I put on a mask and made sure my face was totally covered. Then, I opened the door to the hotel room and tossed a flash grenade inside, one strong enough to make Lucius the Second’s goons lose their sight for two to three minutes, enough time for me to take them out. After hearing muffled noises of people falling on the floor and yelling, I decided to yank the door open for a second time and infiltrate into the room.

Looking around me, I saw three blinded men guarding a closed door—probably Lucius’ bedroom. I sneaked behind the first man, snaked my hands around his neck and squeezed. Unable to speak, he slowly lost his senses and ended up on the floor.

The second man was a more difficult target. Somehow, he was able to hear the faint, yet agonizing, sounds of his friend fighting for breath, so he was now on high alert.

“Hey! Be careful! Someone has entered the room,” he uttered, rubbing his eyes, trying to get back his sight faster.

Unfortunately, it didn’t work that way. I took out one of the sleeping darts and closed it in my hand. This hotel room was full of things I could use to distract them, but I was not sure that the second man would be so easy to trick. I had to take off the third man, the one not moving at all, first.

This one was just standing still, sweeping his hands around, making sure that no one got close without him knowing. Every once in a while, his hands touched the wall behind him, and he jumped from shock, certain that he felt someone. He was really disoriented and seemed like an easier target.

I got closer to him, tiptoeing so he didn’t hear me, but seeing him so disoriented an idea popped in my head. I kicked the third man on the stomach with a turnaround kick with as much power I could muster within a second.

“What in the hell? Who did this?” he said, choking in pain.

The other man was alerted now as well, but that also meant that he had a clear objective: to get closer to his companion and together take me out. That would give me a good enough opening to take them both out with one strike.

“What the hell happened? Where are you?” the second man shouted behind me.

“I’m over here man, in front of the boss’ room. Someone kicked me in the stomach.” His words still came out short and muffled. He still hadn’t recovered from the hit yet.

“Stay there. I’m coming over to you. If we’re close to each other, this fucktard won’t be able to get into the room,” the second man said.

Even though he was blind, he was able to successfully arrive in front of Lucius’ room quickly. He was the only one that seemed to be professionally trained to handle situations like this one calmly. It was possible he had some kind of military background, enough to knock out a common thief or every other enemy. Not me, though.

They knew that I was here, but they didn’t seem to be able to find me. However, I had less than a minute before being able to safely break through their barricade, capture Lucius II, and return to the ground floor before his men realized that I was the one that did it.

I fished a second sleeping dart out of my pocket and aligned them both to their bodies. Sleeping darts were impractical to use in a real battle only because since the target was usually agitated, it made it harder for the sedative to act. Adrenaline slowed down the effect of almost every drug since it acted in the exact opposite way. However, my plan mostly relied on the fact that they were standing too close to each other.

I slang the first dart to the second man, the one able to navigate around the room.

“Fuck! What was this?” he said.

“What happened? Did he get you?” the other man said.

“I don’t know. I felt something...and...” and that was it. He was out.

A six-feet tall, muscled man fell onto his shorter, but no less big, accomplice standing before the door. When that happened, the third man grunted and started moving away from Lucius’ door. He was panicking.

“Who are you? You sneaky bastard! I’m gonna find you...and...and...”

And that was it for the third man as well.

Now, the trick to getting them both, was fooling them into believing that only one of them got stung. In only a split of a second after I slang the first dart, I also hurled the second dart to the other man but lower, on his feet. So, what happened was that the one man was able to better feel the pain of the dart, but the drug acted faster since it was closer to his head, while the second man, worried about his friend, didn’t have a single clue that I had already gotten him too. So, now, I walked around the empty room, heading straight for Lucius’ room without any more hindrances.

Everything was going according to my plan, everything except for a woman screaming at the top of her lungs for help behind the door.

I hurried inside, not caring if it was a trap or not.

“Shut the fuck up, you bitch,” Lucius, a fat, old man said as he slapped the girl in the face hard enough to toss her on the ground.

Everything happened at once that I didn’t have time to think; I acted on pure instinct. Lucius spotted me walking into the room and headed straight for his gun on the bedside table. I, on the other hand, stared at the young woman that had fallen on her knees, unable to move, dressed as a common hooker in a dancing club on Mars. That was when I knew what I had to do.

Instead of going after Lucius, I started straight for the girl. I strode to her side and turned to face Lucius the Second, a man that would do anything to get out of this mess with his freedom and money intact. However, I didn’t know if he would be that lucky with his life.

I shielded the poor girl with my body and took off my gun. I aimed for his back. It took me a moment to get a clear shot at him; this place was like a room inside a room, there were countless sofas and armchairs and even two screens in the way. But when I did, I fired away.

At that moment, Jasih came to my mind. This laser pistol was his gift to me for one of my birthdays, after I had qualified as a First Kind. I had never used it before, not even once, but something in today’s mission felt...off. I didn’t have another choice.

Did I?

Fortunately, laser beams were too fast for the eye to catch, so when I saw again Lucius’ disgusting, greasy hair, he was lying on the floor inside a pool of blood. It took me a moment to think that all this blood didn’t come from my shot; laser guns scorched the wound, resulting in a clean cut, perfect for executions. His head had hit on the edge of one of the many sofas and burst.

The girl behind me puked at the sight of blood and brains scattered everywhere around the room, and it wasn’t too long before she ran out of the room, screaming like the devil himself was chasing her. I would have to track her down later and convince her to move out of Space Colony Exposure if she wanted to keep her life, but until then, I let her go. She almost lost her life today.

* * *

My plan was ruined. I had to call my associate to abandon his position in the security office and insert the true feed of what happened to the system. Seeing Lucius lying on the floor, a mixed feeling of regret and proudness filled me. Yeah, I couldn’t bring the man to justice, but at least, I could bring his extensive archives on every transaction Echo Brigade had ever done to the light. There was enough juice in here to arrest half the system.

Still, it didn’t feel right. A man lost his life today. A bad man, but a living person no less.

A cold calmness surrounded me. There was nothing I could do about it now, so I returned to the archives. Countless names ordering unspeakable amounts of weaponry were recorded with details on his personal computer. To be honest, there were names in the list that I didn’t even recognize. Of course, the same thing applied to the people that I did. Especially one specific person that the espionage division of the First Kinds was chasing around for two years now.

This man was a number one target in fifteen Esuh systems, and of course, Sol. However, that wasn’t why I was able to discern his name among thousands of others. Instead, it was the uniqueness of his request that made me find him at a glimpse.

“What in the world? Why did he get weapon smugglers to procure an ancient relic for him? And how did they find it in the first place? Aren’t they supposed to trade only weapons?” I spoke to myself.

I made sure I got it right, but after one more quick sweep of the other names, only his had the word “ancient relic” right next to it.

While I was trying to figure out the mystery behind this unusual entry, my jewelry-computer rang. I swiped my hand over it, and the holographic display appeared; it was a call from Jasih.

A smile quickly lightened my face. He was one sly bastard for putting a bug in my computer. He knew that the only time I was going to use it would be during my retrieval mission. Well, he was right.

But, that inventiveness of his was also the reason why I still loved him so much.