Hitman Valhalla

The Year was 2068.

The man’s name was Victor James. He was a kind man. Kind enough. Honest enough too, in the sense that his coworkers and buddies all thought he was pretty alright. But, in the end all that didn’t matter. 

No, James was faithful to everybody back in the day. Everybody except his wife. The same wife who caught him cheating. The same wife who swore to never speak a word of his atrocities. The same wife who hired the lone gunman, Wolf, to put him in the ground as quick as he could. She was eventually found out, of course and sentenced to death. 

But they never caught Wolf. The gunman. The hitman. The man who pulls the trigger. No, that enigma of vile vengeance in the form of rotten righteousness was long gone and somewhere on the southern side of Jupiter by the time the local law enforcement was deployed around the surface of Mars. Then, in was in that old bar, off the second crater from the forth sustainable habitat that that same gunman sat.

Jupiter, October 4th

The whole long room was dim and the light of the white afternoon sky shined in through brown blinds. Only Wolf sat at the bar. There were three elderly gentlemen in the back, fighting over a game of cards.

The door to the kitchen swung open with grace as aa young lady stepped out, moving down behind the bar to face the siting man. The old timers settled down at the sight of the luscious young lady. Wolf didn’t move. The girl spoke first.

“Well, hello there Mister Cole! Long time no see!”

Wolf let out a small chuckle before responding.

“Not if you count yesterday, or every day before that as a matter of fact, doll.”

“So, what’ll it be today, Mister? The usual?”

“Just gimme a bottle of wine and a glass of ice to ease into the night.”

“Very good Mister Cole!”

Her smile was heaven and after a long day of the dull and the dusk it was his Valhalla. Valhalla, as in: the legendary Hall of Asgard, where the souls of warriors, killed in battle, will be able to fight and feast for an endless eternity.

“A heaven for heathens.” As Wolf would describe it.

Later that evening, when the old men had vacated and the bar was almost dry, Wolf found himself stumbling out the door, held up by the small bartender.

His trench coat hovered low and his hair draped down. Wolf tries his best to stand. His arm lies over the young girl who’s supporting it. She turns to lock up the bar’s front door as she begins to help Wolf down the sidewalk.

“Sorry about this.” He says.

She speaks softly.

“No problem. I used to carry my father like this, every night after he’d come home from the bars. It’s kinda funny. Never thought I’d be in this profession.”

Wolf replies quietly.

“I know the feeling.”

A short silence is broken by light rainfall as the cloudy skies shadow the streets. The young woman inquires.

“And how are things at the office, Mister Cole?”

He replies.

“I told you, Jane, call me Marcus.”

“Sorry, Mister Cole. I mean… Marcus.”

Wolf answers her perilous question.

“Same old, same old. Lost a coworker the other day.”

She responds.

“Oh, really? What happened?”

“Eh, he was fired. Wasn’t keeping up with the team, so he got booted.”

“Oh. That’s no good. Shame they couldn’t give him another chance.”

Wolf looks down and murmurs.

“Yeah. Shame.”

Wolf takes a moment and stands on his own, leaning on the brick building a window’s length away from his apartment building’s entrance. He asks.

“So, how’d the bar do today? Customer wise, I mean.”

Jane puts her head down before responding, concerned.

“We did alright. We’d do better if we had more people in this town, but… since it’s just me working there I don’t get very good reviews. Plus, no one really knows we’re there.”

Wolf’s eyes go wide.

“That so. You’re able to make next month’s rent though, right?”

“Well… you see that’s the thing…”

Without a word Wolf reaches into his trench coat and pulls out a bundle of bills.

“I gotcha.”

He holds out the money to Jane who raises her head to see it.

“No! No! No! Absolutely not! I couldn’t possibly!”

He raises his head as the rain picks up. Wolf holds it out, touching her hand and holding it to the cash.

“Go on, take it. It’s just gonna go towards cigarettes anyways.”

Jane pulls her hand away.

“I could never accept this…”

Wolf explains.

“Listen, if your bar gets shut down I won’t have a place to drink myself dead no more.”

Jane bows her head to him.

“Maybe that wouldn’t be so bad…”

Wolf smiles as the rain starts to lighten up. He holds her close and slips the money into her pocket. She looks up at him with gleaming eyes as he speaks down to her.

“I insist.”

In a moment he has turned and begun to walk inside.

“Don’t you worry, doll. I’ll be back in late tomorrow! You can expect that! I promise I won’t make you walk me home again. Gotta get a grip on that self control of mine, don’t I?”

She can still hear his voice up the stairs, just as the door is shutting and the screen is closing.

“You have a good night.”

She starts up her walk back to the bar, a whole fifteen feet from Wolf’s apartment. Before leaving she replies.

“Goodnight, Mister Cole.”

Mars, October 7th

Mark Adam. Nickname: Maruki, the Marksman; An initiate of some criminal syndicate specializing in drugs and assassinations. Often times a law breaker works solo, but in the case of gangs and mobs these individuals feel better off, belonging to an organization. When you’re surrounded by your own there’s no possible way you could ever be messed with right?

“No.”

Wolf comes out of a daydream and finds himself standing before Wendell, his weapons dealer.

“What about this one?”

Wendell lifts bags of rifle rounds, each with a different symbol on them, offering Wolf varying prices.

“How bout these 454 Casual Custom Carbon Rounds?”

“No.”

“How bout’… Mirage Anti-Flashback Steel Tip Rounds? Eh?”

“No.”

With bags of bullets played out on the bed Wolf walks over to a bag in the corner and points to it.

“These are what I came for.”

Wendell responds.

“Artificial Molecular Dissolvable Rounds. Good choice.”

Wendell smirks.

“What’s the magic word?”

Wolf looks him dead in the face as he reaches for something in his coat and replies.

“Please.”

As Wolf pulls his wallet from his coat Wendell throws his arms up and onto Wolf’s shoulders.

“That’s my favorite hitman!”

Wolf looks at him with a smile and remarks.

“You know Wendell, you better pray no one hires me to shoot you one day.”

As Wendell takes the money and counts the rounds in the bag he replies after a short laugh.

“Yeah, sure. And you can bet I’d pay you a higher price to shoot them back.”

As Wolf turns to leave Wendell remarks as he closes the door behind him.

“You have a good day there, partner! Don’t get caught! If you do, it’s my a*s too!”

Later that same day…

“Maruki, the Marksman. What kind of name is Maruki?”

Wolf sits atop a series of wires, a long rifle leans out from his coat and points out toward an apartment building window, parallel to the wires. He stands on a beam, roughly two stories up from the street below, his weapon aimed and waiting for the right moment. Waiting for that split second when Mark Adam walks past his bedroom window.

He waits all night. Not a single figure passes by. 

Rain comes and there is a cold silence all through the night. Mark never comes home. The next morning Wolf is still waiting, balanced on wires, having never moved an inch from the previous night.

Two men in black suits enter Mark’s apartment.

“Syndicate members?” Wolf thinks.

The two men pass by the window multiple times as Wolf figures they’re on a sweep, supposing that maybe Mark Adam was whacked.

“And in come the goons to make it look like suicide, I bet.”

They don’t carry in any bodies and they just seem to ransack the place. Wolf begins to pack up his rifle, still balanced on the series of wires suspended in the air. There comes a pinch, a brush of air sweeps past Wolf’s leg and wire snaps!

“What in the �" �"!!”

He turns back to see a bullet hole in the brick wall behind him. By the time he turns back he sees the goons pointing their guns out the open window and firing at him.

One slug skims his right shoulder, another skims his leg. He falls forward off the wires and beam just as one last bullet flies between his ribs and right arm. He topples down two stories with his rifle breaking his fall, poking into him like a skewer. The metal plates along the inside of his coat bash him in the stomach. He takes off running to the nearest alley as the two gunmen barrage the street with gunfire from the window. Wolf dives for an alley and makes his way to the sewer.

That very night…

Wolf sits at the bar as he always does, sharpened, yet, scolded by the hard day and all it’s lingering woes. Beneath his heavy coat lies wounds, scars and other injuries of a most violent sort. Wolf sits, in agony. Quietly.

What he hadn’t noticed was a familiar figure walking a few feet or so back, trailing him. When Wolf had settled at the bar and Jane had gone through her greetings, that’s when the hitman known as Boss revealed himself.

“Hey, you there.” Boss called out to the seated Wolf.

“Got enough loot to buy and old war friend a drink?”

Wolf turns to see him. Behold, facial scar and all, Boss, galactic mercenary and leader of the Black Jets, stands before the lone hitman.

“Jesus. It’s been ages!”

“Bout… seven, I’d say.”

Jane comes out from the back curtain and chimes in.

“Oh, Mister Cole, is this a friend of yours?”

“Yeah. A very old friend.”