead to that conclusion, and after he’d finally calmed down enough to strike another contract with them a few years later found his ranking had been elevated, and he had nearly every service they provided opened up to him. That changed things considerably for him. He didn’t have to worry about payment anymore, as they took care of his finances for him, and helped him invest the money, after laundering it through mind boggling channels. If he had the occasional customer who decided not to pay him the sisterhood would, like magic (and it probably was), make the money vanish from the filchers’ accounts, or liquidate their assets in an instant. When he was on the run, they were there at a moment’s notice to direct him to a safe haven, or arrange transport off planet, or out of system. They had become his umbrella, and his safety net.

They both profited from the arrangement. They siphoned a percentage of the interest from his various investments for maintaining the account, which was obscenely expensive. He was able to take on more lucrative jobs.

The short of it was that while he had no illusions about them having anymore interest in him than the money they made from him, he also felt that they were perhaps the closest thing he had to friends, or companions. He felt like an idiot. Because he knew the sister standing in the room staring at him with an inscrutable expression wouldn’t even notice him being knifed to death in an alleyway, screaming like a cat in a blender. Unless she was under contract to give a rat’s ass.

He waved goodbye to her and stepped through the door.

Sam opened his eyes and looked around the room. He was in the red light district of… He’d forgotten the name of the little nowhere city. He didn’t care much anyway. He was planning to be gone soon anyway. He looked at the female in the bed next to him. She wasn’t human. She was tall, willowy, dazzling to look at.

He felt a small wave of lust, unspent from the night before, but let it pass. He had things that needed done, and as tempting as it was to wake her up, and blow some more money, he resisted. He’d learned long ago to control his impulses, and feed his appetites sparingly, and his appetites were great and varied. He sighed gently as he slid out of bed.

She woke up for a moment and watched him start getting dressed. He held his card up to the credit reader on the nightstand and left her a decent tip. Once the transaction was completed she stretched in a rather catlike manner, and curled up, seeming to fall back to sleep.

He finished dressing and left the small, sparsely furnished apartment.

His next stop was the hotel he’d been staying at. He showered, and then shaved, which he’d neglected to do for several days for work-related reasons. He put on a fresh set of clothes and ran his old ones through the room’s sonic cleanser.

After packing his clothes into his only piece of luggage, a small, battered, black canvas duffel. He left, paid his bill for the two week stay and once outside flagged down a cab. Fortunately for him the cab was already headed to the airport, where he would be able to jump one of the hourly shuttles to an orbital station.

The couple already occupying the cab eyed him curiously, and came to the immediate conclusion that he was a no-account space tramp. They were wrong of course, but that was what he wanted them to believe. He came to the immediate conclusion that they were a couple of idiots, and promptly ignored them. The man was bigger than him, and had obviously been sculpted to look striking, and imposing. The woman was petite, and sculpted to look exotic, and darker than her features would have allowed.

He shrugged off the challenging leers of the man, and ignored the teasing body language of the woman. He received treatment like that whenever he had the misfortune of being on one of the unionized civilized worlds. On other worlds, where the laws generally didn’t protect idiocy he’d have reacted differently. Perhaps the reaction would have been lethal.

He nodded thoughtful as he waited at the loading dock. The woman, who turned out to be one of the ships technicians was talking his ear off. He found he rather liked her. She seemed genuinely friendly, perhaps because he was a fellow spacer, and not a worlder, or perhaps, and he doubted it, because she was one of the few people who was still, just a nice person.

He was only paying half attention to her, though she didn’t seem to notice. He nodded politely, or smiled at expected points, and answered courteously when she asked him something trivial.

There was only a crew of fifteen, and two other passengers. The ship was a massive freighter, old, but serviceable. He’d booked passage on it, not because of its destination, as one destination was similar to the next, but because it wasn’t a passenger ship. He hated sociable nimrods taking it onto themselves to try pestering him into a good mood, when they inevitably came to the conclusion that he was out sorts, and grieving for the loss of a loved one, or afraid of vacuum, or in need of being saved by Jesus, or he needed to submit to Allah to be happy, or… The list went on.

He didn’t talk much, and didn’t run around laughing like an idiot, or getting all close and gooey with the other passengers, so obviously he was unhappy. He was happy in solitude, which meant being left the fuck alone by well meaning busy bodies.

He wouldn’t have those to contend with on a deep space freighter. The only people that traveled on freighters were people like him.

He watched the last of the cargo taxis back away from the massive coffin shaped hold of the ship through the ten inched of polycarbonate docking tube wall. “You need to get anything before we go?” The technician asked him as she watched the taxis withdraw, and the hold slide shut. “We’ll be leaving in the hour.”

He shook his head and said; “Got everything. Be okay if I board now?”

She nodded and said; “Yeah, the captains pretty laid back, so I can take you to your quarters now if you want.”

Sam nodded and said; “Thanks.”

She motioned for him to follow her and said; “Want a tour?”

“Nah.” He said with a grin. “It’s a class b Star Hauler. They’re pretty straight forward.”

She looked over her shoulder and said; “You know your ships. How long’ve you been tramping?”

He shrugged and said; “Every since I can remember.”

She smiled and said; “I know what you mean. I was born and raised shipside. Could probably count on one hand how many times I’ve been planetside.”

He chuckled, but remained silent.

Sam paid the search criteria for the ship contract serious thought. He was reviewing it mentally on his biocomp. It was a pretty straight forward sisterhood contract.

“What kind of ship do I need?” He asked himself thoughtfully. “A starship for starters. Nothing too big though…” He sat down on the utilitarian bed with a sigh.

“Frigate, I think.” He muttered. He pulled a flask out of the inside pocket of his bomber jacket. He thought for a moment. He couldn’t have just any old ship. He was who he was after all. He wasn’t going to settle for second best this time around. He had last time, and look where it got him. He wanted… Yes, a chaos drive, and a warship no less. He was tired of skulking around, worrying whether or not system patrols were going to want to board him and legally rob him. He was tired of not making waves. There wasn’t any good reason to worry about keeping everything nice and neat. He was who he was after all.

His vision had suddenly expanded. There were so many other things he was going to need. He wasn’t going to go into it half assed again.

He finished his search criteria, attached a request for some other search contracts. He sent the file sailing like a paper airplane on the solar winds of space.

He unscrewed the cap on the top of the flask and took a drink. He smiled, feeling a sense of purpose once more.

Sam strode from the gangway grinning broadly. It had been four weeks and two trips after completing all of the contract negotiations. He was greeted by a fairly attractive looking woman, who matched the description of his contact. She’d been one of the searchers, and had run across something she could only term as peculiar in regards to his search. He’d read her report, and simply put there was a painting she thought he should see.

Oddity was one of the traits of the sisterhood, but if they actually went to the trouble of recommending you do something, he’d found it was wise to do so.

“It’s nice to see you again.” Sam said as if greeting and old friend.

“I’d hoped you’d return sooner.” She replied and turned to walk away.

She was his contact, having made the prearranged reply.

He followed her for several minutes in silence. They were on a vacuum habitat, which was roughly the size of a small moon, and held nearly the same population as an average, midsized sized planet, as it was arranged more like a hive, with every internal inch accounted for.

They walked for several minutes, went through a series of lifts, and Sam finally found himself in a small commercial area. The sister led him into a small art gallery. Once inside she led him flawlessly through the dense maze of half walls. He finally looked up at a large canvas behind glass. He gasped.

“It’s Thor.” He whispered to himself. The painting was a dark piece portraying a large debris field. The center piece seemed at first to be the mangled hull of an ancient destroyer. Direct center of the canvas however was a silhouette just large enough to see. The detail spent on the silhouette was staggering. His altered eyes were able to see it perfectly.

He’d know the ship anywhere. He’d crewed it in the dim and misty times before the fall of humanity’s empire. He’d only been a soldier attached to the security detail, but it had been the jewel of the human armada. The first, in what was to be a long line of chaos driven warships. “How could it have survived the battle of Anatar’s Breech? That’s not possible.”

“Isn’t it?” The sister mused. “Designed by the madman Alexander Casinata, and built in the orbital foundry rings of Mars. It did survive, or so it would seem.”

Sam looked at the sister and said; “Do you know where the artist is? I’ve gotta know where he saw this.”

“She.” The sister replied with a smirk. “Is in a hospital. Seems someone tried to kill her.”

Sam cocked an eyebrow. “I’m very interested in hearing about it. Would you like to discuss this over coffee?”

She nodded and said; “I thought you would be. Yes.”

Sam felt his stomach sink. The attempt to kill the young artist sounded frighteningly familiar, despite the mistakes. “It sounds like a copy cat.” He said at last. “Someone who’s been studying me.”

“We, at first thought it was you.” The sister stated coolly. “It turns out to be a second rate, who’s been getting some pointers from reading about you.”

Sam nodded and said; “Okay, so, I’ll go kill him, and pay the girl a visit, and voila, I’m Captain Sam again.”

She cocked an eyebrow and said; “Are you certain that’s the most prudent course?”

Sam frowned and said; “Not really, but it is the simplest, and I’m beginning to appreciate simplicity in my twilight years.”

She watched him drink his coffee with an inscrutable expression.

He sighed and said; “I know, I know. Why would someone want her dead? Is it related to Thor? There are a lot of questions here.”

She sipped her coffee and watched him think.

“Get me another contract.” He said at last.

“I hate artists.” Sam said as he and the sister sifted through the equipment he’d purchased, and went about the business of fabricating, and altering.

“Really?” She said conversationally.

“Yeah.” He said and opened a can of beer. “All artists, at that. Musicians, painters, poets. You name ‘em.”

“Why’s that?” She asked curiously.

He shrugged and said; “I hate anyone who can do anything I can’t.”

She looked up at him and cocked her eyebrow.

“Look, I can do damn near anything.” He said throwing his hands up in the air. “I may not be perfect at it, but with practice I can get good at it. Art though… Well, I tried my hand a playing a guitar… That’s an old…”

“I know what a guitar is.” She said with a smirk.

“Oh, well most people don’t anymore, and that’s a shame.” He said thoughtfully. “A nice acoustic make such beautiful music.”

She nodded and said; “I would agree.”

“Well, I was a kid…” he stopped to look around the apartment. “I got inspired to play and I tried, and I tried, for two years I tried… It was horrible. I mangled the music like a meat grinder. So I assumed music just wasn’t my thing. So I went and enrolled in an art class. I stuck with it for several semesters, and finally the teacher pulls me aside one day and tells me I just wasn’t cut out for it. She was real nice about it, sympathetic even, because I worked my ass off. She was right though. Any medium I touched turned to shit. I tried some other things trying to find my niche, but I’ll be damned if even the simplest form of artistry didn’t become a train wreck.”

She nodded and said; “I play the guitar myself.”

He looked around carefully and then back at her and said; “Did you just volunteer personal information?”

“I wouldn’t call it personal information.” She replied evenly.

“This is a first.” He chuckled after a moment of shocked silence. He drained his beer and said; “Even the sisters have artistic talent. I must be some kind of human misfire.”

“Perhaps your artistic talent lies elsewhere.” She commented as she finished carving a glyph into the back of a listening device.

“Riiiight.” He said with a chuckle. “You’re not going to tell me that being able to put my foot behind my head is art, are you?”

She chuckled and said; “No. I wasn’t planning on it. Can you though?”

“Of course I can.” He replied absently. “My body maintains optimal muscle elasticity at all times.”

“For a moment I forgot you were the one modified by them.” She commented.

He looked up at her and said; “I’m more than that.”

“I’m sure you are.” She replied with her inscrutable expression.

“Alright, showtime.” Sam chuckled and turned on the monitoring system. He snaked his wrist cable out like a tentacle and plugged it into a jack on the side of the processor. The sister had bugged her phone, and her hospital room with some magically shielded surveillance devices. Sam had also placed a tap on the would-be hit man’s wrist comp.

It was going to be a long time until something notable happened. He went into surface sleep mode, while the sister consulted the spirits. They were both in a slightly altered state. Hers was magical, while his was technologically induced.

He’d monitored the device for nearly thirty hours when the assassin was contacted by his client, and they considered another attempt. The client wasn’t very talkative though, so no clues as to who or why were forthcoming.

He disconnected as all of his systems were brought back on line suddenly. He had a spasm as he force initiated his motor control system.

“Sister, I need a weapon.” He said as he pulled his T-shirt on and tossed his bomber jacket on over it.

She looked up at him and said; “The grocery store between here and the hospital. Tell the manager you’re looking for recycled produce.”

“Thanks.” He said and stalked out of the room quickly saying over his shoulder; “Send me the remote feed from her hospital room only.”

She nodded and got to her feet.