The Assassin's Little Black Book

“What in the world happened, where am I!?” Those were the 1st words that Dakota Hargreaves spoke as he woke up in a foreign room. On the wall in front of him was a television that displayed the date and time. “August 4th 2042, and it’s 11am!? I’ve been out for 2 days!” Panicked and still woozy, he tried to stand up. His legs were weak and he had bruises and knots on him as if he had been into a serious fight. He walked over towards the door and tried to open it. As he turned the knob, a loud automated voice blasted from a speaker above his head. “Dakota Hargreaves, you have been activated and selected for termination, thank you for being a valuable asset to the company!” Dakota started to tremble and sweat as his eyes grew wide with the fear of pending demise. “Activated for termination, what’s going on and who is behind that door that knows me!?” He frantically looked for an escape and couldn’t find one. He had to try and replay the events that may have landed him there. “Come on Kota, think…. Think!!” He remembered he was at a fancy soiree that he had received a mysterious invitation to attend. He was reluctant to go at 1st, but his curiosity got the best of him. He remembered rubbing elbows with some top names. His head started to hurt as he forced himself to relive the past 48 hours. Rubbing down the nape of his neck, he felt some welts and also had a knot on the back of his head. “They probably thought I was wealthy and targeted me after that fancy party.” As he stood there rubbing the back if his head, the heavy door sprang open. Two huge and heavily armored beings walked in to grab him. “No wait, this is a mistake! You have the wrong guy, this is illegal!! I’m just a truck driver man, please let me go, I’ll give you what you want if you let me live!” The two armored beings ignored his pleas and kept dragging him down the hall into an abandoned room. They sat him in a chair and didn’t bother to restrain him. He sat there thinking that he was in a nightmare, he pinched himself multiple times to wake up. “Dakota Hargreaves 09826519, we have been expecting you. You have been rather busy and careless as of late. We asked you to complete the task and yet you botched the job!” Dakota started to question the man who’s voice was coming through the intercom. “Who are you people and where am I? I don’t know anything about a job. The only job I know is my route that I deliver to! What do y’all want from me!?” There was a long pause before the man on the intercom spoke again, “Don’t play coy with us, it wouldn’t be in your best interest right now. We activated you via that invitation and you were suppose to have taken out the President. And to make matters worse, you lost your ledger. Those little black books we give you are chipped to explode if the user gets 5 yards away from it. Where is yours?” Dakota thought very hard, “what ledger is he talking about!?” As his mind started to kick harder and his memory was less hazy, he recalled seeing a woman’s face. She was at the party with him and he could see her clearly. She had hazel eyes and natural hair, her red and black dress hugged voluptuous curves, her voice had a southern twang that made him take notice. The two talked throughout the night and even left together. The only name he could remember was Naija, she had given it to him as they departed the party. Where did they go to afterwards? He couldn’t remember anything past the parking lot. The voice came back on the speaker. “Where is your ledger? We noticed that your personal chip has been removed from your shoulder as well. Your stitches are fresh, so it happened recently. All assassin’s carry their ledgers with them, if they were ever able to fall into the wrong hands, the consequences would be rather grave for us. With that last sentence a button was pressed. “Ahhhhhhhh, what the hell is going on!!!? Make it stop, please!” Dakota writhed with pain as he held his head and tears ran down his face. The pain was so intense that he urinated on himself. He laid in a fetal position sobbing because he actually was clueless about everything. Once he had removed the microchip from his shoulder, the elites were notified. Dakota was unaware of the second disciplinary chip that was implanted in his head. He wasn’t aware that if he removed either chip then he would lose his memory in many different ways. That’s why he couldn’t remember anything, the one constant was the party. If he could find the woman and talk to her then he could sort everything out. “Wait… please don’t kill me! I can get the answers you need if u give me a week! That’s all I ask of you!” He sat on his knees, sweat covering him and tears streaming as his head throbbed as if it was going to explode. His nose had started to bleed from the intensity of the device in his head. The room was quiet for several minutes before the man spoke again. “You have one week, if u try to escape or go off script in any way, we will kill you without hesitation.” The voice was so calm and cold, Dakota knew that the man was very serious. The door opened and he was carried to the main entrance and thrown outside. He flipped his wrist and his Halozex communication device came on. He typed in “HOME" and his GPS took him to a small apartment. When he got inside he walked to the bedroom and saw an envelope sitting on his bed. He opened it up and counted out $20,000. “ Wowwww, where did this come from!? What have I gotten myself into? I’ve never seen this much money at 1 time!” He put the envelope in his pocket and he looked for the last entry on his Halozex. It gave him directions that he put in the night he lost his memories. “That’s where I’ll find my answers I bet!” He keyed in a command to his Halozex and his car came around to him. He went and put in the coordinates and a HUD popped up on his windshield. He drove to the location and got out. He walked to the door and rang the bell. It was unusual because the house wasn’t as updated as he was use to. It had an old 20th century look. Not much technology to it at all. A woman opened the door and she looked up and her jaw dropped. Dakota noticed and said, “That look, Naija it’s me, Dakota! You remember me from the party the other night right?” “I don’t know anyone by that name!” She tried to hurriedly close the door. But he wedged his foot in the door. “Please, you have to help me! You are my last memory from that night and people are trying to kill me!” The woman looked around and had him to remove his Halozex before coming in. He started looking around and noticed that she had a lot of books, he needed answers though. “Naija what is going on? And what happened to me that night?” “My name is not Naija, it’s Alyssa. I’m an agent with a secret society tasked to take down your company. We are off the books and will be disavowed If we are ever discovered. You are an assassin, and I use to work for the same people that you work for before I was rescued.” Hardly able to take it in, Dakota started to laugh before he spoke. “You mean to tell me that you think I’m an assassin, ME!? That’s ridiculous, you think I’d be living in squalor if I was a hired hitman?!” She gave him a run down of the events of that night. “I was tasked to you after we got wind that The Corporation wanted to kill the president to gain political standing. You were at the party and I intercepted you. I knew you had to look interested. So I made myself interesting and I drugged your beverage before you could complete your task. But as we left it wasn’t working fast enough. I hit you in the head and started taking your microchip out. As I started to sew you up, the chip sent out a distress signal and I couldn’t wake you up in time. Your little black notebook, “the ledger” as they call it, was next to you. I grabbed it and left you there. I wanted to save you but I couldn’t. I also knew that you would be killed and the further you were from your ledger, the greater risk it was for an explosion. I took the chip from the book and hid as the van picked you up. Your ledger has every mission you’ve ever carried out, in full detail.” She walked over to a bookshelf and opened a big book and showed him his little black book. He sat there looking through it with astonishment. He didn’t realize he had another life. “You think you’re poor and that’s only true when you aren’t activated by them. Truth is, you probably have millions in a bank account that you only see when active. I should’ve gotten your Cranial chip 1st, if they want you dead then they can push a button and fry your brain like an egg.” She pulled a device from her closet as she kept talking to him. “This will fry that Cranial chip and free you from them like it did me, ever since then I’ve fought to take them down.” She moved towards Dakota and he jumped back, “What’s that and how do I know I can trust you!?” Alyssa looked at him and plainly said, “This is going to help you. Either die by them slowly and painfully, or let me help you. You don’t know if you can trust me. But I am advising you to.” He relaxed and allowed her to use the device. It was over in a split second and he felt nothing. “Thank you, but I still don’t know where the $20,000 came from.” She was very knowledgeable about everything as she told him. “More than likely it was given to you for supplies and to cover the cost of the mission. The money doesn’t come from your pay once the mission is complete. I’d say that on a mission that big, you were looking at a $5,000,000 pay day.” Dakota got loud as she spoke. $5,000,000 and I was getting that kind of money and wasn’t aware of it!? “ Yes, they leave you active and allow you to enjoy it for a while before they deactivate you again. They tell you that once you have completed all missions then they’ll release you to enjoy your rich life. But it’s a lie, they kill you right after your last mission and all the money returns to them. So you see, that $20,000 was child’s play to the other version of you.” Dakota was infuriated, he lost so many memories because of them. They used him for a play toy, a thing to be discarded once they were done with him. He wouldn’t stand for it. He wanted answers by any means necessary. “Listen, I don’t really know who you are, but if it can get me answers and help me bring them down, then let’s do this.” But little did he know how entangled the web would get, and he was in mortal danger.