Double Hit
by Chris Morton
The door to my boss’s office shunted upwards and I stepped through to the warm carpet.
“Mr Sun, so glad you could join us.”
Despite her petite figure, our boss was not to be messed with. Beside her stood Blondie, another agent like me; except ten years younger and hair bleached to perfection. His immaculate appearance was enough to put me to shame.
“You are late,” my boss continued. “As an agent of time, I’m sure you appreciate the irony.”
“Apologies.” I held my arms wide while she turned back to Blondie: “This information,” she said to him, “is not to be repeated. You understand …”
“Understood,” said Blondie, quivering with importance.
I picked at a thread in the left arm of my suit while our boss moved to the window, to her view of the spiralling slipstream. “That will be all,” she whispered, meaning Blondie and not me. “You have your orders.”
Blondie shot me an ugly smile, leaving the room as quietly as I’d entered it.
It was all of two minutes before the silence lost its appeal.
“Going to explain the theatrics?” I asked. “You know as well as I do that I’m anything but late.”
She continued to stare at the slipstream, her small body tense. Then in the same tone she’d used with Blondie, she whispered: “Mr Sun, he must not know.”
“Know what?” I answered, moving to the sofa. I sat down, still watching her.
“Mr Sun,” she huffed, still not looking at me. “What would you say …” She turned. “Mr Sun, have you ever heard of a double hit?”
“A snap snap?” I picked again at the thread in my suit.
“Yes, Mr Sun, as you so candidly put it. A … double hit,” she said, almost falling into my slang. She walked over to me. “And don’t for one second think that this is to be taken lightly.”
“Sure,” I answered, looking up. A double hit. A client is taken out by one of our agents – a time bandit from the future, an illegal to be snuffed out quietly. But something goes wrong and our assassin gets the wrong guy. Or rather: “Right guy, wrong version. You’re saying Blondie out there’s about to get things very badly wrong?”
My boss stood before me, her face a few inches from mine. Mauve eyeshadow and balmed lips, small black eyes that carried a force to be reckoned with. “The client is a Mr Tsutsui who will be targeted at exactly seventeen minutes past nine this evening. However, a message sent back to us from just before midnight … it carries information that both the present and future versions of Mr Tsutsui will have disappeared when the minute hand hits eighteen.”
“You don’t say,” I answered. “Anything else to confirm?”
“As a matter of fact, yes.” Her face was still close. “Another message from tomorrow has just come back. The body will be confirmed as the current version of Mr Tsutsui.”
I let out a wheeze, impressed by Blondie’s ineptitude. “Messed up and then some.”
“Quite, Mr Sun.”
She seemed to snap her out of her intensity then, back to the business at hand. She paced to the other side of the room.
“And you’ve sent him out on the mission anyway?” I sat up straighter. “Why not take him off the case? Assign me to kill Tsutsui. I’ll make no –”
“If in fact you were more familiar with double hits, then you’d appreciate the rule of no interference still stands.”
“But why? If Blondie hasn’t yet –”
“Oh, he will,” she emphasised. “It has already been decided. He will kill the wrong Mr Tsutsui. Our future agents have informed us of that.”
“The future, it is written,” I mumbled. Hutori’s third law. “Except for that of Mr Tsutsui.”
“Erased,” confirmed my boss. “Which as a member of this agency, you understand is a very dangerous business. The sensitivity of time …”
“So it’s up to me to initiate the code red. Take out the future version of Tsutsui before our friend Blondie –”
“Exactly, Mr Sun. If the future Mr Tsutsui dies by your hand first, then the mathematics of the two deaths will be much less complex.”
“You mean he won’t just blip into non-existence,” I mused. “But hang on,” I thought. “So what? His body … it’s just the same.”
“Mr Sun, there are plenty in the company who have gone into panic regarding this case. We will repair what we can, but your job –”
“The double hit. Yeah, I get it.”
“There’s a lot riding on this, Mr Sun.” Her arched eyebrows gave their best shot at a frown. “Even the tiniest rip in the fabric of time …”
“Sure, sure.” I tapped at my laser pistol. “As simple a job as any,” I said, putting on the best smile my miserable face could manage. “Rest assured. I won’t let you down.”
* * *
In the street outside my office building, the traffic swarmed. On the sidewalk there was a crowd of protesters – the usual problem, A.I. taking our jobs.
A new message came through.
9 pm code red to be confirmed. Hydym District. Central.
I pushed my way through. I had time to kill and it was still afternoon. I hailed a taxi but rather than heading to the gym and spa to prepare my body for the later mission, I decided on the nearest library to brush up my knowledge of double hits.
Using my level two clearance, I passed through to the thirteenth floor. The security droids nodded down with their beaming neon smiles and I gave them the salute, asked them how they were holding up. Twenty-four hour days, but someone had to do it.
I found a monitor and brought up what I could. “Double hit,” I muttered. First recorded incident: 2111. A year after our company was set up. Three years after the invention of time travel …
Travelling forwards was still impossible, but since it was worked out how to travel back, we began to have a few unexpected arrivals. Illegals, most of them after a rise in credit status: when one could predict the rise and fall of commerce, when one could place bets …
The first recorded incident of a double hit was in 2111. The information was vague and that was putting it kindly. The client had been a Mr Maya. He’d come here from two years in the future. Reason: unknown. Future job status: unknown. In 2111, he’d been unmarried and working in a factory as a supervisor. The factory designed parts for automotives. Our agents had killed him inside a love hotel on Junjd Street. They’d both been in there – the future and present Mr Maya and they’d each died at the hands of our company.
The story was always the same as I continued to slide through the records. I found six incidences in total where a double hit had been successfully pulled off. But each time it was simply the name of the client, a status description and the place and time of death. Each time the ramifications of the original mistake were unknown – to erase a future person from existence, my head hurt just thinking about it.
I stood up and stretched, realising I was getting nothing from this. Just kill the guy and get the credits, I thought. What the hell am I even worried about?
I was about to leave when another idea struck me.
I typed in Mr Tsutsui and three of them came up. A company lawyer, a kindergarten manager and another whose job description remained as classified, however many attempts I made to pull it from the coding. Damn my level two clearance, I thought. I was beginning to get curious.
The company lawyer worked for Pepsi and had three residences in the city. They were grade seven apartments, nice places: his job was to investigate corruption in franchise. The kindergarten manager was a mid-status family man. I considered the reasons why these two Mr Tsutsuis may find themselves in future trouble. The family guy loses his job, comes back to put things right. The lawyer travels back to build a stash of credits he doesn’t need. I stared at the third name in frustration. It was gut feeling and nothing else. When it’s blue sky and fluffy clouds but you know a storm is coming. Just as with the lawyer, the third Mr Tsutsui had a number of city apartments, one of them caught my notice as being slap bang in the middle of Hydym’s central.
I stood up and stretched again. The thirteenth floor was almost deserted. An older woman giving off the vibe of a professor, pile of journals and scribbling notes from her monitor. Four young student types – one engrossed in his work, the other three gaming in silence. There was a man like me but twice as dirty; four empty coffee cups and the tired eyes of a journalist.
I wanted to find out more about this third Mr Tsutsui, but for that I needed someone with a higher clearance than level two.
“Goddammit,” I said out loud.
The only person I knew well enough to ask was my boss herself – and in doing so I ran the risk of her taking me off the case. Too many questions, Mr Sun. That’s not what I employ you for.
I was a killer; there to do a job.
“Double hit,” I muttered.
I’d shoot him in the gut, watch the life squirm out of him. The body by my feet would fade into a black hole of nothing.
Leaving the building, I saluted the robots once more.
“Have a nice day,” one of them boomed, its burly joints glinting in the artificial light.
* * *
It was just gone four twenty. I hailed a taxi. Got in.
“Good afternoon, sir.”
“Ashram district. Make it snappy.” I gave it directions to my office building.
“Ever tried Asua tonic? On special all week.”
“No more talking,” I replied. “Give me some music. Piano. Anything light.”
“Please specify.”
“Something local. Something modern.”
A simple concerto started up and I sat back in the fake leather, trying to think. Wondering where the paranoia had come from, I cursed my miserable existence.
Just take the credits and move on to the next whisky.
But a classified status meant a man with power and influence.
Just how important was this Mr Tsutsui?
* * *
“Mr Sun.”
My boss turned from the window, gesturing for me to sit. “Yes, yes, tell them I said so.” She was currently wearing a headset, deep in conference and I rested there silently, the loose thread in my left sleeve once again taking my notice. “No, no, no. My God, man. Can’t you do that yourself?”
She flashed me a smile.
I waited some more.
“Well get Hailsham to do it!”
She ripped the headset away, showed me the smile again: this time a little less genuine. “So, Mr Sun. I’m assuming this is worth my attention?”
“Could say so. Though that of course depends.”
She rounded her desk, tapped at her monitor with irritation.
“This case,” I said. “I’m getting a bad feeling it’s more complicated than we realise.”
“Not paying you to feel,” she muttered, still staring at her screen.
I said nothing. Maybe I coughed. The fern by the door needed watering. The air was dry and crisp.
“This Mr Tsutsui. What exactly does he do?”
“I have no knowledge of that.”
“No, not in the future. I mean now. His job. His status.”
She glanced across at me. “Mr Tsutsui is a government official. I’ll tell you that and nothing more. Information has come in that you will apprehend him at his apartment in Hydym. Be in the area by eight pm. The address and further instructions will be sent to you then.”
“Sure,” I answered. I crossed my legs, then uncrossed them. “Information from where?”
“Mr Sun, you know how this works. Future agents –”
“Yeah, I’m familiar with procedure.” I’d raised my voice slightly. “All I’m asking is … can we trust these messages?”
She seemed rather taken aback. “Trust, Mr Sun?” She almost laughed. “How long have you been working for us?”
“Three years, two months.”
“And has trust ever been an issue?”
I sat up straighter, not even sure of the stability of my own judgement. But I couldn’t shake that hunch. “Our job,” I said, “is to apprehend those who have illegally travelled back to our time. Bandits, people; but what if, say, it wasn’t a person this time. What if it were a message?”
“Mr Sun, the communications for this case have come from within our department. They have come from the future, from the same channels we always work through.”
“But what if someone infiltrated those channels?”
“Impossible,” she tutted. “And besides, this is not one message we’re talking about. There have been a number of them, from various personnel.”
“Easy enough to hack.”
“Dammit, man.” She was angry now. “You think data contamination is something we don’t check? Just what kind of setup do you think this is?” She flipped her screen around. On it was a picture of a grey-haired man, high cheekbones, thick eyebrows, wearing a blue tie and mainland suit. “Mr Tsutsui,” she stated. “Our second sub-secretary of finance. He is currently being investigated for corruption related to credit malpractice. All predictions show that he will lose his job within the week. It is no surprise why he wants to come back.”
I stared at the picture. He had a long nose, a trusting smile. The sort of smile that’d get a homeless man to part with his last remaining credit.
“Credit malpractice,” I repeated.
“An open and shut case; disregarding the mistake about to be made by our Mr Aureate.”
“Blondie.”
“As you so insistently call him.”
“And you’re sure …”
“Sure of what, Mr Sun?”
I leaned forward.
“Sure that he will in fact lose this title he has. Sure that he isn’t about to be promoted and not fired. Sure that he isn’t a man that in a few years will not hold enough power for other parties to see him as a threat. That there may well be those who wish to get rid of such a man. Parties,” I said, “who may in fact have influence within this very company.”
“Mr Sun, you think too much.”
“Not what you pay me to do.” I looked down at my hands. I was a cleaner, not here to ask questions.
“Listen,” she told me. “I appreciate you coming to me with this. With your … theory … but I can assure you –”
“Yeah, yeah. I get it.”
She huffed. “If it makes you happy, I’ll go through the case one more time. Not as if I have enough to do already.”
She turned her monitor back around, began tapping away while I sat there stupidly.
She looked up.
“Well?”
“Well, what?”
“You have your orders.”
“So I’m still on the case?”
She stopped.
“Mr Sun, if I have to replace you, I will. But I’m trusting that doesn’t need to happen?”
“Right.” I stood up. “Get myself to Hydym central and wait for further orders.”
She hit at a buzzer on her desk and in walked an elegant silver android. “More coffee,” she ordered and the android bowed, picking up her empty beaker. “And Mr Sun …”
“Yep.”
“I want you a hundred percent on this.”
“Off for a greening now.”
* * *
By greening I meant a spa and workout. A few legal drugs and a fresh change of clothes. The yellow suit was getting to me. The loose thread that I couldn’t quite leave alone.
I took a taxi to the nearest facility. Spent an hour in there and came out a new man. I bought one of their suits, cheap but thick and tough; dark red and professional. It was how I was feeling.
A new message came through.
Hydym Location: building 35. Apartment 2. 21:00.
I checked the time as being just gone seven. I had the idea of checking out this Mr Tsutsui, finding him now, following him. I could ascertain the current version so I’d know which one he was. I could contact Blondie, find out the location of his code red. We could work together on this, we could stay in conference with our boss. The three of us could disobey orders and take full responsibility for controlling the timeline … repairing the timeline.
“Dammit,” I swore. Because none of it would work. Blondie’s mission couldn’t be interfered with and neither could Mr Tsutsui. My boss had her orders and I’d promised her no more questions, no more acting on hunches.
I took a sub-train to Hydym Central, then rode it some more, all the way around the city. I’d bought a manga and I read that. Xenophobic aliens resolute in destroying our planet; aliens who’d never succeed because luck would always be on the side of our heroes.
The second time at Hydym Central and I got off with the shuffling minions; up the case and into the shopping district – it was a cool autumn evening; street vendors and brighter department outlets with open doors and swarming shoppers. Snatching up a stick of pork fat, I chewed on it hungrily, striding through the crowd, the laser pistol at my breast.
Building thirty-five was located just on the edge of the said district. Modern and plush with a hanging roof garden and silver tiles, it stood in a line of buildings, all of similar design. Behind it was a lake and park. Beyond that, the rising slipstream.
Between myself and the building was a thin road with buzzing pod-bikes. Here on this side was a 7-Eleven and a clutter of cheap restaurants – the kind where the oil’s recycled and the chefs never wash their hands but the taste is always addictive enough to keep you coming back. It was as good a place to wait as any and I opted for a noodles eatery, ordered some ramen and sat outside.
The entrance to the buildings across from me were each guarded by a security robot of burly stature – though a code sent through to my pad from the company would get me access with no questions asked.
I slurped at my noodles, going over what I’d do. Enter. Assassinate. Disappear. The same as always.
I finished the ramen and waited, studying my bowl of green tea. At the table next to mine a group of young women were laughing merrily.
Almost nine o’clock now and I was beginning to get nervous.
Then another message came through.
Complications in code red. Tap tap. Unavoidable.
“Oh, crap,” I swore. Tap tap meant the two hits would be in the same location. Blondie and I, both in apartment two.
I was just processing the implications of this when a further message came through.
Enter the building at 21:10.
And then another.
You will have exactly 6 minutes. Don’t let me down.
A personal message from my boss and that meant she was worried. Looking up from where I sat to the window of apartment two, I noticed a light had now come on. “Control yourself,” I muttered. This mission, it was getting to each of us. As I watched, the light went off again. Then by the gates I spotted a dark-suited agent. A DEV, responsible for feeding our company the client’s movements. DEVs came from the future too – they’d track the client, then travel back an extra day to make their reports.
Coming out of the entrance now was Mr Tsutsui looking exactly like the picture I had seen. Maybe a little taller. He crossed the road to the nearby 7-Eleven.
“Window of opportunity,” I muttered.
It was approaching nine ten.
I got up and walked to the crossing, waiting for the green man to appear. “Come on,” I breathed angrily as two pod-bikes rushed past. Red changed to green and I all but ran across to the entrance. I flashed my badge at the robot guard, swiped my pad across the terminal. “Good evening, sir,” it boomed.
“Yeah. Sure.”
The foyer was marble flooring. Three elevators ahead and I took the nearest one.
“Level two and make it snappy.”
“Good evening, sir,” the elevator robot replied.
“You droids say anything else?” I quipped, beads of sweat now forming on my back.
The elevator stopped and the doors opened. A plush apartment, carpeted floor and wooden panelling. Large vid-screen and high windows, but I’m no interior-designer and had no time to take it in.
A closed door to the right and I slammed my hand against the button. It shunted upwards to reveal a bedroom, darkly lit with long curtains and more carpeted floor. It was now nine fifteen. I took out the laser pistol.
The noise of someone else coming in and I rounded to the plush open space behind me.
It was Mr Tsutsui. He dropped his bag of groceries.
“My God.”
Grabbing the man, I pulled him to the bedroom. My watch hit nine sixteen and I had the weapon to his head.
This was Tsutsui from the future and I’d kill him, kill him now. But I hesitated, just for a moment, and a moment was long enough.
Tsutsui smacked my pistol away, then pulling out a small knife, stabbed me in the gut. “Who the hell are you?” I heard as I fell back onto the soft floor. The man in front of me was blurred and spinning. Thick eyebrows and high cheekbones. It was Tsutsui, here from the future. He’d come prepared … “What the hell are you doing in my apartment?” The words were fuzzy and the knife was still in me.
I felt a kick in my side and the pain was excruciating. He was a big man, bigger than I’d expected. A big man but I am too and I know how to fight.
I managed to gain a crouching position before he hit me again. I took that one and the next. Then I rose steadily and slapped him across the face. His eyes were bright blue and startled. I hit him again, harder this time. With my left fist, I connected with his temple.
Tsutsui fell to the floor.
Why here? I thought. Why return to his apartment at all?
Unless …
And then it struck me. My God! He isn’t from the future at all!
It was I that had been set up. This double hit … it hadn’t been Blondie’s mistake at all … it was mine …
I’d been about to kill the wrong version …
From outside the room was the noise of someone else coming in. I picked up my pistol.
But how could I be sure?
I heard Blondie’s voice: “Thought you could come back here and change things?”
And then Tsutsui’s reply: “Don’t know what you’re talking about …”
Through the opening of the doorway I took in each of the figures.
I strode though to them and there was a look of anger from Blondie at the appearance of another agent.
“This is my kill, dammit.”
Tsutsui just stood there weakly – with much less protest than the Tsutsui I’d just encountered. Blondie’s pistol was pushed into the small of his back and for a moment it seemed as if Tsutsui was smiling.
“Any minute now …” he spoke.
Returning my pistol to its holster, I nodded to Blondie.
“Just a moment,” I said.
“Waiting for something?” I asked, this time directing my eyes at Tsutsui. “Because if you’re expecting to blink into non-existence, I must tell you, your plan hasn’t worked. You see I’m afraid to be the bearer of bad news, but the present version of yourself is not in fact dead. Simply knocked out.” Tsutsui’s dumb expression had morphed into one of panic. “Because I’ve got this thing about orders. And I never can ignore a hunch.”
“What the hell is going on here?” screamed Blondie, his finger edging closer to the trigger.
Then Tsutsui let out: “But the other … he must die. The things I have … the things he will do … you don’t understand.
Oh, my God!”
I turned.
Even the best of us can’t knock them out for long. It was Tsutsui. The other one, crawling to his feet.
When each Tsutsui saw the other, they fell to the floor in agony. A rupture in time and space, a rip in the dimensions.
Striding back to who I now knew to be the current version of Tsutsui, I kicked him in the head, knocking him out again. I dragged the body back to the bedroom, threw it inside and used my laser pistol to melt the lock.
“We should bring them both in,” I breathed heavily, swivelling back to Blondie. The future Mr Tsutsui was crouched on the floor, moaning.
“Blondie, no …”
“It’s my kill, dammit!”
“No, Blondie. Don’t …”
A flash as the pistol went off and Mr Tsutsui stopped shaking.
“Goddammit, Blondie. He needed questioning!”
A burned out torso and Mr Tsutsui was no more – one of them, at least.
There was nothing more to say.
“Your kill,” I relented, still breathing heavily. “Like it was only ever meant to be …” The double hit – it had all been a sham. The messages from the future had been a lie. A setup. And now Blondie had fulfilled his mission, completed the code red, just as he was supposed to.
The adrenaline was wearing off and with difficulty, I tapped at my wrist, requesting an immediate clean and cover up. Problem solved, I then wrote.
Stumbling to the lift, my stomach was bleeding and I felt like death. I craved an ambulance and maybe a whisky or six. The love of a good nurse. The generosity of a trusted barman.
They didn’t need me there. Eventually, they’d work it out.
* * *
The next morning I was called in. Nine am meeting and this time I really was late. When I got to the office, my boss was dismissing Blondie. He sneered at me as he walked out.
“Mr Sun, then,” my boss said. “Nice of you to turn up.”
The air was thick as cryogenic formaldehyde. She stood with her back to me; staring at the far wall, at the laws of time that were etched in silky neon. No interference. To alter the past …
“So how did you know?” she asked, her voice low and brooding.
“Just a hunch,” I answered. I’d been using that word far too much. But what was it that’d stopped me? I couldn’t put it down to anything else. It was my turn for a question. “Any ideas on how he did it? How Tsutsui sent those messages from the future? How he planned to set us up?”
My boss sighed reluctantly. “You’re right of course. It was Tsutsui all along. But our channels can now be trusted, I assure you. We’ve received an apology …”
I coughed just enough to let her know what I thought of that. The wound in my stomach was already healing wonderfully. No sharp pain at all.
I sat down heavily, thought about coughing again, then thought better of it.
“Because they were … infiltrated, yes. In the future, Mr Tsutsui will have influence. Connections.”
“And the present one? Will he remember?”
“We have our best people working on that. A mild lobotomy should do it.”
“Lucky for him.”
“Mr Sun I must say that sometimes your humour is lost on me.” Losing interest in the slithers of neon, she came over to help me up. She could see I was in pain. “Mr Sun.”
“Yep?”
“No word of this must get out. I shouldn’t have to tell you …”
“Fill up my credits and I’ll be satisfied.”
She pulled me up with difficulty. She looked tired. “Mr Sun, officially this never happened. I’m afraid that your request –”
“Okay, I get it.” I considered getting angry, but there it was again, the sharp pain and I said no further.
“There’ll be another case for you soon, I promise.”
“Right,” I groaned.
“But you need to look after yourself. Stay out of trouble.” Her small hand squeezed mine and I knew she was grateful. It was best to leave it at that.
In the doorway, I glanced back to catch her once again staring at the laws of time. No interference. To alter the past …
Another case, I thought. Just one more and then I’d retire. I’d win big on the laserball and buy myself an island condo. Fresh air and clean living.
Outside, I hailed a taxi.
“And where would sir like to be taken?”
“Just drive,” I said. Morning rays of sunshine reflected off the passing scrapers. A beautiful day in the city and I tinted the windows, blocking it out.
“Ever tried Asua tonic?”
“Not yet,” I replied. “But you never know … you never know …”
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