Chapter 7

After succeeding in their mission, they were in high demand. Mary was pissed that they didn’t let her and Jim work on their tech much. She had many ideas and wanted to get on with them. As the months passed, many of the missions they accomplished pushed the war closer to an end. As they accomplished more and more, the money that she earned helped her sister and her guardian settle into a much more easy life.

Ann had started in school and was doing extremely well, her guardian was leading a much more easier life now and wasn’t putting his life at risk anymore. Mary was glad, she wasn’t ready yet to lose him. He had taught her everything and she felt that he should retire. Mary thought that the rebellion never had a chance with all the tech that she and Jim had. No one really had a chance.

Although she hadn’t been told to, Mary had used the assassin skills that her guardian had taught her. As the war went on her skills improved ten fold with each mission (the tech didn’t hurt either). She became almost undetectable. After two years, the war was finally reaching a conclusion and Mary felt she was ready to start business on her own.

At the age of fifteen, only a week away from being sixteen and many missions under her belt with Jim, Mary found that killing people didn’t bother her at all. Her body had toned to the point that she could move without any sound. Her reflexes had improved to the point that when she moved, she was simply invisible. Even Jim, who had trained her and had trained with her, was really no match for her, but he was still the only one who was fast enough to spar with her. At the end of the war, the department was heralded as the heroes of the effort, and the Emperor wanted to reward them with medals.

Mary looked at Jim with a scoffing roll of her eyes when he had told her about the ceremony. “ I really have no interest in that. I don’t want some damn fucking medal. I only did this for the tech and to help you and YOU only.”

“This is supposed to be a great honor,” replied Jim.

“Great honor, my ass; he just wants to take credit for everything WE have done to help end all this shit.” She sneered at the thought of meeting the Emperor. “That pompous ass wants to be the hero, so the people love him more; you and I know the truth. You, he won’t be afraid of me. On the other hand, he has a reason to fear. I won’t go after him for the sole reason he has helped my family, but if he comes after me, then all bets are off.

Jim was taken aback a bit at the venom that she was spitting about the Emperor. He knew she had issues, but he didn’t think they were that bad. Thinking back for a minute, he really didn’t have all that much to be grateful for the empire as they had almost thrust his family into poverty. Had it not been for his father, they might have ended up on the streets. Damn, but his father had been a great statesman; the way he had convinced the ruler that he had to be kept on and that without him, all would have been lost had been a stroke of brilliance.

Mary sighed. She had grown to really like Jim in the years they had spent working together. If she had ever had a brother, he would have been what she wished he would have been like. The thought of leaving the lab and Jim made her a little sad, but she knew when she started that it wouldn’t last forever. Mary knew that her identity was safe. All but two of the agents that had worked with her had been killed in the war. Of the two that were left, one was in critical condition, and the other was Jim, and she knew he was way too strong to get killed that easy (he was a general pain in the ass, actually, something she admired about him, but wasn’t about to tell him that.)

Taking her leave of Jim and everything she had grown accustomed to, she made her way to the spaceport. Mary had set up a small network and had put her name as the Black Willow on it for hire for impossible jobs and assassinations. Pulling out her comp, she opened up her network and stared at the number of job offers pouring in. She smiled at the heading, which she had put in bold letters at the top.

If you want it done, if it is impossible, leave me a message, and I will show you that it is possible; you pay my price, you don’t renege, or you will be the next target, and I will not miss. I do not go after children, but I will go after those that do, assassinations will be discussed by price as it will be my main The Black Willow.

She found it funny that she had picked that name. One of the other agents she had worked with (once) had called her that after a mission. He had said that she moved gracefully and swayed like a willow in the darkness, hence the term black willow. She had nearly killed the asshole after that, as her reflexes were so fast she had hit him four times before he had even raised his arms to block her hits. Afterward, she felt bad about it but wasn’t going to show remorse for herself or her actions. Besides, after that, he had trained ten times harder and had lasted til the end; as a matter of fact, he was the one who was injured.

Shaking her head from her thoughts, she scrolled through the jobs that were offered. Hmm, a few disbelievers. She would have to do something big to clear the minds of the many. Picking a high-ranking duke, she knew this was a trap and had just the demonstration for him, as he seemed to be the biggest nay-sayer against her. That night, she moved through the darkness soundlessly as she approached the Duke’s residence. Her small, lithe body molded into the shadows as if she were darkness itself. Stopping outside the walls around his manor, she switched on her holo imager, and the image of the guard at the sentry post appeared around her. Damn, she and Jim had improved it. It lasted a whole hour now, more than enough to get the job done.