The Hitman and His Consort

LIII - History

Third Person P.O.V: - - -

Her world was shaken. It’s in absolute tatters. Who knew that a simple group of, virtually, nobodies would work up this amount of mess? The general rubbed her temples with one hand as she stared at the damage to the Mariella Labs building. These were no simple bombs they used. Clearly, they wanted to get rid of this building.

“General McGyle… what are we going to do?” a soldier called out to her as she gazed sternly over the view.

“F*ck if I know Colonel Sioare, I didn’t agree to deal with all of this in the first place,” she hissed back as she walked into the place, or at least what was left of it, filled with fire marshals trying to put out fires that slowly trying to envelop every last nook, and medical staff aiding to the injured.

“Has anyone seen Montreal?” She asked, hoping that some of her men and the authorities would be able to give her answers as they moved the dead bodies with the stretcher. A uniformed personnel approached her with a clipboard on hand,

“Excuse me, ma’am—“

“Yeah, yeah is he alive or is he not?”

“Well…We don’t know, the rooftop was demolished, and he was last reported to be there waiting for the SWAT team to be his rescue,” the man explained, making her hiss as she shook her head,

“Then he’s dead, pronounce the man dead,” she snapped as she walked deeper into the mess, even so, the man still hung on her trail,

“But ma’am, I can’t do that. We haven’t found his body yet and—“

“Cadet, we see the bombs breaking concrete of a well-funded establishment over here, what’s 200 pounds of fat going to do?” she yelled, waving the man off as she moved onwards surveying the place, and making sure no nosey reporter is in here to take a few photos and compromise the sob story that they’re going to sell to the press.

It took 20-plus years to get this project working again. First, it was Dorian Becking who led them on and left the project out of his own volition, meaning he gave up. For what reason?

His wife.

Misha was also well known during those times. Her question was why did they have to throw it away? They could succeed together. What were they thinking that they swapped a life full of accomplishments and luxury for the freedom that they didn’t even attain? Spending the remainder of their lives in hiding. Seclusion.

“General,” the familiar baritone of a man called behind her,

“Mr. Shun,” she greeted back, nodding her head low enough to be counted as respectable. The man gave her a close-lipped smile as he stood beside her, savoring the ruin of the place.

“Montreal would be begging for scraps if he wants to fix all of this,” he commented, making the general shake her head with a scoff,

“That’s if he’s alive, but sir, the man has money… renovations won’t dent his pockets,” she corrected, making the man snort, his shoulders rising as he chuckled faintly, pulling out his phone and giving it to her.

“I don’t just mean the building, general,” he remarked as General McGyle stared at the phone with millions of news and articles were flooding at an alarming rate. Articles titled with words like ‘Corrupt’, ‘wrong’, ‘evil’, ‘revolting’, and ‘appalling’ were followed by connections and relations to the labs.

‘What is this?’

She thought as she scrolled past hundreds if not thousands of public discourse and opinions until she finds one that must be one of the causes of the uproar, a detailed post with an attached file of photos about the Mariella lab’s bloody history. After that. Many others followed, they revealed everything that the labs covered.

They dug up corpses that the labs buried, taking the effort to remove the weeds and trees that grew on top of it throughout the years.

“Sh*t,” she cursed. Wondering where they got such detailed information—it’s them. They must’ve got the information beforehand and decided to release it the same day that they aimed to destroy the lab. To her, this was no mere whim for them. This was a personal attack at the lab. Whoever did this must be really intent with their goals.

“This means paperwork,” she said as she returned the phone to Mr.Shun. The man clicked his tongue, taking a whiff of the air and shaking his head.

“Yes, but not for us,” he said, making the general whip her head to look at his unfazed expression, that of peace.

Further adding to the confusion that was brewing in the general’s head. For a moment she was curious as to why would her boss make such confident claims when he was the lab’s biggest investor and she was the direct representative of the military to the lab and such so has responsibilities to take account of the institution's actions.

“Sir… you don’t mean…” she trailed off, her eyes widening at the realization.

“Yeah, why would we do the paperwork, we have no connection to the lab’s monstrosity, we’re just here for… protection and safety regulations,” he finished, and she had to cover her mouth to hide the smile that cracked itself onto her face.

“That’s… less paperwork I suppose,” she noted, making the man chuckle as he made a circular gesture with his index finger, telling his men to withdraw from the scene.

She was mildly impressed, but more than anything, her mind was filled with thoughts of the project’s doom. The first time was because the researcher himself left the project, but now the project was forced to a stop. Was it that bad that the same outcome happened twice? She could only hope it won’t take another two decades if they were to ever walk on the same path again.

After the long day, she just drove home, waiting for orders to come through, hoping that it’ll be easier than what she’s anticipated and that Mr. Shun would be true to his words. She got into her house and walked to her study, somewhat exhausted just by thinking about the current events. Falling onto her chair, and lit the small desk lamp that didn’t quite light up the room.

She slightly preferred it. The brightness would only pierce her tired-out eyes.

“Tired?” a voice asked in the darkness and like instinct, she aimed her gun where she heard the sound from.

“Who are you?” she asked, now tightly gripping the gun.

“I’m Walter Kowalski, I’m not here to kill you,”

“Good, cause that’d be impossible,”

“Don’t tempt me, either way, I’m here to ask about something,” he began, making the general raise a brow,

“Spit it out then,” she said, not asking the man to reveal himself more than he already did, so it just looked like she was talking to a faceless figure in the corner of her room.

“What do you know about the Becking’s?” the man asked. Leaving her speechless. Now knowing that whoever this man is, he belonged to the group responsible for the ruin and wreckage that Mariella labs had become and for the m******e that happened as a result.

“Why do you want to know?” she asked,

“I ask the questions general, you can put down the gun,” he offered, “I’ve recently turned over a new leaf, I won’t shoot you if you don’t shoot me,” he assured but the general could only chuckle as she squared up her arms and shoulder even more,

“I don’t trust mass murderers,”

“You don’t trust your own men?” he retorted,

“We serve a purpose, my men work for the safety of the public,”

“Then my point stands, Mariella didn’t look all that ‘safe for the public’ for me, general, do you?” he snapped again, making the woman clench her jaw in annoyance.

“Answer the question,” the man pressed even more.

She took a deep breath, still not dropping her guard, “I know that they ran away together and boarded a plane to Siberia, the plane crashed, your mother was a prominent athlete and your father was an acclaimed scientist who pioneered the research, I know as much as everyone else,” she listed, making the man hum.

“So you know nothing,” he said, making the woman’s index finger creep closer to the trigger,

“I just told you what I know, how are we supposed to know where they went after that,” she argued and the room fell into a deep, long, and tense silence.

“Did you say ‘where’?” he repeated, his tone changing with that of amusement and interest.

‘s**t’

She cursed when a chill ran up her spine, “I meant heaven or hell,” she tried to cover but the man only scoffed at her attempt,

“Like hell you did, you said where… didn’t the plane crash, did they survive?” the man asked,

As of then, the general wasn’t sure what her next step should be, maybe she should just take the shot. Given that they’re in the dark and she's in a more compromised position because the light reveals her clearly but hardly illuminated the man, this already puts her aim in a tight situation.

“General, it’s a simple question, telling me won’t jeopardize you, I’m only looking for information about them for personal reasons, vendettas if you will,” the man followed, making the woman gulp as she exhaled deeply.

“What are you going to do with it anyway, even if they are alive? We’ve been looking for them for eight years before we gave up, you’ll have no chance,” she warned, making the man hum once again.

“Don’t care, just tell me what you know and I’ll leave,” the man assured again making the general slowly drop the gun and rub her temples with one hand, falling onto her seat again. Placing both elbows on her desk.

“They’re alive, we happened to be the first responder of the crashing incident, we saw them survive the crash, they were relentless and did all they could to escape, actually they pulled the same thing you did to the lab,” she began,

“Misha proved that her physical prowess was not for show, we didn’t have better things back then and the secondary respondent's arrival time was slow, so when the other surviving passengers realized we weren’t there to rescue them they were quick to turn to us,” she followed making the man hum but not make any further comments.

“I was one of the lowest ranks during that time, so my presence wasn’t as important and they didn’t look for me particularly when I went into hiding, in fact, I think they were glad to know I probably died, women weren’t worth s**t in the military before, so it was disconcerting if not amazing to see Misha stand up to a, albeit small, platoon,” she went on, reminiscing the scene was something she could consider as one of her turning points in life.

“Yes, great, women, power, I also consider myself somewhat of a feminist, to the more informative parts than,” the man said, making her frown.

“That’s it, they survived, took one of our boats, got away, and we’ve been looking ever since, after almost a decade of no luck and being led around like a mutt, we stopped,” she finished and the man remained silent for a whole minute.

“Thanks for the information, general Linaye,” he said,

“How do you know my—“ she was cut off by a smoke bomb engulfing the room in a thick cloud. She opted to run outside but the man seemed to have managed to slip into the night. Unnoticed and rather swiftly, and as she walks back into her house, she locked every door and window, bathing in the dark silence that she enclosed herself in.

After preparing for a good night’s sleep, “… I hope this won’t bite me in the ass eventually,” she hoped as she closed her eyes, drowsiness falling onto her as her mind leads to a dream of that fateful day only this time she saw another faceless character.

A faceless man who had the same genetic condition as her inspiration, also fighting the soldiers that attacked the Becking’s. She’ll forget this dream once morning comes, but at that moment she believed that she was watching the child of the couple, and he seemed just as outstanding.