#night-vision

The mark – no, the girl named Angie – was just having a good time with her boyfriend Pete and a group of buddies, hanging out in the town square for the New Year’s Eve fireworks and celebration. They weren’t even all that drunk or doing anything stupid, which is what you would expect from teens. They were just a bunch of young people enjoying themselves – dancing a little, laughing, talking, and hugging each other, joyfully looking forward to an exciting and happy new year.

Angie stood there wrapped in the arms of her boyfriend, her blonde hair flowing out from underneath her beige and pastel blue woollen hat and over her royal blue coat. She was a good kid, primed for a good university but not because of her father’s wealth or influence, but because she was a straight-A student. She worked hard for school, was the captain of the local volley ball team, and she even volunteered at a soup kitchen. All she had done wrong was that she was the daughter of the last remaining member of the housing committee still opposing the Woodland Heights Project.

That project was basically a money laundering scheme, and it would destroy the habitat of three endangered local birds. But the big shots didn’t care about the environment, all they cared about was money. As if their wealth could save them if there was no fresh water left do drink, no clean air left to breathe, and the tipping point of the rise of the world’s average temperature was reached, so that climate change was irreversible.

Steffi was wondering about the weird thoughts she had been having lately. She had never really cared much about the world before. Those ideas must have come from the speech Angie had given at the town hall last Monday for the Youth Against Climate Change event.

Steffi had been tailing Angie for the past two weeks, working out her schedule, trying to find the best moment in Angie’s routine to strike. There were a few good options. When Angie went jogging alone in the woods every Wednesday and Sunday evening, when she sneaked out to see her boyfriend Pete every Thursday night, when she went to the soup kitchen on Tuesday evenings. But Silvester had decided against all of them.

He had been hired to make a point. The local lowlifes were fed up with the goody two shoes Mister Wilkins’ opposition to their pet project. They wanted him to know that his daughter, his little angel, had died because of him not playing ball. So Silvester thought it would be most effective to kill her in the middle of the town’s biggest celebration – the New Year’s Eve Fireworks.

Not only would it send quite the message, but you could even hide the noise of the shots in the din of the crowd and the loud bangs of the fireworks.

Silvester was positively exalted when he told Steffi about his plan, called it movie-like and every contract killers secret fantasy. He didn’t take it seriously, when Steffi asked whether it wasn’t wrong to murder a teenager.

“You’re not going soft on me, are you, Steffi?” was what he said. “We don’t ask questions, and we don’t grow a conscience when the money is right. Besides, it’s too late for that now. What do you think would happen if we terminated the contract now? Best case scenario: they’d ask for a refund and probably a sizeable compensation for their wasted time, dissuade others from using our services and so sully our reputation, and then just find someone else to do the job. Worst case scenario: they’d add us to the list of marks for the new guys because we know too much.”

He was of course right, and Steffi knew that, but her new-found vigour wasn’t easily silenced. It wasn’t right to kill a kid like that, even less so, one with a good heart.

But Steffi also owed Silvester. He had seen her potential and got her off the streets when she wasn’t much older than sweet, innocent Angie was now. But Steffi had neither been sweet nor innocent at that age. Far from it, actually. She had been a juvenile delinquent, with a violent alcoholic for a father, a drug addict who had run off years ago for a mother, and no one to protect her or show her a better way. Except for Silvester. He had shown her a better way.

He had taught her to take her fiery-hot anger and turn it into an icy-cold weapon, and he had even paid her enough so that she could leave that dreadful place she had to call her childhood home and never come back. After that, Silvester had trained Steffi for years, taught her all he knew, got her connected to well-paying customers, and eventually even made her his partner.

Back when he had started training her, Silvester had promised Steffi that he would not only teach her how to make a decent living killing people, but that the two of them would execute some scumbags while they’re at it. But recently, he wasn’t all that concerned about the scumbag part. In fact, it didn’t even seem to be a factor.

With considerable horror, Steffi had recently realised that the very argument Silvester had used to convince her – back when she had been only a few years older than Angie – could now be used against him. For he now fell into the category of “scumbag” himself. Lately, Silvester just wanted to make as much money as possible – “making a killing”, he wittily called it – and that was that.

So Steffi had decided to make a point herself. She’d set her own example and combine it with a new beginning in a new year.

Her resolution to kill Silvester on New Year’s Eve – a day commonly known as “Silvester” in many parts of the world – would be her own celebration of killing her very first scumbag for no money whatsoever. Just because it was the right thing to do.

Steffi also decided that she would keep her “regular” job because she was good at what she was doing. But from now on, she would make sure to only take contracts that were in line with her code. And who knows who she’d meet on her business trips? Maybe she’d kill some additional scumbags while she was at it.

Now, she only had to kill Silvester, followed by all the local lowlifes, or enough of them to make them understand that it wasn’t okay to kill kids just to make a point.

Feeling a little light-headed from a sudden rush of blood to her head, Steffi realised something else. For the first time in her life, she fought for something important, an ideal. She was about to kill in the name of what was right. It felt good.

Steffi lowered her head towards her rifle, feeling the cold, hard rooftop underneath her. She looked at her mentor through her night-vision scope, knowing that he would wait until the fireworks were already well on their way.

Silvester was also lying on a nearby rooftop, looking at his mark though a night-vision scope, having no idea that he was another hunter’s prey.

The crowd down in the plaza, started shouting “Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one. Happy New Year!”

And with a bang, a new chapter started.