Marcus sat on the floor of his empty apartment.
This was it.
His final job. No more after this.
Everything changed after the freelancer died. She was going to join the crew and caught a loose round. It was just bad luck – nothing he could have seen coming. But now nothing seemed worth it.
He walked to the window, remembering the snow. That had been a good few months ago.
He sighed and turned back to the empty room.
It was his time. He was old and tired. Everyone he knew was either getting out of the game, or had already left.
So, he had spent the last few months sorting through his stuff. Everything that was his had been packed up, transported, intercepted, stolen, moved to a safe store, stolen again, fenced, split up and sent all around the country.
There it was sold or auctioned and bought by a set of double blind, fake personalities.
Half of those items had been stolen from the auction house, lost in transport – or destroyed in random arson attacks.
The insurance payouts had been quite impressive.
But now all of it was safely on its way towards a small plot of land in a name that he hadn’t used for a very long time.
Everything else had been incinerated, re-incinerated and nano-wiped.
He wanted a clean break. No loose ends.
He only had one of those left now, but he figured it had been loose for so long that it probably wasn’t all that loose at all.
That it was pretty much tied up.
He sniffed and rubbed his nose.
In each corner of the room was a nano scrubber. He held the activation device in his hand. As soon as he hit it he’d ceased to exist.
“Time to go.” His voice was a tinny echo in the empty appartment. He walked towards the door when his arm vibrated. He flipped a switch and checked the incoming message:
“Subj: Re:Coffee
>?
Maybe…”
He smiled. Maybe that end wasn’t so tied after all.
Still – the job had to come first. There’d be plenty of time for coffee afterwards.
He walked out of the flat and pressed the button.
