Chapter 12: A New Friend

Cody bolted upright in bed. With Time Stop enabled, Jewel’s body stiffly rolled away then fell back into place as Cody swung his legs off the bed and sat staring at the woman sitting in the corner of his room. She wore a plain white crop top and short black skirt. She had dark hair that was cut shoulder-length and flowed around her head in a semi-styled disarray. Her nostril was pierced with a small gold earring.

“It’s OK, Cody,” she said. “I am just here to introduce myself and talk about what is to come in your second year with The Onyx.”

Cody’s mouth opened then shut. His mind raced as he tried to process what he was seeing and hearing.

“I thought you were going to flame out quickly when you killed your ex and her husband in your first week with The Onyx. You took good precautions for a newbie, but once a new recruit kills an enemy or a person they hold a grudge against, they usually end up getting caught within days to a week. After your ex, you surprised me when you started killing based off a random pattern. I still wasn’t convinced you would make it, but here we are, your one-year anniversary.”

“You know about my ex? Have you been following me?” stammered Cody.

“Absolutely. I’ve been your ever-present shadow. I’ve seen all of your kills. Other than two or three days where I needed to give a report, I’ve seen pretty much everything else you’ve done for the past year. And if I may say, I think she’s a real keeper, even if you didn’t give her your best effort last night before falling asleep. She’s much better than Billie, though the frolic in the freezer was fun to watch,” Elaine said as she smiled lewdly and glanced toward Jewel.

Cody’s head whipped to Jewel then back to Elaine. He was again at a loss for words.

“You will learn much more later. For now, know that I have been the one that has been communicating with you via the notification coin. It has been my job to ensure you didn’t abuse The Onyx. If you started to use the powers to unduly enrich yourself or kill only those you held a grudge against or disagreed with, then I would have had to step in.”

It appeared like Cody was caught in Time Stop. He sat motionless, staring at Elaine.

“To be clear, that means I would have had to kill you. But you did a good job. You randomly selected victims, you took only the money you needed, and you had a job to provide a cover for your money. By six months my reservations were gone and I knew you’d make it to the end of the year.”

Elaine stood and slowly paced along the side of the room. Her crop top was much shorter than it appeared when she was seated and a great deal of her taut midriff was now exposed. Her legs were highly toned and she knew he was looking. Each time she turned she put a little extra into the spin to flair her skirt upward, giving him a glimpse of a bare ass cheek.

“Now that you have made it to the one-year mark you have earned all of the enablements and enhancements of The Onyx. You will have unlimited use of the enablements you already have – Time Stop, teleportation, both in times to use and distance to travel, and invisibility. You will now also be able to use Mind Reading, which is a bit of a misnomer as you cannot really read minds but rather get an impression of what someone is thinking, and Transmogrify, the ability to change into another person’s likeness, but you will need something physical off the to-be-imitated person to use as a template.”

Elaine stopped and turned to face Cody directly. She stared intently when she said, “The biggest change will be that you do not have to kill someone every day.”

Cody finally moved. His eyes raised when he heard the news as this great burden was lifted. He was hopeful but he knew there had to be more to the story. Nothing was free.

“But,” said Elaine ominously, “you will have to continue killing. The targets will be high visibility and the catch is that their deaths must appear as natural as possible. If not, it could get dangerous. For example, you won’t be able to simply execute Time Stop, teleport to their location, set a micro-action to shoot them in the head, and be done.”

“How do I get these ‘high visibility’ targets? From you? I’m just going to become your assassin?” asked Cody with a trace of skepticism in his voice.

“In essence, yes,” said Elaine calmly.

After she replied her previous comment registered, “Wait a sec, you said it could be dangerous?”

“Let me put it this way,” she said. “If you teleported into the private residence of the United States president and killed him with a gunshot, there is no question that it was murder. From an outsider’s perspective, it is also impossible. It will generate an unprecedented amount of investigation.”

Cody finally snapped. “What the fuck is going on? I didn’t want The Fucking Onyx a year ago. And I certainly don’t want to be your fucking hit man. How do I get out?”