Theresa "Tess" Servopoulos (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
dog_eat_dog) wrote2013-09-17 12:45 pm
dog_eat_dog) wrote2013-09-17 12:45 pm
Entry tags:
FICLET 010
This is how the assassination attempt goes.
Tess gets up early to do the drop. Most people up at this hour are up so they can hit the ration lines early; this is never Tess' concern, largely because she pays people to do it for her, but often because the rations office doesn't open these days like it used to. To the rest of the working world, however, she is just another person tasked with collecting rations for her household.
While most people turn left on the street at the end of their lane and go through the checkpoints to get in line, she turns right, goes up two blocks, and then ducks into a house. The man at the door lets her by wordlessly, his large frame blocking the doorway behind her.
In the house, she picks up a bag that is waiting for her, and she lets herself out the back. The alley connects her with another house (with a woman who lets her by after seeing who she is) and in there she goes down to the basement, where there is a passage under the street. She emerges in another district, slides through a checkpoint with false identification, dodges a random search with a smile and a ration card slid into a back pocket, and walks six blocks to meet with her contact at an old convenience store.
"Much appreciated," the contact says, in some exaggerated "gentlemanly" way, but it doesn't suit him, or his meth-addicted pallor, or his too-skinny rat-like look. Tess hands over the bag, as well as a parcel from her own backpack. The contact checks through all the items –– bottles of pills, including a bottle of morphine.
That bottle of morphine alone will feed her and Joel for a month.
He lets out a low whistle, checking over the bottle.
"I don' know how ya do it, Tess," he says.
"Easy," Tess says. "Nobody dares fuck with me."
He laughs and holds out a whole sheaf of ration cards.
"I dunno, I heard someone might," he replies.
That smirk of hers twitches, her eyes growing harder for a moment. She takes the ration cards and pockets them, and with a lifted chin, she asks him, "Yeah?"
"Yah," her contact says. "Someone might. Fair warning, eh?"
She knows who 'someone' is. Tess gives an amused 'tch' and turns. With a flippant wave for 'thanks' she heads out, back into the street and the early morning air, retracing her steps back.
A short while later, only three blocks from the checkpoint, a bullet whizzes by her head and chips the brick across from her. Tess doesn't even turn to look to see from where it came; she ducks for cover, moving into a doorway and unholstering her own gun from the holster inside her pants.
There's shouting, and Tess immediately knows what's up. She pivots, gets a decent view of the alley and the rooftops above, and two more bullets chip into the doorway's edge. Both miss.
"Aim first, shithead," she calls out, and when she shifts her weight so she can see out, she has to duck back in again quickly. God, she hates doorways, they're such vulnerable places, but her very real fear is smothered by adrenaline, and indignant anger.
"Come out and we'll go easy on you," calls a man's voice in return.
"No," she spits.
Tess hears the crunch of gravel under boots, and the metallic click of a gun chambering a new round. She waits, counts to five, and then peeks out again. There's a gun right around the corner, trained on her.
"Come out," the man says. He's easily taller than Tess, maybe even twice her weight, but his heavy coat could just be giving him that appearance. Tess sizes him up, even with a gun in her face, and she eases out of her spot and moves in front of him.
'Someone' is real desperate if he's hiring idiots like these ones.
"We're here to deliver a message from Robert," the man says, and then the "we'll" from before makes itself apparent –– a second man is just behind him, also holding a gun, though that one is trained on the ground. "Drop your gun."
Tess doesn't do it. She knows it isn't a message, it's a death call. Instead, she shoots her gun without even raising it to sight with. The bullet gets the guy in the lower abdomen, and he screams but doesn't go down. Tess didn't expect it to –– right now, she just needs to throw him off.
He doesn't shoot her, though, he's just mad. He reaches and grabs her by her gun hand and throws her weight around, slamming her against the brick, and she fires once in the struggle. Both men are shouting, and she's snarling, and she feels her skin grate as she's pressed face-first against the brick. Struggling makes it worse, but like she gives a shit.
"Drop the gun," the bigger guy snaps, but she's got it in her hand and he can't take it from her without dropping his own. His buddy approaches, tries to intervene, but Tess lashes out with a backwards kick that catches him in the balls.
Christ, they act like she's never done this before. They act like she doesn't know exactly what to do in this situation. They act like she can't handle herself, like she hasn't had twenty years to master dropping thugs like flies.
"Fucking bitch!"
And then Tess gets her head jerked against the brick hard, but it gives her just enough momentum to force her body around. A bullet whizzes by her neck but misses. Though her gun hand is pinned against the wall and he's got a gun on her, she gets her other arm out and grabs the guy's gun and forces it down, and then she kicks out to tag him with her boot.
That's all it takes to get the guy fumbling, struggling, and Tess gets her gun hand free and she shoots the fucker point-blank in the face, right under the nose. He goes down, knees first before crumpling backwards, his nasal cavity pouring blood like a faucet.
"What the fuck!" screams the other guy, pointing his gun at her. He's clearly panicking. They didn't think it'd be this hard, Tess knows, but Robert was wrong. Robert doesn't know jack shit. Robert's too much of a coward to send his best guys, he's probably kept those as personal bodyguards.
And Robert especially underestimates her if he thinks just 'cause Joel's snoozing the morning away that she'll have trouble dealing with two underpaid fucks who think they'll get a chance to "get lucky" before taking out the woman they've been paid to assassinate. After all, that's the only reason why they didn't just cap her when they had her against the wall.
Men are scum.
"You think I give a shit about a gun in my face?" she asks the remaining thug, her own gun pointed at him, her free hand gesturing at the wasted body at her feet. "Come on. Tell me where Robert is and I'll let you live."
He fires, when Tess moves towards him, but he misses, the stupid fuck, because he goes for a head shot right-off. She doesn't miss, though; she double-taps and puts two bullets in his chest, and he drops, too, immediately wheezing as his windpipe fills with blood.
"So where's Robert?"
The stupid fuck tells her, through choked gasps, as if telling her would somehow save his life at that point. She steps on his wrist and picks up his gun.
"Thanks," she says, pacing around him. His eyes follow her, his free hand on his chest, clutching as if that could draw out the bullets embedded in his lungs.
When she gets within a foot of his head, she raises a knee; he starts gasping in panic and and brings her foot down directly on his neck. She feels a snap beneath her foot, and the man stops even wheezing.
He'll be dead in thirty seconds, but Tess doesn't wait to pat him down. She gets a ration card, a flashlight and some spare bullets for her trouble. Then she loots the other one, getting both his handgun –– a fucking Glock, but it'll get her something nice –– and a sample-size bottle of whiskey.
Not bad, she thinks, and with her loot stashed in her bag, she continues her walk. There's a shake to her shoulders and a hitch to her breath but she breathes, steady and determined, until it subsides.
She's got the rest of her day planned, now.
Robert's gonna fucking pay.
Tess gets up early to do the drop. Most people up at this hour are up so they can hit the ration lines early; this is never Tess' concern, largely because she pays people to do it for her, but often because the rations office doesn't open these days like it used to. To the rest of the working world, however, she is just another person tasked with collecting rations for her household.
While most people turn left on the street at the end of their lane and go through the checkpoints to get in line, she turns right, goes up two blocks, and then ducks into a house. The man at the door lets her by wordlessly, his large frame blocking the doorway behind her.
In the house, she picks up a bag that is waiting for her, and she lets herself out the back. The alley connects her with another house (with a woman who lets her by after seeing who she is) and in there she goes down to the basement, where there is a passage under the street. She emerges in another district, slides through a checkpoint with false identification, dodges a random search with a smile and a ration card slid into a back pocket, and walks six blocks to meet with her contact at an old convenience store.
"Much appreciated," the contact says, in some exaggerated "gentlemanly" way, but it doesn't suit him, or his meth-addicted pallor, or his too-skinny rat-like look. Tess hands over the bag, as well as a parcel from her own backpack. The contact checks through all the items –– bottles of pills, including a bottle of morphine.
That bottle of morphine alone will feed her and Joel for a month.
He lets out a low whistle, checking over the bottle.
"I don' know how ya do it, Tess," he says.
"Easy," Tess says. "Nobody dares fuck with me."
He laughs and holds out a whole sheaf of ration cards.
"I dunno, I heard someone might," he replies.
That smirk of hers twitches, her eyes growing harder for a moment. She takes the ration cards and pockets them, and with a lifted chin, she asks him, "Yeah?"
"Yah," her contact says. "Someone might. Fair warning, eh?"
She knows who 'someone' is. Tess gives an amused 'tch' and turns. With a flippant wave for 'thanks' she heads out, back into the street and the early morning air, retracing her steps back.
A short while later, only three blocks from the checkpoint, a bullet whizzes by her head and chips the brick across from her. Tess doesn't even turn to look to see from where it came; she ducks for cover, moving into a doorway and unholstering her own gun from the holster inside her pants.
There's shouting, and Tess immediately knows what's up. She pivots, gets a decent view of the alley and the rooftops above, and two more bullets chip into the doorway's edge. Both miss.
"Aim first, shithead," she calls out, and when she shifts her weight so she can see out, she has to duck back in again quickly. God, she hates doorways, they're such vulnerable places, but her very real fear is smothered by adrenaline, and indignant anger.
"Come out and we'll go easy on you," calls a man's voice in return.
"No," she spits.
Tess hears the crunch of gravel under boots, and the metallic click of a gun chambering a new round. She waits, counts to five, and then peeks out again. There's a gun right around the corner, trained on her.
"Come out," the man says. He's easily taller than Tess, maybe even twice her weight, but his heavy coat could just be giving him that appearance. Tess sizes him up, even with a gun in her face, and she eases out of her spot and moves in front of him.
'Someone' is real desperate if he's hiring idiots like these ones.
"We're here to deliver a message from Robert," the man says, and then the "we'll" from before makes itself apparent –– a second man is just behind him, also holding a gun, though that one is trained on the ground. "Drop your gun."
Tess doesn't do it. She knows it isn't a message, it's a death call. Instead, she shoots her gun without even raising it to sight with. The bullet gets the guy in the lower abdomen, and he screams but doesn't go down. Tess didn't expect it to –– right now, she just needs to throw him off.
He doesn't shoot her, though, he's just mad. He reaches and grabs her by her gun hand and throws her weight around, slamming her against the brick, and she fires once in the struggle. Both men are shouting, and she's snarling, and she feels her skin grate as she's pressed face-first against the brick. Struggling makes it worse, but like she gives a shit.
"Drop the gun," the bigger guy snaps, but she's got it in her hand and he can't take it from her without dropping his own. His buddy approaches, tries to intervene, but Tess lashes out with a backwards kick that catches him in the balls.
Christ, they act like she's never done this before. They act like she doesn't know exactly what to do in this situation. They act like she can't handle herself, like she hasn't had twenty years to master dropping thugs like flies.
"Fucking bitch!"
And then Tess gets her head jerked against the brick hard, but it gives her just enough momentum to force her body around. A bullet whizzes by her neck but misses. Though her gun hand is pinned against the wall and he's got a gun on her, she gets her other arm out and grabs the guy's gun and forces it down, and then she kicks out to tag him with her boot.
That's all it takes to get the guy fumbling, struggling, and Tess gets her gun hand free and she shoots the fucker point-blank in the face, right under the nose. He goes down, knees first before crumpling backwards, his nasal cavity pouring blood like a faucet.
"What the fuck!" screams the other guy, pointing his gun at her. He's clearly panicking. They didn't think it'd be this hard, Tess knows, but Robert was wrong. Robert doesn't know jack shit. Robert's too much of a coward to send his best guys, he's probably kept those as personal bodyguards.
And Robert especially underestimates her if he thinks just 'cause Joel's snoozing the morning away that she'll have trouble dealing with two underpaid fucks who think they'll get a chance to "get lucky" before taking out the woman they've been paid to assassinate. After all, that's the only reason why they didn't just cap her when they had her against the wall.
Men are scum.
"You think I give a shit about a gun in my face?" she asks the remaining thug, her own gun pointed at him, her free hand gesturing at the wasted body at her feet. "Come on. Tell me where Robert is and I'll let you live."
He fires, when Tess moves towards him, but he misses, the stupid fuck, because he goes for a head shot right-off. She doesn't miss, though; she double-taps and puts two bullets in his chest, and he drops, too, immediately wheezing as his windpipe fills with blood.
"So where's Robert?"
The stupid fuck tells her, through choked gasps, as if telling her would somehow save his life at that point. She steps on his wrist and picks up his gun.
"Thanks," she says, pacing around him. His eyes follow her, his free hand on his chest, clutching as if that could draw out the bullets embedded in his lungs.
When she gets within a foot of his head, she raises a knee; he starts gasping in panic and and brings her foot down directly on his neck. She feels a snap beneath her foot, and the man stops even wheezing.
He'll be dead in thirty seconds, but Tess doesn't wait to pat him down. She gets a ration card, a flashlight and some spare bullets for her trouble. Then she loots the other one, getting both his handgun –– a fucking Glock, but it'll get her something nice –– and a sample-size bottle of whiskey.
Not bad, she thinks, and with her loot stashed in her bag, she continues her walk. There's a shake to her shoulders and a hitch to her breath but she breathes, steady and determined, until it subsides.
She's got the rest of her day planned, now.
Robert's gonna fucking pay.