“PARTNERS!”

My caseworker seemed to be a bit ecstatic over the news I broke to him, which didn’t seem like a big deal to me but for my caseworker it was a shock.

“Is there a problem with that? Because if there is, tell this guy, so I can just go home.”

My caseworker studied the new guy observing what he wore and how he carried himself, it started to feel uncomfortable and it wasn’t even me that he was looking at.

“No. No problem at all, you know in fact Whiskey I think a partnership would be best for you.”

Damn it. I was hoping my caseworker would catch a hint and kick this guy to the curb, don’t get me wrong I did get a little excited working with Aspen last go around but that’s because anyone would when you’re getting shot at and you have to rely on each other to survive. But now that I’m back in the right mind space this will just take more money out of my cut. The fact that my caseworker really thought this would be best for me was kind of confusing though.

“What does that mean, “Best for me.” If anything is best for me it’s being a solo assassin.”

“You might think now but give it a couple of jobs and a few contracts and you guys will be best buds, plus you're sort of a loner and it bums me out.”

What a hypocrite.

“You’re calling me a loner, you just sit in an office all day licking your thumb and going through papers if anyone's alone it’s you.”

“Well that may be so during office hours, but after hours I’m a party animal when me and my friends hit the clubbing district.”

I was beginning to get annoyed. I barely made money as is, and now I have to split cuts with the Cyborg Hunter.

“I refuse to have a partner.”

My caseworker began to abruptly spam his fingers on his keyboard, mashing keys like he was playing a piano.

“Paperwork's already being processed, you two will be working together from now on, so try to get along please. Partners that usually don’t get along cease to work here.”

“You’ll fire us?”

Aspen asked eagerly.

“No, that's not what I mean.”

My caseworker handed Aspen his new agency credentials since he had to be transferred over from a different agency to this one. Aspen didn’t really show much emotion to the exchange but I could see it in him that he looked happy. At the end of the day we’re partners now whether I chose to be or not.

Aspen was hungry and to be truthful I was pretty hungry as well, with the little money I had we went to a dinner that I used to be a regular at but haven’t been to in some time.

When we entered and got seated at a decent sized booth on the side of the front window, I noticed all of the staff members seemed to be new. I haven’t been here in a while so they probably weren’t that new, just new to me.

Our waitress brought us two menus and two cups of coffee, which I’m not a big fan of, but Aspen didn’t seem to have a problem with it. Since we were partners now I did have my questions and curiosities about the strange Cyborg Hunter who were cyborg parts and a sentinel helmet.

“Well since we’re partners now we should ask some questions about each other don’t you think?”

Aspen got to it before me though, We were probably thinking the same thing.

“Alright… you go first.”

Aspen took a second to really think about what he’d ask me first.

“Ummmm… Your assassin rank, what rank are you?”

I knew this question would come up so there’s no point in avoiding it.

“As of right now I’m unranked. You?”

“I’m at gold, was a platinum but recently screwed up a contract and got demoted.”

Wow, he was a pretty high rank, gold still isn’t bad but it’s more mid tier then platinum, still it meant he was a good assassin. The ranking at all of the agencies work the same starting from highest rank to lowest.

Elite

Diamond

Platinum

Gold

Silver

Bronze

Copper

Naturally copper is the lowest, meaning you might want to change professions and Elite being the best assassins at the agency. The thing about Elite is not everyone can be Elite, you have to earn that spot and beat out an assassin in that rank which would drop them to a diamond and you would rank you up to an Elite.

“Alright next question, where’d you learn how to use a sword?”

“Oh from grandpa Kensei, he was my sensei back in Japan.”

“You’re from Japan?”

Aspen took a second, he looked down at the table, even though he had a helmet on he still seemed sort of sad by my question, his posture showed it the most.

“Did I say something wrong?”

“No, it’s not what you said… I’m not originally from Japan, I was born here.”

Oh okay, I felt better that I wasn’t the one who made him upset but still I was confused.

“Should we carry on with more questions?”

“I’m sure one of your questions is why I hate cyborgs so much, so let’s just get that one out of the way.”

He began his story telling me about how he originally is from here and not Japan. He lived with his mother, father, and two brothers, one being older and the other one being younger. They weren’t poor like a majority of others and they weren’t rich like the other majority, they were in the middle with other few groups of middle class families. His family and another went out for dinner, and after dinner they all decided to go out to the cyborg district to check out modifications, not that any of them wanted one but just because they were new at the time and it was an exciting human exploration that was just discovered in order to advance our society. When they went through the district, a gang of cyborgs took them all into a modification shop convincing them it was only a tour. The cyborgs aimed guns at both families and forced them into seats that they were strapped down onto, the other family was strapped to the seats first while Aspen and his family sat tied up to rusted pipes.

The cyborgs stood around laughing and joking with smiles on their faces as they began to experiment newer untested modifications to the family, removing body parts and adding mechanical robotic parts in exchange. The cyborgs weren’t professional and just went along with how they saw fit.

The family cried out, begging them to stop but they wouldn’t, they would hum melodies to their cries and continue their procedures, until everyone in the family eventually died. When that happened the cyborgs would act like it was just an “oh well” type of thing and cleaned up the gallons of blood spilt on the seats and the floor. They waited a week unfed until it was their turn. As they began to seat Aspen's family he was able to break free from the rusted pipes that he was weakening for the past week. Aspen grabbed a surgical knife and stabbed it into one of the cyborgs, as he fell to the ground Aspen repeatedly stabbed him, over and over and over again, as tears rushed down his cheek, and snot hung down from his nose.

More cyborgs were coming before Aspen had time to save his family, his family smiled at him encouraging him to run free. Aspen made it to the street and ran sobbing in excruciating pain, he’s witnessed nothing but death and agony for the past week and was now free, but with that freedom came leaving his family behind. Aspen reported it to the police and they raided the building the following day, but it was too late, his family was left on the chairs… Dead. The cyborgs responsible fled the area and were never found, more reports of mutilated humans that were experimented with reached the police.

Still no lead was found.

Aspen lived in an orphanage for some time until a swordsman from Japan visited the city since he was hired to train for a while at a friend's dojo. That swordsman visited the orphanage that day looking to take home an apprentice, he looked around not pleased with what he saw, until he got up to one particular child… Aspen.

He adopted Aspen and not only became his teacher, but his father. He trained Aspen day and night and made him become the best man, and swordsman that he could be. Aspen left the dojo and Japan once he felt ready and joined one of the agency's academies earning himself a certificate in swordsmanship.

I stared blankly at Aspen while chewing some of my food.

“So…That’s why you don’t like cyborgs?”

There was an undeniable pain in his voice, I could hear he was choked up after his story.

“Yeah…Pretty much.”

I didn’t know what to say, is there anything to say after something like that. Cyborgs look at him like he’s a horrible guy because he hunts down bad cyborgs that remind him of his past when really they should be thanking him.

“So you came back for revenge?”

“Yeah… People act like I kill every cyborg that looks at me funny but that’s not the case. I’ve never let go of what happened that day and I never will. When I killed that cyborg in front of my family I was weeping, but inside I felt a sense of joy, the only joy I had that whole week. So when I do kill cyborgs who are bad I feel a sense of joy, and I won’t stop until I finally find who murdered my family.”

We finished our food, and I covered it all, it was the least I could do after hearing a story like that. We both got a notification on our watch alerting us of a contract. We were excited so we both hurried over to the agency to see what our case worker had for us.

When we got there, we saw a woman who looked like she was in her mid-forties, and wore a giant fur coat with pearls around her neck. We entered the office and heard what she had to say.

“Oh thank you for coming, someone stole my dog and I can’t find him.”

My caseworker smiled at me like he knew how I would react to such a miniscule request, we’re assassins after all not the damn animal control.

“Woah, woah, woah. You said we’ve implied missing persons into our profession, not missing dogs.”

“Well I guess you’re right as usual Whiskey, but at the end of the day missing is missing.”

I gritted my teeth together insulted by a request like this. For some animal lover she must not realize what she’s wearing around her.

“Call someone else for this, I’m out.”

Just as I was about to leave my caseworker drew my back in.

“Well I guess you’ll have to miss out on this new contract then.”

Contract? There’s no chance that finding some ladies dog could be a contract.

“I’m listening.”

“This here is Mrs. Shanahan of Shanahan dog accessories, the number one fashion designer for dogs, her husband is also a top client of ours. Mrs. Shanahan is offering a very large amount of money in order for you to find her dog which qualifies this job as a contract.”

“Oh yes, please find my baby tulip, I don't know what I’d do without her in my life.”

The client continued sobbing on and on about how much her dog meant to her, but since this was a contract and what sounds to be an easy one in fact helped me drown out the noise.

“We accept.”