20:30 I-10 Enroute to the French Quarter

John was reviewing the dossier of Chad Leish. He was your standard fairly non-descript douchebag. A political malcontent that believed his problems were caused by the government, despite none of which were true. He was also unusually adept at avoiding the American government’s attempt at collecting child support from him. He was for all intents and purposes stuck on Earth now though.

He also happened to be the final conspirator of the Apex Garden massacre that hasn’t yet been brought to justice. He had successfully avoided detection by laying low and governmental malaise. Unluckily for Chad, the Terra Nova police had a DNA profile of him. A government mandated DNA test on Earth was ordered against Chad to prove paternity.

Under normal situations the DNA profiles the government collected aren’t used for anything else. Legally though, it is allowed to run them against profiles collected from crime scenes. In practice though this isn’t done because of outstanding case load. The massacre changed that dynamic because the public demanded to hold everyone responsible for this despicable action.

Chad left Terra Nova and headed back to Earth. John wasn’t privy to how or why he left the planet, but he didn’t really care. He arrived at Earth eight days after the massacre, a day after he arrived a process server found him and took the court ordered DNA sample from him. It then took the government another six months to actually scan his DNA sample and another two months to compare it to the massacre’s last John Doe warrant. Earth efficiency at its finest. Naval Intelligence shut down all internal reviews of Chad and the police forces were effectively prevented from doing anything to Chad besides detaining him at an airport or spaceport.

“So, where’s this asshole?” John asked.

“He’s somewhere in the French Quarter, have a couple different hotels to review. But with Mardi Gras going on now it’s a fucking mess out there.” Agent Sherman said from the front seat.

Mardi Gras was moved to the fall a century ago as a means of attracting even more people for the weeks long party. Most colleges and academies have a fall break these days. Basically, the city council of New Orleans wanted to bring in more college kids and their money.

John was entering search parameters to the city and business cameras they had access too. He was also working on acquiring access to other cameras through other and less then legal processes. Facial recognition scanners were running in the background. But with the number of people wearing masks, it was going to take a long time to find him. He directed the VI to do a biometric scan based on videos of how he walked and presented himself. He also pulled up microphones to scan for his voice. Finding a person in this sea of people was going to be difficult.

“Got a possible hit north of thirty second avenue.” Sherman said. “Ah hell, it was a false positive. Biometrics failed.”

“Was this asshole hiding, running or something? Was he living life like normal?” John asked.

“He was running from child support payments.” Sanchez said from the driver’s seat.

“Are known associates included in search materials y’all sent over? If not let’s add them in the search.” John shook his head. The search parameters only were focused on one man. He cross referenced the known associate list for Chad and added all of them to the search routine.

“Good call. Might have friends hiding him for a while.” Sherman said.

The drive to the French Quarter took about forty-five minutes. They were two blocks away from the party running parallel to the street they believed he could be at. The scans were taking a long time due to the excessive number of people to review.

“Got a hit. Bar, fortieth street. ‘Hooligan’s House.’”

“Get me there asap. Scan everyone in that bar.” John checked the chambers of both guns, he was locked and loaded.

Ten minutes later he was dropped off from the van. His suit crackled with a brief electrical charge, and he vanished from sight as he jumped out of the moving van. He climbed up to the roof of a build across the street from the bar. He needed eyes in the bar. Even with Mardi Gras going in full swing he’d stand out like a sore thumb. Besides most bars frowned upon people wearing stealth suits and kitted out with military tech.

“Need eyes in the bar. Which one of you is going in?” John asked.

He had turned off the stealth field. It was pitch black where he was, no one could see him unless they were on the roof with him.

Sherman piped up. “I’m game. Give me five.”

“Sanchez, stay in the van and monitor, we need you to exfil us when the job is over.”

“Roger that.” Sanchez got the shit assignment once again.

Sherman walked up to the bar and kept his eyes on a swivel but trying hard to not stand out. He noticed a group in the back corner of the bar to his left. The hidden camera on his glasses were sending images to the van.

“Target verified; biometrics confirmed. He’s wearing a brown leather coat, jeans, black shirt.” Sherman pulled up to the bar and ordered a beer. “Back left corner of the bar, round table.”

“No line of sight so it doesn’t look like I can take a shot at him. Let’s go the diplomatic route then, I’m going to call him. Sherman you’re our eyes on the ground.” Lief informed the two agents.

A phone app appeared in John’s heads up display. ‘Dialing Chad Leish’ was blinking. Then it changed to call connected. “Evening Chad.”

“Who’s this?”

“Chad, who I am is unimportant. But I’m here to give you one of two options to choose from tonight. You can surrender and come with us and go to trial for your crimes on Terra Nova. Or you can run like the cowardly bitch you are, and then I kill you. Your choice, I don’t really care one way or the other.”

“Dude, I don’t know...”

“Chad, I was there. Lying to me will do you no good. I saw you in the orange van as you drove away your buddy Avery. Trust me when I tell you this, you don’t want me hunting you down. Avery didn’t exactly leave his mortal coil in the most pleasant of ways.”

“Dude, look I’m...”

“You have thirty seconds to decide. Run and die or walk outside and turn yourself in. Your call.”

John could hear the phone slam down on the table. He could hear Chad freak the fuck out and tell his buddies that he’s in trouble and doesn’t know what to do. He and all his friends were all different levels of drunk. Drunken bravado appeared to be the direction he was going. Too much liquid courage has been drunk to allow rational thought.

“Fuck you boss, you don’t scare me. You don’t even know where we’re at. And you won’t since we’re bouncing.”

John opened the coms to the two agents he was with. “That mother fucker just hung up on me. Looks like capture is out tonight.”

“Lief, we were told to do this quietly, no collateral damage is acceptable.” Sanchez reminded John of the mission requirements.

“I’m aware of the mission parameters. I’ve got them in site, following on the roofs opposite side of the street. Looks like they are heading south.”

Agent Sanchez sent the drones to follow them. John was running from building to build. Sherman was on foot behind them, somehow not being recognized or marked. This went on for fifteen to twenty minutes until they got out of the business district and were walking into a residential district.

“Heading to rendezvous point, can’t follow anymore without be caught.” Sherman said.

“Roger, I’ve got them insight still.” John answered.

“Drones are tracking them too.” Sanchez was following the monitor; the group took a right turn off the sidewalk. “John, they are pulling into that house at the end of the street there.”

“Confirmed, I see that.”

John was looking at a small two-story house. The group of men piled into the house. John pulled up city zoning records to get a schematic of the house. Thermal scans of the house showed everyone in the kitchen, four of the men were playing a game at the table. His entry point to the house looked like a window on the back side of the house.

“Going to give dickhead one more chance to turn himself in.” John said as he queued up another call to Chad.

“Yo, fuck you boss. Ain’t no way I’m turning myself in. You ain’t got shit on me, and you don’t know where the fuck I’m at. I can go underground again and never get caught ever.” Chad answered and drunkenly boasted that.

The call was disconnected, John was rolling his eyes. “Not responding to that. Heading in.”

John had hopped the fence and was already climbing up the back of the house.

“Lief, I need to remind you.”

“I’m aware of my orders. Bring the van to the street outside the house and wait for me.”

He was jimmying the window open already. Chad and his buddies were on the main floor. He was telling them how much of a badass he was because he told the government types to fuck off. Chad walked down the hallway and exited the house to have a smoke. A few minutes later Chad was back in the kitchen. John crept down the stairway and opened the back door. He used the sensor suite on his suit and scanned the cigarette butt for DNA.

He ran against the Terra Nova sample. If he was going to kill this guy he may as well kill the right one. A mistake at this stage would be unacceptable. The scan came back positive.

“Target will be eliminated in sixty seconds.”

John crept down the hallway and silently unsheathed the bowie knife he had on his chest. This was going to be messy, but it was going to send a message. Chad was there, telling his buddies how much of a badass he was. Then time felt as if it stood still when John began his attack.

John grabbed Chad’s left arm and shoved the knife through his side, puncturing a lung. Immediately after the knife was pulled out, Chad was violently pulled off his chair while the knife stabbed him upwards through his arm pit. While the knife was being pulled out his arm was almost cleaved off. John then grabbed Chad by the neck and shoved him partially through wall behind him.

At this point time began to move again, the attack had only taken a little more than five seconds. Chad was screaming in pain. The second stab wound Chad suffered cleaved his subclavian artery in two. Arterial spurting was occurring and increasing in frequency due to Chad’s increase in heartbeat.

His friends were stunned to silence and action, they couldn’t comprehend what was going. Just then the stealth function of the stealth suit was disengaged, the five idiots saw a man in a bloodied military suit of armor holding their dying friend two feet off the ground and partially in the wall. John stabbed him two additional times in the chest. Blood was everywhere at this point. He let go of Chad’s neck and directed the knife one more time at Chad, the final stab wound nearly took his head off.

Neck sinew was the only thing keep Chad’s head and right arm from falling off. Chad’s lifeless body fell unceremoniously onto the floor. He turned to the men remaining in the room. They had scarcely moved from their seats. Too stunned and scared to act. A bloodied hand pointed at them.

A robotic voice could be heard coming from the suit. “You fuckers had damn well better not have been involved in getting him on Terra Nova. You had damn well better answer the investigators’ questions truthfully.” John sheathed his knife. “If you don’t, I’ll be paying you a visit again, if you don’t accept my charity this will happen to you too.” He motioned at their dead friend.

The stealth suit reengaged. John turned around and walked toward the front door. He kicked the front door off its hinges. One last fuck you to the idiots in the house. John sprinted toward the waiting van outside and hopped into through its back doors. Sanchez sped away from the scene. Military and civilian police arrived at the residence moments after the van was out of sight.

“Fuuuuck me dude, I bet you made them shit their pants. You’re the real god damn fucking grim reaper.” Sanchez was stunned.

He’d seen field agents do many things, but nothing like this. The violence, no, the sheer brutality used here against the target was unnerving. It was overkill but was it too much? Those thoughts trailed off as Alliance sympathizers haven’t tried anything remotely as brutal as that since. The Alliance had even opened up channels and warned the Confederacy’s leadership about copycat crimes and plans. Perhaps the brutality was effective in preventing another attack. But do the ends really justify the means?

“Get me back to the house.” John was in no mood to talk.

He was taking the suit off as Sanchez sped through the residential streets. There was a tracksuit in the van that John was going to change into.

New Orleans Field Manager Ellingson had contacted the agents. “I watched the op in real time. Excellent job agents. Brutal but efficient and no collateral damage besides a wall and door. The Confederate Grim Reaper appeared again, that will be a warning against those Alliance pukes that have egged this nonsense along for too long.”

John was thoroughly disinterested in this conversation. He was tired and he killed a man in a very violent and personal fashion tonight. His girlfriend and friends were back at the rental mansion likely freaking the fuck out over the events of his leaving them. He was very worried about Alice and what she was feeling as a result of tonight’s events. But something felt like it broke within John that wasn’t sitting right with him, but he didn’t know what it was.

“He should’ve taken you’re offer. We’ll be scrubbing the net of some particulars, but some details will eventually spread to Alliance territory.”

“He was dead one way or the other. Difference is whether it’d be a less painful route or through my hand. He chose poorly. This is the last time I help on an op during school, I’m a cadet, not a field agent anymore.” John was looking at the floor in the van and trying to figure out what broke inside of him.

“Understood, this case is now considered closed thanks to your actions tonight.”

John said nothing, the deputy director and the two agents up front were talking about where to bring everything. Within five minutes the deputy director ended the call. They were back on the interstate speeding back to the suburbs where the vacation was supposed to take place.

Everything he had seen and done as a result of the massacre was flooding through John’s mind. His mind was confusing him, he was feeling conflicting emotions. What was going on? He was called a hero for jumping into the firefight and trying to put an end to it. That was understandable.

But then there were the monstrous actions he took in assassinating Avery. They were accepted but should he have gone to those lengths? He also aided in the arrest of another subject peacefully. But then tonight’s actions were overly brutal. Nothing made a god damn bit of sense.

At 02:45 the van pulled up to the ritzy mansion that John and his friends were staying at. John was pissed, angry, disappointed, lonely, lost. He didn’t feel good. He felt hollow. Those responsible have been held accountable. The book can finally be closed on this. But he didn’t feel accomplished, John was resting on a mental precipice.

“Make sure to clean that mess up.” John said as he was opening the side door. “And make sure it’s inventoried at the academy. I’ll need it in the spring.”

“Lief, hell of a job. Sorry about this. I doubt we’ll see one another. Try to have a good vacation.” Sherman reached out his hand.

John just hopped out of the van and shut the door and walked toward the mansion. He was in no mood for congratulations. He felt his humanity slipping away from him and that was scaring the hell out of him. Someone of his talents and abilities going rogue? The amount of carnage he could leave in his wake was a terrifying thing to imagine. That he was even imagining it at all disgusted and scared him.

John walked straight to the outdoor bar, grabbed the fullest bottle of something and poured it into a clean glass.

“Bottoms up.” John winced. “Fuck me, that was Vodka.”