Polymorphic-code Doppelgnger Book 1 Of the Assassin Corps Trilogy

A fanatic is one who sticks to his guns whether they're loaded or not.

Franklin P. Jones

Name: Dietrich di Ucello Codename: Skeleton Key Vocation: Professional Assassin Specialty: Technological Espionage Availability: Worldwide Operation Home base: Miami Payment delivery: 50% at the beginning of the mission, 50% upon successful accomplishment

Years after a worldwide cataclysm later known as The Flux almost plunged the planet into a new dark era, the continents are still struggling to reemerge from economic disaster and complete technological collapse. War is the main rule of the planet from which new types of enhanced humans have emerged. Among these, one of the most deadly types, vying for supremacy are the Psychics, evolved humans that have been genetically modified as weapons to dispatch enemies by crushing and controlling their minds and the X, genetically modified individuals that were specifically created to be faster, stronger and smarter than the general individual. The purpose of both these new races was to supply military personal for each countrys defense and offence protection. They were wrong. They have created weapons of mass destruction with the capacity for a superior intellect and the ability to exploit it to the maximum. Their weapons have rebelled. Mercenaries, assassins, terrorist, criminals. These are the people that shape the new century. Welcome to the 21st century.

Prologue

A successful murder is like a successful restaurant: ninety percent of it is about date, appointment and location.

Three men in black hoods knelt on the waterfront warehouse floor, their wrists and ankles trussed with heavy plastic quick-ties. There were few lights since few owners bother to install eye-blinding lights in warehouses they visit maybe once a year. The men knelt over a large, faded stain on the concrete floor, left behind by the hypocritically named White Council of Wizards during their last execution. I nodded at my sweetie-pie, who took the hood off the first man, then cheerfully went to ransack the boxes lying all over the place. You couldnt find a child that was more curious than a man-made machine. The man in front of me was young even by my standards and good-looking. He wore an expensive yet illfitting suit, black of course and even more expensive yet tasteless jewelry. Where are you from? I asked him sweetly, plastering a big smile on my face. He sneered at me. Whats it to y I shot him in the head as soon as I heard the bravado in his voice. The body fell heavily to the floor, his head lolling to the side on the old wood with a thud as a thin ribbon of red oozed from the wide hole in the middle of his forehead, dripping dark blood under his head. The other two jumped even bound as they were and started cursing, their voices both angry and terrified. I though perhaps it mirrored their faces to a degree, but I couldnt be sure yet since they still had the bags on. Minus the anger, though. They were too scared to pull off that particular emotion. I took the hood off the second man. His suit was a close cousin of the dead mans, and I thought I recognized its cut. Boston? I asked him cheerfully. You cant do this to us, he said, now more frightened than angry, but still angry enough to imbue it with bravado. Do you know who we are? Once I heard the arrogance infused in the we word, I shot him too in the middle of the forehead. I hated crime syndicates. Of any kind. They were a mess waiting to happen whenever gang fight broke out between rival bands. And they thought they were so pish-posh and had an ego the size of my mothers closet. Plus, it was a bitch trying to clean up all the mess after them. I took off the third mans hood. He screamed and fell away from me. Boston, I confirmed to myself, nodding to no one in particular as I put the barrel of my .45 against the third mans forehead. He stared at me in blind panic, showing the whites of his eyes. I always despised the look of fear on mens faces. There was a reason they were men. Showing fear, no matter the circumstances, was not that reason. It irked me and made my finger itch to press the trigger every time, against my better judgment. Information and mission first, killing and pleasure second. You know who I am, cupcake. I run drug

network here in Miami. I run the numbers, the books, the illegal weapon trade, the assassinations. I run the whores. I stopped at that and mulled it over. Ok, maybe not the meat trade, since thats too degrading even for me, but you get my drift. I run this city. I leaned closer, putting my face directly into his line of sight and stressed out the words. Its my city. Which means its completely mine, as in my personal toy to do as I please with it. Do you understand now, pumpkin-pie or is it too hard for that empty skull of yours? Perhaps you would like me to skip all this and put a bullet in it directly so it wont be so empty anymore, hmm? His body jittered in what might have been a nod. His lips formed the word yes, though no sound came out. The bravery of it. It almost made me swoon. Almost. Im glad you can answer a simple question, I told him, letting out a bored-out-of-my-mind sigh, and finally lowered the gun. I want you to do something for me since Im do ing you the great favor of letting you live as the messenger boy. Please tell Mr. Samuel that I wont be this lenient the next time his people try to clip the edges of my territory. I smiled at him politely. Or send spies and scouts to sniff around my domain. I lost interest in the poor excuse of a human being at my feet and tried finding Wolfgang in my peripheral, but he was nowhere in sight. He never was unless he was playing an elaborate joke. That was why no one saw or heard him coming. Nevertheless, I raised my eyes to the ceiling in what I knew was a God-give-me-patience-with-fools look and closed my eyes briefly. There was no dealing with the machine. Crazy-ass cyborg. Sweetie-pie, please put the three of them in a sealed trailer and rail-freight them back to Boston, care of Mr. Samuel. Oh, and glue my business card to the forehead of one of the guys. The blood should be enough for glue. And a nice red bow, perhaps for a finishing touch. We dont want him to thing we are complete barbarians. I heard the remaining man swallow and break into a fresh boat of sobs. I majestically deduced from that nerve wracking and nervous sound that my fate for him or his bosss fate for him were on two complete different levels. He didnt sound too happy to be the last man standing. Or more aptly put, the one to deliver the wonderful ultimatum through two corpses, one thank you card and a sign already tattooed on his forehead if he didnt behave like a good child and stopped messing with other peoples business. I wiped my bloody hand on my leg and sat down on a wooden container, pondering at the shaking man in front of me. Choices, choices, choices. It was such a bother to try and do things properly most of the time. No wonder I had several Keepers and at least a senior Tracker on standby 24/7 in case I decided to take an unexpected vacation for a week or two; it always took some rough love to force me to get out of bed in the middle of the night for such petty flies.

I heard Wolfgang chant admonishingly Dietrich, Dietrich, from somewhere above my head, no doubt swinging like a child from one of the iron sustaining poles of then ceiling. And of course I hadnt heard a single noise before he talked and let me know of his position. Downright insane for somebody to say aloud the name of an assassin around the people you were supposed to kill. Stupid to the core even. Especially in front of somebody I wasnt planning to kill because I have just decided to let him live as a warning to a power-hungry drug dealer that decided to take a bite that was just too big for his greedy little stomach. Human brains were fun. Human psychology was fun. The mechanics and machinations of it were truly fascinating if you had time to ponder them. In the current situation and the mans predicament scared shitless and close to fainting by the color of his skin - it was more than obvious that in five minutes top he wouldnt remember anything that had been spoken except that he had to deliver a pressing message. And even if they usually did after I was done with them, I always honestly doubted somebody bothered to check twice. Well, it wasnt like the rest of them charming, honest folks lived to tell the story after learning my name. Each job had its risks. It was just that mine had the nastiest ones. But I got paid obscenely much. For being something akin to a slave and having no discernible saying in the respective matter. I looked quizzically at the tops of my high heeled boots as I swung my legs from my position on the wooden crate. My left boot had a perfectly round spot of blood near the laces, wet and shinny against the black leather. I sighed. It would have to do until I got home and washed them. Again. At least it was better than last time. It took me half an hour in the shower at some shabby hotel with no hot running water to get all the caked blood out of my matted hair. Having Wolfgangs eyes settled on my naked back, obviously narrowed in pleasure at the frigid temperature of the water, had not been lovely either. He had leaned on the open shower door with his legs crossed at the ankles and grinning at my distress for the whole duration of that infernal shower. Especially since he hadnt bothered to offer his help at all when I was having trouble untangling my hair or pilling the plastic fuselage stuck to my back from the nearby explosion which had painted me red from several unlucky fellows stupid enough to be to near to the damn bomb when it exploded. That and some bits of brain I had shaken from my hair along with the frigid water. The worst spend twenty bucks of my entire life. Renting that wretched room for the night, with Wolfgang of course, who didnt have money on him, since one he was a cyborg and didnt need it and wouldnt have paid even if he had. I sighed and rubbed my tired eyes, stealing a few moments to stretch my equally tired bones and rest my sore muscles. At least the clerk had either been sensitive or too used with almost naked females coming in for one night with slightly deranged-looking, grinning up to their ears, strange men to even care what we were going to do in that room as long as we didnt wreck it. Thank the heavens he hadnt noticed in

the dim light coming from the cheap light bulb in the lobby that my hair wasnt full of hair gel, but full of brain matter and blood. There were advantages to being a brunette. And people said blondes had all the fun. Which reminded me that I needed a hot shower, preferably one in my own house and a good nights rest. Food wasnt bad either. In these moments, I would have even accepted rubber from car tires if it helped fill my empty stomach even a bit. Nothing in my life was normal. For starters, I was a professional monster. And I had a psychotic cyborg as a babysitter, proof that he was spider-crawling on the ceiling, creeping the hell out of my only alive victim. Figures. So I just stayed there like a rag doll, waiting for my ride to arrive and the messenger to be on its way with his very dead cargo. Which might take a while to wrap up since my phone wasnt ringing and I wasnt hearing any car engines approaching the abandoned dock. And Wolfgang was phantom-miming a spider on the ceiling, too good for my remaining guests tastes who I was quite sure was hyperventilating even more than when I pulled off the bag on his head and he finally saw his two buddies with bullet holes in the center of their foreheads. Which I guess doubled his stress level when my artificial nanny did an exact move like that of Lucifer in one of those poltergeist, ancients movies and all with a wide, deranged grin plastered on his face. The Exorcist, the beginning I think it was called. I almost preferred Lucifers expression. When Wolfgang smiled, you just knew you had to start running. Without the not looking back part, though. You just had to keep an eye on the mimetic cyborg at your back when you are running from him. Not that it usually helped, but still... I winced when I tried to arch my spine and was met with a sharp pain that immediately morphed into a dull throbbing that spread to the lower half of my back. I didnt like the cracking noises several of my ribs made, either. I nudged the messenger boy with the toe of my boot and almost laughed when he let out something akin to a pig squeal and jumped again, falling over in the grime and blood splatters on the floor. The latter which didnt work out so well since he had his ankles and wrists bound. But his rolling around did complement the pig squeal he had let out earlier. At least I was entertained, and no longer huffing inside my head. Two minutes later and the useless pig was still going at it. I made a hand motion at Wolfgang to stop it, else I did it myself and it would have been pretty permanent. He pouted but ceased with the demon possessed personification and crawled down along the walls to help me. My head was starting to hurt and I clasped it in my hands, resisting the urge to pound it in the nearest wall in the hope that the pain from the external hurt would be worse than the one from the internal one. Some of these days a girl would kill to have an aspirin that would actually work. Which meant they had

to alien-mutate it with a lot of illegal stuff so it would even have a chance at diminishing any pain I had, at least a little. It sucked being one of a kind. Nothing short of SF movies did the job for me. Fifty years from now they should write a book with my name retelling my entire life. Contrary to suppositions worldwide, being a female assassin doesnt make men have wet dreams about me in black latex, crawling inside a ventilation shaft with my butt encased in tight material. In fact, men tended to either cower in fear a lot when I stepped inside a room or else give me a military salute. True enough, I did have a nasty knack for decapitating a few small legions of soldiers just for the fun of it or just for being bored to death one late evening, but their reactions to me got plain ridiculous just because of several lousy decapitations. I mean, now everybody back in the military bases on the continent winced slightly every time I got near them and then immediately skittered away like small frightened animals with a couple of muttered excuse mes. Usually I wouldnt have minded that, but they are always acting like I was close to dismembering every living thing that crossed my path just for the heck of it. What was I? The Grim Reaper? With luck, they just might prove I was the grand-grand-grand-grand-grand-granddaughter of Jack the Reaper. Those doctors might just pull it off. Honestly? I was betting my money on dads side. I sighed and ducked my head, begging for a pillow and flat surface to sleep on. It was gonna be a long night. ;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;; I woke up to the insistent and systematic beep of the alarm clock. My brain was still tired and buzzing from lack of sleep like a whole family of very angry bees was meeting an equally angry family of wasps for a dispute. It kind of mirrored my body to a degree, proof that it obeyed to move when I severely ordered it. I managed to creep one eyelid open to see the smooth panels of the ceiling sliding to the sides to reveal a flat computerized screen, presenting me with a digital clock that showed in neon-blue liquid numbers that it was already 8:00 a.m. And I was still in bed. During the week. I closed back my eyelid with almost little effort since it too wanted to close back and stay that way, and grabbed the nearest pillow, putting it on my head. Five more minutes, five more minutes, five more

minutes, my nagging inner voice chanted to me the words like a mantra, inserting a pleading note for good measure. Four years away from the military bases and the training facilities in Mnchen and barely seven years since I left the Headquarters in Berlin had seriously jumbled up my system and made a mess out of my habits. Back in those not so bright days of my not so distant childhood, I was up and running at six oclock sharp when not even the chickens were contemplating even moving, much less waking up. Now, I needed one hell of an alarm clock to ring in my ears for a good half an hour until my organism recognized the signal to switch from asleep to wide awake. Plus I had to be dragged out of bed by the occasional housekeeper, who was also charged with seeing than Im out of the door in time to get school and standing up while doing it. I was so tired a few months ago that - in the exact day that I hadnt taken a cab to school - I fell asleep in the buss and the driver woke me up at the end of the route saying that I probably missed my stop. Hell yea I missed my stop. It took me a good hour to get back to school. Walking. And right now, the wretched alarm wouldnt stop screaming inside my head alongside a new migraine. As if I had anything else in the past 72 hours. A young, female voice with a flat, computer-generated intonation blankly announced over the racket the clock was making: Good morning, young mistress of the household. Today the weather will be sunny, without clouds, the temperature rises to 36 degrees Celsius and the humidity .The traffic will be light in the eastern sector and at the intersection between Saint Aubergine and Wolfsbane. I advise you to drive carefully. I dont have a car. I mumbled into the stuffy pillow busy hugging my head. Apparently my words didnt pass through the computers thick metallic or electronic, depending on the viewpoint - skull, or the damn program was more advanced that I gave it credit for, because it either recognized my sarcasm and let it whistle over its inexistent head, or didnt even register me talking to it. I deduced all that purely considering that it carried on as if I hadnt even spoken, in the same bland, fake tone: You have exactly 55 minutes until scheduled departure to Saint Scholastica National College. Have a wonderful Day! The stress on the last word was enough to give it capitals in my mind. There was nothing wonderful about a day in which I was being woken up after some petty three hours of sleep. I threw the pillow on the other side of the room, hugged my white on blue daffodil (plapuma) to my chest and pulled it over my head. Now the sun was giving me shit. I wanted nothing more than to bury myself under the mountain of sheets, pillows and cushions and only emerge when I needed to eat or go to the bathroom. The artificial voice made me cringe once more. 53 minutes left until programmed departure. You are now 7 minutes behind schedule.

I moaned and put my hands over my ears, while I curled into a tight ball on my side. Oh God, I so need a vacation, I muttered to no one in particular. Unless one counted the depressed-looking clothe doll made of patches and hanging from a book shelf. You are unavailable to take a vacation in the next four months due to your educational schedule at your current institution, A.I.S.H.A. informed in all her electronic glory, confirming my earlier suspicions that she had perfectly understood my previous comment and decided it was beneath her notice to deign and reply to it. Situation which she made worse by continuing delivering the damn unwanted message anyway. There are 52 minutes left until programmed departure. You are now 8 Dismissed, I snapped at the annoying voice. The mechanical female voice silenced instantly and I let out a relieved sigh. Blessed silence. I could almost feel my mind humming with pleasure at all the quiet surrounding me. I suddenly had a vision of me rolling happily between the soft pillows of my bed. God, I hated bright, shiny mornings after a week in which I had barely managed to close my eyes or eat anything other than water, tea and a biscuit. One biscuit. I gingerly sat up, trying not to wince at all the bruises and soreness received after my latest assignment, and threw my legs over the edge of the bed, my toes sinking into the soft, fluffy carpet dyed a vivid shade of dark aquamarine blue. I hunched over, with my head down and my arms hanging between my knees until the sleek white panels of the ceiling which hid the digital screen slid back into place with a soft sliding noise. My head was hurting, my body was hurting, my internal organs were hurting; if I didnt know better, Id say that my hair was hurting too. In fewer words, I was hurting all over. With a wince I rolled back my shoulders and pushed off the bed, trying to sit up without breaking too many things. Surprisingly nothing snapped or clicked or anything. A very good sign, since it usually meant at least the bones were whole. Now lets test the theory. With an intake of breath, I pushed myself off the bed and sat up. My skin protested at being stretched so much, but at least it didnt make the newly made wounds rip wide open again. I tested my muscles a little and arched my back while pushing my arms above my head as I stood on tiptoes. My top rose over my bellybutton and that was as far as it went before agony blazed across my spine. I swore at the sudden pain and tugged it down with a sullen breath. Lately my life had begun to suck very much, especially since now that I was older, everybody from my imposed job thought I could take more of their crap. In fact, the whole situation was so bad that sometimes I though half the people from the Bible had it extremely well before their slow, torturous death - and even during their slow torturous death. At least they actually died.

Not that I believed in any of the stuff written in that book. Sure, I did go to a catholic college - when I wasnt hunting dangerous, insane escaped prisoners through some jungle - but that didnt mean I looked up at the sky and believed that a hoard of angels was living up there, dwelling within the clouds. My father was German, for crying out loud we had the tendency to be very distrustful of things nobody could prove. And that was putting it mildly. I gave another jaw breaking yawn and dragged my ass to the window. My room was huge like the rest of the house and I had to make some extra steps to circle my obscenely huge round bed. My bare feet made quiet slapping noises as I walked across the white lacquered floor. The navy-colored shutter made of thick horizontal panels of resistant plastic slid up smoothly and diligently rolled into its carcass as soon as the incorporated sensors reacted to the movement and body heat. Light surged into the room from the floor-to-ceiling high glass as big as four normal windows glued together. It lightened every corner of my bedroom to clear brightness and I had to take a moment to squint disorientated and shield my eyes with my hand. Now my eyes were giving me shit. Light sensitivity was the last thing I needed in my life right now. Between my fingers I saw a black and blue bird fly past the window in a steep, fast dive, the tiny body a blur of shiny feathers. The bird triggered something. I frowned, concentrating and lowered my hand since my eyes were not in danger of melting from my face. I had a plane to catch today. The computers initial message made me confused about the whole deal. But it deserved leniency since it was just an artificial intelligence. You couldnt ask for more from something made by humans. And it was mostly my fault because I forgot to program it yesterday for the new schedule. I should have loaded the new information on time. Oh well, Ive never been the high on tech junkie either way. I forget my watch, I look at the sun, I forget where North is, I still look at the sun. Same principle.