Just WRITE: Going Underground

My husband is playing Fortnite. It's nearly impossible to concentrate on certain things. Here's my attempt at brain dumping for the sake of practicing writing while your hubs is playing Fortnite next to you. lol enjoy

I wear tight-fitting gloves with plenty of grip. The material is thin, making it easy for me to feel the heartstring pull of the trigger. The gloves stop just at my wrist, not quite covering the number tattooed there. The number that says that I am not a free person. I'm a slave to the Allied Federation.

Still, as far as slaves go, an assassin for hire is a fairly fluid line of work. Should a Federation Assassin get caught in a restricted area to civilians, all that would be necessary is to show the wrist tattoo which has a neat bar code, scannable by any federation officer. Not that anyone would ever notice me. That's kind of the whole point: cloak and dagger and all.

I suppose I should clarify: there are many types of assassins working under Federation Slavery or just...you know, assassins in general. There is the silent "Kill an emissary" type assassin, of course and the "Holy, Crap! Someone shot the president!" kind. Then there's me. And other very special persons like me.

If you've ever heard of a "tactical assassination," that's a term referencing the kind of work I do. Loosely associated with a team, tactical assassins are battle- hardy, primed to blitz, pummel, shoot, stab and any other smash/destroy/kill verb you can think of. They call in a TA team when they need a highly-guarded sheikh in the middle east taken out in the dead of night.

Now let me back up here because you MAY have noticed in the above statement the choice of wording, "loosely associated with a team," and maybe even thought to yourself: Gee. I'm not really sure how someone can be loosely associated with something that clearly is designed to be done as a team!" Well caught, Dear Reader. And let me offer this as a rebuttal: Mind your own damn business.

"I don't have any damn thermite!"

Ehh... that's Sierra for you. Exactly 14 seconds from finding some.

And that's my point. We're good at our business. Like, really, really good. You don't hear about us. Hell, we don't even hear about us. TAs like us don't exactly get our rocks off with silenced pistols. Decades of death. It just gets... boring.

So when Alice told me she was working on a side hustle, I only had one thing to say:

"Alice Gray, you sonofaboob! I'm in!"

Death happens to dance quite well with decapitalization. Decapitation, on the other hand, lost it's rhythm for me pretty early on. Too quick. Well, eventually it's too quick. Took me about a month to catch on, but it turns out that the axe has to be sharpened and oiled pretty well, otherwise you end up with metal "teeth" that like to stick to the bone. Linseed oil and a little smoothstone, and that axe dives in and out of tendons, sinew, bone, whatever waits beneath their flesh.

"Catch!" I yell as I toss the thermite into the air. Sierra catches it in one hand, giving me "The Look." As she does. We both know the thermite is harmless unless charged. Or at least, when handled safely, it is. PERHAPS smacking into the ground as gravity body slams the detonator to the ground MAY have it's risks.

Spinning to the vault, Alice places the thermite just below the vault locks and sets the charge. I check my watch. 43 seconds until detonation. I set to work opening the various duffel bags brought for the mission. Worst case scenario, the bags are discovered when tossed (at a predetermined location, of course), strategically placed to seem random to the odd pursuer. Best case scenario we walk out with payload AND a nice stack to bring home for the kiddos.

"10 seconds," I call out and Alice nods her head in confirmation, looking at her of watch synchronized with mine. "3...2..."

"1," Sierra joins and the vault door groans in protest as a grinding staccato perforates the air as the multi-charge in the thermite casing goes. Even with ear plugs, the noise is enough to grate your skull so I clap my gloved hands over my ears for added protection.

Several thumps and thuds call to us from above. Several expected thumps. On cue, Sierra sets a second detonation, A much smaller one, set just beneath the floor of the security office. It seemed almost as if the heist were blessed to have the security office and breakroom so conveniently placed above the chemical storage cage in the basement. Ironically the storage cage was just on the other side of the vault wall, and from outside the vault, we could clearly hear the assorted swears, shouts and sputtering from the bank's officers as they worked to cough up the thick cloud of dust now coating the backs of their throats.

"You all roy, mates?" Alice called to the group. Now it was my turn to give the look.

"What?!" Alice challenged as she so often did.

"They could be bleeding out as we speak and here you are-"

"They are NOT bleeding out..." Alice began.

"HERE YOU ARE making jokes at their plight..." I continued just about the time she was saying something about padding the storage cage ahead of time.

"Yeah, yeah," I lulled casually with the implication that I'd lost interest in our game. "Are you going to grab the payload now or are we just going to sit around until the cops get here."

"I was just about to grab it and you were distracting me...." Alice trailed off as she headed into the vault.

Hey.....even assassins need to have a sense of humor every once in a while.