smooth operator

 ☰     Outlook ☰     File     Home (No subject) 04/06/2027 (S.I)     Scopum Impetum To:    × Account 03 - The Daily Bugle [TF-009.mp4             ▼]

Like the last eight messages, the subject line of this email is blank. The video attachment is labeled simply: you’ve guessed in your infinite wisdom that TF stood for Task Force, and the number corresponds to the day’s planned assassination in this ongoing series. The sender’s email is a scrambled string of characters you can’t find significance in. The domain is archaic, an actual @netscape.net address.

You didn’t bother continuing a trace on the address after your first attempt. The tech lady at The Bugle said that she couldn’t (or more likely, wouldn’t) sink her teeth into it before booting you out of her office. You then ran Scopum Impetum through a Latin to English translator and got something like “Hit Target” or “Hitting Target.”

Bullseye.

Rather on the nose with his intimidation. One of three things you’ve learned about him the past month, the other two being that he likes to pick off AVTF squads on their patrol routes or house calls. Massive, bloody, nightmarish killings that always made the news because it was impossible to mask them  as typical New York violence.

You also learned that while the patrol killings were random, the videos were special. All videoed victims were elite officers with significant power, or members who had amassed large red-pilled followings online.

All ironic kills. All final laughs in Fisk’s face. 

You open TF-009.mp4. There’s no thumbnail, but the video outline is vertical in cell phone dimensions. 

You hit play. The framing is steady. Bullseye either uses a tripod, or has very solid hands. 

You watch a man in AVTF tactical gear—you think his badge reads 4091, you’ll look him up later—crawl backward across a warehouse floor. His leg is bent at an angle that suggests his femur bone has been turned into several smaller bones. Pieces of it stick out, shards of white in crests that burst through skin. It reminds you of the Sydney Opera House.

He’s begging. You can’t really make out the words over the wet rasps of his uneven breathing, but it’s easy to guess what he’s saying. Please. Please.

The camera doesn’t move. There’s no voice here, and the video’s ambient noise doesn’t sound like it’s been scrubbed over by an A.I to remove speech. You make a mental note of that. Bullseye’s always been quiet with killing. No video reveals a voice.

Then a long, thin, yellow projectile sinks into the man’s left eye socket with a sound like a melon splitting.

The video ends.

Before you can think about it, you click the replay button. Bone shards, the wet choke-gasps. You skip over some of the tense anticipation until Bullseye throws. The projectile flies, and you see in this second viewing that it was a pencil that killed this officer. A pencil splintered in his skull and separated the soft flesh of his eyeball. You see the white orb deflate like a sad birthday balloon. It leaks red and small fleshy chunks over the officer’s face until he stops screaming. 

You close the player. You open Word.

task force victim no. 9 badge #4091? pencil through eye location tbd. warehouse district? low lighting. probably killed at night still no visual proof of attacker being bullseye

You don’t write: victim begged for his life

You don’t write: bullseye did us a favor.

 ☰     Outlook ☰     File     Home No new mail

Three weeks ago, Adriana called you into her office. The glass walls around her desk made you feel like you were entering a snake terrarium at the back of the Bugle’s newsroom, and you were the next mouse to be swallowed alive.

“Morning,” you’d said. You didn’t sit down because people never sat unless Adriana told them to. 

Adriana slid a folded letter across her desk. The paper had the mayor’s emblem stamped over it. “This came in for you. Give it a look-see.” 

You pick up the creamy paper. Officially, it was an acknowledgment of your “balanced coverage” of city affairs, and it urged you to cover things “closer to the heart of the administration.” Unofficially, it was a target drawn on stationery being pinned to your back.

“Mayor Fisk read your piece on the Task Force’s budget allocation,” Adriana said, folding her hands. “The one where you pointed out the civilian engagement metrics.”

You said nothing. You put the letter back on Adriana’s desk. 

“He hated it,” she continued. “And because he hates it, everyone who works for him hates it. And because everyone who works for him hates it, you’re going radioactive here.”

You said nothing.

“Because I like you, I’m giving you a lifeline.” Adriana tapped the letter. “Bullseye. The Task Force killer. You’re going to cover him, and you’re going to humanize the victims. Make everyone cry. No ifs, ands, or buts. Show the city that you care about justice.”

“The Task Force,” you began, “is a fascist death squad.”

“The Task Force is the law,” Adriana clears her throat. “And you’re going to write about the people dying to uphold it. Or, you can clean out your desk and see how long your freelance career lasts when every editor in town knows Wilson Fisk has a personal grudge against you. You know he doesn’t forgive easily.”

That was the final nail in the coffin. 

You took the assignment. 

At first, Bullseye performed for the masses. He posted six kills publicly. They were grainy the way a phone camera got when zoomed a little too far, then uploaded to fringe forums. Every video had a time stamp and was geo-tagged like he was building an archive. The Task Force would always arrive too late to the scenes, find the bodies, and hold press conferences where they promised to find the “cowardly terrorist.”

You attended one of those press conferences when you were writing about the third victim. The commissioner stood behind a podium and called Bullseye “a disturbed vigilante threat to civilized society.” You watched the officers lined up behind him—people who had, in the last six days alone, fractured an unarmed Latino protester’s skull and shoved his sister down a flight of stairs.

You felt nothing for the Task Force.

You wrote the introductory article your editor wanted. You listed the victims’ names, described their service records, quoted grieving families. The ache in the hollows of your ribs had nothing to do with sympathy for the dead.

Then Bullseye stopped posting.

You assumed he’d been caught and killed before trial. On the other end, maybe he’d finally grown bored of killing. You felt a brief, shameful flicker of relief—not because the killings had stopped, but because you wouldn’t have to watch the forum videos.

Then the first video came.

 ☰     Outlook ☰     File     Home (No subject) 03/29/2027 (S.I)     Scopum Impetum To:    × Account 03 - The Daily Bugle [TF-001.mp4             ▼]

The subject line was blank. The sender’s email is a scrambled string of characters on an @netscape.net address.

You almost deleted it instinctively. Spam mail. A virus showing you a video of the hot babes in your area. But the sender’s name was something Latin, and that raised a flag of curiosity. After running the file through a virus scanner, you opened it.

You truly wish you hadn’t. 

On the forums, people usually tagged warnings. You went in with no idea that you were about to watch a woman in a Task Force windbreaker take a staple gun to the side of her neck. It clicked as it hit her, a staple injecting itself into a fold of skin. The camera didn’t shake. The video ended with a slow zoom on her face as her eyes grew unfocused. 

You slammed your laptop shut. 

Then, you opened it a crack. With the screen pointing down and the laptop’s volume cranked to the max, you tried to listen for any targeted messages. You found nothing. You checked the forums, the sphere of Twitter that had a dedicated group of followers reposting the kills, other news sites, and it seemed that this specific video was sent only to you.

You told yourself it was a coincidence. You told yourself the killer had simply chosen a journalist at random.

You didn’t believe it.

[TF-004.mp4            ▼]

A man in tactical gear. A rolled-up magazine. The carotid artery spurted out in pumps that arc like sticky, red fountain water. Same steady camera. A zoom on the dying eye.

You have a working theory: Bullseye isn’t sending you these videos because he wants you to stop him. Maybe it's because you were the only city journalist at an outlet who wrote the truth about the Task Force, and this was him sliding into alignment with you. A weird Snapchat streak he held on his own.

It's the nicest theory you could come up. The others lead you down a path where you're the next person he’d videotape, and the videos are the road signs on the way.

[TF-005.mp4             ▼]

You have a system. You scan the file before downloading it, as anyone should. You let the audio play first to listen for cues. You watch the video after to make notes for the articles. You log the victim’s badge number if you can see it, estimated the time of day, and the weapon used. You waited until an hour after your source at the NYPD would contact you before sending a draft to your editor. You transfer the videos to a USB you’re too paranoid to let go of, so it now lives under the insole of your left shoe.

[TF-006.mp4             ▼]

You stop pretending everything is normal. 

The videos are inside you. They live behind your eyes. You’ll be walking to the coffee shop and suddenly remember the way a man’s throat opens like a zipper, thyroid cartilage visible as he chokes on blood. You’ll have to sit down on the curb to breathe until the world stops spinning. You wake up gasping, your hand pressed flat against your heart as if checking for wounds. Every creak of the radiator makes you think of footsteps, every gust of wind moving the creaky fire escape sounds like a throaty voice outside. 

[TF-007.mp4             ▼]

You don’t mourn them. They weren’t good people. They signed up to wield violence against civilians with the explicit blessing of a man who, not long ago, was in the F.B.I’s custody. They had chosen power without accountability. They had chosen to become the fists of a fascist.

You do mourn the part of yourself that couldn’t watch a man die. Now you know many ways people die: a pencil through the eye, a staple gun to the throat, a domino splitting a skull and macerating the brain stem.

[TF-009.mp4             ▼]

Your phone buzzes with text from Adriana.

I need your draft on victim 8. We need the human angle. Make me cry!!!

You rub your face with your hands before opening a new Word document.

The eighth member of the Anti-Vigilante Task Force was found dead yesterday morning in an alleyway behind Josie’s Bar. His name was Marcus Webb. He leaves behind two children and a wife.           He leaves behind an impressive legacy of violence. His record in the NYPD included various excessive force complaints and two internal investigations. The AVTF had to pay a settlement to a family whose son that Webb had permanently disabled.

You wish you could publish this. Reluctantly, you hit the backspace button until you’re behind the word wife. You rub your face again, you save the document, close your laptop, and sit in the dark. You’ll deal with this tomorrow.

Your laptop flashes a notification at you.

(No subject) 04/07/2027 (S.I)     Scopum Impetum To:    × Account 03 - The Daily Bugle [TF-010.mp4             ▼]

You wonder if Bullseye knows that you don’t need the videos anymore. The question you’re afraid to ask, the one that lives in the space between each wet tear of flesh in your dreams, is whether he knows what you are becoming. He must. He’s a serial killer sending out snuff films to a civilian. There’s no reasonable reaction he can guess on your behalf besides terror.

You close your eyes that night in bed, and you see a pencil falling.

[TF-010.mp4             ▼]

The tenth video sits in your inbox for six more hours before you open it.

You tell yourself it was the exhaustion that made you hesitate. You’re busy and tired. You tell yourself that your notes are now stagnant and boring. You need to think about other things to come back fresher.

But the truth’s simpler: you’re scared.

This isn’t a horror movie with jumpscares. You’re the victim of a cyber-stalker, but you don’t feel like one. You haven’t tried contacting him to tell him to stop, blocking him, or making someone else trace the address. You let it happen and you’re saving the videos on a fucking USB drive like that hides any involvement you have.

You open TF-010.mp4.

The frame is different this time. Not a warehouse or an alley. An office. Fluorescent lights. A desk with a nameplate: Lt. Patricia Voss, Internal Affairs.

You know her. You quoted her once, in a piece about police accountability. She called the Task Force “a necessary tool in a broken system.” She smiled when she said it.

Now the camera holds steady. No voice. No face. Just her, trembling, her hands bound behind her back with what looks like a zip tie.

You watch a single playing card—the ace of spades—slice through the air and bury itself in her throat.

She didn’t beg. She only stared at the camera with wide, confused eyes, as if she couldn't understand why this was happening to someone who had played by the rules.

The video ends.

You close the player. You open your notes. 

task force victim no. 10 lt. patricia voss, internal affairs weapon was playing card

Your phone buzzes. You flip it so the screen faces up, primed for annoyance with a test from Adriana.

Instead, it’s a text message from a number you don’t recognize.

You finally watched it.

Another one follows shortly:

I was wondering when you’d open it.

You stare at the screen. Your heart doesn't race. Your hands don’t shake. You feel a strange, almost clinical curiosity.

who is this?

The response comes in less than three seconds.

You know who. :)

Bullseye.

You can’t do anything but watch as three dots appear, disappear, appear again. Your stomach rolls slowly.

You’re the only one who sees them for what they are. I like to think that you think I'm doing something right. I've read everything you wrote before the editor started making you bootlick. You said the citizens deserve better than this.

You remember those pieces. They had been killed by Adriana, buried under a mountain of “libel concerns” and “advertiser pressure.” You thought no one read them.

You were right. They deserve better and the people who hurt them deserve punishment. They were bad people. *are bad people. They’re still everywhere.

You should stop. You should block Bullseye. You should go to the police—not that they would help you.

Instead, you type back. It’s not an active choice, you more so watch your fingers press the smooth glass of your phone screen.

why are you sending these to me?

You understand me. You always watch them so intently.

You set the phone down. A cold, slow thread unwinds in your stomach. He knows where you live. He’s read virtually everything you’ve put online, since he has your name. He can see you right now, and apparently he’s been seeing you since he sent the first TF video. 

Your breath catches as your fingers go numb. For the first time on this case, you feel it: panic. The real kind of prey animal fear, sharp and deep, like a knife sliding between your ribs.

You pick it up again.

i'm not doing anything i just watch what you send me and that’s for my job

That's enough. That's more than any civilian. Don't be scared, Cronkite. I'm not going to hurt you.

☆☆☆☆☆

The texts continue over the following days. Never many. Never at the same time. He sends a single message after each video—sometimes hours later, sometimes days.

Did you see the way he moved? He thought he could run.

She had a photo of her husband on her desk. A cop. Of course.

The commissioner is next. You'll want to read about him before tomorrow to prep your article.

You never ask him to stop. You never ask him to explain. You only respond with questions of your own—small, careful questions that he sometimes answers and sometimes ignores.

why the pencils It's funny. They're also widely available. People can buy them in packs of 100. :)

how do you choose them They choose themselves. Every time they put on that badge, they volunteer. The uniforms make it really easy to single them out.

do uou even feel anything

That question goes unanswered for two days. You assume he’s done with you. You assume you crossed the invisible line, not being polite and cowering slightly.

Then, at 3:17 AM, your phone lights up.

It's really hard. I'm not a mindless killer. I have emotions. I feel the same things everyone else feels, all at once.

You read the message seven times. You do not respond.

That night, you dream of the teenager who was put in a coma by the AVTF. Young and bruised, his eyelashes two small fans over his cheeks. And standing beside his bed is a shadow. No face. No voice. Just a shape that holds a pencil.

You wake up gasping.

Your phone is on the pillow beside you. A new message.

Bad dream?

You sit up. You look around your dark apartment. The windows are locked, and the blinds are drawn. The door is bolted shut and locked. But neither of those things feels like barriers.

They feel like inviting little challenges.

how thefuck do you know that I'm closer than you think, Cronkite.

The sun rises over the city. Your phone buzzes one last time.

Video 011 comes tonight. Be ready.

☆☆☆☆☆

You stare at the message through the day. You fuck up your bodega order and eat the wrong thing numbly. Your phone is a brick in your pocket.

You should ask what he means by ready. Ready to watch? Ready to take notes? Ready to feel nothing while another human being stops breathing?

whens it happening

The response is immediate.

Around 9:20. The commissioner’s speech ends at 9:15. He’ll be walking or in his car.  His license plate is custom. It’s ridiculous.

It's 7:43 PM. You have less than two hours to mentally prepare yourself for this.

how do you know that I pay attention. It's amazing what people post on social media.  His wife tagged him in a Father’s Day post with their new car.  And the event schedule is posted on Fisk’s campaign Instagram.

You open Instagram to find the accounts. The offending posts are pinned on both profiles—Fisk’s campaign account has a listing of the gala's entire timeline with the commissioner’s keynote speech slotted at 8:45-9:15 with some celebrity guest you don’t recognize to follow. The commissioner’s wife’s account has a Father's Day post pinned. A cute, crisp image of the whole family in front of a shiny black SUV. The license plate reads: N4SPEED. Probably the tackiest thing you’ve ever seen.

You close the app.

thats probably the easiest stalking i’ve ever seen See? I'm not that creepy.

The three dots appear. You wait.

Most people don't notice things. They walk through the world with their eyes half-closed.  But not you. You see the gaps, and where the story doesn't match the truth. and you’re pencilling in those gaps?

A longer pause this time. You wonder if you've offended him. If he'll stop texting, stop sending videos, leave you alone with nothing but the echoes of nine dead officers and the tenth on its way.

Something in you recoils from that possibility.

That made me laugh. Out loud. You’re always witty :) That’s why I like your work.

You don't feel witty. You feel hollow. But something in your chest loosens anyway.

do you ever miss Nope.  ever? No, lol. I have to go now. Be ready.

You read the message three times.

You lock your phone and set it face-down on the nightstand. The screen still glows through the glass, an accusing light that says you saw this. You aren’t stopping it. You won’t stop it anyway.

Then you think about Lt. Voss. The way she stared at the camera. The way the ace of spades sat in her throat like a second badge.

You don’t feel sick anymore. Just something heavy, like lead filling the hollow spots in your bones.

[TF-011.mp4             ▼]

Did you see his face? no he immediatly hit the pavement Exactly. They walk around like the badge makes them bulletproof. dont say something cheesy like but im a bomb or something No. I'm just better. :) You live close to that intersection.

You go cold. Not the dramatic cold of fear like earlier—the slow, sinking cold of confirmation. You knew that he knew, but reading him admit it so casually?

how the fuck do you know where i live I watch. You know I pay attention. You’re very careful. I respect that. thats not a fucking answet It’s the only one you're getting.

You set the phone down before walking to your front door. You check the locks. It's secure. You check the window. It's closed with your curtains drawn over it. You check the locks again.

Your phone buzzes.

Relax. I told you that I’m not going to hurt you. You’re the only one who understands me.

You pick up the phone. Your fingers are shaking now—just a little, just enough to notice.

and what the fuck do i understand Some people need to die. Not because I want to kill them. Because they've earned it. You can call it karmic debt finally being cashed in, if you believe in that. You have to crack eggs to make an omelet. You just don’t want to say it out loud.

You read the message seven times. You think about the Black teenagers who have been harassed by the AVTF. The woman who was taken off her street and reported missing by her friends. The protester and his sister. You think about the videos—the pencil, the staple gun, the spectacle, the show.

You think about the way you felt when Lieutenant Voss died. That small, ugly sense of satisfaction.

is that so bad you’re fucking killing people thats not exactlu a thing that normal people do That’s what I like about you. You’re still a moral person after all this. That's why people like me do the work for you.

You don’t say anything.

You’re still awake. I know you’re still reading these. what do you want from me I don't know yet. But I don't want to hurt you.

Another pause. Longer this time.

When I send you the videos, I'm not alone anymore. And neither are you.

You don't respond. You can't. Your throat is tight, and your eyes are dry, and you're not sure if you want to scream or sleep or laugh at the absurdity of it all.

Your phone buzzes two more times.

Goodnight, Cronkite. Sweet dreams.

They lied. Everyone who had toed that line between life and death, they fucking lied. There was no bittersweet flash of memories before your eyes. You didn’t have a lot, but shit—there’s gotta be something worth showing you, worth reliving, before you close your eyes forever.

The minutes pass, you feel the growing chill along your limbs from the steady flow of blood from the various bullet holes in your torso, and still—nothing. Not a goddamn thing. 

Just Rick.

Rick bolting across the sand with your name falling from his lips. You can’t hear it, there’s a distinct shrill ringing in your ears that seems to be drowning out the chaos around you, but you see the movement of his mouth, the strain of his throat as he yells.

He comes to land on his knees next to you, a shower of cool sandy grains flicking up and dusting your black tac shirt. It glistens under the light of explosions and gunfire, and you briefly wonder in morbid curiosity how much of your blood stains the beach beneath you.

“Jesus. Oh, oh darlin’—”

You hear him then, his broken and strained mutter cutting through the surrounding ambush.

“Hey Colonel,” you rasp with a barely there smile, a sticky hot trail of liquid leaking from the edge of your lips, “how’s it lookin’?”

Those pretty doe eyes dart over the destruction of your body, his hands ghosting over your wounds in what feels like hesitation, anxiety. Which ones can be smothered with a cheap and easy dressing? What one needs the most pressure applied?

Going by the rate your body seems to be numbing, cooling in the breezy night air, they’re all pretty shit. At least there's no pain. Shock, adrenaline - whatever the fuck it is, you're thankful for it.

“Fine,” he mutters, rough gloved hands instead coming to rest on your cheeks, thumbs brushing away the coarse sand and half dried blood splatters covering your skin, “you’re gonna be just fine.”

“Damn,” you breathe heavily, brows briefly coming together, “I never thought I’d hear you lie to me. None of that shit. No, no.... you gotta make it something good, Colonel.”

Confusion pinches his pretty face through the pain, and you give another strained smile.

“The last words I’ll ever hear—make ‘em… they gotta be good.”

“Don’t talk like that, you hear me? You’ll be fine. Backup’s comin’. They’re comin’, and we’ll get you patched up, and you’ll be right to back to bein’ a pain in my ass, okay?”

Oh, sweet soldier.

No.

It doesn't work like that.

They don’t send help for people like you. Suicide Squad, remember? It’s in the name. You knew what you were signing up for. He knew what you were signing up for. This is it. You’re just another classified file thrown through the shredder at the end of the day.

You blink tiredly up at him, “No one’s coming, Flag.”

He shakes his head in firm denial, strong jaw rolling in an effort to remain cool and collected.

“No, they... they have to.” 

“Somethin’ good, Flag,” you remind him quietly, a heaviness now seemingly coming to rest along your limbs.

Is this it? Can’t you just have one more minute? One more minute of him crowding your vision? You don’t need a last minute life montage, not when he’s here, not when he’s carefully dragging you further into his warm embrace.

Please, just a little longer in his arms.

“Okay… okay. The—the first time you smiled, it felt like the universe aligned.”

“Oh, fuck me,” you splutter with a sudden roll of remaining energy, chest heaving and lungs screaming as you choke on a weak chuckle, “that’s a… a new low, even for… f’your s-soft self.”

“Thought you’d like that,” he drawls quietly with a grin.

It’s brief, tainted with agony stricken tears, and falls from his face the second it stretches his lips. No, sweet soldier. Smile. It’s okay.

Maybe… maybe this is why your life isn’t flashing before your eyes. It’s because it’s here—he’s here. You didn’t really have anything before this, before the Squad, before Rick. You were merely a shell of a person in your cell, angry with the unfair world and the hand you’d been dealt from childhood, but when he came along?

He gave you a chance, saw something in you no one had before. He provided you with the Squad, with friends. He got you out of your cell and into the fresh air with a new outlook. He trained you, laughed with you, ate with you in the crappy mess hall despite the frowns from his co-workers.

He saw you.

He saw you for everything you were, not for what people thought you to be.

“Think you’re the… the closest thing I’ve e-ever felt to love, Colonel. Thank you.”

It’s a decent goodbye, you decide with the final beat of your heart, slackening in relief and embracing the call of the abyss with a leftover curl still tugging at your lips. Better than you’d been led to believe you deserved, better than what Waller threatened you with.

You got a good ending.

He feels the weight of you in his arms, sees how unnaturally still your chest has fallen and how your eyes seem to stare just past his shoulder. It shakes him to the core. His heart beats at the base of his throat and he can’t help but call out to you one more time, despite knowing you’d never answer.

“Darlin’?”

You can’t be gone—not yet.

You can’t be gone, because you didn’t get to hear him say it back. He needs to say it, he needs you to hear it. He murmurs those three little words over and over, breathing them into your skin wherever he can reach, willing you to stay just long enough to hear them, long enough to know you were loved.

You need to know you’re loved.

Bile builds in his throat at the thought, but he has to leave you behind; alone, broken and bled out on the sandy beach for a sweep team to deal with later. He wonders as he runs through the dense jungle, but he’ll never know if you did manage to hear his broken, tear filled I love you’s.