Less than Human

  Produced by Al Haines

  Cover art]

  Less Than Human

  A short story by Zoe Blade

  (C) 2008 Zoe Blade. Distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.

  From the roof of the legal bookstore, I have a clear shot at my target,Jon Russell. He's sitting down at a table outside a cafe whereChancery Lane meets Fleet Street, sipping a cardboard cup of coffee. Ibriefly ponder how ironic it seems that he's actually bought a drink;it must be for show, although there's no way that he can tell thatright now he has a very specific audience.

  Even in the sunshine, the guiding beam of my tripod mounted rifle isbrightly illuminating a thick circle of skin on his neck, just belowhis white beard, but even if any of the passersby can see infrared aswell as I can, they won't have time to do anything even if they noticeit. My eyes are already over two years old now, but they were expensiveenough at the time to still be considered detailed even by today'sstandards. With their magnification, I can see the circle of light onhis neck clearly, growing steadier with every passing second as afamiliar cocktail of drugs calms my metabolism.

  I try not to let the laser's fan distract me. The guidance beam's onething, but the main laser, the one that generates the lethal pulse,gives off heat like you wouldn't believe. With the midday sun shiningstraight down on me, the laser needs all the cooling it can get, andthe fan sounds like someone's standing next to me, drying her hair.

  Once I can hold the laser still enough, I brace myself. For just a fewprecious seconds, I let myself ponder the consequences of what I'mabout to do. I'm about to execute this guy, but although he's brokenthe law, I'm no sheriff. I think about the effect that what I'm aboutto do will have on people who look up to Jon Russell, and that makes menervous. I have nothing against them; if anything, I actuallysympathise with their cause.

  I put the thought out of my mind. It's unprofessional, a pause at bestand a hindrance at worst. It's far too late to start developingemotions at this stage of my career, after months of training andalmost three years of missions.

  I pull the trigger, just for half a second, my eyes momentarilyshielding themselves from the visible end of the beam on his neck.There's no recoil on my weapon, giving it the eerie feel of asimulation. The only sign that it's firing is a loud popping noiselike someone squashing a bag of crisps. It's over in an instant. Ican almost convince myself that I haven't done anything wrong, but notquite.

  The bright circle is instantly replaced with a gushing stream of blood,pumping out in rhythmical bursts. His cardboard cup drops to thefloor, and I unscrew the rifle from the tripod, duck below the top ofthe brick wall of the bookstore, fold up the tripod and put everythingin my holdall, hidden beneath a pair of jogging bottoms.

  In a fleece, t-shirt and designer jeans, I hopefully pass for someoneon her way to one of the gyms scattered around the legal district,where people who help corporations sue their customers for a livingwould feel far too inconvenienced by taking a detour on their way homejust to stay in shape. I put on a pair of designer sunglasses to coverup my designer eyes, as if anyone could spot their telltale trademarkwithout being close enough to kiss me, then I pull the scrunchy out ofmy hair and tie it in again, keeping my dark brown ponytail as taut andprofessional as it is glossy.

  By the time anyone can work out what happened to Russell and where thebrief burst of energy came from, I'm already half way down the fireescape. By the time anyone's dialed the emergency services, I'malready briskly walking down Fleet Street and out of the scene.

  "Remind me why I had to kill Russell." I drop my bag onto the desk ofmy boss, Mike Vegas, and it lands with a satisfying thud. Frankly, I'mglad to be rid of the evidence, if only until tomorrow.

  "Because it's your job." Mike slides the bag under his desk withouteven glancing at its contents, then finally looks up to meet my gaze.His facial expression looks as blank as usual to me, but a piece ofsoftware I installed on my eyes starts flashing up a translucent yellowwarning sign, pointing out that he's making tiny involuntarymovements--a momentary flicker of the cheek here, a curl of the lipthere. Nothing a human could consciously spot, but my eyes have asufficient refresh rate and resolution to pick up that sort of thing.The bottom line is that he's uncharacteristically uncomfortable, forwhatever reason.

  "You know what I mean," I continue. "He was hardly violent. Don't youthink that actually having him taken out was kind of overkill onGodin's part?"

  "It's not our job to question our clients' motives, only their abilityto pay. Besides, he was a liability. Copyright violation is one ofthe most serious crimes there is these days, given the structure of ourfragile economy." He gets up and makes his way to a shelf filled withvarious photos and figurines, where he pours himself a shot of whiskeyfrom an expensive looking decanter.

  As he glances back at me, I decline his offer of the same with a subtleshake of my head. Call me paranoid, but in my line of work, I nevercould feel comfortable if I was anything less than a hundred percentsober.

  "They couldn't just have him running around pirating their intellectualproperty," Mike continues.

  "But it's _food_," I protest. "It's not like it's a rich kid's luxurylike music or films. There are homeless people I've seen eating decentmeals thanks to him."

  "There are plenty of public domain staple foods. The homeless can eatthe same handouts as the starving children in Africa: rice, grains,vegetables, pulses. No one's trying to stop people from eating. Theyhave more than enough to live on." He takes a sip of his drink. "AllGodin want to do is ensure the uniqueness of the very specific dishesserved in their chain of five-star restaurants, so don't give me any ofthat melodramatic bollocks about starving homeless people just becausethey have to eat boiled rice and steamed vegetables instead of _foiegras en brioche_."

  "It still doesn't feel right."

  "Which brings me to my next point. Have you given any more thought tomy offer? Most people would kill for another free synaptic implant."

  "That all depends on the implant. The uplink to the Mesh and the mapare all well and good, but I'm still not sure about suppressing myemotions. It just seems so... inhuman."

  "As opposed to all the drugs you take to calm you down as you make thehit?"

  "At least they wear off after a few minutes." I walk past the shelfand look out the window at the scenic view of the city, taking a momentto watch the clouds drift along in the summer breeze. The trees aresuch a vibrant green this time of year, they look somehow unreal, setagainst the pale grey concrete blocks that people waste their lives in.I quickly inspect all the nearby rooftops, making sure nobody's on anyof them. Old habits. "You know, I've been thinking a lot lately, andbetween the implants and the drugs, I'm beginning to feel less and lesslike a real woman and more and more like some kind of machine, justefficiently fulfilling her job role and nothing else."

  "Efficiently?" I hear Mike practically choking on his drink.

  I turn back around to face him. "Is there something wrong with myperformance?"

  "I've been running over the encrypted video feed of the hit that youreyes sent me."

  It wasn't exactly a secret he kept from me that when I was on the job,my eyes sent an encrypted live broadcast straight to the office, hiddenin the Mesh's entropy. Talk about your body betraying you. I had totake Vegas's word for it that he couldn't spy on me when I was offduty. It was something I tried hard not to think about every time I hada shower. Just the thought gave me the shivers.

  "You stalled. Your heartrate had slowed down just fine, you were ascalm as a cow, and yet you didn't fire until almost five seconds later.Why the pause?"

  "He was drinking a cup of coffee at a table. I could tell he
was goingto be there for at least another two minutes. It made no difference."

  "I didn't ask you if you thought it would make a difference. I askedyou why you paused. I hire you because you're the sort of woman whoknows better than to take unnecessary risks. Why did you wait so long?"

  I let myself sigh. "OK, so I felt a _little_ empathy towards thetarget. He'd never hurt anybody. I mean, I read his profile. He wasessentially a good man."

  "Which is exactly what I'm talking about. We can't afford to let yourpersonal opinions and morals slow you down when you're at work. Thoseprofiles are there to help you to better understand the targets,