This work of fiction bears no resemblance to any persons living or dead; if you say otherwise you are a DAMN EVIL LIAR.

As I finished the preparations for my mission, I took another look at the files I had compiled on the targets. This should be a simple operation; easy money. I'd done my research to learn who I was dealing with. My recon had uncovered that my client, as well as my primary and ancillary targets, were all members of a cult, the same cult, a strange religion that had sprung up several years earlier based around some messiah-girl in Oxford. I try to stay out of cult business, but the money I'd get for this job was good, and I felt a certain sympathy towards the client. Cult or no cult, the story was a familiar one: a love triangle, anger, revenge. I wondered for a moment what their "Skyqueen" would think about this infighting among her followers, but I put it out of my mind. I had a job to do.

My primary target was a teenage girl, a minor, living in the New Jersey area; I should be charging my client extra for having to visit the "Garden State" again, but I've been worse places. I could have performed the extraction earlier, but my client had asked me to wait for a better opportunity: the girl would soon be meeting up with my ancillary target. Supposedly the current romantic interest of the girl, my ancillary target was a young man, a known pedophile flying in from Winnipeg hoping for an illicit liaison. It wasn't hard to obtain his travel plans -- as soon as he booked his flight, red flags went up in several government databases to which I have extreme levels of access. My client was the third leg of this love triangle, the aggrieved party. He was another young man on the fringes of society, living with his parents in an obscure English hamlet called Solihull. I don't know how he got the money to pay me, and I don't care. There are certain questions I've learned not to ask.

I have an interesting job -- I possess certain technologies (and the specialized knowledge required to use them properly) not native to this time and place. This lets me do things only a handful of others on the planet can, and that puts my services in high demand. You could call me a "troubleshooter"... of sorts. You could also call me a bounty hunter, a bodyguard, an assassin... my skillset is rather broad and I'll take any job that seems interesting and doesn't conflict with my code of ethics.

I packed my gear and walked out of my domilice. On the way, I stopped to admire the nude statues of young women that I use to decorate my entry foyer. I brushed my hand against a few of the marble breasts, and I playfully slapped one of my favorite statues on her cold stone buttocks. These statues were payments for jobs done in the past -- sometimes a person would require my services but not have the money to pay; in some cases I would accept (or simply take) a client's daughter as payment. For the most part, these teenage girls were horrid creatures, filled with empty vanity, ignorance, and angst, nattering endlessly about banal minutia with their equally air-headed friends. I had the technology to convert these girls to a more pleasant form, and I've always found that their naked and petrified bodies give my home a warm, lived-in feel.

The travel was uneventful, as it always is. Eventually you realize all airports are the same fundamental place, just chopped into little pieces and scattered over the world. Even the cities are one sprawling metropolis separated only by space, or at least it seems that way from the main roads of strip malls & fast food joints. Planes, trains, automobiles: I moved by habit; my thoughts were on the mission ahead.

I walk into the hotel and headed directly for the service stairwell as if I own the place. When you know how to act like you belong, nobody asks questions. I climb to the fifth floor -- I've never trusted elevators, and dark musty stairwells have an undeniable charisma. Down the hallway, up to the door of the correct room -- I slip a featureless card into the maglock; it will take it less than a minute to crack the door code. In the meantime, I stick a tiny machine to the frame of the door, and I'm able to hear as if I were standing inside the room. Two voices, one male, one female. An argument.

"No, I won't do it! Put my camera away!" the female voice shouted angrily.
"You don't really have a choice here. I told the whole Internet we're fucking, and now I have to get proof."
"This has gone too damn far; I'm not going to play along with your sick games anymore."
"I said you don't really have a choice here. Let me show you what else I brought."

I hear what sounds like a gun being drawn, and I hear the girl scream. I can't wait for my key to open the door; I hold my hand up towards the door, crooking a finger so that a ring on my left index finger is pointed at the door handle. The radiation is quite invisible, but the flash and snap as a significant chunk of the door suddenly ceases to exist is about as subtle as a car wreck. I pull something from my trenchcoat as I burst through the door & survey the scene.

The girl is just as her pictures indicated: an attractive 15-year-old brunette of Russian heritage; if I were a decade younger, or if I were a sick fuck like the members of this cult, I'd be quite taken with her. She wears blue jeans and a lacy white bra; a T-shirt lies discarded nearby. She has a look of fear on her face, initially directed at the man in the room with her, then at the sudden blast of noise & light from the doorway. The man is my immediate concern, though: although I'd ordinarily not consider this goofy-looking young Slav a threat, now is not the time to be careless. In one hand he holds a Canon PowerShot, in the other, a pistol -- I've never really learned too much about these primitive gunpowder weapons, so I couldn't identify the model, but I know any of them could kill me if I get careless. He had just drawn the pistol and was aiming it at the frightened girl, but now he is pivoting towards the doorway, towards me.

My reaction time is limited in this case; I see only one easy way to guarantee my safety and that of the primary target. I was given broad latitude in dealing with the secondary target, so this should fit the bill nicely. In my hand I have a gun of my own, though the baggage screeners at the airport certainly didn't recognize it as one; it looks like no more than a thin rectangular plastic wand. As I line up with the deranged man's center of mass, I squeeze the device slightly. The man lets out a soundless scream of pain as his feet lift off the ground and he writhes in agony in mid-air. The walls and ceiling of the hotel room seem to warp and melt as localized geometry goes briefly non-Euclidean; the man becomes a barely-recognizable blur of swirling particles and geometric shapes. Electricity for the entire hotel flickers on and off, and with a barely-audible pop, the man is gone. The floor where he was standing is now covered by a light dusting of a strangely dense pinkish-white diamagnetic metallic powder that would surely be mistaken for bismuth.

The girl looks terrified now; I step back, trying to appear non-threatening. "It's okay, you're safe now."

She seems skeptical, but she puts on a brave face. "What happened to him?"
"That would take too long to explain."
"Is he alive?"
"That would also take too long to explain."
"Did you come here to rescue me?"
"Not exactly, but you should be glad I did come."
"Yeah, thanks. You aren't going to rape me, are you?"
"Not exactly. Hold on a minute. Sit down, relax, calm down a little. I have to take care of the door."

-continued-