cosmetician | memory 17 | children are the true casualties of war

EARNED: beep
TAKEN: boop
WITNESSES: beep

❚ the memory itself ➙

Killing has become second-nature for you. Jobs are completed with ease and efficiency. Your conscience is muzzled, collared, trained to heel. It's not allowed to get in the way of your work, and never does. Not even on the night when you come close to eliminating an entire household.

The target is a corrupt police chief that's well known (and deeply feared) for arresting innocents on little to no basis and then trafficking them as slaves. Reconnaissance tells you that the most opportune time to strike is late in the evening, at his home, as security is lax right before the night shift. It also reveals that his staff are complicit in his crimes, taking a bribe to look the other way. With a calm mind, you review this information along with your orders from the revolutionary army:

Eliminate the target above all else. Eliminate the equally guilty at your discretion. Don't allow your face to be seen.

You kill the police chief first, in his study, while he's alone. It's easy because the man keeps a few pet dogs, one of which you impersonate using your Teigu. In the guise of man's best friend, you move through the house into the study and drive a needle swiftly into his vitals when he leans down to pet you. He dies without a sound, dead before he can register what's just happened.

You impersonate him next and move through the house, accurately mimicking his mannerisms and personality. Wearing his face, you kill the maids, the servants, even the gardener when he makes the error of crossing your path and asking questions to which you don't have answers. A needle to the vitals and they die almost instantly. There's no screams and very little blood. You're almost to your planned point of exit, on the verge of changing form again, when something unexpected happens.

"Daddy?"

You stop, turn, see the man's son peeking out at you from a cracked open door. No more than five years old, wearing pajamas, rubbing sleepily at his eyes.

"Yeah, kiddo?" Your voice is low and friendly, at ease. Betraying nothing.

"I can't sleep.....will you read me a story? You're better at it than my nanny is."

A smile forms on your false face. Inwardly, you weigh the merits of killing him as well. This is a carefully timed assassination.....you have to get out of here before the night shift comes. And really, just what would you be leaving the kid alive for, anyway? To grow up full of hate and loneliness, a justified enemy of the revolution?

But you decide not to. It would take less time to buy the child off with a lie. He's likely the only innocent under this roof, too.....and he hadn't seen your face. You can afford to spare him.

"In a minute. I'll go and get us a snack first." You tip him a conspirator's wink. "Just don't tell your nanny, or she'll make you brush your teeth again."

The dead man's son smiles, nods, closes the door. You escape out a low window without being detected and vacate the premises as a bird, flying as far as you can before the alarm is raised.

❚ what is learned ➙

● Killed a lot of people, would have killed an innocent child if she had to.

❚ what this means ➙

○ bluuuuuuuuh