It was a cold and miserable night in Portland, Oregon, with the rain and wind whipping against my body as I laid prone on the sixteenth-floor balcony of a hotel.  I ignored it.  It was uncomfortable, but also afforded me better cover.  No one else would be going outside on the nearby balconies with this squall.

Behind me, in the suite and on the bed laid James Winters.  I shook my head at the brief thought of regret that I didn’t sleep with him first, not a good idea, especially on a job.  Still, he’d been confident, respectful, and despite being about fifteen years older he was quite handsome.  Under other circumstances, our brief time together would have been much different, and far more pleasant.

I was rather picky with my one night stands, it was just that James had the misfortune to be my type but not on the right night.  It wasn’t that I preferred one night stands to a relationship either, it was simply that I wasn’t allowed one.  A relationship that is.  And… a girl had needs.

James was fine, asleep, and drugged to forget he’d ever met me.  He’d wake up tomorrow morning a bit confused, and get on with his life.  Or… he’d be answering questions he had no answers to, for the police.  In truth, I doubted the authorities would successfully back trace the shot, but it was possible.

I’d picked him up at the bar, or more accurately, I had allowed him to pick me up, to avoid any trail that could possibly lead back to me.  Others at the bar might remember the older gentleman picking up a blonde at the bar, but I’d been wearing a wig.  My real hair was light brown, and I’d already wiped off the caked on makeup, and removed the inserts I had in my cheeks to modify my face.

In short, I wasn’t worried about it.  This way was a much cleaner way of dealing with it, rather than trying to use a fake ID and check into the hotel myself.  When I was done, there’d be no sign I was ever here.  I even made sure to wipe down every place I’d touched, and had worn gloves ever since.

A tremor went through my body and I clenched my teeth.  Now wasn’t exactly the best time for that issue to rear its head.  My target was due to leave any moment now from the building across the street, and just over a block away.  I’d done my research on my target, John Burns was a real piece of work.  Not that it mattered, I worked for a black ops group that didn’t officially exist.  It didn’t even have a name that I was aware of, and I killed whoever they pointed me at.  Luckily for my sense of justice, that usually turned out to be someone in desperate need of killing.

But… not always.

I considered reaching for the syringe in my bag, but dismissed it, I’d last long enough to do the job.  I wasn’t exactly normal, more of a freaky genetic experiment really, and while the scientists had been mostly successful, I had issues.  I’d long come to terms with that, it was who I was, and what I was.

A perfect weapon.

My proprioception was off the charts, my spatial awareness was without peer, and as a bonus they’d managed to make me a genius, as well as beautiful.  I was as limber as a gymnast, and strong for a woman but not absurdly so.  My beauty wasn’t the kind that would draw every eye in the room no matter what, that would be dangerous for a woman in my work, but with a little effort, and the right dress, I could easily do so, or I could choose to blend in and be just one more nameless face in the crowd.

It was useful, for times when I needed to seduce my way into a hotel room.  I looked like any nineteen-year-old on the cusp of twenty, long light brown hair, light brown eyes, long eyelashes and full lips.  Attractive face, olive skin, but not without flaw.  My body was athletic but still curvy enough to catch a man’s eye, or go unnoticed if I dressed in loose clothes.

In short, the enhanced proprioception meant if I knew where it was, I could hit it with a knife or bullet without even looking.  It wasn’t that I didn’t have to aim, it was more that I aimed the gun or thrown knife with my body.  The enhanced spatial awareness meant I always knew what and who was around me at all times, even if I couldn’t see them, my other senses could map out a room and the positions other people were in.  Which meant I always knew where stuff was.

Those two abilities combined together were formidable.

The strangest part of it, was my intuition was enhanced as well.  I wouldn’t say I could see the future, but I was highly successful at guessing what my opponent would do next.  My martial arts instructors had hated that, since it usually meant a short five foot seven slip of a girl was kicking their ass.  Of course, I’d filled out since then.

It wasn’t all perfect though.  There was the downside to the genetic design which made me a perfect killer.  Some kind of imbalance in my body chemistry, that led to tremors, which would eventually lead to full blown seizures.  If it went on long enough, coma and death would follow.  I had medicine from the doctors in the program that managed that issue, and I was regretting not taking care of it an hour ago when I still had time.  When I took the shot of medicine, I knew I’d be worthless for a couple of minutes, as my body reacted violently to the shot.  It wasn’t fun, but I accepted it.  Not that I had a choice, it was either accept it or lay down and die.

I was just nineteen years old, and had never been to school, forget the idea of me ever having any semblance of a normal childhood.  I was a weapon, and I belonged to the United States government.  Fortunately, I didn’t live in a lab anymore, I had my own apartment in sunny California, just outside of Los Angeles since I was sixteen, a nice house near the beach in Santa Monica.  I was even able to get some hobbies and have somewhat of a semblance of a normal life, though relationships were forbidden, thus the one night stands.

They shipped the drugs to me every month, and my bank account grew each time I took out a target.  My targets came to me over twitter, using a complex code I had long ago memorized, I was able to translate rants against big brother into instructions on who I was to kill.  The reason for my independence was obvious enough to me, even if they thought I didn’t know.  If I was ever pinched, I’d be disavowed and sent to jail like any other independent assassin in the world.

Except in my case, I’d die within a week without my drugs.  Which is where the proverbial leash came in.  I could never disappear and strike out on my own, not without knowing how to make the drugs.  Sometimes I wondered if what the scientists had claimed to be a mistake, was also done on purpose, just like all the rest of my enhancements.  A built-in control mechanism, and if I ever defied authority, they’d simply withhold the drug and let me die.

In short, it was my life, or the one given to me.  I had no choice.  It helped that John Burns was a crook, and had ties to terrorists.  I had no qualms about killing men like that to keep myself safe.

My greatest fear was that one day the black ops division I belonged to would be shut down, and the drugs would just stop.  The last two years I’d been bending my genius mind towards biochemistry, in a secret lab I had in my basement, but so far, I had no idea how to make the serum.  Although, I had been able to map out its molecular structure manufacturing it was a whole other issue to actually make it.  If I ever figured it out, I’d retire and disappear.

I looked through the scope, it was hard to see even with its light enhancing features, and the wind was a bitch.  Still, the .338 slug was effective up to eighteen hundred yards away with this sniper rifle, the shot I had set up would only be about a hundred and eighty yards, even in the high winds I wouldn’t miss at so close a range, not with my intuition to help me out with the wind shear.

My target stepped out of the restaurant, and I paused my exhale half way, then squeezed the trigger.

Crack!  Even with a silencer, the noise was loud.  Still, over the wind and rain I doubted it was heard down on the street.

The back of his head exploded like a watermelon at a Gallagher show. 

I calmly broke down the rifle and put it in the briefcase in pieces, careful to dry off each piece as it went in, with a light coat of gun oil.  I went inside, and dropped the white robe on the floor, and dried off before I got dressed.  I hadn’t wanted my clothes to be soaking wet.  The towel, robe, and silver briefcase went in a duffel bag, and I walked out of the hotel room and toward the stairs.  A teen with a duffel bag would be forgotten in moments, a teen girl with a large silver briefcase would have stood out in their minds.

Everything went into the trunk of my car, which was two blocks away from the hotel, and I took my shot before I started south toward Los Angeles.  My whole body trembled and shook, it was both painful and pleasurable at the same time, and I was unaware of my surroundings for several minutes. 

Several minutes every week was the only time I was completely vulnerable.

It was a fourteen-hour drive to Santa Monica, not fun at all, but that was better than anyone knowing I’d been anywhere near Portland.  As long as I followed the traffic laws, I’d be set.  When I got home, I’d clean my rifle, and then put it in a hidden safe beneath the house.  I’d prefer to eliminate all risks, but decided that was less of a risk than storing my toys elsewhere.

As for the towel and robe, they’d disappear into a dumpster at a truck stop somewhere along the way.

Plus, I’d just made a hundred grand, seemed worth the thirty-hour round trip drive, and a few hours in a hotel…