I push the door open, greeted by a bleak sky, one not fit for the middle of summer.

Glancing around the rooftop, I find the girl who called me out here, sitting in her wheelchair looking out over the city.

“Thanks for coming out here.” She says, as I take my place by her side.

“It’s not that I have any problem with it, but I don’t see why we couldn’t have done this inside.”

“Sorry, I’m not great with closed spaces.”

“Yeah, you already told me that before.”

I brush off her comment, hoping to skip the pointless banter.

“So, what am I here for?”

The atmosphere surrounding Priscilla suddenly shifts, as if she commanded it to become still. Then she motions for me to lean closer, before grabbing hold of my shirt, quickly flipping through every one of its pockets.

After being satisfied with what she finds, which is to say, absolutely nothing, she lets me go and returns to her usual resting position. It’s only then I notice the object that’s been sitting on her lap.

Priscilla moves her hand to grip the metallic handle, her finger dancing around the trigger.

“Does it frighten you?” She asks.

I find myself staring, as her words drift through me.

“My mother taught me how to use one of these when I was seven. She said if I ever see one of them, I should shoot them on sight.”

Priscilla pauses, waiting for me to ask who ‘they’ were, but I can’t find the will within me to do so. She doesn’t push the answer onto me anyways.

“Before we met again, the people from Acer wanted to train you to carry a basic firearm, but I pushed against the decision.”

I’d like to tell her that I’ve gotten over the past, and that after burying that thing in Claire’s backyard, I’ve never looked back, but I know that would be a lie.

“They seemed to think they could turn you into quite the efficient killing machine. Do you have any idea why?”

My silence acts as my reply.

“A while ago, you and Alfred visited a press company. The informant you found there, the day after you talked to him, he turned himself in, gave quite a number of leads as well.”

This is the first I’ve heard of this.

Noticing my discomfort, Priscilla jumps to a different question.

“When this is all over, what do you plan on doing?”

Her question is one that’s impossible to answer without knowing how it will all end.

“I haven’t thought about it that much.” I tell her.

Priscilla smiles weakly, looking up to the gathering clouds.

“Acer is an organization that specializes in making deaths look like accidents. You of all people don’t belong among them.”

‘Them,’ there’s that word again.

“I’ve had a lot of time to think about why I was born into this world, and I’d thought I’d figured it out. I could tell myself that I’d done my part, and was allowed to join the rest. But there’s still one more thing I have to do.”

Pointing her arms in front of her, Priscilla aims towards the sky

“I’ll finish what I started. I can at least try to stay alive until then.”

----------------------------------

The elevator reaches the third floor, and the four guards exit ahead of us. We follow shortly afterwards.

We’re led to the room at the end of the empty hall. Inside, is a filing room, with ample space for the six of us. The steel cabinets sitting atop the tiled floor would be what anyone working in the restaurant below would normally be interested in, but not us. At the opposite side of the room, the curtains are closed on a glass wall, overlooking the buildings on the other side of the street. In particular, the hotel entrance directly across from us is in plain view.

One of our bodyguards sets down the large black case he’s carrying next to the glass. Another pulls open a small slit in the curtains and opens the window behind it. Out of the case, the man takes out several metal pieces, and begins assembling his weapon.

Priscilla checks the time on her watch, then takes the radio from the side of her wheelchair.

“I need a status update from all teams.”

She speaks calmly into the receiver, awaiting the response. Over the static noise of the radio, my eyes are drawn to the giant black rifle aimed out the window. The guard lays prone atop a table, which has been moved from the center of the room.

“It’ll be alright. No one will be getting hurt today.”

I look down where Priscilla’s voice came from. She’s looking back up at me, the radio now silent and in her lap.

“I know.” I tell her, but even I can hear the unease in my own voice.

“You’ve done a lot the last few days. Just leave this to me.”

All I can really do is nod.

“Do you trust me?” Priscilla asks.

I nod again, afraid to hear my voice.

“I need to hear you say it.”

I shut my eyes and manage to speak a few final words.

“I do.”

Priscilla shows a slight smile. Then turns back to her radio.

----------------------------------

Not ten minutes later, another team of four people show up at the door. They’re all dressed in casual street wear. One of them is carrying a small plastic bag, with an envelope inside of it. Passing it off to Priscilla, she opens it up with little hesitation.

Inside is single slip of paper, folded down the middle, fitting the envelope perfectly. There are only a few words written on it.

‘At the capitol building, on the first day of the next month. My people for yours.’

Not knowing much of what to make of the letter, I look to Priscilla, but her face is expressionless.

“What is this?” I ask her.

It’s one of the rare times she doesn’t give me any answer.

I take the envelope and look it over, then doing the same for the letter.

“I don’t think you’re going to find any markings on it like last time.” Priscilla says, suddenly.

“He left the serial numbers last time so we could track this next note down. There’s no reason for him to do so again if he’s already telling us where and when we need to go.”

Accepting her reasoning, I replace the letter back where it came, and hand it back to Priscilla, who in turn, hands it to one of our guards.

“Why didn’t he just send this letter directly? Why make us go looking for it?” I ask.

“It’s probably too early to say. If I had to guess though, he probably just needed to buy some time,”

A voice from Priscilla’s radio interrupts her before she can finish her thoughts.

“We’ve finished searching the room. Haven’t found any other objects of interest.”

“Good, do one final search and head out.”

After giving her orders, Priscilla returns her attention to me.

“We should do the forensics tests just in case, but I highly doubt it’ll give us anything useful. For now, we should figure out what we’re going to do about his demands.”

“Yes, but he’s asking for ‘his people’. I don’t remember ever hearing about something like that.”

Priscilla seems like she was thinking the same thing.

“Neither do I.” She says.