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(Chapters 1 – 4 By EleCivil and Ryan Miller)
Rain poured down upon the city of Marineris late one night; the synthetic rain of the largest teraformed bio-dome on Mars. It looked like any other city you’d find on Earth with apartment high-rises, public parks and skyscrapers, though you couldn’t walk more than 14 miles in any one direction, or you’d step outside the bio-metric forcefield protecting the city and have your blood boil and your eyes burst out of your skull in the rarified atmosphere of the Red Planet.
An old man stood behind the counter of his café, cleaning glasses as his nephew counted the money in the till after a heavy day of business. He kept looking out through the window at a man sitting at one of the round, umbrella-clad tables in front of the café. The man had been sitting there since the shop closed, just sitting in his brown trench coat with his feet propped up on the table, reading a tabloid. The old man had thought of going out and telling him he had to leave and that the café was closed, but he hadn’t been bothered by the stranger and didn’t have the heart to throw him out into the rain.
The headlights of a taxi appeared down the street from the café and the man at the table looked up from his newspaper. The taxi pulled up next to the café and a man in a black jacket stepped out and pulled his collar up over his neck to stave off the rain as he leaned over to pay the driver. Fuel cells hummed and the taxi drove off, leaving its former client standing on the edge of the street with the man at the table.
“It’s raining pretty hard,” said the man at the table, putting his feet on the ground. “You may as well sit here under an umbrella.”
The man in black accepted the stranger’s invitation and sat down next to him, shaking the rain from his jacket.
“You don’t look very experienced, young man,” said the man, putting down his newspaper.
“But time will change people, old man,” said the other, as he had been instructed. Even though he had practiced his line over and over again, the realization that he was passing the point of no return still hit him like a punch in the gut.
“Sorry we have to meet under such conditions,” said the first.
“If they can control the damn rain, why can’t they tell us when it’s coming?” mused the other, shivering.
“They say it reminds people of home. But you’ll be warmer in the car,” replied the first, taking a phone out of his pocket and saying, “Our guest is here.”
Moments later, another pair of headlights appeared down the street, belonging to a black, streamlined sedan that pulled over on the side of the road in front of the café. The locks clicked open and the younger man opened the door, holding it open for the older.
“Thank you, but I have another meeting here toning,” he said. “Tony will take good care of you, though.”
Needing no incentive to get out of the rain, the younger man stepped inside the car and shut the door. The seats inside were made of soft leather and a warm comfort compared to the night outside.
“I’m glad you made it,” said the driver, his dark eyes shining in a round face at the young man through the rear-view mirror. “We were worried the rain might have kept you from coming.”
The young man didn’t say anything, but wrapped himself tighter in his jacket, trying to retain as much heat as he could.
“My name’s Tony, by the way,” said the driver.
“Hawke,” said the young man.
“Well, Mr. Hawke, what brings you to see Mr. Kelly at this time of night?” asked Tony as he started to drive down the road.
“I was told he could give me a job,” said Hawke.
“Oh, and what was it you used to do?” asked Tony.
“I’m ex-special forces,” replied Hawke. “I was in a few of the Titan campaigns and spent the last few months of my service stationed on Ganymede. A few months ago, I outlived my contract with the Martian government and I’ve been drifting ever since.”
“Then I bet you’ll be glad to get a job with Mr. Kelly. He pays very well.”
“What kind of man is he?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never met him. But a steady paycheck is enough to keep me from asking questions.”
Hawke, caring less about casual conversation, leaned down on the leather seats of the car and enjoyed a chance to sleep comfortably for the first time in years.
On the twenty-fifth floor of the Abbot Hotel stood a young man in the living room of his penthouse apartment. His blond hair was slicked back over his head and shone like his green smoking jacket. He stood and looked out at the city as rain pounded on his panoramic window. The only light in the room was from a large fireplace in the wall and wavering shadows from two leather chairs were cast across the floor. In the light of the fire, his gaunt features made him look almost like a corpse, a boyish corpse.
Elevator doors opened and out stepped Hawke, his jacket and short, black hair still dripping from the rain.
The other man turned and said, “You’re soaked. Please, take a seat in front of the fire.”
“I could have walked here, you know,” said Hawke, pushing a chair close to the fire and sitting down. “I live about 6 blocks from this hotel.”
“But I didn’t tell Tony where to drop you off until he picked you up,” replied the other man.
“Are you Kelly?” asked Hawke, looking up at the man.
“Yes, I am Elliot Kelly,” replied the man. “And you are Lt. Preston Hawke, of the Martian Special Forces, Lunar Division.”
“So I am,” replied Hawke. “Now why am I here?”
“Because of your professional skills, Lieutenant,” said Kelly, taking a seat next to Hawke.
“I have no professional skills,” replied Hawke.
“On the contrary. You served your planet for five years as the leader of her most decorated infantry unit, and spent two more years in Special Forces, leading surgical strikes against Grey Faction.”
“But the war is over. My skills don’t mean anything now. Not to me, or to the government.”
“But they mean a great deal to me.”
“How?”
“Do you remember your last mission, Lieutenant?”
“Vividly. Why?”
“Really? If it were me, I’d try to forget something that tragic.”
“When all your men die in a single explosion, it’s hard to forget.”
“And yet you survived. I’d like to hear the story of your survival.”
“I didn’t survive, I got lucky. We made it to a Faction outpost on Titan and managed to capture one of their bunkers. We were supposed to neutralize a weapon The Faction was developing, but we never made it that far. A mine went off in the bunker, killing everyone inside. I was out surveying their weapons facility when the mine went off. The explosion alerted them to our presence and soon the place was swarming with Factioners. I escaped because I was able to crawl into a crater and hide until they left.”
“You evaded all those soldiers that easily?”
“It wasn’t easy. I nearly had to stop breathing to fit in that crack.”
“Have you ever killed a man?”
“Of course. I fought Grey Faction for seven years. I’ve killed hundreds of men.”
“What did that feel like?”
“If you want to know, why don’t you kill someone yourself?”
“No reason to be hostile, I just want to know your reaction to it. Were you happy, upset, remorseful?”
“If you must know, I didn’t feel anything. I was fighting for my planet and killed who I was told to. Now, if you brought me here to reminisce about the war, then I’m more than ready to leave.”
“No, I didn’t bring you here to tell old war stories. I brought you here because I need a man of your caliber, of your unique qualifications.”
“What qualifications are those?”
“You have military experience and military discipline, but you are also intuitive, resourceful and able to follow orders to a very precise degree.”
“Yeah. So?”
“A man in my position has much power, and many enemies who want that power at almost any cost, including the cost of my life.”
“You want a body guard?”
“No, I need more than that. My opponents have body guards, so I need a man who can get past those guards and reach the target, without incident.”
“A hit man? You want me to be a hit man?”
“Not to put to fine a point on it, yes.”
“Out of the question,” said Hawke, getting out of his chair and turning for the door. “I don’t do murder for hire.”
Kelly grabbed his forearm and said, “You killed hundreds of men without a second thought because your planet told you to. So, why should you have qualms with killing for a man who pays much better and won’t simply abandon you after years of devoted service?”
Hawke jerked his arm away and said, “I didn’t kill innocent people.”
“These people are hardly innocent. They come after me and my family to get at the billions I have to my name and the power I wield politically. All they want to do is steal what I have worked for, and they have been killing to do so. I and those close to me could sleep very well at night if I had my own, personal Angel of Death to defend us.”
“You don’t have the power to decide who lives and who dies.”
“No, but you do. You’ve used it many times before, and I am offering you a chance to use your experience for gains far greater than any military career could give you.”
A hit man was the last thing Hawke would have pictured himself as. He’d been taught to despise random killings and even vigilante justice, though such events consumed seven years of his life. He turned towards the door, then looked back at the warmth of the fireplace.
“…I’ll think about it,” said Hawke.
“Good,” said Kelly, standing up. “I have a room reserved for you in the hotel where you can stay the night. I will expect your answer in the morning.”
Wordless, Hawke walked back towards the elevator. “I’ll think about it.” Even those words disgusted him. He wanted to stand up and say, “Hell no. Now drop me back off at my apartment.” But his apartment was as cold and empty as the lunar bases he’d commanded, and his spirit was restless, the spirit of a warrior without a war. Deep in the back of his mind, where morality dared not go, he though about killing mob bosses for a living, or earning any kind of living for that matter. The death wouldn’t disturb him—it never had—but he still dreaded to think of himself as some dirty hit man.
“Once more question, Lieutenant,” said Kelly, causing Hawke to pause as he pushed the down button. “Your call sign was ‘Raven.’ How did you acquire that?”
“Most people think it’s because of my black hair,” he replied. “But my sergeant gave it to me. He told me that ravens were the servants of Odin, the Norse god of war, and that seeing a raven on the battlefield was an omen of death.”
“Good,” said Kelly.
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