He tried to time his gasps for air with a certain number of footfalls but soon he fell behind and was hyperventilating. He needed to escape quickly. His evening began at a formal event where he pressed the flesh and chatted up everyone to spur the launch of his latest venture, a high-speed digital line to Malawi.
"Good to see you, old boy," said his mentor and angel investor. "There's a new smell in the Valley this morning, rising from the old industry. The scent and taste of death."
"I've never smelled it," said the man in formal attire. "I hope to never experience it, either. I imagine it is a morbid, ghastly and unendurable scent."
At about the halfway point in the event, a tuxedo-wearing employee (they weren't butlers or servants anymore, he reminded himself, but described by the more altruistic generic term "workers") tapped his sleeve and told him he had a phone call. He followed the tuxedo-worker to a side room, where he picked up the phone. A slight breeze, cold with the northern rain, tugged at his ears. He shrugged off a moment of trepidation and picked up the phone.
"Hello?" he said.
"Location confirmed," intoned a digital voice.
He turned to ask his tuxedo-worker, but as he rotated the curtains billowed and a man in black clothes and balaclava fired a single silenced shot -- a wheezing pop -- into the chest of the worker. At that moment, the door swung open and the assailant fired there as well, dropping a socialite who would never again complain that the crepes were not artisanal enough. But his quarry had already fled.
As he ran, the man reflected on his error. He should have run into the ballroom and become lost in the hedge-like crowd, but he had worried that more deaths would occur on his account, if he even could blame himself for this. Perhaps he could: he had edged aside a number of smaller niche industries in his rise to success, and his new product would do more of the same. Now he was trying to outrun a trained and physically optimized mercenary down the dark streets of Washington, D.C.
He did not need to turn; he could hear the footfalls shadowing his own like echoes. He put his computer scientist brain to work. Infinite doors awaited his pursuer; he needed only one. Whipping around a turn with the last of his energy, he went a third of the way down the block and started trying doors. The second gave way and he found himself in an abandoned garage, dense with the stench of urine, rodents and cockroaches. He crouched behind an old chest of drawers and waited.
Out on the street, the mercenary grinned. His targets, no matter how intelligent, could rarely think beyond the narrow framework in which they lived. Extracting his phone, he hit a number. A ringtone sounded and he began walking toward it.
Inside the garage, his target began frantically hitting buttons to navigate the sequence of six menus and keystrokes required to disable sound. It was too late, however. The door burst open and the man covered in black except for his eyes fired two shots into the chest of his prey.
The shock knocked the man in formal wear backward onto the oil-stained and dust-streaked pavement. A coldness crept from within, like a breeze from northern lands beyond the cardinal dimensions. As his vision blurred, he spoke.
"I can taste it... the taste of death."
Startled, the mercenary -- whose own dreams included such fascinations -- asked him, "What's it taste like?"
The man licked his lips. "Floral... like roses, the perfume of an old woman. Geraniums. Sordid lies concealed by pleasant scents."
The mercenary nodded. A long-time pipe-smoker, he knew that scent: Lakeland. It did not surprise him that here at the final moments, the dreaded specter of that top flavoring would make itself known. It was like a ghost in the machine, or a primitive evil god, that suffused the world and appeared wherever death, misery, sadness and subjugation went.
He shrugged and put a final shot into the triangle between eyes and nose. The body relaxed as fluids pooled. The mercenary saw something rise from the corpse, like a fell spirit, but then he caught a whiff of it. The dreaded scent of rancid flowers drew closer... he screamed as his vision clouded black.
Outside a police car drove past on its regular patrol. One of the officers thought he saw flashes of pink and fuchsia from the dingy windows of an abandoned garage. But, not wanting to get sidelined with mental disability for such a fruity report, he said nothing, and the car glided on.
"Good to see you, old boy," said his mentor and angel investor. "There's a new smell in the Valley this morning, rising from the old industry. The scent and taste of death."
"I've never smelled it," said the man in formal attire. "I hope to never experience it, either. I imagine it is a morbid, ghastly and unendurable scent."
At about the halfway point in the event, a tuxedo-wearing employee (they weren't butlers or servants anymore, he reminded himself, but described by the more altruistic generic term "workers") tapped his sleeve and told him he had a phone call. He followed the tuxedo-worker to a side room, where he picked up the phone. A slight breeze, cold with the northern rain, tugged at his ears. He shrugged off a moment of trepidation and picked up the phone.
"Hello?" he said.
"Location confirmed," intoned a digital voice.
He turned to ask his tuxedo-worker, but as he rotated the curtains billowed and a man in black clothes and balaclava fired a single silenced shot -- a wheezing pop -- into the chest of the worker. At that moment, the door swung open and the assailant fired there as well, dropping a socialite who would never again complain that the crepes were not artisanal enough. But his quarry had already fled.
As he ran, the man reflected on his error. He should have run into the ballroom and become lost in the hedge-like crowd, but he had worried that more deaths would occur on his account, if he even could blame himself for this. Perhaps he could: he had edged aside a number of smaller niche industries in his rise to success, and his new product would do more of the same. Now he was trying to outrun a trained and physically optimized mercenary down the dark streets of Washington, D.C.
He did not need to turn; he could hear the footfalls shadowing his own like echoes. He put his computer scientist brain to work. Infinite doors awaited his pursuer; he needed only one. Whipping around a turn with the last of his energy, he went a third of the way down the block and started trying doors. The second gave way and he found himself in an abandoned garage, dense with the stench of urine, rodents and cockroaches. He crouched behind an old chest of drawers and waited.
Out on the street, the mercenary grinned. His targets, no matter how intelligent, could rarely think beyond the narrow framework in which they lived. Extracting his phone, he hit a number. A ringtone sounded and he began walking toward it.
Inside the garage, his target began frantically hitting buttons to navigate the sequence of six menus and keystrokes required to disable sound. It was too late, however. The door burst open and the man covered in black except for his eyes fired two shots into the chest of his prey.
The shock knocked the man in formal wear backward onto the oil-stained and dust-streaked pavement. A coldness crept from within, like a breeze from northern lands beyond the cardinal dimensions. As his vision blurred, he spoke.
"I can taste it... the taste of death."
Startled, the mercenary -- whose own dreams included such fascinations -- asked him, "What's it taste like?"
The man licked his lips. "Floral... like roses, the perfume of an old woman. Geraniums. Sordid lies concealed by pleasant scents."
The mercenary nodded. A long-time pipe-smoker, he knew that scent: Lakeland. It did not surprise him that here at the final moments, the dreaded specter of that top flavoring would make itself known. It was like a ghost in the machine, or a primitive evil god, that suffused the world and appeared wherever death, misery, sadness and subjugation went.
He shrugged and put a final shot into the triangle between eyes and nose. The body relaxed as fluids pooled. The mercenary saw something rise from the corpse, like a fell spirit, but then he caught a whiff of it. The dreaded scent of rancid flowers drew closer... he screamed as his vision clouded black.
Outside a police car drove past on its regular patrol. One of the officers thought he saw flashes of pink and fuchsia from the dingy windows of an abandoned garage. But, not wanting to get sidelined with mental disability for such a fruity report, he said nothing, and the car glided on.
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